4. Jim Starlin Protests Marvel Editors In Warlock
Marvel ComicsThe Architects were another bit of light hearted, self-referential fun between friends. That is very much not the case in Jim Starlin's Strange Tales #181, where the long-suffering writer/artist protested the very editors he was feeling pressured by within the comic he wanted him to change. Starlin's Adam Warlock was the epitome of seventies comics, taken far and away from Stan Lee and Jack Kirby's original creation into being an experimental space opera with a cyclical timeline inspired by psychedelic sci-fi writers like Michael Moorcock. With flares. Starlin's work was about as far from the character's origins and Marvel's house style as it was possible to get. Where now the House of Ideas publishes comics drawn in a wide range of styles, in the seventies they tried to keep a consistent look across all of their books, which is why pretty much all Silver Age stories look the same. This became even more of a hardline rule amongst some editorial shuffling that saw Stan "The Man" Lee take the overruling publishers position, leaving John Romita Sr in the vacated seat of Art Director. Whilst all this was going on there was some a flurry of assignments and resignations, with Roy Thomas, Len Wein and Marv Wolfman all occupying various editorial positions briefly before leaving, purportedly under duress. At least that's how Jim Starlin saw it, watching his friends depart the publisher and furious because he assumed it was down to the same editorial pressure he felt he was under whilst working on Warlock. That's why Strange Tales #181 sees the cosmic hero put in a virtual reality where the villainous Lens Tean and Jan Hatroom try to give him a radical redesign so he fits in better. Lens Tean and Jan Hatroom being imperfect anagrams of Stan Lee and John Romita, obviously. Because he hadn't quite made his point, Starlin also through in stand-ins for Wolfman and Wein being forced to throw pies at a Thomas analogue, who dared stand up for creator rights, and ends the story with aggrieved workers for Tean dumping huge piles of rubbish on top of each other, occasionally reaping diamonds amongst the garbage. And you thought Aesop's Fables were head-slappingly obvious in their messages.