8. A Fond Farewell To Bob Harras In Universe X Spidey
Marvel ComicsWe've covered this one before in our
list of the most controversial banned comic books, but it's just too delicious not to include. There were mixed feelings when Bob Harras left his position as Marvel's editor-in-chief. Harras's tenure at the top of the publisher's editorial food chain was...controversial, to say the least. He oversaw storylines like the Clone Saga, which very nearly destroyed the Spider-Man character, and when he wasn't exerting his will to make sure terrible comic books got produced he was being a total a-hole to everyone he came into contact with, from freelancers to stockholders. One particularly aggrieved employee was Al Milgrom. Milgrom had done basically every job in his time at Marvel; since he got his start in the early seventies he had been a writer, penciller, inker, and even an editor himself. During Harras's time as EIC Milgrom was working mainly as a freelance inker for the company, and it was in that capacity that he snuck a little dig at his old boss into an issue of Universe X: Spidey, a spin-off of the company's long-running alternate reality line Earth X. It's not clear what Harras had done to so infuriate Milgrom - in fact it wasn't even clear why Harras had left Marvel in the first place - but the veteran Marvel employee nevertheless stuck it to him with great zeal, hiding in plain sight the message "HARRAS HA HA, HES GONE, GOOD RIDDANCE TO BAD RUBBISH HE WAS A NASTY S.O.B." This one may have been missed by most readers, but Marvel editorial were certainly aware of it. In fact they planned to remove the message before it even went to press, yet somehow forgot about it and so they had to recall and pulp thousands of copies of the comic that contained the message still. Milgrom, meanwhile, was let go by the company for his little act of rebellion, meaning he lost all of the benefits and pay increases he'd earned after working on contract for years. We guess Marvel then realised Harras actually was a nasty SOB, and hired the inker back.