Rest in Peace, Jim Shooter July 1, 2025

It is my unfortunate duty to inform all of you that comic book legend Jim Shooter has passed on. If you aren’t a fan of comic books, Jim Shooter was one of those guys who would constantly be referenced throughout the years for his accomplishments in the comic book industry, good and bad. Most people know he was a former Editor-in-Chief at Marvel, and is partially responsible for stories such as Secret Wars, which was the story that gave Spider-Man his famous black suit. He was fired from Marvel during a corporate restructuring, and failed in his bid to repurchase a stake in the company in the early 90s. We all know what happened next.

Shooter’s successors failed to maintain the happiness of the staff writing talent and artists, and they left the company en masse, forming their own competing independent publishing companies under the Image banner. Shooter himself would go on to create his own comic company called Defiant Comics, which, with the backing of The River Group, began to create its own comic book universe. However, Defiant found itself in difficult waters being an independent publisher in an industry almost entirely taken up by Marvel and DC, and eventually shuttered. He would then go on to form Valiant Comics, which saw a bit more success, and has gone through many different revisions over the years.

Please forgive me if I’ve missed out on anything or misrelayed any history, information about what happened with Defiant and Valiant Comics has been difficult to search for, even as far back as my earliest days of using the internet back in the late 90s. I first became aware of Jim Shooter when I received a Christmas gift back in the mid-90s. The gift was a completely sealed box of trading cards bearing the name “Plasm”. They were a set of collectors cards where if arranged in a 3×3 sequence, formed a 30 page story for a comic called Plasm #0. It served as the prequel story to the very first Defiant comic, Warriors of Plasm. Later on, I was able to obtain the official binder for the cards, but I was never able to fully complete that collection, as finding comic book shops willing to sell Plasm merchandise was impossible in my area. To this day, multiple limited release foil cards are still missing from my collection, although I was able to recently find several mint-in-bag issues of Warriors of Plasm, including its paperback Holiday Special.

I always hoped I would get the chance to one day meet the man and interview him about his history with Defiant, and with the creation of Plasm itself. My regret is I now know I will never get that chance. Our condolences go out Jim’s family. Rest in Peace, Shooter.