I must have missed this due to the holidays and all the work I've been doing elsewhere -- and the fact that I eschew news programs. This is the first day I've even looked at more than just the headlines and even bothered to read a few stories. And, as usual, I am now angry and upset by all the injustice and general bullshit that goes on around me, no matter what I do. I feel powerless and impotent and it angers me, but since I can do nothing about it, it does me no good, and I digress...
Former X-Men penciler, Dave Cockrum, recently passed away. Some of the younger readers may not know this, but Cockrum co-created and helped develop some of the X-Men with which they are most familiar, including Storm and Nightcrawler. Cockrum also worked on a lot of the Shi'ar/Dark Phoenix storyline with Claremont (which was also very popular in its day) and was off and on the title around that time until Romita, Jr. took over the reigns toward issue 200.
(Just to clarify, Romita, Jr.'s run lasted for about 20 issues before Marc Silvestri took over and he was on there for a good three-four years before turning things over to the still too impressive Jim Lee. Romita took over penciling Daredevil with former X-Men editor, Ann Nocenti, as writer; X-Factor was released during his run on X-Men, and Excalibur came about right around the time of his departure, though he had nothing to do with either title. X-Factor focused on the original Uncanny X-Men (Cyclops, Jean Grey/Marvel Girl/Phoenix/Dark Phoenix, Iceman, Beast, and so on) and Excalibur took up the stories of Elizabeth (Psylocke) and Brian (Captain Marvel) Braddock, "little" Phoenix, and Nightcrawler.)
Most industry folk are dismissive of this whole "X"-craze -- and rightfully so; it was definitely a marketing ploy to get all of our, and our parents', money, and it was shockingly effective. But none of the series were bad and when you get right down to it, there was no other way to do it -- the X-Men family had simply grown too big even back then for one title to tell everyone's story. And Cockrum was directly responsible for this "newfound" X-People popularity (which was nearly two decades old by then).
[Aside: After the highly successful Mutant Massacre crossover, Marvel began doing an annual summer event, and right around here came the whole Inferno storyline which featured a daemon name S'ym, who looked very similar to an aardvark whose name is being withheld for his protection. Meanwhile, in one of our favorite independent titles, many Marvel characters were being channeled by one Normal Roach, resulting in such incarnations as Moon Roach, Wolveroach, and more. This is important for what follows:]
Though Cockrum was co-creator of many of the most popular X-Men characters -- many of whom later appeared in their own titles, mini-series, and even motion pictures -- he never received fair compensation for his contributions and talent. This is why people like Dave Sim, Frank Miller, Alan Moore, and others, are so vehement about creators' rights within the industry (Miller went all Dave Sim on us in Sin City: Hell & Back like #7 or so about all of this, because DC had refused to allow a baby to be put in a microwave or something). And for all the crap Sim gives we superhero guys for drawing like Neal Adams, he intentionally neglects to mention that Adams was the forerunner of this entire movement! Adams fought for, and got, a lot his original artwork back. The story goes he saw a lot of it setting around some DC editor's office and found out the guy was selling it to conventions and private collectors for the company's profit, throwing a lot of it away, and something -- I forget how the story goes exactly, right this minute -- and that's what started the whole Creators' Rights thing. So, like I've said time and again, you have to take a lot of what is published by Sim and really everyone -- no matter what they are talking about -- with a grain of salt, because these guys are just like the rest of us: they get mad and say things they don't completely mean and that can be completely misconstrued or aren't fully supported by the larger context in which they should reside, etc.
But they are very right to be so upset and vociferous in their opposition to The Big Two over this. Unfortunately, what it resulted in was Image Comics, which single-handedly blew the bottom out of the entire industry and is the reason so many of us today are former collectors and aren't more actively pursuing roles within the industry as a whole.
But anyway you cut it, Cockrum and many, many, many other creators in this all too small (and dwindling, I might add!) field got a bad shake and I'm extremely saddened to hear of his passing, however belatedly. Thank you, Mr. Cockrum, for all you did for the X-Men and comics, in general. While he was not financially compensated for what he did for the Marvel Entertainment Group, and is rarely noted as an artist of interest by any but we historians (which is pretty odd, since he was immensely popular in his time), much like Claremont, those cats what made that flying alien with the cape, Frank Miller, and scores of others, his contributions forever changed everything and there's no way to escape that.
And in a cynical world filled with too much hatred and corruption as it is -- where the rich get away with murder, rape, child pornography, and all other manner of Evil on a daily basis -- a world where a man's success is only measured in terms of his finances, and celebrity can be measured by the number of sex tapes in which one's appeared, maybe it's a little pie-in-the-sky, but I'd like to think that Cockrum died knowing that his payoff is greater than any amount of money could ever cover. No matter what else ever happens, Dave Cockrum changed our superheroes forever; some of the men and women we kids grew up with for going on three or four generations now -- characters who helped shape our outlooks, viewpoints, sense of justice and injustice, helped to instill our morals, and introduced us to the "real world" through high-impact lenses -- characters our own kids will grow up with, came directly from him.
So even if you don't know his name, Dave Cockrum changed your life.
R.I.P., Dave Cockrum. Our deepest-felt condolences go out to his family and friends.
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