Comic book writer, editor, artist, and publisher, Jim Shooter died on Monday, June 30, 2025, from esophageal cancer. He was 73 years old.

Shooter began his comics career when he was barely a teenager and created comic characters before he was even an adult. He served as editor-in-chief at Marvel Comics and Valiant, helped to grow both lines and oversaw significant runs on popular titles like Uncanny X-Men, Magnus, Robot Fighter, and many more.

He was born on September 27, 1951, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. A comic reader since he was a little kid, Shooter discovered Marvel comics when the publisher was still relatively new. Impressed by Marvel’s style, he began studying comics with the goal of writing them himself. Shooter was just 13 years old when he wrote his first stories about the Legion of Superheroes, which he submitted to DC. His script submissions were accompanied by suggested layouts.

A few months later in early 1966, Mort Weisinger called with an offer to buy the stories and give him assignments to write stories about Supergirl and Superman.

When Shooter was 14, Weisinger offered him a regular job on Legion of Superheroes, where he created the Legionnaires Karate Kid, Princess Projectra, and Ferro Lad, and the villain group Fatal Five. He wrote for Action Comics and Adventure Comics, created Parasite, and collaborated with Curt Swan on the first race between Superman and the Flash. Part of what helped Shooter excel at such a young age is that he had studied Marvel’s character-driven storytelling and implemented it at DC.

“As an adolescent, he decided to learn to write comics and draw them, and tactically studied what he thought were the best written comics of the mid-1960s (Marvels, as written mostly by Stan [Lee]), and targeted his pitch to what he thought was one of the most old-fashioned/weakest comics (DC’s Legion of Super-Heroes). Ridiculously, impossibly, the first story he submitted was bought by editor Mort Weisinger, not an editor particularly focused on new talent. And even more incredibly, it was one of the best written comics on the stands that month. And he was 13 when he started this project, 14 when it was published,” former DC Comics President and Publisher Paul Levitz wrote on Facebook.

Shooter’s first credited work came in Captain Action #1, thanks to artist Wally Wood, he said. Wood had a well-established habit of boldly signing his work even in pre-credits days. Since Shooter had supplied layouts, Wood added Shooter’s story credit on the bottom right of the splash page.

“Jim’s writing progressed, and his Legion was often the best written comic in the DC line, if not mainstream comics. He stopped trying to sketch out his stories, and that sometimes improved the art and sometimes didn’t, depending on who he was teamed with. But like a number of the best writers of my generation, his art skills made him a far better comics writer,” Levitz wrote.

After graduating from high school, he left DC and joined Marvel as an editor and co-plotter, but it proved temporary. Shooter’s next move was writing and illustrating for advertising companies while periodically working other jobs to make ends meet. With a few years of ad work under his belt, he returned to comics at DC on Superman and Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes.

In late 1975, Marvel editor-in-chief Marv Wolfman offered him the job of assistant editor and writer. Since Marvel was growing so rapidly, Shooter had the opportunity to quickly rise in the editorial department, becoming the editor-in-chief in ’78. Around that time, Stan Lee moved out to Los Angeles to oversee Marvel’s growing slate of TV and film projects, so Shooter handled nearly all the creative decisions for the comics.

Shooter spent nine years as the editor-in-chief, during Chris Claremont and John Byrne’s tenure on Uncanny X-Men, Frank Miller’s initial and subsequent runs on Daredevil, and Walt Simonson’s simultaneous infusion of Norse mythology and new characters into Thor. It also saw Byrne’s Fantastic Four, Claremont and Bill Sienkiewicz on New Mutants, and Bill Mantlo and Michael Golden on Micronauts.

He was in charge when Marvel released their first direct market-only title in Dazzler #1, he wrote the second DC-Marvel crossover with Spider-Man and Superman in Marvel Treasury Edition #28, and introduced company-wide crossovers in Secret Wars and other titles.

With former Editor-in-Chief Archie Goodwin heading it up, Shooter’s Marvel launched the Epic imprint to publish creator-owned material, and developed a program in which creators could receive royalties when their books reached certain sales levels or when characters they created were licensed to become toys.

“Jim is the greatest EIC that Marvel had post-Stan Lee. Unlocked the greatness of Marvel’s Bronze Era. Activated Frank Miller, Walt Simonson, John Byrne, Bill Sienkiewicz and so many others. Took a toy tie-in and made it a blockbuster with Secret Wars! So many achievements,” Rob Liefeld posted on Facebook. “Gratitude for everything.”

His years as the editor-in-chief of Marvel were not free of conflict. Shooter was known for being demanding in the pursuit of keeping their many books on schedule. Curbing the problem of missed deadlines and delayed releases was one of his mandates when he got the job, and Marvel’s printers acknowledged him the first time the company had no missed deadlines. He was fired from Marvel in 1987.

“He really polarized people, but it was because he had a passion for what he was doing,” Bill Sienkiewicz told Forbes’ Rob Salkowitz. “He went to bat for freelancers in a way you don’t see many people in editorial roles do today.”

After a failed bid to purchase Marvel (he lost to financier Ronald O. Perelman, who subsequently ran the company into bankruptcy), he joined investors to found Voyager Communications and launch Valiant (stylized as VALIANT at the time). Initially they published Nintendo- and World Wrestling Federation-licensed comics books, but in 1991 they launched their superhero line, a mixture of Gold Key characters and original properties. Marvel veterans Don Perlin, Janet Jackson, and Bob Layton joined Shooter and a number of talented newcomers, including David Lapham. Barry Windsor-Smith returned to comics with the company.

In addition to his writing and editorial duties, he also illustrated several issues early in the company’s run under the pseudonym Paul Creddick. By the time he was ousted by his business partners, who would sell the company for $65 million to Acclaim Entertainment, the company out-revenued Marvel with only eight regular titles.

After Valiant, he founded DEFIANT. Marvel, under the Perelman regime, sued the company, saying fans would be confused between Marvel UK’s Plasmer and DEFIANT’s Warriors of Plasm. Judge (and later US Attorney General) Michael Mukasey excoriated Marvel, but the damage to the start-up had been done. The company folded.

Almost immediately prior to the contraction of the comic book specialty market, Shooter then founded the short-lived Broadway Comics in 1995 with a number of Valiant and Defiant veterans, including Janet Jackson, Joe James, Pauline Weiss, and artist J.G. Jones.

Following that, he worked on a number of independent comic book and non-comics projects, eventually launching Illustrated Media in 2003, where he continued to develop intellectual properties, most recently working with Netfilx.

“Jim Shooter, for being only 73 years old, spent the better part of 60 years making great comics. The comics produced during his tenure at Marvel remain some of the most creative, most popular work the company has ever produced. That’s not even to mention his early work for DC, or his later work for Valiant, Defiant, Broadway, and others. What a loss this is for our hobby and industry,” said Steve Geppi, founder and CEO of Gemstone Publishing.