MarvelComics is home to some of the most iconic supervillains in comic book history – but for a long time, one of the publisher's most legendary figureheads, Editor-in-Chief Jim Shooter, didn't want them to be called that. For a time during Shooter's tenure with the company, the term "supervillain" was practically outlawed entirely.
On Reddit, user @rocketinspace shared an except from Back Issue #56, a comic book magazine originally released in May 2012, which contained an interview with former West Coast Avengers writer Steve Englehart, in which the author touched on a particular quirk of Jim Shooter, who served as Marvel's Editor-in-Chief from 1978 to 1987; among the many rules Shooter instituted, he didn't allow the word "supervillain" to be used by the creators working under him.
Marvel's Former Editor-in-Chief Disliked The Term Supervillain – But That Didn't Stop Them From Existing
Steve Englehardt On Jim Shooter's Anti-"Supervillain" Edict
According to Steve Englehardt – as in the quote seen above – Jim Shooter reasoned that the term cut into the "realism" they were trying to establish, as ordinary people would not, by his assessment, have looked at people committing crimes and called them supervillains. While that may be true, Marvel's carefully crafted bad guys aren't just petty thieves: they're supervillains because they engage in elevated levels of villainy. Eventually, this led Shooter to lift his ban on the word, but the fact that he enforced the ban at all says a lot about his editorial perspective.
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Although Jim Shooter's assessment that people don't throw around the term "supervillain" is correct, attempting to shift that reality into comic books doesn't quite work. Within the Marvel Universe, there is a multitude of larger-than-life figures constantly making plans to take over the world, destroy it, or accumulate an incomprehensible amount of magical or technological power. They take villainy to such a level that it seems incorrect to lump them in with the standard fare of criminals; Steve Englehart made the same case to Shooter, as he explained to Back Issue magazine.
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The Marvel Universe Cannot Be Restrained
Indeed, many of Marvel's rogues have resources and abilities beyond anything regular humans can conceive of - let alone obtain. In his supervillain heyday, Magneto created a base on an asteroid. Thanos gathers mythical Infinity Stones to rewrite the entire universe. Dr. Doom bends magic and science to incomprehensible levels. In short, they've more than earned their own type of title, and ordinary citizens sharing a planet with them would also differentiate them from local nuisances causing a little mayhem at 7-11 down the street. It takes commitment and flair to be a supervillain, but certain individuals have it.
Former Marvelleader Jim Shooter didn't approve of the word "supervillain" but it's always been the most appropriate designation.
While certain aspects of Marvel flourished under Jim Shooter's leadership, and he served as Editor-in-Chief for some of the brand's most iconic comic runs like Chris Claremont's time with X-Men, trying to impose real-life rules on a world that regularly leans on the unbelievable and impossible just doesn't work. For decades, comic writers have dreamed up some of the most brilliant villains in fiction, and they continue to earn acknowledgment - both from fans who see them on pages and the fictional people they terrorize. Former Marvel leader Jim Shooter didn't approve of the word "supervillain" but it's always been the most appropriate designation.
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