Creative Differences, part 1

Originally published June 19, 1998, in Comics Buyer’s Guide #1283

“Creative differences” happen all the time.

The term has become something of a catchphrase to encompass a wide variety of reasons why someone leaves a particular project. It’s nice, it’s non-inflammatory. It doesn’t assign blame; it simply says that two (or more) parties were unable to see eye-to-eye on a situation, something had to give, and one of the parties simply threw up their hands and walked away.

The thing is, since the term is associated with break-ups, it implies that everything goes smooth as silk while the parties are working together.

Far from it. The creative process is oftentimes a brutal and harsh one. There is constant head-banging as creative individuals slug it out over a variety of topics—some of which might seem incredibly trivial to anyone on the outside—and more often than not, a compromise is reached. It is only when there is no compromise possible, and someone can’t continue to function in the atmosphere that exists, that departure occurs. In those instances, it might be that the tidy “creative differences” doesn’t apply. It might be more appropriate to refer to them as irreconcilable differences.”

But “creative differences?” I’ve had those all the time. Dialogue that I’ll come up with, story points that get shot down. And every time it happens, I have to decide how strongly I feel about it. Most of the time, I let it go, but I’ll always have a regret that it didn’t fly the way I wanted it to.

Herewith, some of my favorite disagreements. I should emphasize that at the time my reactions to the changes and/or being overruled ranged from amusement to outright fury. But with the distance of time, now I just kind of shrug and say, “That’s show biz.”

Favorite Unused Superhero Line of Dialogue: In an issue of Spectacular Spider-Man, I had Spidey discover a healthy baby abandoned in an alleyway. He brings the baby to a hospital quick as he can, and hands the child to a nurse. In the original script, the nurse asks, “Wait a minute… Spider-Man… are you this baby’s father?” To which Spider-Man replied, “Gee… I dunno. Let’s throw him against a wall and see if he sticks.”

The printed version was changed to Spider-Man sputtering a denial of parentage.

Favorite Gutted Mutant Storyline: (tie) (1) My X-Factor abortion story. Originally, I developed a story in which a scientist developed a fool-proof test that would enable couples to determine—along with the currently existing tests for actual genetic-based diseases–whether or not a mother’s unborn fetus was going to be a mutant. “You will give birth to something that many people will term a freak,” the doctor intoned. Parents had to decide whether or not to abort their child. Among other things, there were several intense discussions among the team members about a woman’s right to choose, with the pro-choice Polaris being particularly at odds with the right-to-life Rahne Sinclair.

The editors were gung-ho on the story, and it was drawn and scripted as intended… until a ton of backlash hit Marvel over Northstar’s being gay in Alpha Flight. And I mean backlash: For starters, representatives of a major retail chain told Marvel they didn’t want to carry any mutant-related toys, including the entire X-Men line, because the mutant line had been “tainted.” It was nuts. And no, I don’t blame John Byrne for it, so don’t even go there. But the upshot was that the Powers That Be ordered that nothing of any controversial nature was to see print in any Marvel book… especially a mutant book.

So key scenes were rescripted, mooting the question of abortion by having the doctor develop a procedure that would simply remove (somehow, amazingly, mystically) the mutant gene from the fetus. Yes, that’s right: He could rewrite DNA while in utero. Don’t look at me, I just work here.

(2) Rahne Insane. When I took on X-Factor, Rahne Sinclair’s status was as follows: She had been made Havok’s more or less willing slave through mental tinkering at Genosha, and she was spending all her time; in her wolf form, because in her human form she was a totally subservient airhead, one step up from a zombie.

And I thought about this and came up with a fairly demented storyline. Over the next issues of X-Factor, I had the previously sedate Rahne become not only more and more enamored of Havok, but progressively more erotically charged in her increasing lust for him. It was screamingly out of character for her, and then, in issue #89, I had her realize why: She was in heat. From spending so much time in her animal form, she had picked up traits she wasn’t expecting, and that was one of them. This was revealed in a scene wherein she was talking down the street with Moira, trying to figure out just why she was so sexually obsessive about Alex… and dogs start barking at her. Barking big time. And she basically says, “Oh my God!” as she understands what her biology has done to her.

But when I departed X-Factor due to a variety of—well—factors… the entire reveal on that storyline was dumped and the scene rescripted by other hands into pointlessness. But you can still see the barking dogs and Rahne’s shocked expression in the printed issue.

Favorite Storyline I salvaged: In issue #344 of Incredible Hulk, Betty Banner revealed she was pregnant. A dozen or so issues later, she lost the child to miscarriage in a story not written by me… one of only two issues during my run on the series that I didn’t write.

The reason I refused to do it was because Betty was really losing her child to editorial fiat. It was decided by the powers that be that Betty and Bruce were not to become parents because that would make the characters seem “too old” to the younger readers. My run on the book almost ended with that issue; I nearly walked over it. But there were so many stories I still wanted to tell that ultimately I stayed with it, even though I fumed about it for quite a while.

However, some years later I wound up making the story the lynchpin of What Savage Beast, the novel that I wrote for Byron Preiss. Betty got preggers again and I did the storyline pretty much as I had always wanted to do it… and probably better, because certain story elements (such as the Maestro) had already been introduced into the Hulk mythos and consequently the story flowed more smoothly than it originally would have.

As an interesting coda, I wanted to introduce, Brett, the grown son of Bruce and Betty from What Savage Beast directly into the Hulk comic around issue #451. But I was overruled, so I changed the character in the storyline from Brett into a future version of the Hulk himself, which I frankly didn’t like as much.

Favorite Names I Couldn’t Use: (Tie) Interestingly, they’re both from Young Justice, which hasn’t even come out yet. And I should emphasize that, even though time hasn’t passed, I’m really not upset about either of the following because I’m having so much fun with the title that I just can’t get worked up with glitches along the way.

In issue #1, I wanted to introduce two somewhat demented, over-the-top government agents who would be recurring irritants for the team. We first meet them at an emergency scene where they have taken charge and are trying to keep a crowd back. They identify themselves to the crowd as Special Agent Donald Futz, and his partner, Special Agent Ishido Nukk. When a TV cameraman gets on Nukk’s nerves, he shoots the camera right off the guy’s shoulder. Moments later Robin, Impulse and Superboy show up. Robin spots an FBI guy and asks if he’s in charge. “No, replies the agent, “I’m not running this investigation. Those two are. And believe me, you want to steer clear of them.”

“How come?” asks Robin.

And the agent replies, “Because they’re Nukk n Futz, that’s why.”

I put it into the plot and hoped for the best. To my astonishment, the story got penciled, lettered and inked with the names intact, and then someone caught it and said, “Uhhh… no.” So I changed their names to Donald Fite and Ishido Maad so they could be Fite ’n Maad. S’okay. I never really thought I’d get away with it.

In issue #2, I wanted to do an Arab Sheik named Ali Ben Styn, modeled on Ben Stein, who first made a real splash as the deathly dull teacher in Ferris Beuller’s Day Off and now stars in Win Ben Stein’s Money on Comedy Central. A typical sample of the Sheik’s dialogue: “I ask you, has anyone ever seen such beautiful jewels? Anyone? Anyone?” However—and I can’t blame them, considering recent dust-ups—the DC legal department got antsy. So I offered my alternative to the editor, which I actually liked better. We would have the Sheik sitting there, surrounded by his harem of gorgeous women, thinking, “Odd… all these beautiful women for wives… and yet, for some reason,

I’m not happy. I wonder why.” His name, of course, was Sheik Ali Ben Gay.

We went back to Ali Ben Styn.

So that was kind of a win/win proposition for me (especially after Stein actually gave the okay via his agent to do it, so that quelled legal fears).

Gee, and I didn’t have room this week for my favorite unused Star Trek novel scenes, and Babylon 5 scenes. Well… next week, then.

(Peter David, writer of stuff, can be written to at Second Age, Inc., PO Box 239, Bayport, NY 11705. If any other writers out there have scenarios or dialogue that got shot down, we’d love to hear them.)