🚀 go-pugleaf

	Someone was asking for confirmation about John Byrne's leaving Marvel.
This sure looks like confirmation to me.

	From CBG #637, cover-dated January 31, 1986:
	The lead story is headlined

			JOHN BYRNE LEAVES MARVEL

	Byrne's last FF issue will be #293, though he'll plot the next two is-
sues after that. No new creative team was announced, but Roger Stern will be 
scripting the two Byrne-plotted issues.
	While Byrne gave no real reasons for leaving the company (he said, "I
just sort of reached the crossroad, the end of an era, and decided to look else-
where"), perhaps there might be a clue in a seemingly-casual comment he made
while talking about Stern's scripting the FF. He said, "I can't think of anyone
better to take over - except possibly Stan Lee. It's always a good idea to keep
in mind that, without Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, there wouldn't *be* a Marvel
Comics today." Perhaps Marvel's present treatment of Kirby really HAS gotten
under Byrne's skin.
	No one had any idea what would happen to The Last Galactus Story or to
the Invisible Woman mini-series (which was the first I'd heard of *that* ser-
ies).
	The only other thing mentioned that Byrne *might* do is an adaptation
for WaRP Graphics of a science-fiction novel he read as a child, but rights to
the novel (whatever it is) have not been cleared yet.

	... Well! It's too bad, but I've expected it for a long time. I admit
that it was (apparently) Byrne who who made the move, rather than Marvel tell-
ing him "No more, unless you give up Superman". But, since no one wanted to
give very many details, one can't really be sure.
	It's okay by me, actually, since there's now one less Marvel book that
I "have" to buy. The way the company is today, I prefer to give them as little
of my money as I can.

	Y'know, if we wait LONG enough, maybe ALL of the REALLY good creative 
people will go over to DC (or have they done so already?), and maybe Marvel will
be FORCED to get their act together...
	Or maybe not.

							----- Shawn H.