The Michael Jackson/Michael Golden Marvel Comic That Never Happened

Posted in: Comics, Marvel Comics | Tagged: christopher priest, Jim Shooter, michael golden, michael jackson

The Michael Jackson/Michael Golden Marvel Comic That Never Happened

The Michael Jackson/Christopher Priest/Michael Golden Marvel Comic That Never Happened In 1983

Article Summary

• In 1983, Marvel nearly published a Michael Jackson comic, with Christopher Priest writing and Michael Golden drawing.
• Priest, then editor Jim Owsley, pursued a Michael Jackson Marvel comic after the success of Marvel’s KISS comic.
• Michael Jackson’s camp was reportedly enthusiastic, and Priest says Jackson was a real Marvel fan who loved comics.
• The Michael Jackson/Michael Golden Marvel Comic stalled inside Marvel after reaching Jim Shooter and Tom DeFalco.

In light of yesterday’s news thatDwayne “The Rock” Johnsonwanted to buy Boom Studios, I recalled that Michael Jacksononce tried to buy Marvel Comics in the nineties, just so he could play Spider-Man in the movies. But I didn’t know there was an almost-Michael-Jackson comic book by Christopher Priest and Michael Goldenover a decade earlier.

On the ComicPop Returns podcast, comic book writer Christopher Priest recalled his earlier Marvel Comics adventures when he was known as the editor Jim Owsley just as Thriller was gaining momentum in 1983. Marvel had recently published a KISS comic and Priest, a fan of both the band and the singer, thought the next logical step was obvious. “What if we did a Michael Jackson comic, as we had just done a KISS comic, right? Let’s do a Michael Jackson.”

He tracked down Michael Jackson’s representatives, and conversations followed. The response, according to Christopher Priest, was enthusiastic. Hit artist Michael Golden, best known for Micronauts, The ‘Nam and co-creator of Rogue and Bucky O’Hare, was lined up to draw it. Christopher Priest began writing the script. The project looked real. Then it reached the editor-in-chief of Marvel Comics. “Jim Shooter is like, Michael Jackson, he’s that kid that sings with his brothers, right?” The pitch was passed along to editor Tom DeFalco. From there, in Priest’s telling,”the project got handed off into the Marvel machine, and it just died some,” he said. He still sounds slightly amazed by the miss. Christopher Priest noted that Jackson was a genuine Marvel fan who would have loved the idea. Later, Jackson appeared in official comics tied to Captain EO and Moonwalker, published elsewhere, but a Marvel Michael Jackson comic never materialised… He did appear in Longshot a few years later, though, in 1985… or at least a character called “Jackson” did.

Longshot #2 by Ann Nocenti and Arthur Adams (1985)
Longshot #2 by Ann Nocenti and Arthur Adams (1985)

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