Kurt Busiek is one of comicdom’s most revered creators, having worked on various projects that have become bestsellers, and earned him numerous awards.

Unknown to many fans is the fact that Busiek was given his first regular writing assignment by Marvel Comics in the pages of Power Man and Iron Fist (1972). Busiek had a short stint on the title as series regular, writing issues 90-100, but he filled in for issues 102 and 105.

As a fan of Mary Jo Duffy’s work on the book, the fledgling scribe wrote in a similar lighthearted fashion, not knowing that it was this approach that led to his predecessor’s departure from the title. He was later fired for the same reasons with the editorial staff wanting a grittier approach to the book.

When Busiek worked with artist Alex Ross on Marvels (1994), the multi-awarded four-issue limited series, he gained not just the recognition that he deserved, but also the big-time projects that every aspiring writer ever dreamed of.

In the latest edition of Convos with Creators, I was able to catch up with the esteemed writer on Twitter on two different occasions. 

First, he commented on one of my tweets and it allowed me to chat with him briefly. I added our conversation here that happened months after the initial exchange between us since it formed a more complete picture of his plans for Power Man and Iron Fist had his vision for the series materialized.

That vision was for the characters to go their separate ways after issue 100 going on adventures in their own mini-series. They would then join forces again but this time to form an expanded Heroes for Hire team with several new teammates.

I AM IRON FIST: Your Power Man and Iron Fist run was excellent! I wish your long term plans for the series and the characters had gone through.

KURT BUSIEK: Thanks. I don’t know if I was really a good enough writer to handle it yet, and if I had it to do over again, I’d have very different plans. But it would have been fun.

IAIF: Hope you get another chance to do stuff with Power Man and Iron Fist someday. I’d love to see what you will do with them given how they’ve grown and changed over the past few decades.

BUSIEK: It could have been fun, with the right art. I shoulda never moved out of New York.

IAIF: Yes, I was dreaming about the possibilities you could do with them with different artists and teams. I think Marvel wasn’t ready for that at the time, though.

If Marvel had allowed your vision to come to life, who would you have included in a Heroes for Hire team? Would Colleen (Wing) and Misty (Knight) have joined them as regulars along with a few known characters? Also, would you have created new characters to join them?

BUSIEK: The characters I had in mind back then were not a great bunch of choices — but I think Misty and Colleen were on my list, as was my Crime-Buster and some new characters. Maybe El Aguila, too?

IAIF: Yeah, El Aguila would have been a logical choice to join them. I can just imagine how much better the title would have been if it had morphed into Heroes for Hire rather than just simply Power Man and Iron Fist at that time.

A few months after my initial chat with him, Busiek was conversing with a few fans on Twitter about Power Man and Iron Fist. He was giving his side of the story on what happened with the series.

There were others in the conversation and I have included their inputs and questions to Busiek here to help frame the entire story. I would join the exchange a bit later. He had a ton of stories to tell and it was a joy to read about his insider info on the behind-the-scenes workings in the industry back then.

It started with these tweets from Dallan Baumgarten, a former guitarist of Berlin who describes himself on Twitter as a “comic book nerd”:

Others who were chiming in at the time wanted to know who was responsible for Duffy’s firing, and that was when Busiek entered the fray:

BUSIEK: Denny [O’Neil] was the editor. He was writing fill-ins while waiting for Bob [Layton], who ultimately never turned anything in. Which was good for me.

But the editorial differences I’m aware of are that Denny didn’t like the humor in what Jo wrote; he wanted it meaner, grittier.

But he never told me that, so I was imitating Jo as hard as I could, to start, and I don’t think he liked that all that much either. After #102 came out, he told me it got more mail than we’d seen in a long time and the sales bumped up. But never do anything like it again.

DALLAN BAUMGARTEN: Unbelievable. And yet, I believe you.

BUSIEK: Well, he wanted the book the way he wanted the book, and it was his job to do that. But if he’d told me “make it more like Batman than like a Hope & Crosby movie,” I’d certainly have tried.

JEROME J. HAYNES: So Kurt if you don’t mind me asking, what was the general “pulse “ with this book? Like, it was quite a surprise to see you on this book. I didn’t know you was there that long, but I told Dallan the book seemed to be a launching pad for people to begin at Marvel, cause…

BUSIEK: I don’t know what “pulse” means in this context. PM/IF was a book created basically as a hail-mary pass: Neither Iron Fist nor Power Man had enough fans to support their solo series, so rather than cancel them Marvel tried combining them.

Did well enough under Chris Claremont, [John] Byrne, and others to keep going. Under Jo Duffy and Kerry Gammill, sales climbed to the point where they made it monthly. After Jo left, sales started to fall. When I wrote it, I didn’t make the sales go up, but at least they stopped falling. 

After I left, sales went back to…falling and the series eventually died. I don’t think anyone at Marvel looked at it as a “launching point,” but it wasn’t a top title, so big names were busy on other books and they tended to try newcomers or not-in-demand guys like Ernie Chan, who were maybe cheaper or just…more available. 

By the time Denny got [Christopher] Priest (known then as Jim Owsley) and [Mark] Bright on the book, he had the team he wanted, but sales kept falling and the book went bi-monthly again. By then, Priest had a 12-issue plan to turn sales around, but 12 issues on a bi-monthly book is two years, and no one was going to wait that long.

So the book got canceled along with a bunch of other low-selling books to make way for the New Universe.

I think there were periods that the folks in charge cared about it, and periods that they didn’t (or didn’t have time to, or were just keeping the book going while they figured out what to try). 

I don’t think Denny did the book any favors, really — it was a monthly book when it was handed to him, and he kinda chased off the reason it went monthly, and then it never found strong footing again. But his run brought in Denys [Cowan], me, Priest, and Bright, so that’s something. 

And if Bob Layton had actually written it, Layton/Cowan might have been a strong team that kept it going. Denys brought a strong visual energy to the book and Bob certainly had a point of view. Or if Archie Goodwin, who was supposed to be regular after me, had been able to do more than a few issues, Goodwin/LaRocque might have been a strong team.

But while I was an accident of timing/availability, Denny at least tried to put Layton/Cowan, Goodwin/LaRocque and Priest/Bright on the book, and all of those could have done good salable stuff. 

It may just have been too late by the time he got to Priest/Bright — all the fill-ins and abortive runs had lost the book too many readers to bring them back without big glaring sales stunts like X-Men guest-appearances,* and for whatever reason Priest/Bright thought they could do it without that.

*Jo Duffy and the previous editors didn’t hold back — Jo started her run with an X-Men guest appearance and later did a Daredevil crossover when DD was hot and even a ROM issue when ROM was a strong newsstand title, all of which probably helped.

I wanted to bring in guest-stars, but in hindsight I think Denny just saw me as a temporary measure, to keep the book running while he figured out a strategy, so he didn’t let me, aside from that one Vision/[Scarlet] Witch appearance that actually did make sales go up. If I’d been able to do more than that, maybe I’d have had a longer run.

But that’s just the breaks, sometimes.

IAIF: Wow! Thanks for the inside info on what went on behind the scenes. Jim Owsley/Christopher Priest suspected in his blog that making PM/IF bi-monthly and the eventual cancelation of the title were mainly to make room for Marvel to have new titles under the “New Universe” banner.👊 

BUSIEK: The cancellation was. Shifting it to bi-monthly was just because sales were bad.

All Marvel newsstand books were selling over 100,000 back then, and PM/IF was one of the lowest-selling of the whole line. He’s right when he said it was profitable, but again, ALL Marvel newsstand books were profitable. 

But they canceled books not just for losing money — the lowest-selling were always in danger, because if those same resources were put into a book that would sell better, Marvel made more money.

So profitability alone would not save a book.

When I wrote it, sales were under 125,000, which put it in danger of cancellation. When Priest was writing it, it was selling worse than that. Not his fault, but that was the reality.

All the books that were canceled to launch the New Universe were the bottom of the sales list.

IAIF: That’s quite true, unfortunately. Making the book bi-monthly was a bad decision, in my opinion, since it made the book lose traction with readers. I think Owsley and Priest were great for the title.

I think your 11-issue run from 90-100 along with 102 and 105 were some of the best runs in the series. As I mentioned previously, I wish you were able to push through with your plans after #100 to give the two separate books before forming an expanded Heroes for Hire roster.

BUSIEK: Thanks, but them’s the breaks. If I were back in 1982 today, I’d take a different route, but I think it was a salvageable book.

IAIF: True!

BUSIEK: Making the book bi-monthly was what happened back then to books that weren’t selling. It didn’t have traction with readers. It was losing sales every month, and what Denny and Priest told the circulation folks, essentially, was, “We’ll fix it in 12 issues.” What they heard back was, essentially, “You don’t have two years. Come up with something faster or the book’s going to die.”

They stuck with their 12-issue plan and the book died, just as the numbers indicated it would.

IAIF: Yeah, two years waiting to revive a title is a long time. 12 issues to revive it would have worked, I think, if it was a monthly book, though.

BUSIEK: It wouldn’t. Not at that sales level.

Honest, there were professionals working there, making those choices. I saw the numbers. They had to do something fast or it would die. They didn’t.

IAIF: I believe you. It just took too long to resuscitate it and by the time they got set on a creative team it was already too late.

BUSIEK: Probably not too late, but too late without using easy sales stunts that Priest and Denny didn’t want to do.**

I mean, it takes a certain amount of guts to put this on a cover (see image below). Doing it on a book with a faithful audience, you can get away with it. On a book that’s on the cusp of cancellation, not so much.

IAIF: Yeah, I was never a fan of covers like these. If I wasn’t a reader of the title, I would have skipped it and used my hard-earned allowance from my mom and dad to buy another title.

As you mentioned earlier, guest stars by some of Marvel’s biggest characters would have certainly brought more readers to the book for sure.

BUSIEK: Yeah. Even if it was only a temporary boost, it would buy a little more time to win readers over with the long-term ideas.

IAIF: A Spider-Man guest appearance would have been awesome! I wonder why he never appeared in the book at all? Or perhaps he just had too many titles to be bothered to appear almost anywhere else.

BUSIEK: Spider-Man, Wolverine, Cloak and Dagger, the FF (Fantastic Four), Moon Knight…anyone would have helped. Have Storm visit Luke, have Iron Man drop by over trademark issues.

IAIF: Great choices of guest stars but I didn’t know Cloak and Dagger could move sales up a notch or two! Yeah, an X-Man or two popping up for a couple of issues would have been awesome.

BUSIEK: Cloak and Dagger were hot in 1985. They had been very popular guest-stars in [Peter Parker the] Spectacular Spider-Man, to the point that they’d been launched in a mini-series that was in Marvel’s top ten. They’d have been a very good choice. Especially with a Hannigan or Leonardi cover.

IAIF: I see! Yeah, I noticed they kept appearing in Spectacular Spider-Man again and again. Though they had a couple of mini series, I didn’t know they could bump sales up significantly.

I would have loved to see a Leonardi cover!

BUSIEK: They made Spectacular Spider-Man pop up in sales every time they appeared on the covers.

Their hotness faded, but they were very hot around then.

IAIF: And I think they would have been an excellent choice to add to your Heroes for Hire team, too.

BUSIEK: I am sure they’d have been unavailable. Guest-stars for an issue, maybe. Regulars in a team book that wasn’t by Bill Mantlo, no.

IAIF: Yeah, and I think it’s why they just mostly appeared in PPTSM. I wonder if the Cloak and Dagger TV series rekindled their popularity to longtime comic readers and if Marvel was able to capitalize on it.

BUSIEK: [Going back to my point,] when the book’s as low in the charts as this one was, I’d have been tempted to have a hot guest star every other issue for a year, with alternate issues using the space to develop whatever they hoped would carry the series if readers got a chance to see it. But rule one is, get readers to try the book. Rule one-B is, give them a reason to come back.

Without rule one, though, you’re in trouble.

IAIF: Great rules to live by even by today’s standards. This is probably the reason why many of the new titles that Marvel started one year got canceled the following year.

BUSIEK: They’re eternal rules.

IAIF: If I ever write comics, I’ll plaster these eternal rules on my walls so I never forget them.

Thanks for indulging us with a quick chat, Kurt! This was an unbelievable experience. As an Iron Fist fan, I pray you get an opportunity (which I hope you’ll grab) to write his solo series someday. Or perhaps you could convince [current Marvel Editor-In-Chief] C.B. Cebulski to give him a new title, at least.**

BUSIEK: I’d like to write a solo Iron Fist story someday, at least. Just to do the classic second-person narration.

Maybe I’ll do one in The Marvels [an ongoing Marvel series]…

IAIF: Oh yes, please! That’s an excellent place to try it out! I miss those second-person narrations, to be honest. And you can revive “like unto a thing of iron,” too!

**This eventually came true a few weeks later when Iron Fist: Heart of the Dragon by Larry Hama and David Wachter was announced. Check out my interview with Hama here.