James Charles Shooter (September 27, 1951 – June 30, 2025) was an American writer, editor and publisher in the comics industry. Beginning his career writing for DC Comics at the age of 14, he had a successful but controversial run as editor-in-chief at Marvel Comics, and launched comics publishers Valiant, Defiant, and Broadway.
Early life
Jim Shooter was born on September 27, 1951, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to parents Ken and Eleanor "Ellie" Shooter, who were of Polish descent. Shooter read comics as a child, though he stopped when he was about eight years old. His interest in the medium was rekindled in 1963, at the age of twelve, while he recovered in a hospital after undergoing minor surgery. He was impressed with the style of Marvel Comics, which had begun publication only two years earlier. Thinking that if he learned to write the types of stories that Marvel published, he would be an asset to DC Comics – whose books, he felt, "needed the help" – Shooter spent about a year reading and studying comics from both companies.
According to Shooter, his father earned little as a steelworker, and Shooter saw comic-book writing as a means of helping support the family. Shooter reflected in a 2010 interview: