1 Mike Sekowsky shows his displeasure with The Brute #1. Mike Sekowsky had been working in comics for more than two decades when he ended up doing the art for a new comic book company started by former Marvel publisher Martin Goodman. The Brute was not a particularly good comic book, and Sekowsky let everyone know he thought so, as well, when he put the model number on a plane at one point in the issue: SH17. In other words, SHIT.
2 Byrne wants more respect for Doctor Doom. In Uncanny X-Men #146, by Chris Claremont and Dave Cockrum, Doctor Doom guest-stars, and his fellow villain, Arcade, lights a match on Doom’s armor. Soon after, John Byrne spotlighted the famous Fantastic Four villain in The Fantastic Four #258 and revealed that the Doctor Doom from that particular X-Men story was a robot, as the real Doctor Doom never would have stood for such an affront. When queried by the real Doom, the robot suggests that he thought they might need Arcade in the future. Doom’s response? Blow the robot up.
3 Petty Larsen-y. In 1992’s Spider-Man #19, writer-artist Erik Larsen got the Sinister Six back together, but he wanted to highlight how much more powerful Doctor Octopus was now that he’d upgraded to fancier robotic arms; he demonstrated this by having Doctor Octopus beat up the Hulk. Well, later in 1992, in The Incredible Hulk #396, writer Peter David and artist Dale Keown had a response to that fight: Hulk claims that he was robbed by “petty larceny” and then knocks Octopus out with one finger.
4 They don’t call him Joe Mad for nothing! In Uncanny X-Men #325, superstar artist Joe Madureira decided to voice his complaints over how much fellow artist Roger Cruz was swiping his drawings (that is, essentially copying Madureira’s artwork and calling it his own). In a scene in a crowded subway, Madureira has a newspaper with the headline, “Cruz swipes again!”
5 Just counting down the hours. Weapon X was a series that debuted in 2002 that detailed the latest version of the Weapon X project (which was the name of the group that had experimented on Wolverine decades earlier). It was basically a team of bad guys, with no clear focus, and the series was canceled with issue #28. In the last issue, in the background of a panel, someone has written on a notepad, “I want this issue to be finished and over with. I don’t like slogging through the last issue of a dead book.” The artist then continues to note that he’ll do it, though, because he’s a pro.