Also, nothing that happens in it is consistent with the traditional Marvel Method. The episode opens with Dan Slott, writer of a near-record 180 issues of Spider-Man comics, and currently Marvel’s Fantastic Four writer, sitting down with 12 weeks of lead time to write his first issue of Iron Man 2020. The writer gets one sentence into the script before being distracted by a Twitter notification. The episode goes on to detail the painstaking process that the Marvel team undergoes to put the first issue of Iron Man 2020 on shelves. Editorial pries a detailed, panel-by-panel script from Slott; hands what they have, a few pages at a time (it’s implied), to artist Pete Woods, who draws and colors the issue; hires Christos Gage to come in and write dialogue for the issues to help make back lost lead time; all while Assistant Editor Alanna Smith and letterer Joe Caramagna are rushing through putting the final touches on the issue as it heads to print. The episode is a harrowing look at the power dynamics in comics production. Slott and editor Tom Brevoort spend much of their screen time roasting Slott for his perennial lateness, while Smith copyedits the issue standing over a file cabinet and Caramagna sends frantic text messages begging for a script so he can get the issue to the printers. But it also is…bizarrely wrong about the comic creating style the episode is named for. In fact, deadline pressure might be the only (and most generous) way of understanding how the issue produced for this episode might be considered “Marvel Method.” Slott takes so long to write a script for the book that he can’t write dialogue and reasonably get the book out the door on time, so he merely sends extremely detailed panel descriptions to the artist, while Gage comes on board to write dialogue. It’s a stretch, but it might count. What was presumably intended as promotional material for Marvel Comics has instead invited a great deal of criticism. Reaction to the episode on social media has been mostly defensiveness. Slott, shown in the episode to be Extremely Online, took to Twitter to address his critics. Jim Zub, Slott’s Christos Gage on the previous Iron Man series, Tony Stark: Iron Man, jumped in to defend Slott as well. Woods joined him, claiming the process was heavily edited to add narrative tension. And Caramagna told Twitter that this wasn’t his worst experience on a book. Not entirely sure that helped, though.
