Bryan Hitch: Marvel Comics is a closed shop

Bryan Hitch has discussed his reasons for leaving Marvel Comics.

He called the publisher "a closed shop", saying that he felt shut out of the creative process.



"Since Ultimates ended, I'd been less and less involved in a collaborative process at Marvel," he told Comic Book Resources.

"They now had their various brain-trusts, architects or whatever the gang was calling themselves, and that was what led their creative process. It seemed a very closed shop and not what it was like when I signed up to do Ultimates at all.

"I felt like they wanted an illustrator not a creator, and that was very frustrating to me. I'd submitted several proposals for various series, getting nowhere; [Ultimate Captain America] was dropped, and I didn't even feel involved in the story I was working on. It really felt like I wasn't contributing the way I wanted to be."

Hitch continued: "Obviously the work I did there over more than ten years is a true high point in my career and, in looking at the Marvel movies, clearly influential, but I guess there's a time when you feel like you don't know anybody at the party anymore or nobody's laughing at your jokes and it's time to call a cab.

"Possibly, had I known the [Age of Ultron] series was longer than the five issues I'd originally thought and if I hadn't had the Cap book pulled from under me, I may never have considered moving on, but stuff changes I guess."

He added that "there's no regret or bitterness" and that he "had an amazing time" while working for the publisher.