Meetings in the mighty Marvel manner! I wrote about Mark Gruenwald last week, and it made me think about one of his lasting contributions to Marvel that no one talks about. He made the Marvel Universe and its heroes more...administrative. He wanted to establish the inner workings of how superhero teams (and even villains) would work, up to and including administrative and managerial procedures. This went on to influence writer Kurt Busiek's own Avengers run. Looking back, however, it seems sad. Gruenwald did what most writers do and wrote from life, but his life as an editor was bogged down in bureaucracy and mandatory meetings. When he started his Captain America run, he had the character traveling the country in a Van as a freelancer on his own comic. By the time it ended, he was a depressed and jaded boss.
So much of the Squadron Supreme was them just talking in meetings, which was clever. When they weren't taking over the world, they were snipping at each other in their version of a board room. From Squadron Supreme #2 by Gruenwald with pencils by Bob Hall and inks by John Beatty.
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