Kevin Maguire removed from Justice League 3000 but he has plenty of work now, so it’s all okay

Kevin Maguire is an artist who had several defining runs on comics over the years. Back in the late 80s he helped relaunch JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA with Keith Giffen and J.M. DeMatteis, a popular run that people still reference. I don’t mean to say his great work was all in the past…he’s continued to turn out excellent artwork, including recent runs on WORLDS’ FINEST, and before that his own creation, Tanga.

Recently he was announced as the artist on JUSTICE LEAGUE 3000which was to reunite him with Giffen and DeMatteis to offer some good times in the classic style, only set in the year 3000. Giffen was all excited, as he told CBR:

You don’t have to have read “Legion of Super Heroes.” You don’t have to be familiar with the 31st Century. You don’t have to read “Justice League” or any other books. We’re putting it down here as if it’s — it is a new book. You know what? I know it’s a radical thought, but we’re going to treat it like a brand new book. We’re going to introduce the characters, and maybe in the first issue we’ll ask a few more questions than we do in the second or third. We’ll start answering them, and hopefully tell an entertaining enough story that when you’ve read the book, you walk out of it feeling good for having read it and you don’t feel like you got screwed out of your money.

 

But that all came crashing down today. I’ll direct you to the Outhouse’s own inimitable writeup. Short version, Maguire tweeted that he was fired, then that he was confused and looking for work and then, a few hours later he wrote on Facebook:

After a few confusing hours, I kind of know where things stand and why. Though I’m still a bit perplexed as to how it got to this point. As for work, I’ve been offered some fun interesting stuff, many of which came from DC, who were very eager to keep me working there, so I’ll be fine on that score, but it would have been great to do another Justice League with Giffen and DeMatteis. Oh, well… onward and upward…

Indeed. The Outhouse was regrettably forced to set their “Has DC Done Something Stupid Today?” counter back to zero because….

…well, how do you not know what Kevin Maguire’s work is like? How do you hire a well defined creator like Maguire for a project and then decide, oops, this isn’t what I wanted. Rich says the whole JL 3000 concept—already solicited—is being reworked, so I guess the problem was the concept and not the execution.

Anyway, it all ends happily because Maguire has work now and he’s a pro and a trooper, and the new concept that everyone put lots of time and development into will probably be dynamite beans.

Read more about DC’s PR goofs at The Outhouse.