He brought order and profits to Marvel in the 1980s and helped establish the genre as a popular-culture tent pole for decades to come.

Jim Shooter, who began his career writing comics at age 14 and guided Marvel Comics through one of its most creatively and commercially successful eras as editor-in-chief in the 1980s, died today at age 73 after a long fight with esophageal cancer.

Legendary Marvel Comics Editor-in-Chief and Secret Wars writer and creator Jim Shooter has passed away at the age of 73.