You have to feel for Igor Kordey, really.

Well, alright. You don't actually have to feel for him. In fact, after Marvel sacked Kordey from the upcoming EXCALIBUR title before it had even launched, a lot of fans seemed positively delighted to see the back of him. Kordey, meanwhile, has been giving interviews and posting on message boards in tones ranging from scowling to venomous. And understandably so, at that.

The story has had an undeniable car crash quality to it. But there are some interesting points in there as well.

For one thing, there's been a bit of hand wringing over the degree of glee shown by some of Kordey's detractors. Of course, tastes vary, and many of those who enjoy Kordey's work might be equally gleeful if another creator were to be similarly removed. Let's be honest, when Chuck Austen finally moves on from the X-Men books, it's not going to be greeted by people saying, "Well, gee, I hope it works out for him." (Unless, of course, he's just been hit by a bus or something.)

Kordey has responded in tones ranging from scowling to venomous. There's no reason why fans of Chris Claremont's writing shouldn't be gleeful at the prospect of seeing his stories illustrated by a different artist, if Kordey's that far removed from their own tastes. To be honest, I can't entirely fault their attitude. Kordey ended up on the X-books in the first place after a bemusingly experimental run on SOLDIER X, and always seemed bafflingly miscast on X-TREME X-MEN. It doesn't help that some of his highest profile work in recent years has been rushed fill-ins, such as the issues of NEW X-MEN that were reputedly pencilled and inked in ten days. The last year or so has not seen Kordey's best work, by any stretch of the imagination.

Personally, I'm rather assuming that Kordey will be picked up by DC and will end up working on a rather more sensible schedule, on stories more suited to his style. In terms of the quality of work we can expect to see from him, it's probably going to be for the best in the long run. In his interview with Rich Johnston, Kordey mentioned that he'd already had job offers from other American publishers, and was also looking into more work for Europe. Chances are he's better off away from Marvel, which is clearly no longer interested in his sort of work.

Mind you, it's perhaps not the best career move to go around giving interviews putting the boot into Marvel. Speaking to Newsarama, Kordey explained that after Marvel unilaterally rewrote his exclusive contract with them (demonstrating Marvel's familiar approach to the concept of binding contractual terms), he rather lost interest in company loyalty. "I did my job professionally," he says, "but gave myself the right to be loud on public sites and express myself, feeling betrayed and backstabbed."

There's no reason why Claremont's fans shouldn't be gleeful at this news. Of course, the reason publishers can get away with this kind of thing is because, in theory, they have all the bargaining power. Whatever the strict legal position, the advantages of insisting on your legal rights are often outweighed by the risks of being perceived in the industry as a troublemaker. Even the most well-meaning of editors is always going to be drawn to the attraction of a quiet life. Kordey is probably safe enough, because on his version of events, Marvel's behaviour goes way over the line. Equally, the creators who went public with their complaints of non-payment from CrossGen showed such forbearance that they came across as reasonable people in an exceptional situation, rather than troublemakers.

Nonetheless, it's a helpful reminder that one shouldn't place too much faith in contracts, which are never as cast iron as they appear. It's commonplace in these situations to argue that, at the end of the day, publishers can do what they want with a particular book. That's freelance status for you. This may be so, but there are three obvious questions when a creator gets fired: did the publisher have the legal right to do it; was it a good idea; and did they go about it in a respectable way? Of course, we haven't heard Marvel's version of events (nor are we likely to), but going by Kordey's account, the answers would seem to be "perhaps", "arguably" and "no."

It's understandable that Marvel would want to move Kordey onto another book, even if they didn't want to fire him altogether. As I've said, he seemed curiously miscast on the X-books all along, and he didn't seem to be hugely popular with the book's audience. X-TREME X-MEN was the lowest selling of the X-Men titles - in January, NEW X-MEN outsold it by more than two to one. It would be interesting to know quite where Marvel place the blame for this; since they seem to be building the X-books line around Claremont, presumably they're not placing the blame on him. In fairness to both creators, there's always been a perception that X-TREME was a spin-off book in all but name. Still, if Marvel felt it was an under-performing X-book, they would have had a case.

It's a helpful reminder that one shouldn't place too much faith in contracts. But the way in which Marvel has chosen to go about things is bizarre, on two levels. For one thing, it shows shoddy treatment of a workhorse artist. Kordey claims that he was simply told that his book was "under review", and only learned that he had been booted as EXCALIBUR's cover artist two days before a completely different painted cover appeared in the solicitations - rather casting doubt on the suggestion that it was a last minute decision. Marvel allowed him to get one and a half issues into the series before deciding that it wasn't even going to use his interior art. It's strange behaviour, to put it mildly. If Kordey feels that he's been treated with contempt, one can hardly blame him.

However, rather less attention has been given to the other side of Marvel's behaviour. On some level, this clearly was a last-minute decision. Marvel would hardly waste its time commissioning an issue and a half of interior art that it had no intention of using. Kordey's name appears in the solicitations for May, despite the fact that by the time Marvel Previews appeared in stores, he was no longer involved with the company. Underwhelming as the X-Men Reload 'event' may be, it was clearly planned some way in advance.

It is, in short, hard to imagine that Kordey's editor - or Joe Quesada, as editor-in-chief - turned up at work one Monday and, after several years of hiring him, had an epiphanic realisation that Kordey was crap. Come to think of it, unless Quesada has undergone a drastic shift in tastes of late, it's hard to imagine him being entirely thrilled about a lot of Marvel's decisions, much of which seems to be little more than a self-conscious retreat from the policies he'd been pursuing for the last few years. Anyhow, the whole thing smacks of clueless executive-level meddling.

And you thought Jemas was bad.

Whatever the reasons, something very odd has been going on inside Marvel to produce this sort of result. In the long run, that may prove to be the more important aspect of this story - after all, Kordey is likely to land on his feet, while Marvel seems increasingly determined to dive head-first down a well.

Paul O'Brien is the author of the weekly X-AXIS comics review.

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