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In the late '90s and into the 2000s, Mark Bagley was one of the hottest artists at Marvel. Ultimate Spider-Man was a best-seller, largely thanks to Bagley’s art. In fact, Bagley’s design for Spider-Man was so iconic that Marvel used it on sneakers, birthday party supplies, bed sheets, and more. Bagley was riding high, but a few years earlier, it had been a different story. Bagley was struggling to get work at Marvel and felt like then-editor-in-chief Bob Harras had it in for him.

“I thank god for Thunderbolts, because my career was going down in flames,” Mark Bagley says during a spotlight panel at Toronto Comicon 2012. “The editor-in-chief of Marvel at the time was Bob Harras. I heard from enough people that he just didn’t like my stuff, and he’s one of those editors-in-chief who is just not smart enough to know, 'Okay, I may not like that particular guy’s work, but he sells a lot of books, so we should keep him working.' And he was so negative about it that I was having trouble getting hired by anybody else at Marvel.”

Bagley joined Marvel in the mid '80s after winning a contest inside the iconic Marvel Try-Out Book, and within a few years had success in launching the New Warriors title, and then being tapped to be the next Amazing Spider-Man artist (following in the footsteps of Erik Larsen and Todd McFarlane). He left Amazing Spider-Man in 1996, and according to him had trouble getting another long-term assignment, leading him to do licensed work like Star Trek, and anthologies.

“I was miserable, and that was around the time he did Heroes Reborn, Onslaught, or whatever they called that crap when [Jim Lee] and [Rob Liefeld] and those guys took over all the characters," Bagley says. "So, they wanted to launch Thunderbolts as the team book Marvel would have for the foreseeable future. And Kurt Busiek, thank god, he had talked to him over the years, and we worked together on a couple of little things, and he really pushed for me.”

Bagley says Busiek went to bat for him, and convinced Marvel to bring him on for Thunderbolts, which saved his career.

“Kurt said I want somebody to do really good storytelling, because Kurt’s all about the story. Do it well and do it on time, and get it done. It was the beginning of, 'Oh, I can’t really finish this issue in time' stuff that’s going on now, which I have no respect for. So, they gave me the book.”

“When I left the book the sales went way down, so screw you, Bob Harras," Bagley added. "That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it. It was a breath of life into my career because people really seemed to like it. And it was good stories. Kurt was a hell of a writer, and we had a good team.”

Bagley ultimately jumped from Marvel to DC in 2008. Harras become DC's editor-in-chief in late 2010, and Bagley left DC to return to Marvel soon after.

Want more? Make sure you've read our list of all the best Marvel Comics stories of all time, and get ready for all the free Marvel comics coming as part of this year's Free Comic Book Day 2026 / Comics Giveaway Day  2026 events.