Marv Wolfman
From Batman Wiki
| Marv Wolfman | |
| Birth Name: | Marvin A. Wolfman |
| Birth Date: | May 13, 1946 |
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Birth Place: | Brooklyn, New York City, New York |
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Death Date: | N/A |
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Batman Characters designed/created: | TBA |
Marvin A. "Marv" Wolfman (born May 13, 1946) is an award-winning American comic book writer. He is best known for lengthy runs on The Tomb of Dracula, creating Blade for Marvel Comics, and The New Teen Titans for DC Comics.
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[edit] Biography
[edit] 1960s
Wolfman attended New York's High School of Art and Design, hoping to become a cartoonist.[1] He was active in fandom before he broke into professional comics at DC in 1968. Wolfman was one of the first to publish Stephen King, with "In A Half-World of Terror" (in Wolfman's horror fanzine Stories of Suspense #2, 1965).
[edit] 1970s
In 1974, Wolfman moved to Marvel Comics as protégés of then-editor Roy Thomas. When Thomas stepped down, Wolfman eventually took over as editor, initially in charge of the black and white magazines then finally the color line of comics.
One innovation which Wolfman instituted was the "warehouse story"; when writers and artists missed deadlines, it cost Marvel a great deal of money to delay the release of a scheduled issue, and using reprints to tread water wasn't as appealing to readers. So, Wolfman had various creative teams produce complete stories for various titles, which were then stored for possible later use if a book went off schedule, allowing the editor to keep the book on track with an entirely original story that wouldn't alienate readers.
Because Marvel was producing an ever-expanding line of comics, Wolfman found it difficult to both supervise their titles and still write comics. He opted to step down as editor-in-chief in order to spend more time editing and writing.
While at Marvel Wolfman wrote lengthy runs of Amazing Spider-Man (where he co-created the Black Cat); Fantastic Four; and Doctor Strange. He created Nova in that character's eponymous first issue. In 1978, Wolfman also took over writing the Howard the Duck syndicated newspaper comic strip, which adapted several stories from the original Steve Gerber-written comics.
His best-received work was The Tomb of Dracula, a fledgling horror comic which in his six years as writer Wolfman turned into a rich, complex piece of high gothic, well matched with the moody shade-and-light pencilling of Gene Colan. Taking Bram Stoker's basic story, Wolfman created his own vampire mythology and introduced a set of new characters, including Blade.
[edit] 1980s
In 1980, Wolfman returned to DC after a dispute with new Marvel editor-in-chief Jim Shooter, who offered to renew Wolfman's contract as a writer, but not as an editor. (Ironically, as Marvel editor-in-chief in 1976, Wolfman had hired Shooter at Marvel.) Teaming with penciller George Pérez, he relaunched DC's Teen Titans. The New Teen Titans added the Wolfman-Pérez creations Raven, Starfire and Cyborg to the old team's Robin, Wonder Girl, Kid Flash and Beast Boy (renamed Changeling). The series became DC's first new hit in years, and its first serious competitor to Marvel since the early 1970s.
During the early 1980s Wolfman also collaborated with artist Gil Kane on a run on Superman, rejoined Colan (who had also moved to DC) on the short-lived Night Force, and worked with Carmine Infantino on a revival of Dial H for Hero.
In 1985, Wolfman and Pérez launched Crisis on Infinite Earths, a 12-issue limited series celebrating DC's 50th anniversary. Featuring a cast of thousands and a timeline that ranged from the beginning of the universe to the end of time, it killed scores of characters, integrated a number of heroes from other companies to DC continuity, and re-wrote 50 years of DC universe history in order to streamline it.
Wolfman was also involved in the DC Comics relaunch of the Superman line, reinventing nemesis Lex Luthor and initially scripting the Adventures of Superman title.
After Pérez left The New Teen Titans in 1986, Wolfman continued with other collaborators — including pencillers Jose Luis Garcia Lopez, Eduardo Barreto and Tom Grummett— but never enjoyed the same level of commercial or critical success. It was around this time that Wolfman had begun a brief run on the Batman titles, most notably creating Robin III Tim Drake and writing an anniversary adaptation of the first ever Batman story which was printed along with two other adaptations and the original.
Wolfman got into disputes with DC over a proposed ratings system,Cite error: Closing </ref> missing for <ref> tag
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