Gerry Conway

Gerard Francis Conway (born September 10, 1952) is an American comic book writer, comic book editor, screenwriter, television writer, and television producer.

He is known for co-creating the Marvel Comics vigilante antihero the Punisher as well as the Scarlet Spider (Ben Reilly), and the first Ms. Marvel, and also writing the death of the character Gwen Stacy during his long run on The Amazing Spider-Man in the story arc, "The Night Gwen Stacy Died".

At DC Comics, he is known for co-creating the superheroes Firestorm, Power Girl, Jason Todd, and the villain Killer Croc, and for writing the Justice League of America for eight years.

Conway wrote the first major, modern-day intercompany crossover, Superman vs. the Amazing Spider-Man.

Born in Brooklyn, New York, New York, Conway grew up a comic fan; a letter from him appears in Fantastic Four #50 (May 1966), written when Conway was 13.

He attended New York University for a time.

He published his first professional comic book work at 16, with the 61⁄2-page horror story "Aaron Philips' Photo Finish" in DC Comics' House of Secrets #81 (Sept. 1969).

He continued selling such anthological stories for that series and for Marvel's Chamber of Darkness and Tower of Shadows through the end of 1970, by which time he had also published one-page text short stories in DC's All-Star Western #1 (Sept. 1970) and Super DC Giant #S-14 (Oct. 1970).

He published his first continuing-character story in DC's semi-anthological occult comic The Phantom Stranger #10 (Dec. 1970).

Conway recalled breaking into Marvel Comics through Marvel editor Roy Thomas:

"I'd been writing for DC Comics for two or three years...but to paraphrase the joke about the actor's ambitions to be a director, what I really wanted to do was write superheroes – specifically Marvel heroes. Through friends I'd become acquainted with Roy Thomas, who was Stan Lee's right-hand man at the time, and Roy offered me a shot at the Marvel 'writing test.' Stan wasn't impressed, but Roy liked what I did, and began throwing some short assignments my way, including scripting over his plot on an early Ka-Zar [story]."

Following his first continuing-character story for Marvel, with his script for the jungle lord Ka-Zar in Astonishing Tales #3 (Dec. 1970), Conway began writing superhero stories with Daredevil #72 (Jan. 1971).

He quickly went on to assignments on Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, and both "The Inhumans" and "The Black Widow" features in the split book Amazing Adventures.

He scripted the first Man-Thing story, in 1971, sharing co-creation credit with Stan Lee and Roy Thomas.

Conway eventually scripted virtually every major Marvel title, and co-created (with writers Roy & Jean Thomas and artist Mike Ploog) the lycanthropic lead character of the feature "Werewolf by Night", in Marvel Spotlight #2 (Feb. 1972); he also wrote the premiere issue of Marvel's The Tomb of Dracula, introducing the longstanding literary vampire into the Marvel universe.

At 19, Conway began scripting The Amazing Spider-Man, succeeding Stan Lee as writer of one of Marvel's flagship titles.

His run, from issues #111–149 (August 1972 – October 1975), included the landmark death of Gwen Stacy story in #121 (June 1973).

Eight issues later, Conway and Andru introduced the Punisher as a conflicted antagonist for Spider-Man, as well as the Jackal.

The Punisher became a popular star of numerous comic books and has been adapted into three movies and a live action television series.

In late 1972, Conway and writers Steve Englehart and Len Wein crafted a metafictional unofficial crossover spanning titles from both major comics companies.

Each comic featured Englehart, Conway, and Wein, as well as Wein's first wife Glynis, interacting with Marvel or DC characters at the Rutland Halloween Parade in Rutland, Vermont.

Beginning in Amazing Adventures #16 (by Englehart with art by Bob Brown and Frank McLaughlin), the story continued in Justice League of America #103 (by Wein, Dick Dillin and Dick Giordano), and concluded in Thor #207 (by Conway and penciler John Buscema).

Conway additionally wrote Fantastic Four, from #133–152 (April 1973 – Nov. 1974).

Conway returned to DC Comics in mid-1975, beginning with three books cover-dated Nov. 1975: Hercules Unbound #1, Kong the Untamed #3, and Swamp Thing #19.

He wrote a revival of the Golden Age comic book series All Star Comics which introduced the character Power Girl.

Shortly afterward, he was chosen by Marvel and DC editors to script the historic intercompany crossover Superman vs. the Amazing Spider-Man #1, a 96-page, tabloid-sized, $2 one-shot, at a time when comic books sold for 25 cents.

Conway briefly returned to Marvel where he succeeded Marv Wolfman as editor-in-chief in March 1976, but held the job only "about a month-and-a-half," relinquishing the post and being succeeded by Archie Goodwin.

For a time, a confluence of publishing schedules resulted in Conway stories appearing in both Marvel and DC comics in the same month: The prolific Conway's comic books with January 1977 cover-dates alone, for example, are Marvel's The Avengers, The Defenders, Captain Marvel, Iron Man, The Spectacular Spider-Man, and the premiere issues of Ms. Marvel and Logan's Run, and Superman and Action Comics.

After leaving Marvel's editorship, he again wrote exclusively for DC for the next decade writing both major and lesser titles – from those featuring Superman, Wonder Woman, and the Legion of Super-Heroes to such books as Weird Western Tales, Atari Force and Sun Devils.

He had an eight-year run on Justice League of America, writing most issues from #151–255 (Feb. 1978 – Oct. 1986) including the double-sized anniversary issue #200 (March 1982).

Conway wrote two additional Superman projects in the oversized tabloid format, Superman vs. Wonder Woman, drawn by José Luis García-López, and Superman vs. Shazam, drawn by Rich Buckler.

He co-created the characters Firestorm with artist Al Milgrom and Steel, the Indestructible Man with artist Don Heck in the premiere issues (both March 1978) of the respective titular comics.

Two other Conway co-creations, the Deserter (with artist Dick Ayers) and The Vixen (with artist Bob Oksner) were scheduled to receive their own series as well but were canceled before any issues were published.

He additionally co-created the characters Vibe and Gypsy.

As writer of Batman #337–359 (July 1981 – May 1983) and the feature "Batman" in Detective Comics #497–526 (Dec. 1980 – May 1983), he introduced the characters Killer Croc and Jason Todd, the latter of whom became the second Robin, succeeding original sidekick Dick Grayson.

Conway in 2009 reflected on writing flagship Marvel characters at a very young age:

"Precocity is a well-known curse; most of the pressure I felt as a younger writer was self-imposed. I wanted to be accepted by other writers and artists as an equal, which put me in some awkward situations — pretending to be more mature than I was, emotionally and professionally. As it happened, I was pretty good at faking a maturity I didn't have, which had advantages and, obviously, some disadvantages. I think people often forgot how young I was, and expected me to perform at a level that was actually beyond me. The result was, I was pretty stressed for most of my early career as a writer, and I often felt like I had no idea what I was doing —which was true. I wrote instinctively and from the gut; when those instincts were appropriate to the material I was writing – for example, when I was writing [The Amazing] Spider-Man — the results were something I was quite proud of, then and now.

When my instincts were off, I didn't have the experience to either recognize it, or to compensate for it, with results that were more uneven."

As Englehart explained in 2010, "It certainly seemed like a radical concept and we knew that we had to be subtle (laughs) and each story had to stand on its own, but we really worked it out. It's really worthwhile to read those stories back to back to back – it didn't matter to us that one was at DC and two were at Marvel – I think it was us being creative, thinking what would be really cool to do."

He continued writing for DC, on titles including Superman, Detective Comics (starring Batman), Metal Men, Justice League of America, 1st Issue Special #11 starring Codename: Assassin, and that of the licensed character Tarzan.