Len Wein

Leonard Norman Wein (June 12, 1948 – September 10, 2017) was an American comic book writer and editor best known for co-creating DC Comics' Swamp Thing and Marvel Comics' Wolverine, and for helping revive the Marvel superhero team the X-Men (including the co-creation of Nightcrawler, Storm, and Colossus).

Additionally, he was the editor for writer Alan Moore and illustrator Dave Gibbons' influential DC miniseries Watchmen.

Wein was born on June 12, 1948, in New York City, and was raised in a Jewish household.

One of two children of Phillip and Rosalyn (née Bauman) Wein, he lived in The Bronx until age 7, when he moved with his family to Levittown, New York, on Long Island.

There he graduated from Division Avenue High School in 1966, and went on to an art degree from nearby Farmingdale State College.

Wein's first professional comics story was "Eye of the Beholder" in DC's Teen Titans #18 (Dec. 1968), for which he co-created, with Wolfman, Red Star, the first official Russian superhero in the DC universe.

Neal Adams was called upon to rewrite and redraw a Teen Titans story which had been written by Wein and Wolfman.

The story, titled "Titans Fit the Battle of Jericho!", would have introduced DC's first African American superhero but was rejected by publisher Carmine Infantino.

The revised story appeared in Teen Titans #20 (April 1969).

Later that year, Wein was writing anthological mystery stories for DC's The House of Secrets and Marvel's Tower of Shadows and Chamber of Darkness.

He additionally began writing for DC's romance comic Secret Hearts and the company's toyline tie-in Hot Wheels; Skywald Publications' horror-comics magazines Nightmare and Psycho and its short-lived Western comic books The Bravados and The Sundance Kid; and Gold Key Comics' Mod Wheels, Boris Karloff Tales of Mystery, the toyline tie-in Microbots, and the TV-series tie-ins Star Trek and The Twilight Zone.

Wein's first superhero work for Marvel was a one-off story in Daredevil #71 (Dec. 1970) co-written with staff writer/editor Roy Thomas.

In the early 1970s, Wein began writing regularly for Marvel Comics.

Wein later began scripting sporadic issues of such DC superhero titles as Adventure Comics (featuring Supergirl and Zatanna), The Flash, and Superman, while continuing to write anthological mysteries, along with well-received stories for the semi-anthological occult title The Phantom Stranger #14–26 (Aug. 1971 – Sept. 1973).

Wein and artist Bernie Wrightson created the horror character the Swamp Thing in The House of Secrets #92 (July 1971).

Wein wrote the second story featuring Man-Thing (written circa May 1971, published in June 1972), introducing Barbara Morse and the concept that "Whatever Knows Fear Burns at the Man-Thing's Touch!", and later edited Steve Gerber's run on that title.

Wein wrote a well-regarded run of Justice League of America (issues #100–114) wherein, together with artist Dick Dillin, he re-introduced the Seven Soldiers of Victory in issues #100–102 and the Freedom Fighters in issues #107–108.

Over the next several decades, the Swamp Thing would star in DC series and miniseries – including an initial 1972–76 series begun by Wein and Wrightson, and the early 1980s The Saga of the Swamp Thing, edited by Wein and featuring early work by writer Alan Moore—as well as two theatrical films, and a syndicated television series.

In the fall of 1972, Wein and writers Gerry Conway and Steve Englehart 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, Dillin and Dick Giordano), and concluded in Thor #207 (by Conway and penciler John Buscema).

Abigail Arcane, a major supporting character in the character's mythos, was introduced by Wein and Wrightson in Swamp Thing #3 (March 1973).

Libra, a supervillain created by Wein and Dillin in Justice League of America #111 (June 1974), would play a leading role in Grant Morrison's Final Crisis storyline in 2008.

Wein co-created the Human Target with artist Carmine Infantino and wrote the character's appearances as a backup feature in Action Comics, Detective Comics, and The Brave and the Bold.

He succeeded Roy Thomas as editor-in-chief of the color-comics line in 1974, staying a little over a year before handing the reins to Wolfman.

Remaining at Marvel as a writer, Wein had lengthy runs on Marvel Team-Up, The Amazing Spider-Man, The Incredible Hulk, Thor, and Fantastic Four, as well as shorter runs on such titles as The Defenders and "Brother Voodoo".

Wein co-created Wolverine with Roy Thomas, and artist John Romita Sr.. during his run on The Incredible Hulk.

Wein's story "Between Hammer and Anvil" from The Incredible Hulk vol. 2, #182 (Dec. 1974) was later cited in Tony Isabella's book 1,000 Comics You Must Read.

In 1975, he and artist Dave Cockrum revived the Stan Lee / Jack Kirby mutant-superhero team the X-Men after a half-decade's hiatus, reformatting the membership in Giant-Size X-Men #1 (May 1975).

The character was adapted into a short-lived ABC television series starring Rick Springfield which debuted in July 1992, and was briefly revived in 2010 for a two-season series on Fox that starred Mark Valley, Chi McBride, and Jackie Earle Haley.

He briefly wrote the "Batman" feature in Detective Comics and produced a storyline with artist Jim Aparo and in which Batman was framed for the murder of Talia al Ghul and battled Sterling Silversmith for the first time.

In a 2003 interview, Len Wein recalled having been "a very sickly kid. While I was in the hospital at age seven, my dad brought me a stack of comic books to keep me occupied. And I was hooked. When my eighth grade art teacher, Mr. Smedley, told me he thought I had actual art talent, I decided to devote all my efforts in that direction in the hope that I might someday get into the comics biz."

Approximately once a month, as a teenager, Wein and his friend Marv Wolfman took DC Comics' weekly Thursday afternoon tour of the company's offices.

Wolfman was active in fanzine culture, and together he and Wein produced sample superhero stories to show to the DC editorial staff.

At that point, Wein was more interested in becoming an artist than a writer.

Wein's younger brother, Michael, died in 2007.

Wein was inducted into the Will Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame in 2008.

In a 2008 interview, Wein said his origins as an artist have helped him "describe art to an artist so that I can see it all in my own head", and claimed he "used to have artists, especially at DC, guys like Irv Novick and a few of the others, who would come into the office waiting for their next assignment and ask [editor] Julie Schwartz, 'Do you have any Len Wein scripts lying around? He's always easy to draw.'"

DC editor Joe Orlando hired both Wolfman and Wein as freelance writers.

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."