Dennis O'Neil

Dennis Joseph O'Neil (May 3, 1939 – June 11, 2020) was an American comic book writer and editor, principally for Marvel Comics and DC Comics from the 1960s through the 1990s, and Group Editor for the Batman family of titles until his retirement.

His best-known works include Green Lantern/Green Arrow and Batman with Neal Adams.

O'Neil was born into an Irish Catholic household in St. Louis, Missouri on May 3, 1939.

On Sunday afternoons he would accompany his father or his grandfather to the store for some light groceries and an occasional comic book.

For Batman, the team are credited with returning the Batman character to his dark gothic roots, in contrast to the campy Batman television series of the 1960s.

However, comics historian Les Daniels considers O'Neil's "vengeful obsessive-compulsive" Batman to be an original interpretation that has influenced all subsequent portrayals of the character.

It was during this run that O'Neil co-created the Batman villains Ra's al Ghul and Talia al Ghul.

During their Green Lantern/Green Arrow run, O'Neil and Adams introduced a mature, realistic tone through stories such as "Snowbirds Don't Fly", in which Green Arrow's young ward Roy "Speedy" Harper is revealed to have become addicted to drugs.

O'Neil graduated from Saint Louis University around the turn of the 1960s with a degree centered on English literature, creative writing, and philosophy.

From there he joined the U.S. Navy just in time to participate in the blockade of Cuba during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

After leaving the Navy, O'Neil moved on to a job with a newspaper in Cape Girardeau, Missouri.

O'Neil wrote bi-weekly columns for the youth page, and during the slow summer months he filled the space with a series on the revival of the comics industry.

This attracted the attention of Roy Thomas, who would eventually himself become one of the great names in the history of the medium.

When Roy Thomas left DC Comics to work for Stan Lee at Marvel Comics, he suggested that O'Neil take the Marvel writer's test, which involved adding dialogue to a wordless four-page excerpt of a Fantastic Four comic.

O'Neil's entry resulted in Lee offering O'Neil a job.

O'Neil had never considered writing for comics, and later said he'd done the test "kind of as a joke. I had a couple of hours on a Tuesday afternoon, so instead of doing crossword puzzles, I did the writer's test."

He had intended to only work in the comics industry for six months to make some extra money, but soon found enjoyment from creating comic book scripts, and abandoned his plans to move back to the Midwest to be a journalist.

When Marvel's expansion made it impossible for Lee to continue writing the company's entire line of books, Lee passed as much on to Roy Thomas as he could, but still needed writers, so O'Neil took the reins for a short-term run of Doctor Strange stories in Strange Tales, penning six issues.

He also wrote dialog for such titles as Rawhide Kid and Millie the Model, as well as scripting the final 13 pages of Daredevil #18 over a plot by Lee, when Lee went on vacation.

O'Neil and artist Neal Adams revived the Professor X character in X-Men #65 in one of the creative team's earliest collaborations.

The available jobs writing for Marvel petered out fairly quickly, and O'Neil took a job with Charlton Comics under the pseudonym of Sergius O'Shaugnessy.

There he received regular work for a year and a half from Charlton's editor Dick Giordano.

In 1968, Dick Giordano was offered an editorial position at DC Comics and took a number of Charlton freelancers with him, including O'Neil.

O'Neil's first assignments involved two strategies for bolstering DC's sales.

One approach centered on the creation of new characters, and O'Neil scripted several issues of Beware The Creeper, a series starring a new hero, The Creeper, created by artist Steve Ditko.

From there, DC moved O'Neil to Wonder Woman and Justice League of America.

With artist Mike Sekowsky, he took away Wonder Woman's powers, exiled her from the Amazon community, and set her off, uncostumed, into international intrigues with her blind mentor, I Ching.

These changes did not sit well with Wonder Woman's older fans, particularly feminists, and O'Neil later acknowledged that de-powering DC's most well-known superheroine had unintentionally alienated readers.

In Justice League, he had more success, introducing into that title the first socially and politically themed stories, setting the stage for later work on Green Lantern/Green Arrow.

He and artist Dick Dillin made several changes to the membership of the JLA by removing founding members the Martian Manhunter and Wonder Woman.

Following the lead set by Bob Haney and Neal Adams in a Brave and the Bold story that visually redefined Green Arrow into the version that appeared in comics between 1969 and 1986, O'Neil stripped him of his wealth and playboy status, making him an urban hero.

They also created and introduced the Green Lantern character John Stewart in 1971.

While working for Marvel, O'Neil scripted issues for The Amazing Spider-Man, Iron Man, and Daredevil during the 1980s.

As an editor, he is principally known for editing the various Batman titles beginning in 1986 after returning to DC.

In 1989, O'Neil launched the Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight series, and was the writer for the "Shaman" and "Venom" stories.

In the late 1990s, O'Neil taught a comics writing course at Manhattan's School of Visual Arts.

He also sat on the board of directors of the charity The Hero Initiative and served on its Disbursement Committee.

O'Neil led the Batman creative teams for the Batman: Knightfall (1993–1994) story arc. O'Neil co-created the antihero Azrael (Jean-Paul Valley) in 1992, who temporarily became the new Batman during Knightfall.

After the storyline's conclusion, O'Neil was the writer for an Azrael monthly series that had 100 issues.

His other notable work includes creating Richard Dragon with Jim Berry, and runs on The Shadow with Michael Kaluta and The Question with Denys Cowan.