Marvin Arthur "Marv" Wolfman (born May 13, 1946) is an American comic book writer. He is best known for lengthy runs on Marvel Comics The Tomb of Dracula, for which he and artist Gene Colan created the vampire-slayer Blade, and DC Comics' The New Teen Titans and the event limited series Crisis on Infinite Earths with George Pérez.
Early life
Marv Wolfman was born in Brooklyn, New York City, the son of police officer Abe and housewife Fay. He has a sister, Harriet, 12 years older. When Wolfman was 13, his family moved to Flushing, Queens, in New York City, where he attended junior high school. He went on to New York's High School of Art and Design, in Manhattan, hoping to become a cartoonist.
Career
1960s
Wolfman 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 No. 2, 1965.
Wolfman's first published work for DC Comics appeared in Blackhawk No. 242 (Aug.-Sept. 1968). He and longtime friend Len Wein created the character Jonny Double in Showcase No. 78 (Nov. 1968) scripted by Wolfman. The two co-wrote "Eye of the Beholder" in Teen Titans No. 18 (Dec. 1968), which would be Wein's first professional comics credit. 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 No. 20 (Marchâ€"April 1969). Wolfman and Gil Kane created an origin for Wonder Girl in Teen Titans No. 22 (Julyâ€"Aug. 1969) which introduced the character's new costume.
1970s
He and artist Bernie Wrightson co-created Destiny in Weird Mystery Tales No. 1 (Julyâ€"Aug. 1972), a character which would later be used in the work of Neil Gaiman.
In 1972, Wolfman moved to Marvel Comics as a protégé of then-editor Roy Thomas. When Thomas stepped down, Wolfman eventually took over as editor, initially in charge of the publisher's black-and-white magazines, then finally the color line of comics. Wolfman said in 1981 that, "Marvel never gave [its] full commitment to" the black-and-white line. "No one wanted to commit themselves to the staff." He added, "We used to farm the books out to Harry Chester Studios [sic] and whatever they pasted up, they pasted up. I formed the first production staff, hired the first layout people, paste-up people." Wolfman stepped down as editor-in-chief in order to spend more time writing.
He and artist Gene Colan crafted The Tomb of Dracula, a horror comic that became "one of the most critically-acclaimed horror-themed comic books ever". Durimg their run on this series, they created Blade, a character who would later be portrayed by actor Wesley Snipes in a film trilogy.
Wolfman co-created Bullseye in Daredevil No. 131 (March 1976). He and artist John Buscema created Nova in that character's eponymous first issue. Wolfman and Gil Kane adapted Edgar Rice Burroughs' Barsoom concepts into comics in Marvel's John Carter, Warlord of Mars series. Wolfman wrote 14 issues of Marvel Two-in-One starting with issue No. 25 (March 1977). The Spider-Woman series was launched in April 1978 by Wolfman and artist Carmine Infantino. As the first regular writer on Spider-Woman, he redesigned the character, giving her a human identity as Jessica Drew. Wolfman succeeded Len Wein as writer of The Amazing Spider-Man and in his first issue, No. 182 (July 1978), had Peter Parker propose marriage to Mary Jane Watson who refused, in the following issue. Wolfman and Keith Pollard introduced the likable rogue the Black Cat (Felicia Hardy) in The Amazing Spider-Man No. 194 (July 1979).
In 1978, Wolfman and artist Alan Kupperberg took over the Howard the Duck syndicated newspaper comic strip. While writing the Fantastic Four, Wolfman and John Byrne introduced a new herald for Galactus named Terrax in No. 211 (Oct. 1979). A Godzilla story by Wolfman and Steve Ditko was changed into a Dragon Lord story published in Marvel Spotlight vol. 2 No. 5 (March 1980). The creature that the Dragon Lord battled was intended to be Godzilla but since Marvel no longer had the rights to the character (which lapsed the previous year) the creature was modified to a dragon called The Wani.
1980s
The New Teen Titans
In 1980, Wolfman returned to DC after a dispute with Marvel. Teaming with penciller George Pérez, Wolfman relaunched DC's Teen Titans in a special preview in DC Comics Presents No. 26 (October 1980). 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. In August 1984, a second series of The New Teen Titans was launched by Wolfman and Pérez.
Other projects by Wolfman for DC during the early 1980s included collaborating with artist Gil Kane on a run on the Superman feature in Action Comics; a revival of Dial H for Hero with Carmine Infantino; launching Night Force, a supernatural series drawn by Gene Colan; and a nearly two-year run on Green Lantern with Joe Staton. During their collaboration on that series, Wolfman and Staton created the Omega Men in Green Lantern No. 141 (June 1981).
After Pérez left The New Teen Titans in 1985, Wolfman continued for many years with other collaborators â€" including pencillers José Luis GarcÃa-López, Eduardo Barreto and Tom Grummett. In December 1986, Wolfman was informed by Marvel writer Chris Claremont that a DC executive had approached Claremont at a holiday party and offered him the position of writer on The New Teen Titans. Claremont immediately declined the offer and told Wolfman that apparently the publisher was looking to replace him on the title. When Wolfman confronted DC executives about this, he was told it was "just a joke", although Claremont reiterated that he took it to be a credible and official offer.
Crisis on Infinite Earths
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. After finishing Crisis, Wolfman and Pérez produced the History of the DC Universe limited series to summarize the company's new history.
Wolfman was involved in the relaunch of the Superman line as well, reinventing nemesis Lex Luthor and initially scripting the Adventures of Superman title with Jerry Ordway as the Artist. During this period they Introduced Bibbo Bibbowski and Professor Emil Hamilton.
Ratings dispute
Wolfman got into a public dispute with DC over a proposed ratings system, which led to his being relieved of his editorial duties by the company. DC offered to reinstate Wolfman as an editor provided he apologize for making his criticism of the ratings system public, rather than keeping them internal to the company, but he declined to do so.
1990s
Wolfman had a brief run on Batman, 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. He continued as The New Titans writer and revitalized the series with artist Tom Grummett. Wolfman wrote the series until the title's last issue. However, in the 1990s Wolfman's writing for comics decreased as he turned to animation and television, though he wrote the mid-1990s DC series The Man Called A-X.
Disney career
In the early-1990s, Wolfman worked at Disney Comics publishing. He wrote scripts for a seven parts DuckTales story (Scrooge's Quest), as well as several others â€" with the characters from the Mickey Mouse universe â€" that appeared in Mickey Mouse Adventures. He was editor of the comics section on the Disney Adventures magazine, at the first years of the publication.
Beast Machines: Transformers
In the late 1990s, Wolfman developed the Transformers TV series Beast Machines, which aired on Fox Kids for two seasons from 1999â€"2000. The show was a direct continuation of the immensely popular Beast Wars series, which itself was a continuation of the original Generation One Transformers show. Beast Machines was met with mixed reviews, as the show was praised for its deep story, but was criticized for its lack of action in comparison to other Transformers shows. Previously, in the 80s, Wolfman authored the story for Optimus Prime's return in The Return of Optimus Prime of the third season of Transformers.
2000s
A decade later, Wolfman began writing in comics again, scripting Defex, the flagship title of Devil's Due Productions' Aftermath line. He wrote an "Infinite Crisis" issue of DC's "Secret Files", and consulted with writer Geoff Johns on several issues of The Teen Titans. Wolfman wrote a novel based on Crisis on Infinite Earths, but rather than following the original plot, he created a new story starring the Barry Allen Flash that takes place during the original Crisis story. Wolfman wrote the novelization of the film Superman Returns, and worked on a direct-to-video animated movie, Condor, for Stan Lee's Pow Entertainment.
In 2006, Wolfman was editorial director of Impact Comics (no relation to the DC Comics imprint), publisher of educational manga-style comics for high school students. That same year, starting with issue No. 125, Wolfman began writing DC's Nightwing series. Initially scheduled for a four-issue run, Wolfman's run was expanded to a baker's dozen issues, and finished with No. 137. During the course of his run, Wolfman introduced a new Vigilante character. Following Wolfman's departure from the pages of Nightwing, Vigilante was spun off into his own short-lived title, which Wolfman wrote. He wrote a miniseries starring the Teen Titan Raven, a character he and George Pérez co-created during their run on The New Teen Titans, helping to revamp and update the character. He is working with Pérez on a direct-to-DVD movie adaptation of the popular "Judas Contract" storyline from their tenure on Teen Titans. In 2011, he and Pérez completed the New Teen Titans: Games graphic novel, which they had begun working on in the late 1980s. Wolfman revived his Night Force series with artist Tom Mandrake in 2012. He served as writing consultant on the video game Epic Mickey 2: The Power of Two, which he was nominated for a Writers Guild of America Award for Outstanding Achievement in Videogame Writing.
Marvel lawsuit
In 1998, on the eve of the impending release of the Blade motion picture, Wolfman sued Marvel Comics over ownership of the Blade character, a lawsuit he eventually lost in 2000. According to The Comics Journal, "Wolfman had argued that he had not been bound by any work-for-hire contract at the time he had created the characters in 1972 and that Marvel's subsequent use of the characters had been contingent on his approval. The court ruled, however, that Marvel's later use of the characters was sufficiently different from Wolfman's initial creations to protect it from Wolfman's claim of copyright ownership."
Personal life
Wolfman is married to Noel Watkins. Wolfman was previously married to Michele Wolfman, for many years a colorist in the comics industry. They have a daughter, Jessica Morgan.
Writing credit pioneer
Wolfman, on the panel "Marvel Comics: The Method and the Madness" at the 1974 New York City Comic Art Convention, told the audience that when he first began working for DC Comics, he received DC's first writing credit on its mystery magazines. Gerry Conway, who wrote the horror-host interstitial pages between stories, wrote in one issue that the following story was told by a "wandering Wolfman." The Comics Code Authority, which did not permit the mention of werewolves or wolfmen, demanded it be removed. DC informed the Authority that "Wolfman" was the writer's last name, so the Authority insisted he be given a credit to show the "Wolfman" was a real person. Once Wolfman was given a credit, other writers demanded them as well. Shortly, credits were given to all writers and artists.
Awards
- 1982 Eagle Award for "Best New Book" and 1984 and 1985 Eagle Awards for "Best Group Book" for New Teen Titans.
- A 1979 Inkpot Award in 1979.
- Wolfman's and artist George Pérez's Crisis on Infinite Earths won the 1985 and 1986 Jack Kirby Awards for Best Finite Series.
- In 1985, DC Comics named Wolfman as one of the honorees in the company's 50th anniversary publication Fifty Who Made DC Great.
- Nominated, 1986 Comics' Buyer's Guide Award for Favorite Writer in 1986, and his work on the "Batman: Year Three" story arc in Batman #436â€"439 was nominated Comics' Buyer's Guide Favorite Writer Award in 1990.
- 2007 Scribe Award for "Adapted Speculative Fiction Novel", given by writers of novelization and tie-in fiction for his novel based on Superman Returns.
- 2008 National Jewish Book Award for "Children's and Young Adult Literature", for nonfiction book Homeland, The Illustrated History of the State of Israel.
References
External links
- Official website
- Marv Wolfman at the Comic Book DB
- "DC Profiles #69: Marv Wolfman" at the Grand Comics Database
- Marv Wolfman at Mike's Amazing World of Comics
- Marv Wolfman at the Unofficial Handbook of Marvel Comics Creators
- Comic Geek Speak Podcast Interview (October 2005)
Further reading
- Thompson, Kim. "An interview with Marv Wolfman," The Comics Journal No. 44 (January 1979), pp. 34â€"51.
- Decker, Dwight R. "The New Teen Titans," The Comics Journal No. 79 (January 1982), pp. 86â€"98.
- Groth, Gary and Heidi D. MacDonald. "Marv Wolfman On The New Teen Titans Part 2," The Comics Journal No. 80 (March 1983), pp. 70â€"85.
