Writers that shaped the DC Universe

[Wind-Breaker]

I’ve made this thread on both Marvel/DC boards, because I’m trying to get an idea of what writers are driving the major events in each publication. Many of the events of a publishing company are mostly driven by the work of writers and editors. But just focusing on the work of the writers, in the past 5 years who are the top 5 writers (put them in order if you can) who’s stories have had the most impact on the DC Universe and why?

Here are a few writers off the top of my head:

Geoff Johns- Infinite Crisis, Green Lantern, Justice Society, 52

Grant Morrison: Batman, 52, Final Crisis

Brad Meltzer- Identity Crisis, Justice League

Gail Simone- Villains United, Wonder Woman, Birds of Prey

Paul Dini- Detective, Countdown

[carabas]

I'd say that Jack Kirby is definitely still influencing the DCU in major ways.

I'd take Paul Dini off the list though, since his Detective comics isn't exactly a major influence on anything, and the same can pretty much be said for Coutndown, in so far that the book isn't a big pile of editorial mandates and an exercise in setting up the board for Final Crisis.

Brad Meltzer: Identity Crisis is indeed majorly influential, but his JLA was pure fluff.

Also:
Greg Rucka: 52, Checkmate.
Mark Waid: 52, JLA (The Tower Of Babel is what set Batman on the path of creating Brother I).
Marv Wolfman (if Infinite Crisis is relevant, then so id Crisis On Infinite Earths).

[Tetsuo_man]

I'd say Gardner Fox and Bill Finger would both fit up there as well as len wein and gerry conway.

[Jack Zodiac]

In the past five years? The top five influencial creators have been Grant Morrison, Geoff Johns, Rucka, Waid, and Keith Giffen. Without question.

Of all time? Jack Kirby. Denny O'Neil. Julie Schwartz. Mort Weisinger. Alan Moore.

[HouseSolo]

In the past five years? The top five influencial creators have been Grant Morrison, Geoff Johns, Rucka, Waid, and Keith Giffen. Without question.

Of all time? Jack Kirby. Denny O'Neil. Julie Schwartz. Mort Weisinger. Alan Moore.

Would you really say Alan Moore was that influential though? He was great, do't get me wrong, but I don't see a lot of his work having a major effect on the ongoings of the DCU.

As for Grant Morrison I'd also add DC One Million to that list. He's shown time and time again that he loves that story, and I wouldn't be surprised to see him try and make it legitimate continuity.

[Superbeast]

Would you really say Alan Moore was that influential though? He was great, do't get me wrong, but I don't see a lot of his work having a major effect on the ongoings of the DCU.

You do realise the entire "Blackest Night" storyline they are building to in the GL books has spun out of an Alan Moore story? Or Superboy Prime being influenced by Kid Miracleman? What about The Killing Joke being cited by fans, directors, actors and fellow comic industry folk as one the stories that defined the dynamic between Batman and The Joker, in turn making it one of reference materials for both the first and next Batman movie? What about Watchmen basically raising the bar, mixing narrative mediums and removing many limitations that comics had imposed on themselves by abandoning more classic pulp elements to cater to kids? What about his work on Swamp Thing reviving interest in characters like The Phantom Stranger and The Spectre, who were neglected and poorly used for many years before but are now considered two of the most important figures in the DCU due to being part of the Quintessence? What about Moore's success opening the doors for Morrison and Gaiman in the US industry? Moore's influence is still felt in the DCU.

[Jack Zodiac]

"Tygers" and The Killing Joke and Miracleman aside, Alan Moore's pretty much solely responsible for the last twenty-five years of DC's writing tone. Watchmen may not have been set in the DC Universe, but the way he wrote that laid all the bricks Miller needed to walk down when he wrote Batman, for DC to create Vertigo, for the company as a whole to take a turn towards more mature themes. And I put him on that list with two other people, Julius Schwartz and Jack Kirby, knowing that all three men were the strongest influences on the greatest writer DC has in employ today, Grant Morrison.

So yes, Alan Moore. Top Five. Easy.

Also, they've been picking at the buffet that was his Twilight of the Gods pitch for over fifteen years now.

[carabas]

As for Grant Morrison I'd also add DC One Million to that list. He's shown time and time again that he loves that story, and I wouldn't be surprised to see him try and make it legitimate continuity.Just mentioning that DC One Milion is legitimate continuity.

[Pinnacle]

Mark Waid should also be cited not just for 52 and JLA but for Kingdom Come as well since it's appearing to integrate itself into the new multiverse via Johns' Justice Society.

[Jack Zodiac]

True, even if he hadn't written in within the past five years, it's come up quite a bit recently. But again, I think you can credit elements of Kingdom Come to Moore's Twilight of the Gods proposal, too.

[Superbeast]

I'll agree on Waid and also throw in Chuck Dixon and John Byrne.

[Slaughter]

Recent writers?

Geoff Johns, Greg Rucka, Mark Waid, Grant Morrison, Keith Giffen, Jim Starlin and Kurt Busiek are the most important ones, no doubt.

Old writers?

Jack Kirby, Elliot S! Maggin, Alan Moore, Dan Jurgens. Of course, THE KING is above all. All hail the king!!

[JCAll]

You do realise the entire "Blackest Night" storyline they are building to in the GL books has spun out of an Alan Moore story? [b[Or Superboy Prime being influenced by Kid Miracleman? What about The Killing Joke being cited by fans, directors, actors and fellow comic industry folk as one the stories that defined the dynamic between Batman and The Joker, in turn making it one of reference materials for both the first and next Batman movie?[/b[ What about Watchmen basically raising the bar, mixing narrative mediums and removing many limitations that comics had imposed on themselves by abandoning more classic pulp elements to cater to kids? What about his work on Swamp Thing reviving interest in characters like The Phantom Stranger and The Spectre, who were neglected and poorly used for many years before but are now considered two of the most important figures in the DCU due to being part of the Quintessence? What about Moore's success opening the doors for Morrison and Gaiman in the US industry? Moore's influence is still felt in the DCU.

So he influences one of the lamest characters ever and single handedly made Batman comics unreadable? Go Alan More :cool:

Though I admit his stunning influence over DC, and the writing in comics in general, I gleefully disagree with any positive response to his work of the direction he set things in. With the exception of Swanp Thing and a few Superman issues everything he reads in absolute crap.

Yes, I realize I'm the only person on Earth that feels this way. Feel free to vent your frustration. Everyone else does...

(Note: I'm using the cool smiley cause it's the only one I can stand anymore.)

[Pinnacle]

So he influences one of the lamest characters ever and single handedly made Batman comics unreadable? Go Alan More :cool:

Though I admit his stunning influence over DC, and the writing in comics in general, I gleefully disagree with any positive response to his work of the direction he set things in. With the exception of Swanp Thing and a few Superman issues everything he reads in absolute crap.

Yes, I realize I'm the only person on Earth that feels this way. Feel free to vent your frustration. Everyone else does...

(Note: I'm using the cool smiley cause it's the only one I can stand anymore.)

Watchmen is crap?!?!!!!!!!!! That's like all kinds of fanboy heresy.

[Superbeast]

So he influences one of the lamest characters ever and single handedly made Batman comics unreadable? Go Alan More :cool:



Kid Miracleman was the blueprint for the resentful, disturbed, blame displacing younger version of a classic archetypal hero. Kid Miracleman's assault on London made Superboy Prime's actions during Infinite Crisis look like a day at the fair. However it seems you're not exactly of the mentality that Moore is a quality writer who expanded on ideas abandoned by others or pushed boundaries of the comic medium, instead seeking to make derisive comments at his expense, likely without reading the source material cited for the comparison.

Also, you are apparently one of the few people who didn't find The Killing Joke a testament to the Joker's sadistic mean streak to try prove his point, which showed Batman and Commissioner Gordon to be true heroes made of sterner stuff than The Joker. In doing so, the story served as evidence further delineating the difference between them and the villains they have dealt with, that for all the traumas they have endured, Gordon being the example pressed in the story and Batman's loss of his parents in the past, they didn't crack, they accepted, adapted, fought back and continue to do so, even though Batman and The Joker are arguably equally disturbed as the final page attests to.

Good for you. :rolleyes:

Thanks for not adding any candidates as the OP requested by the way.

[Sir Tim Drake]

No one has mentioned Jerry Siegel yet?!

[Pinnacle]

No one has mentioned Jerry Siegel yet?!

The original post referred to the last five years and people started adding writers whose story ideas have influenced current story ideas. I don't think anyone would argue against Siegel's creation of Superman as having a very profound effect on the DCU. Or are you perhaps refering to the death of Kon-El due to the litigation with the Siegel estate? Or you may know something I don't since your knowledge of classic comics is far better than mine.

[JCAll]

Watchmen is crap?!?!!!!!!!!! That's like all kinds of fanboy heresy.

Everyone being an unlikeable dick to everyone else, NOBODY doing ANYTHING but the villain until the very end where it was too late to do any good anyway, and just when it looks like something interesting is happening it cuts to some pirate comic.

The only good parts were the scenes with the old heroes, Rorschach's constant monologs, and the big twist.

Then again, I still read Countdown, so what to I know about quality...

[JCAll]

Kid Miracleman was the blueprint for the resentful, disturbed, blame displacing younger version of a classic archetypal hero. Kid Miracleman's assault on London made Superboy Prime's actions during Infinite Crisis look like a day at the fair. However it seems you're not exactly of the mentality that Moore is a quality writer who expanded on ideas abandoned by others or pushed boundaries of the comic medium, instead seeking to make derisive comments at his expense, likely without reading the source material cited for the comparison.

Also, you are apparently one of the few people who didn't find The Killing Joke a testament to the Joker's sadistic mean streak to try prove his point, which showed Batman and Commissioner Gordon to be true heroes made of sterner stuff than The Joker. In doing so, the story served as evidence further delineating the difference between them and the villains they have dealt with, that for all the traumas they have endured, Gordon being the example pressed in the story and Batman's loss of his parents in the past, they didn't crack, they accepted, adapted, fought back and continue to do so, even though Batman and The Joker are arguably equally disturbed as the final page attests to.

Good for you. :rolleyes:

Thanks for not adding any candidates as the OP requested by the way.

Killing Joke was okay. It just ruined the Joker. Now the only thing the joker does is randomly show and kill someone, laugh, and wonder off until next time when he'll really just do the same thing. There used to be punchlines after the Joker did something like that, but personally I think he's laughing at just how bad he's being written by people trying to copy the Killing Joke. He took an icon down a path that eventually lead straight into the ground because nobody has the guts to break the mold wet up in Killing Joke. Which is no real fault of Moore's, so much as the industry, but still...

I admit to knowing squat about Kid Miracleman, but I'm pretty sure him and SBP aren't portrayed in any way similar, until the whole Infinite Crisis, which sucked and produced numerous sucky versions of characters that didn't used to suck. I blame virtually everyone for letting that happen :-(

I've got no real beef with Alan Moore, I guess, he's just not my style.
But, and after hearing how much everyone loves something you can't stand for too long it grates on the nerves and you start to hate things you were only mildly displeased with.

I think it's a psychological problem. I wonder what the technical term for "Fanboy" is :cool:

[JCAll]

EDIT: Double post. My fault.

I shall use this space instead to congratulate Keith Giffen on his recent work. Namely helping to turn in a big name weekly comic for the past two years. I trend which DC is probably going to continue for the foreseeable future.

[Jack Zodiac]

No one has mentioned Jerry Siegel yet?!

While I appreciate the crap out of Siegel and Shuster creating Superman (and Dr. Occult and Zatara), after his creation, a lot of people did much more amazing things with the character than his creators, chief among them Julie Schwartz and Elliot S! Maggin. Still, ya' have to appreciate the minds that imagined our beloved superheroes: Siegel and Shuster, Finger and Kane, Lee and Kirby and Ditko. They're all legends.

Then again, I still read Countdown, so what to I know about quality...

SELF-BURN!

Watchmen wasn't about superheroes, and I think the people that go into it expecting "the greatest superhero story ever told" would be sorely disappointed. What it was about was Cold War hysteria and paranoia and morality and necessity. It was great on a bunch of levels besides being a superhero story, which is why people read it, don't like or don't understand it, and consider it overrated.

As for Kid Miracleman and Superboy-Prime, the parallels are there, but more accurately, Superboy-Prime is behaving how Moore's Superboy would have behaved in Twilight of the Gods, save for the fanboyish attitude driving his quest for the perfect Earth and dismissal of his crimes. Moore's Superboy in Twilight was supposed to be a homicidal hedonistic psycho.

[rZi]

If the DCU was a car...

Geoff Johns has the keys to it.

[rZi]

If the DCU was a car...

Geoff Johns has the keys to it.

[dancj]

Watchmen may not have been set in the DC Universe, but the way he wrote that laid all the bricks Miller needed to walk down when he wrote Batman,
That might have been true if Watchmen pre-dated The Dark Knight Returns or if they were anything like each other, but it didn't and they weren't.

[4thHorseman]

Also, they've been picking at the buffet that was his Twilight of the Gods pitch for over fifteen years now.

Couldn't this be just linear thinking? Plenty of writers have ideas that seem similar though go different ways.

Plus, wasn't it called Twilight of the Superheroes? Twilight of the Gods was a play he based the name off of

[Jack Zodiac]

That might have been true if Watchmen pre-dated The Dark Knight Returns or if they were anything like each other, but it didn't and they weren't.

I was thinking more like when Miller wrote post-Crisis Batman, but yeah, I suppose he was already on that path anyway. Regardless, Moore's done more to raise to actual maturity of mainstream comics than practically any other writer (note: maturity, not "maturity.")

Couldn't this be just linear thinking? Plenty of writers have ideas that seem similar though go different ways.

Plus, wasn't it called Twilight of the Superheroes? Twilight of the Gods was a play he based the name off of

Yeah, Twilight of the Superheroes. And some of the ideas, maybe, like the general idea of superhero civil war, but some of the more specific ideas, like an insane Superboy, are a little too coincidental to have not been cherry picked by other editors and writers.

[Dr. Mid-Nite III]

To me, definitely Grant Morrison, Geoff Johns, Greg Rucka, Brad Meltzer and Alex Ross. Yes, I know Ross isn't exactely a writer, but I think he had a very big influence on the DC lately with his designs, ideas and stuff. He seems to be the one the big guns at DC are always going to for advice and feedback (Johns above all else), on top of designs. Also Darwyn Cooke's New Frontier, despite being an elseworld, has influenced the DCU a lot I believe (take Hal Jordan's depiction, it fits perfectly with John's take on the GL regular series).

[niall mc cann]

Watchmen wasn't about superheroes, and I think the people that go into it expecting "the greatest superhero story ever told" would be sorely disappointed. What it was about was Cold War hysteria and paranoia and morality and necessity. It was great on a bunch of levels besides being a superhero story, which is why people read it, don't like or don't understand it, and consider it overrated.

Yeah, I totally admit I just didn't get Watchmen when I read it first.

It's a superhero story, in that it has superheroes in it, but in it's heart it's really a kind of intensely psychological political thriller.

Except that it does have an insane genius trying to take over the world, kind of... It's a complicated beast.

Brilliant, though.

[Erebus]

I’ve made this thread on both Marvel/DC boards, because I’m trying to get an idea of what writers are driving the major events in each publication. Many of the events of a publishing company are mostly driven by the work of writers and editors. But just focusing on the work of the writers, in the past 5 years who are the top 5 writers (put them in order if you can) who’s stories have had the most impact on the DC Universe and why?

Here are a few writers off the top of my head:

Geoff Johns- Infinite Crisis, Green Lantern, Justice Society, 52

Grant Morrison: Batman, 52, Final Crisis

Brad Meltzer- Identity Crisis, Justice League

Gail Simone- Villains United, Wonder Woman, Birds of Prey

Paul Dini- Detective, Countdown
I don't think Simone or Dini should be on that list. Both are fantastic writers who remind me why I love comics, but neither has anything that has fundamentally altered the DCU.

[niall mc cann]

No one has mentioned Jerry Siegel yet?!

What's he done for me lately?

[earl]

Maybe it is because I was a huge DC fan in the 80s and have just gotten caught up in the past couple of years, but it seems to me that current DC is almost trying to capture some of the magic that they had going around the first Crisis and all.

Mogo from the Green Lantern books is an Alan Moore creation. I think the way that he and Steve Englehart wrote the idea of the "Green Lantern Corps" are huge influence on the current Johns' run. I was a big fan of the Green Lantern book in the 80s and to me, I think Johns almost reset the titles basically back to that time and picks up where it left off. Guy Gardner had been around for years, but the way Englehart used the character is when he became really popular especially in the 80s Justice League.

I'm kind of surprised that DC has not tried to capitalize on the popularity of Green Lantern by making a trade paperback featuring some stories from that period.

Obviously Marv Wolfman (often with George Perez) has a huge shadow on the DC Universe from the original CRISIS, Titans, Deathstroke, Nightwing, Robin III (Tim Drake) etc.

John Ostrander (some with Kim Yale) also has the creation of Oracle, Amanda Waller and the Suicide Squad, all of which have deep ties into current story lines.

I think Geoff Johns also keys off quite a bit of what Roy Thomas and Jerry Ordway did on All Star Squadron and Infinity Inc., exactly what is continuity from those stories is debatable, but I think those are definitely underneath the current Justice Society run.

[Ontir]

As always, Kieth Giffen has to be at the top of the list. Even if he's doing something that the entire company moves to un-do, he's still the catalyst, and one way or another, one of the most creative minds in the industry.

Grant Morrison IS the Brainiac Five of comic writing. His throw-away ideas are more interesting than most people's hardest work, and when he really puts his mind to something it's astounding.

James Robinson re-defined the Golden Age, then brought it forward in Star Man, which continues to be highly influential.

Geoff Johns has made a career of (as I said elsewhere recently) pulling diamonds out of dung. The fact that Raven IS a viable character today is amazing, because frankly, Wolfman really F()%#@ her up! What he pulled out of the mess that was Hawkman(s) - while drawing Nabu/Dr. Fate and Black Adam together, forming an important new bit of past history for the DCU was amazing. He has routinely fixed the mistakes of Crisis, far more elegantly and less convolutedly than any 10 writers - had only he been writing for DC immediately post-Crisis!!!

[JCAll]

As always, Kieth Giffen has to be at the top of the list. Even if he's doing something that the entire company moves to un-do, he's still the catalyst, and one way or another, one of the most creative minds in the industry.

Only one man can make a book so universally reviled, and yet have people come back to ever WEEK for an entire YEAR. And that man is Keith Giffen, damn him and bless him at the same time.

[Jack Zodiac]

Plus, you have to admire a crazy old bastard who's willingly subject himself to that twice. Also while writing and playing head editor to a whole other big crossover event in Marvel. The man's... obviously quite insane.