Comic book writer Len Wein has died. He’s best known as co-creator of Swamp Thing and did runs for Justice League of America, Spider-Men, Thor, X-Men, the Incredible Hulk* and many other titles.
*Where he created Wolverine.
Dang, I remember when he was the writer of Fantastic Four in the early 70’s. He was also instrumental in getting Alan Moore to write Swamp Thing.
He, Marv Wolfman, Doug Mench, Steve Englehart and Steve Gerber defined mid-70s Marvel and DC.
A nitpick, but Wein created Wolverine when he was working on The Incredible Hulk in 1974. He then brought the character with him when he started writing The X-Men in 1975.
Len Wein co-created the New X-Men with Dave Cockrum,a fact that often gets overlooked, as most fans think Chris Claremont and John Byrne, the long-running creative team that succeeded them, revived the X-Men.
Len was one of the first fans-turned-pros to break into the industry in the mid/late 60s, along with Roy Thomas, Gerry Conway, Marv Wolfman, and others. He did create Wolverine, but did it in the pages of the Incredible Hulk and brought the character with him to X-Men.
He was never really known as a superstar writer (he was a DC editor for a long time), but creating Wolverine and Swamp Thing is certainly a big enough comics legacy.
Never mind any of that; to me, Wein is the guy who created Christopher Chance – aka The Human Target!
I knew him mostly for Swamp Thing. I remember when I first saw it; it was a slow day a work and someone I worked with said I should buy a couple of comic books. As soon as I saw Swamp Thing, I picked it up, because I loved the silliness of the title. Turned out it wasn’t silly at all.
Pfui. I liked his Justice League run.
Another Good One, gone.
I saw a Tweet that said he made more money in royalties from creating Lucius Fox than he did from creating Wolverine. That’s criminal.
That was the normal practice in comic books for decades. You could create a billion dollar character and all you got paid was your weekly salary. The company owned absolute rights to all characters created by its employees. Creator rights didn’t become a thing until the eighties and even then it was a slow development.
*wrong. He created Wolverine in Incredible Hulk (180-181), not X-men. (ninja’d like the Hand was in town!)
So they came into their heyday about the time I quit superhero comics and switched over to MAD, and then the National Lampoon.. Sigh. I always miss the good stuff.
Wein was mentioned in the Final Jeopardy clue on tonight’s episode of Jeopardy!, in the category “Comic Books.” I don’t know how long it is between recording and airing, but that was either a tribute, or a strange coincidence.
Incidentally, Trebek pronounced his last name as “Ween.” I always assumed it was “Wine,” but I looked it up, and apparently “Ween” is correct.
Strange coincidence. The episode was probably recorded at the beginning of summer.
I figured that, but still it’s interesting. Len wasn’t one of the big name comic book writers that everyone has heard of, so it’s funny they would include his name in the clue.
Len’s wife Christine Valada was a four-day Jeopardy! champion a few years ago.