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John Byrne (comics)

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This article is about the comic book writer and artist. For the Victoria Cross recipient, see John Byrne (VC). For the Scottish painter, see John Byrne (Scottish artist).
Uncanny X-Men #135 (1980), cover by Byrne

John Byrne (July 6, 1950 - ) is a British-born Canadian (now naturalised American) author and artist of comic books. Since the mid-1970s Byrne has worked on nearly every major American superhero. His most famous works have been on Marvel Comics's X-Men and Fantastic Four and the 1986 relaunch of DC Comics's Superman franchise. During the 1990s he produced a number of creator owned works including Next Men and Danger Unlimited. He is currently working mainly for DC Comics.

Biography

John Byrne was born on July 6, 1950 near West Bromwich, England. His first exposure to the American superheroes that would dominate his professional life was at the age of six when he first watched The Adventures of Superman on the BBC. In Britain, he was able to read domestic comics such as The Eagle, as well as the occasional DC Comics reprint, but it was not until 1958 when his family migrated to Canada that he first experienced the full breadth of America comic books [1].

His first encounter with Marvel Comics was in 1962 with Stan Lee and Jack Kirby's Fantastic Four #5. He later commented that, "the book had an 'edge' like nothing DC was putting out at the time." [2] Jack Kirby's work in particular had a strong influence on Byrne and he has since chronicled many of the characters Kirby created. This included a stint on the Fantastic Four that is considered by some to be second only to Lee and Kirby's run. Besides Kirby's influence, Byrne has also stated that his early artwork was heavily informed by the realistic style of Neal Adams.

In 1970 Byrne enrolled at the Alberta College of Art and Design in Calgary, but he left shortly before graduation to pursue a career in the comic book industry. At college he produced his first full-length comic story, The Death's Head Knight, as a promotional portfolio of his comic book art. That book was seen by a fellow Canadian comics fan, who put Byrne in contact with both the then burgeoning fanzine community, and Marvel Comics.

Whilst still living in Canada Byrne split his time between working for a local advertising agency and illustrating books for Charlton Comics. It was at this point that Byrne coined the phrase "Byrne Robotics" to credit a group of assistants he occasionally used for his Charlton work, the phrase later being adopted for the artist's official website ("Byrne's Robots", (March 2001), Comic Book Artist #12, pp54).

Byrne began illustrating full-time for Marvel Comics in the mid-70s. He was often paired with writer Chris Claremont and in 1978 Byrne took over the artwork on the Uncanny X-Men from Dave Cockrum. The pairing of Claremont and Byrne on the X-Men is considered both critically and popularly to be one of the high-points, if not the defining run of the series. It was during this period that Byrne moved from Canada to the United States in 1980 when he married the photographer Andréa Braun Byrne.

In the early-1980s Byrne had moved on to other books at Marvel, including the Fantastic Four, but by mid-1980s he had became frustrated with the management style of Jim Shooter, Marvel's then editor-in-chief. In 1986 he accepted an offer from DC Comics to help spearhead the overhaul of their failing Superman franchise. The relaunch was a commercial success and that version of Superman is so strongly identified with the artist that it is sometimes called "John Byrne's Superman".

Byrne returned to Marvel in 1988 where he turned his hand to comedy with the fan favorite Sensational She-Hulk series. In the early 1990s Byrne began produced several creator-owned books (as distinct from working on other people's characters) published through Dark Horse Comics and he eventually left Marvel to devote himself to these books. Byrne collaborated with his ex-wife's son, Kieron Dwyer, on a back-up series called Torch of Liberty in his Danger Unlimited book.

As the 1990s comics bubble burst Byrne returned to DC Comics (1995) and then again went back to Marvel Comics (1999). One of the themes of Byrne's work at this time, and for much of his later career, has been the exploration of untold elements of popular character's origins and histories. Several of his more revisionist works (see discussion on DC Phase II and Marvel Phase III) were not as broadly well received as his other more successful work and some fans disliked his treatment of plots that had been introduced by writers other than the character's creators.

During this time Byrne also began to introduce new elements into his art. He expanded his use of computer models to augment the drafting of cityscapes and scenes. He also began experimenting with diagonal panel arrangements.

John Byrne's work, particularly his later work, as well as his opinions and his relationship with collaborators have all become a subject of interest and debate amongst sections of comic book fandom. These discussions can become heavily polarized by perceptions of Byrne's personality. One interview noted that "Byrne's self-admitted lack of faith in humanity has kept him at arm's length from some and some may take [it] as a narcissistic conceit. He has many an opinion about the lack of vision and leadership for the comic book industry. He is well-informed, literate and not one to suffer fools well." [3]

Byrne's Career

Fanzines and Charlton Comics

Byrne produced his earliest work while attending the Alberta College of Art [4]. His first published comic book was The Death's Head Knight from ACA comics. He also created superhero parody Gay Guy for the college newspaper, which poked fun at the campus stereotype of homosexuality among art students. Gay Guy is also notable for featuring a prototype of the Alpha Flight character Snowbird.

Byrne made his first professional sale in 1971 to The Monster Times. In 1975 his first assignment at Marvel Comics saw publication in Giant-Sized Dracula #5. Meanwhile, Charlton Comics editor Nicola Cuti published Byrne's fanzine character ROG-2000. This led to Byrne's first full assignment in Charlton's Wheelie and the Chopper Bunch, followed by Doomsday+1, Space: 1999 and a single issue of Emergency!.

Marvel Phase I

The X-Men

In the latter 70's Byrne became a regular artist at Marvel. Byrne was teamed with writer Chris Claremont on several of the company's lower-profile publications, like Iron Fist, Marvel Team-Up and finally the X-Men in 1978. On the X-Men Byrne was penciller as well as Claremont's co-plotter. Their collaboration was critically successful, producing ground-breaking stories such as "The Dark Phoenix Saga" and "The Days of Future Past" that were to influence the superhero genre for decades after. In addition considering he is a proud Canadian, he balked at the suggestion at the time of dropping the Canadian X-Man, Wolverine from the series. To change Claremont's mind, he suggested several story ideas focusing on the character such as changing his costume and introducing his former compatriots, Alpha Flight which helped put the character on the path of becoming one of the popular characters for Marvel Comics.

Byrne later likened his partnership with Claremont to Gilbert and Sullivan's. A source of friction arose from the duo's use of the Marvel Method, a process whereby the artist and writer would agree on a plot that the artist would pencil before delivering to the writer for final scripting (followed, of course, by inking and lettering). Byrne felt that at times Claremont's dialogue altered the tone and narrative that they had previously agreed upon; Claremont less contentiously noted that Byrne regularly changed agreed-on plot details as he pencilled the stories. One example cited by Byrne is the conclusion to "Days of Future Past" where his original intention was that the X-Men should escape their post-apocalyptic destiny but Claremont's scripting cast ambiguity on that outcome. (Claremont later explained to interviewers that Byrne had added several deaths of major characters to the story, making a darker outcome more appropriate.)

The Fantastic Four

In 1981 Byrne took on Marvel's Fantastic Four as both writer and artist. His five-year run of stories was commercially and critically successful, compared by many to the original classic stories by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. Byrne's takeover of the book increased sales from roughly 190,000 -- a bit less than half of Uncanny X-Men sales -- to more than 250,000 -- nearly two-thirds of Uncanny's chart-topping numbers.

Byrne's approach to the FF was a mix of traditional characterization and experimentation. For example, the Thing was originally a troubled loner but subsequent writers turned him into a comedic character. Byrne gradually returned the Thing to a tragic figure, spinning him off into solo adventures, replacing him on the team with the She-Hulk, and having his girlfriend Alicia Masters leave him for the Human Torch.

Byrne made the Invisible Woman a more assertive, self-confident, modernized woman (it was he who renamed her from "Invisible Girl"). She would also discover her powers to be greater and more versatile.

Byrne tried to give arch-nemesis Doctor Doom a more consistent characterization. For example. Lee and Kirby disagreed about the extent to which Doom's unmasked face was disfigured. Lee thought Doom had horrible scars but Kirby felt it was only a minor scar. Byrne resolved these viewpoints by revealing that Doom originally had a small scar but put on an iron mask while red hot, causing horrific disfiguration. Also, Byrne felt that Doom's guest appearances in other books was mischaracterized (such as in Chris Claremont's X-Men) so robot doubles of Doom were revealed to have appeared in those instances instead.

Alpha Flight

In 1983 Byrne launched a new Marvel title Alpha Flight, starring his original creations first introduced during his tenure on the X-Men. This team of Canadian superheroes was to become a cult favorite, though Byrne felt that Alpha Flight was an artistic and creative low point for him. Alpha Flight is also notable for featuring the first openly gay superhero character, Northstar (though his sexuality was only hinted at in Byrne's stories, as Marvel wouldn't allow any gay characters to exist at the time.) After two years Byrne traded his Alpha Flight assignment with writer Bill Mantlo for the Incredible Hulk.

Licensed Work

Also in 1983 Byrne began an Indiana Jones series. Lucasfilm turned out to be a very demanding licensor, asking for story changes even after the art had been finished. Frustrated, Byrne left the book after the second issue. Byrne would rarely work with licensed properties afterwards.

Conflicts with Jim Shooter

During these years at Marvel, editor-in-chief Jim Shooter left a profound creative impact on much of Byrne's stories. For example Shooter's objections to Byrne and Roger Stern's plans for Captain America led to the duo's resignation from the book. The tragic conclusion to the "Dark Phoenix Saga" was not Claremont and Byrne's original intent, but Claremont's protest against Shooter's story demands. Against Byrne's wishes, his emotional Fantastic Four story "Hero" featured Shooter's creation the Beyonder.

None of this sat well with Byrne. While he once complimented Shooter's job performance, he had become critical of Shooter's perceived micromanagement. Shooter had alienated several other comics professionals in the past, and Byrne ended up joining that group.

In 1985 Byrne accepted DC Comics's offer to work on Superman while retaining his assignments at Marvel. Though this was given the blessing of Marvel's president, Byrne suspected Shooter opposed it. Then in 1986 Byrne abruptly left Marvel, soon claiming his departure was due to Shooter's interference with his storylines, and would not return to Marvel until after Shooter departed. He participated in parodying Shooter's characters while at DC, and remains critical of Shooter to this day. However, in a 1999 interview, Byrne declared that he left the Fantastic Four, his principal Marvel assignment, because, after six years, "it simply started to get old," and that he cited the editorial disputes simply as an excuse.

DC Phase I - The Superman Revamp

Main Article: The Man of Steel reboot

The Man of Steel #1 (July, 1986). Art by John Byrne. © DC Comics.

During the mid-1980s DC Comics updated and relaunched many of their core properties in an effort to boost sales and prestige. Upon the suggestion of Marv Wolfman, Byrne, who had been considering a split from Marvel, submitted a proposal to DC for a complete reboot of the Superman franchise. Under his proposal Superman's back story was to be streamlined, character designs and personalities updated, his overall power level reduced, and almost everything to do with the planet Krypton was to be erased. He was careful to retain what he saw as the core elements of the character's personality and mythos; at the time Byrne described the revamp as "basically Siegel and Shuster's Superman meets the Fleischer Superman in 1986." [5] Byrne has also acknowledged Christopher Reeve's appearance and George Reeves' Clark Kent as influences on the proposal.

DC accepted Byrne's proposal and the new look origin debuted in the 1986 The Man of Steel mini-series. Byrne then took over the writing and pencilling chores of a new solo Superman book and the Superman team-up book Action Comics (after Byrne left it became a weekly anthology and then a solo Superman title). Marv Wolfman initially wrote the third book, the Adventures of Superman, but he left after a year and was replaced by Byrne. The details of the new canon were fleshed out in three "World of.." mini-series focusing on Krypton, Smallville, and Metropolis.

While some fans resented the loss of the Silver Age continuity, the relaunch was successful in bringing in new readers and in generating press attention. It was later used by others as the basis for the Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman TV show and to a lesser degree Superman: The Animated Series. Byrne even served as an early consultant/screenwriter on Superman IV. The producers didn't use his ideas, but one script was illustrated by veteran Superman artist Curt Swan and released as the Superman: The Earth Stealers graphic novel.

The last story of Byrne's run was "The Supergirl Saga." It featured a parallel universe that had been introduced by Byrne and Paul Levitz as a plot device to explain discrepancies created by the loss of Superboy. Byrne used it to pit his Superman against a trio of old style Phantom Zone criminals. In it Superman, knowing that he cannot leave the trio free to threaten his own universe, uses kryptonite to execute them. It was a controversial development that sought to give a realistic explanation for Superman's code against killing, but it disturbed fans who didn't feel that such an explanation was necessary. It nevertheless had a profound effect on Superman's character and was a springboard for a number of later stories and events.

Byrne had been with the franchise for two years when he departed suddenly. At the time he did not discuss the details with the comics press, but he later told interviewers that he had become frustrated with DC's lack of "conscious support" for the relaunch. He felt that the management were distancing themselves from the project, and he was concerned that his changes were not reflected in the Superman used for merchandising and non-comic book licencing - arguably a higher profile market than the comic books themselves. In 2000 he commented that "After two years of this nonsense, I was just worn down. The fun was gone." [6]

Marvel Phase II - Post Shooter

After Superman, Byrne returned to Marvel, working mostly on minor, low-profile titles. He took over West Coast Avengers, renaming it Avengers West Coast, and started several storylines on this book. Byrne caused some fan controversy when he retconned the Vision's origin and removed the Scarlet Witch's children, which changed the tone of the characters quite soon after Englehart's Vision and Scarlet Witch maxi-series. Byrne eventually was given the core Avengers title, and worked to tighten coordination between the two teams, and also pitched the idea for Acts of Vengeance, one of Marvel's recurring line-wide crossovers. He also created the characters dubbed "The Great Lakes Avengers," and restored the Golden Age Human Torch to the Marvel Universe.

Another book Byrne wrote and produced breakdowns for was Star Brand, a New Universe title. While Byrne's takeover/revamp boosted sales, neither his title nor the overall line was well-received in the market. Star Brand was cancelled after Byrne's ninth issue.

File:Ssh31.png
Byrne's first issue on his return to She-Hulk, number 31. Also pictured are Byrne himself and the book's editor, Renée Witterstaetter.

He also launched The Sensational She-Hulk series, at the request of Mark Gruenwald, who wanted a unique take on the character. For the latter series, Byrne wanted to do the book as a comedy, making She-Hulk self-aware of her status as a comic book character, and had the character break the fourth wall at times, and dealt with a supporting cast of bizarre minor characters in the Marvel Universe. Byrne's initial run on the title was cut short; he quit the assignment because Marvel would not allow him to control the She-Hulk's use in other titles. He returned to the title two years later, but could not recover the initial run's momentum.

Byrne also left both Avengers titles suddenly also from conflict with Shooter's replacement, Tom DeFalco. Byrne had pitched a storyline centered around the Scarlet Witch, and had already built sub-plots around it. Byrne had pitched the peak of this storyline as a crossover event, but DeFalco rejected the proposal. DeFalco, after discovering Byrne was working on this storyline anyway, ordered it cancelled. Byrne felt he could no longer work on either Avengers title and left suddenly.

Despite Byrne's problems with DeFalco, he did not immediately leave the company like he did under Shooter's run, and Byrne then developed the Namor series and did writing chores on Iron Man.

Namor was a different take on the Sub-Mariner, featuring the corporation he established back in the early days of Fantastic Four. It dealt with the business world and business-related villains. He also used the book to restore Iron Fist to life, since he felt the character was killed off in a poor manner.

His Iron Man run, mostly drawn by Paul Ryan, restored The Mandarin as Iron Man's chief rival (backed by Fin Fang Foom, a revived character from Marvel's "monster" comics in the the pre-FF era).

One of the final ill-fated projects he worked on at his second tenure at Marvel was scripting Uncanny X-Men. After 17 years as writer on the series, Chris Claremont had been fired, due to conflicts with the editorial staff. Byrne had started making plot plans for the book, and was even interviewed by Patrick Daniel O'Neil in both Wizard and Comics Interview with these plans; he was even featured in an Entertainment Weekly article about the book. However, Byrne was never assigned any duties on the title beyond dialoguing already-plotted stories, and X-Men groups editor Bob Harras terminated the assignment after only six issues.

Sideline at DC: OMAC

When wrapping up his second tenure at Marvel, he also worked on a limited series for DC, a revamp of OMAC. OMAC was unusual as it was a prestige-format book entirely in black and white. The series was relatively well-received, but sales were disappointing.

Creator-Owned Projects, Legend, and Dark Horse

Byrne decided to do several creator-owned titles, published through Dark Horse Comics. His first projects were the serialisation of his Next Men in Dark Horse Presents and the related John Byrne's 2112 graphic novel. These were followed by the John Byrne's Next Men series. Byrne's core fans were pleased with his work, but after a promising start the title's sales stagnated, particularly in comparison to the new lines of comics from Image and Valiant.

Byrne's work at Dark Horse was eventually published under the 'Legend' imprint. This line was not intended to be a universe, but more or less a label of like-minded creators, including Frank Miller and Art Adams. Mike Mignola's Hellboy was one of the other titles involved in the line, and Byrne provided scripts for the early issues, working from Mignola's outlines.

"2112" was Byrne's attempt to salvage the hard work and thoughts he put into a project once discussed between himself and Stan Lee. Lee had once asked Byrne to envision a future for the Marvel universe, but did not end up using and purchasing Byrne's work. With some changes, Byrne made the story his own, and introduced it as the graphic novel prequel to launch the series "John Byrne's Next Men" with Dark Horse Comics. Likewise, the Next Men characters themselves evolved from a prior proposal to DC Comics around the time of his "Man of Steel" and "Legends" work. A printed plate appeared for "Freaks" within the limited edition release "The Portfolio of the DC Universe". Two of the characters on this plate retained little more than their physical looks and became the lead characters, heroine Jasmine and villain Aldus Hilltop, of "John Byrne's Next Men".

File:JBDCfreaks.jpg

While doing Next Men, which dealt with some mature subject matter, Byrne decided he wanted to try a more classic superhero project. He launched Danger Unlimited (DU) as a limited series. After this series was published, however, sales were a little lower than his Next Men sales. Byrne made a controversial statement that the book was not profitable for him. Byrne decided to launch another series, Babe. This series was a little more light-hearted comedy, similar to She-Hulk (although without breaking the fourth wall). Many fans felt disappointed with him dropping Danger Unlimited and were less thrilled with Babe. (Byrne did tie-in the Babe characters with the DU universe at the end of the Babe 2 series.)

By stating that his creator-owned work wasn't successful enough for him, it disillusioned some of Byrne's die-hard fans. Writer Steven Grant has theorized that this may have contributed to Byrne's decline in popularity [7].

Next Men came to an end in 1994. Byrne had intended for this to be a temporary hiatus, but around this time, the comic speculation market had caused a severe collapse, drastically reducing sales of such books across-the-board. Byrne says he will release the final twenty issues of the series when the market will support it, but has not defined those parameters.

DC Phase II - Wonder Woman and the New Gods

Byrne returned to DC to work on a revamp of Wonder Woman, and then later New Gods. His declared goal was to make Wonder Woman a "major player" in the DC universe. He tried to work with much of the mystical and mythological aspects of DC's library, overhauling the property's supporting cast. He made Wonder Woman a goddess, retconned a new, convoluted relationship between Wonder Woman and Donna Troy, established Darkseid as an enemy, introduced a mother-and-daughter pair very similar to ones he removed until the daughter became new Wonder Girl, and retconned Diana's mother, Hippolyta, into a World War II-era Wonder Woman with the Justice Society of America. Byrne also brought in the Demon as a supporting character for a time, foreshadowing his desire to work on the Demon book. The Demon's love interest was the new Wonder Girl's mother, Helena Sandsmark. Cassie Sandsmark, who would eventually become the new Wonder Girl, was named after a Wonder Woman fan and writer named Joanna Sandsmark who posted on the old AOL Byrne boards (the precursor to the current Byrne Robotics site).

Byrne then took over New Gods, convincing DC to relaunch the title as Jack Kirby's Fourth World. Byrne attempted to do alot of things that he thought Jack Kirby would do with the book, and also added Takion, a character originally introduced in a short-lived title.

Initial sales were promising on both books, but neither title managed to "break out" beyond those levels. Near the end of his run, Byrne outlined a line-wide crossover for DC called Genesis, establishing that all DC characters got their powers ultimately from The Source. The project's reception in the market was no more than lukewarm, however. Byrne's departure from the titles coincided with changes in editorial staff, and some observers have speculated Byrne was unhappy over the likelihood that he would have to share control over major characters used in Grant Morrison's JLA revamp.

Marvel Phase III

Spider-Man: Chapter One

After wrapping up many projects at DC, he returned to Marvel to work on several projects. Byrne was hired first to do art on some of the Spider-Man books. The Spider-Man titles were in some disrepute among hardcore fans after the long drawn out Clone Saga, a commercial success but critical debacle.

The Spider-Man line was to return to basics. The editors at Marvel wanted Byrne to assist with this project, so they hired Byrne to do a revamp of Spider-Man's origin, similar to Byrne's prior work on Man of Steel. Spider-Man: Chapter One was a 13 issue series that refined elements of Spider-Man's origin, retelling a lot of the earliest stories and origin. Byrne ended up changing a few elements, most notably tying in the origin of Doctor Octopus with Peter Parker's. Another example of this would be the costume change for Electro, which was changed from green and yellow with protruding bolt graphics to a simpler blue and white costume. His revisions for the Spider-Man characters were controversial, and soon treated as non-canonical.

During this time Byrne created the third Spider-Woman, Mattie Franklin, who he later wrote in a short-lived spin-off series, which met with generally poor reviews.

The Lost Generation and the Hulk

With fellow friend and writer Roger Stern, Byrne wrote a limited series called Marvel: The Lost Generation, which followed the story of a new band of heroes dubbed The First Line that occupied the time between World War II and the Modern day. With the Marvel Universe originally starting in the 1960s, and the existing policy of only 7-10 passing years between the launch of the Fantastic Four and the current titles, both writers felt there must have been other events going on in the Marvel Universe between that time, so this series was to fill in the gaps between those two eras.

Byrne worked for a very short period on the Hulk, which lasted less than 10 issues, including a controversial annual, where he introduced a retcon establishing the Skrulls as being partially responsible for the Hulk's origin, later disowned from canon in Captain Marvel at the request of the editors. Byrne has refused to speak of the reasons for his departure from the book.

X-Men: The Hidden Years

Main article: X-Men: The Hidden Years

Finally, Byrne created a title called X-Men: The Hidden Years. Since Byrne felt alienated from the current X-Men title but wanted to work with those characters, Byrne made the proposal to write a series that took place between the last X-Men issue to feature the founding team and Giant-Size X-Men #1, which established the new roster. His appreciation for the work of Neal Adams led him to use a new style on Hidden Years of laying out panels in the format Adams frequently used, with angular panels instead of the usual square grid.

The title was initially successful, but Byrne's storylines were again controversial. Fans disenchanted with the current version of the team enjoyed his more straightforward approach, but his stories were often criticized for working off the 1960s continuity and ignoring more modern story lines which affected (sometimes via retconning) the characters. Sales dipped substantially, declining to a level below the majority of titles in the X-line.

Byrne ended up leaving Marvel yet again due to disputes with the new management, now represented by Joe Quesada and Bill Jemas. The new administration was disappointed that the successful X-Men movie did not translate into an increase in comics sales, and complained that the X-books had become too self-referential and bogged down in a convoluted continuity. They ordered several changes to the line, and Marvel cancelled several of the peripheral X-titles, including Hidden Years, which they believed mostly took sales away from other titles in the X-line. Byrne felt that the management did not handle this well, and claimed the book was turning a profit while other titles that had worse sales like Spider-Girl were kept alive. Because of this, he has vowed not to work for Marvel until a new editorial regime is established, and refers to the current Marvel as M****l.

Inter-Company Crossovers and Generations

In addition to his Marvel Work, Byrne wrote two notable inter-company crossover one-shots. Galactus/Darkseid, The Hunger, and Batman/Captain America. The latter work is one Byrne considers his best, and deals with Batman and Captain America teaming up against the Red Skull and the Joker. He also participated in the Amalgam Comics line, blending Storm and Wonder Woman into the amalgamated character Amazon.

Byrne worked on a prestige format 4-issue limited series for DC, Superman & Batman: Generations. Generations took place in its own continuity. The story consisted of chapters in the lives of both characters, taking place in different decades, and paying homage to the creators and storylines of those times. The 1930's chapter, for instance, dealt with Superman and Batman as they were portrayed at that time, as vigilantes, while the 1950's chapter deal with Mort Weisinger-themed storylines. The storyline took place in "real time" as well, with the characters aging and offspring taking over their parents roles. This project was generally well received.

Byrne followed up these books with two sequels, the first dealing with other DC heroes in chapters in-between the stories of the first series. The second sequel was a 12 part time-travel storyline mostly taking place in between the years 2000-3000, dealing with much of DC's alternate futures. These follow-ups weren't as well-received sales-wise, perhaps because much of the special qualities of the first series weren't reflected in these sequels.

Recent Projects

Byrne created a creator-owned series for DC called Lab Rats. This project was not as successful as his prior creator-owned work, and was cancelled after eight issues. Byrne blamed the poor sales of the title on "bad retailers" who he said would not order enough of the book.[8]

At the suggestion of Mike Carlin Byrne teamed up with Claremont for a six issue Justice League storyline, The Tenth Circle. The series also ended up restoring the original Doom Patrol to modern continuity. The Doom Patrol was the subject of a reboot—this story established that this was officially the first appearance of the characters, with no attempt to explain it via a retcon. This caused some fan controversy, but DC allowed this because of the failures of the existing Doom Patrol projects and the desire to see the classic team back in action. The Doom Patrol has been cancelled with its 18th issue.

Byrne recently launched the title Blood of the Demon, featuring The Demon, as well as doing art for Action Comics with writer Gail Simone. Byrne has implied on his message board that both he and Simone will be leaving the title by early 2005, short of the originally announced 12-month run.

While current sales on Action are in line with those for other Superman titles, Blood Of The Demon, like Doom Patrol is selling very poorly, among the lowest-ordered mainline DC titles.

Non Comic Book Projects

File:Byrne funkywinkerbean.jpg
Funky Winkerbean daily strip from 2003 when John Byrne was filling in as artist.

Byrne drew ten weeks of the comic strip Funky Winkerbean while its creator, Tom Batiuk, was recovering from foot surgery.

In addition to his comic book work, Byrne has published three novels: Fearbook, Whipping Boy and Wonder Woman: Gods and Goddesses. He also has short stories in the Hotter Blood and Shock Rock anthologies. Fearbook was nominated for a Bram Stoker Award by the Horror Writers of America as "Best First Novel".

Art Style

Byrne has stated his major influences on his art style are Jack Kirby, Gil Kane, Steve Ditko, Neal Adams, and Jean (Moebius) Giraud, as well as British comics artists Frank Hampson and Frank Bellamy and cartoonist Giles. He later described himself as "a Frank Miller sponge," and told several interviewers of his desire to incorporate influences from Miller and Gene Colan into his style. He has also cited science fiction artists John Berkey and Syd Meade as contributors to his style.

Byrne's original work has been noted as being rough, with his drawings emphasizing curves over straight lines. Byrne has himself admitted to straight lines being "his least favorite artistic element."Template:Fn

His original style of inking his own art lacked the smooth lines achieved when others inked his work, as can be seen in his run on The Fantastic Four. His inking style was generally seen as crude by comics fans, especially during the times he used fine-point markers rather than standard inking pens. After he left Marvel to handle the Superman revamp at DC, he typically worked with strong or experienced inkers like Karl Kesel and Dick Giordano.

He tends to favor large panels--in the mid-1980's his individual panels tended to be larger than the panel layouts used by his contemporaries in the field. Some have noted that his art style is dependent on negative space; specifically when he draws faces; or in some cases by omitting detailed backgrounds. It was also during the mid-1980s that Byrne was being influenced by the work of the French artists.

Ron Goulart has called Byrne's artwork "an eminently acceptable mix of bravura, complexity and storytelling clarity."Template:Fn

In the book Understanding Comics, Byrne is charted on McCloud's "Big Triangle" along with other comics artists. McCloud's placement of Byrne within the triangle identifies his style as contemporaneous to Gilbert Hernandez and Jim Lee. McCloud's placement makes the point that Byrne's line style is realistic without being too detailed.

Byrne is, in 2005, an accomplished comic book creator, and is capable of producing all aspects of a book except for coloring, although he does still produce work in collaboration. While he experimented with his own hand-developed lettering fonts in the early 1980s, he now utilizes a computer font based on the handwriting of the letterer Jack Morelli.

Byrne's artistic style, his layouts and his storytelling have been sources of instruction and inspiration to many comics artists; George Perez, Jim Lee, Todd McFarlane, Bryan Hitch and Marcos Martín have all cited him as influences on their work.

Controversies and Criticisms

Perhaps the major criticism of Byrne comes from his strong opinions on comic characters, stories, and creators. Byrne has a very strong view of how specific comic characters should be portrayed. Fans of Byrne enjoy his work on characters, and his vision usually tends towards the original creators. He dislikes deconstructionist writing, and believes the super-hero genre should be written as juvenile fiction with all ages appeal, akin to The Hardy Boys or Disney films, rather than being aimed at adults with adult storylines. He dislikes the tendancy of snarky attitudes in writing found in many storylines today.

Critics have complained about his use of the retcon or the reboot devices. In several cases, as mentioned above, Byrne has used retcons to change the status quo of characters. Criticism comes from fans who have enjoyed the work done by other creators, and dislike the reversal of that work. Byrne use of said devices has been seen by detractors as being disrespectful to those creators who's work is undone. Byrne has defended some of his retcons by stating that he is undoing other retcons, and returning characters to their classic forms, but he ignores the fact that the objections are usually based on how popular the current character is, not with the retcon concept per se.

Byrne is also not afraid to express opinions about stories and other creators that may not reflect the tastes of fandom. Some feel he is egotistical, and Byrne has engaged in self-parody about this in some of his stories. He is rare in praising contemporary creators, and his recent desire to work on series that aren't tied into current continuity, such as Generations and Hidden Years, has reinforced a perception of "not playing well with others". Byrne has pointed out that other popular creators like Frank Miller and Grant Morrison are given similar carte blanche without similar complaints.

Byrne has on occasion been a lightning rod for controversy when some of his remarks have been met with strong criticism. As the columnist Rich Johnston described, "John Byrne... has a reputation for making remarks that, however well argued or defended, have caused people offence, whether they were aimed at them or not. Feuds, whether one-sided or two have included Mark Waid, Peter David, Erik Larsen, Joe Quesada, Bill Jemas, Dwayne McDuffie, Brian Bendis and more." [9] Detractors have dubbed the targets of his opinion "Byrne Victims" while his supporters have dubbed the negative reactions "Bad Byrne"

Recurrent themes that have provoked comment on eitherside have included:

  • A conservative stance on neologism and language usage [10]. This caused controversy (e.g. [11]) when, shortly following the actor's death, he objected to the use of the word “hero” to describe Christopher Reeve because, while Byrne considered Reeve courageous, he felt that heroism required a concious decision and Reeve had no choice over his accident [12].
  • Byrne also caused consternation in fandom (e.g. [13]) when he used the “N word” as an example of improper word usage(Byrne was lecturing his audience on whether "word bubble" or "word balloon" was the correct usage), saying that just because some people use the word without any intentional offense in mind doesn't mean that it is proper terminology, [14].
  • He takes pride in the fact that none of his books have ever missed a deadline because of anything he was responsible for. He is very critical of younger artists who he believes do not share his respect for strict deadlines [15] and of fans he think undermine the seriousness of the superhero genre in the eyes of the public [16].
  • A dislike of (most) movie adaptations of comics and classic literature based upon altered factors that he believes are central to the original work. A specific example of this is his objection to the Hollywood practise of “color-blind casting,” where characters in remakes or adaptations are portrayed by actors whose ethnicity is different from that of the original character [17]. Another example would be his refusal to see the first Spider-Man movie. Byrne felt that the introduction of organic web-shooters, as opposed to mechanical devices designed by Spider-Man, changed the character too much. He later defended his decision to avoid the Spider-Man movie by saying the best parts were in the trailer. He also contributed an interview for the DVD of the film.
  • Relationship with fans. He has criticised the use of anonymous handles on the Internet and people he thinks uses them as sock-puppets to inflate the criticisim of him. As a side-effect on the own John Byrne Forum he insists that posters use their real names and he has sworn not to use any other forums. [18] Some “Byrne Victims” have been critical of what they see as the forum's heavy moderation and over-defensive attitude [19].

Aside from these reactions there are also a series of less contested signature opinions that are called "Byrnisms."

Selected bibliography

A complete bibliography of Byrne's comics work is maintained at the Byrne Robotics Checklist.

Marvel Comics

DC Comics

Independent Publishers

Novels

  • John L. Byrne's Fear Book (1988; ISBN 0446348147)
  • Whipping Boy (1992; ISBN 0440211719)
  • Wonder Woman: Gods and Goddesses (1997, ISBN 0761504834)

Web Comics

References

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