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Chuck Austen

Chuck Austen (born Chuck Beckum) is an American writer and artist of comic books, most famous for his controversial work on the popular X-Men franchise, as well as on other Marvel and DC titles.

Career

Early career

Austen’s work stretches to back the 1980s, when he briefly illustrated Alan Moore's superhero series Miracleman, under his birth name "Chuck Beckum", which he later abandoned out of a desire to disassociate from his father's family name.

About the same time Austen wrote and drew the semi-autobiographical black-and-white comic book series Strips. The series was about the sexual coming of age of a 19-year-old named Zack, and was published by Rip Off Press. The series was originally planned to run for about 40 issues, but after several breaks and a brief venture into online publishing, Austen ceased working on Strips.

He also, along with the better known work mentioned above, created a number of pornographic comics, including WorldWatch and Hardball.

In the late 1980s, Austen drew the first five issues for the short-lived series Hero Sandwich published by Slave Labor Graphics and written by Dan Vado. Hero Sandwich was an unusual genre-mishmash: the titular detective agency featured a character with a stylized smiley face and a super-heroish jet-set rogue named "Plasteeq" able to stretch his limbs much like DC's Plastic Man and Elongated Man. The first case showed supernatural overtones involving a presumed coven of vampires.

Marvel and DC work

In the 2000s, Austen started working regularly for Marvel Comics, writing and illustrating U.S. War Machine, illustrating Elektra, and writing a number of series, including Uncanny X-Men, Captain America, and The Avengers. His two-year run on Uncanny X-Men was his most prominent and lengthy writing assignment to date.

In 2002 Austen also took part in writing a Marvel book with Bruce Jones entitled, "The Call of Duty 911". This book was based on a story of firemen after the September 11th incident. It wanted to convey the heroism of New York City Firemen as real life superheroes. The Call of Duty was a series of short-lived Marvel Comics series featuring firefighters and emergency service workers dealing with paranormal phenomena in the Marvel Universe.

It was conceived in the wake of the 9/11 attacks and is comprised of three limited series (Call of Duty: The Brotherhood #1–6, by Chuck Austen and David Finch; Call of Duty: The Precinct #1–5, by Bruce Jones and Tom Mandrake; Call of Duty: The Wagon #1–4 by Chuck Austen and Danijel Zezelj) and a short unsuccessful run as an ongoing series in 2002–2003, that lasted four issues (by Chuck Austen and Pat Olliffe).

He also wrote at least ten issues on DC Comics' flagship title Action Comics, starring Superman. Like his X-Men-related work, Austen’s work on this series was criticized for poor uses of characterization (especially of Lois Lane and Lana Lang). Austen left the title after 10 issues; the next two were written by "J.D. Finn". Austen himself has speculated that the J.D. Finn was in actuality then–Action Comics editor Eddie Berganza and has denied using the pseudonym.

WorldWatch

After his DC and Marvel work, Austen went on to create the independent title WorldWatch, which he described as being like Warren Ellis's The Authority, except with more sex. To drive home this point, most of the preview images he published prior to the first issue were sex scenes.

Austen felt that any of the pre-existing comic book companies would most likely censor his work, so he chose to self-publish instead under Wild & Wooly Press. The first issue of WorldWatch was published in black and white, while the second and third issues were published in color. Subsequent issues, although written and illustrated, were not published.

The last page of Worldwatch #2 featured an announcement from the publisher stating that, as a result of widespread fan disappointment with the writing, Austen had been fired, and that he would be replaced by notable writer Sam Clemens (the real name of legendary American writer Mark Twain). Since, as creator and owner, Austen cannot be fired from Worldwatch, and since Austen has publicly claimed that his work is only disliked by a few vocal malcontents, this was widely perceived as being a failed hoax with the goal of showing that fans would accept the writing if only they did not recognize the writer's true identity. In a subsequent interview, Austen stated that it was intended not as a hoax, but as a joke, and that he was disappointed that most readers had not understood the joke.