Steve_Englehart

Steve Englehart

Steve Englehart (born April 22, 1947, Indianapolis, Indiana) is an American comic book writer best known for his work for Marvel Comics and DC Comics, particularly in the 1970s. His pseudonyms have included John Harkness and Cliff Garnett.

Biography

Early career

Englehart's first work in comics was as an art assistant to Neal Adams on a story in Warren Publishing's black-and-white horror comics magazine Vampirella #10 (March 1971). However, Englehart found his true calling as a writer. Influenced by writer Roy Thomas, who edited his first stories for Marvel, Englehart brought a complex, freewheeling style to Marvel's comics, often dealing with philosophical or political issues in a superhero story, such as a celebrated run on Captain America (with artists Sal Buscema and Frank Robbins) that reflected the then-ongoing Watergate scandal.

Thomas said in a 2007 interview that Englehart

was a summer replacement or some such for Gary Friedrich. When Gary wanted to go away for a while, he got Steve, who was sort of a young aspiring artist when he came up to Neal [Adams]'s studio, and he ended up at Marvel as a proofreader. Then he wanted to write, and I believe he wrote a few pages of a sample script. Anyway, I gave him "The Beast" [in Amazing Adventures] to try out on, and that worked out pretty well.

Marvel Comics

Englehart also wrote The Avengers from 1972 to 1976, and had a brief but potent run on Doctor Strange (originally with artist Frank Brunner, later with Gene Colan), in which Strange's mentor, the Ancient One, died, and Strange became the new Sorcerer Supreme. Englehart and Brunner, audaciously, also created a multi-issue storyline in which a sorcerer named Sise-Neg ("Genesis" spelled backward) goes back through history, collecting all magical energies, until he reaches the beginning of the universe, becomes all-powerful and creates it anew, leaving Strange to wonder whether this was, paradoxically, the original creation (Marvel Premiere #14). Editor-in-chief Stan Lee, seeing the issue after publication, wrote Englehart and Brunner to print a retraction saying this was not God but a god, so as to avoid offending religious readers. The writer and artist concocted a fake fan letter from a fictitious minister praising the story, and mailed it to Marvel from Texas; Marvel unwittingly printed the letter, and dropped the retraction order.

Englehart reconciled the existence of Captain America and sidekick Bucky in Marvel's 1950s precursor, Atlas Comics, an anomaly that had been ignored since Cap's 1964 reintroduction to Marvel, in which his newly-retconned history stated that he had been in suspended animation since the end of World War II, when Bucky had been killed.

DC Comics

In 1976, after a dispute with incoming Marvel editor-in-chief Gerry Conway, Englehart moved to DC Comics. There he wrote Justice League of America, with artist Dick Dillin (Justice League of America #139-146,149,150), and a critically lauded eight-issue arc of Batman stories in Detective Comics #469-476, (with pencilers Walt Simonson and Marshall Rogers and inker Terry Austin). He also created the comic book version of the Spear of Destiny, which has since been used by several other DC writers as an important plot device, most notably Roy Thomas in All-Star Squadron. Englehart temporarily left comics at this juncture, moving to Europe before his first issue of Detective was published. During this time he wrote a fantasy/occult novel, The Point Man (Dell Publishing, Aug. 1981, ISBN 0-440-12378-X).

His run on Detective Comics was reprinted into trade paperback in 1999 as Batman: Strange Apparitions (ISBN 1-56389-500-5). In 2006, Englehart reunited with Rogers and Austin on the miniseries Batman: Dark Detective (reprinted as a trade paperback, ISBN 1-4012-0898-3).

Return to Marvel

In 1983, Marvel's creator-owned imprint Epic Comics published Coyote, a series he had earlier created at Eclipse Comics with Rogers, in collaboration with artist Steve Leialoha (and later Chas Truog and Todd McFarlane).

Englehart returned to mainstream comics later that decade with stints on West Coast Avengers, the second Vision and the Scarlet Witch miniseries (with artist Richard Howell), and Fantastic Four (during which editorial disputes led to his using the pseudonym John Harkness, a name he had first used on his last issue of Mr. Miracle; the name evokes Jonathan Harker, of the Dracula novel, and Agatha Harkness, a supporting character in the Fantastic Four).

Other work

Around this time, Englehart also wrote DC Comics' Green Lantern, and in 1987 wrote the DC crossover series Millennium. In 1992, he co-created the Ultraverse comics universe for Malibu Comics and wrote Night Man and the superhero-team series The Strangers. Night Man was later adapted for a syndicated television series.

For Claypool Comics, he wrote the supernatural series Phantom of Fear City #1-12 (May 1993 - May 1995).

Englehart wrote a screenplay for an unproduced film, Majorca. The screenplay was published as a book by Black Coat Press. He has admitted to writing the novel Hellstorm in the TALON Force series under the house pseudonym Cliff Garnett.

In the 2000s, Englehart has combined occasional comics writing with scripting for TV and computer games and writing books. He has also written a number of series novels under house pseudonyms.

Quotes

Steve Englehart: "We'd rampage around New York City. There was one night when a bunch of us, including Jim Starlin, went out on the town. We partied all day, then did some more acid, then roamed around town until dawn and saw all sorts of amazing things (most of which ended up in Master of Kung Fu, which Jim and I were doing at the time)".

Awards

1977: nominated for Favourite Comicbook Writer at the Eagle Awards
1978: Favourite Writer at the Eagle Awards
1978: Roll of Honour at the Eagle Awards
1978: nominated for Favourite Single Story at the Eagle Awards for Detective Comics #472: I am the Batman with Marshall Rogers
1978: nominated for Favourite Continued Story at the Eagle Awards for Detective Comics #471-472 with Marshall Rogers
1979: Inkpot Award
1979: nominated for Best Comic Book Writer (US) at the Eagle Awards
1979: nominated for Best Continued Story at the Eagle Awards for Detective Comics #475-476 with Marshall Rogers