John Byrne

This article is about the comic book artist. For the Victoria Cross recipient, see John Byrne (VC). For the Scottish painter, see John Byrne (Scottish artist).

John Byrne (born July 6, 1950) is a writer and artist of comic books who has worked on nearly every major character American superhero character.

Beginnings

Byrne was born near West Bromwich, England. He and his family emigrated to Canada in 1958. It was while attending the Alberta College of Art in Calgary that Byrne decided upon a career in comic books. Feeling that the school had nothing relevant to offer towards that end, he left without graduating.

Byrne made his first professional sale in 1971 to The Monster Times. In 1974 he got his first assignment with industry powerhouse Marvel Comics (in the story "Dark Asylum" which appeared in Giant-Sized Dracula #5.) Meanwhile Byrne became a regular artist for Charlton Comics, working on titles such as Wheelie and the Chopper Bunch, Doomsday+1, and Space: 1999.

The X-Men

At Marvel, Byrne distinguished himself as a promising artist who never missed deadlines. He was teamed with writer Chris Claremont on several of the company's minor publications, including Iron Fist, Marvel Team-Up and eventually the Uncanny X-Men. On the X-Men, Byrne was not only the penciller but Claremont's writing partner as well, contributing to story plotlines. Their collaboration was critically successful, producing stories such as the "Dark Phoenix Saga" that were to influence the superhero genre for decades after.

Fantastic Four, Alpha Flight, and other Marvel work

After the X-Men, 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 take on the FF was a combination of exploring the classic themes and characters of Lee and Kirby with some unique twists. For instance, the famed "Aunt Petunia" of Thing was revealed to be a quite young and sassy lady instead of what might have been considered a much older person. He shook things up by replacing the Thing with the She-Hulk, and having the Human Torch fall in love with Alicia Masters. Most significantly, Byrne modernized the Invisible Woman by making her personality more assertive and self-confident while discovering that her powers are actually so much more versatile and useful that she is actually the most physically powerful member of the team.

One notable way of paying homage to both creators of the book was his recap of Doctor Doom's origin. Lee and Kirby disagreed as to the deformity behind Doom's mask. Lee thought his face was horribly scarred, but Kirby felt that Doom should only have a minor scar, and his vanity was the reason for his mask. Byrne combined these viewpoints — Doom originally had a small scar after a lab accident and hid his face under bandages since that moment due to his vanity; however, when he had his mask forged, he placed it on his face while scalding hot, thus causing the total disfiguration of his face.

In the midst of this success, Byrne was also offered the total creation of a book based on a super-team he created during his X-Men tenure, the Canadian supergroup Alpha Flight. While Byrne was happy to do this and was creating from a blank slate, he soon became bored with the characters--they had less appeal to him that other characters like the FF. Also Alpha Flight was almost totally insulated from the rest of the Marvel Universe making it difficult for Byrne to play with other characters in the way he enjoyed. So after 2 years, he ended up swapping books with Bill Mantlo, with him taking over the Incredible Hulk from Mantlo and Mantlo taking over Alpha Flight.

Superman Revamp

Byrne worked on the 1986 reboot of Superman, The Man of Steel. He instituted several important changes to the character while keeping a lot of the traditional elements of the character. Freed of all Marvel work, Byrne wrote virtually all of DC's Superman titles for two years or so. Keeping with the theme of the reboot, unlike some of the other post-crisis DC books, Byrne wrote the Superman books as if Superman was encountering the villains and supporting cast for the first time.

Return to Marvel

After Superman, Byrne returned to Marvel. 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 very 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, a crossover event that affected virtually every Marvel title.

He also launched the second She-Hulk series. 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.

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. It sort of fell under the radar of his usual projects, perhaps due to the black and white format, a lack of marketing, or the status of OMAC as a minor character.

Return to DC

Byrne returned to DC to work on Wonder Woman and Jack Kirby's magnum opus, the New Gods. In both series his stories had strong mythological themes.

With Wonder Woman, Byrne's tried to reestablish the character's primacy among the DC pantheon of superheroes. He depicted Wonder Woman more as a muscular Amazonian than previous artists had. He even turned her into a Greek goddess (which was reversed by subsequent writers.)

In the New Gods, Byrne linked the powers of all of DC's superheroes to the omnipotent power of "the Source".

Return to Marvel

After wrapping up many projects at DC, he returned to Marvel to work on several projects.

Byrne was hired first to do some art for Spider-Man. The Spider-Man titles were suffering after some disappointment from the end results of a long drawn out Clone Saga, which ended in fans leaving the books. The Spider-Man line was to return to basics.

With Roger Stern Byrne and co-wrote and drew Marvel: The Lost Generation, which followed the story of a new band of heroes that occupied the time between World War II and the Modern day. With the Marvel Universe originally starting in the 1960's, 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. The series was printed in reverse chronological order, from issue 12 to 1, and involved a time travel plot as a framework.

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.

Other Projects

In the meantime, Byrne worked on a prestige project for DC, Superman/Batman: Generations as well as two sequel series. He also created a short-lived creator-owned series for DC called Lab Rats.

The most recent works John Byrne has created include a revamp of Doom Patrol and The Demon, and doing art for Action Comics.

Non Comic Book Projects

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".

External links

• Byrne Robotics – Official Site