Creator: Ed Brubaker

Simply put: One of the GOATiest, heaviest hitters in the history of comics.  Here’s ten reasons you should love Ed:

  1. Gotham Central may not have been the first comic with the idea of looking at non-supers in a super-world, but it was the first police procedural to do so–and nobody has done it this well since.
  2. He reinvented noir comics with series like Criminal and Scene of the Crime.  And also Kill or Be Killed–perhaps the first serial-killer noir.
  3. Reboots item #1: He rebooted a Marvel flagship title, Captain America, by killing the star and making his sidekick Winter Soldier (formerly Bucky) the most interesting superhero in comics.  He also rebooted Catwoman by killing her.
  4. The merger of noir, espionage, and superheroes in the brilliant 12-part series Sleeper–and the juncture of horror and noir in Fatale–both helped usher in a new century of comics that bust through genres.
  5. The best artists love him: Michael Lark, Sean Phillips, Steve Epting, Darwyn Cooke, etc.
  6. Reboots item #2: Books of Doom and X-Men: Deadly Genesis retconned the origins of some of Marvel’s most famous characters, adding texture, depth, and terrific characterization.  And also adding new characters like Darwin and Vulcan.
  7. Brian Michael Bendis left him with a Daredevil in prison.  Brubaker took the superhero-in-jail genre places it had never been and wrote one of the most unique arcs in the character’s long, dark history.  While he was there, Brubaker created Lady Bullseye.
  8. Reboots item #3: Iron Fist.  Ed took a character who had often been fun, but also was usually a bit silly, and created a history around the character, full of old Fists and colleagues like The Immortal Weapons and the all-female Army of Thunder who were, frankly, much more interesting than Danny Rand himself.
  9. He reinvented his own reinvention of noir comics with  send-up of the motion picture industry, The Fade Out.
  10. He writes conscious, forward-driving stories about gay characters and minorities.  He took on the ultra-conservative Tea Party at the height of their power, dedicating an issue of Captain America (#602) to Falcon taking down an analogous white supremacist group.
  11. This list goes up to 11: In addition to the characters mentioned above, he created new and reinvented characters like Beetle, Master Izo, Korvus, X-Force, and The Super MODOK Squadron.