Dennis O'Neil
Dennis O'Neil
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Dennis O'Neil

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Dennis O'Neil

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Dennis O'Neil

Dennis "Denny" Joseph O'Neil (May 3, 1939 – June 11, 2020) was an American comic book writer and editor, principally for Marvel Comics and DC Comics from the 1960s through the 1990s, and Group Editor for the Batman family of titles until his retirement.

His best-known works include Green Lantern/Green Arrow and Batman with Neal Adams. For Batman, the team is credited with returning the character to his dark pulp fiction roots, in contrast to the campy Batman television series of the 1960s. However, comics historian Les Daniels considers O'Neil's "vengeful obsessive-compulsive" Batman to be an original interpretation that has influenced all subsequent portrayals of the character. It was during this run that O'Neil co-created the Batman villains Ra's al Ghul and Talia al Ghul. During their Green Lantern/Green Arrow run, O'Neil and Adams introduced a mature, realistic tone through stories such as "Snowbirds Don't Fly", in which Green Arrow's ward Roy Harper is revealed to have become addicted to drugs. They also created and introduced the Green Lantern character John Stewart in 1971.

As an editor, he is principally known for editing the various Batman titles beginning in 1986 after returning to DC. In 1989, O'Neil launched the Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight series, and was the writer for the "Shaman" and "Venom" stories. O'Neil led the Batman creative teams for the Batman: Knightfall (1993–1994) story arc. O'Neil co-created the antihero Azrael (Jean-Paul Valley) in 1992, who temporarily became the new Batman during Knightfall. After the storyline's conclusion, O'Neil was the writer for an Azrael monthly series that lasted 100 issues.

His other notable work includes creating Richard Dragon with Jim Berry, and runs on The Shadow with Michael Kaluta and The Question with Denys Cowan. While working for Marvel during the 1980s, O'Neil scripted issues for The Amazing Spider-Man, Iron Man, and Daredevil. In the late 1990s, O'Neil taught a comics writing course at Manhattan's School of Visual Arts. He also sat on the board of directors of the charity The Hero Initiative and served on its Disbursement Committee.

O'Neil was born into an Irish Catholic household in St. Louis, Missouri on May 3, 1939. His father owned a grocery store. On Sunday afternoons he would accompany his father or his grandfather to the store for some light groceries and an occasional comic book. O'Neil graduated from Saint Louis University around the turn of the 1960s with a degree centered on English literature, creative writing, and philosophy. From there he joined the U.S. Navy just in time to participate in the blockade of Cuba during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

After leaving the Navy, O'Neil moved on to a job with a newspaper in Cape Girardeau, Missouri. O'Neil wrote bi-weekly columns for the youth page, and during the slow summer months he filled the space with a series on the revival of the comics industry. This attracted the attention of Roy Thomas, who would eventually himself become one of the great names in the history of the medium.

When Roy Thomas left DC Comics to work for Stan Lee at Marvel Comics, he suggested that O'Neil take the Marvel writer's test, which involved adding dialogue to a wordless four-page excerpt of a Fantastic Four comic. O'Neil's entry resulted in Lee offering O'Neil a job. O'Neil had never considered writing for comics, and later said he'd done the test "kind of as a joke. I had a couple of hours on a Tuesday afternoon, so instead of doing crossword puzzles, I did the writer's test." He had intended to only work in the comics industry for six months to make some extra money, but soon found enjoyment from creating comic book scripts, and abandoned his plans to move back to the Midwestern United States to be a journalist.

O'Neil took the reins for a short-term run of Marvel's Doctor Strange stories in Strange Tales, writing dialogue and captions for six issues that were plotted by artist Steve Ditko. He also wrote for such titles as Rawhide Kid and Millie the Model, and scripted the final 13 pages of Daredevil #18 over a plot by Lee when Lee went on vacation.

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