Roy Thomas

Roy Thomas was Stan Lee’s first successor as editor-in-chief of Marvel Comics, in 1972. He introduced Conan the Barbarian to American comic books in 1970, with a series that added to the storyline of Robert E. Howard’s character and became one of the most popular comic books of the following decade.

Thomas is also known for his championing of Golden Age comic-book heroes—particularly the 1940s superhero team the Justice Society of America—and for lengthy writing stints on Marvel’s Fantastic Four, Avengers, X-Men, Daredevil, and Sub-Mariner, and DC Comics’ All-Star Squadron, among other titles.

He co-created dozens of characters for Marvel, including Carol Danvers (the once and future Captain Marvel), Luke Cage, Baron Helmut Zemo, M’Baku, Havok (of the X-Men), the Invaders, Iron Fist, the Man-Thing, Morbius the Living Vampire, Red Sonja, Son of Satan, Tiger Shark, Ultron, the Valkyrie, the Vision, Warlock, and Wolverine. For DC, besides the All-Star Squadron and Infinity, Inc., as concepts, he also co-created Arak/Son of Thunder, Captain Carrot and His Amazing Zoo Crew, Deathbolt, Hazard, Artemis/Tigress, Obsidian, Jade, Amazing-Man, and several other characters.

Roy Thomas was inducted into the Will Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame in 2011. He is currently the editor of the comics-history magazine Alter Ego, published by TwoMorrows (more than 160 issues and counting), and is the author of the mammoth Taschen Books volumes 75 Years of Marvel: From the Golden Age to the Silver Screen (2014) and The Stan Lee Story (2018). From 2000 to 2019 he ghost-wrote the Spider-Man newspaper comic strip for/with Stan Lee. He writes several Tarzan and John Carter of Mars online comic strips for the Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc., website and the occasional comicbook for Marvel, and still writes the occasional comicbook, as well as introduction to numerous Marvel, DC, and other hardcover reprint volumes.