Denny O'Neil

Last week, Denny O'Neil passed away at the age of 81.

Denny was an icon of my youth, from earliest days as an avid comic book fan, primarily a DC fan.  Denny O'Neil's stories suggested a higher level of maturity (for lack of a better word) than other writers at DC.   

Over other writers at DC, it was Denny O'Neil who had the best grasp on Batman, producing such classic tales as "There's No Hope In Crime Alley" drawn by Dick Giordano. 

And the epic prose story "Death Strikes At Midnight And Three" illustrated by Marshall Rogers, a classic murder mystery in the hard boiled crime noir tradition.  

Denny O'Neil is credited with bringing Batman to a darker interpretation in keeping with his Golden Age origins.  Denny's work with artist Neal Adams was instrumental in delivering this grittier version of the Batman. Denny and Neal hit a home run with their epic tale of Batman's confrontation with Ra's Al Ghul. A young Dave-El was stunned after he plunked down 2 whole damn dollars for this tabloid edition that collected this story.  

I read and re-read and re-re-read this book until it was almost in liquid form. This was my first exposure to a truly epic Batman story.  

Denny and Neal also collaborated on the classic Green Lantern/Green Arrow series that saw these two disparate characters team up in a series of adventures ripped from the headlines of the day. The term "relevance" was applied to these comics.  Read today, GL/GA can be a bit pedantic but in a universe where heroes fought against mad scientists, alien robots and magic imps, a comic book series addressing polution, racism and drug use among other topics was a major sea change for comics at the time. 

Denny and Neal were not above some political satire. Here are some panels from a story where GL and GA went up against a bad guy who was manipulating a little girl with mental powers. Neal drew the bad guy to look like Vice President Spiro Agnew and the little girl to look like President Richard Nixon. 

In the 1980s, after a stint at Marvel Comics, Denny O'Neil returned to DC where he became the editor of the Batman line of titles. And as a writer, he launched a solo series starring the Question. 

Below is page one of The Question#1 and it has to be one of the best first pages of a first issue in terms of art and the script.   

The Question was created for Carlton Comics by Steve Ditko and reflected Ditko's Ayn Randian absolutist philosophy.  By the last panel of the last page of the first issue, 25 hours and 15 minutes after the events on page one, the Question is lying dead on a river bed. 

It's comics. He doesn't stay dead. 

And he doesn't stay the same Question either. 

Hub City is a city in the grip of absolute corruption, the end result of absolute political power run amuck. But even against an absolutely immoral system, the Question is forced to confront his beliefs and his attitudes. Fighting crime is a messy and dangerous business and Denny O'Neil doesn't flinch from making this business as messy and dangerous as possible. 

script by Denny O'Neil,
art by Michael Golden & Dick Giordano

Denny O'Neil had his missteps as a writer and editor but more often than not, his talents and instincts were forces to be reckoned with. 

Denny continued to write. He contributed a story to Detective Comics#1000 and just last week in DC's new Joker special, a new story bore the credit of Denny O'Neil as writer. 

When I was a young boy. I learned to love reading comic books. When the name Denny O'Neil was on the byline as the writer, I loved the experience of reading comics even more. 

Goodbye and rest well, Denny.