Michael Carlin (born October 6, 1958)[1] is an American comic book writer, editor, and executive. He has worked principally for Marvel Comics and DC Comics since the 1970s.
Mike Carlin | |
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Born | Michael Carlin October 6, 1958 |
Nationality | American |
Area(s) | Writer, Penciller, Editor |
Notable works | Superman |
Awards | Eisner Award for Best Editor Inkpot Award (1994) |
Carlin attended the High School of Art and Design in Manhattan, graduating in 1976.[2] He received a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Cartooning from the School of Visual Arts in New York in 1980.[3]
Mike Carlin started out in the business at DC Comics as a high school intern in 1974.[4] He was hired by Marvel Comics as a writer and artist on Crazy Magazine, the company's black-and-white humor title at the end of 1980.[3] His first work appeared in print in 1981. He later became an assistant editor under Mark Gruenwald[5] in 1982 and wrote a short run of stories in Captain America and Ka-Zar as well as the Assistant Editors' Month issue of Marvel Team-Up (Aunt May and Franklin Richards vs. Galactus).[6] Carlin moved to DC Comics as of October 6, 1986, his 28th birthday,[7] and became group editor of the Superman titles. He oversaw "The Death of Superman" storyline and the subsequent introduction of such characters as the Kon-El version of Superboy and John Henry Irons.[8] From 1996 to 2002, he served as an executive editor at DC Comics. As of 2011, he was DC Entertainment's Creative Director of Animation.[7]
The backup story "Bernie America, Sentinel of Liberty" in Captain America #289 (Jan. 1984) features Mike Carlin dressed as The Watcher, introducing the story.
The Batman Adventures #13, the first DC Comics spinoff of Batman: The Animated Series — features a screwball trio of incompetent super-villains: the Mastermind (a caricature of Mike Carlin), The Perfessor (a caricature of Dennis O'Neil), and Mr. Nice (a caricature of Archie Goodwin), a super-strong but childishly-innocent super-villain.[9]
Superman: The Man of Steel #75 (Jan. 1998) is a pastiche of Superman's death in Superman vol. 2 #75 (Jan. 1993), where Mister Mxyzptlk creates a duplicate of Doomsday. The confrontation culminates with Mxyzptlk meeting the Supreme Being who turns out to be Mike Carlin, the then-editor of the Superman titles, who promptly brings him back to life.
The January-dated books in 1984 featured a company-wide event that became known as 'Assistant Editor's Month'...a humorous story in Marvel Team-Up #137 featured Aunt May as the new herald of Galactus.
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One of the fascinating things about the Superman titles under Mike Carlin's editorship was just how well-oiled their machine was. He oversaw four separate creative teams and managed to tell what amounted to a weekly Superman story throughout the four titles.