03/08/2020
Dennis ‘Denny’ O’Neil. May 3rd 1939 – June 11th 2020
Having written about comics Denny O’Neil contributed his first stories to DC.in 1968. In 1970 he and artist Neal Adams saved Batman from possible extinction. From a time when Batman featured stories in which he was pestered by a Bat-Mite imp, threatened with outsize domestic appliances and where the Joker had a ‘Sky-Sled’ they created the grittier gutsier Batman, the Dark Knight of Gotham City we all know and shudder at today.
O’Neil with Adams then worked with the Green Lantern/Green Arrow stories, “Hard Traveling Heroes.” These much acclaimed and award laden series dealt with social issues - drug addiction, racism, industrial pollution, religious persecution. and others – themes then new to mainstream comics.
Denny O’Neil wrote stories for practically every super-hero you have ever heard of, some few you haven’t, as well scripts for television, movies and books both fiction and non -fiction.
With the Batman make-over and the subjects of the Green Lantern /Green Arrow series O’Neil would seem to have not just reinvigorated the super-hero comic book but shaped the nature of the contemporary comic industry.
Here just one of the many tributes on the internet - http://www.tcj.com/denny-oneil-1939-2020/
Illustrated talk about Batman makeover - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xpt1XdnF-vw
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