Roger Stern

Roger Stern 2010

Roger Stern (born September 17, 1950 ) is an American novelist and comic book author.

life and career

Working for Marvel (1975–1985)

Stern began working as a writer for the comic book publisher Marvel Comics in 1975, for whom he wrote mainly ongoing adventure and superhero series such as Captain America (together with John Byrne ), The Amazing Spider-Man , Doctor Strange and The Avengers . In 1984, Stern co-created the popular West Coast Avengers series with artist Bob Hall . In addition, Stern worked briefly as the editor of several Marvel series.

The well-known comic characters that Stern created during this time include the Hobgoblin and Captain Marvel , both of whom he developed together with the cartoonist John Romita junior .

Working in the 1980s and 1990s

After a falling out with his publisher at Marvel, Mark Gruenwald , he began to work as a freelance writer for the competing publisher DC. There, Stern played a key role in the general overhaul of the traditional comic series Superman , designed by John Byrne , which was restarted in 1986 after almost fifty years under "modern conditions". From 1987 to 1997 Stern wrote various Superman series: 1988–1990 the core title Superman , from 1990 to 1994 the classic series Action Comics and from 1995 to 1997 the quarterly series Superman: Man of Tomorrow , created especially for him, Stern . During this time, Stern wrote, among other things, the # 700 anniversary issue of the Action Comics series and, as one of the main authors of the Superman imprint at DC, was instrumental in the famous saga of Superman's death and resurrection. For the latter, which appeared in dozens of comics over eight months, he also wrote a novel equivalent that made it to Time magazine's bestseller list and made Stern a substantial fortune.

He also created the Starman series for DC in 1989 (together with Tom Lyle ). In the 1990s he wrote series such as Spider-Man: Hobgoblin Lives and miniseries such as Avengers Two , Avengers Infinity and Revenge of the Green Goblin for Marvel . Together with Kurt Busiek , he wrote several booklets for the Iron Man series , and with John Byrne he designed the series Marvel: The Lost Generation .

Working since 2000

In 2001 Stern started working for the European publishers Egmont and Panini UK, for which he wrote series such as The Phantom .

As a novelist, Stern wrote the books Smallville: Strange Visitors (2002) and Superman: The Never-Ending Battle in addition to the aforementioned novel Death and Life of Superman .

Web links

• Literature by and about Roger Stern in the catalog of the German National Library