Roy William Thomas Jr."Roy Thomas Checklist" Alter Ego vol. 3, #50 (July 2005) p. 16 (born November 22, 1940)Comics Buyer's Guide #1636 (December 2007) p. 135 is an American comic book writer and editor. He was Stan Lee's first successor as editor-in-chief of Marvel Comics and possibly best known for introducing the pulp magazine hero Conan the Barbarian to American comics. 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 X-Men and The Avengers, and DC Comics' All-Star Squadron and Infinity Inc., among many other titles.
Among the comics characters he co-created are Vision, Doc Samson, Carol Danvers, Luke Cage, Iron Fist, Ultron, Yellowjacket, Defenders, Man-Thing, Red Sonja, Morbius, Ghost Rider, Squadron Supreme, Invaders, Black Knight (Dane Whitman), Nighthawk, Grandmaster, Banshee, Sunfire, Thundra, Arkon, Killraven, Wendell Vaughn, Red Wolf, Red Guardian, Daimon Hellstrom, and Valkyrie.
Thomas was inducted into the Will Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame in 2011 and into the Harvey Awards Hall of Fame in 2022.
Early life Thomas was born in Jackson, Missouri, United States.Thomas in As a child, he was a devoted comic book fan, and in grade school, he wrote and drew his own comics for distribution to friends and family. The first of these was All-Giant Comics, which he recalls as having featured such characters as Elephant Giant.The Avengers Annual #1 (1967), biographical text page He was enrolled at a parochial Lutheran school and attended St. Paul Lutheran Church in Jackson. As an adult, Thomas is "not religious" and has been described as a "lapsed Lutheran". He graduated from Southeast Missouri State University in 1961 with a BS in education, having majored in history and social science.
Thomas became an early and active member of Silver Age comic book fandom in the early 1960s.Siegel, Howard P. "Made in America," BEM #16 (Dec. 1977). Enthusiasm for the rebirth of superhero comics during that period led Jerry Bails to found the fanzine Alter Ego, and Thomas, then a high school English teacher, took over as editor in 1964. Letters from Thomas appeared regularly in the letters pages of both DC and Marvel Comics, including Green Lantern #1 (August 1960), The Flash #116 (Nov. 1960), Brave and the Bold #35 (May 1961), Fantastic Four #5 (July 1962), Fantastic Four #15 (June 1963), Fantastic Four #22 (Jan. 1964), and Blackhawk #211 (Aug. 1965).
Career Marvel Comics In 1965, Thomas moved to New York City to take a job at DC Comics as assistant to Mort Weisinger, then the editor of the Superman titles. Thomas said he had just accepted a fellowship to study foreign relations at George Washington University when he received a letter from Weisinger, "with whom I had exchanged one or two letters, tops", asking Thomas to become "his assistant editor on a several-week trial basis." Thomas had already written a Jimmy Olsen script "a few months before, while still living and teaching in the St. Louis area," he said in 2005. "I worked at DC for eight days in late June and very early July of 1965" before accepting a job at Marvel Comics. The Marvel "Bullpen Bulletins" in Fantastic Four #61 (April 1967) describes Thomas "admitting that he gave up a scholarship to George Washington University just to write for Marvel!"
This came after his chafing under the notoriously difficult Weisinger, to a point, Thomas said in 1981, that he would go "home to my dingy little room at, coincidentally, the George Washington Hotel in Manhattan, during that second week, and actually feeling tears well into my eyes, at the ripe old age of 24." Familiar with editor and chief writer Stan Lee's Marvel work, and feeling them "the most vital comics around", Thomas "just sat down one night at the hotel and – I wrote him a letter! Not applying for a job or anything so mundane as that – I just said that I admired his work, and would like to buy him a drink some time. I figured he just might remember me from Alter Ego." Lee did, and phoned Thomas to offer him a Marvel writing test.
The writer's test, Thomas said in 1998, "was four Jack Kirby pages from Fantastic Four Annual #2 ... [Stan Lee] had Sol [Brodsky] or someone take out the dialogue. It was just black-and-white. Other people like Denny O'Neil and Gary Friedrich took it. But soon afterwards we stopped using it." The day after taking the test, Thomas was at DC, proofreading a Supergirl story, when Lee's secretary Flo Steinberg called asking Thomas to meet with Lee over lunch, and at that meeting Thomas, agreed to work for Marvel.Thomas, The Comics Journal #61, p. 80 He returned to DC to give "indefinite notice" to Weisinger, but Weisinger ordered him to leave immediately and "I was back at Marvel less than an hour after I first left, and had a Modeling with Millie assignment to do over the weekend. It was a Friday." His employment was announced in the "Bullpen Bulletins" section of Fantastic Four #47 (Feb. 1966) under the heading "How About That! Department" ("Roy's a fan who's made it!"). Thomas later described his early days at Marvel:
To that point, editor-in-chief Lee had been the main writer of Marvel publications, with his brother, Larry Lieber, often picking up the slack scripting some of the stories plotted by Lee. Thomas soon became the first new Marvel writer to sustain a presence at a time when comics veterans such as Robert Bernstein, Ernie Hart, Leon Lazarus, and Don Rico, and fellow newcomers Steve Skeates (hired a couple of weeks earlier) and O'Neil (brought in at Thomas' recommendation a few months later) did not. His Marvel debut was the romance-comics story "Whom Can I Turn To?" in the Millie the Model spin-off Modeling with Millie #44 (Dec. 1965)—for which the credits and the logo were inadvertently left off due to a production glitch, resulting in this being left off most credit lists.Alter Ego vol. 3, #50, p. 8 Thomas' first Marvel superhero scripting was an "Iron Man" story in Tales of Suspense #73 (Jan. 1966), entitled "My Life for Yours", working from a Lee plot and a plot assist from secretary Steinberg. Thomas estimates that Lee rewrote approximately half of that fledgling attempt.
Thomas' earliest Marvel work also included the teen-romance title Patsy and Hedy #104–105 (Feb.-April 1966), and two "Doctor Strange" stories, plotted by Lee and Steve Ditko, in Strange Tales #143–144 (April–May 1966). Two previously written freelance stories for Charlton Comics also saw print: "The Second Trojan War" in Son of Vulcan #50 (Jan. 1966) and "The Eye of Horus" in Blue Beetle #54 (March 1966). "When Stan saw the couple of Charlton stories I'd written earlier in more of a Gardner Fox style, he wasn't too impressed," Thomas recalled. "It's probably a good thing I already had my job at Marvel at that point! I think I was the right person in the right place at the right time, but there are other people who, had they been there, might have been just as right."Alter Ego vol. 3, #50, pp. 9–10
Thomas took on what would be his first long-term Marvel title, the World War II series Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos, starting with #29 (April 1966) and continuing through #41 (April 1967) and the series' 1966 annual, Sgt. Fury Special #2. He also began writing the mutant-superteam title [Uncanny] X-Men from #20–43 (May 1966 – April 1968), and, finally, took over The Avengers, starting with #35 (Dec. 1966), and continuing until 1972. That notable run was marked by a strong sense of continuity, and stories that ranged from the personal to the cosmic—the latter most prominently with the "Kree-Skrull War" in issues #89–97 (June 1971 – March 1972). Additional work included an occasional "Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D." and "Doctor Strange" story in Strange Tales. When that title became the solo comic Doctor Strange, he wrote the entire run of new stories, from #169–183 (June 1968 – Nov. 1969), mostly with the art team of penciler Gene Colan and inker Tom Palmer.
As Thomas self-evaluated in a 1981 interview, shortly after leaving Marvel for rival DC Comics, "One of the reasons Stan liked my writing ... was that after a few issues he felt he could trust me enough that he virtually never again read anything I wrote – well, at least not more than a page or two in a row, just to keep me honest."Thomas, The Comics Journal #61, p. 78
Thomas eloped in July 1968 to marry his first wife, Jean Maxey,Alter Ego vol. 3, #50, p. 37 returning to work a day late from a weekend comic-book convention in St. Louis, Missouri. Thomas said in 2000 that Brodsky, in the interim, had assigned Doctor Strange to writer Archie Goodwin, newly ensconced at Marvel and writing Iron Man, but Thomas convinced Brodsky to return it to him. "I got very possessive about Doctor Strange," Thomas recalled. "It wasn't a huge seller, but [by the time it was canceled], we were selling in the low 40 percent range of more than 400,000 print run, so it was actually selling a couple hundred thousand copies [but] at the time you needed to sell even more."Thomas (interviewer) in "So You Want a Job, Eh? The Gene Colan Interview", Alter Ego vol. 3, #6 (Autumn 2000) pp. 13–14 He eventually did have a Caribbean honeymoon, where he scripted the wedding of Hank Pym and Janet van Dyne in The Avengers #60 (Jan. 1969)."Bullpen Bulletins" page, "Brilliant Bits of Block-Busting Bombast Straight from your Blushin' Bullpen!" in Marvel Comics cover-dated March 1969, including The Incredible Hulk vol. 2, #113 Thomas, who had turned over X-Men to other writers, returned with issue #55 (April 1969) when the series was on the verge of cancellation. Additional . While efforts to save it failed—the title ended its initial run with #66—Thomas' collaboration with artist Neal Adams through #63 (Dec. 1969) is regarded as a Silver Age creative highlight.For example: Hill, Shawn, "Essential Avengers v4" (review), Comics Bulletin, February 15, 2006, re: the "Kree-Skrull War" arc: "This story set the standard for years to come, even if it has since been surpassed" (WebCitation archive); and Sanderson, Peter. Marvel Universe (Harry N. Abrams, 1998) , , p. 127: "Running nine issues, much of it spectacularly illustrated by Neal Adams, the Kree-Skrull War had no precedent in comics. ... With this story The Avengers unquestionably established its reputation as one of Marvel's leading books"; and Stiles, re: X-Men: "Even knowing that the book was slated for the axe, Adams poured out some of the finest, most innovative work of his career". Thomas won the 1969 Alley Award that year for Best Writer, while Adams and inker Tom Palmer, netted 1969 Alley Awards for Best Pencil Artist and Best Inking Artist, respectively.
Thomas and artist Barry Smith launched Conan the Barbarian in October 1970,Sanderson, Peter "1970s" in Gilbert (2008), p. 146: ""Writer Roy Thomas and British artist Barry Smith (later known as Barry Windsor-Smith) launched Marvel's sword-and-sorcery comics with Conan the Barbarian, in a series that ran for 275 issues." based on Robert E. Howard's 1930s pulp-fiction sword-and-sorcery character. Thomas, who stepped down from his editorship in August 1974, wrote hundreds of Conan stories in a host of Marvel comics and the black-and-white magazines Savage Tales and The Savage Sword of Conan. During that time, he and Smith also brought to comics the sword-wielding woman-warrior Red Sonja, initially as a Conan supporting character, based on a character created by Howard for a story set in a different historical era. Comics historian Les Daniels noted that, "Conan the Barbarian was something of a gamble for Marvel. The series contained the usual elements of action and fantasy, to be sure, but it was set in a past that had no relation to the Marvel Universe, and it featured a hero who possessed no magical powers, little humor and comparatively few moral principles."