A Brief Overview
Roy Thomas was the FIRST Editor-in-Chief at Marvel--After Stan Lee stepped down from the position. Roy is a longtime comic book writer and editor. Thomas has written comics for Archie, Charlton, DC, Heroic Publishing, Marvel, and Topps over the years. Thomas currently edits the fanzine Alter Ego for Twomorrows Publishing. He was Editor for Marvel comics from 1972-1974. He wrote for several titles at Marvel, such as Avengers, Thor, Invaders, Fantastic Four, X-Men, and notably Conan the Barbarian.
It was also Roy Thomas who recognized the writings of one Dennis "Denny" O' Neil (who would one day become Editor for DC/creator of Arkham Asylum/ Ra's al Ghul/John Stewart) from a newspaper article Thomas had read. Roy reached out to O' Neil and got him to pencil a script-test for The Fantastic Four. Shortly after Thomas showed the script to Stan Lee, who promptly hired O'Neil.
Character Creations--Oh My!
Roy Thomas is still an advocate for creator rights. So when working for Marvel he was well aware of his contract and therefore when he had to come up with new characters many times he would take characters that were already present in the Marvel Universe and "revamp" them ( "Revamp" get it? Because he created Morbius). Two great examples are The Black Knight and Ghost Rider!
Roy helped create dozens of hugely popular characters including the following:
3-D Man
Alkhema
Alley-Kat-Abra
All Star Squadron
Amazing Man
Amphibius
Aquarius
Arak
Atom Smasher
Banshee
Black Knight (Dane Whitman)
Bogatyri
Brainchild
Brother VooDoo
Captain Carrot
Carol Danvers
Chroma
Conan
Cyclotron
Deathbolt
Doc Samson
Fastback
Firebrand
Fury
Ghost Rider
Grim Reaper
Harlequin
Hector Hall
Hourman
Hyperion
Iron Cross
Iron Fist
Iron Munro
Jade
Jim Morita
Kevin Sydney (Changeling)
Little Cheese
Luke Cage
Man-Ape
Master Man
Mekanique
Missing Link
Mister Bones
Morbius
Mr. Bones
Ms. Marvel
Nameless One
Northwind
Nova
Obsidian
Omega
Phantom Rider
Red Sonja
Satannish
Satana
Sauron
Snowman
Spitfire
Stingray
Sunfire
Tiger Shark
Typhon
Ultron
Union Jack
Valda The Iron Maiden
Vision
Wendell Vaughn (Quasar)
Wildcat (Yolanda Montez)
Wolverine
Yankee Poodle
Young All-Stars
Zyklon
This list is just a small sampling of the popular characters Roy added to both the DC and Marvel universes
The 2nd Editor at Marvel Comics Steps Up
Roy became the first editor to take the reigns of Marvel Comics after Stan Lee. His list of creations for Marvel is a very long one.
Working for DC
While working for DC, Roy made a plea to the editor to change the company's name to combat more with Marvel Comics, his suggestion was "Dynamic Comics." The editor rejected the idea. At DC comics Thomas worked on All Star Squadron, Arak, and Captain Carrot and his Amazing Zoo Crew.
Thomas' Alter Ego won the Eisner for Best Comics-Related Publication in 2007.
In 2011 Thomas was inducted into the Eisner Awards' Hall of Fame.
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