Roy Thomas

Born November 22, 1940 (Missouri)
American author, editor

Many comic book fans dream of becoming part of the world of comics, creating the superheroes and dramatic adventure stories that fill the pages of the comic books that they love to read. This dream began for Roy Thomas during his boyhood in the 1940s, an era that is often called the "Golden Age" of comics because of the massive popularity of comics created by DC and Marvel Comics. When Thomas grew up, he turned his dream into reality, starting as co-editor of a fan magazine and going on to become editor-in-chief of Marvel Comics. Throughout his career, Thomas has overseen the creation of hundreds of comics, writing many himself, and leading comics into a new and more literary direction.

Thomas was born on November 22, 1940. He was still in college in 1961 when he began to work on a fan magazine called Alter Ego, started by comics fan and historian Jerry Banks. By 1964, Thomas had risen from contributor to co-editor of Alter Ego, which focused on the history of popular comic superheroes as well as profiles of the artists who created them.

While working on Alter Ego, Thomas began to correspond with Mort Weisinger, who edited the Superman series for DC Comics. In 1965, with Weisinger's encouragement, Thomas left a teaching job in the Midwest to move to New York to take a job as Weisinger's assistant. However, Thomas was an independent and creative worker, and did not get along with his new boss. Within weeks, he left DC to take a job as a staff writer for Marvel Comics.

"To me, the authentic comics are the original ones."

At Marvel, Thomas began to write stories for such classic Marvel titles as The Avengers and X-Men, both superhero team comics, a genre that Thomas would continue to develop throughout his career. It was during these first years at Marvel that Thomas met Stan Lee (1922–), editor-in-chief and creator of such famous Marvel heroes as Spiderman. Lee became a friend and mentor to Thomas during the early development of his comics career.

By the late 1960s, Thomas had begun to tire of comics' focus on superheroes. He thought it would help to elevate the status of the comic book if comics were based on historical or literary characters. For his first effort, he chose a character from a series of pulp novels written by Robert E. Howard (1906–1936) in the 1930s. Howard's stories describe an imaginary ancient past that includes the lost continent of Atlantis and a variety of mythical tribes and kingdoms. One of his most memorable heroes is a burly barbarian warrior named Conan the Cimmerian, who first appears in a 1932 novel called The Phoenix on the Sword.

Best-Known Works

Graphic Novels

(With others) Star Wars: A Long Time Ago … 1977–86 (comics series); 7 volumes. (2002).

The Dragonlance Saga. 3volumes. (1988–89).

(With Gerry Conway) Conan the Barbarian: The Horn of Azoth. (1990).

(With Tim Conrad) Amuric. (1991).

Richard Wagner's The Ring of the Nibelung. (1991).

(With John Buscema) Conan, the Rogue. (1991).

The Many Armors of Iron Man. (1992).

(With Esteban Maroto) Dracula: Vlad, the Impaler. (1993).

(With Randy Lofficier and Ted McKeever) Superman's Metropolis. (1996).

(With Michael Lark) Superman: War of the Worlds. (1999).

(With others) The Song of Red Sonja and Other Stories. (2004).

(With others) The Monster of the Monoliths and Other Stories. (2004).

The Chronicles of Conan. 10 volumes. (2003–06).

Collections

(Editor, with Bill Schelly) Alter Ego: The Best of the Legendary Comics Fanzine. (1997).

(Editor, with Murphy Anderson) All Star Companion. (2004).

(With others) Marvel Visionaries: Roy Thomas. (2006).

Howard's novels were re-released during the 1960s, and they inspired Thomas to buy the rights to turn Conan into a comic book hero. His lengthy Conan the Barbarian series introduced a new genre to comic books, the "sword-and-sorcery" comic. By the mid-1970s, Conan had become one of Marvel's best-selling titles, and several of its characters, such as Red Sonja, a spirited warrior queen, had spun off into their own comic series.

In 1972, Stan Lee became president and publisher of Marvel, and Roy Thomas was promoted to editor-in-chief. For the next two years, Thomas attempted to lead Marvel in new directions but became discouraged and resigned the position, preferring to return to writing and editing comics. He continued to develop the sword-and-sorcery line, adding titles like The Iron Hand of Almuric, about an ancient warrior transported into outer space to battle alien monsters on a strange planet, and Kings of the Night, about northern barbarian tribes battling the Roman empire. In 1977, he capitalized on the enormous popularity of the Star Wars movies by creating twenty volumes of Star Wars comics that received praise from both fans and critics.

While working at Marvel, Thomas supervised the creation of dozens of books each month, and continually pushed the company to try new approaches in order to attract more readers. For example, he oversaw the production of a line of comics designed to draw in female readers, even taking the unusual step of hiring women writers to increase the realism of the female heroes. These comics, such as The Cat, Night Nurse, and Shanna, Queen of the Jungle, were fairly successful, as were the two humor comics, Crazy and Spoof, that Thomas developed in an effort to lure the readers of Mad magazine over to Marvel.

Finally, in 1981, Thomas could no longer work out his disagreements with the administration at Marvel. He left the company and went to work for DC Comics. There he returned to his first love, the classic comics of the Golden Age of the 1940s. He brought back the original Justice Society of America (JSA), another comic superhero team. Though dozens of DC superheroes had been members of the JSA through the years, fans were especially loyal to the original Golden Age members, such as the Atom, Green Lantern, Hawkman, and Hourman. Thomas brought them all back and actually set the story in the Golden Age, telling stories of the All-Star Squadron battling Nazis during World War II (1939–45). Thomas also created a new team that he called Infinity, Inc., made up of the children of the original JSA members.

In the late 1980s, Thomas returned to Marvel, where he continued to reach beyond the superhero format for comic ideas. From Norse mythology, he got the inspiration for Thor, who was not only a superhero, but the god of thunder. Dr. Strange told the supernatural adventures of a sorcerer battling the demons and monsters who serve the forces of evil.

During the 1990s, Thomas ventured into the world of independent comic publishers, where he continued his efforts to broaden the appeal of comic books by adapting serious classics to comic form, such as his comic version of Richard Wagner's operas. Though considerably more highbrow than Conan or Thor, Thomas's Ring of the Nibelung also tells the dramatic adventures of ancient warriors. The Victorian gothic novel Dracula by Bram Stoker was also perfect for Thomas's comic book adaptation, with its dark occult setting and blood-drinking villain.

Always willing to work wherever he could have the most freedom to develop his original ideas, Thomas returned to DC to produce a pair of unique classic adaptations, this time based on Fritz Lang's futuristic melodrama film Metropolis (1927) and H. G. Wells's chilling novel War of the Worlds (1898). In a clever twist, Thomas brings the comics right inside the classics with Superman's Metropolis and Superman: War of the Worlds, both of which place the famous DC hero in a central role in both stories.

Comics: Gold, Silver, and Bronze

Throughout his career, Roy Thomas has had a respectful fascination with the comics of the Golden Age. The production of comic books began in 1933 with a collection of Sunday comic strips put together by a salesman named Max Gaines. The Golden Age of comics began five years later when DC Comics released a book called Action Comics No.1, which introduced a new hero called Superman. Throughout the next few decades, larger-than-life heroes like the Phantom, Sandman, and Daredevil fought villains like Deathbolt, Nuclear, and Night and Fog, to the delight of readers.

A period of political and social repression during the 1950s dealt a severe blow to the comics industry, but in the 1960s sales began to pick up and the Silver Age of comics began. Some comic historians place the beginning of the Silver Age of Comics in 1961, with the publication of The Fantastic Four, created by Marvel Comics' Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. This comic marked a new rise in reader interest in superheroes, and a new breed of hero, with superpowers and also very human insecurities and worries.

The Bronze Age of comics began in the early 1970s with the introduction of a new type of non-super hero, such as the barbarian warriors pioneered by Roy Thomas. Bronze Age comics also began to develop grittier plots that dealt with social issues like racism and drug addiction.

The modern wave of underground comics, with its grim heroes and bleak points of view, has little appeal to Thomas. As he told Mike Robinson in an interview on Heroes and Dragons, "To me, comics were optimistic, bright, and cheerful. People had troubles, but we were still dealing with heroes. I see that missing now." Thomas himself created many memorable heroes who have earned a permanent place in comic history.

For More Information

Periodicals

Flagg, Gordon. "The Song of Red Sonja and Other Stories." Booklist (May 15, 2004): p. 1606.

Mohr, Rick. "The All-Star Companion." Reviewer's Bookwatch (November 2004).

Raiteri, Steve. "Star Wars: A Long Time Ago …: Vol. 1: Doomworld." Library Journal (November 1, 2002): p. 67.

Raiteri, Steve. "The Chronicles of Conan Vol. 1: Tower of the Elephant and Other Stories." Library Journal (January 2004): p. 80.

Web Sites

Amash, Jim. "Roy Thomas Interview." Two Morrows.http://www.twomorrows.com/kirby/articles/18thomas.html (accessed on May 3, 2006).

Conan: Official Website.http://www.conan.com/index.shtml (accessed on May 3, 2006).

Offenberger, Rik. "Retrospectively Roy: A Look Back at the Career of Roy Thomas." Silver Bullet Comic Bookshttp://www.silverbulletcomicbooks.com/features/110551511457953.htm (accessed on May 3, 2006).

Robinson, Mike. "A Conversation with Roy Thomas." Heroes and Dragons.http://www.heroesanddragons.com/Archive/Interviews/RoyThomas/DEFAULT.htm (accessed on May 3, 2006).