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Wolverine, Storm, And Swamp Thing Co-Creator, Len Wein, Is Dead At 69

By Patricia Grannum
Published on: 12:17 PST, Sep 10, 2017

Len Wein, the co-creator of Wolverine, Storm, Swamp Thing, and many more iconic comic book characters has died. He was 69-years-old.

Tributes to the late great comic book writer and editor began pouring out on social media after Spider-Man writer Brian Michael Bendis tweeted a message about Wein’s passing.

According to Comicbook, Wein’s first professional job in comics was for Teen Titans #18 in 1968. For that issue, Wein co-created a male Starfire, who became known as Red Star and was the son of Constantine Kovar.

At DC, he created Swamp Thing, which originally appeared in their anthology title, House Of Secrets.

But Wein is best known for his work in creating the X-Men that fans have come to know and love. Wolverine is one of them. Wein and comic book artist Dave Cockrum,resurrected the X-Men books in 1975 and added a long list of new characters, including Wolverine, to the team of mutants. He also created Storm, Colossus, Nightcrawler, and Thunderbird.

Wein continued to write for Marvel Comics until the 1970s when his relationship with the company deteriorated. He made the move back to DC Comics as a writer and eventually became an editor. At DC, he wrote many issues of the Batman series and Green Lantern. On Green Lantern, Wein worked with Watchmen artist Dave Gibbons. Wein would later go on to serve as an editor on the Watchmen series. He also co-wrote the Legends event miniseries with John Ostrander, where the world was introduced to the Suicide Squad.

After his illustrious stint at DC, Wein became the editor-in-chief at Disney Comics before lending his talent to the world of TV production. As Comicbook notes, Wein became a writer and story-editor on X-Men, Batman, Spider-Man, Street Fighter, and many more shows.

Since the news of his death, praise for Len Wein has flooded across social media. These tributes are coming from comic book fans and professionals in the business as well.

While the cause of his death is still unknown, there had been reports that he was not in the best of health, Gizmodo notes. His last tweet, posted on September 7, said that he had successfully come out of his “latest” surgery.

[Featured Image by Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images]

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