James Robinson (writer)


James Dale Robinson is a British writer of American comic books and screenplays best known for co-creating the character of Starman (Jack Knight) with Harris (comics)|Tony Harris] and reviving the Justice Society of America in the late 1990s. His other notable works include the screenplay for the The [League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (film)|film adaptation] of the Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill's comic book series The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and the multi-year crossover storyline "Superman: New Krypton".

Career

Robinson made his writing debut in 1989 with the graphic novel London's Dark, illustrated by Paul Johnson and later named one of the 500 "essential" graphic novels, as it was "at the vanguard of British graphic novels as a whole" despite being "a very raw work, full of experimentation". He continued contributing short stories to various anthologies, including "Grendel: Devil's Whisper" which appeared in A1, before breaking into the American market with a number of Terminator series for Dark Horse. In 1993, Robinson penned the limited series Golden Age (comics)|The Golden Age] for DC Comics, which, despite being an Elseworlds story, established much of the backstory he would later use in his arguably most renowned work, Starman. With Starman, Robinson took the aging Golden Age character of the same name and revitalized both him and all those who had used the name over the decades, weaving them into an interconnected whole. In 1997, Robinson's work on the title garnered him an Eisner Award for "Best Serialized Story". In the late 90s, Robinson worked on a follow-up series to The Golden Age, to be titled The Silver Age and illustrated by Howard Chaykin, although he ultimately decided not to pursue the project as the bulk of his ideas were presented in Mark Waid and Brian Augustyn's 1998 series JLA: Year One.
In addition to Starman, Robinson's DC work includes frequent contributions to the anthology series Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight, a Vigilante mini-series and The Sandman spin-off series Witchcraft for Vertigo. In 1999, Robinson and his writing partner David S. Goyer spearheaded the return of the Golden Age team of superheroes Justice Society of America to the mainstream DC Universe with the story arc "The Justice Society Returns" and the launch of the ongoing series JSA. Robinson left the title after five issues while Goyer continued co-writing it with Geoff Johns, with whom Robinson would later launch the JSA spin-off series Hawkman. Similarly, he served as a transitional writer on several Marvel titles, such as Cable and Generation X, contributing to the "Operation: Zero Tolerance" inter-title crossover storyline. Robinson wrote a brief run on the Captain America series that was then-recently relaunched as part of the "Heroes Reborn" initiative. Other work for Marvel includes Ectokid, one of the series created by the horror/fantasy novelist Clive Barker for the company's Razorline imprint. At Image, Robinson wrote a brief run on Wildcats that further developed the team's mythology and launched the creator-owned series Leave It to Chance with artist Paul Smith's, which won them two more Eisner Awards in 1997, for "Best New Series" and "Best Title for Younger Readers".
Robinson made a foray into screenwriting with a screenplay for the 1993 direct-to-video short film Firearm, based on the comic book series of the same name published by Malibu. In the late 90s, Robinson and David S. Goyer wrote an unused draft for then-upcoming film Freddy vs. Jason and scripted Evermere for C2 Pictures, which aimed for a 2000 release with Chuck Russell attached to direct. Robinson's best known work as a screenwriter is the 2003 adaptation of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, which caused some controversy among fans of the original work, many of whom were disappointed that the film took many liberties and changed the tone of the source material. Early drafts had reportedly relocated much of the action from England to America, allegedly in an attempt to make it more acceptable to American audience.
After taking a break from writing comics, Robinson returned in 2006 with an eight-issue storyline "Batman: Face the Face", which ran through both Batman and Detective Comics as part of DC Comics' company-wide initiative "One Year Later". In 2008, he took over the writing duties of the ongoing Superman series, starting with the storyline "The Coming of Atlas". In 2009, Robinson launched Justice League: Cry for Justice, intended to run as a second ongoing Justice League title but turned into a 7-issue mini-series instead due to poor critical reception. Despite the controversial reception, Robinson was nominated for Best Writing in the 2010 Eisner Awards. In October 2009, Robinson took over the regular Justice League of America ongoing title with and artist Mark Bagley, who was later replaced by Brett Booth. In May 2010, Robinson and Sterling Gates co-wrote War of the Supermen, the limited series that acted as the culmination of the Superman crossover storyline that started two years prior with "Superman: New Krypton". Robinson concluded his run on Superman with issue #700. In 2011, Robinson launched the 12-issue series The Shade, starring the eponymous character closely associated with the Starman series. The following year, he launched the Earth 2 ongoing series which reimagined the long-standing concept of the fictional parallel earth for new readers as part of DC Comics' company-wide relaunch "The New 52". One of the revisions introduced by Robinson was making the Green Lantern of Earth 2 gay, which made national news. Robinson left the title after sixteen issues.
In 2013, Robinson launched The Saviors with J. Bone, his first creator-owned series since the discontinuation of Leave It to Chance a decade earlier. In 2014, Marvel published an original graphic novel titled The Amazing Spider-Man: Family Business, co-written by Robinson and Mark Waid. That same year, Robinson's launched two new ongoing series at Marvel as part of the All-New Marvel NOW! initiative, All-New Invaders with artist Steve Pugh and a new volume of the Fantastic Four series with artist Leonard Kirk. In 2015, Robinson and artist Greg Hinkle launched the 4-issue mini-series Airboy at Image, which featured the eponymous Golden Age character emerging from the world of comic books into the "real" world and interacting with the creators. The series caused controversy with its transphobic remarks made by fictional Robinson in issue #2, which propmpted the creators to make amendments for the eventual collected edition. Also in 2015, Robinson penned the ongoing series Scarlet Witch for Marvel, which, he explained, was influenced by the work of Matt Fraction and David Aja on the 2012 series Hawkeye. In 2016, Robinson launched another creator-owned series, Grand Passion, illustrated by Tom Feister and published by Dynamite, which he described as "a departure from what I've been doing in the last few years." The following year, Robinson penned a James Bond spin-off series starring Felix Leiter for Dynamite and returned to DC Comics for a run on the Wonder Woman series, which he wrote for a year, leaving after issue #50.
Since 2020, Robinson has been writing and producing the Stargirl television series, based on the eponymous character co-created by Geoff Johns and Lee Moder that in turn spun out of Robinson-created character Starman (Jack Knight).

Personal life

Robinson and longtime DC Comics editor Jann Jones announced their engagement in 2009. They married two years later and have since divorced.

Early work

DC Comics

Marvel Comics

Image Comics

Other publishers

Filmography