Thanks, Denny O’Neil, for introducing me to both writing and Batman
No storyteller had a greater influence on me becoming a writer more than Dennis “Denny” O’Neil, who passed away June 11.
He’s probably best known as the writer of Green Lantern/Green Arrow in the 1970s with the legendary artist Neal Adams, in which they wrote stories about drugs and racism in America well ahead of the pop culture zeitgeist as well as traditional superhero tales where the good guys always found a way to win. But he was also Frank Miller’s editor on Daredevil in the early ’80s just before Miller struck gold with The Dark Knight Returns (O’Neil was the series’ editor) which singlehandedly transformed the direction for the character of Batman into how we know him today.
O’Neil also wrote Batman and Detective Comics for a time and eventually became the group editor for all of the “Batman” books. The most prolific storylines he oversaw was Batman: Year One (written by Miller), which largely inspired “Batman Begins” and the “Knightfall” storyline from the 1990s that introduced Bane and would later influence the writing of Chrisopher Nolan’s “The Dark Knight Rises.” It was DC Comics’ in-house response to “The Death of Superman” story, which had caught fire with fans and mainstream media alike around 1991.
About a year after that, when I was 12 years old, I was often angry and sad. Middle school had been a tougher experience than I expected. Aside from school, soccer and the violin (three activities in which I was often picked on or ridiculed by others because kids can be awful to each other), I didn’t do much else with my time outside of write on occasion. So I made the mature decision that I needed a hobby of my choosing (I enjoyed soccer and the violin, but both were pushed upon me by my father and brother, respectively; I did fine in school but never really enjoyed it).
“It’s an interesting job, it’s a fascinating job, I can’t imagine anything that would have given me more satisfaction, and not everything I did was awful, but it was just writing another story in a world that’s full of stories.” — Dennis O’Neil
I chose reading comics, and randomly picked Batman as my starting point. I knew nothing about the full history of the character outside of “Super Friends” and the Adam West series reruns that I watched as a young boy.
The first comic I bought with my soccer referee money was Detective Comics #659, also known as part two of “Knightfall,” a multi-part story published over several years that focused on an exhausted Batman who was pushed beyond his limits by Bane, a criminal mastermind who was born and raised in a prison overseas and dreamed of becoming king of Gotham City by destroying Batman, who fit the image of a monster that would appear in his recurring nightmares. A fellow inmate told Bane about the Dark Knight and thus began Bane’s hunger for his destruction. The culmination of the story, for those who are unfamiliar but have perhaps watched “Rises,” is Bane weakening Bruce Wayne to the point where the hero can no longer fight back, thus allowing Bane — dominantly stronger in the comics due to a steroid, but because of an inability to feel pain in the film — to break Batman’s back over his knee.
It was the first full story I ever read about Batman. What started, however, as a broad exploration of a new hobby turned into a series of lessons in both writing and morality that would last throughout my adolescence and formative years.
“Writing about real stuff that really concerned me brought out my craft. If you’re writing a story about, ‘Is Lois Lane gonna figure out that Superman is Clark Kent?’ — it’s really hard to get involved in that on anything other than a craft level. And I’m not gonna put down craftsmanship; it is a noble enough thing to have made a table that you can pound on and it doesn’t fall down. But occasionally, we might have an assignment that engages some other parts of ourselves, and those tend to be the good stories.” — Dennis O’Neil
Writers that made up the O’Neil team at the time included the likes of Alan Grant, Doug Moench and Chuck Dixon, three writers who wrote rich, complex psychological tales about Batman, his allies, his rogues and Gotham City — a dirty metropolis that, in “Knightfall,” witnesses its champion break and fall at the hands of his ultimate nemesis.
Without repeating each issue of the series, readers would find stories about a man, one who made himself physically better and mentally sharper than almost every other man on earth, pushed beyond his limits. As a young man on the verge of his prime teenage years, Batman comics gave me some of the most important life lessons I still carry to this day:
— There is as much good as there is evil.
— Defend those who can’t defend themselves.
— Intelligence can always beats might.
— The sanctity of life matters above all else.
— Trauma can be a catalyst for something good if you make the right choices.
After I read the “Knightfall” issues, I read the novelization by Dennis O’Neil. He was a unique writer all his own, imbuing philosophy, metaphysics, world and American history into setting scenes, moods and actions. He was the first writer I knew who was capable of making Batman’s literary world real, which only reinforced the sense of morality I began to form so young.
Despite this enlightenment, I was troubled for a long time before and after my entry into Batman’s world. My parents didn’t always get along in my younger years. I was picked on a lot in elementary and middle school, and sometimes bullied. All of that only fueled my anger and depression. Reading “Batman” and “Detective Comics” ultimately helped me understand the value of catharsis: To use my pain to become a real-life Batman was impossible, but to fuel a passion for writing gave me hope for something positive to come out of the struggles of youth. O’Neil used his own trials with alcoholism to influence how he wrote characters with a personable touch that made readers care about the hero’s journey, most notably with Tony Stark when O’Neil wrote for Marvel’s Iron Man early in his comics career. Or with drugs and social issues in Green Lantern/Green Arrow. Or obsession in Batman.
“A man like me should carry his burdens alone. If he doesn’t people get hurt.” — Dennis O’Neil
As I was nearing my high school years, I had already done plenty of amateur writing, but didn’t consider it to be a career. Ironically, I eventually chose a Clark Kent path by becoming a journalist — just as O’Neil himself did before starting a career in comics. But reading his work and the Batman stories he helped curate in the ’90s encouraged me to be the kind of writer whose works people wanted to read.
I’ve always hoped that people would find my works to be as entertaining as they were informative, whether it was news or creative fiction. As I now try, almost 30 years later, to reignite the storytelling fire in my soul, I feel compelled to revisit O’Neil’s work and that of those he guided and influenced.
O’Neil was 81 when he passed away — born the same month and year as Detective Comics №27 (May 1939), which featured the first-ever Batman story.
I owe much of my career to Dennis O’Neil, even though I didn’t go into comics. And I’m thankful that his Bat Signal will shine in the sky well beyond his life .
