Male Solo Books with a Female Writer

[Drops Of Venus]

I still want to know what Marvel did to piss her off. I used to think she just wanted to do indie work but now she's back to a big two book.

Could be related to what happened to Fraction. Not saying she makes all of her professional decisions based on her husband, of course, but when your spouse has a bad experience with a publisher, I can see why you wouldn't want to work there anymore. She also seems to be good friends with Chelsea Cain, who just recently went through something similar as Fraction at Marvel. So yeah, I wouldn't be shocked to find out she's not crazy about returning to Marvel because she doesn't like the way people she cares about were treated.

[Mike_Murdock]

What exactly happened with Fraction? Is this his Inhumans story?

[Hypestyle]

let Erika Alexander write Luke Cage.

[Swamp Thing 2099]

Wasn't it Mark Waid on the Unstoppable Wasp book.

Nope. Jeremy Whitley wrote the original run and is writing the new book as well.

It's DC, but the Benson sisters are doing a (truncated) run on Green Arrow.

Devin Grayson wrote a Ghost Rider mini-series, and over at DC, she wrote Nightwing, among others.

Louise Simonson was actually the first writer on Web of Spider-Man (three issues, but that was 33 years ago and was a pretty major launch and a series that lasted a very long time, so that means something, I guess). She also wrote a Galactus mini.

I'd be all about Mags Visaggio writing Wolverine, Iron Fist, Spider-Man, et al.

Gail Simone should write a Thor book at some point. Or Nick Fury! That'd rule.

[Digifiend]

Nope. Jeremy Whitley wrote the original run and is writing the new book as well.

Yeah, Waid created Nadia for All-New, All-Different Avengers, but Whitley developed her, co-writing ANAD Avengers 14 and Avengers 7 and 8, which were Nadia focus issues, as well as writing Unstoppable Wasp on his own.

[Rosebunse]

Ah. Agreed. Yes. I too subscribe to talent> identity quantifer(?)
Quality writing is the goal.
I do think that its very easy to fall into a "Hey this person wrote something rad this one time, lets go with him" hole, thereby possibly overlooking or not considering new talent --and there certainly IS something to be said about considering the unique perspective a particular person may bring to the table based on their life experience as a fellow minority -- whatever that minority may be (but again, as I said earlier, that is NOT always the case <cough-America-Chavez-Solo-cough>)

Like, in my mind Al Ewing can do no wrong and writes a truly VAST representative of characters. And he's a white British dude.
I love his writing and encourage and applaud more more MOAR and if I were in a position of deciding to appoint a writer to a book, my bias for Ewing might inform my decision making because I'm a flawed human being that wants more of what I view as GOOD writing. But I might be missing out on a unique story from another writer that may in fact be very well suited to the title, character, etc.

Its a complicated topic really. I'm glad folks are discussing it. Its an important one.

I sometimes wonder if -- given that female talent (in many avenues) are often not afforded the same opportunities (jobs, foot in the door, etc) as their male counterparts, that WHEN given a gig, folks are inclined to offer them gender specific books -- be it subconscious or deliberate. So the ladies are often writing books that have a leading lady, or even books focusing on couples.

<shrug>

I remember in Mighty Avengers when Ewing gave Photon a straight perm look, which was criticized for making her look too white. Then we see it later become a plot point and something to think about when she later regrets it when she realizes another black woman convinced her young daughter to get the oftentimes painful hair style.

If all men wrote like Ewing, I would be a happy woman.

As I recall, Marjorie Liu even said in an interview that one of the reasons she wanted to write Daken/Dark Wolverine was to get away from the whole "girls only write the girl books" thing.

That was a good run. I didn't so much like her X-23 run. I feel like Daken really let her go wild, while X-23 just felt less focused.

[Mike_Murdock]

Yeah, Waid created Nadia for All-New, All-Different Avengers, but Whitley developed her, co-writing ANAD Avengers 14 and Avengers 7 and 8, which were Nadia focus issues, as well as writing Unstoppable Wasp on his own.

Did Waid do the Ant-Man and the Wasp mini, maybe? I don't know why I thought Waid was doing more writing of her.

[Beetle]

I remember in Mighty Avengers when Ewing gave Photon a straight perm look, which was criticized for making her look too white. Then we see it later become a plot point and something to think about when she later regrets it when she realizes another black woman convinced her young daughter to get the oftentimes painful hair style.

If all men wrote like Ewing, I would be a happy woman.

That was a good development. But I have to wonder if the straight hair was on Ewing, and not on the artist Greg Land who redesigned her as Spectrum.

Did Waid do the Ant-Man and the Wasp mini, maybe? I don't know why I thought Waid was doing more writing of her.

Waid did write that mini. And you can't really discount how long Nadia was on his Avengers team, she got even more focus during the crossover with the Champions (which Waid was also writing at the time) and she also stuck around in Champions until he left and joined the team full time before Jim Zub took over.

[Shinglepants]

It’s quite a damning indictment really, despite the progress Marvel has made with hiring female staff.

[TheCape]

Jo Duffy's run on Wolverine is one of my favorites runs on Wolverine. Same with Kathryn Immonen on Wolverine & Jubilee mini.

I agreed with this post.

[Digifiend]

Waid did write that mini. And you can't really discount how long Nadia was on his Avengers team, she got even more focus during the crossover with the Champions (which Waid was also writing at the time) and she also stuck around in Champions until he left and joined the team full time before Jim Zub took over.

Yeah, she's appeared in every issue of Champions since 11 except 12 (11 was Secret Empire, 13 started the Avengers crossover, and events there caused her to end up on both teams, a status quo that lasted only through No Surrender and Champions 18 to 21) and 24.

[Frontier]

What exactly happened with Fraction? Is this his Inhumans story?

That seemed to be the brunt of it since editorial seemed to be getting very involved in the Inhumans story up until Fraction left and they scrapped what he had planned.

I also think he was potentially burnt out on mainstream comics.

[Triniking1234]

It’s quite a damning indictment really, despite the progress Marvel has made with hiring female staff.

Because Marvel only hires women with pitches for the female characters.

[ed2962]

Marjorie Liu just wrote that Han Solo miniseries.

Marjorie Liu co-wrote all of Dark Wolverine with Daniel Way, and I always assumed that she was responsible for the bulk of it considering that it was actually readable unlike everything else Daniel Way has ever been attached to. And of course, she wrote Astonishing X-Men.



Funny to think that Nocenti wouldn't have written Daredevil if Steve Englehart hadn't been so upset about her use of Black Widow in what was planned as a fill-in issue. He threw a tantrum and stormed off the book, refusing to have his name attached to the one issue he did turn in, and he still characterized it as "an editor stealing the title for herself" years later.

Was this the one with the Barry W Smith art? If so I think I sorta remember it, the story was a response to Frank Miller's Nuke character and this one was a crazy religious vet who could make people have heart attacks, but the character meant to be more sympathetic than Nuke...

[Immortal Weapon]

I wish that book got more attention for that reason. Marvel improved in having female writers but there seemed to be a trend where female writers would write female characters while male writers could write either. Becky Cloonan was the only exception and I almost got the impression no one had thoughts on that book. That being said, Kelly Thompson is writing team books with male characters and I'll count that too.

Back in the 80s things were pretty different with Louise Simonson writing X-Factor and Power Pack, Ann Nocenti writing Daredevil, Mary Jo Duffy writing Power Man and Iron Fist. It might not be that praiseworthy, though. I somewhat get the impression they got these books because there were fewer female characters as well. But I like they were just among the writers and no distinction was made (Nocenti and Simonson were editors, which probably was a factor).

It probably didn't get attention because the Punisher isn't the type of character the crowd who would give it attention appeals to.