Comics
Barr's debut as a comics professional came in DC Comics' Detective Comics #444 (Dec. 1974–Jan. 1975), for which he wrote an eight-page back-up mystery feature starring the Elongated Man. Another Elongated Man story followed in Detective Comics #453 (Nov. 1975). [3] He wrote text articles and editorial replies in letter columns for the next few years. By mid-1980 he was writing regularly for both DC and Marvel, including stories for Mystery in Space , Green Lantern , The Brave and the Bold , Marvel Team-Up , and a Spider-Man/Scarlet Witch team-up in Marvel Fanfare #6. [4]
Legion of Super-Heroes #277 (July 1981) saw him take on editorial duties at DC, a position he would hold until 1987. [5] In December 1982, he and artist Brian Bolland began Camelot 3000 , [6] a 12 issue limited series that was one of DC Comics' first direct market projects. [7] Barr and artist Trevor Von Eeden produced the first Green Arrow limited series in 1983. [8] When the long running The Brave and the Bold series came to its conclusion with issue #200 (July 1983), it featured a preview of a new Batman series, Batman and the Outsiders by Barr and artist Jim Aparo, [9] which would be described by DC Comics writer and executive Paul Levitz as being "a team series more fashionable to 1980s audiences." [10] The Masters of Disaster were among the supervillains created by Barr and Aparo for the series. [11] Barr wrote every issue of the original series, and its Baxter paper spinoff, The Outsiders [12] [13] that did not include Batman and introduced Looker. [14] After the series' cancellation in February 1988, it was revived in November 1993 by Barr and artist Paul Pelletier. [15]
He was one of the contributors to the DC Challenge limited series in 1986 [16] and wrote the "Batman: Year Two" storyline in Detective Comics #575–578 (June–Sept. 1987) which followed up on Frank Miller's "Batman: Year One". [17] Barr introduced the Reaper in Detective Comics #575 (June 1987) and returned to the character in the Batman: Full Circle one-shot in 1991. [18] Another project from 1987 was the Batman: Son of the Demon graphic novel which was drawn by Jerry Bingham. [19] This title, and Barr's work on Batman with artist Alan Davis have been cited by Grant Morrison as key inspirations for their own run on the Batman title. [20] Barr's sequel, Batman: Bride of The Demon, was published in 1991. [21] Barr's Batman stories and scripts have been adapted into several mediums, including episodes of Batman: The Animated Series .
From 1989 to 1990, he took over DC's Doc Savage series from Dennis O'Neil, which saw the 1930s super-scientist taken to the present day. It was also notable as featuring Doc Savage's first-ever team-up with The Shadow, another popular hero of the pulp magazine era and inspiration for Batman. The two characters appeared together in a four-issue story, The Conflagration Man, that crossed back and forth between each character's DC comic book series.
In 2007, he wrote a two-part story for the pages of DC's JLA: Classified (#47–48, Jan–Feb 2008), returned to the Outsiders with Outsiders: Five of a Kind — Katana/Shazam #1 (Oct. 2007), contributed to Tokyopop's Star Trek: The Manga, and relaunched Maze Agency at IDW Publishing. He has scripted many of Bongo Comics' The Simpsons titles, including a Christmas story for 2010. [3] His other comics work includes Mantra for Malibu Comics and Maze Agency for Comico Comics and Innovation Publishing. [3]
