Remembering Keith Giffen

Word Balloons #1184: Comic book writer and artist created Lobo, Ambush Bug and more

Keith Giffen, the comic book artist and writer with a decades-long comics career spanning the creation of characters including Rocket Racoon, Lobo, Ambush Bug, Trencher, and many more, died at age 70 on Monday. 

DC Comics shared the following statement: 

DC is saddened by the untimely passing of writer and artist Keith Giffen. Keith was a creative titan for DC, from his first work on ALL-STAR COMICS in 1976, to the co-creation of Lobo in OMEGA MEN #3, to his groundbreaking collaborations on LEGION OF SUPER HEROES, and JUSTICE LEAGUE, as well as his reimagining of BLUE BEETLE with co-writer John Rogers and artist Cully Hamner. He left a lasting legacy for all comic book fans to cherish. 

He will be sorely missed.

His “Great Darkness Saga” with Paul Levitz is maybe my favorite “Legion of Super-Heroes” story. But his “Five Years Later” Legion stories, with Tom and Mary Bierbaum and Al Gordon, were also brilliant and ahead of their time. 

In between the “Legion” runs were “Amethyst,” “Ambush Bug,” “Hex,” “Doctor Fate,” and perhaps the title he’ll be most remembered for, the “bwah-ha-ha” era of the “Justice League.” 

More than 35 years ago, "Justice League" #1 by Keith Giffen, J.M. DeMatteis, Kevin Maguire, and Terry Austin shifted the way Justice League stories were told, making a runaway hit in the process.  The more humorous, sitcom-style league lasted for several years and launched the spinoff "Justice League Europe."

Starring Batman, Guy Gardner, and others, this quirky, sitcom-style comic featuring adventures of the Justice League became a huge hit in the late 1980s. It was written by J.M. DeMatteis and Keith Giffen, with art by Kevin Maguire.

I became aware of it mostly after the run had ended, as various comic-store compatriots couldn’t stop talking about the “One Punch” issue with Batman and Guy Gardner. Naturally, I had to seek it out, which led me to collect the entire Giffen Justice League era. 

I say “mostly” because I did pick up “Justice League Europe” with issue #1, by Giffen, DeMatteis, and Bart Sears, and found it hilarious. I was a young enough collector at the time I didn’t have the ability to get every issue, but I knew if there was a copy at the grocery store when I got there, it was going to be a fun read. 

Giffen created Rocket Raccoon for Marvel with Bill Mantlo; for DC, the hairy, gruff alien he created was taller and a little more of an antihero: Lobo, who first appeared in “Omega Men” #3 and then really took off with his own miniseries later. 

In the early 1990s, working at the comic shop, a hot item was the “Lobo Paramilitary Christmas Special.” 

The special was plotted by Keith Giffen and scripted by Alan Grant, with art by Simon Bisley. 

Lobo was sort of the Deadpool of his day.  An intergalactic assassin who killed his own race, Lobo was originally created as a parody of hyper-violent heroes but eventually became one of the most popular examples of the same. 

The 1990 miniseries “Lobo: The Last Czarnian” established Lobo as brashly offensive, mixing violence, action and humor.  In the Christmas special issue, Lobo is hired to kill Santa by a jealous Easter Bunny.  It’s not, in any way, for kids, as the cover blurb warns: "Contains Bad Taste in The Form of Ultra-Violence, Icon-Bashing, And 'The Finger.' More Offensive Than Christmas Usually Is." We got requests for this constantly as a back issue in the early 1990s; I think it inspired many of the brazen superhero comedies that followed. 

Giffen’s “Heckler” in 1992 was another Giffen book that was completely up my alley humor-wise at the time; sadly, it only lasted six issues.  

While Giffen is probably best known for his DC work, he was prominent at Image Comics in the mid-1990s as well, with his creator-owned “Trencher” and working on titles including “Freak Force,” “Supreme,” and “Bloodstrike.” 

Giffen was directly responsible for inspiring Ross Richie to start Boom! Studios; it’s now one of the top 5 or so publishers in the direct market. 

I talked to John Rogers back in 2015 about the creation of the Jaime Reyes Blue Beetle character with Keith Giffen and artist Cully Hamner. 

In 2006, Rogers worked with co-writer Keith Giffen to create a new version of Blue Beetle for DC Comics.

“Keith Giffen and I created Jaime Reyes, and we were both very emotionally invested in it,” Rogers said. “Learning to write serialized comics from Keith Giffen is a real gift. And because I am more in the public sphere than Keith, a lot of times people say John Rogers’ Blue Beetle, and I want to make sure people are very clear, that was Keith Giffen and John Rogers’ Blue Beetle.”

Rogers said Giffen wanted to provide a hero that was different from the heroes appearing in DC Comics at the time.

“That was Keith who wanted to make sure we had a nontraditional hero, a Hispanic hero that DC just wasn’t doing at the time, and make it a family story,” Rogers said. “Make it a story about a family working this stuff out.”

The serialized story “52” from DC Comics was set to release every week for a year following “Infinite Crisis.” Giffen provided the layouts for each issue and described himself as the “anchorman” of the relay team, making sure the book hit its release dates. The weekly series was a strong factor in driving customers to stores each week during the 52 weeks of 2006-2007 that it ran. 

Giffen would team up again with DeMatteis to return to their “Justice League” characters for a series of miniseries starting with “Formerly Known as the Justice League.” They also teamed on “Metal Men,” “Defenders” (returning Giffen as co-writer to a team he had worked on as an artist earlier in his career), “Booster Gold,” “Hero Squared,” “Scooby Apocalypse” and more. 

“Keith was probably the most fertile creative mind of our generation in comics,” Levitz said in a Facebook post commemorating his colleague. “He had an infinite number of ideas, pouring constantly out.  Many, thankfully, never saw print as wholly insane or inappropriate.  But the ones that did!” 

Matthew Price, matthew@matthewLprice.com, has written about the comics industry for more than two decades. He is the co-owner of Speeding Bullet Comics in Norman.