Month: October 2023

Prolific comic book creator Keith Giffen passed away earlier this week at the age of 70. It would be difficult to sum up a four-and-a-half-decade long career that encompassed a diverse range of characters and genres, but I’ll try to hit on a few highlights, as well as personal favorites, here.

Giffen broke into the comic book biz in 1976. One of his earliest jobs was penciling the second chapter of a short-lived serial titled “The Sword in the Star!” written by Bill Mantlo that appeared in the black & white Marvel Comics magazine Marvel Preview #7, cover-dated Summer 1976. This story notably introduced a talking raccoon named “Rocky,” a humorous nod to the 1968 Beatles song “Rocky Raccoon.” And, yes, the character eventually transmogrified into Rocket Raccoon. More on that later.

During the mid-1970s Giffen’s art style was very much a work in progress, and he was initially working in a Kirby-inspired style. He also developed a reputation for blowing deadlines, and in late 1977 he infamously handed in to Marvel editorial every OTHER page of a Defenders story he was supposed to pencil!

After this, Giffen left comics for a few years. He returned in 1980, where he worked to establish a professional work ethic and restore his reputation with the editors at DC and Marvel Comics.

Giffen was first paired up with writer Paul Levitz on Legion of Super-Heroes #285 for DC in 1982, and within a short time the two of them were working very closely together to co-plot the series. The collaboration between Levitz and Giffen proved to be extremely fruitful, and together with inker Larry Mahlstedt they created the five-part epic “The Great Darkness Saga” that ran in Legion #290-294. “The Great Darkness Saga” saw Jack Kirby’s tyrannical god Darkseid return in the 30th Century to face the Legion, and it is generally regarded as one of the all-time greatest Legion stories ever told.

Giffen remained on LOSH until 1984, when he drew a huge, insanely detailed Legion poster featuring pretty much every single character from the series up to that point in time. Giffen would later recount to Jon B. Cooke in an interview for The Jack Kirby Collector #29 (August 2000) from TwoMorrows Publishing why after drawing this poster he made the decision to leave the series:

“What happened was I did this Legion poster, characters all over the place. And in drawing that Legion poster I totally burned myself out on the book. After the poster I just had to walk away.”

While on LOSH, Giffen also penciled & co-plotted the first several issues of the gritty space opera Omega Men, working with writer Roger Slifer and inker Mike DeCarlo. In the third issue Giffen & Slifer introduced brutal alien bounty hunter Lobo, who they intended as a parody of the violent anti-heroes who were starting to become popular in American comics. (I put together a retrospective on the Slifer & Giffen issues in 2015, after Slifer passed away.)

Giffen created the incredibly comedic, irreverent Ambush Bug for DC Comics in 1982. Paired with scripter Robert Loren Fleming, Giffen did an Ambush Big miniseries in 1985, followed by Son of Ambush Bug in 1986. It’s been said that Ambush Bug was Deadpool before there was a Deadpool, i.e. a character breaking the fourth wall with snarky commentary and ridiculous antics, lampooning the tropes of the superhero medium.

Throughout the 1980s Giffen’s penciling became increasingly stylized, and his layouts & storytelling also started becoming quite unconventional. He was heavily influenced — perhaps TOO heavily — by Argentine artist José Antonio Muñoz. This was especially apparent in the “Prophet and Omen” storyline that ran in LOSH #307-310 in early 1983. If “The Great Darkness Saga” is considered one of the greatest Legion stories, “Prophet and Omen” is regarded as one of the most baffling.

The next major work by Giffen was the 1987 reboot of the Justice League. Giffen plotted and did rough layouts for Justice League International, paired up with scripter J.M. DeMatteis and, initially, penciler Kevin Maguire. While I’ve never been all that much into Giffen & DeMatteis’ sitcom approach to the League, I readily acknowledge that the “Bwah-ha-ha-ha” years have a HUGE number of fans who absolutely loved those stories.

The thing about Giffen is that throughout his career his stories were either ridiculous & cheeky, or they were incredibly dark & intense. So, following the comedy of Justice League International, Giffen returned to Legion of Super-Heroes in 1989 with the “Five Years Later” direction that saw the 30th Century United Planets collapse into a horrific dystopia, and the scattered members of the team, now adults, attempting to deal with the political & economic carnage. Giffen worked with co-plotter & inker Al Gordon and scripters Tom & Mary Bierbaum.

In the second half of the 1980s Giffen had begun working in a strict nine-panel grid, but within those panels the layouts & compositions of his penciling were decidedly unconventional. I can only describe it as a fascinating combination of order and chaos. He really leaned into this storytelling technique during the “Five Years Later” era.

“Five Years Later” understandably proved to be divisive among longtime Legion fans, but three decades on it is now generally recognized as an interesting, bold approach.

During the 1990s Giffen worked on a variety of projects for DC, Dark Horse, Image and Valiant. In the early 2000s he returned to Marvel. He was one of the writers on the Annihilation event in 2006, and one of his main contributions was utilizing the previously obscure character Peter Quill, aka Starlord. A year later Giffen was involved in the follow-up Annihilation: Conquest, which saw him revisit a character from the very beginnings of his career.

Subsequent to “The Sword in the Star!” serial Mantlo brought back Rocky, now calling him Rocket Raccoon, in a couple of issues of The Incredible Hulk published in 1982, followed by a four issue Rocket Raccoon miniseries in 1985. And, other than a couple of other appearances in the early 1990s, that was it for Rocket.

Fast forward to 2007, and Marvel was doing Annihilation: Conquest. Enter Keith Giffen, who wrote the four issue Annihilation: Conquest – Starlord miniseries, featuring artwork by Timothy Green II & Victor Olazaba. The miniseries saw Peter Quill assembling a team of obscure “cosmic” characters to fight against the menace of the Phalanx cyborgs. Among those was Rocket Racoon, with Giffen returning to the character for the first time since his debut 31 years earlier. Giffen also made the decision to pair up Rocket with Groot the talking alien tree, an even more obscure character created by Jack Kirby way back in 1960.

A number of the characters from Annihilation and Annihilation: Conquest, including Peter Quill, Rocket Racoon and Groot, soon after became the core members of the new Guardians of the Galaxy team, who in 2014 featured in the hit MCU movie directed by James Gunn.

So, yeah, Giffen was the man behind the now-iconic duo of Rocket and Groot.

Giffen was also the layout artist for the weekly 52 series published by DC in 2006, and he was credited as a “story consultant” for the weekly Countdown series a year later. When DC did their huge New 52 reboot in 2011, Giffen worked on several titles, including O.M.A.C. and Infinity Man and the Forever People with Dan DiDio. On both series Giffen was very effectively inked by Scott Koblish.

In the remembrances posted by Giffen’s colleagues over the past few days, it’s been observed that he was A) a notorious curmudgeon, a part he apparently played with a hidden glee to the hilt, B) incredibly talented & creative, and C) that beneath his cantankerous facade he could be incredibly encouraging & supportive of his collaborators.

I was fortunate to meet Giffen on a few occasions over the years when he was a guest at comic book conventions. A few years ago, he was at East Coast Comic Con. I asked him to sign the Annihilation: Conquest – Starlord miniseries, along with a few other things. And then I enthusiastically said to him “You’re the guy who first teamed up Rocket Racoon and Groot!” To which Giffen, in his typical fashion, basically responded with an indifferent shrug. Yeah, that was Keith Giffen for you.

Another time I asked Giffen to sign a couple of issues of Infinity Man and the Forever People. As a fan of Kirby’s Fourth World, I had liked the short-lived title, even if had ended up being very uneven (as I previously blogged, the frequent changes in pencilers didn’t help), because I felt Giffen & DiDio were at least trying to do something new & interesting with the Forever People. I informed Giffen that I’d enjoyed the series. He sort-of frowned and responded “We were trying to repeat what we had with O.M.A.C. but unfortunately we didn’t succeed.” I thought that was indicative of someone who underneath it all really did want to do the best work he possibly could, and who held himself to high standards.

As you can no doubt discern, Giffen possessed a very, um, distinctive sense of humor that frequently made itself known in his work. That quality was on display right until LITERALLY the end, as he requested that his family post the below status to his Facebook page upon his passing.

I wasn’t certain if I should be laughing or crying. I guess a combination of both would be appropriate. Giffen definitely knew how to make an exit, that’s for sure.

While I didn’t like everything Giffen did (s0metimes his work became much too dark & depressing), I definitely admire him for his creativity & versatility, and for his desire to buck trends and walk his own path.