Jeph Loeb

Jeph Loeb is a comics/film writer and TV producer. He started as a co-writer of Teen Wolf, then wrote Commando and a few other movies. While working on the script for The Flash movie, he got an opportunity to write for DC Comics.

The most acclaimed stories from his first foray into comics were the critical hits Batman: The Long Halloween (one of three titles that were inspiration for Batman Begins), Batman: Batman: Dark Victory and Superman For All Seasons, which he created with artist Tim Sale. Later, also with Sale, he wrote three mini-series for Marvel Comics, Spider-Man: Blue, Daredevil: Yellow, and Hulk: Gray each telling early stories of the title characters, centered around their relationships with now dead Love Interests (respectively Gwen Stacy, Karen Page and Betty Banner).

One of Loeb's greatest successes was bringing his children -- Sam and Audrey -- into comics. Loeb was also a producer and writer for Smallville, Lost, and Heroes. Back at DC, he created Batman: Hush with Jim Lee and started the latest Superman/Batman ongoing series. He got multiple awards, including the Eisner Award for a Batman and The Spirit crossover.

And then, poor Sam got cancer and died.

Jeph, who had already left Smallville to take care of Sam, finished his son's last comics story together with many writers and artists, and published it in Superman/Batman. Then he decided to retire from comics. However, his friend, Marvel Editor-In-Chief Joe Quesada, convinced him to come back and write for him.

But Jeph, understandably, wasn't the same man he was before. While his titles always had flaws -- Critical Research Failure and Continuity Snarl among others -- after coming to Marvel, his work was quickly criticized by many fans as some of the worst in current comics. Fallen Son: The Death of Captain America, where superheroes come to terms with death of Captain America is considered the best of these recent works. His runs on Wolverine and Hulk are infamous among most fans for introducing two Villain Sues who, confusingly, predate the origins and adventures of the main characters -- Romulus and Red Hulk. His run on The Ultimates has been labeled as full of Character Derailment and Ultimatum is generally considered to rival Countdown to Final Crisis and Amazons Attack! in terms of quality. He was also forced to leave Heroes because NBC didn't like the course of the story (and because according to some, Loeb was stealing series writers for Ultimate Marvel).

However, despite fan backlash and criticism, Loeb's comics have never sold better and he's considered one of the nicest guys in industry; even his most devoted haters admit they can't bring themselves to hate him the way they hate his comics. Many people hope that one day he will become great once again and some even think he just needs a hug.

He shares his workplace with Geoff Johns and Allan Heinberg.

Jeph Loeb provides examples of the following tropes:

Animation Age Ghetto: He admittedly believes in pandering Marvel cartoons to children, hence his efforts to invoke this with the single-episode storylines and comedic overtones of Ultimate Spider-Man, and the rumor that The Avengers will get a similar Animated Adaptation.
Beyond the Impossible: What Red Hulk's doing is, in a nutshell, this trope gone wrong.
Creator Breakdown: It's obvious he still hasn't come to terms with his son Sam's death. The title of Fallen Son hints it strongly. In Ultimatum, Magneto is murdering people to avenge Quicksilver's death. The ending also has Ben Grimm killing Doctor Doom, saying that "someone must pay..." It's pretty clear where this is coming from and why. Now Loeb is working on a new "color" miniseries -- Captain America: White -- which will feature Captain America coping with the loss of his teenage sidekick, Bucky.
Does This Remind You of Anything?: Our Worlds at War came out in the middle of 2001. By the end of the story, it is in many ways The DCU's 9/11.
Gadgeteer Genius: Hiro "Toyman" Okamura (who may have inspired Hiro Nakamura on Heroes).
Inner Monologue: He's this trope's poster boy.
Kicked Upstairs: In regards to his promotion as Marvel's Head of Television.
Kill'Em All: Ultimatum.
Signature Style: Loeb seems to like having superheroes disguise themselves as other superheroes. For example:
- In Superman/Batman: Public Enemies, Bats dresses up as Hawkman and Supes as Captain Marvel.
  - Actually kind of disturbing if you think about it; they had to undress Hawkman and Captain Marvel, even more disturbing is the fact that Captain Marvel is essentially a kid inside a grownup's body.
    - Considering how easily the CM costume tore away at Lex's hand, it was most likely just an extra costume Batman had around... because he would totally have a replica of all other superheroes' costumes just in case.
- In The Spirit, Bats and the Spirit switch costumes.
- In Ultimates 3, Captain America disguises himself as Black Panther for no discernible reason.
  - His reason is explained in Ultimate Captain America Annual #1.
- In Onslaught Reborn, Wolverine disguises himself as Hawkeye.
- An unrelated but equally noticeable style of his; when he creates a new villain, that villain will be inserted into the past of the hero, and will instantly have deeply personal relationship with the hero to the point of becoming their new Arch Enemy; Hush, Bruce Wayne's childhood best friend (who had never been mentioned before), Romulus, who had secretly been manipulating Wolverine all his life, and Red Hulk, who was actually General Thunderbolt Ross the whole time.