Roy Thomas is a legendary name in comics. Anyone who knows comics knows this. He essentially took over Marvel Comics after Stan Lee was made publisher. He created one of the most legendary stories of the 1970’s—the Kree-Skrull War in The Avengers. He is the man who brought Conan the Barbarian into comics. He was a leading name in the world comic book fanzines with his Alter Ego. Hundreds of comic book fans got their first exposure to DC Comics’ Golden Age characters through his stellar work on All-Star Squadron and Infinity Inc. In other words, he’s a pretty big deal.
But apparently, this is not enough for Roy however. Because Thomas is making a power grab for creator credit on a character he has an only transitory connection to, causing the comic book internet to rise up in outrage.
Iin February, David Bogart, Senior Vice President of Operations & Procurement, Publishing at Marvel Entertainment, called Christine Valada, widow of Wolverine co-creator Len Wein, and told her that Roy Thomas would join her husband and artist Herb Trimpe as co-creators of the character for the credits on the upcoming film Deadpool and Wolverine. It was a done deal—Thomas would get the same on-screen credit, and presumably the same financial share, as the two men who wrote and drew Wolverine’s first appearance.
This is not a wrong being righted. There was no conspiratorial backstabbing to keep Thomas from getting proper credit. Thomas was editor-in-chief of Marvel at the time Incredible Hulk #181–the comic Wolverine first appeared in. He was also that title’s editor. His contribution to Wolverine’s creation? He suggested that he be named Wolverine and that he be from Canada. That’s it, that’s all.
I have done a whole series of articles on creator credit in comic books. I listed the all the pitfalls and landmines, the backstabbing and dirty dealings involved with people getting proper credit over the years. But there is seldom a case of someone who did so little asking for so much. Why is Roy Thomas asking for this now? What is his argument for deserving credit? And what else is he doing in this pursuit? There are answers, but none of them make Roy Thomas look all that good.
A Long-Standing Tradition
In case you haven’t guessed, the Roy that is speaking about Stan Lee is Roy Thomas. The same Roy Thomas who is doing the same thing he criticized Stan Lee for suggesting.
The comic book industry was rife with this sort of attitude. Many comic books in the Golden Age didn’t list any creators. If you wanted to know which creator did what, you’d have to have a good eye for their particular style or have access to their company’s pay records.
Many creators used ghost artists. Joe Shuster used one when his eyesight started going bad. Bob Kane used a veritable army of them on Batman, all the while having his name signed to the artwork.
Kane famously didn’t give proper credit to writer Bill Finger either. Finger was the writer that made Batman Batman. Adding notes on his costume, naming his alter ego Bruce Wayne and many other additions to the Batman mythos. Kane took all the credit, took all the money and hogged all the fame.
This is the reality Stan Lee came up in when he started in comics. Critics of Lee feel this attitude played into his habit of not giving the proper credit to his artists like Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko. Lee developed what became known as the “Marvel Style.” Lee would give his artists a brief plot summary, sometimes as small as one sentence, and let his artists flesh out the rest of the story. But since the idea was his, he took credit from the writing.
But while what Lee did was condemned by decades and decades of comic book historians, at least he gave the artist a plot and wrote the dialogue when the art was finished. He did a whole lot more in creating the Marvel Universe than Thomas did in creating Wolverine.
Wolverine is not the only character Roy Thomas is unfairly laying claim to
If you check out Roy Thomas’ Wikipedia page, the first and second paragraphs of his entry lists all the characters he created. Depending on what day or what time you visit, the list will change. Even though he hasn’t written on a regular basis for well over a decade, characters will be added and removed from the list.
Certain names remain constant–Vision, Morbius, Black Knight. These are all characters that first appeared in books that he wrote. Others come and go. As I write this, Wolverine is no longer on the list of his creations (although he is still listed as his co-creator later on in the article). However, there are plenty of other dubious Roy Thomas on the list. For instance, Ghost Rider. Thomas has said that he came up with the idea for a flaming skull for the character. This has been disputed by Ghost Rider’s co-creators, writer Gary Friedrich and artist Mike Ploog.
Thomas claims to be the one of the creators on Luke Cage and Man-Thing. But his claim to this is essentially backed up by Thomas saying that Stan Lee asked for a new black hero and a new swamp monster and he hired creators to fulfill Stan’s wishes. He claims creator credit for Son of Satan, once again on orders from Stan Lee. His admitted contributions were the character’s name and his weapon of choice.
Many of the other dubious entries follow a similar pattern. Some he claims creator credit for existed before he started writing the character (Havok and Adam Warlock), but he revamped them, so he takes creator credit for that. Others are characters like the ones above that he or Stan Lee came up with idea and then passed it on to another writer to do the dirty work. Some he was just a messenger; some he made a minor contribution to. None of the contributions warrant what any sane person would consider a co-creator credit.
Dead men can’t contradict you
The first time I noticed that Roy Thomas was making a hard press to be recognized as a creator of Wolverine was at the Big Apple Comic Convention in March of last year. He was a guest at the convention and was offered fans the chance to get his autograph on exclusive foil comic book variants reprinting the first appearances of two of his most famous creations: Avengers #58–the first appearance of the Vision and…Incredible Hulk #181.
When I saw that last book on an advertisement for his appearance, I was surprised. I knew the story of the creation of Wolverine. John Romita Sr. came up with the character’s costume, and Len Wein and Herb Trimpe wrote a drew his first appearance. At the time, I heard nothing about Roy Thomas being involved. A quick bit of research and I discovered that he was editor on the book at the time. I had seen creators use lass of a connection to claim credit. I didn’t think much of it.
But it is a big difference between claiming credit while sitting behind a booth at a comic book convention and another to weasel your way into getting a credit on a film. The question many of you might have is why did Thomas get credit now? Wolverine has been appearing in films since 2000. Why did Thomas fight for, and you know he fought mightily for it, a credit now.
The answer is easy. Len Wein died Sept 10, 2017. Herb Trimpe died April 13, 2015. Stan Lee died November 12, 2018. John Romita Sr. died June 12, 2023. None of them are alive to put up much of a fight to Thomas’ claim of being a co-creator.
That above image was shared by Comic Book Historians Facebook page and the page’s owner, Alex Grand, shared a version of it to other FB pages after the controversy arose. On the face of it, it seems like a controversy killer. One of the recognized creators of Wolverine saying that the character was conceived by Roy? Case closed, right?
Well, the quote comes from Alter Ego magazine, a magazine edited by Roy Thomas. And Alex Grand has a major interview with Thomas in an upcoming issue of the magazine. Case not exactly closed.
Now, if this doesn’t cast doubt on this form of gaslighting, there are the instances of Trimpe telling a different story, one that goes more in line with the established story of Wolverine’s origins. I know we are in a world where you can convince anyone of anything if you just control the narrative. But that doesn’t really hold up to just a little bit of research.
The John Cimino Conundrum
Stop me if you’ve heard this before. An elderly comic book legend has joined up with a younger manager. The manager gives the impression that he is looking out for his client. He books him at comic book convention, charging top dollar for a signature, keeping his clients name in the public eye. Some might say they go a bit too far. Some might say that they are more interested in serving themselves than the comic professionals they work for. Sound familiar?
Roy Thomas is 83. He has a manager by the name John Cimino. Cimino has raised Thomas’ profile considerably. He has had his client do reviews on a book on Stan Lee and the Stan Lee documentary for the Hollywood Reporter. He writes articles about his boss for fan sites and got him interviewed by news sites. He has exposed Roy Thomas to an audience that he probably would never have had exposure to otherwise.
And Bleeding Cool theorizes that he is also behind Thomas’ getting credit for creating Wolverine too.
If that is true, instead of getting a boatload of positive attention for Thomas, he has turned the opinion his fans and peers had of him into anger and disappointment. You have to wonder if it was all worth it.
Double-Dipping
A prevalent theme behind this is the fact that whether Thomas only named Wolverine or his involvement went deeper, that he was editor/editor-in-chief at the time of Wolverine’s creation. It was his job to give the writers and artists that worked for him advice, help and guidance. He was paid to do that, probably far more that Wein and Trimpe made for doing the lion’s share of the work.
It is assumed that the co-creator credit comes with a financial component, and Thomas grabbing creator credit means that the shares that goes to Trimpe’s and Wein’s families become smaller. This might be considered adding insult to injury. Taking credit away from the people who deserve it is bad. Taking money away from them is far worse.
Now, a lot of this is conjecture and educated guessing, questions that lead to far more question that might not have any answers. As is stands, from what we do know, Roy Thomas is getting credit that he doesn’t deserve. And he looks like a ghoul doing so. In an effort to enhance his legacy, he might have just destroyed it.
