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Mar27

Comics Writer MIKE W. BARR Needs Your Help

Posted by Dan Greenfield on Mar 27, 2025

Comics Writer MIKE W. BARR Needs Your Help

The Bronze Age Batman scribe and co-creator of Camelot 3000 is having serious health issues… Mike W. Barr, one of the most highly regarded Batman writers of the 1980s, the co-creator with artist Brian Bolland of Camelot 3000, and a former DC editor, is facing serious health issues and a GoFundMe has been started to offset his medical bills. As former DC chief and Barr colleague Paul Levitz wrote on Facebook: “There are many worthy causes on GoFundMe and I rarely link to them here. But Mike Barr is an old poker buddy, the editor who talked me into returning to the Legion for what became my most popular body of work, and a writer who gave comic readers lots of pleasure. Please consider whether you can be kind to him in his time of need.” Here’s the link to the GoFundMe, which has a $35,000 goal. Barr’s too-brief run on Detective Comics in 1986-87, with Alan Davis, then Todd McFarlane, gave us a superb slate of Batman and Robin stories, as well as Batman: Year Two. He also wrote The Brave and the Bold, Batman and the Outsiders, the classic 1984 Batman Special #1 (“…The Player on the Other Side!” with art by Michael Golden) and 1982’s Batman Annual #8, (“The Messiah of the Crimson Sun” with art by Trevor Von Eeden and Lynn Varley). There’s even more but some would say his best Batman work was on the 1987 hardcover graphic novel, Son of the Demon (with art by Jerry Bingham), which first conceptualized the idea of Damian Wayne. (Click here for the TOP 13 MIKE W. BARR BATMAN STORIES — RANKED and click here for 13 GREAT TEAM-UP COMICS BY MIKE W. BARR.) Barr, of course spent a lot of time outside of Gotham too, working on a variety of titles from DC, Comico, Dark Horse, Marvel, IDW and Innovation, among others. The GoFundMe, organized by Dave Kellogg, reads: “Mike W. Barr has been a writer of comics, science fiction novels and mystery novels over his 50 year career. Well known for his work on Batman (Batman and the Outsiders, Batman: Son of the Demon, among many other titles) and Star Trek titles spanning over the first 4 incarnations of the show — as well as his own creator-owned titles like Camelot 3000 and the Maze...

Mar27

The TOP 13 Mike W. Barr BATMAN Stories — RANKED

Posted by Dan Greenfield on Mar 27, 2025

The TOP 13 Mike W. Barr BATMAN Stories — RANKED

The well-respected writer is having a medical crisis… — UPDATED 3/27/25: Mike W. Barr is suffering a medical crisis and a GoFundMe has been set up to help. To assist in getting the message out, we’re reprinting this birthday piece from 2020 (which ran in slightly different form). More Barr links at the bottom of the story. — Dan — It’s not often that I ask others to write about Batman except maybe during theme weeks. It’s my Batjam, y’know? But comics writer and historian Fred Van Lente — who has been doing a kickass job here at 13th Dimension lately with his guest columns saluting various writers — was game to look at Mike W. Barr’s body of Batwork. The longtime DC stalwart’s Batman concepts often went off the beaten path, so here’s Fred with THE TOP 13 MIKE W. BARR BATMAN STORIES — RANKED. Oh and — SPOILER ALERT — there’s a great twist at the end… By FRED VAN LENTE Happy Birthday to Mike W. Barr — born May 30, 1952 — one of the best writers at DC during the late period of pre-Watchmen superhero comics. I first got exposed to his work as a kid in the pages of The Brave and the Bold. I really preferred team-up books, especially Marvel Team-Up, and so read a lot of B&B. I think I just enjoyed getting introduced to a different new hero I had never heard of before. I also loved jumping on new series from the get-go — #1s were a lot rarer in my day — and I was fascinated when Dan pointed out to me recently that Batman and the Outsiders and Alpha Flight, two of my childhood faves, premiered in the same week in 1983. AF I didn’t get off the spinner rack until the Puck issue, but I was in on BatO from the jump, probably because I recognized the art of Brave and the Bold standby, and, in my humble opinion, the greatest Batman artist of all time, Jim Aparo. Many have pointed out that BatO was probably conceived of in an attempt to ape the success of the Wolfman/Perez juggernaut The New Teen Titans, with a mixture of DC stalwarts and new heroes. Batman wants the Justice League to help him go rescue Wayne Enterprises bigwig Lucius Fox from...

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