Starting this month, we’re going to give someone or something their rightful place in the limelight. Kicking off this new monthly occasion is none other than Ed Brubaker!
Starting this month, we’re going to give someone or something their rightful place in the limelight. This will hopefully be a great way for you to discover something new and provide a context in which you’ll be able to enjoy your comics even more. It’s also a great way for us to show off our modesty by displaying our enormous knowledge. Kicking off this new monthly occasion is none other than Ed Brubaker!
A Lowlife
Ed Brubaker was born in 1966 in a small town in Maryland and, unfortunately for him, is still currently a citizen of the USA.
His first big break was in 1995 with his semi-autobiographical comic book series called Lowlife . This series was best described as “frustration and cynicism of disenchanted slacker kids finding excitement in their uneventful lives.” Brubaker regularly calls back to this work, citing that it was an influence on his later works: "I'm exploring the same themes in my Batman comics and my Catwoman comics that I was probably exploring in Lowlife: family relationships, personal relationships, people not being able to escape their past. . . .That's the stuff that interests me, and that's the stuff I write about.
Lowlife had it’s fair share of crime depiction and this would be his staple throughout the first part of his career. Brubaker’s earlier comics are primarily in the Crime fiction genre. Keep that in mind, because I’m going to get back to this. It’s only when the millennium changed he focused on superhero comics..
Life at the Big Two
Starting in 2000, Brubaker signed an exclusive contract and started writing for DC’s favorite dark knight: Batman. His love for crime was a perfect fit for Gotham as he wrote several stories. On top of numerous Batman stories, he wrote Detective Comics, Gotham Central and an amazing Catwoman run, which won a Prism Award in 2003.
Did you know we almost had a Batman/Daredevil story?
During his time at DC, he discussed with Brian Michael Bendig to co-write a story which would team-up Batman & Daredevil. Both were very enthusiastic about it. He even got 2 DC editors rooting for it as well but one DC Publisher objected to the project due to a prior disagreement with the Marvel editor-in-chief.
When the leaves dropped an autumn came around in 2004, Brubaker was no longer exclusive to DC and he started working for Marvel Comics. There he worked on Captain America, but he is most know for his work on Uncanny X-Men, Daredevil and Immortal Iron Fist.
Back to roots
Alright, remember when I said his earlier work is rooted in the crime genre? His latest work is nothing more than a love letter to what drew him to writing in the first place. Both Fatale & The Fade Out are both immersed within the same atmosphere we found in earlier work as Lowlife & Scene of Crime.
You could say he just perfected his craft along the way as The Fade Out won an Eisner Award two years in a row, making a total count of 10 awards on his name!
Recommended Reads
It wouldn’t be much of a spotlight if we didn’t help you to easily discover the artist. That is why we selected a handful of comics for you guys to read!
Immortal Iron Fist Vol 1
Iron Fist started in the early 70’s as a way to piggyback on the rise of Martial Arts-movies. A pretty flimsy ground to build a character on, so for the longest time Danny Rand was an obscure character, only loved by a small audience. In 2006 Ed Brubaker took this character and gave it depth, brought it to the 21th century. To this day, it’s still seen as one of the best Iron Fist stories of all time. Must read, especially with the Netflix series coming up.
» Order Immortal Iron Fist
Fade Out Vol 1
Ed Brubaker’s limited series at Image has won 2 Eisner Awards and is just a great read overall. Fade Out is a story set in Hollywood at the end of it’s Golden Era. A movie is doomed to fail with a writer lost in the bottle and a dead movie star. If you want to read a story that defines Brubaker’s love for crime, look no further. This is the comic you absolutely need to read.
» Order Fade Out
X-Men: Messiah Complex
This book is a direct sequel to the wildly acclaimed House of M, in which Scarlet Witch decimated the mutants. She reduced a society of million mutant to one of hundreds. The story starts with the activation of a new mutant and the X-Men need to investigate the details. Brubaker wrote the foundation for this story and it's a tribute to Brubaker’s love for relationships & personal relationships. There are few superhero groups that can convey this as properly as the X-Men.
» Order X-men: Messiah Complex
Kill or be killed
If you want to know what Brubaker’s up to lately, just read his current ongoing serie: Kill or be killed. Another one in the line of series that brings Brubaker back to his roots: crime. Kill or be Killed revolves around Dylan, a teenager cursed by a demon who allows him to live one month for every person he kills. The comic examines the consequences of vigilante violence and its effects on Dylan’s loved ones.
» Order Kill or be killed