Drawing stories about characters like the X-Men, Batman, and the Green Lantern, legendary comic artist Neal Adams knew a lot about doing good and helping others. He combined unprecedented realism with dynamic visuals to make superheroes moody and socially relevant, without sacrificing the soap opera storytelling that readers adored.
Working with writers such as Dennis O’Neil, Adams created Green Lantern character John Stewart, who quickly became one of the most popular Black superheroes, and transformed the Joker from a neglected gimmick character to a madman who captured the public imagination.
The stories loved by so many rely on the writers, pencilers, inkers, letterers, and colorists who make them come to life. For the industry to thrive, creators must be given a fair share of the profits earned from their work.
But the most important work done by Adams, who passed away at the age of eighty on April 28, might be his fight to improve the rights of artists and writers in the comic book industry. Throughout his life, Adams insisted on the dignity of those who make the stories, fighting against an industry built on exploitation. A pioneer in creators’ rights, Adams fought to form a union of comic book artists and writers, cultural workers that are exploited now more than ever.
Adams’s fight for creators began in the early 1970s, when Stan Lee and Carmine Infantino, editors of Marvel Comics and DC Comics respectively, formed the Academy of Comic Book Arts. Lee and Adams were chosen as the academy’s first president and vice president, but the two had very different goals for the group.
Ever the company man, Lee wanted the academy to follow the model set by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. He envisioned glitzy awards ceremonies and public events populated by celebrities ready to show the world just how hip and sophisticated comics should be.
But for Adams, the academy gave a collective voice to freelancers. At one of the group’s first meetings, Adams turned attention away from Lee’s talk of the jet-set and toward increased page rates and a pension for members. “Stan was aghast,” writes Abraham Riesman in his biography of Stan Lee, True Believer. According to Riesman, Lee said of the endeavor, “I wasn’t interested in starting a union … so I walked away from it.”
The academy might have fallen apart, but Adams’s commitment continued for the rest of his life.
Understanding the history of comic books helps to appreciate the urgency of Adams’s work. Initially a collection of newspaper strip reprints, comic books became a way for newspapers to market to children in the mid-1930s.
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Neal Adams
The medium scored its first hit with the advent of Superman, in a story written by Jerry Siegel and drawn by Joe Shuster in 1938’s Action Comics #1. The comic’s publisher National Allied Publications (later DC Comics) followed up with more superheroes, including Batman’s debut in a story by Bob Kane and (an uncredited) Bill Finger in 1939’s Detective Comics #27. Other publishers followed suit, with Bill Parker and C. C. Beck introducing Captain Marvel (known as Shazam today) for Fawcett Publications in Whiz Comics #2 (1940), and Joe Simon and Jack Kirby creating Captain America for Timely Publications (a precursor to Marvel Comics) in 1941.
These characters quickly became household names, appearing not only in comics but also on radio, television shows, movies, and in countless forms of merchandise. And yet, the creators who made the characters received no further compensation than what they were paid to initially write and draw the stories. Famously, National paid Siegel and Shuster $130 for Superman but gave the duo no share of the profits when the Man of Steel appeared on T-shirts and movie screens.
The same is true today. In 2021, writer Ed Brubaker confessed in his newsletter to having mixed feelings about the Disney+ television series The Falcon and the Winter Soldier. Part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the series co-starred Sebastian Stan as James “Bucky” Barnes, a former sidekick to Captain America who became the Soviet assassin—the Winter Soldier.
A character in Simon and Kirby’s Captain America comics of the 1940s and 1950s, Bucky was killed off-panel in a 1964 story by Lee and Kirby and largely forgotten. Brubaker brought the character back as the Winter Soldier in a Captain America story that he and artist Steve Epting did in 2005, transforming a goofy teen sidekick into an anti-hero dripping with pathos.
Marvel Studios adapted much of Brubaker and Epting’s work for the 2014 film Captain America: The Winter Soldier (which eventually grossed more than $714 million) and The Falcon and the Winter Soldier series seven years later. But while Brubaker expresses respect for Stan and the filmmakers, he also reveals that all that he and Epting received “for creating the Winter Soldier and his storyline is a ‘thanks’ here or there.”
According to an article by The Hollywood Reporter, comic book creators sometimes receive “shut-up money” from parent companies Disney and Warner Brothers to keep them from raising a stink in the press, but it’s nothing compared to the millions that the studio makes by adapting their work. Warner Brothers reportedly pays a higher amount to creators whose work appears in adaptations, but this happens on an individual basis, with the details hidden in a manner that benefits the company. Writer and artist Jim Starlin told The Hollywood Reporter that he initially received little compensation for creating Thanos, the central villain of some of Marvel Studio’s most profitable films until he became “the squeaky wheel” to get his fair share.
But even positive stories such as Starlin’s point to the problems that Adams tried to avoid. Marvel and DC, and their parent companies Disney and Warner Brothers, benefit from dealing with creators on an individual basis and refusing to disclose the payments each receives.
A few years after the dissolution of the academy, Adams gathered together some of the industry’s most important writers and artists to form the Comic Book Creators Guild. A meeting on May 7, 1978, sought to prevent Marvel from coercing freelancers into a contract that further striped away their rights, but Adams had even more grand plans. A handout distributed to members demanded payment of $300 per page for artists and $100 per page for writers. As with the academy, the group disbanded before it could realize its goals.
When Superman: The Movie was breaking box office records in 1978, Adams teamed up with writer Bill Finger to get Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster credit and payment for creating the world’s first superhero. Throughout the 1980s, Adams fought to get publishers to return original artwork to the creators, allowing them to make extra money by selling the art. Through Adams’s lobbying, Jack Kirby—considered by many to be the medium’s primary creative force—received his artwork back from Marvel.
As movies and shows based on Marvel and DC characters continue to dominate the media landscape, the need to unionize becomes all the more imperative. The stories loved by so many rely on the writers, pencilers, inkers, letterers, and colorists who make them come to life. For the industry to thrive, creators must be given a fair share of the profits earned from their work.
Adams knew this and dedicated his life to fighting for justice. He might have lost as much as he won, but Adams never let the evils of exploitation overcome him. He set an example that we must follow today—a legacy as vibrant and inspiring as the superheroes he drew.