Chuck Austen
From Superhero Wiki Encyclopedia
 Home Books Clothing DVDs Posters Toys Video Games |
Boards Comic Book News Comic Conventions Clips and Trailers |
Gallery Features Link to us Online Comic Books |
Resources Store Superhero Wiki Wallpaper |
Chuck Austen (born Chuck Beckum) is an American writer and artist of comic books, most famous for his controversial work on the popular X-Men franchise, as well as on other Marvel and DC titles.
Career
Early career
Austen’s work stretches to back the 1980s, when he briefly illustrated Alan Moore's superhero series Miracleman, under his birth name "Chuck Beckum", which he later abandoned out of a desire to disassociate from his father's family name.
About the same time Austen wrote and drew the semi-autobiographical black-and-white comic book series Strips. The series was about the sexual coming of age of a 19-year-old named Zack, and was published by Rip Off Press. The series was originally planned to run for about 40 issues, but after several breaks and a brief venture into online publishing, Austen ceased working on Strips.
He also, along with the better known work mentioned above, created a number of pornographic comics, including WorldWatch and Hardball.
In the late 1980s, Austen drew the first five issues for the short-lived series Hero Sandwich published by Slave Labor Graphics and written by Dan Vado. Hero Sandwich was an unusual genre-mishmash: the titular detective agency featured a character with a stylized smiley face and a super-heroish jet-set rogue named "Plasteeq" able to stretch his limbs much like DC's Plastic Man and Elongated Man. The first case showed supernatural overtones involving a presumed coven of vampires.
Marvel and DC work
In the 2000s, Austen started working regularly for Marvel Comics, writing and illustrating U.S. War Machine, illustrating Elektra, and writing a number of series, including Uncanny X-Men, Captain America, and The Avengers. His two-year run on Uncanny X-Men was his most prominent and lengthy writing assignment to date.
In 2002 Austen also took part in writing a Marvel book with Bruce Jones entitled, "The Call of Duty 911". This book was based on a story of firemen after the September 11th incident. It wanted to convey the heroism of New York City Firemen as real life superheroes. The Call of Duty was a series of short-lived Marvel Comics series featuring firefighters and emergency service workers dealing with paranormal phenomena in the Marvel Universe.
It was conceived in the wake of the 9/11 attacks and is comprised of three limited series (Call of Duty: The Brotherhood #1–6, by Chuck Austen and David Finch; Call of Duty: The Precinct #1–5, by Bruce Jones and Tom Mandrake; Call of Duty: The Wagon #1–4 by Chuck Austen and Danijel Zezelj) and a short unsuccessful run as an ongoing series in 2002–2003, that lasted four issues (by Chuck Austen and Pat Olliffe).
He also wrote at least ten issues on DC Comics' flagship title Action Comics, starring Superman. Like his X-Men-related work, Austen’s work on this series was criticized for poor uses of characterization (especially of Lois Lane and Lana Lang). Austen left the title after 10 issues; the next two were written by "J.D. Finn". Austen himself has speculated that the J.D. Finn was in actuality then–Action Comics editor Eddie Berganza and has denied using the pseudonym.
