Go-to man for awesome, funny, epic stories. Give him something stupid and he'll somehow turn it into something
special.
Aaaand then he somehow got to do something entirely of his own creation... this little show called
Babylon 5. You may have heard of it.
Afterward, he attempted to continue spreading the joy with high-concept shows like
Crusade and
Jeremiah - but the networks had by then decided that he was an enemy, and have since taken
special care to
screw with him.
He then started writing for comic books, and has had somewhat more success, most notably
Bullet Points,
his run on Spider-Man (which included the famous 9/11 issue and
One More Day),
Midnight Nation,
Rising Stars,
Silver Surfer: Requiem,
Supreme Power, as well as a return to
The Twilight Zone for Dynamite Comics. More recently, he wrote the screenplay for the
Clint Eastwood-directed,
Angelina Jolie-starring
Changeling, and his current projects include writing a script for a
Lensman movie, the remake of
Forbidden Planet, and at least one pass at a
World War Z treatment. He handled a revival of one of Marvel's primary series,
The Mighty Thor, as a lead-in to the next
Crisis Crossover. He even got to write for the
Thor movie, even managing a cameo (he's the first guy to find Mjolnir and try to lift it). Truly a
Promoted Fanboy. He also wrote
Underworld Awakening, the fourth installment of that series. (He also wrote an episode of the
Logan's Run TV series, but let's not talk about that.)
His first name is Joseph and friends call him Joe, but he has stated that "Joe Straczynski" is a name that would "frighten cats." Professionally, he goes by J. Michael so as to allow people to work up to the "Straczynski." First word: one letter, easy; second word: Michael, two syllables but familiar enough; then...the leap. Fans generally know and refer to him just by his initials, which is how he signs his emails and Usenet posts. For the record, his last name is supposed to be pronounced
Stra-TCH-i-nsky, although it should be noted that his original Polish family name, Straczyński, used to be spelled with an "ń" rather than "n", thus producing a sound slowly related to that of "ñ" (as in
Español).
He spent some time in a cult while in college, and was once mugged and left near death. Both experiences heavily inform his stories.
He is currently writing the
Superman: Earth One graphic novels for DC Comics, as well as a number of creator-owned comics under the "Joe's Comics" banner for Image Comics. He previously had a short run in the
Superman comic book as writer of the story arc
Superman: Grounded. However, he stopped working on the book in order to write the
Superman: Earth One books. Since then, Chris Roberson completed the arc. He co-created and co-wrote
Netflix's
Sense8 with
the Wachowskis.
Shares a birthday with
David Hasselhoff and
Phyllis Diller.
If someone talks about "The other JMS", they're referring to
Jonathan M. Shiff.
