Jeph Loeb is a comics/film writer and TV producer. He started as a co-writer of
Teen Wolf, then wrote
Commando and a few other movies. While working on the script for
The Flash movie, he got an opportunity to write for
DC Comics.
The most acclaimed stories from his first foray into comics were the critical hits
Batman: The Long Halloween (one of three titles that were inspiration for
Batman Begins),
Batman: Dark Victory and
Superman for All Seasons, which he created with artist Tim Sale. Later, also with Sale, he wrote three mini-series for
Marvel Comics,
Spider-Man: Blue,
Daredevil: Yellow, and
Hulk: Gray each telling early stories of the title characters, revolving around their relationships with now dead
Love Interests (respectively
Gwen Stacy, Karen Page and Betty Banner).
One of Loeb's greatest successes was bringing his children — Sam and Audrey — into comics. Loeb was also a producer and writer for
Smallville,
Lost, and
Heroes. Back at DC, he created
Batman Hush with Jim Lee and started the latest
Superman/Batman ongoing series. He got multiple awards, including the Eisner Award for a Batman and
The Spirit crossover.
And then, poor Sam got cancer and died.Jeph, who had already left
Smallville to take care of Sam, finished his son's last comics story together with many writers and artists, and published it in
Superman/Batman. Then he decided to retire from comics. However, his friend, Marvel Editor-In-Chief
Joe Quesada, convinced him to come back and write for him.
But Jeph, understandably, wasn't the same man he was before. While his titles
always had flaws —
Critical Research Failure and
Continuity Snarl among others — after coming to Marvel, his work was quickly criticized by many fans as some of the worst in living memory.
Fallen Son: The Death of Captain America, where superheroes come to terms with the
death of Captain America is considered the best of these recent works. His runs on
Wolverine and
Hulk are infamous among most fans for introducing two
Villain Sues who, confusingly, predate the origins and adventures of the main characters —
Romulus and
Red Hulk. His run on
The Ultimates has been labeled as full of
Character Derailment and
Ultimatum is generally considered to rival
Countdown to Final Crisis,
Amazons Attack, and
Justice League: Cry for Justice in terms of quality. He was also forced to leave
Heroes because NBC didn't like the course of the story (and because according to some, Loeb was stealing series writers for
Ultimate Marvel).
Loeb has since taken over as the head of Marvel's
animated division, acting as an executive producer for
Ultimate Spider-Man and the second season of
The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes!, the former of which has developed a serious
Broken Base. He is also producing
Hulk and the Agents of S.M.A.S.H. and
Avengers Assemble, the latter of which is heavily influenced by
Joss Whedon's
The Avengers film. He also oversees the television division of the
Marvel Cinematic Universe, executive producing Marvel's
ABC shows (
Agents Of Shield and
Agent Carter), as well as their
Netflix ones (
Daredevil,
Jessica Jones).
However, despite fan backlash and criticism, Loeb's comics have never sold better and he's considered one of the
nicest guys in the industry; even his most devoted haters admit they can't bring themselves to hate him the way they hate his comics. Many people hope that one day he will become great once again and some even think he just
needs a hug. It seems he may even be getting back on track, as his recent run on
Nova has been fairly well-liked.
He shares his workplace with
Geoff Johns and Allan Heinberg.
Tropes asssociated with Jeph Loeb and his works:
- Animation Age Ghetto: invoked He admittedly believes in gearing Marvel cartoons to children, hence his efforts to invoke this with the single-episode storylines and comedic overtones of Ultimate Spider-Man and Avengers Assemble.
Loeb: (...)The reality is that we're on a network, Disney XD, which is largely known as being a kids' network. We're not going to shy away from that. We want to be able to bring that audience in, because in many cases, it's going to be their first opportunity to get to know the Marvel Universe. And that's a pretty big thing. We want to be able to share our universe with the next group of Marvel fans, however they're going to come in.
Our movies, believe it or not, are PG-13. While everybody can and should go to them, there are families out there who feel like maybe they're a little too old. What we wanted to do is create an opportunity where it absolutely is a four-quadrant: We want women, we want families, we want kids, and we want men to be able to watch the show. But if at the end of the day, the good news that we get is, every single kid in America is going to be watching the show, and throughout the world? I'll take that.
- Beyond the Impossible: What Red Hulk's doing is, in a nutshell, this trope gone wrong. An example is lifting Thor's hammer without being worthy.
- Creator Cameo: Well, not quite the creator as much as his children. Especially noticeably in one instance where Iron Man talks about "a brave little boy named Sam." and the newest Nova, Sam Alexander.
- Does This Remind You of Anything?: Our Worlds at War came out in the middle of 2001. By the end of the story, it is in many ways The DCU's 9/11.
- Gadgeteer Genius: Hiro "Toyman" Okamura (who may have inspired Hiro Nakamura on Heroes).
- Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: He wrote four series for Marvel titled Daredevil: Yellow, Spider-Man: Blue, Hulk: Gray, and Captain America: White. Together, they form a Thematic Series.
- Inner Monologue:
- Kicked Upstairs: In regards to his promotion as Marvel's Head of Television.
- Kill 'em All: Ultimatum.
- Signature Style:
- Loeb seems to like having superheroes disguise themselves as other superheroes. For example:
- In Superman/Batman: Public Enemies, Bats dresses up as Hawkman and Supes as Captain Marvel. Actually kind of disturbing if you think about it; they had to undress Hawkman and Captain Marvel, even more disturbing is the fact that Captain Marvel is essentially a kid inside a grownup's body.
- In Batman And The Spirit, Bats and the Spirit switch costumes.
- In Ultimates 3, Captain America disguises himself as Black Panther for no discernible reason. (explained in Ultimate Captain America Annual #1)
- In Onslaught Reborn, Wolverine disguises himself as Hawkeye.
- An unrelated but equally noticeable style of his; when he creates a new villain, that villain will be inserted into the past of the hero, and will instantly have deeply personal relationship with the hero to the point of becoming their new Arch-Enemy; Hush, Bruce Wayne's childhood best friend (who had never been mentioned before), Romulus, who had secretly been manipulating Wolverine all his life. Red Hulk subverts this trend by being revealed to be longtime Incredible Hulk supporting character General Thunderbolt Ross the whole time.
- His "Colors" series with Tim Sale all go by the same formula of a hero (Spider-Man, Daredevil, Hulk, Captain America) remembering a simpler time in their career (complete with the art style generally reflecting that time period that said era was published) from the perspective of modern times with the spectre of a dead loved one (Gwen Stacy, Karen Page, Betty Ross, Bucky Barnes). In Hulk and Daredevil, the titular color is also a reference to their early appearance.
