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Forbush Man: You did this? You killed Captain America?
Ed Brubaker: Do you mean did I write the best-selling comic of 2007? Yes, I did. Here, you wanna touch my Eisners, don't you?
Captain America: Who Won't Wield The Shield? #1

Ed Brubaker (born November 17, 1966) is an American comics writer who has plied his trade at both DC Comics and Marvel Comics, but ascended to superstar status at the latter. He got his start writing independent crime comics in the 1990s (earning an Eisner nomination for his debut in 1993, and more in 1999), before taking up in the Bat-books are DC around the turn of the Millennium. This notably included the launch of a new Catwoman title, and the acclaimed Gotham Central series focusing on the Gotham Police (co-written with Greg Rucka). Around the same time, his work on DC's Wildstorm included the acclaimed Sleeper (WildStorm) and twelve issues on The Authority.

In 2005, he migrated over to Marvel Comics to write Captain America, beginning a landmark run that has been hailed as the best ever on the title. Subsequent work has included stints on Daredevil and X-Men and the reviving of Iron Fist with Matt Fraction. He frequently works with Sean Phillips, beginning with the aforementioned Sleeper (WildStorm), and more recently, a string of creator-owned books: Criminal (2006), Incognito, Fatale, The Fade Out, Kill or Be Killed, Pulp, and Reckless. He has won the Best Writer Eisner Award three times (the fourth-most wins of any writer, behind Alan Moore, Neil Gaiman, and Brian K. Vaughan). In early 2022, he signed on to head the writer's room for the upcoming Batman cartoon, Batman: Caped Crusader.


Selected Bibliography:


Tropes associated with Ed Brubaker:

  • Anti-Hero: The protagonists of his various crime stories are either this or a Villain Protagonist; his superhero works occasionally skirt this, though less often than you might think.
  • The Cameo: He made an appearance in Captain America: The Winter Soldier, as one of the scientists tending to the assassin.
  • Comics Noir: Probably the foremost practitioner of marrying noir storytelling to superhero comics currently working.
  • Darker and Edgier: He's practically married to this trope as well, and you'd be hard-pressed to find comics by him that aren't cynical, dreary and violent.
  • Promoted Fanboy: During his Captain America run. This trope is why Bucky Barnes was brought back as the Winter Soldier in the first place. He's also gone on record saying he was glad a previous writer had already brought Sharon Carter back, or else he'd have had to resurrect her, too.
  • Retcon: It's debatable whether he does this more than other writers, but he's become known for daring to challenge some fairly well-established history, most notably with the return of Bucky. Though it's tit for tat there, as he pointed out in an interview, the entire set up with Bucky dying and Cap being frozen for X number of years was itself a retcon, since originally, they'd survived and kept having adventures into the '50s— which themselves were later retconned to have involved impostors. Given how successful that story was, it would be a case of Tropes Are Not Bad. His retcon of the introduction of the New X-Men, on the other hand, was less well-received.
  • Signature Style: For superheroes, street-level stories that incorporate espionage and noir elements, but also frequently techno-thriller stuff.


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