Joshua Williamson is a comic book writer, known primarily for his work at Image Comics and DC Comics.
Williamson became known for the murder mystery series Nailbiter, which followed a town that was infamous for creating an inordinately large number of serial killers. He would also launch the fantasy series Birthright, which took the Chosen One Kid Hero Trapped in Another World concept and made it Darker and Edgier.
He worked at Marvel for a bit, but got his big break when he began writing at DC. A big fan of The Flash, Williamson became the main writer of The Flash for almost three years, surpassing the length of the DC Rebirth branding itself. During that time, he was also positioned as one of the main architects of the DCU alongside Scott Snyder and Brian Michael Bendis (as Geoff Johns' own role as that was consistently overridden and diminished by notorious Editor-in-Chief Dan DiDio). With the advent of DC Infinite Frontier, Williamson began the "Infinite Frontier Saga", a storyline that tackles the various reboots of the DCU directly. He also began simultaneously writing more smaller-scale series, such as Robin (2021) and Deathstroke Inc., before being put onto the main Batman series as its main writer.
His style is reminiscent of Geoff Johns, in that Williamson has a deep love of prior stories that is apparent in his work. He often utilises past stories and continuity (or continuities sometimes) to add to his own stories, and much of his work directly deals with reboots and retcons themselves. He and Johns have also had similar career trajectories in comics, both of them having had long runs writing The Flash and going on to write big event comics.
Notable works written by Williamson:
- Batman (2016)
- Batman and Robin (2023)
- Batman/Superman
- Birthright
- Cobra Commander
- Dark Crisis
- Deathstroke Inc.
- Duke
- The Flash
- Green Arrow (2023)
- The Illuminati
- Infinite Frontier
- Justice League Incarnate
- Nailbiter
- Robin (2021)
- Rogues
- Shadow War
- Superman (2023)
- Uncharted (prequel miniseries of video game franchise)
His work includes examples of:
- Armed with Canon: If there is a development he doesn't like or thinks he can fix, he'll do it within a story itself, such as retconning Wally West's murderer cover-up into being not of his own will and moving Flashpoint Batman away from the villainous route that Tom King put him on. In fact, due to those two examples, some have joked that he likes to retcon King's stuff specifically. Obviously this is just in jest since another notorious example retconning the fact that Lian was alive the whole time but was unable to reconnect with her family.
- Continuity Porn: His DC work loves to use past continuity or at least make nods to it. His Flash runs entire point was bringing back lost continuity, so Williamson constantly alluded to it or showed it outright.
- Creator's Favourite: With the Flashes, Williamson has said his favourite varies: When he was a kid, he liked Bart; when he was a young adult, it was Wally; now that he's older, it's Barry. However, it's Wally specifically who he tends to treat well where he can, since the character was editor-in-chief Dan Didio's Creator's Pest and all.
- Leaning on the Fourth Wall: If he can get away with it, Williamson likes to kind of pepper in messages to the audience. For example, the entirety of one issue of The Flash was a tribute to Wally wherein Iris fawns over how Wally West inspires people and that, for an entire generation, he was the Flash — even if they've forgotten. It makes sense in-universe but is very apparent in how it's talking about real life as well.
- Mystery Episode: He likes to employ these, which makes sense given he made his name with a story about serial killers. The Flash had two arcs involving discovering a murderous supervillain's secret identity, and a big part of Robin is the mystery of Respawn's identity. His Batman run also opened with a murder mystery.
- Took a Level in Jerkass: Williamson's villains tend to be unabashedly villainous, with very few exceptions, even if they weren't that way prior. The Rogues under his pen became more murderous and vengeful, whereas prior they were almost entirely Only in It for the Money. Similarly, Hunter Zolomon went from a tragic mentally unstable man to a maniacal hoarder of power.
