Dan Slott


Dan Slott is an American comic book writer, who is the current writer on Marvel Comics' Fantastic Four and Iron Man 2020. He is best known for his long run on The Amazing Spider-Man, as well as , She-Hulk, Silver Surfer, The Superior Spider-Man, The Mighty Avengers, Batman Adventures, and Ren & Stimpy.

Early life

Slott was born in the United States.

Career

Early writing

Dan Slott's first published work for Marvel was "Survival of the Hippest" in Mighty Mouse #10 and "To Bounce Or Not To Bounce", an eight-page backup story in New Warriors Annual #1 both cover dated July 1991. He became the regular writer for Marvel's Ren & Stimpy comic book series with that series debut issue and first wrote Spider-Man in an issue of Ren and Stimpy that saw Spider-Man in battle against the Powdered Toast Man. Following this, Slott wrote other children's comics, including DC's Scooby-Doo, Looney Tunes, and Powerpuff Girls. After work on Batman Adventures and Justice League Adventures, Slott was given the chance to pitch a series for DC. The resulting miniseries was with artist Ryan Sook in 2003. In 2004 he wrote the "4th Parallel" storyline for the Justice League which introduced the Red King; this story was published in 2007 in JLA Classified #32–36.

Marvel Comics

s success led to Slott's return to Marvel in 2004 to launch a new She-Hulk series. The title focused on She-Hulk as a "superhuman lawyer" in the Marvel Universe. After relaunching in October 2005, the second series met with higher sales, and after tie-ins with crossover storylines "Civil War" and "World War Hulk", reached its highest numbers yet. In 2007 Slott left the title with volume 2 #21, and became one of the writers on The Amazing Spider-Man.
While
She-Hulk was on hiatus in 2005, Slott penned the Spider-Man/Human Torch miniseries, which chronicled the friendship of the two characters over the years, with each issue paying tribute to a different era of Marvel Comics.
Slott gave the team the Great Lakes Avengers their first ever solo miniseries in
GLA: Misassembled, which featured a character being killed in each issue. He made the first roster changes to the team since its inception by creating a new character, Grasshopper, and reviving an obscure one, Squirrel Girl. During this period, Slott signed an exclusive contract with Marvel. He has since returned to the GLA twice, first with the 2005 GLX-Mas Special, following a name change to the Great Lakes X-Men, and then again in the 2007 Deadpool/GLI Summer Fun Spectacular with co-writer Fabian Nicieza, to coincide with Marvel's
' branding.
At the end of 2005, Slott was assigned to write The Thing's first solo series in 20 years. It was not a sales success, and was canceled with issue #8, despite Slott's attempts to rally readers in a campaign he called "Pull My Thing." The eight issues have been released in a trade paperback entitled
Idol of Millions, which sees the Thing and other heroes fighting deadly roller-coasters and other machines in Arcade's Murderworld.
Slott was the writer of Marvel's ', which launched following the conclusion of the 2006–07 "Civil War" storyline. He was one of the four writers of the thrice-monthly
The Amazing Spider-Man, a schedule which began in January 2008 following the controversial storyline "". His first three issues placed in the top ten highest selling comics for January, with the first issue taking the number two spot that month, selling around 128,000 copies, a 3% jump from the previous month.
Slott took over writing duties on
The Mighty Avengers after writer Brian Michael Bendis' departure, starting with issue #21 and finishing with issue #36. He wrote the story for the
' video game which was released in September 2010.
In November 2010, Slott took over
The Amazing Spider-Man as the sole writer, marking the comic book's change to a twice–monthly schedule, beginning with Slott's "Big Time" storyline.
The "Big Time" storyline ended with
The Amazing Spider-Man #700, its final issue. While that issue's story, which involved the switching of Peter Parker's mind with that of Doctor Octopus, and ended with the death of Parker in Doctor Octopus' body and Octopus remaining in Parker's, generated controversy among fans, including death threats for Slott, it won the 2012 Diamond Gem Award for Top Dollar Comic of the Year. The comic book went through five printings, The next month saw the premiere of a new series, The Superior Spider-Man, written by Slott, and featuring the adventures of Spider-Man, now inhabited by the mind of Doctor Octopus. The first issue won the 2013 Diamond Gem Award for Comic Book of the Year Over $3.00. The Superior Spider-Man ended with issue #31, with Peter Parker back as Spider-Man, and lead to a relaunch of The Amazing Spider-Man in April 2014. The first issue of this new version of The Amazing Spider-Man is, according to Diamond Comics Distributors, "The Best Selling Comic of the 21st Century." In 2014, in the pages of The Amazing Spider-Man, Slott would go on to write Spider-Verse, a massive Spider-Man event teaming up "Every Spider-Man Ever". It was the first time that characters like Spider-Ham and the newly created Spider-Gwen would team up with Peter Parker, Miles Morales, Spider-Man Noir, Spider-Man 2099, and many other Spider-Men. This story would go on to be adapted as a cartoon mini-series in the Ultimate Spider-Man cartoon, and then in the Oscar Award-winning film, .
Slott and artist Mike Allred launched a new
Silver Surfer series in May 2014. In 2016, Slott and Allred's Silver Surfer #11 won the Eisner Award for "Best Single Issue of the Year".
In 2018, Slott finished his ten year-plus run on
The Amazing Spider-Man. He wrote his last major storyline, titled Go Down Swinging, from issue #797-800, which detailed Spider-Man fighting a Carnage-bonded Green Goblin. After that, he finished his run with his final issue being #801. After finishing his run on The Amazing Spider-Man, Slott is writing Tony Stark: Iron Man and Fantastic Four''. 2018 ended with Slott writing four of the Top 10 selling issues for the entire industry, taking the #2, #4, #8, and #10 spots.
In 2020, when Diamond Comics released its list of the Top 100 Best-Selling Comics of the Decade, 9 of the titles were ones written by Slott: Amazing Spider-Man #1, Amazing Spider-Man #800, Fantastic Four #1, Amazing Spider-Man #700, Amazing Spider-Man #1, Amazing Spider-Man #798, Superior Spider-Man #1, Amazing Spider-Man: Renew Your Vows #1, and Amazing Spider-Man #799.