Len Wein 1948-2017


There’s no way for me to do this subject justice but, despite the lateness, it doesn’t
feel right to let it pass without mention here.


Batman swinging over cityscape in the rain / Caption: 'It was a dark and stormy night.'
Panel from “Once Upon a Time...” in Detective Comics #500 © 1981 DC Comics. [enlarge]

Len Wein, who died at 69 on Sept. 10th, provided me and an untold number of
other readers with countless moments of wonder. On top of that, Len was very much
a mensch. I saw him indulge fans at conventions with anecdotes many creators would surely have long since tired of telling, and he graciously spoke to me at length for a Comicology article celebrating the 25th anniversary of the “new” X-Men at a time — shortly before the release of the 2000 film — when dozens of journalists were likely ringing him up.

Although I didn’t see him often or know him well, I’m finding it hard to refrain from calling him Len. (He pronounced his last name, by the way, with a long “e”: “ween” rather than “wane” or “wine”.)