Batman V Superman: Who Were the Comic Book Creators In the Credits?

If you’re an American comic book creator, you’re used to getting very little credit when things you created come to the screen.

It took until just recently for Marvel to consistently credit Jack Kirby for his monumental work with the publisher, without which the Marvel Cinematic Universe wouldn’t exist. It took until very recently for Batman co-creator Bill Finger to get credited on anything, with Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice being the first time his name has appeared as creator in the credits of a live-action Batman movie.

And then you get to the end credits, which is where things get really crazy.

Typically, you’ll get a few comic book creators in the credits for these films. Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, and a few others have contracts that specifically allow for it, or a particularly comics-savvy filmmaker like James Gunn will include some names in the special thanks who don’t otherwise get any love.

In Batman V Superman, though, there were a ton of comic creators in the Special Thanks section — it was a whole section of the credits unto itself — and a number of them have taken to social media recently to express their gratitude for being recognized.

Just who were all those names you may or may not have recognized? Well, we’ve got a high-speed rundown.

Frank Miller

Writer/artist: The Dark Knight Returns. Miller designed the armor Batman wears for his fight with Superman and was responsible for much of the Batman iconography used in the film.

Miller is generally considered to be one of the definitive voices shaping Batman’s history. His Batman Year One has been adapted into an animated feature, heavily influenced Batman Begins, and was the basis for an unproduced screenplay by Darren Aranofsky (Black Swan). The Dark Knight Returns, meanwhile, not only hugely influenced Batman V Superman but was the comic that reportedly convinced Tim Burton to take the character seriously.

Currently, Miller is co-writing Dark Knight III: The Master Race at DC Comics with Brian Azzarello and artists Andy Kubert and Klaus Janson.

Dan Jurgens

Jurgens is one of the most acclaimed and best-selling writer/artists to tackle Superman in the last 30 years. He also created Doomsday, the creature that battles Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman in the third act.

Yesterday, DC Comics announced that Jurgens will take over Action Comics following June’s DC Rebirth event, and that his first major story will center on Lex Luthor and Doomsday.

Jim Aparo

Jim Aparo was a beloved and award-winning artist best known for his DC Comics work, including on Batman and Aquaman.

His Batman work is so revered that it has been collected into hardcovers, and he continued to work on the character all the way up through No Man’s Land in the ’90s.

Many fans likely recognize his work on the Knightfall story, elements of which were adapted for The Dark Knight Rises.

Jon Bogdanove

Bogdanove was one of a number of writers and artists associated with the Doomsday!/The Death of Superman story whose names appear in the film’s credits.

Bogdanove, who currently works on licensing art for Warner Bros. Consumer Products, is therefore the face of Superman to many who see him primarily on t-shirts and toys. For years, though, Bog helped shape the in-continuity face of the Metropolis Kid in Superman: The Man of Steel, a series for which he drew most of the first 100 issues.

Brett Breeding

Breeding was one of a number of writers and artists associated with the Doomsday!/The Death of Superman story whose names appear in the film’s credits.

The longtime inker on The Adventures of Superman and Superman during Dan Jurgens’s run, Breeding was for a time one of only a very small number of people who had worked on Doomsday. He inked over Jurgens’s pencils not only during The Death of Superman but also Superman/Doomsday: Hunter/Prey.

John Byrne

Byrne rebooted Superman in 1986’s The Man of Steel, redefining the superhero as someone with few real ties to Krypton and a somewhat more limited power set.

Ultimately, it was Byrne’s Superman who killed Zod and battled Doomsday in the comics.

Gerry Conway

Gerry Conway was a longtime writer and editor at DC Comics. Among many other accomplishments, he’s the one who created Firestorm (and Felicity Smoak).

Having written Justice League of America for eight years is probably what landed him in the credits; he’s one of the longest-running and best-loved JLA writers of all time.

Incidentally, if Twitter is any indication, Conway hated this film.

Currently, Conway is working for DC on the Legends of Tomorrow comic, providing Firestorm stories.

Gardner Fox

Gardner Fox, one of the most legendary voices in the history of American superhero comics, created both the original Flash (Jay Garrick) in 1940 and the Justice League of America…before going on to create the DC multiverse, explaining the disparity between older and younger Green Lanterns, Flashes, etc.

Tom Grummett

Grummett was one of a number of writers and artists associated with the Doomsday!/The Death of Superman story whose names appear in the film’s credits. He worked on the Superman books for years and co-created the post-Crisis on Infinite Earths version of Superboy.

Jackson Guice

Guice was one of a number of writers and artists associated with the Doomsday!/The Death of Superman story whose names appear in the film’s credits. His Doomsday, with a flatter face and less prominent bony protrusions than most other artists, may have been the closest analogue for the one we saw in the film.

Carmine Infantino

Infantino was a major force in the creation of the Silver Age of comic books. His work in the ’50s and ’60s included the co-creation of numerous characters, most notably the Silver Age Flash, Barry Allen.

Infantino is widely regarded as one of, if not the, best comics artists of all time. He was also key in reimagining Batman for DC, and co-created Human Target, which became a short-lived FOX television series.

He was also distinguished as an editor and, later in his career, worked on projects like Star Wars for Marvel Comics. It was under his editorial direction that DC wooed Jack Kirby, resulting in the creation of the New Gods, among many other enduring properties, for the publisher.

Robert Kanigher

Kanigher was a prolific writer and editor whose career spanned five decades. He was involved with the Wonder Woman franchise for over twenty years, taking over the scripting from the character’s creator William Moulton Marston. He’s also credited with writing the first story of the Silver Age Flash, Barry Allen, with Infantino.

Harry Lampert

Lampert co-created the Jay Garrick version of The Flash with Fox. An accomplished cartoonist outside of mainstream superhero comics, his contribution to DC was short but important, drawing the first five stories featuring the character.

Jim Lee

Jim Lee, the current co-publisher of DC Entertainment, is likely listed here for his role in shaping the post-Flashpoint look and feel of Apokolips, Darkseid, and the Parademons, which play a significant role in Batman’s dream/fantasy sequences.

Paul Norris

Norris was an artist best known as co-creator of Aquaman, but he also worked on Golden Age titles like Sandman, and had a 35-year run as artist of the newspaper comic strip Brick Bradford.

Jerry Ordway

Ordway was one of a number of writers and artists associated with the Doomsday!/The Death of Superman story whose names appear in the film’s credits.

It was reportedly Ordway who (either intentionally or jokingly) spawned the idea of the Death of Superman storyline, and who helped to moderate a rowdy group of creators, not all of whom liked the idea of focusing a lengthy story on Doomsday, a new villain who had little in the way of motivation or character development.

Ordway worked with writer/artist John Byrne and writer Marv Wolfman to develop the world and supporting cast of the post-Crisis Superman, and worked on the character for years, becoming one of that era’s defining artistic voices (along with Bogdanove, Byrne and Jurgens).

He also drew the Wal-Mart-exclusive Man of Steel prequel comic featuring Kara Zor-El.

George Perez

In addition to being one of the most acclaimed artists in DC Comics history, and a frequent contributor to the Superman mytholgoy, Perez is the co-creator of Cyborg and served as the artist on Crisis on Infinite Earths.

Jerry Robinson

Robinson is best known for his work on early Batman, including the co-creation of The Joker and Robin, neither of whom appeared in this film but both of whom were overtly referenced.

Louise Simonson

Simonson was one of a number of writers and artists associated with the Doomsday!/The Death of Superman story whose names appear in the film’s credits.

The writer, whose most recent work is an all-ages mass-market prose book about Superman, was the primary writer on Superman: The Man of Steel for nearly all of its run. She’s closely associated with the post-Crisis, pre-Infinite Crisis era throughout which that book ran.

Simonson wrote Doomsday and Beyond, a children’s prose novelization of The Death and Return of Superman.

Roger Stern

Stern was one of a number of writers and artists associated with the Doomsday!/The Death of Superman story whose names appear in the film’s credits.

A longtime contributor to the Superman titles, Stern was, along with John Byrne, Jerry Ordway, Louise Simonson and Dan Jurgens, one of the defining voices of the post-Crisis era.

Stern wrote The Death and Life of Superman, a best-selling novel based on The Death and Return of Superman comics.

Jim Starlin

Jim Starlin, whose name has often appeared on lists like this since he created and remains very associated with the character of Thanos who will menace the Avengers in Infinity War, ended up in the credits for this film because he created the character of the KGBeast.

In the film, KGBeast doesn’t have a costume and power set, but he’s Anatoli Knyazev, the henchman who does most of Luthor’s dirty work.

Curt Swan

Possibly the most beloved artist in the history of Superman comics, Swan didn’t create anybody who appears in this film (as far as I can tell), but it’s worth mentioning that his co-creation Master Jailer just appeared on Supergirl a few weeks ago.

Swan, among other things, drew Superman on Superman, Action Comics, and the Jimmy Olsen and Lois Lane comics over the decades. He continued to contribute periodically to the Superman legacy after the post-Crisis on Infinite Earths reboot, but rarely, since his style was so closely associated with the pre-Crisis look of the character.

His final work appeared in Superman: The Wedding Album.

Len Wein

A longtime DC Comics writer and editor, Wein worked on dozens of titles during his tenure, including runs on Detective Comics, Justice League, and more. He also created Swamp Thing and was the editor on Watchmen.

Currently, Wein is writing Metal Men in DC’s Legends of Tomorrow anthology series, and is the writer on a Swamp Thing miniseries.

Mort Weisinger

Weisinger was an editor best known for his time on Superman during the mid-1950s to 1960s, during which he helped to usher in the Silver Age of comic books. He also co-created such features as Aquaman, Green Arrow, and Johnny Quick, and served as story editor for the Adventures of Superman television series.

Marv Wolfman

One of the most influential DC Comics writers of the ’70s and ’80s, Wolfman is (with Perez) the co-creator of Cyborg, and was the writer of Crisis on Infinite Earths.

Have you seen Dawn of Justice yet? If so, go rate it in the ComicBook.com Movie Database for a chance to win your very own Armored Batman figure!

Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice is now playing in theaters.