Continuing profiles in creativity: Brian K. Vaughan

June 23, 3:21 PMMarvel Comics ExaminerPhil Wrede

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Jeffrey O. Gustafson

One of the few creators in history to maintain "indie cred" despite effectively starting at Marvel comics, Vaughan has managed to parlay his success in the print world - Eisner Awards in 2005 and 2008, a Hugo Award nomination in 2009 - into a burgeoning career in film and television [somewhat the opposite of the way folks like Kevin Smith (Daredevil), J. Michael Straczynski (Rising Stars, Amazing Spider-Man), and fellow Lost staff member Damon Lindelof (Ultimate Wolverine vs. Hulk) did it].

Vaughan's association with Marvel goes all the way back to his undergraduate days, and participation in a partnership program between New York University and the House of Ideas called the "Stanhattan Project," which was intended to develop new talent for Marvel (Joe Kelly and Ben Raab are also alums of the Project).

Vaughn's best-known not for "mainstream" work like Ultimate X-Men and Spider-Man (though the much-beloved Runaways takes place in the Marvel Universe proper), but for his creator-owned books, Y: The Last Man (the tale of Yorick Brown, the "last man" left on Earth after a mysterious plague seemingly kills everything with a Y chromosome, with the exception of Yorick and his monkey, Ampersand), Ex Machina (about Mitchell Hundred, formerly the technology-controlling superhero The Great Machine, and his time as mayor of New York City), and the graphic novel Pride of Baghdad (focusing on a group of lions that escape from the Baghdad Zoo during the start of Operation Iraqi Freedom). His ability to massage and develop concepts that would fall apart in a lesser writer's hands and turn them into thoughtful meditations on the human condition is singular and enviable - not only does he take apart the very idea of utopia over the course of Y, but in Runaways, he twists the most over-used of concepts - the team of teenage superheroes - into a meditation on family, responsibility, and love (all while keeping the reader thoroughly entertained). Vaughan followed up avid Runaways fan Joss Whedon for the second storyarc of the Buffy: Season 8 comic, and Whedon wrote issues of Runaways, himself.

In addition to writing screenplay adaptations of Y, Ex Machina and Runaways, Vaughan joined the writing staff for Lost in 2006.