| Jo Duffy | |
|---|---|
 Comic-Con 1982 | |
| Born | Mary Jo Duffy February 9, 1954 New York City, U.S. |
| Area | Writer, Editor |
Notable works | Power Man & Iron Fist Star Wars comics Glory "At the Sign of the Lion" |
| Awards | Bill Finger Award for Excellence in Comic Book Writing, 2024 |
Mary Jo Duffy (born February 9, 1954) is an American comic book editor and writer, who worked for Marvel Comics in the 1980s and DC Comics and Image Comics in the 1990s.
Her writing work for Marvel, which began as an assistant to Archie Goodwin, included Conan the Barbarian, Fallen Angels, Power Man and Iron Fist, Star Wars, Wolverine, and a St. Francis of Assisi biography Francis, Brother of the Universe. Her run on Power Man and Iron Fist was the longest and most successful of the series, and was noted for using a lighthearted, tongue-in-cheek approach at a time when Marvel was pushing darker and more serious stories.
In late 1977, while working as an assistant editor under Archie Goodwin, Jo Duffy wrote an unsolicited audition script featuring Wolverine titled "At the Sign of the Lion", which was accepted by Jim Shooter and published in Marvel Comic #335 (UK) in March 1979. Widely recognized by historians and collectors as the first published solo Wolverine story and the origin of his signature bar-brawl trope, it made Duffy the first female writer, and one of the earliest writers overall, to script Wolverine in a lead role.
In the 1990s, she worked for other publishers, including DC Comics, where she wrote the first 14 issues of Catwoman. For Rob Liefeld's Extreme Studios imprint of Image Comics, she wrote every issue of the first Glory series, between March 1995 and April 1997, the last six of which were released by Liefeld's Maximum Press after his departure from Image. She also worked on the screenplays for the horror films Puppet Master 4 (1993) and Puppet Master 5 (1994) for Full Moon Features.
In the early 2000s, she co-wrote the last issue of Marvel's Defenders vol. 2 and the six issues of the follow-up series The Order with Kurt Busiek, while working at a financial services company in Lower Manhattan. Her work at that company included meeting planning, editing, proofreading, and packaging for a comic book published by the company. From 2003 to 2006, she also wrote the English script adaptations of Naruto for Viz Media.
Since then, she has been largely absent from the publishing scene. She made multiple announcements on her Facebook page that she created a new company to self-publish her work and incorporated Armin Armadillo Publishers in 2008. As of 2013, the company is listed as inactive.
Jo Duffy received the Bill Finger Award for Excellence in Comic Book Writing in 2024. In 2024, Duffy would be a recipient of the Inkpot Award at the annual San Diego Comic Con.
I became one of Archie Goodwin's (legendary editor and author of comics) assistants and earned Marvel's trust because of my work for Archie.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: deprecated archival service (link)With the aid of Father Roy Gasnick, writer Mary Jo Duffy and artists John Buscema and Marie Severin produced this biography of St. Francis of Assisi.
Charles Kochman presented the 20th annual Bill Finger Award for Excellence in Comic Book Writing to comics writer/editor Jo Duffy (Power Man and Iron Fist, Catwoman, Batman, Wolverine, Fallen Angels, Nestrobber) and the late Harvey Comics writer Ralph Newman, who passed away in 1989.
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