Alan Grant, fan-favorite Batman writer, dies at 73

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Alan Grant has died at the age of 73

Batman #474 cover excerpt
(Image credit: DC)

Famed Batman writer Alan Grant has died at age 73, following a reported long term illness. Grant's passing was announced in a public Facebook post from his wife Sue Grant. No specific cause of death has been disclosed.

(Image credit: DC)

After getting his start working on the long running 2000AD anthology title in the UK, Grant made the jump to American comics with a 1987 limited series for DC called The Outcasts, written alongside co-writer John Wagner. Following The Outcasts, Wagner and Grant became the co-writers of the Batman-centric Detective Comics title in 1988. However, Wagner quickly departed, leaving Grant as the title's sole writer.

In his time as Detective Comics writer (and on other Batman titles), Grant co-created several notable characters including the Ventriloquist, Ratcatcher (of The Suicide Squad fame), and Anarky, who was inspired by Grant's own social anarchist beliefs of the time.

At the same time, Grant and Wagner continued working together on 2000AD stories featuring Judge Dredd, Judge Anderson, and Strontium Dog, though they eventually split these stories between them, with Grant taking sole writing duties on Judge Anderson and Strontium Dog. Grant and Wagner reteamed in the '90s for the Batman/Judge Dredd crossover Judgement on Gotham.

Grant also wrote the early '90s Lobo limited series, gaining notoriety as one of the lead writers on the bizarre and brutal anti-hero's adventures. He also continued writing new Batman titles, launching the series Batman: Shadow of the Bat and introducing the character Mr. Zasz in the process, and contributing to the crossovers 'Knightfall,' in which Batman's back is broken by Bane, as well as 'Contagion,' in which a plague sweeps Gotham, and 'Catalcysm,' in which Gotham City is struck by a devastating earthquake.

Over the subsequent decades, Grant would work for many American comic book publishers including Marvel Comics and Dark Horse. He also won the annual Comic-Con International: San Diego Inkpot award in 1992.

George Marston
George Marston
Entertainment Writer

I've been Newsarama's resident Marvel Comics expert and general comic book historian since 2011, and now I'm the Entertainment Writer at GamesRadar+. I've also been the on-site reporter at most major comic conventions such as Comic-Con International: San Diego, New York Comic Con, and C2E2. Outside of comic journalism, I am the artist of many weird pictures, and the guitarist of many heavy riffs. (They/Them)