Mike Carlin started out in the business at DC Comics as a high school intern in 1974.[4] He was hired by Marvel Comics as a writer and artist on Crazy Magazine, the company's black-and-white humor title at the end of 1980.[3] His first work appeared in print in 1981. He later became an assistant editor under Mark Gruenwald[5] in 1982 and wrote a short run of stories in Captain America and Ka-Zar as well as the Assistant Editors' Month issue of Marvel Team-Up (Aunt May and Franklin Richards vs. Galactus).[6] Carlin moved to DC Comics as of October 6, 1986, his 28th birthday,[7] and became group editor of the Superman titles. He oversaw "The Death of Superman" storyline and the subsequent introduction of such characters as the Kon-El version of Superboy and John Henry Irons.[8] From 1996 to 2002, he served as an executive editor at DC Comics. As of 2011, he was DC Entertainment's Creative Director of Animation.[7]
Appearances within comics
The backup story "Bernie America, Sentinel of Liberty" in Captain America #289 (Jan. 1984) features Mike Carlin dressed as The Watcher, introducing the story.
The Batman Adventures #13, the first DC Comics spinoff of Batman: The Animated Series — features a screwball trio of incompetent super-villains: the Mastermind (a caricature of Mike Carlin), The Perfessor (a caricature of Dennis O'Neil), and Mr. Nice (a caricature of Archie Goodwin), a super-strong but childishly-innocent super-villain.[9]
Superman: The Man of Steel #75 (Jan. 1998) is a pastiche of Superman's death in Superman vol. 2 #75 (Jan. 1993), where Mister Mxyzptlk creates a duplicate of Doomsday. The confrontation culminates with Mxyzptlk meeting the Supreme Being who turns out to be Mike Carlin, the then-editor of the Superman titles, who promptly brings him back to life.
^DeFalco, Tom; Gilbert, Laura, ed. (2008). "1980s". Marvel Chronicle A Year by Year History. London, United Kingdom: Dorling Kindersley. p. 216. ISBN978-0756641238. The January-dated books in 1984 featured a company-wide event that became known as 'Assistant Editor's Month'...a humorous story in Marvel Team-Up #137 featured Aunt May as the new herald of Galactus.{{cite book}}: |first2= has generic name (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
^Cronin, Brian (June 15, 2017). "The Death Of Superman: 15 Things You Forgot (Or NEVER Knew)". Comic Book Resources. Archived from the original on August 27, 2017. One of the fascinating things about the Superman titles under Mike Carlin's editorship was just how well-oiled their machine was. He oversaw four separate creative teams and managed to tell what amounted to a weekly Superman story throughout the four titles.
