J. Michael Straczynski

Live action and network shows

After leaving animation, Straczynski freelanced for The Twilight Zone writing an episode entitled "What Are Friends For" and, for Shelley Duvall's Nightmare Classics, adapting The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, which was nominated for a Writer's Guild Award.

Straczynski was offered the position of story editor on the syndicated live-action science fiction series Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Future. Straczynski constructed a season long arc with lasting character changes and wrote a third of the scripts himself. After one season, the toy company Mattel demanded more input into the show, causing Straczynski to quit. He recommended DiTillio to take over the job as story editor for a second season, but the toy company financing fell through and that season was never produced.

Soon after, the 1988 Writers Guild of America strike began. Straczynski met Harlan Ellison during this time and later became friends with him. Straczynski is an executor of Ellison's collected works.

After the strike ended, the producers of the new Twilight Zone needed to create more episodes to be able to sell the series into syndication with a complete 65-episode package. They hired Straczynski as executive story editor to fill in the remaining number of needed episodes.

After leaving Twilight Zone, his agent of the time asked him to pitch for the show Jake and the Fatman. Initially wary, Straczynski finally did and was hired on as an executive story consultant under Jeri Taylor and David Moessinger. When Taylor and Moessinger left the show, Straczynski left too as an act of solidarity.

When Moessinger was hired as executive producer for Murder, She Wrote, he offered Straczynski a job as co-producer. Straczynski joined Murder, She Wrote for two seasons and wrote seven produced episodes. Moessinger and Straczynski moved the protagonist, Jessica Fletcher, from the sleepy Maine town of Cabot Cove to New York City to revitalize the show. The move effectively brought the show back into the top ten from the mid-thirties where it had fallen.

Straczynski wrote one episode of Walker, Texas Ranger for Moessinger between the pilot episode for Babylon 5 and the start of its first season.

Straczynski wrote an adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson's The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde for the Showtime network, which was nominated for a Writers Guild of America award, and a Murder, She Wrote movie, Murder, She Wrote: A Story to Die For, which he produced.

1990s

Babylon 5 and Crusade

In late 1991, Warner Bros. contracted with Straczynski and Doug Netter as partners to produce Babylon 5 as the flagship program for the new Prime Time Entertainment Network.

Straczynski and Netter hired many of the people from Captain Power, as well as hiring Ellison as a consultant and DiTillio as a story editor. Babylon 5 won two Emmy Awards, back-to-back Hugo Awards, and dozens of other awards. Straczynski wrote 92 of the 110 episodes, as well as the pilot and five television movies. The show is a character-driven space opera and features an intentional emphasis on realism in its portrayal of space operations. It pioneered extensive use of CGI for its special effects. Babylon 5 was produced and broadcast for five seasons completing Stracynski's planned story arc.

He wrote the outlines for nine of the canonical Babylon 5 novels, supervised the three produced Babylon 5 telefilm novelizations (In the Beginning, Thirdspace, and A Call to Arms), and is the author of four Babylon 5 short stories published in magazines, not yet reprinted (as of 2008).

In 2005, Straczynski began publishing his Babylon 5 scripts. This process ended in June 2008, with the scripts no longer being available from the end of July of that year. His scripts for the television movies were published for a limited time in January 2009.

Joe's Comics

Straczynski has long been a comic fan and began writing comics in the late 1980s. His work in comics includes the adaptations of Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Future, The Twilight Zone, Star Trek, and Babylon 5. In 1999 he created Rising Stars for Top Cow/Image Comics.

2000s

Marvel Comics

Marvel Comics signed him to an exclusive contract, beginning with a run on The Amazing Spider-Man, from 2001 to 2007. He took over the series with Volume 2 issue #30 (cover dated June 2001). Straczynski and artist John Romita Jr. crafted an acclaimed story for The Amazing Spider-Man #36 (Dec. 2001) in response to the September 11 attacks. He wrote or co-wrote several major Spider-Man story arcs including "Spider-Man: The Other", "Back in Black", and the infamous "One More Day". He later wrote several other Marvel titles including Supreme Power, Strange, Fantastic Four, Thor, and mini-series featuring the Silver Surfer and a "What If" scenario, Bullet Points.

Jeremiah

Straczynski ran Jeremiah, loosely based on the Belgian post-apocalyptic comic Jeremiah, from 2002–2004. Straczynski ran the series for two seasons but was frustrated with the conflicting directions that MGM and Showtime wanted from the show, and even used the pseudonym "Fettes Grey" for the first time since Spiral Zone on one of the scripts. In the second season, Straczynski decided to leave the show if things did not improve, and the show ended after two seasons.

Changeling

Straczynski wrote Changeling, a psychological drama film based partly on the "Wineville Chicken Coop" kidnapping and murder case in Los Angeles, California. Directed by Clint Eastwood, produced by Ron Howard, and starring Angelina Jolie, the film premiered in 2008 and subsequently received eight nominations for the BAFTA Award, including a nomination for Best Original Screenplay. The first draft script was written in eleven days, after Straczynski figured out "how to tell" the story, which ended up being the shooting draft, after Eastwood declined to make any changes. It was optioned immediately by Howard, who at first intended to direct the film but later stepped down after scheduling conflicts.

At first, Straczynski expressed disbelief at the story, but spent a year researching the case, compiling over six thousands pages of documentation. Straczynski claimed that 95% of the script's content came from the historical record, and went through the script with Universal Studios's legal department, providing attribution for every scene so the film would be described as "a true story" rather than "based on" one. On how his journalistic background helped him write the film, Straczynski stated:

It was hugely important. Usually, when you're asked to tell a true story in film, there's already an article or something where the legwork's been done. In this case, there was nothing available. It was all primary research—City Hall archives, county courthouse archives, criminal records, hospital records. I just sifted through stuff, often spending a whole day paging through records just to find one reference.

Feature screenwriter

Straczynski announced on February 23, 2007, that he had been hired to write the feature film adaptation of Max Brooks's novel World War Z for Paramount Pictures and production company Plan B Entertainment, taking screen story credit on the finished film.

In 2008, Straczynski wrote a draft of Ninja Assassin for Joel Silver, which he completed in just 53 hours. The film was produced by The Wachowskis and released on November 25, 2009.

Straczynski is credited as "story writer" along with Mark Protosevich for the 2011 film, Thor. He makes a cameo appearance in the film, his first appearance in a movie and his second appearance as an actor (the first being "Sleeping in Light", the final episode of Babylon 5). Straczynski was part of the writers room (along with Terry Rossio, Patrick McKay, J. D. Payne, Lindsey Beer, Cat Vasko, T. S. Nowlin, and Jack Paglen) to develop Godzilla vs. Kong, though was uncredited on the final script.

DC Comics

When his exclusive contract with Marvel ended, he was announced as the writer for a run on The Brave and the Bold for DC Comics. He collaborated with artist Shane Davis on an out-of-continuity original graphic novel starring Superman titled Superman: Earth One. The story features a young Superman and focus on his decision about the role he wants to assume in life. On March 8, 2010, it was announced he would be taking over writing duties for the monthly Superman title with a story arc entitled "Grounded", and the Wonder Woman title, beginning with issues 701 and 601 respectively. Less than a year later he was asked by DC to step away from both titles in order to concentrate on the second volume of Superman: Earth One and handed them over to Chris Roberson and Phil Hester to finish his Superman and Wonder Woman stories respectively. In 2012, Straczynski wrote Before Watchmen: Dr. Manhattan drawn by Adam Hughes and Before Watchmen: Nite Owl drawn by Andy Kubert and Joe Kubert. A second volume of Superman: Earth One was released later that same year.

At San Diego Comic-Con in 2015, DC Comics announced The Flash: Earth One, a new graphic novel of its Earth One line to be written by Straczynski, set to be published in 2016. As of 2023, it has still not been published.

2010s

Studio JMS

In July 2012, J. Michael Straczynski announced the launch of Studio JMS to produce TV series, movies, comics and, in the future, games and web series. On March 27, 2013, Netflix announced they would produce the show Sense8 with Studio JMS and The Wachowskis, which aired on June 5, 2015, and earned a season 2 announcement by August 10, 2015.

Joe's Comics revival

The Joe's Comics line was revived at Image Comics in 2013 with the launch of Ten Grand drawn by Ben Templesmith and Sidekick drawn by Tom Mandrake.

Dynamite Entertainment announced in July 2013 a new 12 issue The Twilight Zone comic book series penned by Straczynski. The series ran for its projected 12 issues, from December 2013 to February 2015, with art by Guiu Vilanova. Straczynski was announced as the writer of Terminator Salvation: The Final Battle, a 12 issue comic book series from Dark Horse Comics, along with artist Pete Woods.

Sense8

Sense8, a science fiction television series created by Straczynski and The Wachowskis was ordered straight-to-series by Netflix in March 2013. Sense8's first season debuted in June 2015 on Netflix, from Studio JMS and Georgeville Television. Straczynski executive produced and co-wrote all 12 episodes of the first season with fellow creators, executive producers, and directors Lilly and Lana Wachowski. In August 2015, Netflix renewed Sense8 for a second season.

2020s

Artists Writers and Artisans

In 2020, Straczynski was named head of the Creative Council for the new comics publishing company AWA, where he was responsible for creating the shared universe used by many of its writers.

Following the publication of his autobiography Becoming Superman in 2019 from HarperVoyager, the novel Together We Will Go was published in 2021 by Simon & Schuster's Scout Press, and the instructional Becoming A Writer, Staying A Writer was published in 2021 by Benbella Books. In 2024 he published the novel The Glass Box (2024) Blackstone Publishing.

Return to Babylon 5

In 2022, Straczynski announced that a reboot of his series Babylon 5 was in the works at The CW, with the pilot script written by him. Following a buy-out of the CW by NextStar and strike action by the WGA, work on the project was stalled.

In 2023, it was announced by Straczynski that a fully animated Babylon 5 feature film, Babylon 5: The Road Home, had been produced in secret and was scheduled for release in the summer of that year, reunited the surviving members of the original cast. It was released in August 2023.

Return to Marvel Comics

Across 2021 and 2022, Straczynski contributed short stories to several anthology and milestone editions of comics published by Marvel Comics, this led to him writing a mystery six issue event mini-series for the publisher. In June 2023, it was announced Straczynski would write the next volume of Captain America, beginning in September of that year. Straczynski also returned to the Spider-Man franchise around this time, contributing a short story to the anthology mini-series Spider-Man: Black Suit & Blood as well as penning guest appearances by the character in storylines for Captain America.

In October of 2024, Straczynski confirmed on social media that he would be departing Captain America in December of that year, while the mystery six-part event announced some years back was ultimately revealed that same month as being an anthology series pairing up two different 'unlikely' Marvel characters per issue.

Strazynski would announce in spring of 2025 that he would be returning to Spider-Man to pen a five-issue mini-series, The Amazing Spider-Man: Torn, set during Peter Parker's days spent at Empire State University with Gwen Stacy, Mary Jane Watson, and Harry Osborn. The book would launch in October.