26 Facts About Chuck Austen

Chuck Austen grew up a military brat, and after his parents divorced, he was raised by his single mother in a housing project.

At the start of his career Austen used his birthname; he later abandoned out of a desire to disassociate from his father's family name.

Chuck Austen met Moore for the first time at the 1985 San Diego Comic Con, where he was announced as the new artist on the title.

Chuck Austen provided art to the lesser-known series such as Open Season and The Trouble with Girls as well as a few DC Comics properties including a Phantom Lady serial for Action Comics Weekly and a short Green Flame story for Secret Origins.

Chuck Austen subsequently took a sojourn from the comics industry, instead working on the television show King of the Hill.

Chuck Austen returned to comics in 2001, feeling burnt out after finding little success in the film and television industry.

Chuck Austen began looking at comics again and sent samples of his art to Marvel Comics editor-in-chief Joe Quesada, who was impressed enough to offer Austen the chance to illustrate the new Marvel Knights Elektra series, written by Brian Michael Bendis.

Also in 2003, Chuck Austen launched another series for Marvel MAX, the six-issue The Eternal with artist Kev Walker, a reimagining of Jack Kirby's Eternals.

Chuck Austen's controversial run saw the return of Havok and Polaris to the X-Men, the introduction of Havok's love interest Annie Ghazikhanian, and the addition of several existing characters to the X-Men team, including Northstar, Juggernaut, M, and Husk.

Chuck Austen moved to New X-Men as part of the ReLoad initiative, and wrote the series for nine issues.

In 2003, Chuck Austen wrote a brief run on Captain America, finishing the storylines that were started by the outgoing writer John Ney Rieber.

In 2004, Chuck Austen took over The Avengers, introducing a new, female Captain Britain, a single mother thrust into the realm of super-heroes after being killed as an innocent bystander during a fight between the Avengers and the Wrecking Crew, only to be resurrected by the original Captain Britain.

The second arc, which saw Chuck Austen writing former Avengers US Agent and Namor the Sub-Mariner attempting to liberate a Middle Eastern country from its corrupt leadership, served as launching pad for the short-lived New Invaders series.

Also in 2003, Chuck Austen returned to DC Comics with the limited series Superman: Metropolis which followed the life of Jimmy Olsen and other citizens of the eponymous fictional city.

Fans criticized Chuck Austen for resurrecting the long-forgotten Silver Age feud between Lois Lane and Lana Lang over the love of Superman, with Lana in particular divorcing her longtime husband Pete Ross in the process.

Chuck Austen left the title after ten issues, and the following two issues were scripted by a writer named "JD Finn".

In 2006, Chuck Austen wrote Boys of Summer, an English language adult-themed manga illustrated by Hiroki Otsuka and published by TokyoPop.

Chuck Austen spent most of the 2010s working in various capacities in animation on such shows as The Cleveland Show, Steven Universe, Dawn of the Croods and The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle.

In 2007, Chuck Austen released his first prose novel, Like Warm Sun on Nekkid Bottoms.

In 2011, writing as Charles Olen Chuck Austen, he released the three-book series Pride and Nakedness, followed by Something Old, Something New in 2013.

In 2020, Chuck Austen returned to comics with Edgeworld, a five-part series with artist Pat Oliffe, published digitally via Comixology.

In Chuck Austen's point of view, there was a small group of people, not representative of the wider comics readership, that used internet message boards, blogs and newsgroups to attack him on a professional and personal level.

Chuck Austen has stated that he received death threats from fans and had certain comic book store owners refuse to stock any comics written by him.

Chuck Austen admitted to taking online criticism of his work personally, and made a decision to stop doing interviews in August 2003.

Chuck Austen creates his art digitally, using mostly Macs and sometimes PCs.

Chuck Austen utilizes a variety of programs including Ray Dream Studio and 3D Studio Max to compose scenes which he then finishes in Photoshop.