Alan Davis (b. 1956, UK) began his career in comics by working on an English fanzine. His first professional work was a strip called The Crusader in Frantic Magazine for Dez Skinn's revamped Marvel UK line. Davis' big break was drawing the revamped Captain Britain story in The Mighty World Of Marvel. He then went on to draw 14 issues of the monthly Captain Britain title, which was later reprinted in Trade Paperback. Curiously, Davis never realized artists drew at a larger size than what was published - so his art was originally drawn the same size it would be on publication.

Davis's work proved highly popular, but scored greater success when Alan Moore took over writing duties on Captain Britain. Davis and Moore found their feet as creators and formed a close working partnership, creating D.R. and Quinch for 2000AD. Later, Davis replaced Garry Leach on Marvelman in Warrior Magazine, and worked with Moore yet again.

Davis later had a falling out with Moore over creative differences on Marvelman, as well as disagreements over whether their Captain Britain work should be reprinted by Marvel Comics in the U.S.

In 1985, Davis was hired by DC Comics to draw Batman and the Outsiders, which was written at the time by Mike W. Barr. His work proved popular enough for him to be assigned artistic duties on Detective Comics in 1986 with Barr as the writer. During the Batman: Year Two storyline, however, Davis encountered difficulties with his editor and left midway during the storyline (his replacement was Todd McFarlane).

In 1987, he jumped over to Marvel Comics. Here he formed a new efficacious creative team with writer Chris Claremont, and after two New Mutants Annuals and three popular episodes for Uncanny X-Men, the duo launched Excalibur, one of the most amusing U.S. comics of the 1980's. The team featured Captain Britain and Meggan together with former Uncanny X-Men members Kitty Pride, Nightcrawler, and Rachel Summers. The stories, set mainly in England, focused on cross-dimensional capers (including several Lewis Carroll's, and a bizarre team called the Technet) inspired by Moore's Captain Britain stories of the early 1980's. Davis' artwork was at its best on this series, thanks to effective inks by both Paul Neary and Mark Farmer.

Davis left with #24, but returned with issue #42; this time as the writer and artist. Here, he excelled at showing a passion for creating new, pleasant characters of his own - including Feron, Cerise, Micromax and Kylun. In 1994, he created a completely new series of characters called ClanDestine that fit loosely into the X-Universe and maintained some of the English Mythology related Excalibur themes. Unfortunately, ClanDestine, while quite good - suffered because of the economic pinch of the early 1990's. It was cancelled and later brought back for a crossover with the X-Men.

During much of the late 1990's-early 2000's, Davis drew many of Marvel and DC Comics major characters and titles including Batman: Full Circle, Justice League: The Nail, The Avengers, Superboy's Legion, Killraven, Justice League: Another Nail, and the Spider-Man Movie Adaptation. He was also commissioned to write both X-Men and the Uncanny X-Men in 1999 (providing art for Uncanny as well), but he left the following year.

After a brief return to The Uncanny X-Men in 2005 with writer Chris Claremont, 2006 will see Davis write and draw Fantastic Four:The End for Marvel Comics.

Social/Sharing