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Chuck Austen (born Chuck Beckum) is an American writer and artist of comic books, most famous for his controversial work on the popular X-Men franchise, as well as on other Marvel and DC titles. He is also known for his combative response to harsh fan criticism from the Internet.

Contents 1 Career 1.1 Early career 1.2 Marvel and DC work 1.3 WorldWatch 2 External links 3 References

Austen’s work stretches back the 1980s, when he briefly illustrated Alan Moore's superhero series Miracleman, under his birth name "Chuck Beckum", which he later abandoned out of a desire to disassociate from his father's family name.

He also, along with the better known work mentioned above, created a number of pornographic comics, including Strips, WorldWatch and Hardball.

In the late 1980s, Austen drew the first five issues for the short-lived series Hero Sandwich published by Slave Labor Graphics and written by Dan Vado. Hero Sandwich was an unusual genre-mishmash: the titular detective agency featured a character with a stylized smiley face and a super-heroish jet-set rogue named "Plasteeq" able to stretch his limbs much like DC's Plastic Man and Elongated Man. The first case showed supernatural overtones involving a presumed coven of vampires.

In the 2000s, Austen started working regularly for Marvel Comics, writing and illustrating U.S. War Machine, illustrating Elektra, and writing a number of series, including Uncanny X-Men, Captain America, and The Avengers. His two-year run on Uncanny X-Men was his most prominent and lengthy writing assignment to date, but was also one of the most poorly received and reviewed. Controversy arose regarding the following storylines:

• The Church of Humanity: An anti-mutant and anti-Catholic Christian fundamentalist group that was behind Nightcrawler's priesthood. They hoped to secretly make Nightcrawler Pope, and then stage a Rapture with communion wafers which would vaporize those who ate them. This plot does not take into account that the Rapture is not a Catholic concept, but purely Protestant.
• Nightcrawler's origin: Fathered by Azazel, an ancient demonic-looking mutant banished to an alternate dimension by a race of winged mutants, though no explanation is given as to how he was able to escape in order to father Nightcrawler. It was also said in this storyline that Nightcrawler was only 19 years old, despite having been a part of Marvel continuity for many years.
• Polaris' personality shift following her experience at the Genoshan genocide and her relationship with Havok, forcing her to become darker and more like Magneto.
• Nurse Annie Ghazikhanian, accused of being a Mary Sue-type character, specially when it was stated by Austen that he had based Annie on his own wife and that he identified himself with Havok.
• Archangel and Husk becoming lovers, especially when Archangel carries her to the air, removes her clothes and has sex with her within sight of the rest of the team and Husk's mother.

Austen also wrote for Ultimate X-Men, where he was responsible for introducing that universe's version of Gambit as a poor but kind street magician. Austen resigned from Marvel Comics in 2004 after a brief stint on X-Men (formerly New X-Men), where he had the unenviable job of following Grant Morrison's acclaimed run and running concurrently with Joss Whedon's highly-anticipated Astonishing X-Men.

He also wrote at least ten issues on DC Comics' flagship title Action Comics, starring Superman. Like his X-Men-related work, Austen’s work on this series was criticized for poor uses of characterization (especially of Lois Lane and Lana Lang). Austen left the title after 10 issues; the next two were written by "J.D. Finn," although many readers speculate this was simply a pseudonym for Austen and that the writer had become convinced that the criticism of his work was so harsh and/or unfair that be preferred to write under a penname. Austen himself has speculated that the J.D. Finn was in actuality then-Action Comics editor Eddie Berganza and has denied using the pseudonym ^[1].

After his DC and Marvel work, Austen went on to create the independent title WorldWatch, which he described as being like Warren Ellis's The Authority, except with more sex. To drive home this point, most of the preview images he published prior to the first issue were sex scenes.

Austen felt that any of the pre-existing comic book companies would most likely censor his work, so he chose to self-publish instead under Wild & Wooly Press. The first issue of WorldWatch was published in black and white, while the second and third issues were published in color. Subsequent issues, although written and illustrated, were not published.

The last page of Worldwatch #2 featured an announcement from the publisher stating that, as a result of widespread fan disappointment with the writing, Austen had been fired, and that he would be replaced by notable writer Sam Clemens (the real name of legendary American writer Mark Twain). Since, as creator and owner, Austen cannot be fired from Worldwatch, and since Austen has publicly claimed that his work is only disliked by a few vocal malcontents, this has been widely perceived as being a failed hoax with the goal of showing that fans would accept the writing if only they did not recognize the writer's true identity. In an interview with Chuck Austen, found on the Comic Book Resources site, though, Chuck Austen revealed that the action indeed was a hoax, but with no malcontent, and was disappointed that most readers had not understood the joke ^[1].

• August 2003 interview with Comicon.com
• May 2004 interview with Silver Bullet Comics
• July 2004 interview with Comixfan
• Comic Book Awards Almanac
• Chuck Austen's Blog

Preceded by Joe Casey	Uncanny X-Men writer 2002–2004	Succeeded by Chris Claremont
Preceded by Grant Morrison	X-Men (vol. 2) writer 2004–2005	Succeeded by Peter Milligan
Preceded by John Ney Rieber	Captain America writer 2003 (with John Ney Rieber in early 2003)	Succeeded by Dave Gibbons
Preceded by Geoff Johns	Avengers writer 2004	Succeeded by Brian Michael Bendis