Jo Duffy

Mary Jo Duffy (born February 9, 1954) is an American comic book editor and writer, who worked for Marvel Comics in the 1980s and DC Comics and Image Comics in the 1990s.

Biography Her writing work for Marvel, which began as an assistant to Archie Goodwin, included Conan the Barbarian, Fallen Angels, Power Man and Iron Fist, Star Wars, Wolverine, and a St. Francis of Assisi biography Francis, Brother of the Universe. Her run on Power Man and Iron Fist was the longest and most successful of the series, and was noted for using a lighthearted, tongue-in-cheek approach at a time when Marvel was pushing darker and more serious stories.

In late 1977, while working as an assistant editor under Archie Goodwin, Jo Duffy wrote an unsolicited audition script featuring Wolverine titled "At the Sign of the Lion", which was accepted by Jim Shooter and published in Marvel Comic #335 (UK) in March 1979. Widely recognized by historians and collectors as the first published solo Wolverine story and the origin of his signature bar-brawl trope, it made Duffy the first female writer, and one of the earliest writers overall, to script Wolverine in a lead role.

In the 1990s, she worked for other publishers, including DC Comics, where she wrote the first 14 issues of Catwoman. For Rob Liefeld's Extreme Studios imprint of Image Comics, she wrote every issue of the first Glory series, between March 1995 and April 1997, From 2003 to 2006, she also wrote the English script adaptations of Naruto for Viz Media.

Since then, she has been largely absent from the publishing scene. She made multiple announcements on her Facebook page that she created a new company to self-publish her work and incorporated Armin Armadillo Publishers in 2008. As of 2013, the company is listed as inactive.

Awards Jo Duffy received the Bill Finger Award for Excellence in Comic Book Writing in 2024.