Werner Roth

Werner Roth was an American comic book artist, perhaps best known for immediately succeeding Jack Kirby on Marvel Comics' The X-Men. He was born in the German city of Zwickau on January 27, 1921, and died on Long Island on June 28, 1973.

Career Roth's work began appearing in Marvel Comics, then known as Atlas Comics, in 1953. Atlas editor Stan Lee has described being impressed with Roth's portfolio, particularly his drawings of women, "So I took his samples to show [then-publisher] Martin Goodman. I suggested we should use Werner, even create a comic for him. Which we did, and that was how Lorna, the Jungle Girl was born." Roth drew the first dozen issues of Lorna. He drew a number of other features for Atlas, including most of the stories of the Apache Kid. He later drew romance stories for DC Comics.

Roth returned to Marvel to work on the X-Men in 1965, initially using the pseudonym Jay Gavin, taken from the names of his two sons, to conceal his Marvel work from his editors at DC. His true name was revealed in the "Bullpen Bulletins" page of the Marvel Comics publications cover-dated September 1966. X-Men series writer Roy Thomas later commented that Roth, though a talented artist, was a poor fit for the X-Men, being more oriented towards character interactions and relationships than action. Roth pencilled the first appearances of the Banshee, the Cobalt Man, and Lorna Dane.

Roth later drew more Western comics for Marvel, and penciled issues of Superman's Girl Friend, Lois Lane for DC Comics. His first issue of that series, #106 (Nov. 1970), featured the controversial story "I Am Curious (Black)!", in which Lois Lane uses a machine to temporarily transform herself into an African American woman, allowing her to experience and report on racism first-hand .