John Lindley Byrne (; born July 6, 1950) is a British-born American writer and artist of superhero comics. Since the mid-1970s, Byrne has worked on many major superheroes; with noted work on Marvel Comics' X-Men, She-Hulk and Fantastic Four. Byrne also facilitated the 1986 relaunch of DC Comics' Superman franchise, the first issue of which featured comics' first variant cover. Coming into the comics profession as penciller, inker, letterer and writer on his earliest work, Byrne began co-plotting the X-Men comics during his tenure on them, and launched his writing career in earnest with Fantastic Four (where he also served as penciler and inker). During the 1990s he produced a number of creator-owned works, including Next Men and Danger Unlimited. He scripted the first issues of Mike Mignola's Hellboy series and produced a number of Star Trek comics for IDW Publishing. Hailed as one of the most prolific and influential comic book artists ever, Byrne and his X-Men collaborator Chris Claremont were entered into the Will Eisner Award Hall of Fame in 2015. He is the co-creator of such Marvel characters as Kitty Pryde/Shadowcat, Emma Frost, Sabretooth, Shadow King, Scott Lang, James Rhodes, Bishop, Omega Red, and Rachel Summers, as well as the Canadian superhero team Alpha Flight. Among DC characters, Byrne co-created Amanda Waller and created Cassie Sandsmark. Early life and career Byrne was born in Walsall, Staffordshire, and raised in West Bromwich, also in Staffordshire, where he lived with his parents, Frank and Nelsie, and his maternal grandmother. While living there, prior to his family emigrating to Canada when Byrne was 8, he was first exposed to comics, saying in 2005, His first encounter with Marvel Comics was in 1962 with Stan Lee and Jack Kirby's Fantastic Four #5. He later commented that "the book had an 'edge' like nothing DC was putting out at the time". Jack Kirby's work in particular had a strong influence on Byrne and he has worked with many of the characters Kirby created or co-created. Besides Kirby, Byrne was influenced by the naturalistic style of Neal Adams. In 1970, Byrne enrolled at the Alberta College of Art and Design in Calgary. He created the superhero parody Gay Guy for the college newspaper, which poked fun at the campus stereotype of homosexuality among art students. Gay Guy is notable for featuring a prototype of the Alpha Flight character Snowbird. While there, he published