Arnold Drake (March 1, 1924 – March 12, 2007) was an American comic book writer and screenwriter best known for co-creating the DC Comics characters Deadman and the Doom Patrol, and the Marvel Comics characters the Guardians of the Galaxy, among others. Drake was posthumously inducted into the Will Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame in 2008. Biography Early life and career Arnold Drake was the third child of Max Druckman, a Manhattan furniture dealer who died in June 1966 at his home in Forest Hills, Queens, New York City, and Pearl Cohen. His eldest brother, Ervin Drake, born Ervin Maurice Druckman, and the middle brother, Milton, both became notable songwriters. His family was Jewish. At age 12, Drake contracted scarlet fever, confining him to bed for a year, a time he spent drawing his own comic strip creations. Years later, turning to writing, he studied journalism at the University of Missouri and later at New York University. Collaborating with co-writer Leslie Waller (together using the pseudonym Drake Waller) and artist Matt Baker, Drake wrote St. John Publications' pioneering It Rhymes with Lust, a proto-graphic novel comics magazine sold on newsstands in 1950. At some unspecified point before or after this, he met a neighbor of one of his brothers: Bob Kane, the creator of Batman for one of DC Comics' precursor companies. After collaborating with Drake on some projects, Kane introduced Drake to editors at DC. Comic books during this time did not routinely list creator credits; historians have, however, pinpointed Drake's first DC work as the first seven pages of the eight-page Batman story "The Return of Mister Future" in Batman #98 (March 1956). Soon, Drake was scripting stories across a variety of genres for DC, from adventure drama ("Fireman Farrell" in Showcase #1, April 1956, drawn by John Prentice) to humor (1960s stories for the company's Bob Hope and Jerry Lewis comics) to mystery and supernatural fiction (the anthology series House of Mystery) to science fiction (the feature "Tommy Tomorrow" in World's Finest Comics #102, June 1959, and elsewhere, and the feature "Space Ranger" in several issues of Tales of the Unexpected, to give a sampling). DC Comics creations In 1962, Drake and his friend, Bob Haney discovered the product of a small company distributed by National Periodical Publications' Independent News, Marvel Comics, and were impressed by its bold new quality. However, when the pair confronted National's