Early life and career Born in
Bessemer, Michigan, Otto Binder was the youngest of six children born into a
German-
Lutheran family that had emigrated from
Austria a year earlier. They settled in
Chicago in 1922, during a period rich with science fiction, which enthralled Binder and his brother Earl. most prominently marketing the stories of
Robert E. Howard, although insufficient business during this
Great Depression era forced Kline to close his company after a year and a half. the latter of whom he co-created with
Marc Swayze. Binder spent from 1941 to 1953 with Fawcett, writing "986 stories ... out of 1,743, over half the entire
Marvel Family saga", per comic-book writer-editor
E. Nelson Bridwell. His first Captain Marvel comic-book story was "Captain Marvel Saves the King" in
Captain Marvel Adventures #9 (April 1942). He wrote for numerous other Fawcett features, as well as many two-page text fillers that were required in comics in order to be eligible for magazine postal rates. His text stories in
Captain Marvel Adventures, under the "Eando" pseudonym, starred Lieutenant Jon Jarl of the Space Patrol. During his time at Fawcett, Binder co-created with Swayze and
C. C. Beck such characters as Mary Marvel, Uncle Dudley, Mr.
Tawky Tawny,
Black Adam, and
Mr. Mind, as well as two of
Doctor Sivana's four children: the evil teens Thaddeus Sivana Jr. and daughter Georgia.
Other comics work Binder left Fawcett when the company shut down its comic book division in 1953, but found no shortage of work. For
Timely Comics, the 1940s company that would evolve into
Marvel Comics, he [co-]created
Captain Wonder, the
Young Allies, Tommy Tyme and the patriotically themed superheroine
Miss America, and wrote for stories starring
Captain America, the
Human Torch, the
Sub-Mariner, the
Destroyer, the
Whizzer, and the
All-Winners Squad. He then moved on to his best-known DC work, the
Superman group of titles, including launching the ''
Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen series in 1954. Binder and artist Al Plastino collaborated on the Superboy story in Adventure Comics'' #247 (April 1958) that introduced the
Legion of Super-Heroes, a teen superhero team from the future that eventually became one of DC's most popular features. Binder and Plastino debuted the supervillain
Brainiac and the Bottle City of
Kandor in
Action Comics #242 (July 1958) and co-created
Supergirl in
Action Comics #252 (May 1959). With various artist collaborators, he co-created
Krypto the Super Dog, the
Phantom Zone, and the supporting characters
Lucy Lane,
Beppo the Super Monkey, and
Titano the Super Ape. In the first issue of ''Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen'', he introduced
Jimmy Olsen's signal-watch, and in #31, Jimmy's Elastic Lad identity. DC writer-editor
E. Nelson Bridwell credits Binder as creating the first "
Imaginary Tale, for Lois Lane", and of writing "most of the early"
Bizarro stories, including at least the first "Tales of the Bizarro World" feature. and
Bizarro World was introduced in
Action Comics #263 (April 1960). Binder scripted what Bridwell calls the "classic [storyline] 'Superman's Return to
Krypton.'" He first discussed this hypothesis in his 1968 book
Flying Saucers Are Watching Us (later called
Unsolved Mysteries of the Past, Tower Publications; reissue edition, 1970). He wrote
Mankind Child of the Stars with Max Flindt in 1974, discussing the concept of "astroevolution".
Erich von Däniken wrote a foreword for the book, which was revised and reprinted in 1999. He wrote extensively about
UFOs in magazines, including articles detailing the experiences of claimed UFO contactee
Ted Owens.
New works Binder's previously unpublished 1953 story, "The Unwanted", has been adapted as a graphic novel by Robert L. Reiner. Published in early 2023 by Fantagraphics, the manuscript had been given to Reiner in the late sixties when he was a teenage fanzine editor and publisher. The story describes a census to be taken in the distant future. A civilization of "Mastermen" rule a galactic empire and visit this planet to determine if it is worthy to join an imperial congress. Membership means access to technology and protection. In evaluating this particular planet, the Mastermen are shocked by what they find. The book is illustrated by artist Angelo Torres and sculptor and speed painter Stefan Koidl.
Final years and death Binder became editor of
Space World magazine, a move that ended in
bankruptcy in the early 1960s. As he recalled in 1974: Otto Binder's daughter Mary, had been on her way to school one morning when a car jumped the curb, went into the driveway in front of the school, and killed her. As film producer and comics historian
Michael Uslan, a family friend, recalled, "Otto never recovered. His wife never recovered. She had a breakdown, and Otto started drinking, and eventually he dropped dead of a
heart attack. And the three of them were gone, like in a flash." ==Awards and legacy==