John Lindley Byrne (/bɜːrn/; 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's X-Men and Fantastic Four. Byrne also facilitated the 1986 relaunch of DC Comics's Superman franchise with the limited series The Man of Steel, the first issue of which featured the comics' first variant cover. Coming into the comics profession as a penciller, inker, letterer, and writ ...