From the shadows, Iowa City has played a quiet role in the mythology of the Batman, all thanks to the co-creations of Norm Breyfogle. When we saw Ratcatcher save the day in James Gunn’s version of The Suicide Squad? That character came from an IC kid. Any time Jeremiah Arkham showed up in a show, that was Norm. He also gave the world Victor Zsasz, a psycho killer who has graced everything from Batman Begins to the Batman: Arkham video games that have sold over 32 million units worldwide.
The 1990s marked an explosion for the comic book industry, with sales that broke records and artists who became rock stars in their own right: Todd McFarlane, Jim Lee, Rob Liefeld and more. Breyfogle was among this vanguard, and actually turned down the invitation to join the front lines of Image Comics when it was founded in 1992. He was that good.
Born Norman Keith Breyfogle in Iowa City in 1960, the superhero-obsessed kid would pull issues of Neal Adams’ Batman off of spinner racks at the downtown Thrifty Drug Store…