Micah Ian War Dog Wright[1] (born 1969) is an American writer of Native American descent who has worked in film, television, animation, video games and comic books.
Wright was born in Lubbock, Texas. He graduated from the University of Arizona with degrees in political science and creative writing.[2] While in college, Wright was involved in a weekly sketch comedy show where he started out as a writer and eventually became a performer.[3]
After graduating and moving to Los Angeles, Wright started interning at Nickelodeon,[3] before becoming script supervisor and eventually a staff writer on The Angry Beavers.[4][3] In early 2000, a number of writers working on Nickelodeon cartoons contacted the Writers Guild of America to renegotiate the contracts on their behalf and organize a union.[5] At the time, Wright, who also took part in the union drive, was writing and producing the pilot for his own show, Constant Payne, a science fiction series following a family of adventurers co-produced with Madhouse, with an aesthetic inspired by anime, pulp magazines and early Soviet propaganda posters.[6] The show, which would have been Nickelodeon's first action adventure offering, was not ordered to series due to the network's fears of violent programming in the wake of the September 11 attacks as well as Nickelodeon's suspicions that Wright was one of the figureheads in the union organizing effort.[7][8] Wright has since tried pitching Constant Payne to Warner Bros. Animation[9] and to foreign studios as an animated feature-length film[10] but the project remains uncompleted. During his time at Nickelodeon, Wright became friends with Jay Lender, with whom he would collaborate as a writing partner on numerous projects across various media.[11]
At San Diego Comic Con in 2001, Wright, who has been a fan of comics since childhood,[12] was introduced to some of the editors of DC Comics' Wildstorm imprint through his friend, artist John Cassaday.[3] Wright pitched his idea for a creator-owned G.I. Joe-type series, hoping to publish it through the Homage sub-imprint.[13] The editors liked the concept but asked Wright to rework it to fit into the Wildstorm Universe,[14] and the project was eventually developed into a new version of one of the imprint's founding titles, Stormwatch.[13] Stormwatch: Team Achilles with art by Whilce Portacio,[15] debuting in July 2002 under the "mature readers" sub-imprint Eye of the Storm,[16] featured a UN-sanctioned team that consisted primarily of human soldiers and was created in response to the growing superhuman presence in the political areas of the Wildstorm Universe, particularly the events depicted in Mark Millar's run on The Authority.[17] Despite consistent critical acclaim throughout its run,[18][19][20][21][22][23] Stormwatch, like other Eye of the Storm titles, suffered from low sales[24][25] and was ultimately cancelled few issues shy of Wright's planned 26-issue storyline.[26][27] Shortly before the cancellation, the series took part in the line-wide crossover "Coup d'Etat" which saw The Authority take over the United States, forcing Team Achilles to go on the run.[28]