Most people probably think police procedurals and superhero comic books couldn’t be anymore different. While it’s true that at face value they are entirely different worlds meant to target different populations of fans (with some crossover, of course), something that many fans of both genres may not realize is that one person played an important role in the development of both forms of entertainment.
Robin Green has been in the writing business for a long time, having gotten her start in journalism as one of the only women on the writing staff at Rolling Stone magazine in the early 1970s (via New York Daily News). In addition to her journalistic work, Green and her husband, Mitchell Burgess, were longtime writers on HBO’s “The Sopranos” and are the creators of CBS’s popular crime procedural “Blue Bloods,” which premiered in 2010 (via IMDb).
However, before Green even started writing at Rolling Stone, she had another job that probably didn’t seem very important at the time. But in retrospect, this position put her at the center of what would go on to become a multi-billion dollar franchise.
Robin Green worked at Marvel Comics in the late 1960s
Before she began as a writer at Rolling Stone, Robin Green served in the roles of secretary and receptionist for Marvel founder Stan Lee, during some of his final years as editor-in-chief of the company that changed the world of comic books forever. According to Green, she joined the company in 1968, replacing secretary-receptionist Flo Steinberg, who she stated is “as much an institution in Marvel’s Second Golden Age as Editor Stan (The Man) Lee himself” (via Rolling Stone).
In describing her time at Marvel Comics, Green said, “The people at Marvel are paid to be professional children and the atmosphere around the office is correspondingly chaotic, moody, riotously emotional.” She also noted that she was exceedingly grateful for the office’s lack of decorum and the free-wheeling energy that defined the work. Despite her enjoyment of the environment that Marvel Comics offered, she left the company when her boyfriend suggested that the two impulsively move across the country (via New York Daily News).
Despite starting a new job at Rolling Stone, Green’s time with Marvel Comics wasn’t completely finished by this point. According to her 2018 memoir, “The Only Girl: My Life and Times on the Masthead of Rolling Stone,” her first assignment at the company was a 10,000 word profile focused on her former workplace, Marvel Comics.