Allan Heinberg is an American screenwriter, television producer, actor, and comic book writer. He co-created Marvel's Young Avengers, wrote DC's Wonder Woman comics, and received screenplay credit for the 2017 film Wonder Woman. His television work includes Sex and the City, Grey's Anatomy, Scandal, The Catch, and The Sandman.
Background
Allan Heinberg was born on June 29, 1967, in Tulsa, Oklahoma. He was raised in a Jewish family and has publicly identified as gay. He graduated from Booker T. Washington High School in Tulsa before attending Yale University, where he belonged to Morse College and graduated with the class of 1989.
Heinberg's early professional interests included both performance and writing. After college, he acted on Broadway and off Broadway before moving into television writing and production, eventually extending his work into film and superhero comics.
Education
Heinberg graduated from Booker T. Washington High School in Tulsa and attended Yale University, graduating in 1989 with studies in English and film studies. Yale, founded in 1701 in New Haven, is one of the oldest universities in the United States and its residential college system includes Morse College, established in 1961.
His education combined literary study with an interest in film and performance. That combination became visible in his later movement between acting, television writing, screenwriting, and comic-book storytelling.
Career
Heinberg began his professional life as an actor, appearing in the Broadway production of Neil Simon's Laughter on the 23rd Floor and in off-Broadway productions including Hello Muddah, Hello Fadduh and Hannah...1939. Laughter on the 23rd Floor, which opened at Broadway's Richard Rodgers Theatre in 1993, is Neil Simon's comedy about a 1950s television writers' room.
He later established a television career as a writer and producer. His credits include The Naked Truth, Party of Five, Sex and the City, Gilmore Girls, The O.C., Grey's Anatomy, Looking, Scandal, and The Catch. At Grey's Anatomy he served in writing and producing roles, and his work on the series contributed to two Primetime Emmy nominations: Outstanding Comedy Series for Sex and the City in 2002 and Outstanding Drama Series for Grey's Anatomy in 2007.
Heinberg also developed The Catch for Abc and became a writer and executive producer of Netflix's The Sandman. These projects placed him within the development of serialized American television, where writers' rooms coordinate episodic storytelling, character arcs, and production decisions across a season.
His comic-book career began with Marvel's Young Avengers, co-created with artist Jim Cheung in 2005. The series introduced characters including Wiccan, Hulkling, Kate Bishop, and Patriot, and became notable for combining superhero action with adolescent relationships and openly gay central characters. For DC Comics, Heinberg wrote JLA and a major 2006 Wonder Woman story arc before receiving screenplay credit for the 2017 feature film Wonder Woman, whose story was credited to Zack Snyder, Allan Heinberg, and Jason Fuchs.
Views
Heinberg's public creative statements emphasize character, emotional vulnerability, and the importance of representing people as multidimensional rather than reducing them to a single identity. His Young Avengers work treated Wiccan and Hulkling's relationship as part of a broader coming-of-age story rather than as a separate issue narrative.
In discussing Wonder Woman, he presented the character's strength through compassion, love, and emotional openness as well as through combat ability. His writing across television and comics similarly centers relationships, identity, and the tension between private life and public responsibility.
Personality
Quotes from others about the person
In discussing Wonder Woman, Heinberg described the character as a warrior of love and emphasized emotional vulnerability rather than physical power as the center of the story.
Connections
Heinberg's principal documented professional collaborations include artist Jim Cheung on Young Avengers and Avengers: The Children's Crusade, artists Terry Dodson and Rachel Dodson on Wonder Woman, and television producer Shonda Rhimes on Grey's Anatomy and Scandal. These collaborations connected his work across comics, serialized television, and feature film.
