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| Comic book legend, George Pérez Image Source: TV Tropes |
Citing health reasons, comic book legend, George Pérez announced his retirement from the industry in a press release on January 9, 2019. Pérez, along with writer Marv Wolfman, co-created Deathstroke, the Terminator as the primary antagonist for their revival of the Teen Titans, The New Teen Titans in 1983. Deathstroke would emerge as a breakout character for DC Comics due in no small part to Pérez's bad-ass character design as well as his realistic, yet emotionally charged and dynamic art style.
In an official press release, Pérez explained that "I’ve been dealing with a myriad number of health issues (diabetes, heart ailments, vision issues, etc.), they have indeed have forced me to, for all intents and purposes, formally retire from the business of creating new comic stories." Pérez still plans on attending a handful of comic book conventions, but can no longer do live sketches for fans. However, he still intends to do photo and autograph sessions.
Pérez impact on the comic book industry cannot be overstated. He has had critically acclaimed runs on such titles as the aforementioned The New Teen Titans/Tales of the Teen Titans, Justice League of America, The Avengers, The Brave and the Bold, JLA/Avengers, Crisis on Infinite Earths, Who's Who, Wonder Woman, Deadly Hands of Kung-Fu, The Fantastic Four, Ultraforce, and Marvel Two-In-One. Later in his illustrious career, Pérez was charged with writing and penciling DC Comics' 2011 rebooted Superman title as part of the New 52 and then launched a creator-owned title, Sirens, for Boom! Studios in 2014.
Just to further illustrate the impact that George Pérez has had on the comics industry as a whole, just imagine today's comics landscape without the following characters and concepts that were at least co-created by him. (List not exhaustive.)
- Deathstroke the Terminator
- The Anti-Monitor
- Ares
- Blackfire
- Brother Blood
- Captain Ultra
- The Crisis on Infinite Earths/New Earth
- Cyborg
- Doctor Light (Kimiyo Hoshi)
- The Fearsome Five
- Harbinger (Lyla Michaels)
- Henry Peter Gyrich
- H.I.V.E.
- Jericho
- Jocasta
- "The Judas Contract"
- Lady Quark
- Maxima
- The Monitor/Monitors
- The New Teen Titans
- Nightwing (Dick Grayson)
- Nova (Frankie Raye)
- Pariah
- Plasmus
- The Ravager (Grant Wilson)
- Raven
- The Silver Swan (Valerie Beaudry)
- Starfire
- The Taskmaster
- Terra (Tara Markov)
- The Texas Twister
- Trigon
- White Tiger (Hector Ayala)
- Wintergreen
- Vigilante (Adrian Chase)
- X'Hal
Thank you for everything, George Pérez.
