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| Deathstroke's legendary co-creator, George Pérez |
Today, the Deathstroke Files celebrates the 65th birthday of Deathstroke the Terminator's legendary co-creator, George Pérez. Pérez's storied comics book career began in 1974 for Marvel Comics' black-and-white magazine imprint, Curtis Magazines, in the horror title Monsters Unleashed (1973) #8 in the issue's fourth feature; a 14-page story titled, "A Martian Genesis." Much of Pérez's early work was for other Curtis titles including a regular run on Deadly Hands of Kung Fu (1974) and some issues of Unknown Worlds of Science Fiction (1974).
Pérez's actual Marvel Comic's premiere was in Creatures on the Loose (1969) #33, the first of a short five-issue run on the title, but this run opened the door for higher-profile titles like The Inhumans (1975), The Avengers (1963), and the Fantastic Four (1961). Pérez became a Marvel mainstay for the next five or so years adding a comic book adaptation of the film, Logan's Run (1976) and a six-month stint on the team-up book Marvel Two-in-One (1974) to his already impressive résumé.
By 1980, Pérez was taking penciling jobs from Marvel's "distinguished competition," DC Comics, the first of which was a Firestorm back-up tale, "Firestorm Is Back in Town," from The Flash (1960) #289. But it was Pérez's second DC job that signaled the project that would his legacy as one of the most influential comic book artists in the history of the medium. DC Comics Presents (1978) #26 would play host to the debut of Pérez and writer Marv Wolfman's seminal creation, the New Teen Titans. But in addition to the New Teen Titans' soon to be released series, Pérez was also penciling, The Avengers for Marvel Comics and Justice League of America (1960) for DC Comics at the same time.
The following month would witness the launch of one of DC Comic's most important titles ever with The New Teen Titans (1980) #1. This watershed comic figuratively exploded in popularity, eventually outselling the reigning sales champion, Marvel Comic's Uncanny X-Men (1963), making DC Comics a serious threat to Marvel's long-standing industry dominance. Of major importance to this blog, The New Teen Titans #2 gave birth to a certain "world's greatest assassin," Deathstroke the Terminator, who served as the premier antagonist in the series' apex story arc, "The Judas Contract."
After departing from the Teen Titans' titles, Pérez and Wolfman would again collaborate on the genre-changing maxi-series, Crisis on Infinite Earths (1985), which altered the foundations of the DC Comics Universe as well as signaling an end to comics' Bronze Age. Following Crisis, Pérez would redefine and reinvigorate a Golden Age classic for the new post-Crisis era with Wonder Woman (1987) #1. Pérez would return to Marvel to pencil the now classic Infinity Gauntlet (1991) (though he departed the series midway through issue #4 due to creative differences), the alternate future tale Hulk: Future Imperfect (1992), and the Epic Comics series Sachs and Violens (1992). The remainder of Pérez's was spent bouncing around many different publishers for projects like Malibu Ultraverse's Ultraforce (1994), a Marvel Comics relaunch of The Avengers (1998), a truncated creator-owned project for Image Comics in George Perez's Crimson Plague (2000), CrossGen Chronicles (2003) and Solus (2003) for CrossGen Entertainment, the intercompany crossover JLA/Avengers (2003), DC Comics' New 52 relaunch of Superman (2011), and his creator-owned George Perez's Sirens (2014) for Boom! Studios.
Pérez announced his retirement from comic book work in early 2019 due to vision complications from diabetes, but he has already established a body of work worthy of any comic book industry hall of fame. Happy birthday, George Pérez!
Pérez announced his retirement from comic book work in early 2019 due to vision complications from diabetes, but he has already established a body of work worthy of any comic book industry hall of fame. Happy birthday, George Pérez!
