Peter David, the legendary “Writer of Stuff,” has passed away at the age of 68.
David’s long tenure as a writer included runs on Young Justice, X-Factor, Aquaman, various Spider-Man titles, Wolverine, She-Hulk, Supergirl and an epic decade+ run on Incredible Hulk, among many others. He was also a novelist and screenwriter, and for years contributed a column, “But I Digress,” to Comic Buyer’s Guide.
David passed away yesterday, according to his wife Kathleen O’Shea David. David’s health had been in decline for several years, as he suffered from kidney disease and some recent small strokes, according to a GoFundme page for his medical expenses.
David career in comics began not on the creative side but on the sales side. After stints in publishing at the E.P. Dutton imprint Elsevier/Nelson and Playboy Paperbacks, David accepted a job at Marvel in their sales department in the early 1980s. He was hired by Carol Kalish, one of the pioneers of the American comics direct market, and succeeded her as sales manager at the publisher. His ambitions, though, were to be a writer, and while it was frowned on at the time, he eventually sold some scripts to Christopher Priest, who edited the Spider-titles at the time. One of those stories was “The Death of Jean DeWolff,” which didn’t sell well at the time but would become a critically acclaimed story over time.
David tried to keep his two roles at Marvel separate, as he tried to avoid talking with editors about writing while he was on the clock as a sales manager. Eventually he was offered the opportunity to write The Incredible Hulk, a low-selling title at the time that presented David with the opportunity to make bold changes to the character. Early in his tenure, to drum up support and readership, he even offered to respond personally to anyone who sent in a fan letter to the title’s letter column. (I can attest that he responded to my fan letter at the time).
His first issue of Incredible Hulk was #328, and starting with issue #331 he wrote all but one issue up until #467 — from 1987 until 1998. His tenure played up the multiple personalties aspect of the character, and included the introduction of Joe Fixit, the mobster personality of the character, as well as the “merged” Hulk that brought a less monstrous character with Bruce Banner’s intellect. He also introduced the Maestro, the future version of the character who had taken over the world after killing most of the other heroes of Earth, in the Future Imperfect miniseries with artist George Perez.
David left his role as sales manager to focus full time on his writing. In addition to Hulk, over the years he wrote lengthy runs of Spider-Man 2099, a character he co-created with Rick Leonardi, as well as X-Factor, where he and artist Larry Stroman changed the premise to a government-sponsored team of mutants that included Havok, Polaris, Quicksilver and Madrox the Multiple Man, among others. David spent, again, decades chronicling the story of Madrox, from his time in X-Factor to his solo series as a detective and subsequent reboot of X-Factor. He also wrote Wolverine, the New Universe titles Justice and Merc, more Spider-Man and Dreadstar for First Comics in the 1980s.
In the 1990s he made his mark on another iconic character, this time at DC, as he rewrote the history of Atlantis in The Atlantis Chronicles. He’d go on to write the regular Aquaman series for several years, having the main character grow a beard and lose a hand, replacing it with that infamous hook. He wrote about 80 issues of Supergirl for the publisher, and co-wrote the DC vs. Marvel crossover with Ron Marz. His work on Supergirl made way for Fallen Angel, a creator-owned series that used some of the concepts he had planned for Supergirl before the title was cancelled. DC published 20 issues of Fallen Angel before cancelling it, and David relaunched it at IDW.
And of course, there’s Young Justice, another long-running series with artist Todd Nauck. Together they redefined DC’s younger set of heroes, including Tim Drake, Kon-el Superboy, Impulse and the Cassie Sandsmark Wonder Girl. David would go on to write episodes of the Young Justice cartoon series.
Another character he became synonymous with was Genis-Vell, son of Marvel’s original Captain Marvel, who took up his father’s mantle and starred in two different comic series written by David. One of those series was a relaunch done as part of a stunt involving Marvel Publisher Bill Jemas. Jemas and David had a very public discussion in columns in various publications at the time around the sales of Captain Marvel and how much it was being promoted, so Jemas challenged David to a sales contest to see who could produce the comic with the highest sales.
Editor in chief Joe Quesada also got involved, and the terms of the deal were as follows: Captain Marvel would be relaunched with a new #1 and for six months it would compete against Ultimate Adventures, written by Ron Zimmerman and edited by Quesada, and Marville, written by Jemas, for the highest sales numbers. If Quesada lost, he’d take a pie to the face at a convention. If Jemas lost, he’d sit in a dunk tank at a convention. If David lost, he would have to “live with the defeat” — and likely Captain Marvel would get canceled. Captain Marvel did win, and luckily the world was only subjected to a few issues of the other two titles.
David’s “But I Digress” column ran in CBG starting in 1990 and eventually migrated to his website in the 2000s. David was always vocal and at times controversial in the opinions he expressed there, offering a unique perspective on the industry as a former sales manager and current creator. In addition to instigating the U-Decide stunt, it also spawned a public feud with Todd McFarlane in the 1990s when David expressed his opinions on the formation of Image Comics, This eventually led to a debate between the two creators at a comic convention in 1993.
While he’s probably best known for his work at Marvel and DC, David worked on many creator-owned titles over the years. He and George Perez created Sachs & Violens for Marvel’s Epic line, and he worked with Pop Mhan on Spyboy, which was published by Dark Horse. Fallen Angel, with artist David López and later JK Woodward, ran for 20 issues at DC and about 30 at IDW, followed by several miniseries. He also wrote the long-running Soulsearchers & Company, working with artists like Richard Howell, Amanda Conner and Jim Mooney.
David and artist Dale Keown won the Eisner Award in 1992 for Best Writer/Artist Team, for their work on The Incredible Hulk. He was nominated several times after that as well. His 2011 run on X-Factor won the GLAAD Media Award for Outstanding Comic Book.
David was a very approachable creator; I remember not only writing him that letter that he responded to when I was a kid, but later in life talking to him at a convention about an online friend we had in common — who he gladly gave me a set of signed books for when I drew his name for Secret Santa. Kevin Church recounts a story about David and a fan when they met at the comic shop where Church worked. There are probably many, many stories like this out there.
I’ve only covered a smattering of comics he wrote here, and it doesn’t even begin to cover his contributions to Star Trek and Babylon 5, or his own novels. My condolences go out to his family, friends, colleagues and all the fans whose lives were touched by his writing over the years.