1.
Jan Duursema
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Jan Duursema is an American comic book artist known for her work on the Star Wars comics franchise. She was the creator of Denin and Vila from Naldar, the Twilek Jedi Aayla Secura, jan Duursemas first published comics work appeared in Heavy Metal vol.3 #3. She drew several stories for DC Comics Sgt, with writer Paul Kupperberg, she co-created the Arion character in The Warlord #55 and the Arion, Lord of Atlantis series was launched in November 1982. Duursema was one of the artists to contribute to Wonder Woman #300 and she contributed artwork to the Star Ace role-playing game from Pacesetter Ltd. Her first work for Marvel Comics, as well as her first work on the Star Wars franchise, back at DC, she drew the Advanced Dungeons and Dragons comic book series for three years. She briefly worked with John Ostrander on the Hawkworld series in 1992 and her association with Dark Horse Comics Star Wars franchise began with Star Wars, Chewbacca #2. She has since drawn several Star Wars series for Dark Horse including the Star Wars, Darth Maul mini-series in 2000, Duursema and Ostrander collaborated on the Star Wars, Legacy series which was introduced with a #0 issue and ran for 50 issues from June 2006 to August 2010. They launched the Star Wars, Dawn of the Jedi series in 2012, Duursema was the basis for the character Ur-Sema Du. Nike, Inc. commissioned Duursema and fellow comics artist Amanda Conner to design the Make Yourself, Duursema is married to fellow comic book artist Tom Mandrake whom she met while both were students at The Kubert School. The couple have a son, Jack Moses Mandrake, and a daughter,3 #1-4, Annual #1 Hawkworld #27-29 Heroes Against Hunger #1 House of Mystery #301 Justice League Quarterly #5 Martian Manhunter #5 Omega Men #36 The Outsiders #8,16 Saga of the Swamp Thing #9 Sgt. Rock #347-352, 357-360,362,364 Star Trek #34 Swamp Thing vol
2.
Marvel Comics
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Marvel Comics is the common name and primary imprint of Marvel Worldwide Inc. formerly Marvel Publishing, Inc. and Marvel Comics Group, an American publisher of comic books and related media. In 2009, The Walt Disney Company acquired Marvel Entertainment, Marvel Worldwides parent company, Marvel started in 1939 as Timely Publications, and by the early 1950s had generally become known as Atlas Comics. Marvels modern incarnation dates from 1961, the year that the company launched The Fantastic Four and other superhero titles created by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko and many others. Most of Marvels fictional characters operate in a reality known as the Marvel Universe. Martin Goodman founded the later known as Marvel Comics under the name Timely Publications in 1939. Martin Goodman, a magazine publisher who had started with a Western pulp in 1933, was expanding into the emerging—and by then already highly popular—new medium of comic books. The issue was a success, with it and a second printing the following month selling, combined. While its contents came from an outside packager, Funnies, Inc, Timely had its own staff in place by the following year. It, too, proved a hit, with sales of one million. Goodman formed Timely Comics, Inc. beginning with comics cover-dated April 1941 or Spring 1941, Goodman hired his wifes cousin, Stanley Lieber, as a general office assistant in 1939. Lee wrote extensively for Timely, contributing to a number of different titles, Goodmans business strategy involved having his various magazines and comic books published by a number of corporations all operating out of the same office and with the same staff. One of these companies through which Timely Comics was published was named Marvel Comics by at least Marvel Mystery Comics #55. As well, some covers, such as All Surprise Comics #12, were labeled A Marvel Magazine many years before Goodman would formally adopt the name in 1961. The post-war American comic market saw superheroes falling out of fashion and this globe branding united a line put out by the same publisher, staff and freelancers through 59 shell companies, from Animirth Comics to Zenith Publications. Atlas also published a plethora of childrens and teen humor titles, including Dan DeCarlos Homer the Happy Ghost, Atlas unsuccessfully attempted to revive superheroes from late 1953 to mid-1954, with the Human Torch, the Sub-Mariner, and Captain America. Atlas did not achieve any hits and, according to Stan Lee, Atlas survived chiefly because it produced work quickly, cheaply. During this time, the Comic Code Authority made its debut in September 1954, Wertham published the book Seduction of the Innocent in order to force people to see that comics were impacting American youth. He believed violent comics were causing children to be reckless and were turning them into delinquents, in September 1954, comic book publishers got together to set up their own self-censorship organization—the Comics Magazine Association of America—in order to appease audiences
3.
X-Force
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X-Force is a fictional team of superheroes appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics, most commonly in association with the X-Men. Conceived by writer/illustrator Rob Liefeld, the team first appeared in New Mutants #100, the group was originally a revamped version of the 1980s team, the New Mutants. X-Forces first leader was the mutant Cable, an offshoot of the X-Men, X-Force takes a more militant and aggressive approach towards its enemies compared to the X-Men. X-Force was canceled with #129 and relaunched as X-Statix, which coincided with a rebranding of the team in the story. After X-Statix was canceled with #26, Marvel reunited the original X-Force team for a six-issue 2004 limited series plotted, in 2007–2008, during the Messiah Complex crossover, a new version of the X-Force team was formed with Wolverine leading a more militaristic black-ops branch of the X-Men. This squad would form the basis for a new X-Force series starting February 2008 by writers Craig Kyle and Christopher Yost, the series came to a conclusion in September 2010 as part of the Second Coming storyline that ran through various X-titles. A concurrent X-Force book written by Dennis Hopeless, Cable and X-Force, was released at the same time, the two series ended in 2014 after a crossover between the two titled Vendetta. A new X-Force, was launched featuring a black-ops squad composed of Cable, Psylocke, Fantomex and Marrow, written by X-Men, X-Force was created by illustrator Rob Liefeld after he started penciling The New Mutants comic book in 1989 with #86. The popularity of Liefeld’s art led to him taking over the duties on the book. With help from writer Fabian Nicieza, who provided the dialogue for Liefeld’s plots, Liefeld transformed the New Mutants into X-Force in New Mutants #100, Liefeld and Nicieza launched X-Force in August 1991. Rob Liefeld obtained the name for the series from an unknown artist at a convention a few prior to its release. The original line-up of the team included Boom Boom, Cable, Cannonball, Domino, Feral, Shatterstar, in later issues, X-Forces roster would include Siryn, Rictor and Sunspot. The main opponents of X-Force during its first year were the terrorist Mutant Liberation Front, led by Stryfe, early issues also featured the wise-cracking mercenary Deadpool, the immortal Externals, and a new version of the Brotherhood of Mutants. Propelled by Liefelds art, X-Force became one of Marvel’s bestselling comic books immediately after its debut, the series rivaled The Amazing Spider-Man and Uncanny X-Men in popularity, particularly with the adolescent demographic. Toy Biz responded to X-Forces popularity by introducing an X-Force action figure line alongside its X-Men action figure line, along with six other popular Marvel artists, Liefeld left Marvel Comics in 1992 to form Image Comics. X-Force continued with Nicieza writing and Greg Capullo illustrating, Nicieza, who also wrote X-Men, vol. 2, helped plot the X-Cutioners Song storyline that overlapped into most X-Men related books in the fall of 1992, in that story, Stryfe frames Cable for an assassination attempt on the X-Men’s founder Professor X, leading to a clash between the X-Men and X-Force. The crossover boosted Cables popularity, despite the apparent death in X-Force #18
4.
Fabian Nicieza
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Nicieza was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, the son of Omar and Irma Riguetti Nicieza. He was four years old when his family moved to the United States, growing up in New Jersey, Nicieza learned to read and write from comic books. He studied at Rutgers University, interning at the ABC television network before graduating in 1983 with a degree in advertising and his brother is Mariano Nicieza, also a comic book writer and editor. Until 1985, Nicieza worked for the Berkley Publishing Group, starting in the production department, in 1985, Nicieza joined the staff at Marvel Comics, initially as a manufacturing assistant, later moving to the promotions department as an advertising manager. During this period he began to take his first freelance work for Marvel, niciezas first published comics story came with Psi-Force No. 9, a title in Marvels short-lived New Universe imprint and this led to his becoming that titles regular writer from #16 until #32, the final issue. This led to work on titles such as Classic X-Men, for which he provided backup stories. After Tom DeFalco, then Marvels editor-in-chief, created the team the New Warriors, using existing characters. 412, he selected Nicieza to write the spin-off series, Nicieza recalled I took the assignment for two reasons. First, I saw a lot of potential in these characters that had already been deemed useless, and secondly, I really wanted to write a monthly book. Collaborating with pencilers Mark Bagley and later Darick Robertson, primarily, years later, Nicieza said that he considers the first 25 issues of New Warriors to be the best work of his career. That year, Nicieza became editor of Marvels childrens imprint, Star Comics, shortly afterward, he left the Marvel staff and began freelance writing for the company. In 1991, Nicieza joined with artist Rob Liefeld in co-plotting and writing the three issues of the New Mutants. In those issues Liefeld and Nicieza created the characters Deadpool and Shatterstar as well as the super team, Liefeld and Nicieza then produced an ongoing X-Force title. Nicieza initially worked on the title as scripter, after the departure of Liefeld in No.12 he became its full writer, by the end of 1992, Nicieza became regular scripter for X-Men vol. 12, working primarily with penciler Andy Kubert throughout his run, during this period Nicieza wrote the first Cable miniseries as well as the first few issues of the characters subsequent ongoing series. He also wrote the first solo Deadpool series, Deadpool, the Circle Chase in 1993 and he later remarked, I never wanted to leave, and never felt my firing was justified. I dont recall being given a reason, and I also dont recall asking for one, considering it was a Top 10 selling title at the time, I felt it was a wholly unjustified decision
5.
Rob Liefeld
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Robert Rob Liefeld is an American comic book creator. A prominent writer/artist in the 1990s, he has since been called one of the most controversial figures in the comic industry, in the early 1990s, the self-taught artist became prominent due to his work on Marvel Comics The New Mutants and later X-Force. In 1992, he and several other popular Marvel illustrators left the company to found Image Comics, the first book published by Image Comics was Rob Liefelds Youngblood #1. Rob Liefeld was born October 3,1967, the youngest child of a Baptist minister and he and his sister, seven years his senior, grew up in Anaheim, California. Liefelds love of comics began as a child, which led early on to his decision to be a professional artist, Liefeld cites Pérez, along with John Byrne and Frank Miller, as major influences. At the convention, he showed editors his samples and offered a package, editor Dick Giordano, to whom Liefeld showed his samples at the DC booth, requested that Liefeld send him more samples. Though the published story was illustrated by another artist, Liefeld was later given character design work by the publisher. His first published story, however, was the five-issue miniseries Hawk and Dove for DC Comics and that same year, Liefeld drew a Bonus Book insert in Warlord #131, as well as Secret Origins #28. Liefelds layouts for Hawk and Dove #5, which place in a chaos dimension, were oriented sideways so that a reader would have to turn the comic book at a right angle to read them. Because this was done without editorial input, editor Mike Carlin cut and pasted the panels into the proper order, the letters column of Hawk and Dove #5 mentions that Liefeld showed something new to an editor who thought hed seen everything. Liefeld explained this was how the dimension had been portrayed the other time it had been featured in the book. Shortly thereafter, Liefeld began doing work for Marvel Comics as well, in 1989, Liefeld became the penciller for the Marvel series The New Mutants, starting with issue #86. He is generally credited for turning this lowest-selling title of the X-Men franchise into a financial success, with The New Mutants #98, Liefeld assumed full creative control over the series, penciling, inking, and plotting, with Fabian Nicieza writing dialog. The sales numbers were propelled by 1990s direct market sales strategies, Lees X-Men was published with five variant covers, and X-Force relied on multiple variant trading cards polybagged with the comic itself. Liefeld and several other young artists including Jim Lee, Todd McFarlane, Erik Larsen, Whilce Portacio, Jim Valentino. Each co-founder formed his own studio under the Image banner, such as Liefelds Extreme Studios, Liefelds superhero team series Youngblood, which is loosely based on a 1991 Teen Titans series Liefeld had proposed to DC Comics, was the first comic Image published. He appeared on an episode of The Dennis Miller Show to promote the book and his other titles included Bloodstrike #1, which was released in April 1993. In an interview in Hero Illustrated #4, Liefeld conceded disappointment with the first four issues of Youngblood, in 1996, Liefelds and Lees studios signed with Marvel to re-envision several of the companys core series, an event called Heroes Reborn
6.
Brotherhood of Mutants
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The Brotherhood of Mutants, originally known as the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, is a fictional supervillain team appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. The characters are depicted as being devoted to mutant superiority over normal humans and they are among the chief adversaries of the X-Men. The groups roster and ideology have varied from incarnation to incarnation and they are almost always at odds with the more peaceful X-Men, though on rare occasions the two sides have allied against a common threat, most notably Apocalypse. The Brotherhood was founded by Magneto and its members were his allies in his early battles with the X-Men during the 1960s. The original Brotherhood ultimately disbanded, with Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch going on to members of the Avengers. In 1981, the Brotherhood of Mutants was revived under the leadership of Mystique while the groups most visible incarnation during the early 1990s was led by Toad, with each additional incarnation, the group abandoned its political ideology and regressed to the status of hired goons. Since the end of the 1990s, several incarnations have sought to return to the political roots, the Brotherhood of Mutants has also appeared in several animated series featuring the X-Men and has been Magneto’s group in the recent X-Men film series. The original Brotherhood of Evil Mutants was created by writer Stan Lee and artist/co-writer Jack Kirby, one of the greater ironies of the group has been its use of Evil in its name. When his decision to name the group was brought up in an interview, Stan Lee simply said, since the early 1990s, writers have attempted to explain this away by having Toad describe it as irony, based upon the perceived notion that all mutants are evil. Later writers have opted instead to simply drop Evil from the groups name, many of the groups members have been shown to be past victims of anti-mutant prejudice, which has made the group a haven for many mutants who feel they are outcasts and pariahs. While many of these outcast mutants have willingly embraced the violent aspects of the Brotherhoods ideology, several have ultimately rejected it, the original leader of the team was Magneto, a mutant with the ability to control magnetic fields. It would later be revealed that Magneto was a Holocaust survivor, explaining his distrust of humanity, Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch are Magnetos children, although at the time of the original Brotherhood all three of them were unaware of it. They had joined after Magneto saved Wanda from a mob who believed she was a Witch after she made a house burst into flame. She joined to repay the debt, and Pietro joined to keep her safe, Time and again, the Brotherhood clashed with the original X-Men team, in their first appearance taking control of a small country with the aid of Mastermind creating an illusion of an army. They captured the Angel and took him to Asteroid M, and they tried to recruit the Sub-Mariner, and then the Blob, but the X-Men succeeded against them. Finally Magneto and Toad were captured by an extraterrestrial being called the Stranger, who they at first believed was a powerful mutant, Mastermind had been turned to a block of solid matter by the Stranger, Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch left the team and later joined the Avengers. The shapeshifting mutant Mystique later organized her own Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, members included Pyro, the Blob, Avalanche, Destiny and Rogue. This team later became the core membership of the team called Freedom Force
7.
American comic book
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An American comic book is a thin periodical, typically 32-pages, containing primarily comics content. While the form originated in 1933, American comic books first gained popularity after the 1938 publication of Action Comics and this was followed by a superhero boom that lasted until the end of World War II. After the war, while superheroes were marginalized, the book industry rapidly expanded, and genres such as horror, crime. The 1950s saw a decline, due to a shift away from print media in the wake of television. The late 1950s and the 1960s saw a revival. Since the later 20th century, comic books have gained note as collectable items, Comic shops cater to fans, and particularly valuable issues have fetched in excess of a million dollars. Systems of grading comic books have emerged with plastic sleeves and cardboard backing available to maintain the condition of comic books, standard comics are 6.625 inches ×10.25 inches and about 32 pages long. While comics can be the work of a creator, the labour of making them is frequently divided between a number of specialists. There may be a writer and artist, or there may be separate artists for the characters. The process begins with the coming up with an idea or concept, then working it into a plot and story. After the art production, letters are placed on the page, the creative team, the writers and artists, may work with a comic book publisher for help with marketing, advertising, and other logistics. A distributor like Diamond Comic Distributors, the largest in the U. S. helps to distribute the product to retailers. Another part of the involved in successful comics is the interaction between the readers/fans and the creator. Fan art and letters to the editor were printed in the back of the book until the early 21st century. Comic specialty stores did help encourage several waves of independently-produced comics, the development of the modern American comic book happened in stages. The G. W. Dillingham Company published the first known proto-comic-book magazine in the U. S, the Yellow Kid in McFaddens Flats, in 1897. The 196-page, square-bound, black-and-white publication, which also includes text by E. W. Townsend, measured 5×7 inches. The neologism comic book appears on the back cover, despite the publication of a series of related Hearst comics soon afterward, the first monthly proto-comic book, Embee Distributing Companys Comic Monthly, did not appear until 1922
8.
Toad (comics)
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Toad is a fictional supervillain appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. He is most often depicted as an enemy of the X-Men and he was Magnetos sniveling servant in the 1960s line-up of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. He eventually led his own version of the Brotherhood, which was involved in petty crime than mutant liberation. Ray Park played a different version of Toad in 2000s X-Men film. He was cocky and sarcastic and his superhuman leaping ability, agility, toxic saliva, prehensile tongue, aspects of this Toad have since been implemented into the comic book version. Subsequently, most versions of Toad written or drawn after 2000 resemble the Ray Park version more closely than the original Toad, a younger Toad appears in the film X-Men, Days of Future Past, played by Evan Jonigkeit. Created by writer Stan Lee and artist/co-writer Jack Kirby, he first appeared in X-Men #4 and he was considered to be mentally inferior due to his extreme shyness and mild learning disabilities during his primary school years, though he was actually quite intelligent. He dropped out at an early age and decided to fend for himself. Based on years of abuse and knowing full well he was a freak, Mortimer developed an inferiority complex. Later, he was recruited into Magnetos original Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, Toad believed that Magneto loved him, while the mutant mastermind considered this henchman little more than a human shield. He also developed a crush on his teammate Scarlet Witch, but she did not return his feelings as she was repulsed by his appearance, mannerisms, as a member of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, Toad aided Magneto in repeated clashes with the X-Men. Magneto tried to use him to infiltrate the X-Men, but they recognized his power, at one point, Magneto and Toad were captured by the alien Stranger as part of his collection, encased in cocoons, and taken on a journey through space. Magneto managed to escape by repairing a spaceship, but left Toad behind, Toad aided Magneto against the X-Men once more, but realized that Magneto didnt care at all for him and rebelled against Magneto, and fled his lair with Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch. However, he was captured by Sentinels, and then freed by the X-Men. He was later captured with Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch, some time later, Toad began to study the Strangers technology, becoming familiar with it. He used the Strangers alien technology to menace the Avengers and he even attempted to kill the Angel in a castle outfitted with traps by Arcade. However, he turned the castle into an amusement park. Toad was eventually ejected from the castle by Doctor Doom, and he became suicidal and he met and was befriended by Spider-Man, and teamed with Spider-Kid and Frog-Man as the superhero adventurer team, the Misfits
