george perez born june 9 1954 in the south bronx new york city perez had aspired to become an
artist from the age of five alongside his brother david and probably had no idea how prolific his
career would go on to be the few names that can define an entire decade in the comic book
industry but whilst active perez was a juggernaut that few could compete with he was fundamental in
recreating dc's image and redefined the greatest female icon in all of comics and even helmed not
one but two major company-wide crossovers for the two biggest publishers and then eventually
pencilled the crossover that brought those two companies together WOOF WOOF! hey guys it's me
marcus aka the mad dog and this video is going to be a little bit bit sweet i was halfway through my
script for darwin coog's top 5 notable works who is a creator that was taken way too soon
when george perez announced that unfortunately he's suffering from terminal pancreatic cancer
i want to do my part to honor him his legacy and his career so all ad revenue from this
video is going to go to the hero initiative which is a charity that often helps creators
in need and was responsible for getting this jla avengers reprint quite recently and as sad
as this situation is let's instead focus on the great career that george perez had
as this is the next installment in the top five notable works the series that admittedly are kind
of ripped off from romy's corner way charts the life and career of a fighter with just five fights
but we're looking at creators instead and when it comes to george perez it's hard to just limit
it to five so if your personal favorite isn't in here it's because there are so many other
important titles that you worked on now let's go through them in chronological order as this
is george perez's top five notable works starting his career in 1973 perez's first work was as an
assistant to rich buckley and this gave george his in at marvel comics he worked on a number of
titles including the deadly hands of kung fu and also did work on the inhumans the fantastic four
and most importantly the avengers george went on a great stint through 1975 to 1980 where he really
developed his style for being able to feature so many distinct and recognizable characters on the
same page he drew part of the kovac saga and even created the look for the taskmaster with
that said you'd think that this first pick was about the avengers but his work on all of those
titles of marvel paled in comparison to what is now seen as his breakthrough hit on the new teen
titans written by marv wolfman who perez first started working with during the kovac saga and
would collaborate with throughout his career george joined the title from its debut issue in
1980 while still working for marvel when i first did the titans i had no real intentions of want
at that point i was asked by mark wolfman and at that point i wanted to i wanted to do the
justice league but what the new teen titans did was give george a chance to be at the inception
of something and although characters like robin kid flash and a few others weren't created for the
book he still had a hand in introducing cyborg raven and more throughout the title new teen
titans was where perez could really develop his crafting style sure it could be argued that his
marvel books were more impactful but this is my video and why i think the new teen titans must be
the first pick is because there's such a clear development from when he started the series to
when he left it it's evident in those early issues that although it's still fun to look at from an
art perspective we're clearly done by a creator who was still learning but by the end pereza
evolved to provide more dynamic layouts extra details to his pencilling and a style that set
him apart from everyone else in the industry given that perez was already seven years into his career
when he started his work on the new teen titans it might feel odd to label this as his breakthrough
but the magnitude of what the new teen titans came to be can't be understated this was the book that
rivaled marvel's uncanny x-men he worked alongside the president's drug awareness campaign which is
admittedly why speedy was probably not part of the team at this point and won a plethora of
rewards throughout its run the new teen titans was a seismic moment for george perez but what
might have felt like the peak of his career at the time was only really just the beginning
in 1984 new teen titans writer marv wolfman noticed that the dc universe was riddled with
continuity errors confusing timelines and just wasn't new reader friendly it was hard for someone
getting into comics to know where to start and just by the way if you're unsure where to start
check out my series at the same time perez was in a weird spot in his career new teen titans was
still successful but wasn't managing to sell more copies than marvel a company which perez had been
burned by mid-1983 whilst he'd been working on a project that promised to be successful for the two
biggest publishers and comics jla avengers george had already penciled 21 pages when the series was
abandoned due to an editorial dispute but this was the reason why when george first heard about
crisis on infinite earths he knew that he needed to be the artist for it however there were doubts
about the maxi series with only marvel's secret walls having been majorly successful with a
similar concept and all eyes were on crisis on infinite earths despite the fact that dc really
didn't try to market this perez knew what this meant and believed that it was too important
to fail and he was right crisis on infinite earth became so monumental that he redefined how people
looked at dc comics even today people still see series as being either pre or post crisis
and it's clear that perez sees this opportunity to advance his skills even further although wolfman's
plot brought people to the event george was one of the only artists working at the time who could put
so many characters on the page the iconic imagery that this series produced such as the end of barry
allen the monitor crushing the universes together and the grief-stricken superman holding the limp
corpse of supergirl was memorable because of how perez illustrated them every line is where it
needed to be the layouts were complex intricate but still managed to provide the reader with
direction the characters that were incorporated into the dc universe through crisis such as blue
beetle the question and other charlton characters were now known in the popular comic space because
of how perez adapted them everything perez had learned up to this point in his career
was accelerated and helped solidify the importance of crisis on infinite earths this was the moment
where he had to step up if he wanted to become a true great within the industry and he took the
opportunity and ran with it i said that new teen titans felt odd to be a breakthrough title for
perez and looking at what crisis meant to both his career and the comics industry as a whole
it would lead to believe that this should be the climax of anyone's career in retrospect it seems
like perez feels the same as he still recalls crisis being one of the projects he enjoyed
working on most but crisis ended up being just yet another springboard for him to go even further
full of its success and the accolades that crisis on infinite earth received it also meant that a
large number of dc characters were left looking for the place in the new universe in 1986 superman
was successfully relaunched with john burns man of steel and batman received his signature makeover
with frank miller's the dark knight returns that left wonder woman diana thermiscari a character
that in the decade prior had mostly had a comic image defined by the popular tv show and with
the origin story being rejigged so many times already they felt like crisis was made just for
her dc was quick to get to work editor janice race and writer greg porter were originally working on
a fresh take for the character but they were a little too radical in their approach and didn't
seem to capture what wonder woman was meant to be but perez had a few ideas when he heard what was
happening having illustrated the character during his brief stint on justice league he realized that
wonder woman's unique selling point came from her being a myth and leaned heavily into classical
mythology with perez having not led the writing duties of a major title before porter came on as
a co-writer so that george could plot and do the art his initial run lasted for five years between
1987-1992 gods immortals the first story arc is still held in high regard and was influential to
the recent wonder woman movies and is receiving an absolute edition because of its continued legacy
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the description down below and you can use these codes as many times as you like but the art that
perez did for the first 24 issues showcases everything that i've already said about his
style he conveyed action with his signature expressions detail in areas where we didn't
know it was needed and is still accessible to readers today however its inclusion in this list
isn't because of the art but because perez managed to reinvent himself often when someone enters the
industry as an artist reinvention means a change of style with a completely different look to the
penciling but perez was happy with the art that he could produce and instead changed the image
of himself to that of a variety he showed that he was just as good behind the panel as he was
inside it and where creators such as frank miller and john burn had already established before the
work on the post-crisis flagship characters perez was breaking into writing and arguably did the
most for wonder woman since she was created in 1941 the climax of his run war of the gods
was meant to be a celebration of wonder woman's 50th anniversary but also showed he was just as
capable scripting events as he was illustrating them wonder woman may not have been the biggest
title he'd worked on and was probably not as chaotic as crisis but it was a key point in
perez's career that showed his passion for both the medium and the characters that he worked on
in 1991 perez encountered problems with dc comics as he was working on war of the gods when dc gave
the title and the writing duties of the wedding that he'd been plotting up to to william mesner
loebs perez left the company and the next few years was strange for george and that's not to
say that he wasn't busy perez illustrated the comic book adaption of jurassic park and he
went back to marvel for titles such as a silver surfer the incredible hulk and even some of the
issues of infinity gauntlet back in 1991 but perez hadn't really made as much of an impact as he had
during the 80s until he went back to where it all began and took on the pencilling duties for the
avengers relaunch with kate bousiek marvel was still struggling to recover from the previous
years when the biggest artists had left them to found image comics they'd fell for bankruptcy
and the majority of the avengers characters had been hired out during hero's reborn perez was at
the top of marvel's dream list to both write and illustrate the title but george declined having
wanting to just do the art instead superseaq entered the title at perez's request and half
the success of the thunderbolts the two hit the ground running any doubts from the previous years
for marvel's mightiest heroes disappeared with that debut issue perez's name at that point was
one of the key selling points for the series and if anything they undersold the title everything
perez had learned from his time on the new teen titans could be seen in his ability to juggle
many key characters in the same panel the skills he picked up during crisis on infinite earths fed
into ultron unlimited and his time on wonder woman allowed him to really experiment with
the layout of his panels to tell the story in a way that not many other artists did at the time
the avengers in 1998 needed to succeed for marvel to have any chance of surviving the high tide that
had batted them for the previous few years but looking back on it now it's hard to imagine how
this title could have failed with a stellar plot a plethora of classic avengers characters an art
from one of the absolute best in the industry the avengers by business was one of the best
guaranteed bets that marvel could have made at the time it's even more certain than betting on
me to say is my jam after i mentioned the new 52 this title enters the top five because of how the
tables had managed to turn in the 70s perez needed marvel and the avengers to bolster his reputation
and prove that he deserved a place in the industry sure yes he had his issues no pun intended but
when he came back in the 90s it was because marvel chose him he had such a reputation from
his previous work that he was asked to write and could decline if this had been the last pick on
this list it would have been a fitting conclusion with the hero having returned home at the end
of the journey but perez's career still hadn't hit his crescendo but trust me it was about to
yes it happened 22 years after work had originally begun on the project the first
issue was released but it wasn't that simple and honestly the story of how this boot came to be
could do with its own video regardless in 2002 dc and marvel settled on a new agreement with
the avengers writer kirby zeke and jla writer and personal favorite of mine mark [ __ ] wade
coming together to script the book however wade was under contract by cross-gen comics which saw
him bow out of the title and perez was under a similar contract he forbid him from working
with any other company during the time that the contract was valid for not too dissimilar to the
problems that francis and garner's having he couldn't touch another book and i'm talking
about perez not in ghanu but yes he couldn't touch another book not even if he wanted to
unless that boot was jla avengers yes a clause was written into the contract that perez could work
outside of crossgen but only if that title was jla avengers or avengers jla depending which team you
root for throughout each of these previous picks i've spoken more about the events that led up to
the book in question but looking at jla avengers it's a true culmination of everything we'd seen
in the years building up to this looking at the original pages from 1983 and what was released
two decades later i think it's a blessing in disguise that the crossover didn't come to
fruition when originally intended perez wasn't still the guy mostly known for new teen titans
but was a veteran of the industry he'd reshape the dc universe breathe fresh life into wonder woman
and help the avengers re-establish themselves as marvel's biggest team and most importantly
he knew his own style don't get me wrong i love perez's work in new teen titans but seeing the
pages that came out from the failed project in comparison to what was released it's night
and day and i feel like i've said that about four times in this video it's clear from looking at the
finished book that perez is a master of the panel the framing the composition detailing backgrounds
and everything else that was needed for a title of this caliber to live up to its hype and this
is a comic that speaks for itself and there's not really much more that i can talk about it it's a
culmination of everything that perez had been working towards and had experimented with since
his career began in the 70s this list started with new teen titans a book that perez worked on whilst
originally doing some pages for the failed jla avengers i can't imagine what it must have felt
like when that originally fell through and have to wonder if the work had been for nothing but
through perseverance a great work ethic and seizing opportunities that others would have
deemed doomed to fail perez separated himself from his contemporaries to put himself at the forefront
of comics on multiple occasions so despite the artists that had risen to prominence between 1981
and 2003 perez was still the go-to guy for the title and that probably more than anything speaks
to the caliber and reputation that he'd built for himself like i said at the beginning of this video
this one's been bittersweet to make when i lasted this series and looked at jim lee i loved finding
out about the history and the career and all the behind the scenes things that maybe i didn't
understand and it's no different than when i was doing this video about george perez because i knew
about all these books that i was going to talk about and i'd read them years before but until
i did this video i never really understood the bigger picture or what it meant for the
comics industry as a whole it's impossible for any modern fan of superhero comics to have not
had their experience impacted at least in some way by george perez and yes i knew and read and
loved all of these stories that i've talked about in this video but because of the fact that i got
into comics at the age of 11 when jle avengers was already finished i never got to appreciate
how important he was to the comics industry as a whole it's fascinating to see how his career
developed along with his style but it first looked quite similar to other books that were coming out
in the late 70s would go on to become one that influences the widescreen style of art that has
become the norm today event comics are seen as a staple of the industry and always held to the same
standard as crisis on infinite aves and wonder woman wouldn't be the character that we knew today
if it wasn't for george perez's daring reinvention and when i look at his work especially some of the
latest stuff i love that despite evolving some of the elements the core of what makes his art
his own is still there he's always delivered it a consistent standard that somehow managed
to evolve with the times but also keep itself in this classic feel in a way that i can only
really describe as retro modern so even though it's very unlikely that this video will reach
him i do just want to say thank you to george perez even though i wasn't born early enough to
see your rise to prominence i could appreciate that comics wouldn't exist as they do today if
it wasn't for your work and your career which was impressive beyond just these five books that i've
listed in this video and it will be remembered for years and decades to come so i guess that's
the video hopefully you enjoyed it i put a lot of work into the editing and the scripting and
hopefully it's been enjoyable for you guys like i said all ad revenue will be going to the hero
initiative so please make sure that you share this wherever you can but guess that's a video
and until next time just make sure that you stay safe and stay mad all you dogs see the next video