Peter David (1956 – 2025).
So I was already reading the Incredible Hulk by the time Peter David came on as the regular writer. Picking up threads established by previous creative teams — Bill Mantlo giving Bruce an abusive father and the preexisting elements of a multiple personality disorder, and Al Milgrom bringing back the grey-skinned version of the Hulk from the very first issue — David intertwined them into a long, engaging adventure over the next twelve years of his run. A complicated portrayal of the Hulk’s mental state was the central focus nearly the entire time, giving us wildly different interpretations of the character beyond the most famous “Hulk Smash!” version (one David famously had said he wasn’t interested in writing).
And what’s fascinating is that, ever since David’s run, the multiple-personality aspect has been, more often than not, a central tenet of the Hulk titles. I would say this makes David’s tenure on the book certainly the most influential. Even after John Byrne returned as scripter for the Hulk series in 1999, even that was a reaction against David’s influence, trying to twist the narrative back to the Hulk What Does All the Smashing business.
But Immortal Hulk, often held up as one of the greatest modern Hulk stories (with, um, a caveat), would not exist without David. The current horror-themed Phillip Kennedy Johnson and Nic Klein run on the character wouldn’t exist without David. Even that weird Donny Cates/Ryan Ottley Hulk-as-rocket-ship-piloted-by-Banner series wouldn’t exist with David. The ultimate version of the Hulk we see in the movies we would not have without David.
And it wasn’t just Hulk he wrote. Oh no. I can’t possibly list everything he’s worked on (EDIT: but customer Corey did!), but the great DC Comics kid team book Young Justice, the weirdest take on Supergirl, the strange mystery/horror/fantasy comic Fallen Angel, the X-Men spin-off team X-Factor, half of the DC Vs. Marvel mini (with Ron Marz — bit of a mess, but thanks to those two at least it was an entertaining mess), Captain Marvel, Sachs & Violens…
…and Star Trek.
Boy howdy did he write some Star Trek, and it remains some of the best Trek in comics to this day. Mostly wrote Classic Trek era, though he occasionally dipped into Next Generation, they were some of the most run TV-to-comics adaptations ever published. Some scenes and lines of dialogue from those still flash into my head to this day.
And Star Trek novels, he wrote too. Plenty of them, to much acclaim (and sales!). Of note is an odd little crossover between the classic Trek comics he wrote and the first Next Generation book he wrote, Strike Zone, where a minor character he was…encouraged to remove from the comic by the Trek Powers That Be, returned under a slightly different name in the novel to have his story wrapped up.
There were more novels than just that, such as movie novelizations (including the classic Return of Swamp Thing adaptation that manages to get Alan Moore in there as a character!), novels based on other franchises (such as Babylon 5) and his original novels (Knight Life – King Arthur returns and runs for New York Mayor, Sir Apropros of Nothing – lamed-legged thief makes his way through life with wit and not-always-good luck, Howling Mad – wolf bit by a werewolf changes into a man under the full moon).
Of course there is also his TV and movie work, writing for Space Cases and Babylon 5. Two of his movies were Oblivion and Oblivion II: Backlash, one of those borrowing the “not…SWEENEY!” joke from his Star Trek comics…I’m already going overlong on this, I’ll explain that gag later. Anyway, both those movies got the MST3K-style Rifftrax treatment and I always wondered how David felt about that. The movies were…what they were, you could definitely pick out David’s style in the script, but, well, it’s amusing enough to watch, and the actors looked like they were having fun.
This only really scratches the surface of everything he’s done. The man wrote a ton of comics and books, plenty of which are very entertaining. David can be a little too jokey at times — the man never met a pun he didn’t like — but the basics were solid and he knew how to tell a story and tell it well. And the man wasn’t perfect…he had a…very unfortunate blow-up at a convention that caused him to write this mea culpa.
As you probably know, David and his family had to repeatedly turn to crowdfunding to pay his medical debts, which is a damned shame. One would thing someone at Marvel or Disney or Sony could have ponied up 1% of whatever money they made off of Spider-Man 2099, a character David developed and has subsequently been used in movies and marketed in spin-off toys, and paid off literally all of his bills. Or that comic companies and their corporate owners could come up with some better way to treat their older and/or ailing creators after years of Generating Content that they then use to make piles of money in other deals.
Maybe this will be the final straw that finally gets these companies to do something about this.
But it probably won’t be.
Of course, if we had a proper healthcare system in this country none of this would be a problem in the first place. But ’til then…the GoFundMe is still open for Peter David’s medical bills, which his family still needs to pay. Please contribute if you can.
So long, Peter.
From what I heard and read about him he was a very nice guy, rest in peace. He has a tremendous body of work and was one of the Modern age greats! My favorite was his Captain Marvel run, but I hope his depiction of life in a comic shop was at least a little overdone.
I still keep my Fallen Angel comics around for a reread until I get a hold of the IDW continuation from years later.
Peter David’s Hulk is the run that made me a comic book fan. I’d read a few comics before, but PAD’s character work and humor made me want to see what happened next to whom. Dale Keown’s art certainly helped. I followed his run for the rest of its duration, read his great 1st X-Factor run, sought out his Star Trek novels, and picked up a lot of his subsequent output. I recommend Fallen Angel, both versions, to anyone who hasn’t read it. PAD tackled some heavier themes and his humor turned a shade darker in that series.
I was lucky enough to meet PAD at a con and see him at a few more. I’m glad I got to tell him how much his work means to me. RIP
Peter David somehow managed to both be a spark that led me to read comics and what finally stopped me from reading comics. I started reading comics when he was writing the “Death of Jean DeWolff” arc in _Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man_, and enjoyed his run on that series enough that I read _Knight Life_ in junior high. I stopped reading comics for about 15 years, then returned in late-2005 when I stumbled over Scans Daily, and was tipped off to Kyle Baker’s Plastic Man run, Spider-Man Loves Mary-Jane, Brubaker’s Daredevil, and Jeff Smith’s Shazam miniseries, among many other things. Suddenly I had a pull list at a comic store! Then Peter David freaked out about something, resulting in Scans Daily getting banned, and the only comics I’ve purchased since then are Essentials and Epic Collections of stuff from before I was born.
“I can’t possibly list everything he’s worked on”
That’s OK, because I did:
https://www.peterdavid.net/bibliography/
I was afraid this was coming. I had just updated the bibliography a few weeks ago with the one novel and one miniseries he’d written in the past 18 months. Couldn’t help thinking it might be the last update.
RIP
Corey – I’m a dummy for not thinking about this. I’ll add it to the main body of the post!
RIP Peter David. What a powerful creative voice in comics.
I just can’t get over how little healthcare comics freelancers have access to. Makes me think I need to start donating to the Hero Initiative on a regular basis.
I remember reading some positive reviews about his early Incredible Hulk run in ’89 or ’90. I decided to walk a few miles to my LCS (it was a nice summer day) and check it out. I bought all of the McFarlane issues, walked home and, starting with issue 337, read through them without taking a break.
Then I stayed on the until issue 467. Of course, I not only became a lifelong Hulk fan, but I picked up many of his other titles as well.
Mr. David knew how to write fun comics and, after clicking on the link in your post regarding his comments about the Romani, he certainly knew how to offer a sincere apology.
Thanks for all the great memories, Peter!
Peter David also did a lengthy run on Aquaman in the 90s that you can also say was redefining. Thanks, Peter.
Allan – oh, there is so much I didn’t even touch on. Aquaman and Atlantis Chronicles were both quite good, and it dawned on me this evening I didn’t even mention his Disney work. Augh.
I was fortunate enough to get to meet Peter David once at a Long Beach Comic Con. He kindly signed several issues of Atlantis Chronicles (the limited series which was beautifully illustrated by Esteban Maroto) for me.
RIP Peter David
Re: Your Bluesky posting regarding Iron Duck(s), Howard and Donald need to have an Iron Duck(s) Marvel Super Special where they fight it out in an old school Battle Royale to see who shall be the one, true Iron Duck; or, if they are living on different Earths, they can meet in the multiverse and team up to defeat the evil Duck-ter Doom…
There was a substantial period during the ’90s when Peter David’s HULK was the only Marvel comic I was reading regularly.
Was his 12-year run on HULK some kind of record for a single writer working on a single superhero comic?
@Athelind Llewellyn Long: Chris Claremont wrote Uncanny X-Men from 1976 to 1991, plus over 50 issues of the spin-off New Mutants, a bunch of solo Wolverine, and some of the spin-off mini-series. After Claremont, PAD is the writer with the longest tenure on a super-hero title that I can think of.
It’s remarkable that PAD stayed on the Hulk for that long and kept it interesting. The Hulk is one of my favorite comic book characters, but previous runs got repetitive quickly. David managed to keep reinventing the status quo without breaking the concept, and made the Hulk one of Marvel’s best series.
I might be wrong–and there may have been some issues where another writer was featured–but I want to say that Bob Haney more than likely was the Brave and the Bold writer for around a decade. Of course, that comic wasn’t on a monthly schedule.
Mark Gruenwald also wrote Captain America for about 10 years.
It’s creator owned, so it’s a completely different situation, but if we’re limiting it to superhero books, Erik Larsen has been writing (and drawing) the regular Savage Dragon series since 1993.
Takao Saito did ‘Golgo 13’ for 52 years — admittedly with a substantial number of assistants, but that’s usual for most manga. A Japanese guy I once knew joked that the only part of the comic Saito drew were Golgo’s pupils!
Here are a few of the longest runs by a single writer:
https://www.cbr.com/longest-superhero-run-comics-same-writer/
It’s limited to superheroes, so it skips manga and books like Cerebus. Weirdly, it also skips Savage Dragon — maybe it’s just Big 2 books? Anyway, a couple of surprises on there, at least for me.
I think Roy Thomas wrote Conan the Barbarian for for Marvel for about ten years–1970 to 1980; while it is not a superhero comic, it is still an impressive run.
“Bill Mantlo”
Under-rated!
“One would think someone at Marvel or Disney or Sony could have ponied up 1% of whatever money they made off of Spider-Man 2099, a character David developed and has subsequently been used in movies and marketed in spin-off toys, and paid off literally all of his bills”
Agreed!
“Mark Gruenwald also wrote Captain America for about 10 years.”
And the first 5 or so were very, very good!
“Takao Saito did ‘Golgo 13’ for 52 years”
Holy &@$%!