My favorite artist,
George Perez announced that he has Stage 3 Pancreatic Cancer and the doctors gave him six months to a year to live. You can read the full statement on his
public Facebook.
To honor the man, I have put together a top ten George Perez costume design list.
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#10 SONS OF THE TIGER / WHITE TIGER (1974)
Appearing in Deadly Hands of Kung Fu, one of George's first assignment was drawing the strip for The Sons of the Tiger ... which will introduced The White Tiger - the first Puerto Rican superhero. Perez would later also designed the new White Tiger in 2005.
There’s been a few
White Tigers in Marvel Comics:
White Tiger (Hector Ayala) created by writer Bill Mantlo and artist George Pérez
White Tiger (evolved from a white Bengal tiger)
White Tiger (Kasper Cole)
White Tiger (Angela del Toro)
White Tiger (Ava Ayala)
#9 GLADIATOR (1994)
This was a character that George Perez created for a Nightwing detective story. Unfortunately, DC rejected the story pitch, so George took The Gladiator, and a character called Plague from the Nightwing story, and re-used them for
Crimson Plague.
Crimson Plague is George’s passion project that never completed. They were losing so much money on the comic book series when it was cancelled. He would later able to finish it, as a spirtual successor in the form of
Sirens.
Still, how great does Gladiator look? It has so many elements that you can find in
Ares, who would later appear in
Wonder Woman.
#8 PROTECTOR (1983)
DC couldn't legally use Robin to Keebler, because they licensed it to Nabisco. For the Keebler's Anti-Drug comic, George Perez had to quickly design the Protector in place of Robin. Protector appeared in three Anti-Drug comics and a TV advertisement.
Even though he’s basically Robin, DC Comics eventually made the character as part of their universe, even giving him a Teen Titans membership in
DC Who's Who Update '87 comic.
The Protector was one of the heroes killed in the recent
Heroes in Crisis storyline.
#7 I-BOTS (1995)
Tekno-Comix hired George Perez to work on I-Bots, somewhat based on Isaac Asimov's "I, Robot". This gave George the freedom to design the entire team from scratch. Only seven issues were published for I-Bots, because the publisher folded in 1997.
Unfortunately, since the publisher went away,
I-Bots may never reappear in future collection or revival.
#6 NEW TEEN TITANS (1980)
After a brief stint drawing Firestorm, George and Marv put together the New Teen Titans. Neither of them thought the book would last more than a few issues, but history would prove them wrong. Three new characters were introduced: Raven, Cyborg, and Starfire. Although the new/modern costumes are different... personally speaking, I still prefer the original designs.
Let Starfire be sexy, let Cyborg be half man half robot, and let Raven be hidden in the shadows.
With the new characters, they were free to explore Sci-Fi stories (Starfire), horror stories (Raven), and technology stories (Cyborg).
#5 TASKMASTER (1980)
However impractical the costume for Taskmaster may appear, no one can deny just how visually stunning he looks. It's really too bad Marvel decided to go in a different direction in the Black Widow film.
#4 BATTLE ARMOR WONDER WOMAN (1987)
Wonder Woman is an ambassador of peace... but when she has to go to war, she'll don her battle armor, complete with helmet, cape, shield, sword, ax, spear, bow, and every weapon under the sun. Deadly, yet looking beautiful! Perez designed the armor for Challenge of the Gods.
#3 CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS (1985)
Out of Crisis, we got designs for Harbinger, Pariah, Dr Light II, the Monitor... and, of course, the Anti-Monitor. He was designed twice, as mirror version of The Monitor and boss-level Monitor. The new Anti-Monitor armor would inspired Superboy Prime to copy it for his evil costume.
Crisis on Infinite Earths is the most important series in the history of
DC Comics. The series reboot the DC Universe in a (then) modern time. The series also help established an annual company-wide crossover event that became commonplace since
Crisis.
Trivia: George said that he’s regretted not drawing Hal Jordan (Green Lantern) in
Crisis.
#2 DEATHSTROKE (1980)
There could be a top 10 of just Teen Titans, so apologies to Troia, Jericho, Kole, Shimmer, etc. If you had to pick one or two TT designs, you can't ignore Slade, Deathstroke the Terminator. What is up with the orange half face? Turns out he only has one eye. Villain of the greatest Titans storyline, the Judas Contract.
(TIE) #1 NIGHTWING (1984)
Fans dubbed this as Discowing, and some people hated this costume... but it looks so cool! Nightwing was created because the Batman writer at the time wanted Robin back in the Batman, so George and Marv created Nightwing and they made Jason Todd as the new Robin.
Nightwing is massive with fans, who voted the character as sexiest character – from both men
and women. In fact, Nightwing’s butt has its own fanbase.
(TIE) #1 MEDIEVAL AVENGERS (1998)
George basically redesigned the entire Avengers team: Yeoman America, Iron Knight, Gypsy Witch, Gypsy Davy, Donar the Mighty, Longbow, Firemaiden, Ghost of Stone, Lady Marvel, Star-Knight, Jade Giantess, Gigantus, Grimalikin, etc.
You have to agree that so much work went into re-creating The Avengers… and it was only used in a few issues of
The Avengers (and never to be seen again!)
BONUS: Like
Hellcat and
The Beast, I didn’t include
Maestro on the list because he was just an older, and evil variant of a previously existing character,
The Hulk.
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