Background and career
George Pérez (; June 9, 1954 – May 6, 2022) was an American comic book artist and writer, who worked primarily as a penciller. He came to prominence in the 1970s penciling Fantastic Four and The Avengers for Marvel Comics. In the 1980s, he penciled The New Teen Titans, which became one of DC Comics' top-selling series. He penciled DC's landmark limited series Crisis on Infinite Earths, followed by relaunching Wonder Woman as both writer and penciller. In the meantime, he worked on other comics published by Marvel, DC, and other companies into the 2010s. He was known for his detailed and realistic rendering, and his facility with complex crowd scenes. Among the many characters Pérez created or co-created are Cyborg, Raven, Starfire, Deathstroke, White Tiger, and the Nightwing identity of Dick Grayson.
George Pérez was born on June 9, 1954, in the South Bronx, New York City, to Jorge Guzman Pérez and Luz Maria Izquierdo, who were both from Caguas, Puerto Rico, but met after settling in New Jersey while searching for job opportunities. They married in October 1954 and subsequently moved to New York, where Jorge worked in the meat packing industry while Luz was a homemaker. George's younger brother David was born in May 1955. Both brothers aspired at a young age to be artists, with George beginning to draw at the age of five.
Pérez's first involvement with the professional comics industry was as artist Rich Buckler's assistant in 1973, and he made his professional debut in Marvel Comics' Astonishing Tales #25 (Aug. 1974) as penciler of an untitled two-page satire of Buckler's character Deathlok, star of that comic's main feature. Soon Pérez became a Marvel regular, penciling a run of "Sons of the Tiger", a serialized action-adventure strip published in Marvel's long-running Deadly Hands of Kung Fu magazine and authored by Bill Mantlo. He and Mantlo co-created the White Tiger (comics' first Puerto Rican superhero), a character that soon appeared in Marvel's color comics, most notably the Spider-Man titles. Pérez came to prominence with Marvel's superhero-team comic The Avengers, starting with issue #141. In the 1970s, Pérez illustrated several other Marvel titles, including Creatures on the Loose, featuring the Man-Wolf; The Inhumans; and Fantastic Four. Writer Roy Thomas and Pérez crafted a metafictional story for Fantastic Four #176 (Nov. 1976) in which the Impossible Man visited the offices of Marvel Comics and met numerous comics creators. While most of Pérez' Fantastic Four issues were written by Roy Thomas or Len Wein, it would be a Fantastic Four Annual where he would have his first major collaboration with writer Marv Wolfman. Pérez drew the first part of writer Jim Shooter's "The Korvac Saga", which featured nearly every Avenger who had joined the team up to that point. Shooter and Pérez introduced the character of Henry Peter Gyrich, the Avengers' liaison to the United States National Security Council in the second chapter of that same storyline. Writer David Michelinie and Pérez created the Taskmaster in The Avengers #195 (May 1980). Around this period, Pérez also contributed work for Marvel UK, most notably on the Wolverine story "At the Sign of the Lion". The story was written in 1978 by Jo Duffy and penciled by Ken Landgraf, with Pérez providing the inks—his first credited inking work for Marvel. The completed story was published the following year in Marvel Comic #335 (March 1979).
In 1980, while still drawing The Avengers for Marvel, Pérez began working for their rival DC Comics. Offered the art chores for the launch of The New Teen Titans, written by Wolfman, Pérez's real incentive was the opportunity to draw Justice League of America (an ambition of Pérez's that "seemed like a natural progress from the Avengers"). Long-time Justice League artist Dick Dillin died right around that time, providing an opportunity for Pérez to step in as regular artist. While Pérez's stint on the JLA was popular with fans, he received greater attention for his work on The New Teen Titans, which was launched in a special preview in DC Comics Presents #26 (October 1980). This incarnation of the Titans was intended to be DC's answer to Marvel's increasingly popular X-Men comic, and it became highly successful. A New Teen Titans drug awareness comic book sponsored by the Keebler Company and drawn by Pérez was published in cooperation with The President's Drug Awareness Campaign in 1983. In August 1984, a second series of The New Teen Titans was launched by Wolfman and Pérez. Moreover, Pérez's facility with layouts, details, and faces improved enormously during his four years on the book, making him one of the most popular artists in comics as evidenced by the numerous industry awards he would receive during this time. (See Awards section below.)
Pérez took a leave of absence from The New Teen Titans in 1984 to focus on his next project with Marv Wolfman, DC's 1985 50th-anniversary event, Crisis on Infinite Earths. Crisis purportedly featured every single character DC owned, in a story which radically restructured the DC universe's continuity. Pérez was inked on the series by Dick Giordano, Mike DeCarlo, and Jerry Ordway. After Crisis, Pérez inked the final issue of Superman (issue #423) in September 1986, over Curt Swan's pencils, for part one of the two-part story "Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?" by writer Alan Moore. The following month, Pérez was one of the artists on Batman #400 (October 1986). Wolfman and Pérez teamed again to produce the History of the DC Universe limited series to summarize the revised history of their fictional universe. Pérez drew the cover for the DC Heroes roleplaying game (1985) from Mayfair Games as well as the cover for the fourth edition of the Champions roleplaying game (1989) from Hero Games.
Pérez played a key role in the 1987 reboot of the Wonder Woman franchise. Writer Greg Potter spent several months working with editor Janice Race on new concepts for the character, before being joined by Pérez. Inspired by John Byrne and Frank Miller's work on refashioning Superman and Batman, Pérez came in as the plotter and penciler of the series, which tied the character more closely to the Greek gods and jettisoned many other elements of her history. Pérez at first worked with Potter and Len Wein on the stories, but eventually took over the full scripting chores. Later, Mindy Newell joined Pérez as co-writer for nearly a year. While not as popular as either Titans or Crisis, the series was a very successful relaunch of one of DC's flagship characters. Pérez would work on the title for five years, leaving as artist after issue #24, but remaining as writer up to issue #62, leaving in 1992. Pérez returned to the character in 2001, co-writing a two-part story in issues #168–169 with writer/artist Phil Jimenez. Pérez also drew the cover for Wonder Woman #600 (Aug. 2010) as well as some interior art. For the successful 2017 Wonder Woman feature film, director Patty Jenkins would credit Pérez's work on the title character as a major influence, on par with the work of the original creator, William Moulton Marston.
Sources
Net-worth figure: Celebrity Net Worth (October 2026), in USD. Biography and career facts: the person's Wikipedia article and linked reporting. Snapshot date for all StarWorth figures: 28 October 2026.
