George Perez, Wonder Woman
Man, when it comes to George Perez, where do you start? Avengers? New Teen Titans? JLA? Crisis on Infinite Earths? Wonder Woman? The Infinity Gauntlet? His entirely reasonable reasons for wanting to put the New 52 Superman in his rearview mirror?
(I suppose I could start with he’s coming to the Memphis Comic Expo, but that’s a little too easy)
As an artist and writer working in the majors, few individuals have done more to refine and redefine the two big superhero universes. He’s been doing it for 40-years too, so, even when you think about his greatest hits, there’s a lot to choose from. But for me, I think this is a story best told from the beginning. Or, the very near beginning when Perez became a regular artist working on Marvel’s Deadly Hands of Kung Fu
I don’t know how to rank all the various sub-elements in the SuperOmniVerse. Obviously heroes are on top of the food chain. Then comes magic and monsters, maybe. Then a mix of mainstays that fall in and out of fashion — martial arts, western, war, romance etc. None of it’s pure anymore, it’s all mixed up. But there have been periods when Marvel Kung Fu was more or less its own thing and some of the coolest pulp around. Hopefully Netflix Iron Fist — an often tertiary hero also getting some play in Marvel animated properties aimed at younger audiences — will show some love for a super comics tradition, diluted in the bigger universe of powers. This a long way of saying, I loved this stuff as a kid, and was a particular fan of a character called White Tiger. He’s the first Puerto Rican superhero, with all sorts of crisis and conflict, and his story was forged in a white hot crucible of magic and martial arts. Perez co-created the Tiger with Bill Mantlo.
The female White Tiger — the best part about the cloying Ultimate Spider-Man animated series (if it has a best part) — is the original Tiger’s daughter. But now I’m way off track and far away from the point I originally wanted to make, which is this: The man can draw figures in action like few others. And, to the degree the comics reflected Kung Fu cinema, you can see its influence throughout Perez’s work. Particularly in quick, intimate, funny moments in the midst of all out brawls.
I don’t even know if I could recognize Perez if he wasn’t wearing one of his trademark wife-made Hawaiian-style shirts covered in pictures of superheroes or robots or — it’s always something. It’s so evident that before anything else, he’s a big, big geek (in the best way), and a big, big fan. And while I was just praising his smaller moments, he may be best known for arranging a lot of characters in a single frame. If you want the Avengers going toe to toe with the Squadron Supreme: Perez. If you want to write a series that includes every major and minor character in the DC Universe: Perez.
It’s probably worth mentioning his co-invention of the New Teen Titans with marvelous Marv Wolfman. If only because the series was able to do for DC what the X-Men were doing for Marvel. And because it’s awesome.
You can’t blame a master for those who came after him. I can hardly bear the animated Teen Titans Go series that just won’t go away. But I could probably watch Perez draw Cyborg all day.
All that and I haven’t even gotten around to the writing. If you know you know. If you don’t, he’s well worth your Google search.
Fun interview with Perez here. And just in case you can watch him draw Cyborg all day too, here you go…
George Perez: Cool Things About Memphis Comic Expo Part II
