It’s been a while since I’ve done one of these, but it’s the return of my Creator Spotlights as this time I am discussing the works (those that I own) of Kurt Busiek! Best known for so such great comics as the Marvels event, his own Astro City, the classic JLA/Avengers crossover, Thunderbolts, Superman: Secret Identity, Untold Tales of Spider-Man, of course his run on Avengers with George Perez, etc.
In Marvels, he and Alex Ross gave us the Marvel Universe from the civilians’ POV via beat photographer Phil Sheldon! It is such an amazing series, both art-wise AND the writing, as Busiek offers readers fresh insights to the Marvel universe.
- Untold Tales of Spider-Man fills in the blanks between moments hinted at, but never expanded on in Lee/Ditko’s original Spidey run.
- Thunderbolts gave us possibly one of the last great, legitimate, shocking twists on the final page. Comics hasn’t seen anything like it in ages!
- His run on Avengers helped return the title to greatness and his Superman run again brought fresh ideas that had been rarely explored.
- Superman: Secret Identity (And it’s follow up Batman: Creature of the Night) both gave interesting (but significantly different) takes on their respected heroes existing in… the real world!
- And of course JLA/Avengers was the epic crossover to end all cross-company crossovers!
I could go on and on, and do so in my video below.
The man has done so much and so much of his work are instant classics! Why is that? Busiek is quite knowledgeable of so much of comics continuity and, most importantly, he really seems to go out of his way to study the history of what’s come before him before he truly dives in, which is something it seems like very few writers do these days! Kurt really respects the canon of what came before, but still tells the story he has in mind! I really think his ideas are consistently very fitting of the characters and I wish there were more writers like him.
Hopefully I’ll get back to doing another Creator Spotlight in the near future but, until then, here’s my Kurt Busiek installment. Next time, maybe I’ll finally get around to posting the long delayed movie reviews I did with Ingrid. Enjoy those next.
Editor’s Note: Even though Bleeding Fool has criticized and taken Mr. Busiek to task repeatedly for his social media behavior, we’re pleased to have contributors like Robert who are so passionate about comics that they’re able to separate the creator’s actions from his art.
