Fred Van Lente has been a comics fan as long as he can remember, initially hooked by his father’s copy of Jules Feiffer’s landmark anthology The Great Comic Book Heroes. Van Lente joined Syracuse University’s comic-book club and met artist Steve Ellis, with whom he created indie super-crime comic The Silencers. That work got noticed by Marvel, where Van Lente was soon hired and introduced a heroic new Scorpion in Amazing Fantasy. Since then, the versatile Van Lente’s many Marvel assignments have included three New York Times-best-selling entries in the Marvel Zombies series, as well as Amazing Spider-Man, Incredible Hercules, X-Men Noir, Iron Man Legacy, Chaos War, Herc and Alpha Flight.
Peter David is one of the industry’s most prolific and versatile writers whose record-breaking stint on Incredible Hulk remains a fan-favorite to this day. His similarly long-running — and critically acclaimed — association with X-Factor began in the early 1990s and continued in 2005. His other Marvel work includes Captain Marvel, two lengthy stints on Spider-Man 2099, Ben Reilly: Scarlet Spider and the smash-hit Symbiote Spider-Man limited series with artist Greg Land. David is also a novelist and screenwriter. Among his credits are some forty Star Trek tie-ins; original novels such as Sir Apropos of Nothing, Howling Mad and Knight Life; movies Trancers 4 and Trancers 5; and episodes of Babylon 5 and Crusade. He also co-created the TV show Space Cases with actor-writer Bill Mumy.
Marc Sumerak began his career at Marvel as an assistant editor; he has written Marvel Adventures Fantastic Four and several Power Pack limited series. Sumerak has been nominated for Eisner and Harvey awards for his work on Franklin Richards: Son of a Genius.
Born in Mandeville, Jamaica, Clayton Henry moved to the United States at age 3. Inspired by his father’s artwork at an early age, Henry’s childhood was consumed by his artistic passion, filling dozens of spiral-bound notebooks with his illustrations. At age 22, Henry received a call from famed creator Brian Haberlin to lend his pencils to a comic book based on the legendary hip-hop group the Wu-Tang Clan. Despite his well-regarded work on the title Nine Rings of the Wu Tang Clan, Henry’s career developed slowly. At his lowest point, the artist even temporarily dropped out of the business to accept a job at a local home-improvement store. Yet Henry’s unyielding belief in his talents pushed him to continue on; in 2002, those efforts paid off with an assignment on X-Men Unlimited. Henry’s impressive work on the anthology title earned him assignments on Exiles, Alpha Flight, X-Men: Apocalypse vs. Dracula and Uncanny X-Men, on which he teamed with Billy Tan to collaborate on Ed Brubaker’s “Rise and Fall of the Sh’iar Empire” space opera.
Throughout the 1990s, Scott Koblish inked his way across the Marvel Multiverse with runs on Captain America, Elektra, G.I. Joe, Marc Spector: Moon Knight, Marvel Comics Presents, Punisher War Journal, and multiple titles in the X-Men and 2099 subgenres. He inked his own pencils on Uncanny X-Men: First Class and Wolverine: First Class before providing art for Marvel Adventures the Avengers, Marvel Adventures Fantastic Four, Marvel Adventures Iron Man and more. He also inked several limited series set in the MC2 universe. Koblish has since firmly established himself as one of the greatest Deadpool artists of all time.