Award-winning comic-book creator Brian Michael Bendis is one of the most successful writers in the industry today. In addition to an acclaimed run on Daredevil, he has helmed a renaissance for Marvel’s popular Avengers franchise and written the event projects House of M, Secret War, Secret Invasion, Siege, Age of Ultron and Civil War II. Bendis wrote every issue of Ultimate Spider-Man from its launch in 2000 before bringing his multiracial Spider-Man, Miles Morales, to the Marvel Universe for continuing adventures. He took on Marvel’s mutants in the pages of All-New X-Men and Uncanny X-Men, and launched Guardians of the Galaxy into the stratosphere. Bendis shook up the life of Tony Stark in Invincible Iron Man and related titles, introducing Riri Williams as Ironheart, and then assembled street-level heroes Luke Cage, Iron Fist, Daredevil and his co-creation Jessica Jones in Defenders. His creator-owned projects include Scarlet with Alex Maleev, Brilliant with Mark Bagley, and Takio and the Eisner Award-winning Powers with Michael Avon Oeming.
British writer David Hine has been scripting comics since the early ’80s on UK indie titles like Crisis and the venerable sci-fi anthology 2000AD. Many of these works also featured his pencil art, though in more recent years he has focused on writing. During the last four years, he’s taken a lead role in helping sculpt the outer limits of the mutant universe for Marvel. His District X explored life in a New York City neighborhood populated by mutants, a blend of NYPD Blue-style police drama with X-Men theatrics. After a solid two-year run, many of Hine’s plot threads parlayed into the successful Decimation mini-series X-Men: The 198 and Civil War: X-Men. In addition to a handful of What If? stories, Hine has also scripted Silent War, a miniseries that pitted the Inhumans against Earth and served as a prelude to the 2009 War of Kings event. Besides being the writer of Image’s Spawn, Hine has taken on Spider-Man Noir, an alternate-reality series in which Peter Parker and his famous ensemble are placed in Depression-era New York City.
Industry legend Chris Claremont is best known for his epic sixteen-year run on Uncanny X-Men. Claremont’s focus on the themes of prejudice and tolerance struck at the hearts of comics fans, and he built an unparalleled following during the next three decades. Under his pen, the X-Men franchise spawned a vast array of spin-offs, many of them written by Claremont himself. His other credits include Iron Fist, Ms. Marvel, Power Man and Spider-Woman. Claremont has returned to the X-Men universe in New Exiles, GeNext, X-Men Forever, Chaos War: X-Men and Nightcrawler.
Artist Olivier Coipel caught the eyes of Avengers fans with his work in a series of startlingly fresh and exciting stories in 2004, then delivered a star turn on the 2005 blockbuster limited series House of M. Proving his mettle with the grand splendor and huge cast of a Marvel epic, he earned the plum assignment of restoring the hallowed halls of Asgard to grandeur in J. Michael Straczynski’s Thor. Again called on to illustrate a Marvel mega-event, Coipel reunited with House of M writer Brian Michael Bendis on Siege. His subsequent credits include returns to the world of the Thunder God, as well as contributions to Amazing Spider-Man, X-Men and Avengers vs. X-Men.
Lan Medina has illustrated District X and its House of M spin-off Mutopia X, Silver Surfer, Venom, Cable & Deadpool, Deathlok and Storm for Marvel. He drew the Alpha and Omega issues of the Minimum Carnage crossover between Scarlet Spider and Venom; the limited series Iron Man: Rapture; and both an adaptation of the movie Thor and a prelude to its sequel, Thor: The Dark World. He also has extensive experience with the MAX imprint, including on Foolkiller and Garth Ennis’ The Punisher. Medina was also the first Filipino artist to win the prestigious Eisner Award for his work on DC/Vertigo’s Fables. Other notable works include Aria, Stone and American Flagg.
Born in Portland, Oregon, Aaron Lopresti studied business and briefly worked in the film industry before starting a career as a commercial artist at Art Farm Studios. He broke into comics in 1993 as the artist of Malibu’s Sludge series for the Ultraverse line, later acquired by Marvel. Lopresti has since drawn projects featuring Batman, Wonder Woman, Flash, Green Lantern, Mister Terrific, Plastic Man, Superboy, Gen¹³, Mystic, Xena and Star Trek for various publishers, as well as the self-published Atomic Toybox and CHIX. His many Marvel/Malibu credits include Amazing Spider-Man, Captain Marvel, Elven, Generation X, New X-Men, Rogue, Sentinel Squad O*N*E, Uncanny X-Men, What The--?! and What If?, plus longer runs on Excalibur, Incredible Hulk and Ms. Marvel.