Dan Jurgens

Author · 205 books

Dan Jurgens is an American comic book writer and artist. He is best known for creating the superhero Booster Gold, and for his lengthy runs on the Superman titles Adventures of Superman and Superman (vol. 2), particularly during The Death of Superman storyline. Other series he has been associated with include The Sensational Spider-Man (Vol. 1), Thor (vol. 2), Captain America (vol. 3), Justice League America, Metal Men, Teen Titans (vol. 2), Zero Hour, Tomb Raider: The Series, Aquaman (vol. 3), and the creator of DC Comics' imprint Tangent. Jurgens' first professional comic work was for DC Comics on Warlord #63. He was hired due to a recommendation of Warlord-series creator Mike Grell who was deeply impressed by Jurgens' work after being shown his private portfolio at a convention. In 1984, Jurgens was the artist for the Sun Devils limited series (July 1984 - June 1985), with writers Gerry Conway and Roy Thomas. Jurgens would make his debut as a comic book writer with Sun Devils he began scripting from Conway's plots with #8 and fully took over the writing duties on the title with #10. In 1985, Jurgens created the character Booster Gold, who became a member of the Justice League. His first work on Superman was as penciller for Adventures of Superman Annual #1 (1987). In 1989, Jurgens began working full-time on the character when he took over the writing/pencilling of the monthly Adventures of Superman. Dan Jurgens was the penciller of the 1990–1991 limited series Armageddon 2001 and co-created the hero Waverider with Archie Goodwin. In 1991 Jurgens assumed the writing/pencilling of the main Superman comic book, where he created a supporting hero named Agent Liberty. During his run on Superman, Dan created two major villains, Doomsday and the Cyborg. Doomsday was the main antagonist in the Death of Superman storyline. Jurgens wrote and drew Justice League America for about one year and in 1993 pencilled the Metal Men four-issue miniseries, which was a retcon of their origin story. Jurgens wrote and pencilled the 1994 comic book miniseries and crossover Zero Hour. He wrote and penciled layouts (with finished art by Brett Breeding) to the Superman/Doomsday: Hunter/Prey miniseries, which was a follow-up to the successful Death of Superman storyline. In 1995 Jurgens and Italian artist Claudio Castellini worked on the highly publicized crossover Marvel vs DC. In the same year, he gave up the pencilling duties on Superman. Jurgens scripted and provided layout art for the Superman vs. Aliens miniseries. The story was about a battle between Superman and the aliens created by H. R. Giger (a.k.a. the Xenomorphs), from the Alien film series. It was co-published by Dark Horse Comics and DC Comics in 1995. In January 1996, Jurgens was writer and penciller of the new Spider-Man series, The Sensational Spider-Man (Vol. 1), at Marvel Comics. The title was initially conceived to be the flagship showcase for the new Ben Reilly Spider-Man (it replaced the Web of Spider-Man series). The initial seven issues (#0–6, January–July 1996) were written and pencilled by Jurgens. Jurgens pushed strongly for the restoration of Peter Parker as the true Spider-Man and plans were made to enact this soon, but Bob Harras, the new Editor-in-chief, demanded the story be deferred until after the Onslaught crossover. Jurgens had by this stage become disillusioned with the immense amount of group planning and constant changes of ideas and directions and took this as the last straw, resigning from the title. In a past interview several years after his Spider-Man run, Jurgens stated that he would like to have another chance on the character, since his run was with the Ben Reilly character during the Spider-Man Clone Saga, and not Peter Parker. Jurgens had also written and pencilled Teen Titans (vol. 2) for its entire two year, 24 issue run. New Teen Titans co-creator George Pérez came on board on this incarnation of the Titans as inker for the se