Posted By Dan Greenfield on May 28, 2025 | 6 comments

The Hulk, Spider-Man, Young Justice and more. Remembering a writer gone too soon…

By SCOTT TIPTON

Self-described Writer of Stuff Peter David died Saturday evening, after a series of health issues that had been escalating for years. He was only 68.

I’ll leave it to others who knew Peter much better than I to provide a proper and more fitting eulogy; though our paths had frequently crossed over the years at conventions and on panels, I was at best a friendly acquaintance. What I was most, and longest, was a fan. Looking back, I’d have to say I was a fan of David’s writing for just about as long as his work was published, beginning with his earliest work to catch my attention, “The Death of Jean DeWolff” in the pages of Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man.

In an uncharacteristically grim storyline for Spidey, David took a relatively minor supporting character from the series, NYPD Lieutenant Jean DeWolff, brutally killed her off, and set Spider-Man on a quest for revenge against her murderer that was both shocking and emotional. David did more to build DeWolff’s character in death than other writers had for years.

Not long after that, he began his most famous work, his astonishing 12-year run on The Incredible Hulk, which did more to flesh out and build on the character than anyone besides the Hulk’s creators Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. With his Hulk run, David retained a respect for the character’s past and history, while not being afraid to take the series in startling new directions, such as the Gray Hulk’s time working as Mr. Fixit, a casino legbreaker in Las Vegas, or the introduction of the Intelligent Hulk, better known as “The Professor,” following Doc Samson’s successful reintegration of Bruce Banner’s splintered psyche.

David’s Hulk run was also notable for its steadily growing supporting cast, including Bruce Banner’s wife Betty Ross, longtime sidekick Rick Jones, Mr. Fixit’s gal Marlo Chandler and the top-secret peacekeeping group the Pantheon, a PAD creation that sadly never caught on with other writers in the years that followed.

For me, the high point of David’s Hulk was his collaboration with George Perez on the miniseries Future Imperfect, which brought a time-travelling Hulk to the future to face the Maestro, his future self supercharged with Gamma radiation and gone mad with power.

In a heartbreaking moment, the Hulk encounters the now-ancient Rick Jones, surrounded by the relics of the Marvel Universe, all slaughtered by the Hulk’s future self. It’s chilling.

With the success of his Hulk stint, David became a much-in-demand writer in comics, with popular and critically acclaimed runs on books like Aquaman, Young Justice, Spider-Man 2099, X-Factor, Star Trek (for which he also wrote novels), Supergirl, Fallen Angel and so many more. David’s influence on the world of comics can most easily be seen in today’s superhero-obsessed media. Do you like Mark Ruffalo’s Hulk? Jason Momoa’s Aquaman? The Young Justice cartoon? Without Peter David, you most likely wouldn’t be seeing any of it.

And his comics work was just the tip of the iceberg. Astoundingly prolific, David wrote dozens and dozens of novels, teleplays for TV series like Babylon 5, Young Justice and Space Cases, screenplays for Full Moon like the cult favorite Oblivion, and of course, his long-running opinion column But I Digress for the Comic Buyer’s Guide.

And to come back around to me again, I learned how to write a comics script thanks to my encounter with David at WonderCon in Oakland when I was a teenager, when he sold me a signed script and I first began to realize that maybe, just maybe, this was something I could do too.

Our thoughts and condolences to Peter David’s family and many, many friends, and our eternal gratitude for all the decades of good work that will be enjoyed by generations to come.

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MORE

— GEORGE PEREZ: The Secrets of the HULK: FUTURE IMPERFECT Trophy Room. Click here.

— The TOP 13 GEORGE PEREZ Countdown: #10 — FUTURE IMPERFECT. Click here.

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Scott Tipton is a 13th Dimension contributor-at-large and the site’s longest-tenured regular not named Dan Greenfield. He and Dan co-write the site’s HOT PICKS and RETRO HOT PICKS columns and Scott also writes COMICS 101. He’s perhaps best known as the writer of scores of Star Trek comics published by IDW.