Comic book legend Gerry Conway, creator of Punisher, Jason Todd, Ben Reilly, and many more, has died. No additional details have been provided at this time. Conway was 73 years old. He is survived by his wife, Laura, as well as daughters Cara and Rachel.
Conway spent much of his life working in the comics medium. Born in Brooklyn on Sept. 10, 1952, he was a professional comics writer by age 16, selling stories for anthology books like DC’s House of Secrets and Marvel’s Tower of Shadows. Conway had a passion for superheroes, however, and slowly started securing fill-in work within the genre via Marvel editor Roy Thomas. Once he was assigned Daredevil with #72, the sky was the limit. He’d eventually write the majority of Marvel’s heavy hitters within his lifetime, many before he turned 30.
In fact, he was only 19 when he began his now-legendary work on The Amazing Spider-Man. Though Conway was incredibly young at the time, it remains one of his most memorable runs. Between issues #111-149, he introduced the Jackal and the Spider-Clone known as Ben Reilly, as well as the antihero, the Punisher — a character whose co-opting by militia members and police officers alike Conway actively disavowed. He wrote many classic tales, perhaps the most notable of which remains “The Night Gwen Stacy Died.” He would later return to Spider-Man, penning Spectacular Spider-Man and Web of Spider-Man for years in the 1980s.
Conway’s comic credits continued to sprawl out from there. He introduced Marvel’s Dracula via Tomb of Dracula #1, co-created Werewolf By Night with Roy and Jean Thomas and Mike Ploog, wrote around 100 issues of Justice League, and penned the first Marvel-DC crossover with 1976’s Superman vs. The Amazing Spider-Man.
After his comic book success story, he left the medium from 1993–2009, working on a number of well-loved shows before and during this hiatus. Not only did he write scripts for Law & Order, Diagnosis Murder, and Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, he also worked on several animated series. This included still-thriving franchises like Batman, My Little Pony, and Transformers, as well as cult faves like The Centurians.
RlP to a legend. Our thoughts are with Conway’s family at this time.