Peter David, of Patchogue, chronicler of the Hulk, Spider-Man, Captain America and other comic book legends, dies at 68
Peter David, at the April 2022 San Diego Comic Fest, with standees of two characters with whom he is identified: the Spider-Man of the year 2099, co-created by David and artist Rick Leonardi; and Jamie Madrox, the Multiple Man, from the X-Men franchise. Credit: Kathleen O. David
While the Hulk smashed, the man who wrote his adventures, Peter David, smashed storytelling conventions.
"He was an innovator," said former Marvel Comics archivist Peter Sanderson, a comics historian who writes the online "Sanderson on Comics." "He was a classicist in that he loved the legacy characters" such as Spider-Man and the Hulk — the latter of which David, of Patchogue, chronicled for 12 award-winning years — "but he was not afraid to move them in entirely new directions."
Sometimes this meant taking DC Comics’ put-upon Aquaman, long considered a lightweight character, and transforming him into something "tougher, more aggressive, darker, his [left] hand replaced with a hook," Sanderson said. And from 1987-98 David audaciously explored new facets of the played-out, decades-old Hulk, such as merging the character’s scientist alter ego with the brutishly childlike man-monster to create what fans call "Professor Hulk," the intelligent version seen in the movie "Avengers: Endgame" (2019).
David, who lived in Long Beach, Woodbury and, starting in the early 1990s, Patchogue, died Saturday of a cardiac event at NYU Langone Hospital — Suffolk after a long hospitalization there for strokes and other health conditions, at age 68. Beyond comics, he was a bestselling novelist and a TV and film screenwriter and series creator.
His more than 100 books included a slew of hit "Star Trek" novels as well as such original heroic-fantasy and science fiction series as "Sir Apropos of Nothing," "Modern Arthur" and, as David Peters, "Photon" and "Psi-Man." David wrote episodes of "Babylon 5," "Crusade" and various animated series, and screenplays for films including "Oblivion" and "Oblivion 2: Backlash." With actor-producer Bill Mumy, he cocreated the 1996-97 Nickelodeon sci-fi series "Space Cases."
"Peter was a total pro — very prolific, a guy you could always depend on," said Tom DeFalco, Marvel’s editor-in-chief during much of David’s tenure there. "If he ever missed a deadline, I've never heard about it. And he was also a total fan," DeFalco added. "He was so full of love for the different genres he played in and so full of love for his craft that he was always bubbling over with enthusiasm."
As a family man, "He always had my back," said his wife of 24 years, puppeteer and Equity stage manager Kathleen O. David. "If some problem or issue came up socially or school-related, I would usually try to mediate the situation first. And then if I was getting nowhere, I'd send Peter in and he sure as heck would get it done." His four daughters, three of them from a previous marriage, knew "he was there for them. He helped them. He loved his daughters so much."
Peter Allen David was born in Fort Meade, Maryland, on Sept. 23, 1956, the eldest of three children of Gunter J. David and Dalia Rojansky David. His father was a journalist for newspapers including the Newark Evening News and the Philadelphia Daily News, and the family lived in Bloomfield and Verona, New Jersey, and Fort Washington, Pennsylvania, where Peter David graduated high school. He went on to a journalism degree from New York University.
After a brief stab at journalism, David joined the sales department of Playboy Paperbacks, part of the magazine empire, and later Marvel Comics’ direct-sales department, which markets to comics shops rather than newsstands. Wanting to write, he eventually broke in, in 1985, with "Peter Parker: The Spectacular Spider-Man," one of the spinoffs from the main series "The Amazing Spider-Man." Initially he continued at sales during the day and wrote comics at night, careful to avoid marketing conflicts of interest, before becoming a full time freelancer.
David, through 2021, wrote countless comics for Marvel, DC and other companies, chronicling such characters as Captain America, Iron Man, Red Sonja, She-Hulk, Supergirl and Wolverine, and such teams as the Avengers and the Fantastic Four. His many accolades include a 1992 Eisner Award, the comics industry’s Oscars, shared with artist Dale Keown for their series "The Incredible Hulk."
Despite all this, said his wife, "He had what one calls impostor syndrome — he strangely felt he was a second-tier writer. But in the later years he would talk to people who told him he was the reason they became comic-book writers. He started understanding how important he was to people. He never played that up, but he did know that his abilities had helped people become writers, helped them learn to read, helped them through difficult times."
In addition to his wife, he is survived by their daughter, Caroline David, of Brooklyn; three daughters — Shana David-Massett, of Tampa, Florida, Ariel David, of Jacksonville, Florida, and Gwen Mayhew, of Montreal — with Myra Kasman Rubinstein, to whom he was married from 1977-98; a brother, Wally, of Jacksonville, Florida; a sister, Beth Goodwin, of Hartford, Connecticut; and three grandchildren.
David was cremated and no services were held. His wife plans to hold a memorial later this year. Donations may be made to the Hero Initiative, a nonprofit organization helping comics creators in need.
