On Peter David

A great loss for comics, novels, and fandom

A close friend texted me with the news yesterday - that legendary comic book and novel writer Peter David had died at 68. It took me a second to process it. I knew Peter had been suffering a great deal of late, fighting a series of health issues which required financial help from his many supporters. But optimists like me tend to hold out hope that these things will work out. I send my deepest condolences to his family, friends, and many fans - including myself. I don’t think I’d be a writer, much less a writer of comics and novels, if not for him and his work.

Peter David was one of the first writers I followed by name - the other being, not surprisingly, Chris Claremont.

I first discovered his work via a minty-fresh issue of Spider-Man 2099 #1, which I snagged for five bucks in sixth grade - a lot of money at the time for me. I can’t really put into words how important this moment was, and continues to be. Seeing a Latino as Spider-Man really affected me in a profound way, as a Cuban-American kid in Miami who was used to seeing the white guy as the hero in perpetuity. It showed me that anyone could be Spider-Man, even someone like me. It’s a motif that would become more common over the years, which is great - but was at that point really novel and unprecedented. Peter took the Spider-Man mythos and flipped it - creating a new version of the iconic hero that kicked down a really big door for what was to come.

I was also a big sci-fi nerd, and loved stuff like Star Wars and Star Trek (like so many!). I spent a lot of time at used bookstores picking up ratty paperback novels, many of them set in those universes I loved. It was so cool to me, a 12-year-old still learning about how publishing even worked (still learning, tbh), that a COMICS writer also wrote novels. And he wrote both so well. I have fond memories of Peter’s New Frontier series of Trek novels, which happened concurrently with TNG and DS9, creating a new saga of complex characters and ideas that honored Roddenberry’s high concept while pushing it forward. It was no coincidence that around the same time, in Mr. Tuohy’s English class, when I was asked to write a novel as a big project, I wrote my kind-of New Frontier - Star Trek: Mosaic! - a Trek novel set in the same era, with a new crew, facing new problems. I think about that book a lot these days, and I owe a lot of that - and perhaps many facets of my career, to Peter David.

He also blended his two specialties, something I would end up doing myself years later, writing prose stories featuring some of his most identifiable comic book heroes. He wrote a prose Spider-Man story - "Five Minutes" - in an Ultimate Spider-Man prose anthology edited by Stan Lee. The story is about that moment of decision - where Peter must leave the comfort of his home, his beautiful wife, to put on the webs and do good for the people of his city. The story reflected the main Spidey axiom - “With great power comes great responsibility” - in a smart, nuanced way. It was a short vignette, but managed to encapsulate everything people loved about Spidey.

I remember picking it up at Waldenbooks and being intrigued by the idea of short stories featuring Spider-Man. I’d enjoyed some of the “Further Adventures Of” books DC had done for Batman and Superman, so I was excited for this. Peter’s story, which I believe closed out the book, did not disappoint. It felt so adult and mature and well-crafted. Literary, even. It really clicked something into for me - that you could blend those two worlds and come up with something impactful and cool.

As most readers of this newsletter know, I was a huge X-Men kid, too, and Peter David’s X-Factor (with Larry Stroman and Joe Quesada on art, mainly) was a big part of my early fandom for that world. His take on Havok, Polaris, Quicksilver, and co. felt funny and sly and so different from the other stuff coming out from Marvel. It was very much in conversation with another favorite book of mine at the time, the Giffen/DeMatteis Justice League International. X-Factor just felt sharp and self-aware in a way most comics weren’t. I was a capital F Fan. I followed Peter around as a creator - to Aquaman and his other work. I was never a Hulk guy, so that is a glaring absence, but by and large, I grew to admire his ability to shift from dramatic to funny and use one to augment the impact of the other. He was a craftsman and I can respect that, especially now, as a writer myself. He put in the work and cared about character and building drama. It made his work readable and fun, which is all you can ask for from a comic, really, or a novel.

My most primal memory of his work, though, was one I’d honestly forgotten until now. It was in Miami, the night Hurricane Andrew was slated to hit, bringing destructive wind and rains to my hometown and decimating entire swaths of land and neighborhoods. If you live in an area where hurricanes are common, you understand that there’s no surefire way to predict what will happen. Sure, the path is understood - but even a two or three mile pivot by the storm can change everything. We knew the storm was coming straight for us, but we had no idea what would happen that night. Whether our roof would get blown off or we’d come through unscathed. It was a nightmare. But I had a book. Always had a book. And this novel, The Rift, one of the handful of TOS Trek novels David wrote (he was known mostly for his great TNG stuff, like Imzadi), delivered. I don’t remember the particulars of the story thirty or so years later, but it brought me comfort during a scary time, and I held onto that tattered paperback throughout the night and early morning, when we realized we’d be (relatively) okay, unlike many parts of South Florida.

We didn't interact much in person, so I can’t say he was a friend - but he certainly felt like one, and his work resonates with me and my own comic book and novel writing to this day. He was one of the first creators I interviewed while starting out my career as a reporter at Newsarama - about Young Justice, no less, though the link seems lost to the Internet sands of time - and I would chat with him at cons from time to time.

I’m at a loss for what else to say. Thank you, Peter, for your stories and passion for the industries that you were a part of. It helped a kid who thought writing stories was impossible realize that maybe he could. There’s no way to repay that, but I can say thank you.

Rest in peace.