Steve Englehart- Writer, Artist & Co-Creator of Star-Lord/Peter Quill! (Guardians of the Galaxy). Steve Englehart and Steve Gan introduced the character Star-Lord into the Marvel universe in Marvel Preview #4 (Jan.1976). In 2008, Star-Lord became leader of the space-based superhero team Guardians of the Galaxy in the relaunch of the comic book of the same name. This led into Star-Lord making it to the big screen with the Guardians of the Galaxy as a major motion picture and one of Marvel’s highest grossing films with actor Chris Pratt as Star-Lord/Peter Quill. Star-Lord was featured in The Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes cartoon (voiced by Steve Downes) as well as various other Marvel cartoons. Englehart’s first work in comics was as an art assistant to Neal Adams on a 10-page story by writer Denny O’Neil in Warren Publishing’s black-and-white horror comics magazine Vampirella #10 (March 1971). Steve was offered a job as an assistant editor at Marvel Comics, which led to a shot at writing a comic. It was a failing series called Captain America — but six months later it had become Marvel’s leading seller, and Steve became Marvel’s lead writer, adding The Hulk, The Avengers, Thor, Dr. Strange, The Defenders, and half a dozen other series. Steve Englehart and artist Jim Starlin co-created the character Shang-Chi, Master of Kung Fu for Marvel Comics. Steve was hired away by DC Comics to be their lead writer and revamp their core characters (Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Flash, and Green Lantern). He did, but also wrote a solo Batman series (Detective Comics #469-476), which was hailed as the “definitive” version and adapted as Warners’ first Batman film. In Detective Comics #470 of this run, Steve created the character Silver St. Cloud, who became a recurring love interest of Batman through the years. Silver St. Cloud appears in Season 2 of the TV Series “Gotham”, portrayed by Natalie Alyn Lind. Batman The Animated Series even adapted from this story. These Batman comic book stories were reprinted several times over the years (The Greatest Joker Stories Ever Told, The Greatest Batman Stories Ever Told). He wrote the treatments and acted as a consultant on the first Batman film, whose success led to the series of Batman films and the rise of superhero movies in general. Coming full circle, his latest Batman comics series, Batman: Dark Detective, was adapted for the latest Batman films, The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises. After Batman he wrote a novel “The Point Man” which years later was followed by The Long Man, The Plain Man, and The Arena Man. He then went to design video games for Atari (E.T. Phone Home-Computer Game, Garfield). Steve wrote for the Tron 2.0 video game for Monolith which later was adapted to comics through SLG/Disney. For Sega Genesis, he wrote for the Spider-Man game. Meanwhile, he continued his game design for Activision, Electronic Arts, and other gaming companies. He still liked the pace and immediacy of comics, so he introduced the comic book series “Coyote”, which fans rated one of America’s ten best series. Other comic projects (Silver Surfer, Green Lantern, Fantastic Four), led to the San Diego Comic-Con calling him “comics’ most successful writer, having had more hits with more characters at more companies than anyone else in comics history.” In 1992 Steve was asked to co-create a comics pantheon called the Ultraverse for Malibu Comics. Two of his contributions were The Night Man and The Strangers, and they were soon starring in episodes of DIC’s animated TV series Ultraforce. The Saban “Silver Surfer” animated TV series, based on his Marvel stories, followed. His Justice League America #140-141 stories were adapted into a two part story for the “Justice League: The Animated Series. So then Steve was asked to write animation for Street Fighter TV Series (U.S.A.), G.I. Joe Extreme, Disney’s Atlantis: Milo’s Return, and Saban’s Captain America…while Glen Larson (creator of Battlestar Galactica) optioned Night Man for live-action television. Steve then became a writer for that series, which ran two seasons. Steve also co-created Shadowman for Valiant Comics, which also spawned a video game. www.steveenglehart.com