Rick Leonardi
Rick Leonardi (born August 9, 1957) is an American comics artist who has worked on various series for Marvel Comics and DC Comics, including "Cloak and Dagger", "The Uncanny X-Men", "The New Mutants", "Spider-Man 2099", "Nightwing", "Batgirl", "Green Lantern Versus Aliens" and "Superman". He has worked on feature film tie-in comics such as "Star Wars: General Grievous" and "Superman Returns Prequel" #3. Early life. Rick Leonardi was born August 9, 1957 in Philadelphia, and grew up in Haverhill, Massachusetts. Leonardi's interest in becoming an artist was inspired by the work of Joe Kubert, which  he discovered in the second grade when he read "Star Spangled War Stories" #139 (July 1968). Leonardi commented in a 2017 interview, "Top of page 8 is still one of the best-designed panels I've ever seen." Leonardi graduated from Dartmouth College in 1979, and started drawing for Marvel Comics the following year. Career. Rick Leonardi's first published comics artwork appeared in "Thor" #303 (Jan. 1981). He collaborated with writer Bill Mantlo on two limited series: "The Vision and the Scarlet Witch" (Nov. 1982–Feb. 1983) and "Cloak and Dagger" (Oct. 1983–Jan. 1984). Leonardi's works in  the 1980s include various fill-in issues of "The Uncanny X-Men " and "The New Mutants". He is credited, along with fellow illustrator Mike Zeck, of designing the black-and-white costume to which Spider-Man switched during the 1984 "Secret Wars" miniseries, and later wore for a time. According to writer Peter David, the costume began as a design by Zeck that Leonardi embellished. The plot that developed as a result of Spider-Man's acquisition of the costume led to the creation of the Spider-Man villain known as Venom although in a 2007 Comic Book Resources story , fan Randy Schueller claims to have devised a version of a black costume for Spider-Man in a story idea that he was paid for. Leonardi and writer Tom DeFalco created the Rose in "The Amazing Spider-Man" #253 (June 1984). For DC Comics, Leonardi was one of the artists on "Batman" #400 (Oct. 1986) and he drew the Batgirl story in "Secret Origins" vol. 2 #20 (Nov. 1987). Back at Marvel, Chris Claremont and Leonardi introduced the fictional country of Genosha in "Uncanny X-Men" #235 (Oct. 1988). From 1992 to 1994, Leonardi was the regular penciler for the  first 25 issues of "Spider-Man 2099" with writer Peter David. Leonardi later launched the "Fantastic Four 2099" series with Karl Kesel. Leonardi drew the 2000 intercompany crossover miniseries "Green Lantern Versus Aliens". He drew one of the tie-in one-shots for the "Sentry" limited series in 2001. His subsequent series work includes "Nightwing", on which he was the regular penciler for issues #71-84 from 2002 to 2003 and "Batgirl", of which he drew issues #45–52 from 2003 to 2004. Subsequent miniseries he drew include "Star Wars: General Grievous" in 2005, and the 2006 movie tie-in, "Superman  Returns Prequel" #3. He followed up that with other superhero titles such as "Superman" #665 and #668 (2007), "" #43 (November 2007), "Witchblade" #112 (January 2008), and the 2008 miniseries "DC Universe: Decisions". Leonardi drew the "Vigilante" series that debuted from DC in December 2008. Leonardi and inker Ande Parks are the illustrators on the 2019 "Batman Beyond" arc written by Dan Jurgens which debuted with issue #31 in April 2019. Although Leonardi had worked on Batman before, this assignment is his first time working on the future-based Batman Beyond, whose concept is similar to "Spider-Man 2099", which Leonardi  co-created.