Biography

Jim Lee was born in Seoul, South Korea. Jim and his family moved to America when he was young and Jim would grow up in St. Louis, Missouri. Jim began drawing at a very early age and eventually, his high school classmates would predict that Jim would pursue a career in the comic book industry. However, Jim would enroll into Princeton University where he majored in psychology. His original idea was to become a medical doctor just like his father. However, during one of his elective class, he decided to take an art class. Taking this class made Jim realize how much he used to love draw. Jim eventually graduated in 1986 with a degree in psychology. However, he did not begin attending medical school right away, instead he pursued a career as a comic book artist. Jim received his first gig drawing the cover of Samurai Santa #1 from an independent publisher. This cover art helped open doors to more work for Jim Lee.

Jim Lee's run on X-Men

Jim Lee began his career working for Marvel with projects ranging from Punisher: War Journal, Alpha Flight, and eventually revamping the X-Men under a new title after ascended to popularity drawing writing Uncanny X-Men. Jim filled in for Marc Silvestri on Uncanny X-Men 248 and also filled in on issues 256 and 258 in 1989. During his work on Uncanny X-Men, Jim would meet an inker named Scott Williams. Scott would eventually become Jim’s inker for many future projects. With his few fill-in’s for Marc Silvestri, this helped launch Jim’s career and he quickly became a fan favorite. In 1991 Jim and Chris Claremont both launched the second series of X-Men entitled “X-Men.” The script were co-written by Chris Claremont and Jim Lee, with art by Jim himself. During his run on the X-Men, Jim helped co-create Gambit with Chris Claremont, and also co-created Omega Red with John Byrne. When X-Men #1 released, it came out with multiple variants that connect together with the art by Jim Lee. X-Men #1 sold over 8 million copies and is still holding the record of best-selling comic of all-time. During their run on X-Men, Jim and Chris had different ideas for what the future is in store for the X-Men. This caused them to go into a power struggle which resulted in X-Men editor Bob Harras to step in. Harrass would side with Jim because of his popularity with the fans and Chris would leave X-Men. However, Jim and Chris would not have a bitter rivalry, in fact the two would team up again in the future on different projects.

WildCATS was born

In 1992, during the formation of Image Comics, he founded Wildstorm Productions and launched a number of successful titles, among them WILDcats and Gen13. Jim would eventually expand the Wildstorm universe with more titles and characters. Just like every other Image Comic titles, they were criticized for its high use of violence, sexuality, and seemed to prefer art over story. However, even with these critisim, Jim Lee’s titles for Wildstorm had very high sales.

All Star Batman and Robin

Lee later returned to Marvel in 1996 along with Rob Liefeld, who was also one of the artists that left Marvel to form Image Comics, to take part in the Heroes Reborn event where he wrote and illustrated Fantastic Four and Iron Man for a time, with Liefeld taking on The Avengers and Captain America. With his run on both Iron Man and Fantastic Four, it helped these two titles go to the top on the sales charts. However, after only six issues, Marvel attempted to renegotiate the terms of the deal with Lee and Liefeld, offering them a smaller amount of money for the projects. While Lee accepted the revised contract and continued his work on Fantastic Four and Iron Man, Liefeld rejected the new terms and his two titles were given to Lee.

In 1998, Jim Lee left Image Comics and sold his Wildstorm Production to DC Comics. Jim decided to just do art instead of helping writing. In 2003 Jim began a run on batman alongside writer Jeph Loeb. The series is entitled Batman Hush and it became a big success in the sales chart. That next year, Jim went on a run on Superman alongside writer Brian Azzarello entitled For Tomorrow. In 2005 Jim began drawing a new series for Batman attempting to retell the origin of Batman. It was written by Frank Miller and the series was entitled All Star Batman and Robin, the Boy Wonder. Jim has stated that he will not leave this Batman title until Frank Miller finishes his run on it. Jim would eventually return to draw WildC.A.T.s in 2006 alongside writer Grant Morrison. Jim sated that he plans on finishing both All Star Batman and Robin, The Boy Wonder and WildC.A.T.s. Jim also drew the covers for the Infinite Crisis series.