1. Donald L Heck was an American comics artist best known for co-creating the Marvel Comics characters Iron Man, the Wasp, Black Widow, Hawkeye and Wonder Man and for his long run penciling the Marvel superhero-team series The Avengers during the 1960s Silver Age of comic books.
Don Heck learned art through correspondence courses as well as at Woodrow Wilson Vocational High School in Jamaica and at a community college in Brooklyn.
Don Heck continued with an impromptu art education in December 1949 when at the recommendation of a college friend he landed a job at Harvey Comics.
Don Heck remained at Harvey, where one co-worker in the production department was future comics artist Pete Morisi, for two-and-a-half years.
Don Heck's work has appeared in those titles and in the horror anthology Horrific, for which he designed the logo; the adventure-drama anthology Danger; the Western anthology Death Valley; and other titles through the company's demise in late 1954.
Don Heck did freelance assignments for Quality Comics, Hillman Comics, and Toby Press.
Don Heck came up with the initial look of Iron Man's armor.
Don Heck himself recalled in 1985 that while some sources claimed then "that Jack Kirby did breakdowns,".
Don Heck was the artist co-creator of several new characters in the "Iron Man" feature.
Don Heck would draw issues of Captain Marvel and Iron Man, the World War II war comic Captain Savage and his Battlefield Raiders, horror stories in Chamber of Darkness and Tower of Shadows, and, once more, love stories, in the romance comics Our Love Story and My Love.
From 1966 to 1971, Don Heck was an uncredited "ghost artist" on Lee Falk's The Phantom daily newspaper comic strip, and later on the Terry and the Pirates daily strip.
Writer Tony Isabella and Don Heck launched the new superhero team book The Champions in October 1975.
Don Heck then returned to Wonder Woman and drew the title until its cancellation in 1986.
Don Heck was unlucky enough, I think, to be a non-superhero artist who, starting in the sixties, had to find his niche in a world dominated by superheroes.
Fortunately, as he proved first with Iron Man and then with the Avengers, Don Heck could rise to the occasion because he had real talent and a good grounding in the fundamentals.
Don Heck amalgamated into his own style certain aspects of Jack Kirby's style, and carved out a place for himself as one of a handful of artists who were of real importance during the very early days of Marvel.
Don Heck was living in Suffolk County, New York, on Long Island, at the time of his death.