30 Facts About Steve Gerber

Stephen Ross Gerber was an American comic book writer and creator of the satiric Marvel Comics character Howard the Duck.

Steve Gerber often included lengthy text pages in the midst of comic book stories, such as in his graphic novel, Stewart the Rat.

Steve Gerber was posthumously inducted into the Will Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame in 2010.

Steve Gerber was born in St Louis, Missouri, the son of Bernice Gerber, and one of four children, with siblings Jon, Michael, and Lisa.

Steve Gerber began work as a copywriter for a St Louis advertising agency.

Steve Gerber accepted a position as an associate editor and writer at Marvel Comics.

Steve Gerber was brought in to be an assistant editor on staff.

Steve Gerber initially penned superhero stories for titles such as Daredevil, Iron Man and Sub-Mariner.

Steve Gerber wrote 27 issues of the series, penciled initially by Frank Brunner and shortly afterward by Gene Colan.

Marvel attempted a spin-off with a short-lived Howard the Duck syndicated comic strip from 1977 to 1978, initially scripted by Steve Gerber and drawn by Colan then Mayerik and finally Alan Kupperberg.

Steve Gerber was replaced on the strip in mid-1978, by another comic book writer, Marv Wolfman, creating acrimony.

Steve Gerber often collaborated with writer Mary Skrenes during this period.

Steve Gerber created the characters of Starhawk, Aleta Ogord, and Nikki.

Steve Gerber reintroduced the 1969 one-time feature Guardians of the Galaxy, first as guest stars in Marvel Two-in-One and The Defenders, then as a feature in Marvel Presents.

Steve Gerber had planned to write for DC's Time Warp science fiction anthology series, but objected to the submission guidelines for that series.

Steve Gerber acknowledged that his work on the character had been done as work-for-hire and that Marvel parent Cadence Industries owned "all right, title and interest" to Howard the Duck and related material.

Steve Gerber was slated to write a new Spectre series in 1986, but he missed the deadline for the first issue so that he could watch the last day of shooting on the Howard the Duck film and DC assigned another writer to the series in response.

At Marvel, Steve Gerber scripted a 12-issue run on The Sensational She-Hulk.

Steve Gerber scripted three issues of Cloak and Dagger, a Hawkeye story in Avengers Spotlight, and two issues of Toxic Crusaders.

Steve Gerber scripted a A Nightmare on Elm Street black and white magazine format comic book which detailed the backstory of the character of Freddy Krueger.

In collaboration with Beth Woods, Steve Gerber wrote the "Contagion" episode of the syndicated television series Star Trek: The Next Generation.

Steve Gerber was one of the founders of the Malibu Comics superhero setting the Ultraverse and co-created Sludge and Exiles.

Later, Steve Gerber wrote the Helmet of Fate: Zauriel one-shot and continued writing the Doctor Fate serial in the Countdown to Mystery limited series for DC Comics up to the time of his death, working on stories in the hospital.

Steve Gerber died before being able to write the concluding chapter of the serial; in his honor, four separate writers provided their own conclusions to the story.

In 2010, Comics Bulletin ranked Steve Gerber's run on The Defenders first on its list of the "Top 10 1970s Marvels", while Omega the Unknown was 10th on the same list.

In 2007, Steve Gerber was diagnosed with an early stage of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, and was eventually hospitalized while continuing to work.

Steve Gerber had gotten onto the waiting list for a lung transplant at UCLA Medical Center.

On February 10,2008, Steve Gerber died in a Las Vegas hospital from complications stemming from his condition.

At the time of his death, Steve Gerber was separated from his wife, Margo Macleod.

Steve Gerber used the anagrammatic Reg Everbest pseudonym for Marvel-published Hanna-Barbera stories after he was banned from Marvel by Jim Shooter.