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Jim Lee (born August 11, 1964) is a Korean American comic book artist, writer, creator and publisher. He is known for his stylized, detailed and dynamic style and is one of the more popular artists in American comics. He has received a great deal of recognition for his work in the industry, including the Harvey Special Award for New Talent in 1990.
Lee was born in Seoul, South Korea, but grew up in St. Louis, Missouri. Lee's St. Louis Country Day School classmates predicted in his senior yearbook that he would found his own comic book company. But, initially, Lee seemed resigned to following his father's career in medicine. Lee attended Princeton University and majored in psychology with the intention of becoming a medical doctor. An elective course in Fine Arts reawakened his love for drawing; he graduated in 1986, putting medical school on hold to attempt a career in comic book illustration.
After inking only the cover of Samurai Santa #1 for a small, independent publisher, Lee found success at the largest North American comics publisher, Marvel Comics, as a penciller. His early Marvel work included Alpha Flight and Punisher War Journal.
In 1989, he filled in for regular illustrator Marc Silvestri on Uncanny X-Men #248 and did another guest stint on issues #256 through #258. Lee became the series' regular penciller when Silvestri left in 1990. During his stint on Uncanny X-Men, Lee first worked with inker Scott Williams, who would become a long-time collaborator.
Lee's artwork quickly gained popularity in the eyes of enthusiastic fans, which allowed him to gain greater creative control of the franchise. In 1991, Lee helped launch a second X-Men series simply called X-Men, not only as the artist, but also as co-writer with long-time X-Men scribe Chris Claremont. They created Gambit aka Remy LeBeau. Lee also designed new uniforms for characters such as Cyclops, Jean Grey, Rogue, Psylocke and Storm, creating the images that an entire generation of X-Men readers would associate with the characters. He also co-created the once-popular character Omega Red with John Byrne. X-Men #1 still is the best-selling comic book of all-time with sales of 8 million copies of the first issue, although multiple purchases of variant covers illustrated by Lee accounted for part of the sales frenzy.
However, Lee ran into some creative hurdles. Claremont found it harder to work with Lee as their vision of the characters and storylines diverged. There was a prolonged power struggle over the future of the X-Men and in the end, Marvel X-Men editor Bob Harras favored the wildly popular Lee, causing Claremont to depart the new X-Men series with issue 3. Despite this, Claremont and Lee later reunited on various projects and are reportedly on friendly terms. Claremont and Lee even engaged in a mutual interview for Wizard magazine in 1995.
In 1992, Lee was one of seven artists who broke away from Marvel to form Image Comics. Lee's group of titles was christened Wildstorm Productions and published Lee's pet title WildC.A.T.s, which Lee pencilled and co-wrote, and other series created by Lee sharing the same "universe", but with a minor implication of the artist in his production. The other main series of the initial years of Wildstorm, with characters created by Jim Lee and with a minor participation of the artist in his production were Stormwatch (Lee was co-plotter of the first 8 issues and cover artist for the 3 first issues), Deathblow (pencils for about 30-40 pages of the firsts chapters, and plots and covers por the first 12 issues ongoing series) and Gen¹³ (co-plotter for about 3 years and penciller of 2 issues). Later, other ongoing series of the same universe were launched with little to none participation of Jim Lee in his production, like Wetworks (created by Whilce Portaccio, but sharing the Wildstorm Universe created by Jim Lee), DV8 (a Gen13 spin-off), Backlash (a solo title of a StormWatch character) or Grifter (solo title for a main WildC.A.T.s character), and several mini-series, most notably Team 7 (that ties together characters from WildC.A.T.s, StormWatch, Gen13, Deathblow and Wetworks). Like most Image properties, these series were criticized for high levels of violence (although they were no more violent than the usual Marvel or DC comic at the time), excessive sexual references, and for emphasizing flashy art over storytelling. Despite such claims, Lee's stable of titles sold well, often exceeding a million copies per month in the early going, charting new highs in sales from an independent publisher.
As publisher, Lee later also expanded his comics line creating two publishing imprints of Wildstorm, Homage and Cliffhanger (that years later merged and were replaced by a single Wildstorm Signature imprint), to publish creator-owned comics by some selected creators of the US comics industry. Initially, Homage was a more writer-driven imprint, debuting with Eisner Awards winners Strangers in Paradise and Kurt Busiek's Astro City. Cliffhanger was initially an artist-driven imprint, created to publish the works of three young "hot artists" of the time, J. Scott Campbell's Danger Girl, Joe Madureira's Battle Chasers and Humberto Ramos' Crimson, three series that were top sellers for the industry.
Lee and Rob Liefeld, another Marvel-illustator-turned-Image-founder, returned to Marvel in 1996 to participate in a reboot of several classic characters; the project was known as "Heroes Reborn" While Liefeld reworked Captain America and The Avengers, Lee plotted Iron Man and wrote and illustrated The Fantastic Four. Lee managed to catapult Fantastic Four and Iron Man to the top of the sales charts, although fan reaction to this revamp of such well-known characters was mixed. Halfway through the project, Liefeld was fired from the project (poor sales - relative to Lee's output - were cited) and Lee's studio finished all four series. At the end of the one-year deal, Lee and Marvel agreed to hand the books over to other creators.
Lee then concentrated in the Wildstorm line, attempting to break away from the stereotype of Image comics as all style and no substance by publishing critically acclaimed series' The Authority and Planetary. In publishing Alan Moore's America's Best Comics line, Wildstorm brought arguably the medium's most critically acclaimed writer back into mainstream publishing after almost a decade of independent work. Lee himself wrote and illustrated a 12-issue series called Divine Right, in which an internet slacker inadvertently manages to download the secrets of the universe, and is thrown into a wild fantasy world.
In late 1998, however, Lee left Image Comics and sold Wildstorm to DC Comics. Lee's career as a publisher had mostly precluded art jobs and he desired to return to his roots as an illustrator. In 2003 he collaborated on a 12 issue run on Batman with writer Jeph Loeb that became a runaway sales success (See Batman: Hush). This was followed by a year's stint on Superman, with writer Brian Azzarello. In 2005, Lee teamed with Frank Miller on the new series All Star Batman and Robin, the Boy Wonder.
Lee continues to run the company he founded, working side by side with new artists. Notable former WildStorm artists include J. Scott Campbell and Travis Charest. In September 2006, Jim Lee returned to WildC.A.T.s with Grant Morrison as the writer. Lee plans to pencil both WildC.A.T.s and All Star Batman and Robin, completed an issue of each every 6 weeks, as Lee claims he will not leave the Batman title until Frank Miller has finished his run on the series. He has also provided alternate cover art for the Infinite Crisis limited series. It has also been announced that Jim Lee will be involved with the upcoming DC Comics MMORPG as Executive Creative Director.
An artist and writer for Marvel.
Jim Lee's artistic style was hugely influential in the late 80s and early 90s. New artists at Marvel would be told to 'draw like that guy' - referring to Jim Lee - and a number of other highly successful artists of the time had or adopted similar styles, notably Todd McFarlane and Rob Liefield.
Jim Lee would leave Marvel to cofound Image, where he wrote and penciled Deathblow. He quickly moved solely into the role of writer while at Image.
Later, Jim Lee returned to Marvel as a writer.
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| CHARACTER | |
| James Lee | |
|---|---|
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| Actor: | Daniel Dae Kim |
| Species: | "Human" (Na'arbi) |
| Gender: | Male |
| Hair: | black |
| Eyes: | brown |
| Height: | 1.83 m |
| Weight: | 85 kg |
| Assignment(s): | Liaison Officer |
| Stationed: | USS Prospect-A |
| Occupation: | Starfleet officer |
| Rank: | Captain |
| Insignia: |
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James Lee was a liaison officer aboard the USS Prospect from 2365 until 2367, again in 2370, and then aboard the USS Prospect (NCC-60056-A) in 2371 and 2372. He was also a member of Special Operations.
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When he was a boy, his parents and he moved from South Korea to the United States of America on Earth. He had to make new friends, learn a new language and adapt to a new environment. This helped him build trust that other people inherently want to tell the truth. (Star Trek: The Prospect Chronicles: "Starry, Starry Night")
The Na'arbi planted several agents both in the Federation's and other major powers' societies. Li'Jaes, working under the guise James Lee, was one such agent. (Star Trek: The Prospect Chronicles: "Lady Lazarus")
By 2366, Lee was working aboard the Special Operations starship USS Prospect (NCC-60056) as a liaison officer.
Late in that same year, and early into 2367, he assisted the Prospect crew in attempting to get to the Battle of Wolf 359. Unfortunately, the Prospect arrived too late but pursued a mysterious alien ship transmitting some sort of communications beam towards the Borg cube. After the Prospect disabled the alien ship, Lee accompanied Captain John Sill and other members of an away team aboard it.
During their time there, the alien ship's commanding officer, Amila Thon, told the away team Lee would know of foes worse than the Borg. When other members of the away team asked what Thon meant by this, he denied any knowledge of what she was talking about. Thon also whispered in Sill's ear that Lee wasn't who he said he was.
Lee assisted the Prospect crew in the rescue effort at Wolf 359. (Star Trek: The Prospect Chronicles: "The Burnt Child")
A few weeks later, Sill assigned Lee to lead the engineering away team to Goffan IV, with Brian Fack and Jason Athelstan assigned under his command. The away team's mission was to improve sensor abilities to accurately detect molocine. This was greatly helped by an away team from the Jenchum Suzerainty battle cruiser Alonia, led by their first officer Methia.
Lee built up a relationship of trust with Methia, and she and her team began to assist the Starfleet team.
After making great leaps and bounds in upgrading sensor technology to detect molocine more reliably, Lee asked Methia for assistance in determining if the Jenchum were developing subspace weapons in a secret facility in Enika on Goffan III. Methia was unsure about revealing this information, but, after Lee revealed the Prospect's secondary mission, she revealed the Jenchum testing of subspace weaponry was a failure, with a subspace anomaly opening, killing all the scientists and military personnel present. (Star Trek: The Prospect Chronicles: "Starry, Starry Night")
Lee also received the sensor data from the subspace anomaly from Methia. (Star Trek: The Prospect Chronicles: "Starry, Starry Night", "Honor Thy Father")
Sill warned Lee he would have no choice but to transfer him off ship if Lee continued to overstep boundaries. The Prospect captain attempted to give him a second chance on both Goffan IV and Rychri, the former of which he overstepped the bounds again. For an unknown reason, someone higher up the chain of command kept getting Lee off the hook. (Star Trek: The Prospect Chronicles: "Starry, Starry Night", "Honor Thy Father")
Later in 2367, Lee was celebrating his birthday when the Prospect received a distress call. Investigating it, the crew discovered the USS Artemis had not exploded in 2364 but jumped to warp and survived.
An uneasy Captain John Sill sent counselor Scott Fack, first officer Anne Cobry, security chief George Serigos, Ensign Garrett, Ralf Mendoza and Steven DiCosola to the Artemis. Fack and his escort Ensign Garrett attempted to locate bodies, but were instead altered by the M'Tar. Transformed into the Liaison, Fack attempted to assist the M'Tar take control of the Federation, but a battle when Lee spoiled that plan. Lee severed Fack and Garrett from M'Tar control and transported them back to the Prospect before the Artemis exploded, dragging him and the two M'Tar into the M'Tar Domain, sealing the portal between the two dimensions.
Sill and Serigos investigated a strange energy pulse emanating from Lee's cabin to find a holographic transmission, warning Sill the M'Tar were growing in number and not near extinction. (Star Trek: The Prospect Chronicles: "Lady Lazarus")
By 2370, Lee had returned, albeit by unknown means. After the USS Odyssey's destruction by the Jem'Hadar in late 2370, Special Operations quickly assembled the Prospect crew and sent them from Deep Space 9 to the Gamma Quadrant to make first contact with the Founders. This mission failed, resulting in the Prospect's sacrifice in order to halt a Dominion incursion into Federation space. Captain Sill (the commanding officer), and the majority of the Prospect crew, survived on the saucer section, which coasted back through the Bajoran Wormhole to Federation space. Lee was instrumental in helping the Prospect team survive. (Star Trek: The Prospect Chronicles: "Pure Massacre")
The Prospect was sent, in 2372, to the Gamma Quadrant to find the Rutherford after it disappeared, and John Sill commanded this mission. Successful in discovering the Rutherford but unsure in the whereabouts of its crew, Sill ordered the Rutherford destroyed to stop it falling into Dominion hands. Lee provided key tactical information Na'arbi agents had gathered on the Jem'Hadar, helping the Prospect survive. Battles with the Jem'Hadar saw the Prospect suffer heavy damage. (Star Trek: The Prospect Chronicles: "Directive")
Working outside Federation and Starfleet protocols, Lee visited Dr. Samantha Delaney aboard Dante Station after the Rutherford mission. Once there, he destroyed her folded space drive prototype and all her research materials relating to them, driving Delaney further mentally unstable. (Star Trek: The Cantabrian Expeditions: "An Innocent Time")
In the Pendragon timeline, James Lee was the commanding officer of the USS Seoul through until 2379.
In that same year, he joined Admiral John Sill and Captains Noel Turner, Anne DiCosola, Scott Fack, Kari Liljehorn and Yves Müller aboard the USS Advantage to hear about the possible M'Tar influence of the Myhr'an. He and his crew were part of the task force facing the a Myhr'an armada at Rhaandaran, and he ordered the Seoul to cover a heavily-damaged USS Winterthur. (Star Trek: Pendragon: Other Knights anthology: "Gravity")
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Jim Lee is a popular and acclaimed comic book artist who, early in his career, illustrated the covers of Marvel US issue #53 and Marvel US issue #67.
To most comic fans, he is most well known for his work on the Marvel Comics' X-Men titles, as well being one of several artists who broke away from Marvel to form Image Comics.
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