Remembering Gerry Alanguilan, 1968-2019
Paying our respects to the artist who helped bring life to the X-Men, the Hulk, the Avengers and beyond.
Recently, Marvel Entertainment was saddened to hear of the sudden loss of creator Gerry Alanguilan on December 21, 2019. Best known as an artist and inker, the Filipino artist worked with everyone in the comic book industry from Whilce Portacio and Leinil Francis Yu to Warren Ellis, Mark Waid and Ta-Nehisi Coates to bring some of Marvel's most famous characters to life on the comic page.
Early in his career, Alanguilan began making his own comics in the Philippines, where he is often credited for reinvigorating the popularity of comic books within the country. His independent work went on to draw international attention and garnered a great deal of buzz from the mainstream American comics industry.
In the mid-to-late ’90s, he started inking books at Image Comics working with Whilce Portacio and others. By 1998, he entered the House of Ideas with WOLVERINE #121 wherein he inked Leinil Francis Yu's pencils on a Warren Ellis-penned script.
In 2000, Alanguilan re-teamed with both Portacio and Ellis on X-FORCE along with co-writer Ian Edginton. This was during the Revolution and Counter-X era when Ellis oversaw an overhaul of the X-books.
From there, Alanguilan expanded his output by working on his own projects and working for other publishers before moving on to other ventures. He returned to Marvel in 2010 to ink Yu again on two different Mark Millar books: the second volume of ULTIMATE AVENGERS and the creator-owned SUPERIOR. The trio would pair up again for the creator-owned SUPERCROOKS as well.
The following year, Alanguilan helped with the historical "Death of Spider-Man" crossover in the Ultimate Universe by inking Yu on ULTIMATE AVENGERS VS. NEW ULTIMATES. That series led to the apparent death of Peter Parker and the introduction of Miles Morales.
Alanguilan returned to the Marvel Universe proper in 2013 by once again inking Yu's pencils on INDESTRUCTIBLE HULK, written by Mark Waid. That same year the artists shifted gears to bring Jonathan Hickman's AVENGERS stories to life starting with issue #18.
More recently, Alanguilan and Yu collaborated on the Secret Wars CIVIL WAR series, the two-issue INHUMANITY series, issues of AVENGERS & X-MEN: AXIS and Jason Aaron’s STAR WARS series. Just this past year they worked together with Ta-Nehisi Coates on CAPTAIN AMERICA and the first issue of Jonathan Hickman’s X-MEN.
We all mourn the loss of a great man and offer our thoughts to his family and friends at this difficult time. We will always remember and celebrate his incredible artistry.
Below, view a gallery of a few highlights of Gerry Alanguilan's work at Marvel: