Industry legend Chris Claremont is best known for his epic sixteen-year run on Uncanny X-Men. Claremont's focus on the themes of prejudice and tolerance struck at the hearts of comics fans, and he built an unparalleled following during the next three decades. Under his pen, the X-Men franchise spawned a vast array of spin-offs, many of them written by Claremont himself. His other credits include Iron Fist, Ms. Marvel, Power Man and Spider-Woman. Claremont has returned to the X-Men universe in New Exiles, GeNext, X-Men Forever, Chaos War- X-Men and Nightcrawler. Award-winning comic-book creator Brian Michael Bendis is one of the most successful writers in the industry today. In addition to an acclaimed run on Daredevil, he has helmed a renaissance for Marvel's popular Avengers franchise and written the event projects House of M, Secret War, Secret Invasion, Siege, Age of Ultron and Civil War II. Bendis wrote every issue of Ultimate Spider-Man from its launch in 2000 before bringing his multiracial Spider-Man, Miles Morales, to the Marvel Universe for continuing adventures. He took on Marvel's mutants in the pages of All-New X-Men and Uncanny X-Men, and launched Guardians of the Galaxy into the stratosphere. Bendis shook up the life of Tony Stark in Invincible Iron Man and related titles, introducing Riri Williams as Ironheart, and then assembled street-level heroes Luke Cage, Iron Fist, Daredevil and his co-creation Jessica Jones in Defenders. His creator-owned projects include Scarlet with Alex Maleev, Brilliant with Mark Bagley, and Takio and the Eisner Award-winning Powers with Michael Avon Oeming. Christos Gage sold his first screenplay in 1997 and has been working steadily ever since; he started writing comics in 2004 with DC's Deadshot miniseries, featuring the sharpshooting antihero from Suicide Squad. He then began co-writing Avengers- The Initiative with Dan Slott, which led to him becoming the sole writer on the book and its successor, Avengers Academy. His additional Marvel credits include Civil War- Casualties of War, House of M- Avengers, Iron Man, Union Jack and World War Hulk- X-Men, as well as a prominent run on X-Men- Legacy. Born in Portland, Oregon, Aaron Lopresti studied business and briefly worked in the film industry before starting a career as a commercial artist at Art Farm Studios. He broke into comics in 1993 as the artist of Malibu's Sludge series for the Ultraverse line, later acquired by Marvel. Lopresti has since drawn projects featuring Batman, Wonder Woman, Flash, Green Lantern, Mister Terrific, Plastic Man, Superboy, Gen , Mystic, Xena and Star Trek for various publishers, as well as the self-published Atomic Toybox and CHIX. His many Marvel/Malibu credits include Amazing Spider-Man, Captain Marvel, Elven, Generation X, New X-Men, Rogue, Sentinel Squad O*N*E, Uncanny X-Men, What The--?! and What If?, plus longer runs on Excalibur, Incredible Hulk and Ms. Marvel. Brazilian artist Cliff Richards is best known for his work on Dark Horse Comics' Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Richards' credits also include Wonder Woman, Huntress Year One, Birds of Prey, The OMAC Project and various New 52 titles for DC Comics; Rogue and Iron Man for Marvel; and the graphic-novel adaptation of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies for Random House. Artist Steve McNiven parlayed a chance trip to San Diego Comic-Con into a position at CrossGen Comics, where he quickly earned a regular assignment on Meridian. When CrossGen ceased publishing, McNiven moved on to Marvel Knights 4 with writer Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa. Next, he joined Warren Ellis on Ultimate Secret. In 2006, McNiven and Mark Millar shattered the Marvel Universe's status quo in Civil War. His next assignments included Brian Michael Bendis' New Avengers and the initial story arc of Amazing Spider-Man's "Brand New Day" era. McNiven and Millar reteamed for "Old Man Logan" in Wolverine and the creator-owned Nemesis, published under the Marvel Icon imprint. With Ed Brubaker, McNiven helped relaunch Captain America; his later Marvel work includes Guardians of the Galaxy with Bendis and Uncanny Avengers with Rick Remender. McNiven cemented his reputation as one of the all-time great Wolverine artists on the climactic series Death of Wolverine.