American film director and comic book writer
Greg Pak is an American comic book writer and film director. He is best known for his work on books published by Marvel Comics, including X-Men (most notably X-Treme X-Men), several titles featuring the Hulk (including Planet Hulk, which was one of the storylines eventually adapted into the film Thor: Ragnarok), and Hercules.[1] In 2019, Pak began writing Star Wars comics for Marvel.
Early life
Pak was born in Dallas, Texas, to a Korean-American father and a Caucasian mother. He graduated from Hillcrest High School. He studied political science at Yale University, where he wrote for the campus humor magazine, The Yale Record,[2][3] and was a member of the Purple Crayon improvisational group. In 1991, he went to study history at Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar with the intent of becoming a politician. He then entered New York University's graduate film program.[2][4][5][6]
Career
Pak's New York University (NYU) student film, Fighting Grandpa, which centered on his Korean grandparents, won the gold medal at the 25th Student Academy Awards.[citation needed] His short film "Asian Pride Porn", starring playwright David Henry Hwang and director Michael Kang, was licensed to Atom Films. Pak wrote and directed the feature film Robot Stories. He collected his screenplays in the book Robot Stories & More Screenplays, whose foreword was written by David Henry Hwang.
Pak worked as the cinematographer on the 1998 documentary short The Personals: Improvisations on Romance in the Golden Years, which was directed by his wife, Keiko Ibi. In March 1999, the film received an Academy Award for Documentary Short Subject at the 71st Academy Awards.[7]
Pak began writing for Marvel Comics in September 2004, with a 4 issue Warlock series,[8] and signed an exclusive deal with them in July 2005.[9] In a story in 2005's Amazing Fantasy vol. 2 #15 he and artist Takeshi Miyazawa created Amadeus Cho.
Pak helmed the year long Planet Hulk story arc in the pages of The Incredible Hulk in 2006 & 2007, beginning with #92 and concluding with #105. After the ensuing World War Hulk event in 2007, where he wrote the primary miniseries as well as the core tie-ins issues of Incredible Hulk (#106-111).
He continued onto the Incredible Hercules series, joined by co-writer Fred Van Lente, which continued the now defunct Incredible Hulk's numbering, [10][11][12] as well as the spinoff series World War Hulk Aftersmash - Warbound and Skaar: Son of Hulk,[13] The adventures of Incredible Hercules (alongside Amadeus Cho) would culminate with Chaos War in late 2010/early 2011 after which the series was concluded. Pak returned for a solo Hercules comic some months later, initially tying into the Thor-centric Fear Itself series, which ended in early 2012.
Other 2000s Marvel projects include Phoenix: Endsong,[14] Phoenix: Warsong,[15] Iron Man, Magneto: Testament[16] and War Machine.[17][18][19]
At the same time as his Planet / World War Hulk run, Pak also wrote Dynamite Entertainment's initial series based on the Sci-Fi Channel's Battlestar Galactica.
Pak is one of the featured contributors to Secret Identities: The Asian American Superhero Anthology.[20]
In June 2013, Pak began writing Batman/Superman for DC Comics, which he wrote for the majority of its run (26 out of 32 issues).[1] From late 2013 to 2015, he wrote Action Comics.[21]
Pak would return to the world of the Incredible Hulk in 2016, scripting The Totally Awesome Hulk, in which Amadeus Cho was now imbued with the Hulk's powers.[22] The series lasted 23 issues before being replaced with the original Incredible Hulk series (restarting its legacy numbering at #709), though its revival (and Cho's time as the "primary" Hulk) was brief as the series concluded with #717. Pak returned to the world of Planet Hulk once more with 2022-2023's Planet Hulk Worldbreaker miniseries.
During this time Pak also helped briefly revive Alpha Flight in 2011, created Weapon H (with Mike Deodato Jr.) in 2017, and wrote a 12-issue Weapon H series (as well as a tie-in Hulkverines miniseries) in 2018. He also returned to Dynamite in 2017 and wrote a 5 issue John Wick comic series.[23]
In 2019 Pak would help bring the characters Aero and Sword Master into the Marvel Universe proper, initially created in Chinese digital comics the previous year.[24][25] He translated the original comics and wrote new stories for the year long Aero and Sword Master series. Pak also wrote a new series of Agents of Atlas comics, which would feature Aero and Sword-Master interacting with other young Marvel heroes, including Wave, White Fox and Amadeus Cho.[26] The team was last seen confronting Namor the Sub-Mariner in Greg Pak's Atlantis Attacks miniseries of 2020.
In 2023 Pak wrote an educational comic book entitled Who Belongs?, drawn by Jeremy Arambulo, colored by Irma Kniivila, and lettered by Janice Chiang. This project was part of an AAPI Hidden Voices series from the New York City Department of Education’s Civics for All Comics Group.[27]
Personal life
Pak is married to Japanese filmmaker Keiko Ibi.[7]
