Joe Quesada

Quesada was born in New York City to Cuban-born parents, and grew up in the Jackson Heights neighborhood of Queens, 15 blocks from Shea Stadium, which his father help build as part of the construction crew.The first comic book he became an ardent fan of was The Amazing Spider-Man, which he began reading around issue #98, the last issue of a historic anti-drug storyline, which garnered his father's approval. As the character resonated with him (in part because both grew up in Queens), Spider-Man remains a character he particularly enjoys drawing.

Quesada majored in illustration at the School of Visual Arts, from which he graduated with a BFA in 1984. Though he had drifted away from comics, having come to think of them as a child's medium, his interest in them was renewed at age 25 when a friend who learned of his interest in art showed him Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns.

Quesada's comics career began in 1990 when he was hired by DC Comics on the basis of his 12-page portfolio, which was composed of three three-page sequences, plus a cover for each. These included a Superman story intended to show reviewers from DC Comics that he could handle their characters; an X-Men sequence to display both his ability to depict the characters of Marvel Comics and his ability to handle groups of characters; and a vignette of two people having coffee, which Quesada included to show his ability to illustrate non-superhero stories.

In 1998, Marvel Comics, which had just filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, asked Quesada to work for Marvel in a more exclusive capacity, and contracted him and his partners to produce a line of Marvel books dubbed Marvel Knights. As editor of Marvel Knights, Quesada worked on a number of low-profile characters such as Daredevil, Punisher, The Inhumans and Black Panther, encouraging experimentation and using his contacts in the independent comics world to bring in creators such as David W. Mack, Mike Oeming, Brian Michael Bendis, Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon. Quesada also illustrated a Daredevil story written by film director Kevin Smith.

Two and a half years after starting Marvel Knights, Joe Quesada became editor-in-chief of Marvel Comics in 2000, following Bob Harras's departure from the company. At the same time, Bill Jemas succeeded to the presidency of the company. The relationship culminated in the establishment of the Ultimate line of Marvel titles, which were aimed at new readers and took place outside of the restrictive continuity of the Marvel Universe.

In the mid-2000s, Quesada imposed a moratorium on the practice of creatively bringing back characters thought to be dead, known as "dead is dead." In a January 2008 interview in which he was questioned about numerous characters that had since been resurrected, Quesada clarified that the policy was for writers to exercise forethought and caution before killing off characters or resurrecting them, so that such plots were not produced too frequently or without gravitas, and not that it be entirely prohibited.

Joe Quesada's predecessor as Marvel editor in chief, Bob Harras, canceled and restarted all of Marvel's titles that were not either X-Men-related or at fewer than 100 issues already. This was an effort to shore up sagging sales with a new #1 issue for each of Marvel's popular titles, issued at a time shortly after the 1990s bust of the comic book collecting market, and when Marvel was in the throes of bankruptcy. Quesada reversed this policy first by showing the "old", combined issue numbers beside the "new" numbers on covers (the difference between the two issue numbers shown on the cover would always be the number of issues that the series had before Harras restarted it), and then definitively restoring the "old" numbers for Fantastic Four, Amazing Spider-Man and Avengers when they each passed the 500 mark.

Quesada was involved in the creation of three successful Marvel imprints: Marvel Knights, aimed at telling standalone tales, with Jimmy Palmiotti (before his tenure as editor-in-chief), MAX, aimed at adult-only readers, with Brian Michael Bendis, and Ultimate, aimed at new readers, with Brian Michael Bendis and Mark Millar.

Critics of Quesada's policy of emphasizing trade paperbacks charge that they cannibalize monthly comic book sales, because readers may opt to forego monthly series in order to wait for the cheaper collections, not realizing that monthly sales are an indicator to publishers of interest in such collections.

When confronted with a backlash by fans due to his decision to dictate a controversial retcon of Peter Parker's marriage to Mary Jane Watson in the "One More Day" storyline, Quesada participated in a series of interviews on the subject to address the issue of the marriage, comparing it to real life marriages. He also promoted and praised the MC2 title Spider-Girl for continuing to provide fans with a stable marriage and an expanded family, although that title was later canceled and relaunched multiple times, eventually being cancelled for good in 2010.

In June 2009, Quesada began writing a weekly column for Comic Book Resources called "Cup O' Joe", in which he answers questions every Friday from readers or provides information on Marvel projects.

On June 2, 2010, Marvel announced that it promoted Joe Quesada to Chief Creative Officer of Marvel Entertainment. In this position Quesada will help ensure that all portrayals of Marvel's characters and stories remain true to the essence of Marvel history. He also oversees the creative aspects of media adaptations of Marvel properties, which include participating in story and script development. He later stepped down from his chief editor in role the following year.