Jeremiah Joseph Ordway (born November 28, 1957) is an American writer, penciller, inker and painter of comic books.
He is known for his inking work on a wide variety of DC Comics titles, including the continuity-redefining Crisis on Infinite Earths (1985–1986), his long run working on the Superman titles from 1986 to 1993, and for writing and painting the Captain Marvel original graphic novel The Power of Shazam! (1994), and writing the ongoing monthly series from 1995 to 1999. He has provided inks for artists such as Curt Swan, Jack Kirby, Gil Kane, John Buscema, Steve Ditko, John Byrne, George Perez and others.
Early life and influences
Jerry Ordway attended Milwaukee Technical High School, where he took a three-year commercial art course, before joining a commercial art studio as a typographer in 1976. He subsequently worked his way "from the ground floor up at the art studio" between 1978 and 1981. Okay Comix featured stories by Ordway and his friend Dave Koula, and art predominantly by Ordway himself. Ordway's own hero "Proton" headlined the 'zine, which featured a pin-up of a character "called Acrobat" who was "the first superhero [Ordway] created. His birth was Dec. 1969."
Spending the late 1970s working as a painter in a commercial art studio in Milwaukee, between 1978 and 1979, he provided illustrations for a number of fanzines and pro-zines, including Omniverse and The Comics Journal. His first professional work was for Western Publishing's Golden Books on young-reader Marvel books, and the Superheroes Golden Beginning Stampbook '79. With writer Roy Thomas, he co-created Infinity, Inc. in All-Star Squadron No. 25 (Sept. 1983) and the new team was launched in its own series in March 1984. Ordway inked DC Comics Presents Annual No. 4 (1985) over artist Eduardo Barreto's pencils, was one of several artists on Batman Annual No. 9 (July 1985), inked George Pérez's pencils on the epic crossover miniseries Crisis on Infinite Earths in 1985 and Superman artist Wayne Boring's pencils for a retelling of the definitive Golden Age Superman origin story written by Roy Thomas in Secret Origins No. 1 (April 1986), which he considers a particular favorite.
When Wolfman departed the title with issue #435, Byrne briefly took over script writing duties before Ordway assumed the mantle of writer-artist and took over the series solely with issue #445 (Oct. 1988), making his writing debut two issues earlier with #443 (Aug. 1988). Ordway had also served as co-plotter on a few issues during both Wolfman and Bryne's writing tenures (issues #426, 435–437, 439–442, and 444). Switching from The Adventures of Superman, Ordway became the writer-artist on the companion title Superman vol. 2 between #34 (Aug. 1989) and #55 (May 1991), before later returning to Adventures of Superman as writer and sometimes as cover artist from issues #480 (July 1991) to #500 (June 1993). Ordway was the writer and primary artist for the story in which Clark Kent proposes to Lois Lane (Superman vol. 2 #50). While writing for the Superman family of titles, Ordway cowrote such storylines as "Panic in the Sky" and "The Death of Superman" storyline in 1992. After seven years working on the character, Ordway largely left the Superman titles in 1993, although he would make frequent returns to the character as writer and throughout his career, co-writing Adventures of Superman with Karl Kesel from issues #539–540, 558–562, 564–567 in 1996, and 1998–1999.
During the 50th anniversary celebrations for Superman, he inked John Byrne's pencils for the cover of the March 14, 1988 issue of Time magazine and an interior spread celebrating the Man of Steel's anniversary. Ordway has produced a large number of covers for DC from 1982 onwards, including for issues of Secret Origins and the painted cover art to the hardcover reprint collection The Greatest Golden Age Stories Ever Told. He produced the cover art for the prestige format graphic novels, Superman: The Earth Stealers in 1988 where he inked Curt Swan's pencils and Superman For Earth (1991), among other work. Towards the end of the series' run, he again took on the dual role of writer & artist with issues #42–47.
Non-DC work
During the mid-1980s, Ordway provided covers and occasional artwork to titles from a number of different comics companies. Companies included Wendy and Richard Pini's WaRP Graphics, AC Comics, Charlton Comics, Paragon Publications and fan-turned-pro Marty Greim. For Eclipse Comics, Ordway provided pencils for a short "Epilogue" story in Mark Evanier's DNAgents No. 18 (Jan. 1985).
Other DC work
As well as inking most of Crisis on Infinite Earths, Ordway inked the second of DC's continuity-redefining event titles in 1994 by inking writer-artist Dan Jurgens' pencils on Zero Hour: Crisis in Time. In 2001, he drew the one-shot Just Imagine... Stan Lee with Jerry Ordway Creating the JLA as part of Marvel-stalwart Stan Lee's foray into the DC Universe, in which the two of them re-imagined DC's Justice League of America. He inked the last year (May 2002–May 2003) of the Batman-related title Azrael: Agent of the Bat (#88–100), and provided the artwork for a six-issue story arc in Wonder Woman (vol. 2, issues #189–194), with writer Walt Simonson in 2003. In 2004, Ordway was inker on JLA issues #94–99, the “Tenth Circle” story arc which reunited the former Uncanny X-Men creative team of writer Chris Claremont and artist John Byrne. From 2003–2008, he provided new covers to the Superman: The Man of Steel series of six trade paperbacks, collecting the early adventures of the Post-Crisis Superman. Later that same year, he drew a Human Bomb limited series which was written by Justin Gray and Jimmy Palmiotti. Ordway and artist Steve Rude produced a Superman story for DC's Adventures of Superman digital series in 2014. Ordway drew the "Five Minutes" chapter in Action Comics #1000 (June 2018). He drew the new cover art for the trade paperback collection Wonder Woman By Walter Simonson and Jerry Ordway, collecting Wonder Woman vol. 2, issues #189–194 in 2018.
Awards
Ordway received an Inkpot Award in 1994. In 2017, he was awarded the Inkwell Awards Joe Sinnott Hall of Fame Award for "an inking career in American comic books of outstanding accomplishment."
Personal life
Ordway is married to Peggy May Ordway (b. 1959).