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Remembering the Woman Who Changed Marvel Comics

Marie Severin, the trailblazing comic-book artist who drew some of pop culture’s most iconic characters, died Thursday at the age of 89.
Source: Greg Preston / Dark Horse Comics

After Marie Severin started at Marvel Comics in 1959, one of her first assignments was a spread that Esquire magazine commissioned on college drug culture. “They wanted Kirby,” she recalled in an interview, referring to the company’s biggest star, the penciler Jack Kirby. “[The production manager Sol Brodsky] said, ‘I don’t want to use Kirby, we’ll miss a deadline. Marie, see what they want.’”

Severin, who died on Thursday at the age of 89,.

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