Louise Simonson has been a comic writer and editor for 50 years. She is known for her work in Uncanny X-Men, X-Factor, Superman: The Man of Steel, Conan the Barbarian, Steel, and Power Pack, and for co-creating several comic characters like Cable, Doomsday, Steel, and Apocalypse.

Simonson was born Mary Louise Alexander on September 26, 1946, in Atlanta, Georgia. She attended Georgia State College, then moved to New York City where she worked for magazine publisher and distributor McFadden-Bartell. One of her earliest comic jobs was modeling for artist Bernie Wrightson’s cover of House of Secrets #92, aka the issue that introduces Swamp Thing.

Her professional comics career began in ’74 at Warren Publishing, where Simonson went from assistant to senior editor on titles like Creepy, Eerie, and Vampirella. She left Warren in ’79, moving to Marvel where she edited Uncanny X-Men for nearly four years. During that period, she also edited Conan the Barbarian, The New Mutants, Star Wars, and Indiana Jones. At the time, she was married to artist Jeff Jones, and was credited for work as Louise Jones.

In ’73, she met comic writer and artist Walt Simonson, and the pair would get married in 1980. After years of editing, she turned to writing in ’83, now under the name Louise Simonson. She created Power Pack about a group of four preteen heroes and wrote the first 40 issues. Her early writing efforts also included Starriors, Marvel Team-Up, Web of Spider-Man, and Red Sonja.

Simonson was asked to write a fill-in issue of X-Factor in 1986, which was ultimately not used, but inspired her to pursue the title. She sent editor Bob Harras some ideas for the title and when current X-Factor writer Bob Layton left the title, Simonson was hired to write the book. Her first issue was X-Factor #6, in which she and artist Jackson Guice introduced Apocalypse. In issue 25, she wrote the story in which Angel got blue skin and metal wings, turning into Archangel. It was her suggestion that Chris Claremont turn the “Mutant Massacre” story into a crossover with all of the X-books.

In 1987, Simonson started writing New Mutants when Claremont, who had been writing the book, launched other titles. She worked on the book from issue 55 through issue 97, which included co-creating Cable with artist Rob Liefeld. Her runs on both X-Factor and New Mutants ended in 1991.

That same year, Simonson jumped from Marvel to DC. She, artist Jon Bogdanove, and editor Mike Carlin launched Superman: The Man of Steel, where she stayed on the title for eight years through issue 86 in 1999. A year after the move to DC, Simonson, Carlin, Dan Jurgens, Roger Stern, and others crafted “The Death of Superman” storyline. The pivotal comic event featured the death and resurrection of Superman, and introduced Doomsday. While working on The Adventures of Superman, she and Bogdanove introduced Steel, and when he got his own title, Simonson wrote the first 31 issues.

Going back to Marvel in ’99, Simonson wrote the Warlock series and the Galactus the Devourer miniseries. Over the next decade, she wrote Magnus, Robot Fighter stories, a one-shot starring Magic of the New Mutants, and Thor stories in Marvel Adventures. She wrote the X-Factor Forever limited series, reunited with June Brigman for a Power Pack story in Girl Comics #3, and co-wrote a World of Warcraft comic adaptation of the online game.

Simonson returned to the Man of Steel in 2011 to write DC Retroactive: Superman – The ‘90s, and again in 2019 to write a story in Action Comics #1000 and a 12-part webcomic that tied into The Death of Superman animated movie. She wrote a comic tie-in for Wonder Woman 1984 and revisited X-Factor and New Mutants characters for stories in X-Men Legends. In 2023, she wrote the Jean Grey miniseries, and a year later, she wrote Power Pack: Into the Storm.