Marvel’s Joe Quesada Pays Tribute to Kobe Bryant

Marvel executive and legendary artist Joe Quesada took to Twitter Sunday afternoon to pay tribute to the late Kobe Bryant with a piece of ESPN artwork featuring the NBA star. Quesada’s NBA/Avengers mashup first appeared on a cover for ESPN The Magazine on November 1, 2010. It features Bryant as Iron Man, Brooklyn Nets star Kevin Durant, and the Los Angeles Lakers’ Lebron James.

Bryant died Sunday morning after a helicopter he was a passenger in crashed outside of Calabasas, California. He was 41. Bryant ended up play 20 seasons in the NBA, each year for the Los Angeles Lakers. Though many have his records have since been broken by the likes of James, he still holds titles in most seasons played for the same team and most All-Star nominations. You can see Quesada’s cover for the project in his tweet below.

Quesada’s cover was just one in a whole host of covers that features crossovers between the NBA and Marvel characters that year. Other artists involved include J. Scott Campbell, Greg Horn, and Leinil Yu, to name a few. Quesada’s boss, Disney chief executive Bog Iger, also took to Twitter to pay respects to the late NBA star.

“Today we @WaltDisneyCo mourn the tragic loss of @kobebryant…a giant in sports and person so full of life,” Iger tweeted. “Terrible news and so hard to process. Our company @Disney mourns the tragic loss of @kobebryant…one of the most respected & popular athletes of our time…a friend and a fan of ours, full of life and taken from us too soon.

After his extensive basketball career, Bryant focused on projects outside of sports. In 2018, he won an Oscar for Best Animated Short Film for his work on writing Dear Basketball. He was the first African-American to ever win that award.