Avengers Forever and X-Men artist Carlos Pacheco announced that he's taking some time off comics due to a recent spinal surgery.
Pacheco posted on Twitter that he's taking a sabbatical from comics for the remainder of the year. "As some of you probably know I suffered a paralysis of my right leg this past September," he wrote. "Since then I’ve been visiting neurologists trying to know what the heck was happening. After receiving the worst diagnosis possible they finally have discovered that the root of that is a compression of the nerves that go from the L5 to the legs and a little and hard to see fracture in that vertebra, so I will go to a hard dorsal spine surgery next sunday morning. The doctors say that I will need to suffer a rehab that will last between 8 and 12 months….+…That was the reason why I couldn’t finish my commitment with Fantastic Four and now I’ll be out of order during all this year after the surgery. DON’T FORGET ME, PLEASE!!!! I’LL BE BACK!! (Hope so)."
In a follow-up Tweet, Pacheco thanked his fans for all the well wishes he received from the original post. "So, it seems that I'm bound by your general responses to get well," he said. "I will obey all of you!!! Seriously, thank you all. I would like to write a line to each one of you but it is impossible to do, [but] please, pretend [that] I've don't it. THANKS AGAIN!!!"
Pacheco got his start in comics drawing covers, posters and pin-ups for Spanish-translated editions of Marvel Comics published under the Cómics Forum imprint at Planeta De Agostini. His first superhero comic was an eight-page story called American Soldier, which was featured in 1991's Marvel Héroes #41, with writer and translator Antonio Moreno. In 1994, Pacheco worked on a four-issue Bishop series for Marvel alongside John Ostrander and inker Cam Smith. Around the same time, Pacheco also worked on a couple of issues of The Flash with Mark Waid and Jose Marzan Jr. for DC.
Since then, Pacheco's name has been all over comics. He's worked on numerous Marvel titles, including X-Universe, Ultimate Avengers, Ultimate Thor, Uncanny X-Men, Age of Ultron, Captain America, Squadron Sinister, Life of Captain Marvel, ResurrXion and more. For DC, Pacheco contributed to Green Lantern, Superman Giant, Absolute Final Crisi and several others.