The Origin of Andrew Turk’s Evil Namesake

In the early 2000s, Andy Turk, a business litigator at Rose Law Group in Scottsdale, Arizona, decided to send out thank-you letters to everyone he’d met over the course of the year, including Marvel Comics writer Mark Millar. 

Soon after, Turk got a call one morning from Millar, who was working on an X-Men story about an anti-mutant senator convincing Iceman’s parents to sue Professor X. After sharing his legal expertise, Turk jokingly asked if any attorneys in the story needed a name. They didn’t, but that evil senator did, and Turk’s name was immortalized in the panels.  

It was a dream come true for the longtime comic book fan, even if he doesn’t agree with the antagonistic Turk. The love started as a child, when he saw Spider-Man on the cover of a Marvel comic book. “I just remember going, ‘Yowza’ and getting my mom to buy it for me,” he says. From there he amassed a collection, much of which he eventually sold during his freshman year of college. “Which still hurts,” he says. But he started collecting again, telling himself he’d stick to five titles, or maybe 10. “Now it’s basically a bill every month,” he says. “Power, water, cable, comics.” 

His favorite issue is 1964’s The Avengers #4, the first Silver Age appearance of Captain America. Cap is his favorite character, something that’s clear to anyone who walks into his memorabilia-filled office. He remembers his mother struggling to find him a T-shirt as a kid. “Now you can walk into Target and you see it everywhere,” he says. “It’s all over. I’ve seen it on resumés.” 

Turk loves an opportunity to mix his work with his comic book knowledge. In law school, he wrote his final paper on the legal battle between DC Comics and Fawcett Comics, the creator of the original Captain Marvel, now called Shazam. And if he ever got a call from Marvel? “I might consider moving to California,” he says.