Early life and career Will Murray grew up in
Boston, Massachusetts and graduated North Quincy High school in June 1971, subsequently graduating summa cum laude from the University of Massachusetts at Boston. His 2013
The Wild Adventures of Doc Savage novel,
Doc Savage: Skull Island, teams him up with
King Kong. In June 2015, Altus Press inaugurated the series
The Wild Adventures of Tarzan in the novel
Tarzan: Return to Pal-ul-don, an authorized sequel to Edger Rice Burroughs' 1921 novel,
Tarzan the Terrible. Late in 2016, Altus released a follow-up novel,
King Kong Vs. Tarzan. Early in 2020, "
Tarzan, Conqueror of Mars" was released, in which John Carter of Mars was revived. In 2023,
Tarzan: Back to Mars was released. In October 2016, Altus Press released
Six Scarlet Scorpions, the first entry in a new spinoff series centering around Doc Savage's adventuress cousin, called
The Wild Adventures of Pat Savage. Murray wrote the novel from an outline written by the character's creator, Lester Dent. In August, 2018, Altus Press released
The Spider: The Doom Legion, reviving the pulp hero known as The Spider, as well as James Christopher, Operator 5, and G-8 of
G-8 and His Battles Aces fame. A sequel,
The Spider: Fury in Steel, was published in January, 2021.
The Spider: Scourge of the Scorpion and
The Spider: The Hangman from Hell followed. In June, 2020, Altus Press released
The Wild Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, collecting ten of Murray's Sherlock Holmes short stories. Four subsequent volumes were published between 2023 and 2024. For
Necronomicon Press, he edited
Tales of Zothique and
The Book of Hyperborea, two collections of stories by
Clark Ashton Smith. His essays have appeared in books ranging from S. T. Joshi's compedium on H. P. Lovecraft,
An Epicure in the Terrible, to Jim Beard's survey of the 1960s
Batman TV show,
Gotham City 14 Miles. He also contributed to the encyclopedias
St. James Crime and Mystery Writers,
St. James Science Fiction Writers,
Contemporary Authors and
The Dictionary of Literary Biography. A collection of his Doc Savage articles was published by Altus Press under the title, Writings in Bronze, in 2011. As a contributing editor of
Starlog magazine, Murray wrote for that publication and for Starlog Press movie tie-in publications. Murray stories have appeared in ''
The UFO Files, Future Crime,
Miskatonic University, 100 Wicked Little Witch Stories, 100 Creepy Little Creature Stories, 100 Vicious Little Vampire Stories, The Cthulhu Cycle, Disciples of Cthulhu II,
Cthulhu's Reign, Worlds of Cthulhu, The Yig Cycle, Dead But Dreaming II, Horror for the Holidays,
The Mountains of Madness, Tales from the Miskatonic Library, Dracula Unfanged, Shadows Out of Time, Unknown Superheroes vs. the Forces of Darkness, Thrilling Adventure Yarns, Six-Gun Legends, Nightbeat: Night Stories'' and other collections. For
National Public Radio, he adapted Lester Dent's 1934 novel
The Thousand-Headed Man as a six-part serial for
The Adventures of Doc Savage, which aired in 1985, and was released on CD by Radioarchives.com in October 2010. For Radio Archives, Murray produced the Will Murray Pulp Classics line of audio and ebooks, starring such pulp heroes as
The Spider and G-8 and His Battle Aces. With S. T. Joshi and Jon L. Cooke, Murray organized The Friends of
H. P. Lovecraft, which raised funds to place a memorial plaque dedicated to the Providence fantasy writer on the grounds of
Brown University's John Hay Library on the centennial of Lovecraft's birth in August 1990. In 2000 Murray wrote the novel
Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.: Empyre for Marvel comics. The story, which predicted the operational details of the Year 2001 terror attacks on New York and Washington a year before they transpired, identified the author as a trained remote viewer and professional psychic. Beginning in 2006, Murray has been a consulting editor for Sanctum Books'
Doc Savage,
Shadow,
Avenger and
Whisperer reprints. He has also written dozens of introductions to the reprints being published by
Altus Press, covering characters such as Lester Dent's Lee Nace and Frederick Nebel's
Black Mask detective, Ben Donohue. With Off-Trail Publications' John Locke, he has co-edited the three-volume
The Gangland Sagas of Big Nose Serrano, which collects all 12 of
Anatole Feldman's Big Nose Serrano stories. For
Black Dog Books, he penned introductions to their ongoing Lester Dent Library series of pulp-magazine reprints. Murray's exhaustive survey,
Wordslingers: An Epitaph for the Western, delved into the American Western story as it evolved in the pages of the pulp magazines of the first half of the 20th century. Stepping into the metaphysical and spiritual genre, Murray explored the nature and origin of God in his 2016 ebook,
Forever After, which he wrote under his full name of William Patrick Murray. The channelled work is told in the form of a fable, with the narrative unfolding from God's point of view.
Comic books A contributor to numerous prose anthologies, Murray has written short stories of the characters
Superman,
Batman,
Wonder Woman,
Spider-Man,
Ant-Man, the
Hulk, the
Spider,
The Avenger, the
Gray Seal, the
Green Hornet, The Secret 6,
Sherlock Holmes,
Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow,
Honey West,
Zorro and
Lee Falk's the
Phantom. For
Marvel Comics, Murray co-created the
superhero Squirrel Girl with artist
Steve Ditko. He scripted
The Destroyer black-and-white magazine, as well as single stories starring
Iron Man and the
Punisher. Murray wrote the introduction to the
Marvel Comics Omnibus volume, which celebrates the 70th anniversary of Marvel Comics, as well as introductions to Volume 2 of
Daring Mystery Comics,
Mighty Thor Masterworks Volume 9,
Mystic Comics Volume 1,
Young Allies Volume 2 and
Golden Age Captain America Volume 6. ==Awards==