Stephen Hawking was a brilliant physicist and, in addition, a very entertaining person who loved company and was very popular – this combination of traits actually destined him to become a global celebrity. At the age of twenty-one, he was diagnosed with a rare neurodegenerative disease that limited his ability to move and speak, but fortunately, it did not affect his penetrating mind. Although doctors predicted he would only live a few years, Hawking continued his research in cosmology and theoretical physics for decades. After the release of his book A Brief History of Time, in which he brilliantly explained the complex physical laws of the universe to the general public, he became a pop culture icon: he appeared in television series such as Star Trek: The Next Generation, The Simpsons, and The Big Bang Theory, but he also always served as a leading advocate for the rights of the disabled. Writer Jim Ottaviani and artist Leland Myrick in their comic not only present the life story of the great thinker and public figure but, above all, the story of the person hidden behind these identities.
