Madureira's style combines Western comic book influences (most notably the influence of artist Arthur Adams) though it evolved to incorporate heavy influences from Japanesemanga and video games.[4][5][6]
At age 16, while still in high school, Madureira started at Marvel Comics as an intern,[10] working under editor Danny Fingeroth.[11] Madureira's art, which was heavily influenced by Arthur Adams,[12] was first published in an eight-page story for the anthology series Marvel Comics Presents #89 (November 1991), starring Mojo, and then a story starring Northstar in issue #92 (December 1992). Despite the order of publication, Madureira drew the Mojo story second, as the influence of Arthur Adams, who co-created Mojo, is more evident in that story, and is closer to the style for which Madureira was known in the initial part of his career. His style would later evolve as he incorporated the influence of Japanese manga.[4]
In 1993 Madureira penciled the first Deadpool mini-series, The Circle Chase. That same year he drew Vanguard #3 for Erik Larsen's studio, which was published by Image Comics.
Madureira became the regular penciler on Uncanny X-Men in 1994. During the "Age of Apocalypse" storyline, all X-Men titles were renamed; Madureira illustrated Uncanny X-Men's replacement as the four-issue miniseries Astonishing X-Men, Vol. 1.
He left Uncanny X-Men in 1997 to work on his own sword and sorcery series Battle Chasers for Wildstorm Comics' creator-owned Cliffhanger imprint (before it was sold to DC Comics). Shortly before leaving Uncanny X-Men, he commented that he felt the series had become too "dark and depressing" for his taste.[13]
Madureira produced a total of nine issues in four years (publishing two to three a year), a pace for which he was criticized.[3] He canceled Battle Chasers #10, and placed the series on indefinite hiatus after forming a game development company called Tri-Lunar with Tim Donley and Greg Peterson.
With Tri-Lunar, he created concept art on a game called Dragonkind which was canceled when Tri-Lunar went out of business. He then went to work for Realm Interactive, another start-up company, on Trade Wars: Dark Millennium. When Realm Interactive was acquired by NCsoft, he continued to contribute to the game as it evolved into Exarch, and was eventually released as Dungeon Runners. As Creative Director at THQ, he helped develop the game Darksiders, including designing the game's characters and settings; collaborator Joe Kelly wrote the game's script.[6]
Madureira returned to the comic book industry as the artist on Marvel's The Ultimates 3, with writer Jeph Loeb.[14] The second issue was published in January 2008, the third issue released on February 20, 2008. Ultimates 3 #4 came out on June 25, 2008.
In July 2007, Vigil Games' Darksiders was announced, of which Joe Madureira was creative director. It follows War, one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, on his quest to find out who prematurely triggered the apocalypse.[15] It was released on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 on January 5, 2010.[16]
On June 13, 2011, it was announced that he would be handling art duties on a new series written by Zeb Wells entitled Avenging Spider-Man.[11] Following a three issue run on the title, Marvel announced on March 11, 2013, that Madureira would be re-teaming with Wells for a story arc on Savage Wolverine beginning with #6 in June 2013.
In February 2023, Madureira confirmed to io9 that after having left Battlechasers on a cliffhanger 20 years earlier, he would produce the conclusion to the story with Battle Chasers #10, which had originally been solicited for November 2001, and would release it June 14 through Image. Madureira would write the issue and produce the cover art, while Ludo Lullabi would provide the interior art.[22]
