He is known for his work on the DC comic book storyline "The Death of Superman" and for creating characters such as Doomsday, Hank Henshaw, and Booster Gold.

At Marvel, Jurgens worked on series such as Captain America, The Sensational Spider-Man and was the writer on Thor for six years.

[3] He was hired due to a recommendation of Warlord creator Mike Grell who was deeply impressed by Jurgens' work after being shown his private portfolio at a convention.

[4] In 1984, Jurgens was the artist for the Sun Devils limited series (July 1984 – June 1985), with writers Gerry Conway and Roy Thomas.

[3] In 1988, Jurgens provided pencil art for the Deadman short stories which were written by Mike Baron in the short-lived anthology Action Comics Weekly from issues #601–612.

Doomsday was the main antagonist in "The Death of Superman" storyline which saw the iconic hero killed in an issue consisting entirely of splash pages.

Jurgens wrote and drew Justice League America (#61–77 April 1992 – July 1993)[15] and in 1993 pencilled the Metal Men four-issue miniseries,[3] which was a retcon of their origin story.

In 1996 Jurgens and Italian artist Claudio Castellini worked on the highly publicized crossover Marvel vs DC.

[18] Jurgens was one of the many creators who worked on the Superman: The Wedding Album one-shot in 1996 which featured the title character's marriage to Lois Lane.

Jurgens pushed strongly for the restoration of Peter Parker as the true Spider-Man and plans were made to enact this soon, but Bob Harras, the new Editor-in-chief, demanded the story be deferred until after the "Onslaught" storyline.

Jurgens had by this stage become disillusioned with the immense amount of group planning and constant changes of ideas and directions and took this as the last straw, resigning from the title.

After a hiatus from comics, he returned to DC Comics, providing layouts for the lead story in the Infinite Crisis Secret Files 2006 special (April 2006) and provided art for the weekly series 52 and to the six-issue limited series Crisis Aftermath: The Battle For Blüdhaven written by Jimmy Palmiotti and Justin Grey.

Jurgens was writer and artist of the "History of the Multiverse" back-up stories in the weekly Countdown which appeared in issues #49–38.

At the Los Angeles Comic Con in March 2007, DC announced a new, ongoing Booster Gold series written by Geoff Johns, pencilled by Jurgens, and inked by Norm Rapmund to begin shortly after the end of 52.

[27] During 2012–2013, Jurgens was writer and artist of Fury of the Firestorms: The Nuclear Men from issues #13–20, where the series was canceled.

As part of the DC Rebirth relaunch of 2016, Jurgens wrote Action Comics, with the series returning to the previous numbering, beginning with issue #957.