Mike Zeck – Greg Goldstein's Comic Art Gallery

Mike McKone — Spider-Man: The Hunt Becomes Grim

February 26, 2022 Greg Goldstein Original Art and The Artists

Wizard Magazine #223, April 2010

Today we wrap up our month-long celebration of Spider-Man’s upcoming 60th anniversary.

Mike McKone brings his own take to Spidey rising from the grave — with Kraven’s daughter seeking revenge for what happened to dear departed dad. (It’s a bit more complicated than that, but you get the idea.) This Wizard story previews “The Gauntlet” and “Grim Hunt” which are also essentially sequels to Kraven’s Last Hunt.

Mike Zeck spoke about the original cover image in Back Issue #35, from 2009:

“If an issue has a scene with the title hero rising from his own grave, it’s like receiving the number-one gift on your Christmas list! Anyone spending even one second mulling over a cover idea for that issue would have been in the wrong business.”

*McKone’s cover is a clever callback to Zeck’s original and iconic “crawl from the grave” scene 20 years earlier.*

Mike Zeck — Spider-Man: Dead, Again?

February 22, 2022 Greg Goldstein Original Art and The Artists

The Amazing Spider-Man: Soul Of The Hunter, August 1992

*With and without the overlay that adds snow to the art.*

Ah, the lure of the sequel/prequel/spin-off.

Kraven’s Last Hunt (1987), considered one of the greatest Spidey sagas of all time, saw a follow-up story appear as “Soul of the Hunter” five years later, reuniting the original creative team: JM DeMatteis, Mike Zeck and Bob McLeod.

This page is one of my favorites from the story and one of my favorite Spidey pieces that I own, period, because, thanks to some hallucinogenic help, you have Spider-Man in both traditional and black costume on one page.

Of course, if someone wants to offer me a reasonable fraction of what the very first page featuring a Zeck Spider-man in black costume recently sold for, well under that condition, I would probably part with it:

https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/books/2022/01/14/spider-man-comic-book-page-sells-record-3-36-million/6524278001/

*The original TPB and the more recent collection which includes the sequel story.*

Mike Zeck — Will The Real Captain America Please Stand Up?

December 10, 2020 Greg Goldstein Original Art and The Artists

Captain America #279, March 1983

Captain America vs.… Captain America?

The “impersonation” trope is one of my favorites in comics, and a long-standing tradition in Marvel’s history. In fact, the first time Captain America “appears” in the Silver Age in Strange Tales #114, it’s not Captain America at all. It’s a Human Torch villain, The Acrobat, in disguise.

And this trope was consistently employed throughout the early Marvel Comics. The Skrulls impersonate the Fantastic Four in issue #2, The Chameleon impersonates Spider-Man in ASM #1, and the Avengers are nearly defeated by the shape-changing Space Phantom in issue #2 of their launch title.

Stan was obsessed with this concept, apparently.

For the record, here on this terrific action page by Mike Zeck and John Beatty, the uniformed Cap is the “real” one. The clown impersonating Steve Rogers is Primus, The Mutate.

File that under: “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”