Greg Goldstein's Comic Art Gallery

Tag: Spider-Man

George Perez — Infinity… And Beyond

Original Art and The Artists

Infinity Gauntlet #3, September 1991

George Perez delivers what George Perez does best: Multiple characters with terrific detail, and imaginative “camera angles” on this great page from the original Infinity Gauntlet mini-series.

It’s almost impossible to believe that this week marks the 2-year anniversary of Avengers Endgame, which wrapped up the Gauntlet saga, and the “early” phases of the MCU. Except for the December 2019 Spider-Man: Far from Home flick (which although in the greater MCU, is a SONY production) no Marvel films in two years just seems… wrong. Thanks, pandemic.

The good news is that we’ve had two quality TV series in recent months, with another one launching in a month.  And if my math is correct, because of delays and rescheduling, there are four Marvel films to debut this year, and four more scheduled for next year.

Whew.

The bad news — if there is any — is that Marvel is setting up so many potential storylines at this point that we are going to have to keep a character encyclopedia and Gantt chart with us at all times.

Dark Avengers?

Thunderbolts?

Young Avengers?

House of M?

Kree Skrull War?

Secret Invasion?

A Multiverse thread in both Spider-Man and Doctor Strange, at a minimum.

Plus, Kang as the next “big bad?”

Like I said… whew.

It’s one thing to accomplish all of this in 80 or so monthly comic books. It’s another to do it in filmed media. But if anyone can, I think Marvel and Disney might pull it off.

Fasten your seat belts…

Despite the comics inclusion of many characters that are not in the MCU version of Infinity Gauntlet / Endgame, this Perez page does highlight three of the films’ most important heroes: Iron Man, Captain America and Spider-Man.

Sal Buscema & Jimmy Palmiotti — Send In The Clones

Original Art and The Artists

Spectacular Spider-Man #232, March 1996

Ben Reilly is Peter Parker’s clone. Ben Reilly died, Peter Parker lived. 

No, wait. Ben Reilly lived; it was actually Parker that died.

Scratch that. Ben Reilly thought he was Peter Parker, but he actually WAS Peter Parker, who thought he was Ben Reilly.

No, wait, that’s not right either…

The clone saga is one of Marvel’s most controversial storylines from the 90s. I remember having a very spirited conversation about the subject with Tom Defalco back in 1995 or so at SDCC when it seemed like it was going to go on forever and ever. I’m sure I wasn’t the only one.

In this issue of Spectacular Spider-Man, this is actually Ben Reilly fighting as Spider-man, (theoretically) while Peter Parker is in brief retirement with the very pregnant Mary Jane.

Regardless, Sal Buscema draws a knockout cover, with inks by Jimmy Palmiotti, as Spidey (real or Memorex) faces Lady Octopus in mortal combat. 

And where did that crazy moon go from original art to final colored, published version? I have no idea. Although I almost titled this post, “Goodnight Moon.”

The 1994-1996 clone saga has its roots in a much more accessible run of Spider-Man 20 years prior.

Ron Frenz and Sal Buscema — Split Screen

Original Art and The Artists

Spider-Girl #97, June 2006

Continuing our celebration of the two-year anniversary of the groundbreaking animated film, Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse. 

The original Spider-Girl (The “future” daughter of Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson) is a member of the Spider-Verse who refused to die. Every time her series was on the verge of cancellation, a small, but very passionate group of fans persuaded Marvel to keep he book going. You can read more about that here and here.

In this story arc, the final one of the first 100-issue ongoing series, the original Hobgoblin returns, and Spider-Girl switches to the black spider-costume. This of course echoes the choice made by her dad way back in the historic Amazing Spider-Man #252 (May 1984), also penciled by the talented Mr. Frenz. (And Ron also drew the original Hobgoblin saga in ASM as well.)

And this vertical split screen “mirror” effect on the final page? Seldom used, but very cool. I don’t own another page like it.

David Williams — Into The Spider-Verse

Original Art and The Artists

Spider-Verse Team-Up, #3, March 2015

Two years ago this week, many of us settled into a comfy (hopefully) movie theater seat to catch Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. I think I’m speaking for the majority of filmgoers when I say: “Brain Blown.”

The Spider-Verse concept was so successful in this ground breaking animated film, that apparently some of its alternate Spidey universes appear to be creeping into the next live action Spider-Man film, currently due in theaters in a year from now.

Rumors are swirling in recent weeks that many actors and characters from the two previous Spider-Man film universes will reappear in this film, with supposedly Jamie Foxx (Electro) and Alfred Molina (Doctor Octopus) confirmed.

A multiverse Sinister Six? I say, bring it on! (I’ve confessed my love of multiverse storylines previously.)

Meanwhile, in the comics, you don’t have to wait for Disney and Sony and the talent and the screenwriter and the director to have a meeting of the minds. 

You can simply read any number of Spider-Verse related comic book titles, including this one featuring art by the vastly underrated David Williams.

Here you get six Spider-People for the price of one.  Seems like a good deal to me.

The film poster, the original art for Bill Sienkiewicz’s promo poster, and the cover to IDW’s Marvel Action :Spider-Man featuring the first comic book team-up of Peter Parker, Miles Morales and Spider-Gwen.
All three actors in one Spider-Man film? You never know…

Steve Ditko — Happiness Or Madness?

Original Art and The Artists

Tales of Suspense #41, May 1963

Happy Birthday to the great Steve Ditko, who would have turned 93 today.

Ditko drew — and possibly wrote (Stan Lee on credits, but that sometimes is overstated) — this neat little science fiction back-up story in the third issue of Iron Man.

These SF and horror stories would soon become rarities as publisher Martin Goodman and Editor Lee replaced them with a new line-up of superheroes, including a certain web-crawler that would bring Ditko more notoriety than anything else he would create.

The Amazing Spiderman #1 had just hit the newsstands. The rest as they say…

Marvel did a nice job reprinting all of Stan Lee’s and Steve Ditko’s horror and SF stories in this two-volume series.

Eduardo Barreto — Caught

Original Art and The Artists

Pin-up, Rocket’s Blast and Comic Collector (RBCC) #4, 2003

Kraven the Hunter, a classic Spider-Man nemesis, is getting his own film? 

Er… ok. 

I like the character, especially since I’ve been a fan of the legendary Richard Connell short story “The Most Dangerous Game” since, well, forever.

But… Kraven without Spider-Man is useless to me. Actually all of the Spider-man villains are pointless without the main protagonist.

What, exactly, was the point of the Venom film.  A bad guy we root for? Especially one who looks like a monstrous version of… Spider-Man. Huh? What?  Tom Hardy was fine as Eddie Brock as the title character, and the film looks great, but it is ultimately pointless. No Spider-Man, no Venom, as far as I’m concerned.

Of course, none of this apparently bothered mass audiences whatsoever. Venom grossed more than  $800 million worldwide.

And so, back to Kraven. I would love to see him, even as cameo in Spider-Man 3, before we get to a feature length Kraven film. 

In the meantime, the late Eduardo Barreto delivers a terrific splash of Spider-Man capturing Kraven with terrific tonal quality throughout. It appeared in Rockets Blast and Comic Collector #4, the final issue of the short-lived revival of the famous comics zine.

The one question I have is…. Why does Spider-Man look surprised? Did another wall-crawler grab Kraven first? Is this an early and prescient look at the Spider-verse?

But I digress.

Barreto, a Uruguayan artist who passed away at the too young age of 57, was better known for some excellent work at DC (New Teen Titans, Batman, Superman, et al), but his first actual US assignment was in fact Spider-Man, inking Marvel Team-Up #88, featuring Spidey and The Invisible Girl.

As for the actual Spider-Man 3 villains? Start with Scorpion, who is in the Easter egg at the end of Spidey 1, along with possibly the Vulture (ditto), and head down the rabbit hole from there…

And you never know… maybe Kraven after all.

Kraven First appeared in Amazing Spider-Man #15, and returns about a month later with a few “friends” in ASM Annual #1.
The shortest — and possibly most lopsided — hero vs. villain fight in history. Iron man takes care of Kraven in three panels to support narrative involving The Chameleon posing as Captain America. Convoluted, but hilarious.
Some of the earliest Marvel Comics I purchased at the candy store as a kid, and coincidentally about the time where John Romita comes into his own as Spider-Man’s artist. Compared to everything DC and the other companies were doing, this was heady stuff.
Kraven is the villain in one of the most beloved and critically Spider-Man stories of all time, “Kraven’s Last Hunt”. Also pictured: RBCC #4 where the Barreto pin-up appears, and the film poster for the first adaption of Most Dangerous Game, an obvious inspiration for the Kraven concept.

Paul Smith — Wonderous World

Original Art and The Artists

Paul Smith, Pin-up tribute to Steve Ditko, ASM Annual #2 (1965), 2001

Elegant, clean and striking: The definitive Paul Smith style captures Steve Ditko’s classic (and only) pairing of Spider-Man and Doctor Strange in Amazing Spider-man Annual #2 from September 1965.

Seeing the pairing of these now iconic Marvel cinematic characters creates some wistfulness here.

Last week, Disney postponed the feature film Black Widow once again. It’s now scheduled for May 2021, a full year behind schedule. 2020 will be the first year without a film in The MCU since 2009.

And, even when the films were less frequent in the early days, a Fox or Sony Marvel film typically filled in the gaps.

(No, I’m not going to act as if the recent New Mutants counts. More people have probably seen the officially unreleased Roger Corman Fantastic Four film than New Mutants.)

Now of course, Covid has thrown the entire upcoming film schedule into disarray. Eternals and Shang-Chi also moved, and swapped positions in the queue — for now.

After that, it’s a bit of a wild card.

The next three films should be Spider-Man 3, Doctor Strange 2, and Thor 4… but, we’ve seen differing revised release dates for those just in the last week.

Then, the schedule becomes even hazier, but let’s put off that discussion until next week.

Meanwhile, up next this coming week on the blog:

Spidey, Doc, and of course… Thor. See you soon.

The current digital version of the original splash from Amazing Spider-Man Annual #2 in 1965.
Many reprints, many colors, and a few layout and production changes, too. From left to right, the original annual coloring re-mastered for digital, the coloring and other changes from the “emergency” reprint in Doctor Strange #179, and the re-colored (again) reprint from Marvel Tales.
Here’s a bet: Ditko drew the cover for ASM Annual #2 well before he and Stan knew what the story would be. Otherwise… you’d probably see Doctor Strange actually on the cover. A few years later, and a deadline blown, Barry Smith was called on to provide a new cover for the story which was reprinted completely out of continuity in Doctor Strange #179.
Digital colors by Gerry Turnbull, and, in the MCU, Spidey and Doc work together to try to defeat Thanos in Avengers Infinity War. It doesn’t go well… at first.

Gene Colan — The Widow’s Sting

Original Art and The Artists

Daredevil #82, December 1971

By now, we should be in the next phase of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but unfortunately, we have a six-month delay. So, for the first time in a dozen years, no Marvel film to launch the summer movie-going season.

But, we won’t let that delay slow us down here — let’s take a look at some of characters from the next three scheduled films this week.

From the trailer(s) for the Black Widow film, now releasing this November, it appears that many elements from Natasha Romanoff’s 55-year comic book backstory will make into the film. (No surprise, as that has been the Marvel M.O. since day one).

Of course, an exception will be her relationship with Daredevil, which lasted a few years in the original comics. Not sure what the entertainment rights status is for Daredevil and the other Netflix Marvel characters (now since cancelled), but I’d fall right out of my seat if any of them showed up in the cinematic universe in the near future.

This very cool Daredevil page from the great Gene Colan comes from early in the relationship between DD and the Widow; in fact they don’t actually have a relationship at this point in the chronology, but they soon will, and ultimately team-up and move to San Francisco together.

In fact, the comic book changes its cover nameplate to Daredevil and The Black Widow for more than a year.

Let’s see: Matt Murdock suddenly ups and moves to Frisco. Daredevil — suddenly — is now fighting in the Bay Area. No one figures the connection out? Really?

Amazing Spider-Man #86 serves as a “#0” recap and revamp issue (before they had those) for Natasha’s short-lived solo series in Amazing Adventures. Words and pictures by Stan Lee and John Romita.
Black Widow’s first solo series, her first appearance in Daredevil, and a recent collection of her earliest appearances — with a recolored cover drawn by the legendary Bill Everett.

John Paul Leon — Spirit In The Sky

Original Art and The Artists

Spirit #16, September 2011

Continuing our celebration of the 80th anniversary of The Spirit, with additional creators’ takes on the beloved and influential character.

David Hine (Spider-Man Noir) authors a clever tale where pretty much every page is a splash — with the Spirit title included as part of the art. John Paul Leon hits the concept out of the park successfully homaging Will Eisner’s original brilliant splash pages with innovations of his own.

On this page, the final one of the story, Leon perhaps finds inspiration for the logo from 1946 — from the classic tale, “The Man Who Killed The Spirit” AKA “The Last Trolley.”

Fun fact: This issue — and this entire series — was edited by the ultra-talented Joey Cavalieri, a pal of mine for nearly 50 years. Joey and I first met as kids hunting down comics in the candy stores, newsstands and luncheonettes of the lovely seaside town of Long Beach, New York.

Variations on a theme: The original 1946 Spirit strip with the blowing letters — and two later (and slightly different) reprint versions.

Sal Buscema — Belated Birthday Bash (II)

Original Art and The Artists

Spectacular Spider-Man #137, April 1988

Sal Buscema celebrated his 84th birthday earlier this week — how did that happen, you ask? I don’t know either. (January, by the way, is obviously a great month for the Marvel “bullpen.”) So, we continue our better-late-than-never tribute series.

Sal, one of Marvel’s most versatile and prolific artists, cites the Hulk as his favorite character. Nevertheless… he penciled and (mostly) inked 100 issues of Spectacular Spider-man. (That’s 100!)

Included in that record-setting run is this dynamic page from early in his return to the title in 1988. It’s the end of black spider-suit era — pretty much the final appearance of the costume before Peter ditches it for good (mostly) a month later in Amazing Spider-Man #300. (MJ is not too happy that her husband looks like Venom when he wears it, but I digress.) I love the way the three middle panels work cinematically to show Spidey getting the upper hand on the gunmen.

Sal wanted to be an inker. He has said in various interviews (emphatically, in some cases) he prefers it. And it’s clear that it took him some time to find his own voice penciling. (In fact, if you compare his early 70s work to his late 80s work, it’s obvious that, like many great artists, his voice evolved.)

But I think we are all happy that Stan and Marvel’s editorial team pushed him into pencils. He’s an amazing a spectacular storyteller.

Sal’s first professional work for Marvel is inking over Larry Lieber on Rawhide Kid, followed soon thereafter by pencilling on Avengers. (Both 1969.)