Black Cat, female comics characters, and character development. I’ve seen it noted elsewhere that Marv Wolfman overwhelmingly chose non-physically super-powered antagonists for the wall crawler in his year and a half run on The Amazing Spider-Man. it’s true: they use gadgets, conventional weapons, and disguises, but a Wolfman foe- unless, of course, he’s a Man-Wolf!- is a non-super powered foe. (He does bring in a formidable even-match criminal Human Fly who adds to the drama nicely during the twenty-four hours spent shackled to a bomb with Jonah, and there’s a Starlin- drawn bout with Electro I believe was intended for Marvel Team-Up.) He created one, too. In genuine Wolfman fashion, her apparent gimmick’s later revealed to be a gadget-type set-up, but if Luck be a Lady, the Black Cat’s bad news all around for Spider-Man! Say what you will about Madame Web, but I recognize how cool it was for Spider-Man to gain a character who’s enigmatic, non-physically powered, elderly, phy...

Pt. 2 The Discussion (with Two-Time Emmy Winning Video Editor, Joseph Braband) Back in the seventies and the eighties, I was a huge Avengers fan. I also liked Spider-Man, but to a lesser (but still significant) degree. The thing that I loved about the classic Spider-Man/Avengers dynamic was always the "will he" or "won't he" tease of becoming an Avenger over decades. As much as I may have wanted him to be included in the pre-Disassembled/Bendis era, I always felt that it was simply never meant to be, but it was an entertaining topic for fanboys such as myself to debate endlessly. For the record, I never really wanted Spider-Man to be a member, but instead of basing my wants on personal preferences, I had my reasons based on the character itself. Whereas the Avengers mostly interacted with huge threats from New York to alien galaxies, Peter Parker was "your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man". He dealt with the "smaller, but very significant"...

Thickening the Plot: Amazing Spider-Man with Len Wein (ASM #156, ASM #179) Writers need somewhere to stow away ideas, and if they wish to develop them, they have to let the artist depict them. Once they’re on display, development’s in play. Whether we’re talking Len Wein or X-writer successor, Chris Claremont, in the last half of his run on Uncanny X-Men, writers attempt to make space for interesting ideas. An idea on display too soon might seem half-baked; a plot opened too soon might languish in the background without space for development. Writers have to work between the poles of inspiration and creative spontaneity, and seeing concepts through that have begun dramatic play. The more space you make to keep up with ongoing subplots, the more elements you must balance while not losing the individual issue’s dramatic concision: is it a coherent episode on its own? Does the pace of the single episode suffer while moving a main storyline forward? How far apart can these circum...

First, Happy Birthday, Luke McDonnell! Every since I discovered recently he was born July 19th I knew how to break apart the O’Neil run- largely defined by Denny’s work with newbie John Romita, Jr.-and which day to post. It fit neatly with an Alan Kupperberg tribute remembering him on the anniversary of his death, July 17th. It’s interesting to me, anyway, that McDonnell starts superheroes on Spider-Man and goes on to a long Iron Man run, while Romita essential is vice versa. I note this type casting of sorts where, when you need to put characters through a rough time- when you want to tantalize or depict their downfall or hard times-Mr. McDonnell looks like the go-to guy! If you start from putting clean-cut square nebbish Peter Parker in jail, you then get Tony Stark penniless on the streets, the premier DC Comics team Justice League of America in crisis free fall, and end up with an even bigger set of doomed rejects in The Suicide Squad! For my theory about McDonnell’s grimie...

From the start, The Avengers, the Marvel Comic, was created to bring together as many of the company’s big solo stars as possible. His appearance in Captain America: Civil War marked the untangling of difficulties with rights-holder Sony, to allow a Spider-Man to come flipping onto that Berlin battlefield and snatch the shield of no less than Cap himself! A complicated circumstance under which to join any form of Avengers, but a logical one: Stark took a chance on the mystery teen and masterminded his recruitment. His non-adventures afterwards are the set-up to Spider-Man: Homecoming. I love the personally-filmed documentary of Pete’s Berlin mission and even the selfies going into that fight- what better way to reflect how star-struck and still immature Parker still was? With daily texts back to liason Happy Hogan, Pete yearns to break the bonds of his successful but comparatively uneventful scholastic life at Midtown High school. His tendency towards barging in without consult...

Remembering Alan Kupperberg, and the Denny O’Neil Amazing Spider-Man days As I was vividly recalling each page of one of my childhood possessions, Amazing Spider-Man #221, I realized Denny’s run, save for the Deb Whitman subplot, seems very episodic, like television at the time. This simplicity might be one reason his ASM’s not as widely critically regarded, yet I recall his work distinctly. He’s very obsessed with time- the costume change and the trip back for the antidote come to mind-in a way that helps set the drama in detail. He’s blessed with longtime Spider-Man inker Jim Mooney, who keeps things consistent despite numerous fill-ins over an already-promising John Romita, Jr. I think the last time a cover declared the blurb “Crisis On Campus!”- back in ASM #68, was it?-Jim was often inking John Romita, Sr. or Don Heck. From Alan's Custom Comics work One of those fill-ins featured Alan Kupperberg, whose work I want to remember today to mark his passing from this w...

1st Marvels: John Romita, Jr. INVINCIBLE IRON MAN #115 Mantlo’s run becomes history, and Layton/ Michelinie/ Romita makes history Paired with the inker who would notably join him on Uncanny X-Men- Marvel’s best direct market seller- the son of Silver Age Spider-Man artist John Romita followed his namesake over a decade after that future Art Director came to Marvel. I virtually forgot John Romita, Jr. got his first assignment drawing a back-up for Amazing Spider-Man Annual #11 in 1977. His full-book premiere comes in Invincible Iron Man #115, a 1978 issue which, with a few fill-ins, marks his regular tenure there. When new writer and new inker David Michelinie and Bob Layton begin directing Iron Man, next issue, a definitive Bronze Age team comes together, making a modern look and feel for the mechanized marvel that influenced Jon Favreau and his own team on the box-office smash Iron Man movies. But everyone’s got to start somewhere, and it so happens JR, Jr., as he’s often n...