It's not where I first noticed it, but going back across Stern's run, this is the first place you see it, when the Black Cat targets purveyors of black market high art. ASM # 232 Mister Hyde stalks the Cobra Then you have Tarantula picking up where Cobra left off. Cobra chasing down Nose Norton was yet another instance: ASM #231. Ned Leeds and Marla Madison are caught in the middle of this one! Then, Ben Urich's caught up when Tarantula picks up the trail. So Norton is sort of the second hunted villain in a story line, in that someone besides the cops or Spidey is tracking a character who we'd agree is not deliberately on the side of angels. But the next storyline has even more villains chasing each other. Will O' the Wisp returns for revenge against Brand and ends up fighting their latest, fatal experiment. Tarantula's transformation scared the heck out of me! I just got to peep a few pages while I waited on Mom at the grocery store. I didn...

Denny O'Neil always said he needed to relate to the heroes he wrote, and Tony Stark was more-or-less antithetical to Denny's values as a social crusading Catholic and veteran of the Bay of Pigs conflict in 1962.   But Stark shared a vulnerablity Denny understood intimately.  So, the mainstream superheroics are given human dramatic stakes by Tony's manipulation by O'Neil creation Obadiah Stane, back into sorrows of the bottle and self-loathing.  Now, Denny had two stories to tell, with down-to-Earth James Rhodes standing in as Iron Man.  Now one of Marvel's best-known heroes- maybe the highest-profile character who could be tried this way- was a Black American, but most of all, a loyal friend, with a different approach and skillset to bring to the twenty year-old character.  Here's my podcast, with limited space remaining, quickly hitting the key insights I uncovered.  It really must've been torture to see Tony, and eventually Rhodey, in their personal d...

Some well-done, street-level adventure comics, here. Blind attorney Matt Murdock's the Devil of Hell's Kitchen in Frank Miller's tone-changing run, an echo of the approach in Denny O'Neil's Batman stories a decade earlier.  That's, of course, a Barry Windsor-Smith cover- the coloring gives it away, right? Ever realize Denny pioneered the 'secret identity slip' that keyed in Miller's Born Again  storyline with Mazzuchelli?   Art: Klaus Janson  First as editor, then as writer, here's some insights about what made Denny's Daredevil, click. And on Apple: Creatng Marvels: Daredevil

Ordeals! Lefty Donovan cruelly leaves the once-heavily-armed crew with whom he stole chemicals to die in burning creosote-soaked timbers. I’m reminded the Hobgoblin mystery’s tension comes from his devious schemes and ability to murder people for his goals! Realistically, he’s still hurt from the first battle with Spider-Man, seems, so using other pawns would be a way to move forward anyway-but he’s also setting up Donovan to BE the Hobgoblin AND to be his test subject for the Goblin serum. Enjoying that the Hobgoblin will be Out There for me these October, 2017 nights, so this can become a time ol’ Fright Face can make memorable, as when I was only ten! His hood and mask make him like a living totem of some horrid demon, beyond the grave and madness. The Goblin takes over the minds of men with this equipment’s power and ruthless destructive power. Something makes them fashion their lives and plans around a secret existence of villainy. The avatar, this time, moves fr...

Does the world really need me to make a book about 80’s Spider-Man, cartoons, video games- all of it? I’ll admit freely, if that was paying work, it sounds divine! But who knows. Just like, who knows who is this mystery Osborn Industries prowler, with the dangerous idea to utilize Norman Osborn’s instruments of mayhem- and possibly, the secret of Spider-Man, too? One point worth making: Stern’s underscored how he thinks of the Spider-Sense as Spidey’s unique, defining, most useful power. He’s provided his own set-up for Hobby robbing Spidey of that one secret, most crucial ability. If you’ve been reading all along, he’s set up the more assured, experienced Spider-Man to end his run with the most nuanced, multi-layered challenge yet! Three story lines mingle with the Hobgoblin mystery to provide texture, to build suspense and provide a passage of time the villain uses to grow as a threat. You have the Amy Powell scheme to mix Peter into her open relationship games with his...

Part One asks what has been special about choosing to become a comics creator, to the man who broke in as regular Spider-man artist with maybe fandom's most beloved short story! Ron had drawn KA-ZAR, STAR WARS, and some issues of MARVEL TEAM-UP when he was tapped to turn Roger Stern's dream into the eleven page "The Kid Who Collects Spider-Man." Now we revisit its creation with Ron, who talks about stewardship of long-time characters, but also introduces us to his very latest co-creation (with TV comedy writer Darin Henry): The Blue Baron, from Sitcomics (click and see!) (And it's inked by Our Pal Sal Buscema, can you dig it?) (It's not the Swing Era Band Leader, lol, but it's pretty swingin'!) Darin wrote on Seinfeld as assistant and did in fact write a few episodes, too, to say nothing of his work of Futurama ('nuff said!). And Ron? Only the long-time artist on Thor, Spider-Girl, and so much more in a thirty-five year career, doncha kn...

My well-documented love for the Marvel Comics Group of 1983 led me to collect all those issues I could find! I started collecting regularly at the end of that year, with Marvel Team-Up #138, then Marvel Tales #170, then Amazing Spider-Man #250 together opening my way into the Marvel Universe of that era! So: the Sandman goes straight, Roger Stern and John Romita, Jr. with Klaus Janson bring the Hobgoblin mystery to its fever pitch, and Stan Lee and Steve Ditko, from 1965, begin what some call their magnum opus on the title they created together, the Amazing Spider-Man #31---that month's Marvel Tales reprint. (for me: it had really come out in September and might have been the first of these comics I collected at Len's Kwik Shop, two blocks from home.) How cool! Marvel Tales reprinted all fifty of Spider-Man's first issues plus his origin and three annuals. No, the writing didn't feel modern, but I allowed for that: still was I young enough to enjoy the suspense...