Showing posts with label John Romita. Show all posts
Showing posts with label John Romita. Show all posts

Sunday, 20 November 2016

Amazing Spider-Man (1963) # 425-433, Spectacular Spider-Man (1976) # 249-256, Peter Parker, Spider-Man (1990) # 82-90, Sensational Spider-Man (1996) # 19-26, Spider-Man Unlimited (1993) # 17-19, Marvel Team-Up (1997) # 4-7, Spider-Man and Batman: Disordered Minds (1995), Batman/Spider-Man (1997), Spider-Man/Kingpin: To the Death (1997)


(I originally read these comics in mid May 2016)

Continuing with my post-clone Spidey read...

Any ongoing sub-plots that were distinct to each of the four main Spider-Man titles seem to have fallen by the wayside as the resurrected Norman Osborn muscling in on the Daily Bugle and using it to make Peter's life hell has come to dominate all. As a result of this, we've seen Joe 'Robbie' Robertson uhmm-ing and aah-ing over whether he can continue on as editor, amid pressure from his wife to quit. Spidey previously beat Osborn up - something which Norman engineered to use against him - and Osborn has recently framed Spidey for the murder of some lowlife mob skel. In the 'Spider Hunt' crossover he's now public enemy number one and has a five million dollar bounty on his head, severely impeding his ability to to be a hero. Norman has also employed a new Green Goblin to do his bidding but as yet his identity remains a mystery. Flash Thompson, meanwhile, is recovering from his bout of alcoholism and is employed as Norman's P.A.


  
   
  
  
  


Other plots include Tom DeFalco's inevitable return of Doctor Octopus in Amazing, after the many-limbed one's death during the Clone Saga, and DeMatteis building on the legacy of the villain he memorably killed off as Kraven the Hunter - actually his son Aloysha - makes his presence felt in the pages of Spectacular.


 
 
   
   
  


The two Spider-Man/Batman crossovers - the first published in 1995 - are written by DeMatteis and drawn by Mark Bagley and Graham Nolan, respectively. The second is marginally better than the first, though neither is as good as it should have been. The same can be said of the Spider-Man/Kingpin one-shot, touted as the return of the Stan Lee/John Romita team supreme, thirty years after their heyday. It's enjoyable enough, but Stan's script is somewhat corny (would heroes like Captain America and the Thing so readily assume Spidey had turned killer on the basis of such flimsy evidence?) and Romita's pencils would have benefited from a tighter inker than Dan Green. 

And just so you're not kept awake nights wondering, the "mystery guest star" from Marvel Team-Up # 5 is everybody's favourite cosmic voyeur, the Watcher...


   
   
   
   
   


As an extra, here's the full gatefold cover of Spectacular Spider-Man # 250, by the father/son combo of John Romita and John Romita Jr.




Sensational Spider-Man (1996) # 19-24 are collected in:

 Softcover:
Spider-Man by Todd DeZago and Mike Wieringo (US)
Spider-Man by Todd DeZago and Mike Wieringo (UK)

Spider-Man and Batman: Disordered Minds (1995) is collected in:

Softcover:

Batman/Spider-Man (1997) is collected in:

Softcover:

Peter Parker, Spider-Man (1990) # 88-90, Spectacular Spider-Man (1976) # 254-256, Sensational Spider-Man (1996) # 25/26 and Amazing Spider-Man (1963) # 432/433 are collected in:

Softcover:



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Thursday, 22 September 2016

Fantastic Four (1961) # 104-125


(I originally read these comics in late July 2015)

I read the Lee/Kirby FF at least a couple of years back and thought I should get around to picking up the post-Kirby era, with art by Johns Romita and Buscema. They're comparable to Kirby's last twenty or so less inspired issues on the title, but not his best. Stan Lee soldiers on, but they're definitely missing something. The only new characters of note are the Over-Mind, who doesn't seem to pose nearly as dire a threat as the characters would have you believe, and Gabriel the Air-Walker, Galactus' latest herald, revealed as a robot (*yawn*) after two drawn-out issues of battle. This time the Big G has come to reclaim the Silver Surfer after long since condemning him to earth. I guess a good herald is hard to come by, as Gabriel clearly wasn't it. There's also the introduction of Janus the Nega-Man in a confusing story cobbled together from leftover Kirby pages (issue # 108). Brief returns from Doom, Annihilus and Diablo (unseen since # 35) don't add up to much and it's clear an air of predictability has settled over the title; there's another doomed attempt to cure Ben, another Thing vs. Hulk slugfest, etc... 

Issue # 119 is pretty good, however, with Roy Thomas attempting some of that oh-so-hip early '70s social relevance in a story where the FF must rescue T'Challa, the Black Panther (here having temporarily renamed himself 'The Black Leopard'), from imprisonment in a segregated African nation. Thomas takes over as writer full-time from issue # 126 onwards. 

These issues are moderately entertaining, but they seem a long way from the title's peak five or six years prior.


   
   
   
   
  
  


Fantastic Four (1961) # 104-110 are collected in:

Softcover:

Fantastic Four (1961) # 104 is collected in:

Hardcover:

Softcover:

Fantastic Four (1961) # 105-116 are collected in:

Hardcover:

Fantastic Four (1961) # 105/106 are collected in:

Hardcover:

Fantastic Four (1961) # 111-125 are collected in:

Softcover:

Fantastic Four (1961) # 111/112 are collected in:

Hardcover:

Fantastic Four (1961) # 116 is collected in:

Hardcover:

Fantastic Four (1961) # 117-125 are collected in:

Hardcover:

Fantastic Four (1961) # 119 is collected in:

Hardcover:



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