THE SPECTACULAR JOHN ROMITA SR. AND THE SENSATIONAL JOHN ROMITA JR. BY TOM SPURGEON It was the biggest gamble in comics history. At stake was the future of Marvel Comics. At its heart was John Romita Sr. The year was 1966. The comic book company owned by pulp magazine impresario Martin Goodman and operated by his cousin-by-marriage Stan Lee was in the midst of a startling creative and sales renaissance. Having gone by many names and now known as Marvel Comics, Goodman’s four-color funnybook line had begun to innovate in a field in which they had served as slavish imitators of the latest trends for the previous two decades. The anchor of Marvel’s new superhero effort was Stan Lee and Jack Kirby’s awesome adventure comic Fantastic Four. But in many ways the heart of Marvel Comics in 1966 was the title Amazing Spider-Man. Telling the story of a young superhero who struggled with the burdens and responsibilities of his special abilities, Lee’s scripts were brought to astonishing life by industry veteran Steve Ditko, who soon also co-plotted the stories. Ditko’s artwork was authentic and breathable; his Peter Parker in equal measure suffered the palpable miseries of his teenage years and enjoyed the thrills and physical escape provided by his superhero identity. In a move so surprising that the shock and mystery of it hasn’t worn away 45 years later, Ditko left Marvel and his unique place within its growing talent roster. Spider-Man needed a new creative hand, a new artistic voice. That job fell to relatively new Marvel recruit John Romita Sr. Romita came through in spectacular fashion. After a few tentative issues on Amazing SpiderMan where he later admitted he hewed too closely to what Ditko had accomplished, Romita settled into one of the signature art and story runs in superhero comics history. There were indications that Romita might make it work. In 1966, Romita was already an experienced superhero comic book artist with a passion for costumed adventure material. He had come back to Marvel, a company he had departed from in the late 1950s, in part for a crack at doing material in the superhero genre. John Romita wasn’t about to let this chance pass him by, whether it was on a title like Daredevil or under the much harsher spotlight provided by May Parker’s devoted nephew, Peter. Romita’s late 1950s and early 1960s experience as a stalwart of industry leader DC Comics’ romance line helped immensely in this new gig. The Romita Spider-Man was surrounded not just by attractively drawn and well-designed bad guys but by beautiful young women that became strong love interests, characters like Gwen Stacy and Mary Jane 36 COMIC-CON ANNUAL 2012
Watson, the latter a supporting character for the ages that Romita nailed into the consciousness of comics fans from her very first appearance. Nearly as beautiful in his own way as the women of Amazing Spider-Man was Romita’s Peter Parker. Like many of the readers of the 1960s Marvel Comics, the Peter Parker character had settled into his own younger adulthood at some considerable distance from his uncertain high school years. Romita’s Parker dressed more fashionably. He dated, and danced, and even for a time rode a motorcycle.
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Art by John Romita Sr. for the 1975 San Diego Comic-Con Souvenir Book Romita had in his time away from superhero comic books learned to stage comics as well as any comic book cartoonist had before or after. His pages were perfectly balanced, and in every scene the characters were placed in physical proximity to one another in a way that was clear and attractive. As was the case with the best directors on Broadway, Romita’s scene work was impeccable. Whether Spider-Man faced a physical confrontation or Peter Parker an emotional one, readers quickly picked up
on the stakes from how the characters physically related to one another. Every page was potent. The John Romita Sr. run on Amazing Spider-Man cinched its main character’s slow climb into the licensing and publishing major leagues and all but made certain Marvel’s eventual market dominance starting in the 1970s and for the majority of the years since. Romita Sr. proved that Marvel was more than its initial, stellar lineup of creators and potent roster of characters. His rise showed that Marvel Comics embodied an approach to storytelling that could flourish under multiple devoted hands. Romita, who had come to Marvel quietly in 1965 and seemed destined for a series of assignments providing pencil art on secondary characters slightly out of the spotlight, had become Marvel Comics’s most valuable player in its most vital era. In the 1970s and 1980s, Romita became even more crucial to Marvel’s growing success. He began to share Spider-Man penciling duties and eventually moved off the title altogether (although not without story and art contributions to a defining storyline of that era, featuring the death of the Gwen Stacy character). Romita settled into a Marvel staff position, providing guidance in the production of Marvel’s line and cementing the look and presentation of its characters for a wider audience. When Spider-Man appeared as a balloon in the Macy’s parade, it was from a design by John Romita. When the character reached out to young readers through a publishing partnership with the Children’s Television Workshop, it was John Romita’s art that captured those kids’ imaginations. When the wider audience represented by newspaper strips experienced Marvel in that time-honored way, it was through the pen of John Romita Sr. Posters, costume designs, record albums, and a continuing array of comic book covers— all of these things bore Romita’s touch as Marvel steamrolled into a publishing and licensing phenomenon, first drawing the attention of Hollywood through which the company may be best known today. In the years leading up to his retirement, Romita progressed from the company’s most valuable player to the avatar of its artistic lifeblood. His is a remarkable legacy. The greatest contribution Romita may have given Marvel Comics was, with wife Virginia, the talent and devotion of his son and namesake John Romita, Jr.—a name sometimes shortened in Stan Lee banter-speak to “JR JR.” The senior Romita’s move into production and special projects and away from monthly comic book making didn’t mean the Marvel line was no longer graced with the Romita