Jul 11, 2017
Spider-Man #2 (September 1990). Todd McFarlane (Artist/Writer), Rick Parker (Letters), Bob Sharen (Colors), Jim Salicrup (Editor), Tom DeFalco (Editor-In-Chief).
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Spider-Man #2 (September 1990). Todd McFarlane (Artist/Writer), Rick Parker (Letters), Bob Sharen (Colors), Jim Salicrup (Editor), Tom DeFalco (Editor-In-Chief).
Spider-Man #6 (January 1991). Todd McFarlane (Writer/Artist), Rick Parker (Letters), Gregory Wright (Colors), Jim Salicrup (Editor), Tom DeFalco (Chief).
Spider-Man #2 (September 1990). Todd McFarlane (Artist/Writer), Rick Parker (Letters), Bob Sharen (Colors), Jim Salicrup (Editor), Tom DeFalco (Editor-In-Chief).
Spider-Man #8 (March 1991). Todd McFarlane (Writer/Artist), Rick Parker (Letters), Gregory Wright (Colors), Jim Salicrup (Editor), Tom DeFalco (Chief).
Spider-Man #1 (August 1990). Todd McFarlane (Artist/Writer), Rick Parker (Letters), Bob Sharen (Colors), Jim Salicrup (Editor), Tom DeFalco (Editor-In-Chief).
The first issue of Todd McFarlane’s famous, (or infamous) adjectiveless Spider-Man monthly book, a comic that was essentially willed into existence by McFarlane’s popularity and his desire for more creative control. I haven’t read these books closely since they originally came out back when I was a kid. This take on Spider-Man is super interesting in hindsight, and especially compared to the younger, more humble Spider-Man we tend to see in films and cartoons. In McFarlane’s hands, Peter Parker is an unapologetic, confident, super-powered “yuppie” who lives in SoHo with his supermodel wife.
The opening pages contrast the superheroic Spider-Man at ease among the “concrete towers” of Manhattan, residing in a metropolitan Olympus while the rabble of the city scurry below. The street-level city scenes in this New York are dark, violent, and infested with predators. News of a triple homicide blares across the front page of The Daily Bugle. McFarlane’s New York City is more at home with Death Wish than the Lee/Ditko era, or the “grim n’ gritty” images of Gotham in Batman comics from the late 1980s (and McFarlane worked on Batman: Year Two back in 1987) . I remember thinking that the writer/artist’s transition to Spawn seemed abrupt and weird compared to his work on Spider-Man, the “Torment” storyline is particularly dark. Even the moments of comedy have an edge to them: at one point Spidey warns a captured mugger to breathe through his nose since his webs "can taste pretty hideous.” This is a Spider-Man who laughs at his own jokes in a city where there’s not much to laugh about if you’re not a superhero.
Spider-Man #6 (January 1991). Todd McFarlane (Writer/Artist), Rick Parker (Letters), Gregory Wright (Colors), Jim Salicrup (Editor), Tom DeFalco (Chief).
Spider-Man taunts a drug addict in an alley by webbing him up and then pouring his pile of drugs (likely angel dust) out in front of him. I don’t think this scene was in Spider-Man: Homecoming but maybe they’re saving it for the sequel.
Spider-Man #3 (October 1990). Todd McFarlane (Artist/Writer), Rick Parker (Letters), Bob Sharen (Colors), Jim Salicrup (Editor), Tom DeFalco (Editor-In-Chief).
For the opening to his third issue, McFarlane again kicks things off with a description of New York City. This time he returns to the imagery of the city from his first issue: Manhattan’s buildings are “quiet,” “unfeeling,” and “unaware” of the lives that surround and inhabit them. The idea that the city is more a collection of “barricades” and “protectors” seems in line with the violence in this book, which consistently takes place in the open and unshielded spaces of streets and alleys. McFarlane’s city is a testament to modernity “reaching heights unimaginable,” but his New York also continues to be a scary, almost medieval place, more fortress than metropolis.
Spider-Man #2 (September 1990). Todd McFarlane (Artist/Writer), Rick Parker (Letters), Bob Sharen (Colors), Jim Salicrup (Editor), Tom DeFalco (Editor-In-Chief).
I would love to know if the front of this “fabulous” NYC nightclub is based on a real place. There was a bar named Trixie’s on West 47th that would have been open in 1990: judging from these write-ups in People and the New York Times, this could be what McFarlane based his club on. In any case, I like this brief glimpse of MJ out on the town.