"uh, who’s steven levins?" "steven levins is - was - a local boy made bad."
...
(in some alt universe TAS spider-man actually made it to the point, where classic jack was inproduced. but since it's not that universe, i will use my imagination.
at first, i wanted to draw the mad jack as TAS's version of classic jack o' lantern. but then i thought about it some more an' figured, that they prob would have either made jason change 'outfits' an' rebrand from hobgoblin to jack *since in the comics, he's the one who come up with jack's alias, anyways* or most likely would have given that role to steven levins. at least, from what i've seen, it looks like most people generally associate classic jack o' lantern with macendale or steven foremost, an' then recall that there were other guys, who wore that costume. so my bets, in the end, were placed on steven.
*not to meantion, that my own first exposure to marvel's jack o' lantern happened via 2006 ghost rider's comics, where the devil possesed steven's corpse. so yeah. i'm kinda bias here. steven was the marvel's jack o' lantern, who started it all for me. makes sense to pay him some sort of tribute.*
anyhow, thinking about all of that lead me to a rather funny realization: steven is the only jack o' lantern, whose face was never shown. i mean, daniel's face changed like 3 times during his comic rans, but at least, there was smth to go from. yet, steven's face *to my knowlege* still remains a mystery. not that it would have mattered much in TAS tbf. they had re-imagined both macendale an' mysterio, along with vulture an' a few other characters, regadrless of how they looked in the comics. so i didn't feel all that shy to take a liberty with this one as well! steven is a southern boy, so idk, i thought that he might be sandy blond just bc? he could have been a redhead as well, like macendale, since male ginger villains were hella popular during 90s animated series *once again proves my point, why that era was literally one of the best for superhero media in general* but i wanted to 'spice' things up, so for a first draft of my version of levins, he can be a blondie for now lol. esp since similiar to macendale *an' honestly, almost all goblinoids*, he's pretty much a male thot, so his hair color doesn't change much in grand scheme of things.
now, i have a lil experience with taking canonical characters with very little info or vague set ups n’ 'propping' them up via my own stories, so i thought, why not do the same with steven? this might be a fun challenge. not to mention, that i’m planning on starting on a pet project of mine this year, which is basically a collection of a few, fairly short stories featuring spidey an’ his rogues, who i ship him with. an’ since there are a few classic jacks, who spidey had a contact with, i set my eyes on steven as primary candidate. partly, bc i'm intrigued to play around with less fleshed out character vs mad jack, who already had a motivation an' well-established gimmick. an' it feels like there had to be some joke about a guy from quince an' dude from texas. not sure how to describe this fee-fee lol.
but ah, my rambling aside, when i drawn the first art, i mostly thought about how jason an’ steven would hate one another almost instantly. be it comicverse or TAS. esp if it came to which one of them will put a ‘claim’ on spidey first. be it in a way of killing him an’ taking the bounty or like, just them being weird about him. bc they’d be weird about him after awhile. peter is unfortunately a sadist’s wet dream. an’ those two are both ruthless an’ sadistic, so they’d have their eyes on dashing web-hero in no time. then, harry just kinda happened. i wasn't planning on drawing him lol. i guess, i still subconsciously feel some sort of way about him being shoved aside by the plot, before he could even properly play his role as new green goblin. either way, unlike steven an’ macendale, harry doesn't have any ‘romantic’ agenda with peter per say, he just likes to see him suffer, since he’s still mad about his only friend lying to him an’ his father also kinda idk, kicking the bucket 'bc of him'. regardless, i imagine that harry is the one, who glued the whole thing together, coming up with a plan on how to catch spider-man with the help of his two ‘new friends'. an’ catch him they did. now, if only they knew how to share. like, harry is alright with it, but the other two assholes are clearly not.
an' that art was what basically made me start drawing steven separately, as my thoughts wandered an' wandered. i've already said somewhere *i think?* but the classic jack o' lantern could have been a very interesting adding to spidey's rogue gallery, if at least one show or one comic series kept on establishing motives an' set ups for him. in a way, the sheer fact, that he's never had any specifically set in stone agenda helps here a lot. kinda a whole reason why agent venom's jack worked so well. in fact, i'd say that this why TAS macendale also works hella well. conceptually an' characteristics wise, he's still very much the mirror of comicverse jason, but they added him a couple of new traits, or well, mostly they just gave him a working brain tbh. an' now, there is steven. one of few villains, who canonically nearly killed spider-man. a villain who used poisons an' hallucinogenic toxins. like come on. it could have been a field to play around with!
like, i know some people complain about hobgoblin an' jack being similar to green goblin, but it's such a surface level assesment, considering that all of those characters tended to have different goals. their personal interactions with peter were also different. even if i kinda love the haunting fact, that following certain comic rans, steven, macendale an' osborns are all die under peter's watch. yet, all of them also keep returning from the grave lol. steven quite literally crawled out of his at one point.
i also have a feeling, like spidey hang out with his goblinoids way more during 90s vs nowdays, which is a pity.)
