Here is the latest in our year-long look at one cool comic (whether it be a self-contained work, an ongoing comic or a run on a long-running title that featured multiple creative teams on it over the years) a day (in no particular order whatsoever)! Here's the archive of the moments posted so far!
Today we take a look at Len Wein's run on Amazing Spider-Man....
Enjoy!
Gerry Conway finished a very memorable run on Amazing Spider-Man with #150 (the conclusion of the original Clone Saga), and Len Wein came on to the book with the very next issue, and boy did he join up with a bang!
Paired with penciler Ross Andru (and for the most part, inker Mike Esposito), Wein embarked on a thirty-issue run that was filled with action, humor and character-focused stories.
The run kicked off with a classic John Romita Sr. cover...
That story has what has since been a standard plot approach for writers starting on a book like Spider-Man, do a cool revamp on a minor character.
Here, Wein makes The Shocker into a serious threat, leading into a great cliffhanger for his first issue...
Did you know that Ross Andru used to get a lot of crap for his Spider-Man artwork? Isn't that nuts? The guy's awesome!
Although, admittedly, he was a lot better at the action stuff than he was at the character stuff, but still, it wasn't that his character work was BAD, just that his action stuff was SOOOO good.
Wein did good work during his run continuing the strong foundation that Gerry Conway had laid for the Peter/Mary Jane relationship...
In one of his early issues, Wein had a touching moment with a former football star rushing (literally) to save his daughter's life. It's quite heartfelt. Check it out...
Wein had a fun multi-part story involving the return of Doctor Octopus and the "ghost" of Hammerhead...
During that story, Wein had a particularly strong sequence where he had Spidey fall from a helicopter. He and Andru really outdid themselves on this sequence...
During Wein's run, he had Betty Brant and Ned Leeds marry, he had Liz Allen and Harry Obsorn get engaged, and he also introduced Dr. Marla Madison, who later became J. Jonah Jameson's wife...
By the way, it's funny how background characters like Marla have almost zero consistency in how they're drawn over the years. It's striking to see how different Marla has been drawn over the years.
In that same issue, Wein had the Lizard fight Stegron the mothereffin' Dinosaur Man!!! That's enough for ANYone's run to be awesome!
But Wein ALSO gave us the Rocket Racer...
And Punisher versus Spider-Man versus Hitman (with J. Jonah Jameson as a hostage) on the Statue of Liberty!!!
Talk about an awesome set-piece!
Wein's run ended with a sprawling Green Goblin arc that was good...
This is not even mentioning the powerful Kingpin arc, the first appearance of Nightcrawler outside of the X-Men books and a lot of other great stuff!
This was one hell of a run! I wish it had lasted even longer!