Darwyn Cooke Nearly Did An All-Ages Spider-Man Series for Marvel

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COMIC LEGEND:

Darywn Cooke had an All-Ages line of comics rejected by Marvel.

STATUS:

True

One of the things that Marvel has struggled over the years to do is to come up with successful all-ages versions of their famous superheroes. In fact, in recent years, they have literally begun just farming out those projects to IDW as part of its Marvel Action line of books (which are quite good). In any event, in 2003, Marvel tried something new called Marvel Age. The idea was to re-tell classic stories just done in a modern fashion. Future Marvel Editor-in-Chief C.B. Cebulski wrote Marvel Age Spider-Man...

There was also a Marvel Age Spider-Man. The project didn't really land particularly well, and so a few years later, Marvel was looking to revamp the line.

In the meantime, Marvel had a relatively short-lived series called Spider-Man's Tangled Web, edited by also future (and now past) Marvel Editor-in-Chief, Axel Alonso. The concept of the series was to get really top of the line creators and have them work on out of continuity Spider-Man stories, giving truly "out there" approaches to Spider-Man. The series opened with a bang as Garth Ennis, John McCrea, and James Hodgkins did a three-parter to kick it off and then Greg Rucka and Eduardo Risso REALLY caught everyone's attention with a one-off issue, "Severance Package," spotlighting one of Kingpin's top lieutenants, showing what happens when Spider-Man foils one of Kingpin's criminal operations - what happens to the lieutenant in charge of that crime? What about his family?

The eleventh issue paired Darywn Cooke and J. Bone in a brilliant Valentine's Day issue (where Cooke and Bone introduce two new Daily Bugle reporters who both symbolize different aspects of Peter's life, his quiet, scientific side and his action side). It was excellent.

For Christmas of 2002, Cooke and Bone reunited for an equally brilliant Christmas edition of Tangled Web, this time with Bone on pencils and Cooke on ink (story still by Cooke).

Just excellent work. Well, some time after that, Cooke was approached by Marvel to pitch for a new approach to their All-Ages superhero line of comics. Cooke famously had a lot of thoughts on all-ages comics. He once explained at a 2015 comic convention panel, "If we're talking about mainstream comics, I think there have been a lot of real tactical errors made in this century. I can't really read superhero comics anymore because they're not about superheroes. They've become so dark and violent and sexualized. I think it's a real wrong turn. I don't know how a company like Warner Bros. or Disney is able to rationalize characters raping and murdering and taking drugs and swearing and carrying on the way they do, and those same characters are on sheet sets for 5-year-olds, and pajamas and cartoons. I think there's a really odd and schizophrenic thing that's happened within the industry. Everybody's writing books for themselves. The median age of a creator is probably between 35 and 50 right now. Once they abandoned the notion that these characters were all-ages characters, they really limited the market. I think the bravest and smartest thing one of these companies could do would be to scrap everything they're doing and bring in creative people who would have the talent and were willing to put in the effort it takes to write an all-ages universe that an adult or a child could enjoy," he continued. "If either one of these companies were smart enough to do that, I think they could take huge strides for the industry."

So Cooke got his chance to do just that with Marvel. Here's a piece of art he did for the proposal, with a new, female Scorpion...

However, at that same convention panel, Cooke explained what happened next, "Do you guys remember a line of books called Marvel Adventures? The kids' line? Marvel solicited me to develop that line for them, and I did. I put together a business plan, the line of books, I brought in the other guys. I have so much artwork at home, you would not believe it. They took it all, they said this is fantastic, this is amazing, this is a home run, and then they never called me again. They handed it off to a bunch of other guys. That was the end of my relationship with Marvel. As long as Marvel is who it is right now, I can't work for them."

In 2005, Marvel did move from Marvel Age to Marvel Adventures, all-ages stories now distinct from Marvel continuity (it also launched with Spider-Man and the Fantastic Four. Cebulski was involved again, this time writing Marvel Adventures: Fantastic Four).

There is a famous story about an altercation between Cooke and Axel Alonso at Wizard World Los Angeles in 2005 (various people have claimed it was either an argument that led to Cooke throwing a drink at Alonso or Cooke throwing the drink right away) that likely was tied to this event. Cooke never worked at Marvel again before his tragic passing in 2016.

I am sure that Marvel had a different position on whether Cooke's proposal was one of many and they just chose to go another direction, but the main thing for the sake of this legend is that they DID pass on an all-ages project from Darwyn Cooke, which is still fascinating to imagine.

Thanks to the late, great Darwyn Cooke and CBR's own Josh Bell for the information!