Customer Reviews

Marvel Visionaries: John Romita Sr.

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Overall this book gives a very good review of Romita's main work.

The main sampling is from Spider-man. Half of the 22 stories are related to or feature Spider-Man. Including the main ones I consider the most important #39-40 Romita's 1st issues of spider-Man and versus the Green Goblin, #42 1st Mary Jane or at least where we can see her, #50 classic cover and intro of the Kingpin. Also included is the Daredevil #16-17 Romita's first Spider-Man art (he would take of Spider-man's book a copuple of months latter) and Captain America #138 which features a Spider-Man crossover.

As for my complaints:

There is no commentary other than an intro from Romita JR.

Some of the stories: TTA #77 and TOS #77 are penciled over Kirby layouts which takes away from the Romita look. If they are going to do this they could have had the death of Gwen Stacy, which Romita inked over Gil Kane, but it looked much more like Romita's work than these two and from my understanding he was involved in the decision to kill off Gwen. Another two stories that I do not know why they were included are Strange Tales #4 and Menence #6. These stories could have been replaced by the Femizon story which I think is one of, if the not the best Romita work ever done.

Some of the coloring looks like watercolors, bright in one spot and dark in another. It is really bad on Spider-Man #39 with skin tones and the Goblin's cosume fading in and out really badly.

Lastly there is a nice drawing Romita did and painted over by Alex Ross showing the characters Romita helped design or introduce. Mary Jane is in the center where the pages meet, so it is hard to see her and she is split in half. I wish they had put the sketch on one page and a fold out page so that the picture wouldn't be split in two.