Ferret Press/PANEL Weblog

I've mentioned before in a previous post regarding Gil Kane's Spider-Man comics: he and Andru breathed so much life into Spider-Man's New York City that it became a supporting character itself, far more even than Batman's Gotham. I had a sense of an almost real Rockefeller Plaza and Times Square from the issues in which Ross had carried the story's action through those settings. He didn't blow my mind like Kirby or Steranko later would, he just created a world with an amazing sense of visual depth and space for my childhood fantasies to be played out in. Add to that his wonderfully down-to-earth figure drawing (that panel of Spidey running on the ferris wheel-- really looks like a guy running on a ferris wheel. I don't know how else to verbalize it)-- and it felt like I wasn't being drawn into Ross' world; he was illustrating mine.

This particular issue is noteworthy for another reason: it was my introduction to a few of Len Wein's other creations, the all-new, all-different X-Men. Just a few months old themselves, one of their characters drops in on Spider-Man's title to try to draw a little attention to their own struggling little mag. It was 1976, and even for Marvel this was one screwed up group of characters calling themselves super-heroes, incredibly bizarre in appearance and kind of scary. During the glory days of the Byrne/Cockrum years, that was my favorite book, and Nightcrawler was probably my favorite character because of the introduction I received here. To top it all off, this is one of my favorite superhero battles between a couple of well-matched power sets and two of the coolest character designs ever. Len Wein even throws in the Punisher, who at this point was a cool supporting character rather than the overbearing and obnoxious presence he would later become.

Our story goes like this:a serial sniper is on the loose, and his latest victim was a friend of Kurt Wagner's from his circus days. He tracks the killer to Coney Island where Peter Parker and his girlfriend Mary Jane are spending the afternoon, only to witness the next murder. The murderer escapes, but Nightcrawler recovers the gun... just as Spider-Man appears, mistaking the mutant for the killer. Spider-Man photographs the inconclusive tussle that follows, so the X-Man must track him down for a rematch in order to destroy the evidence of his existance. The issue ends on a cliffhanger as the two are interrupted by the Punisher, who is certain one of them knows something about the killings.

One last word on Ross Andru, from the letters page of ASM # 169:

"...Not since Ditko has there been as conscientious a penciler on the strip, nor one as successful at capturing the mood and style that made the strip the most popular of them all. Comic-book fans are rarely as appreciative of honest craftsmanship as of flashy techniques or special effects, so the care and skill Mr. Andru have brought to the strip have largely gone unnoticed. ...Presently, Mr. Andru's work is second only to John Buscema's in the Marvel line."

The letter is signed by an aspiring artist named Frank Miller.