Comics History Lesson: A Black Spider-Man

Peter Parker Spider-Man #35 Jan. 1999

Written by Paul Jenkins with art by Mark Buckingham. This issue came out around MLK Jr Day of ‘99 and is notable for being the one page in recorded history featuring a black Spider-Man (predating Miles Morales, who’s black and hispanic, by 11 years). This makes it even more disappointing that Donald Glover wasn’t the new Spider-Man, because no one could say it hadn’t been done before.

Jenkins wrote issues #20-#50 of Peter Parker Spider-Man and it’s a very enjoyable run. The best read since the height of the Lee/Romita days (not counting all the various limited series). I used to own this issue and I wished I still did. 

True To The Source Material: Alex Ross

MARVELS was a graphic novel put out by Marvel with art by Alex Ross. It was also a fine example of re-creating an exact scene from the comic it was based on almost perfectly.

Below is a side by side comparison of how close he got. Above is the original lay-out by Jack Kirby for the Galactus Trilogy and underneath is the re-created page by Alex Ross. Pretty faithful to Kirby's original page, huh?