John Romita Sr., one of the creators of the famous Spiderman series character ‘Mary Jane Watson‘ passed away yesterday at the age of 93. His demise was announced by his son John Romita Jr. on Twitter yesterday. The comic artist and co-creator of one of famous Marvel characters like Wolverine, Mary Jane Watson, and the Punisher are some of his famous iconic characters that are still remembered by Marvel fans.
“I say this with a heavy heart, my father passed away peacefully in his sleep,” he wrote. “He is a legend in the art world, and it would be my honor to follow in his footsteps. Please keep your thoughts and condolences here out of respect for my family. He was the greatest man I ever met.”-according to THR.
Stan Lee and John Romita Sr. on The Amazing Spider Man
John Romita Sr., back in 1947 served in the U.S. Army and started on comics at the age of 19 and were published in Eastern Color’s Famous Funnies. Later he juggled between DC and Marvel(Timely Comics and National Comics), writing comics in romance.
In 1966 John worked with Stan Lee, the Editor in chief and co-created The Amazing Spider-Man. He brought a love angle in Spider-Man by introducing ‘Mary Jane Watson‘ and the supervillain ‘Kingpin‘. During this time Romita’s character in Spider-Man overtook Fantastic Four and become Marvel’s best selling character and our spider-boy become the face of the company.
In 1972, John became the art director of Marvel and contributed to the design of some of the iconic character like Luke Cage, the Punisher and Wolverine. He serves two-decades as the art director and in 1987’s The Amazing Spider-Man Annual No. 21, Peter Parker and Mary Jane got married.
Marvel And DC Projects
After leaving Marvel in 1996, which eventually became a pseudo-retirement, he did multiple Spider-Man-related projects for Marvel as well as a designed Superman cover for DC, completing half-century in comic writing.
In many interviews Romita reflected a regret of not being born as the first generation of writers and comic book artists but took pride in building many famous characters.
“No matter what success I’ve had, I’ve always considered myself a guy who can improve on somebody else’s concepts,” he said in 2002. “A writer and another artist can create something, and I can make it better.”- he said in comic reporter
