Every week, we'll tap one creator to browse Marvel Digital Comics Unlimited and pick some of their favorite work from the expansive catalog. This week: AMAZING SPIDER-MAN writer Dan Slott flips through his current artistic collaborator John Romita Jr.'s extensive and celebrated body of work:
"Wow. Having someone ask you to pick books for a [John Romita Jr.] spotlight is like having them ask you to pick the best works of art from
the Louvre! This an immense and ongoing body of work that has produced nothing but hits! But here goes...
"
AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #229 and #
#230, "Nothing Can Stop the Juggernaut!" This is one of my top five favorite Spidey stories of all time. [Writer] Roger Stern's script put Spidey against a literal "irresistible object." and John's pencils conveyed both the awesome, unstoppable might of Cain Marko, and the never-say-die spirit of Spider-Man. If you love Spidey, you owe it to yourself to read this story again and again and again.
"
PUNISHER WAR ZONE #1. Nobody does a grittier, meaner, son-of-a-you-know-what version of Frank Castle than JR JR! John really knows how to draw characters that are positively bursting with power, and you can't help but see that in his awesome runs on HULK, THOR, and IRON MAN. But to me, there's nothing more raw, intimidating, and forceful than when he draws the Punisher leaping down from above with both guns blazing. The first issue of WAR ZONE is here at
Marvel Digital Comics Unlimited, but you really should hunt down all of [writer] Chuck Dixon and John's issues. This is
great stuff!
"
DAREDEVIL: THE MAN WITHOUT FEAR #1. Some creators are meant to work on certain characters. And some, like John Romita Jr., are meant to work on
all of them! But there's no denying that some kind of magic happens whenever he draws Matt Murdock and his alter-ego, Daredevil. Every page of this project, of this whole [limited series], is a masterpiece.
"All of these are books are waiting for you here at
Marvel Digital Comics Unlimited, but since I've got the Marvel.Com guys' ears, I've got a big suggestion. Any chance of getting AMAZING SPIDER-MAN v2 #35 through #38 up here? To me, those four issues represent the pinacle of the legedary [J. Michael Straczynski]/JR JR run. Aunt May finally learns that Peter is Spider-Man. The storytelling, how the
characters interact with each other, everything about these issues is pitch perfect. This is a story that should be read without a single interuption. But that wasn't the case.
"Part way through, the creators stopped to tell a story about 9/11. New York has always been one of the most imporant "characters" in Spider-Man's world. And during one of New York's most painful moments in history, when real heroes, New York's Finest and New York's Bravest, answered the call, JMS and JR JR told a very special story of how one of Marvel's super heroes would have felt, lived, and helped on that day. As a reader and a New Yorker, that was an important story, and I greatly appreciate not just that it was told, but that craftsmen like JMS and JR JR told it well."
Check out more John Romita Jr. at Marvel Digital Comics Unlimited
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