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Legendary comic artist John Romita has died at the age of 93 of natural causes. The news was shared on Twitter by his son and fellow comics luminary John Romita, Jr.
Romita was best known for his decades long tenure at Marvel Comics where he worked not just as a monthly superhero artist, but as the publisher's art director for many years.
Romita joined Marvel in 1965, taking over art duties on Daredevil. But just a short time later in 1966, Romita took over as the artist of Amazing Spider-Man with #39 following co-creator Steve Ditko's departure.
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Romita's addition to Spider-Man immediately began to redefine the character's look and the look of his world. Though Romita paid due respect to Ditko's formative work and his impeccable and enduring design, his take on Peter Parker and his alter ego became immediately more charismatic, and brought Amazing Spider-Man to the top of the charts as Marvel's best selling comic.
Eschewing the characteristic weirdness of Ditko's style, Romita channeled the familiar charm of the romance comics he had previously drawn for DC into his Spider-Man stories, redefining the sci-fi fueled superhero fare he drew as melodramatic soap operas with a human heart.
Along the way, Romita also became known for his beautiful renditions of female characters such as Gwen Stacy and Mary Jane Watson, solidifying his reputation as an artist who could perfectly balance both the superhero and human sides of the equation.
Romita's Peter Parker became as iconic as his rendition of Spider-Man, streamlining and stylizing both aspects of the character to develop versions of both Peter and his alter ego that have become his definitive look for many years since, with several of Romita's Spider-Man covers going on to become some of the most well-known and recognizable Spider-Man drawings ever.
In the late '60s, Romita began working as Marvel's unofficial art director, a position he took officially in 1971, shortly after he departed Amazing Spider-Man, helping define the company's house style through the '70s and '80s and ensuring that for his take on Spider-Man would be the one known to generations of fans not just in comics, but across other media as well, where his designs were adapted.
In his later years, Romita remained synonymous with Spider-Man, even as his son John Romita, Jr. began drawing the character, defining his own enduring take on the hero which has lasted to this day as the current penciler of Amazing Spider-Man.
For all this and more, John Romita is the definitive Spider-Man artist, taking what Steve Ditko co-created and molding it into the version of the hero that has informed all other takes on Peter Parker and his adventures since.
John Romita had a hand in some of the best Spider-Man stories of all time.
