C8
movies
Drawn to
Fanfare Q
greatness
BY FRANK LOVECE
Y
Special to Newsday
our friendly
neighborhood
Spider-Man,
who famously
lives in Forest
Hills, Queens,
visits Europe in
newsday.com
“Spider-Man: Far From Home,”
opening Tuesday. And one of
the character’s star comic-
book artists makes his own
home in a friendly neighbor-
NEWSDAY, SUNDAY, JUNE 30, 2019
hood here: John Romita Jr.,
raised in Bellerose and for
years a resident of Port
Jefferson.
A winner of the Eisner
Award, the comics-industry
Oscar, for his work on Marvel
Comics’ “The Amazing Spider-
Man,” the 62-year-old Romita
has drawn celebrated runs of
series including “Daredevil”
and “Iron Man.” For the Mar-
As a new Spidey adventure comes to
theaters, comic-book artist John Romita Jr.
talks about his career and growing up on LI
vel imprint Icon, he co-created
the comic “Kick-Ass,” adapted
into a pair of films. And now
for rival DC Comics, he and
writer Frank Miller have just
released the first of the three-
issue miniseries “Superman:
Year One,” re-imagining the
Americana character’s early
career.
‘PROTOTYPICAL LONG ISLAND’
Growing up in Bellerose, “It
was about as quintessential or
prototypical a Long Island
upbringing as you can get,”
Romita says. He and his older
brother, Victor, played sports,
built plastic models, raced slot
cars — all the hallmarks of
suburban ’60s childhood. “I
joke about the fact that ge-
niuses generally are from
troubled childhoods — that
means I’ll never be a genius!”
he says, laughing. “I had a
wonderful childhood. We were
just so fortunate to be raised
by these two wonderful peo-
ple.”
Those would be parents
John Romita Sr., the acclaimed
Spider-Man artist who
succeeded character co-creator
Steve Ditko during the 1960s
Silver Age of Comics, and
Virginia Romita, then Marvel’s
traffic manager in the produc-
tion department. In their 80s,
both still live in the Bellerose
family home.
“We would drive out to visit
relatives in Connecticut, and
the conversations would be
about my father’s job and
working with Stan [Lee, Mar-
vel’s editor-in-chief and head
writer at the time] and what a
lunatic Stan was when it came
to plotting. He would jump all
over the office and describe
things to my father,” Romita
recalls. On such road trips, the
family “would even come up
with solutions to some story-
telling blockage. It was just
glorious and so much fun.”
Born in Brooklyn, the
younger Romita spent his early
years in Queens Village, where
he attended the Saints Joachim
and Anne School. When his
family moved to Long Island in
1965 — “which felt like moving
from the projects to the coun-
tryside” — he transferred to
the Floral Park-Bellerose ele-
mentary school. He went on to
Floral Park Memorial High and
graduated from Farmingdale
State College in 1976 with an
associate degree in advertising
art and design.
His plan to obtain a bachelor
of fine arts at SUNY’s Univer-
sity at Buffalo got sidetracked
“when I got a chance to do
some work for Marvel as a
freelancer — against the better
wishes of my parents.” Romita
Sr., by then Marvel’s art direc-
tor, told his son’s bosses to
offer no special breaks or help,
Romita Jr. recalls. “And nobody
did anything extra in any way
— in fact, [being his son]
worked against me. I got
treated pretty poorly by
several people.”
Not his editors, who were
supportive, he quickly clarifies,
but some of his peers, “There

were just a lot of unpleasant
people who were unhappy
with me getting work. I joke to
people that if I took a swing at
everybody who deserved it
because of the way they
treated me, I’d still be in
prison.” His father advised him
not to bam-sock-pow anyone
in the kisser. “He said to me,
‘Keep your hands in your
pockets and your mouth shut
and do your job.’ ”
He listened, and soon began
working for the Marvel depart-
ment that prepped existing
material for reprinting in the
UK, where that country’s
different comics format often
required art touch-ups and the
occasional filler art or cover.
Romita made his story debut
penciling a six-page backup in
the stateside “Amazing Spider-
Man Annual” #11 (1977) —
turning in what he says now
was “a really lousy job that was
CRAIG RUTTLE
John Romita Jr., a longtime
Marvel (and now DC) Comics
artist, feels a connection with
Spider-Man — he won a big
award for his work on the comic
SONY / COLUMBIA
book. The web-slinger, played
by Tom Holland, left, returns to
theaters on Tuesday in
“Spider-Man: Far From Home.”
saved by Al Milgrom, the and the fear — that was all
inker,” the term for those self-imposed.”
artists who, in the assembly-
line nature of comics, draw in MANY ICONIC CHARACTERS
ink over pencilers’ work to He says all this with a bada-
complete the process and add bing verve, a sort of confident
their own complementary humility. And after going on to
style. iconic runs on characters includ-
Romita began drawing ing the Hulk, the Black Panther,
“Iron Man” in 1978, including Daredevil, the Punisher and
the classic alcoholism story, others, Romita — who has a
“Demon in a Bottle,” and grown son, Vinnie, with his wife,
years later took over the Kathleen, and two grown step-
penciling of Marvel’s flagship sons, Tony and Joey, in Califor-
title, “The Amazing Spider- nia — has nothing to prove.
Man.” Even so, he says, “I heard just
“I was terrified,” he recalls. a short time ago from somebody
“The opportunity was big who said, ‘You wouldn’t be in
and wonderful, and I don’t this business without your
know how many times I father.’ At the time, I was in my
sweated over feeling I wasn’t late 50s, and I looked at the
going to be up to snuff. But person not in anger as much as
my father was very support- incredulity — you can’t really be
ive and said, ‘I’m not going saying this all these years later.
to offer any advice unless And I managed not to get angry.
you come to me and ask me It was amazing!” Just like
questions.’ The intimidation Spider-Man.
newsday.com/movies
He won’t be ‘Home’ alone
I
n the aftermath of
“Avengers: Endgame,” all
the disappeared people
have been returned, but at a
terrible cost. Now the world
longs for another Tony
Stark-Iron Man — and in
“Spider-Man: Far From
Home” could this be the
mysterious Mysterio (Jake
Gyllenhaal), whom one
character describes as
looking “like Iron Man and
Thor rolled into one?”
Peter Parker-Spider-Man
(Tom Holland) doesn’t know.
On a European school trip
with classmates including
Ned (Jacob Batalon), MJ
(Zendaya) and Flash (Tony
Revolori), all he does know is
that he misses his metallic
mentor, Stark — and feels
inadequate when SHIELD
chief Nick Fury (Samuel L.
Jackson) tells the teen to step
up, because the time-space-
altering events of “Endgame”
“tore a hole in our dimension”
and let in both a catastrophic
menace and the apparently
heroic Mysterio, aka one Mr.
Beck. “Beck is from Earth,”
Fury says. “Just not ours.”
And with that, the Marvel
Cinematic Universe intro-
duces the comic books’ “multi-
C9
Fanfare Q
verse” of alternate realities, as
seen in last year’s animated
“Spider-Man: Into the Spider-
Verse.” Beck tells Peter that
four monstrous Elementals
embodying fire, water, earth
and air destroyed his world.
Now they seem hellbent to do
it here. With Fury needing
replacements for his super-
powered defense force, the
Avengers, Peter personally
welcomes Beck into a new
Avengers. Can he do that?
We’ll see. In the comics,
Quentin Beck-Mysterio is a
villainous special-effects
artist who creates hyper-real-
istic illusions, so who knows
what’s really happening. And
with actor Numan Acar play-
newsday.com
ing a character named Dim-
itri, could this be the slightly
differently spelled Dmitri
Smerdyakov, aka master of
disguise, the Chameleon?
NEWSDAY, SUNDAY, JUNE 30, 2019
However things turn out,
“Far From Home” concludes
what Marvel calls Phase
Three of the Marvel Cine-
matic Universe’s 23-film
serialized story. But with a
Black Widow prequel com-
ing and several movies in
development for release
through 2022, it’s all still far
from over. — FRANK LOVECE