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John Romita Sr., Legendary Marvel Comics Artist & Wolverine Co-Creator,
Dead at 93

By JENNA ANDERSON - June 13, 2023 11:36 pm EDT

Legendary comic artist John Romita Sr. has passed away at the age of
93. The news was broken on Tuesday night by Romita's son, fellow comic
artist John Romita Jr., who confirmed that he passed away peacefully in
his sleep on Monday, June 12th. Romita had an illustrious career in the
sphere of superhero comics, co-creating beloved characters such as Mary
Jane Watson, Wolverine, and The Punisher.

"I say this with a heavy heart, My father, John Romita Sr passed away
peacefully in his sleep this Monday morning," the post reads. "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."

Born on January 24, 1930 in Brooklyn New York, Romita graduated from
Manhattan's School of Industrial Art in 1947, and received his first
paid gig (for the Manhattan General Hospital) at the age of only 17.
After working as an inker at a lithograph company, he stumbled into a
job as a ghost artist at Timely Comics, the precursor to Marvel Comics.
He continued to work at Timely and its other pre-Marvel successor,
Atlas Comics, even while he was enlisted in the U.S. Army. His early
work at the time included a 1953-1954 revival of Captain America, which
led to the creation of M-11 the Human Robot.

During the 1950s, Romita also did uncredited work for DC, before
switching over to the company exclusively in 1958, and working on
romance titles such as Young Love and Girl's Love Stories. He then
returned to Marvel in 1966, soon succeeding Spider-Man co-creator Steve
Ditko on The Amazing Spider-Man #39 following Ditko's falling out with
Stan Lee. Across Romita's tenure on the book, it became the company's
best-selling title, and introduced now-legendary characters like Mary
Jane Watson, The Rhino, The Kingpin, The Shocker, and George Stacy. He
went on to contribute to 56 straight issues of the main title,
countless iconic covers, as well as various magazine-format and
newspaper spinoffs.

"I was bringing a little more glamour to it," Romita later said of
Amazing Spider-Man to Alter Ego. "To listen to the fans at the time,
what I was losing was the mystery and the shadowy stuff. They thought
it was much too much broad daylight, and too much cuteness. That's a
funny twist, because Stan was worried when I was doing it. He didn't
threaten to take me off it, but he constantly was telling me I was
making Peter Parker too handsome, and everybody too good looking. Even
the villains were starting to look good, and I was taking age away from
Aunt May. [laughter] I think there was another element behind the rise
in sales. For about a year, Ditko and Stan were absolutely disagreeing
on plotting. Ditko was plotting, and they weren't even talking. It
already had probably gotten a little bit confusing to readers for about
a year. So between the fact that I brought in a new audience, and
didn't lose too much of the old audience I guess, I got the benefit of
the rebound.

By 1973, Romita began officially operating as Marvel's art director,
and had an influential role on the designs of Wolverine, Luke Cage, The
Punisher, Bullseye, and Tigra. His later work for the publisher
included Monica Rambeau's debut as Captain Marvel in 1982's The Amazing
Spider-Man Annual #16, as well as a number of commemorative issues
across Marvel.

Our thoughts are with Romita's family, friends, and fans at this time.