Spider-Man by Todd McFarlane: The Complete Collection

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Another suit in which McFarlane became embroiled was a December 2004 suit in which hockey player Tony Twist sued McFarlane because he named a mobster character in Spawn after Twist. We’re absurdly thrilled to be teaming up with Acme and Marvel to release an officially licensed screen print of the first cover in Todd’s epic Spider-Man run beginning in 1990. The character typical wrestles with bank robbers and street crime, spectacular supervillains in eye-catching designs. Torment sees Spider-Man facing a bestial and vicious Lizard; Masques reimagines the Hobgoblin as a demonic form and teams up Spider-Man with Ghost Rider; Sub-City sees a group of underground mutants ruled by Morbius, the Living Vampire. In collaboration with New Line Cinema, it produced the 1997 Spawn film and a new Spawn movie, planned in 2008.

In 1997, the two signed a deal in which Gaiman would give his share of characters Angela, Medieval Spawn and Cogliostro to McFarlane in exchange for McFarlane's share of British superhero Marvelman (in reality, what McFarlane actually owned were two trademarks for Miracleman logos, not the character, which would become clear only after the lawsuit concluded).Although McFarlane took the artistic reigns on The Amazing Spider-Man towards the end of the eighties, it’s hard to deny that the artist helped to shepherd in the nineties for the character. The storyline featuring Mary-Jane’s abduction by a billionaire psychopath seems a little… surreal and out of left-field. He has a tin ear for dialogue, and his plots for much of this book consist of him stringing together whatever he felt like drawing on any particular day. Todd M was a fantastic and dynamic artist, but using such crap, flimsy materials to print his early work is a total waste and somewhat shambolic.

In case anybody in Marvel’s collected editions department happens to read this, I wouldn’t object to a nice collection of either – despite of the criticism that McFarlane’s writing might have received.In 1994, McFarlane created a toy company, Todd Toys, initially to merchandise collectible action figures of the Spawn characters. The Slings and Arrows Graphic Novel Guide doesn't care where you've been, where you're going or where you're located.

McFarlane does an excellent job illustrating foes like the Lizard, the Chameleon, the Goblins and even Taskmaster in a slightly unnerving and almost gothic manner. Unfortunately, however, Venom’s early appearances seem a little dated – both featuring the awkward and slightly sexist comic book cliché of women in refrigerators. McFarlane’s Spider-Man has a bit of a tougher edge to him than usual, warning a crook, “Drop the gun — punk!

This practice was a result of the comics speculator bubble of the 1990s, which would burst later that decade. This April, to celebrate the release of The Amazing Spider-Man 2, we are taking a look at some classic and modern comics featuring Spider-Man (and friends).