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ROSS ANDRU
Part 1
My favorite comicbook artist of all time is John Romita Sr. Has been since the day I first saw his work. I must have been 4 or 5 at the time. I lived with my grandparents, you see, and their youngest son, my uncle, had stacks of AMAZING SPIDER-MAN and MARVEL TALES comics around the house.
So telling you how much I admire John Romita’s work … is kind of a strange way to start discussing my love for the work of Ross Andru, eh? But here we are. First off, don’t worry. Future me is already working on an essay detailing my love of Jazzy Johnny Romita’s work. It’s going to be approximately 57 chapters long.
But today we’re talking about Ross Andru, and specifically, his work on Spider-man … and how amazing it is that he stepped into Romita’s shoes and left a legacy all his own.
Born Rostislav Androuchkevitch on June 5, 1927, Ross started working in comics in 1948, assisting Burne Hogarth on the TARZAN comic strip, and eventually ended up at DC with longtime friend and inker Mike Esposito in 1953, working on DC’s war comics. In 1959, Ross began a nine-year run on Wonder Woman, and from there worked on a huge variety of titles…
It would have been a pretty strong career even if Ross had never done any work on a certain wall-crawler.
But in the early 70’s, Ross headed to Marvel Comics. He did some work on THE DEFENDERS and on MARVEL TEAM-UP (featuring Spidey.) And then in 1973 he took over as the primary artist on THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN. He would be the artist on the series for five years, lending some stability to a series that had been trying to settle on a replacement for Romita for awhile. John Buscema, Gil Kane, Don Heck … some really talented artists had taken the reigns after Romita, and often (like with Kane) Romita actually still came in to lend his finishes to the books. But Romita was being pulled in a ton of different directions at once, working on covers, promotional material, art corrections … there’s only so much Romita to go around.
But then Ross Andru stepped in with Amazing Spider-Man #125, the second half of a two-parter called “Wolf Hunt.”
You know how I first read this comic? As part of a Power Records reprint. A comic that came with a record, with Stan Lee reading the book to me. Issues #124 and #125 were combined in this book, so I didn’t know for years that this was actually a two-part story. All I knew is that it had a record with narration by Stan “The Man” Lee, Spidey, a werewolf (A WEREWOLF! Even as a little kid who was easily terrified I loved monsters ESPECIALLY WEREWOLVES) and some GREAT art.
Looking back on this thing now, it’s such a wild hodge-podge of art. And I mean that in a good way. The first half of this, you have those great Gil Kane camera angles, the wildly contorted anatomy, and then the Romita finishes, which lend a polish and emotional depth Kane would sometimes lack under other inkers. Then you get to the second half of the book, and Ross is doing his OWN take on Spidey’s movement through the city, those fight scenes … and then still, some beautiful inking by Romita and Tony Mortellero bringing it all in line with the ‘look’ of the series.
I love the acting by Andru’s characters here. Sure, it’s “Marvel Style,” exaggerated, over the top in places … but it fits the dialogue, the story … the world. To my four-year-old eyes, THIS is what the Marvel Universe was. Some really nice camera choices made as this issue wraps up, too.
Now … as much as I’d like to, I don’t think I should go through every single issue of Ross’ run. (But man, I’d like to.)
But how about issue #129..? That Punisher guy looks familiar, eh? Man, I generally can’t stand the Punisher nowadays. Just can’t. But back then? When he was a foil for characters like Spidey..? Oh yeah. And the JACKAL! I was fascinated by the Jackal. Keep this in mind…
After that, we … well, we get to the Spider-Mobile. Yeah. I know. One of the dumbest ideas ever. But you could argue that the fun Conway and Andru had with the stupidity of it, the way they leaned into the whole thing … made it work? I dunno. As a kid, and still, as a supposed adult, I think it’s kind of awesome. And look at that fight with Hammerhead!
Of course, that leads us to … the Doc Ock and Aunt May wedding.
Hey, look at this art.
Okay, sure … as much as I loved Gerry Conway’s Spidey run (seriously, I love this stuff) I’m not gonna argue that they’re all winners.
Anyway, Ross actually takes an issue off after this, but then returns for #133, the second part of a Molten Man story. It’s a fun story, and I like the payoff, the final bits with Molten Man. But the next issue, we get to a Tarantula story, and this is another one where Ross is inked by Frank Giacoia (along with Dave Hunt.) And lemme tell you, I really dig Giacoia’s inks.
But this ish has one of my favorite Andru splash pages … I love the depth and movement here.
Aaaaand … further, MJ’s face. With that dialogue. Nailed it.
So much good stuff. But let’s peek ahead to #136 … you know, you can set a story in New York and never draw this kind of stuff. But it’s a theme throughout Ross’ run on Spider-Man … you always, always have such a great sense of time and place. I’ve read stories that Ross would have his wife drop him off so he could sketch the power plant he planned to draw in the current issue he was working on. Then she’d drive around the block, each time asking if he was ready to be picked up. I don’t doubt it. My guess is that the man did that sort of thing … often.
Now look at this page, from #137. The tension, as Spidey waits to see if the bomb is gonna blow. If it doesn’t, then his poor guess has killed either Flash or MJ. The tension … the tension … and the relief. What a great combination of choices went into this page! Love the beats with the bomb splashing into the water, shot of Spidey, ripples (but no explosion) in the water, then closer on Spidey … and finally, boom the relief. Love it.
Alright, just so Marc doesn’t accuse me of going through EVERY issue and writing the longest essay ever, let’s skip ahead to issue #139. Now … I can’t lie. This is where I went from enjoying Gerry Conway’s Spidey run to losing my mind over it. I still look at these comics and just feel a hard clench in my chest. I love this stuff. Gerry is really rolling, and for my money, this is the best stretch of Ross Andru’s run on AMAZING SPIDER-MAN.
Let’s be real. The Grizzly … a former wrestler, now a guy who … dresses up as a bear … is a second rate bad guy. At best. And yet … he’s perfect here. He just shows up out of the blue, towering over everyone, and oh yeah, he’s working for the mysterious Jackal!
Also … again, Spidey lives in New York. He’s always clearly in New York. You don’t have to draw all this stuff. It’s just a small panel, and Spidey is barely visible. But here’s Ross Andru, crushing it.
Okay, I’m sure you know … Spidey eventually survived the menace of the Grizzly. Let’s get on toe issue #141 … and Mysterio. But first, this sequence (look, it’s me in college…)
NOW we’re to Mysterio. And look, just check out the page. It’s all there. And then a couple of pages later, Spidey’s defeat…
And we’ll keep going into #142 for this sequence that I love dearly.
Eventually, Spidey takes down this wanna-be Mysterio, of course…
On to #143, where Pete has to accompany Robbie Robertson to Paris. Yeah, you know Ross is gonna nail that just like he always nails New York. But before they get there, one of my favorite bits in any Spidey comic. First, dig Robbie smiling over his shoulder. Ah, young love, he thinks. Second … just the slight visual bit, where Pete and MJ are breaking the panel borders, really gets across the idea that with this kiss, the two of them are in their own world, now. Everything else going on around them is just background noise.
Now look at the next two pages. Man, back then especially, pages were critical. .Pages were for moving the story forward. And yet Gerry and Ross understand how important this is. They give the characters time to react, to breathe. They let that camera sit for a minute. And then the plane takes off, everything is quiet, and Pete and MJ are alone with their thoughts and feelings about what just happened. It’s goddamn great storytelling, that’s what this is. Even as a kid, I kept going back to this scene over and over, trying to figure out why it landed so well. And the answer is that there are so many great choices made here, how could it NOT land well..?
Okay … I gotta get back to my drawing table. We’ll continue this in Paris in part two, and from there we’ll get some clones and the end of Gerry’s run on the web-head. Maybe I can even wrap this up in two parts… 🙂
