Spider-Man 2099’s Daddy
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, sequel to the Academy Award-winning Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, opens in theaters on June 2. Audiences will catch up with Miles Morales, Peter B. Parker, and Gwen Stacy, but at the center of the new film is the Spider-Man of the late 21st century, Miguel O’Hara, known to comics fans as Spider-Man 2099.
And the reason comic book fans know that “Spider-Man 2099” is one of the best comic book characters to come out of Marvel in the early nineties and not a year-end clearance wall-crawler marked down from twenty-three bucks? What was it that caused this character, out of an entire universe of post-apocalyptic knockoffs of the present-day X-Men, Hulk, Ghost Rider, and Fantastic Four to stand above the mulleted heads and spiky shoulders of those ersatz future-heroes? Who took the panicky cocktail-napkin note, “future Spider-Man?” and spun it into one of the very few can’t-miss Marvel Comics of the post-Image exodus era? Two words, True Believers: RICK LEONARDI.
WHO IS THIS GUY?
“Guest Artist.” Two of the most ominous words any Marvel Comics fan could encounter in the eighties and nineties. You’re in the midst of a favorite Avengers or Captain America storyline, you plunk down seventy-five cents (plus tax!) for the latest issue, then you race home and crack open the cover only to find that an assistant editor and an artist whose work was considered old-fashioned back in the Roaring Twenties are this month’s creative team because Cap’s regular artist had a bout of appendicitis.
Fill-in stories came in a few different varieties during that era. During the seventies, missed deadlines were often solved by reprinting an older story, sometimes with a new, brief framing sequence and a bombastic Stan Lee-style caption explaining that Marvel ran afoul of “The Dreaded Deadline Doom!” that month and had to give you an old Spider-Man story this month so that no shipping schedules were missed.
When Jim Shooter took over as Editor-in-Chief, one of his first orders of business was banning these reprints, since it made Marvel look amateurish, and, more importantly, there were more “lifetime” Marvel Comics readers by the late seventies, and they had no use for a reprint of a Marvel Team-Up story they’d already purchased three years ago. Shooter’s solution was the creation of inventory stories, one-off adventures not tied into any particular time period, and written and drawn by creators known more for their speed than anything else, or by up-and-comers eager for any opportunity to score some paying work at the House of Ideas. While these were nobody’s favorites, they kept books on schedule with new content, and most readers preferred a month of just-okay Thor to a month of no Thor at all.
Inventory stories weren’t always needed, however. If an artist knew in advance that he’d be unavailable for a month or two, the series writer could plan accordingly. Maybe an “offbeat” story with an artist not normally associated with that series (or superhero comics in general), maybe a one-off story that complements the ongoing storyline but isn’t an essential read, or, in some cases, the exact same script that the regular monthly artist would have drawn. This was years before monthly comics were written with trade paperbacks and collected editions in mind, so no real consideration was given to these stories as a complete work by a single, consistent creative team.
And so it was always guaranteed disappointment when you saw the words “Guest Artist” in the credits box.
Unless that artist was Rick Leonardi.
My introduction to Rick Leonardi’s art was the first of a two-part guest artist stint on Daredevil, written by Ann Nocenti and inked by Will Eisner Hall of Famer Al Williamson. I was very new to monthly superhero comics, and was just starting to branch out into Marvel’s lesser-known characters, and Daredevil had never caught my eye amidst everything else on the comics rack at my local pharmacy...until Daredevil #248. The cover promises action and a special guest star, but the style itself is crisp, clean, and just a little bit cartoony in an era before Batman: The Animated Series and manga on every bookshelf.
I was hooked from the splash page, and became an instant fan of Leonardi, of Nocenti, of Williamson, and of Daredevil. Leonardi would move on after a two-part storyline that established Daredevil’s new status quo and guest-starred Marvel’s most popular character, Wolverine of The Uncanny X-Men, with artist John Romita Jr. joining Nocenti and Williamson for a three-year stretch that would redefine the character and still stands as an all-time great Marvel Comics run.
But what about Rick Leonardi?
A few months after those two Daredevil comics, he was given the unenviable task of filling in for superstar-in-the-making Marc Silvestri on Marvel’s most popular series, The Uncanny X-Men, right after the giant, mega-hit crossover The Fall of the Mutants. And what might have been a throwaway story from any other artist, a flashback road trip story written by Chris Claremont teaming Wolverine and Dazzler, became yet another instant classic fill-in issue. Leonardi’s inker this time around was Terry Austin, who’d long before secured himself a spot in the X-Men Hall of Fame during his late seventies/early eighties run on Uncanny with John Byrne.
Over the next couple of years, you never knew where Rick was going to turn up, but whether he was filling in for Silvestri on X-Men, Alan Davis on Excalibur, Romita Jr. on Daredevil, or in one of his rare non-fill-ins from 1987-90, an eight-part story featuring the X-Men's Colossus in the pages of Marvel Comics Presents, with script by Ann Nocenti and inks by P. Craig Russell, he may have been the only guest artist who never elicited a “not this guy again!” response when his name showed up in the credits box. Brilliant storytelling, expressive characters, and someone who rose to the occasion no matter which legendary artist had graced that title the month before. Imagine getting the call at the last minute that Mick Jagger’s got a sore throat and you’ve got to perform a four-hour set with the Rolling Stones in front of a sold-out stadium. Now imagine the performer who does that, then does an hourlong encore because the fans won’t let him leave the stage. That’s Rick Leonardi.
CLOAK AND DAGGER IS A LOW KEY BANGER
For whatever reason, his breakthrough series in the mid-1980s, Cloak and Dagger, sold well enough as a miniseries to warrant an ongoing title, but for whatever reason, he didn’t get that push from Marvel to make the leap from cult-favorite artist to industry superstar. But in 1992, when seven of Marvel’s most popular freelancers left the publisher all at once to found their own company, Image Comics, several Marvel loyalists were given the opportunity to take things to the next level as they took over the high-profile titles that were vacated by the likes of Todd McFarlane, Jim Lee, and Marc Silvestri. Adam Kubert took over Wolverine’s monthly title, his brother Andy took over X-Men, and John Romita Jr. (eventually) became the regular artist on Uncanny X-Men.
But Marvel had other plans for Rick Leonardi. Not X-Force, X-Factor, Hulk, or any of the likeliest landing spots for a reliable, talented artist with his own signature style. The publisher’s strategy—also adopted by chief rival DC Comics—to compete with Image Comics relied in part on out-producing the competition and limiting opportunities for smaller publishers to get rack space at comic shops worldwide. This meant miniseries featuring both well-known and completely obscure spinoff characters from their most popular titles. Annuals. Specials. One-shots. Reprints formatted as monthly comic books instead of trade paperbacks. And, taking a page from Marvel Comics when they celebrated the 25th anniversary of the Fantastic Four in 1986, entire new universes.
THE FUTURE WAS 1992
In the early 1990s, Stan Lee and John Byrne developed a possible future Marvel Universe dubbed “World of Tomorrow,” that would showcase the heroes and villains of the late 21st century. Byrne left the project and retooled the concept for a creator-owned project that he would take to Dark Horse, as a the graphic novel 2112 that led into his Next Men monthly series. Lee’s premise would be retooled as “Marvel 2099,” with four interconnected titles, one starring his original character Ravage, a grim and gritty barbarian/roughneck/possibly mutant? superhero; one featuring a futuristic version of The Punisher (whose modern-day counterpart starred in three titles and made sales-boosting guest appearances at least once a month in other Marvel titles); one introducing us to the far-future Dr. Doom, who may have been a time-displaced version of our own Doom; and, hedging their bets, a 2099 version of Marvel’s flagship character, Spider-Man.
The Punisher 2099 creative team of writers Pat Mills and Tony Skinner and the penciler/inker team of Tom Morgan and Jimmy Palmiotti knew exactly what readers wanted from a Punisher book and gave us an angry guy with a skull on his chest machine-gunning bad guys. No rocking the boat there. Writer John Francis Moore and artist Pat Broderick attempted to make Doom 2099 sort of a political-social commentary in addition to a supervillain book, but never quite found their footing in a monthly comic aimed at the same audience that wanted to see the skull-guy machine-gunning bad guys. And Ravage 2099? Let’s just say he doesn’t crack the top 500 list when you’re talking about Marvel characters co-created by Smilin’ Stan Lee. All three titles launched with shiny, collectible foil covers and rolled out one month at a time, all with ridiculous early ‘90s print runs ensuring their presence in quarter bins from now until 2099.
So why do we still know these characters today? Why did the 2099 universe hang around long enough to expand to include titles starring future versions of the X-Men, Hulk, Ghost Rider, and Fantastic Four? Two words: RICK LEONARDI.
Don’t get me wrong—I worship at the altar of early ‘90s Peter David, whose Incredible Hulk and X-Factor were brilliant, especially when he was paired with top-tier artists like Dale Keown, Gary Frank, Larry Stroman, and was clearly the right choice to build a likeable cast and, really, a whole world around the phrase “future Spider-Man" scrawled on a napkin when editorial was trying to figure out how to retain readers after the Image exodus. And his writing on Spider-Man 2099 stands shoulder to shoulder with the best of his Marvel work of that era, absolutely. But the reason we still care about 2099, the reason that Miguel O’Hara (aka Spidey 2099) has a starring role in the new Spider-Verse movie—it's all about Rick Leonardi.
Check out this opening spread from this Spider-Man 2099 preview, published in Amazing Spider-Man #365, celebrating Spider-Man's 30th anniversary and sporting a fancy hologram cover. Hundreds of thousands of readers (or at least tens of thousands of speculators buying a whole bunch of extra copies) got a five-page teaser written by Peter David and drawn by Leonardi and Al Williamson, depicting a black-and-red costumed Spider-Man zipping through Neuva York as armored security forces in flying cars try to take him down. What a first impression!
The first issue of Spider-Man 2099 hit three months after Amazing Spider-Man #365, kicking off the entire 2099 universe, and selling like gangbusters. And how could it not? Leonardi—who, along with Mike Zeck, developed Spider-Man's “Secret Wars” black costume in 1984—created a striking black-and-red costume with a tattered web cape that struck the perfect balance of classic and far-future Marvel without giving into the '90s excess that dates so many other costumes from that era.
While his rogues’ gallery may not have had the staying power that Miguel O’Hara did (cowboy, samurai, redneck Vulture—I think?), their designs were fun, and Leonardi’s corner of the 2099 universe was equal parts Blade Runner, Star Trek, and early 2000s Apple hardware—a surprisingly prescient and overall optimistic view of everyday life and our relationship with technology a century from now. Miguel was a conflicted, but ultimately very sympathetic, very likable lead character, with a wicked sense of humor—and a desperate quest to cure himself of his powers that were potentially going to transform him into something more spider than man.
And that spidery-ness is what really secured this comic’s legacy. The action sequences rank among the all-time best in any Spider-Man title thanks to Leonardi’s draftsmanship and fight choreography. Think of all the wonky angles and anatomy that made Todd McFarlane a fan favorite and the general weirdness of Steve Ditko’s Spider-Man, but filter them through somebody with serious drawing chops. Leonardi never fakes anatomy or perspective, doesn’t take shortcuts on architecture and backgrounds, and for the icing on the cake, is inked by Al Williamson, an all-time great who took every one of his collaborators to the next level. It’s almost unfair how good this comic looked, and doubly unfair how underappreciated Leonardi is because he didn’t draw the “real” Spider-Man.
The 2099 line lasted about four years overall, with Spider-Man, and, surprisingly enough, Dr. Doom, lasting the duration of the original 2099 experiment, wrapping up in 1996, around the time that an industry-wide implosion saw sales plummet on every monthly superhero comic across the board. Leonardi’s tenure on the monthly Spider-Man 2099 title wrapped up with the double-sized 25th issue of that series, although he followed that up with a bookshelf format one-shot where our modern-era Spider-Man met his century-later counterpart. It’s hard to imagine 2099 getting off the ground without Spider-Man as the flagship title, and even harder to imagine that series becoming a hit with any other artist at the helm. (Not to sell Peter David, the series writer, short! Another incredible early ‘90s effort from him on this book, but pair him with any other artist and Spider-Man 2099’s lasting cultural impact is somewhere between that of Crystal Pepsi and The Tortellis.)
Leonardi has kept busy since the mid-nineties on dozens of mainstream comic titles, from one-off guest appearances to year-long runs on top Marvel and DC characters, but has always maintained a lower-than-deserved profile, never quite hitting the “industry superstar” level apart from those early issues of Spider-Man 2099, although he’s always been very highly regarded as an artist’s artist, and has maintained a dedicated fan following since his breakout hit Cloak and Dagger almost forty years ago. Will Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse finally put Rick Leonardi onto everyone’s short list of all-time great Spider-Man artists, where he should have been all along? Let’s hope we don’t have to wait until 2099 to find out. +++
