Marvel Announces John Romita Jr.’s Return to Amazing Spider-Man

Legendary comic book artist John Romita Jr. is making a return to Amazing Spider-Man this spring. Marvel made the announcement by revealing a piece of penciled artwork from Romita Jr. featuring Spider-Man swinging above a car on a busy New York City street, along with the note that Romita Jr. returns in April’s Amazing Spider-Man and more details will be revealed soon. After spending the last couple of years at DC Comics, John Romita Jr. returned to Marvel last year, just in time for the publisher’s giant-sized 60th-anniversary issue of Fantastic Four #35 with writer Dan Slott.

“I’ve read, and been told by much smarter people, that ‘luck is the residue of design’ so I won’t even attempt to claim I designed the events of these last few months, but I will take this kind of luck any day any time,” Romita Jr. said upon rejoining Marvel last year. “I was lucky to begin my career with Marvel and now am extremely lucky to re-connect with Marvel. That’s an enormous amount of good fortune. I sincerely thank all the folks up at Marvel, and Disney, who worked for this fortunate re-connection to happen.”

He added: “To add to all this, and I hate to add a third section to my good fortune, is the opportunity to start off with a huge project, which is the 60th anniversary of the Fantastic Four! It is an honor and extreme privilege to be asked to work on this along with a friend and former collaborator, Dan Slott! Along with ink artist JP Mayer, I am looking forward to this being up for viewing in August!”

By the time Romita Jr. boards Amazing Spider-Man, the series will have concluded its Beyond era. Peter Parker’s clone Ben Reilly is the current Spider-Man under the guidance of the Beyond creative team of Saladin Ahmed, Cody Ziglar, Patrick Gleason, Zeb Wells, and Kelly Thompson. Beyond will reach its climactic conclusion in March, leading into an all-new era of Amazing Spider-Man in spring. It is unknown who will be joining Romita Jr. as the writer of Amazing Spider-Man.

During his time at DC, John Romita Jr. collaborated with the likes of writers Frank Miller, Geoff Johns, Brian Michael Bendis, and Tom King on Superman: Year One, Action Comics, Superman, and Batman. He has had several runs on Amazing Spider-Man, most notably with Dan Slott during his record-breaking time on the book.

What do you think of Amazing Spider-Man bringing John Romita Jr. back? Let us know your thoughts in the comments!