Spider-Man’s Black Costume Almost Looked Very Different

Although Spider-Man is one of the comic industries most recognizable characters, the web-slinging superhero almost had a drastically different look when he picked up a fan-favorite costume.

Concept art from the early 1980’s surfaced online showing Peter Parker donning a black and red suit instead of the classic black and white suit, a costume which would later cause the creation of Spider-Man archenemy Venom.

Shared online by Reddit user /u/Zthe27th, the concept art shows Parker in the traditional costume with the spiders on his chest and back red instead of white.

It’s not clear who drew the concept art for Marvel, but the piece has a copyright date of 1983, a year before the suit made its way to print.

While it’s not that large of a change, die-hard Spidey fans and collectors will notice the difference between suits at once.

The symbiote-based suit originally debuted in The Amazing Spider-Man #252 (1984) before we saw the suits origins in Secret Wars #8 (1984). Both books are issues most collectors would consider as key issues for any Spider-Man fan to add to their collection.

The suit originally came about from a fan in 1982. At the time, Marvel had been running a competition for aspiring writers and artists to pitch new ideas to the House of Mouse. 22-year-old Randy Schueller pitched the idea of slightly upgrading Spider-Man’s abilities in addition to giving Spidey a new stealth-based suit designed by Reed Richards and Janet Van Dyne.

Legendary Marvel editor Jim Shooter purchased the idea for just $220 and assumed creative control of the idea. Although the suit’s origin was ultimately changed to have nothing to do with either Richards or Van Dyne, Spider-Man ended up wearing the suite for a couple of years before going back to his original suit, at the request of artist Todd McFarlane.

The black suit went on hiatus for quite some time until Parker put it back on in 2007’s Back in Black storyline by J. Michael Straczynski and Ron Garney.

Most recently, the black suit made its live-action debut in Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man 3. That movie adapted the suit’s comic book origins pretty heavily. After Peter Parker (Tobey Maguire) ditched the suit, it bonded with Eddie Brock (Topher Grace) to create Spidey’s archenemy Venom.

Are you a fan of Spidey’s black suit? What’s your favorite Spider-Man costume of all time? Let us know in the comments below!