Simply the Best: Spectacular Spider-Man #2

I can't overstate how much I've always adored the artwork of John Romita Sr., especially his classic run on The Amazing Spider-Man with Stan Lee.  Yes, Steve Ditko was Spidey's co-creator, and his three years on the title will always be pure magic...but I personally think John Romita's run on the title represented the artistic high mark of Spider-Man that others have been trying to reach ever since.

Romita had a particular flair for illustrating dramatic, attention-grabbing covers...such as the cover to The Spectacular Spider-Man #2 (1968).

Technically, The Spectacular Spider-Man was a short-lived color magazine (in fact, this was the last issue), and not to be confused with the Peter Parker: The Spectacular Spider-Man title that would launch in 1976.

As for the cover itself, Romita's beautiful painted scene (typical of the "deluxe" status magazines enjoyed in that era) takes an already stunning illustration to a lush, almost cinematic level.

Always on the lookout for story material for their line of annuals, Marvel reprinted the 58 page interior story (minus a whopping 18 pages) in The Amazing Spider-Man Annual #9 (1973).  Romita even drew a new version of the magazine's cover, doing a good job of capturing at least a portion of the original's dramatic power (as well as adding a webline for Spidey's flailing left foot....absent from the magazine cover).

However, the magazine version remains one of comics' most enduring, mythic images....not only capturing but defining the connection between Spider-Man and the Green Goblin, his deadliest enemy.  Whether it's the passivity suggested by Spider-Man's stance (the Goblin was actually the father of his best friend, and naturally didn't want to hurt him), or the utter madness reflected in the Goblin's face, John Romita Sr. perfectly captured the central emotional conflict that defined so much of their long (and tragic) history together.