How This Amazing Spider-Man Cover Reinvents a Classic Formula

Marvel Comics has published literally thousands of Spider-Man comics over the years. Heck, their flagship Amazing Spider-Man series just reached issue #801 last week. When it comes to cover images, many of those comics feature variations on a familiar theme, with Spider-man swinging through the streets of New York and contorting his body in ways only a spider can. You'd think after several thousand comics that there's nothing new any artist could possibly bring to the table in that regard. But as Russell Dauterman's Amazing Spider-Man #801 cover shows, you'd be wrong.At first glance, this cover does seem reminiscent of countless other Spider-Man covers. You have Spidey decked out in his classic blue and red costume and swinging right into the heart of danger. But the longer you stare at this cover, the more the brilliance of Dauterman's design really starts to make itself apparent. The figure work alone is impressive. Dauterman has an elegant take on the character. Where most modern Spider-Man artists tend to gravitate towards the Todd McFarlane/Erik Larsen school of design, where Spidey's frame is exaggerated and gangly to the extreme, this is a more smooth and organic approach. Dauterman's Spider-Man is toned and athletic, but not necessarily as over-the-top as he's normally depicted. The unusual upside-down perspective is another element in this cover's favor.

In many ways, it's the webbing that truly makes this image crackle. Even as Spidey himself seems to be suspended in mid-air, the back-and-forth flow of his webbing conveys a chaotic sense of motion. The trail of webbing behind Spider-Man gives a sense of the energy of the scene as the hero explodes through the window. Meanwhile, in the foreground both the webbing launching toward the viewer and the bullets being fired from the mystery assailant's gun draw the eye toward a very specific point. The image becomes that much more exciting because there's an anticipation of a collision between two unstoppable forces.

As impressive as Dauterman's design and composition are, this image is also a perfect showcase for how much coloring and lighting can make or break a piece of art. Here's a look at the same cover in uncolored form:

As you can see, the lines are all there, but there's just something missing without the contribution of colorist Matthew Wilson. The image doesn't have quite the same impact without the bright glare of the sun pouring in through the broken window. You don't have that contrast between bright background and relatively dim mid-ground. Even Spider-Man himself loses his sense of weight and power in this stark, colorless form. Dauterman can be a very detail-oriented artist. Look at how much work he put into rendering the cans on the shelf, even though those elements were eventually obscured by the motion blur effect.

But part of Dauterman's appeal as an artist is that he knows when not to over-burden his images with too many lines and unnecessary details. In this cover he focused mainly on the outline of Spider-Man's body, with only a few stray lines hinting at the musculature of his body. He didn't need to do anything more than that. Wilson's colors are there to fill in that detail. The bright highlights along the right side of his body and the subtle shadows along his muscles lend depth to what would otherwise be a flat image.

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This is a truly classic Spider-man cover, one where all the elements work together to create a powerful and eye-popping take on an iconic hero. And it proves that it's always possible to put a fresh spin on a familiar formula. Jesse is a mild-mannered writer for IGN. Allow him to lend a machete to your intellectual thicket by following @jschedeen on Twitter, or Kicksplode on MyIGN.

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