Marvel actually bought Spider-Man\u2019s most iconic costume design off a reader Marvel Comics\/InsomniacSpider-Man\u2019s black costume is one of the most popular costumes in all of comics, which makes it all the more surprising that it was designed by a fan and bought by Marvel. There is perhaps no more iconic design than Spider-Man\u2019s black costume. It\u2019s remarkable how it has persisted over the years, with the character routinely finding excuses to go back to it and new media quickly adapting it. Marvel\u2019s attempted to replicate the success of the black suit, too. Spider-Man\u2019s gotten a number of new costumes over the years, but they just never seem to stick. Still, the black suit continues to come back. That\u2019s what makes it all the more surprising to learn that the suit isn\u2019t even really a Marvel design. Instead, it\u2019s something straight from the mind of a Spider-Man super fan. Marvel bought Spider-Man\u2019s black costume design from a reader Spider-Man\u2019s black suit originated in a fan pitch by Randy Schueller. The pitch predates Secret Wars and was just your average run-of-the-mill submission. The story would have Spider-Man\u2019s suit being destroyed, necessitating a new one. In the pitch, Schueller included an idea for a new, all-black suit with a red spider design. The then-current Marvel Comics Editor-in-Chief, Jim Shooter, liked the idea enough to do something with it. Shooter bought the design from Schueller for $220 (just shy of $700 in today\u2019s money) and offered him the chance to turn his story idea into a script. The actual story wasn\u2019t published, though. Schueller, in an open letter he wrote to Comic Book Resources, recalls that the whole thing just didn\u2019t click. \u201cIn the end, the whole scripting thing just didn\u2019t work out for me \u2013 I don\u2019t remember the exact reasons,\u201d he explained. \u201cI submitted another version of the story, they didn\u2019t like it, I stopped sending in letters. The whole thing just kind of fell apart. Regardless, I had no regrets. As a true blue Spidey fan, this was a very cool moment in my life.\u201d The original Spider-Man black costume story was finally told in 2019 The black suit obviously made history in Secret Wars, but it was notably different from Scheuller\u2019s pitch. The original idea would be more-or-less forgotten until 2019 when it finally saw the light of day in Spectacular Spider-Man: Self-Improvement. In the story, Spider-Man is badly burned, and his costume is destroyed while fighting Firebrand. Reed Richards of the Fantastic Four whips him up a new, black suit made of unstable molecules, allowing Spidey to avoid the embarrassment of having his costume destroyed. It also includes telepathically activated web-shooters and working web wings. Much of the story revolves around Spider-Man learning how to use the suit and the public not recognizing him. In particular, one child is terrified of him. In the end, Spider-Man returns the new suit and sticks to his traditional costume, as he has enough of a PR nightmare without people thinking he\u2019s some \u201cvenomous evildoer.\u201d So, there you have it \u2014 that\u2019s everything to know about Spider-Man\u2019s black costume and its original conception. For more about Spider-Man and Marvel\u2019s Spider-Man 2, be sure to check our other content below: How did Spider-Man\u2019s black suit create Venom? Marvel\u2019s villain explained | Who is Miles Morales? Marvel\u2019s other Ultimate Spider-Man explained | Who is Venom? Everyone who ever wore the Venom symbiote in Marvel Comics | How strong is Venom? Powers and weaknesses explained in Marvel Comics | Every Spider-Man comic, movie & game in Marvel\u2019s Spider-Man 2 timeline<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Marvel actually bought Spider-Man\u2019s most iconic costume design off a reader Marvel Comics\/InsomniacSpider-Man\u2019s black costume is one of the most popular costumes in all of comics, which makes it all the more surprising that it was designed by a fan and bought by Marvel. There is perhaps no more iconic design than Spider-Man\u2019s black costume. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-35606","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35606","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35606"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35606\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35606"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35606"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35606"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}