Spider-Man and Doctor Octopus covers by Todd McFarlane, Gil Kane, Sal Buscema

Remember the days when Spidey and Doc Ock weren't the same person?  LOL.  I do get a kick out of reading Superior Spider-Man.  But here are some old Marvel Tales covers when their relationship wasn't so close.

Marvel Tales #224 by Todd McFarlane in 1989 features a classic battle between Doc and Spidey on the rooftops.  This one reprinted the classic issue of Amazing Spider-Man (#89) where Captain Stacey dies saving a child on the street below.

Marvel Tales #223, another McFarlane cover features Spidey getting a full frontal attack by those robot arms.  You have to admit McFarlane draws a great Spidey, and he kept the underarm webbing!

Marvel Tales #40 from 1971-1972 featured a Gil Kane cover.  Spidey had lost his memory and became temporarily convinced he was Doc Ock's partner in crime?  Crazy huh?  Good thing the internet wasn't around then or we would have fans screaming about tentacle porn.

Marvel Tales #38 cover by Sal Buscema featured one of those Doc Ock larger than life motifs.  Now I feel even more creepy about those tentacles.  Nuff Said!

Sub-Mariner 33 Cover Progression: From Marie Severin to Sal Buscema

Remember all the great classic Marvel covers from the late 1960s / early 1970s?  Some of them may not have been designed by the cover artist, but instead by Marie Severin!  Here is one such example, from Sub-Mariner #33, published in late 1971 / early 72.

Marie's cover preliminary shows the basic design.  The notes on the right suggest the premise: Subby returns to Atlantis to find it in ruins...Krang and gang accuse him of being absent while they needed him.

Sal Buscema's original art cover, to this issue, which recently sold for over $8K on Heritage Comics auction site.

The final color cover as it was originally published.  You can see that Marie's template was pretty much executed as designed, with certain elements really made stronger by Buscema: Namor's guilt and pensive pose, Krang's righteous and accusatory stance, the wounded Atlantean nursing a dislocated shoulder!

The modern comics companies don't produce covers like this anymore, which give you a disturbing idea about the hero and make you buy it to see how it happened.  If you want to see some other nifty examples of Marie Severin's Marvel cover designs, see this Newsarama blog post by Graeme McMillan.  Nuff Said!