Spider-Woman Co-Creator Marie Severin Dies At Age 89

 

Truly one of the unsung heroes of comic's Silver Age.

 

 

Severin broke into the comic book industry in the late 1940s when her older brother, comic book artist John Severin (1922-2012), asked her to color one of his stories for EC Comics. She did such a good job that she was soon the regular colorist for EC Comics. When EC Comics’ comic book line went out of business following the institution of the Comics Code Authority (which seemed almost designed specifically to put EC Comics out of business), Severin worked for Atlas Comics a little bit before leaving comic books entirely to go work at the Federal Reserve.

In the late 1950s, Severin began to get back into comic books, working for Atlas again doing some production work. As Atlas turned into Marvel and began to expand, Severin’s work for them expanded, as well. By the end of the 1960s, Severin was the main colorist at Marvel while also doing the occasional penciling job. When the Hulk gained his own series, Incredible Hulk, Severin was the penciler for the first five issues of the series.

She created Spider-Woman at a time when heroes NEVER had female versions of themselves and she was her own character with little to do with Spider-Man and his powers. There was no SHE-HULK, yet. In fact Spider-Woman had her own cartoon series in the 70s, You have no idea how rare that kind of thing was in the 70s. Next to Wonder Woman and Isis, a female superhero was also rare on TV.