The Prowler Day!

"Jazzy" John Romita was born on this date in 1930. Romita was a critically important artist at Marvel in the late 60's and 70's.  He drew gorgeous dames and so he often got assigned to do love stories for DC and later Marvel. He is likely most famous for taking over the reins on The Amazing Spider-Man after Steve Ditko left the strip. 

If you've ever wondered what might happen if window washers turned bad the saga of the The Prowler is for you. Hobie Brown is an unhappy young black man, a window washer, a brave and inventive young chap who seeks to improve his lot by inventing newer and safer ways to wash windows in the towers of New York City.

Designed by John Romita based on his son John Romita Jr.'s design and name, the Prowler is a slick looking character and hails from a time when villainy was still operating within a human range. Taking on a Spider-Man required no more apparently than some chutzpah, a few air-jets, and a dandy set of steel claws.

Hobie turns to crime as it offers the most expedient way, he can make a name for himself. He's not evil, but does show some remarkable lack of perspective when he takes on Web-head. His actions seem to end in the death of Peter Parker, but we know all along that's not the case. So in one of the shortest criminal careers on record, the Prowler hangs up his claws.

That is until he decides to be a hero and takes off after Spider-Man again, this time seeing the Wall-Crawler as a menace. Hobie is a guy trying to make his way and grasping at a way to make a difference, but he's always making a mistake it seems.

But he does look snazzy in that costume, snazzy indeed. I've always assumed the design with the full- face mask was done like the Black Panther, in order to disguise the ethnic nature of the character and so not agitate witless folks in certain regions of the country who would be unhappy promoting a new black hero. One hopes that times have changed, but evidence is sometimes sparse. 

In the "Hot, Hot" 90's The Prowler even got his own four-issue mini-series (with just about everyone else). This is an above average redesign of the Vulture. 

Rip Off