Editing Todd McFarlane (section)

====New ''Spider-Man'' title====
[[Image:Spiderman1cover.jpg|right|thumb|McFarlane's cover for Marvel's ''Spider-Man'' No. 1 (August 1990)]]
Wanting to appease McFarlane, Marvel gave McFarlane a new, adjectiveless ''Spider-Man'' title for him to both write and draw. ''[[Peter Parker: Spider-Man|Spider-Man]]'' #1 (August 1990) sold 2.5 million copies,<ref>{{cite book|editor-last1=Cowsill|editor-first1=Alan|editor-last2=Gilbert|editor-first2=Laura|chapter=1990s|title=Spider-Man Chronicle Celebrating 50 Years of Web-Slinging|publisher=[[Dorling Kindersley]]|year=2012|page=184|isbn=978-0756692360|quote=Todd McFarlane was at the top of his game as an artist, and with Marvel's release of this new Spidey series he also got the chance to take on the writing duties. The sales of this series were underwhelming, with approx. 2.5 million copies eventually printing, including special bagged editions and a number of [[variant covers]].}}</ref><ref name=saffel>{{cite book|last=Saffel|first=Steve|title= Spider-Man the Icon: The Life and Times of a Pop Culture Phenomenon|publisher=[[Titan Books]]|year=2007|isbn=978-1-84576-324-4|chapter= Mutant Menace|page=173|quote=Marvel knew a good thing when they saw it, and the adjectiveless ''Spider-Man'' received Marvel's most aggressive launch in company history...the initial press run was 2.35 million, and 500,000 additional copies were printed to meet demand.}}</ref> largely due to the [[variant cover]]s with which Marvel, seeking to capitalize on McFarlane's popularity, published the issue to encourage [[comic book collecting|collectors]] into buying more than one edition. This practice was a result of the [[comics speculator bubble]] of the 1990s, which would burst later that decade.<ref name=ComicsBulletin/> McFarlane, unbeknownst to his parents at the time, was making about a million dollars a year.<ref name=DevilYouKnow/> McFarlane wrote and illustrated 15 of the series' first 16 issues, many issues of which featured other popular Marvel characters such as [[Wolverine (character)|Wolverine]] and [[Ghost Rider]] in guest roles.<ref name=ComicsBulletin/>

Despite his acclaim as an artist, according to David Wallace of [[Comics Bulletin]], many found McFarlane's writing to be "clumsy, unsophisticated and pretentious," and questioned the wisdom of allowing him to write a new ''Spider-Man'' title in the first place. At the same time, the editorial had problems with the dark tone of the stories McFarlane was telling, beginning with the inaugural "Torment" storyline, which depicted a more vicious version of the reptilian villain [[Lizard (character)|Lizard]] under the control of the voodoo priestess [[Calypso (comics)|Calypso]].<ref name=ComicsBulletin/> Subsequent storylines such as "Masques" featured Spider-Man confronting the demonic [[Hobgoblin (comics)|Hobgoblin]], while "Perceptions," which involved Spider-Man dealing with police corruption, child rape, and murder (a hint of the work he would later do on ''[[Spawn (comics)|Spawn]]''), led some stores to refuse to stock the book. This created further tensions between McFarlane and the editorial, which viewed Spider-Man as a historically light-hearted character, marketed to young readers. Editor, Jim Salicrup, in particular, was required to make a number of compromises for McFarlane's work, including enforcing his minor costume changes across the entire line of other Spidey comics, placing limitations on his choice of villains for his stories, and dealing with strong disagreement on the handling of the character, [[Mary Jane Watson]]. This strained McFarlane's relationship with Salicrup, which was expressed in the remarkable amount of public disagreement that appeared on the book's letters page. Eventually, McFarlane's attention to his deadlines, again, began to waver, and he missed issue 15 of the title. His final issue on the book, #16 (November 1991), was part of a [[fictional crossover|crossover]] storyline with ''[[X-Force (comic book)|X-Force]]'', and led to creative clashes with new editor [[Danny Fingeroth]].<ref name=ComicsBulletin/> According to McFarlane and editor, [[Tom DeFalco]], in the 2000 documentary, ''The Devil You Know: Inside the Mind of Todd McFarlane'', among the examples of the issues that prompted his departure were editorial's censorship of a panel in that issue in which the character, [[Juggernaut (character)|Juggernaut]] was graphically stabbed in the eye with a sword. DeFalco supported the editing of the panel, calling it "inappropriate," while McFarlane called this "lunacy," arguing that such graphic visuals are commonplace in Marvel's books.<ref name=DevilYouKnow/> Fed up with editorial interference, he left the company under something of a cloud. According to Wallace, "McFarlane's fifteen issues of Spider-Man are now (perhaps slightly unfairly) held up alongside the likes of ''X-Force'' as the epitome of everything wrong in 1990's comics, and their cash-in approach to the then-booming speculator market precipitated the near-collapse of the industry."<ref name=ComicsBulletin/>