RIP Len Wein. I didn't realize until you were gone, just how much you meant to my childhood.

First blog post in years and I mean YEARS!  Why has this talentless, lazy fuck decide to strike up the keyboard one more time?  The passing the great Len Wein. 

Now, if you had asked me a week ago to give you a list of my all-time favourite comic book writers, I’ll admit that Len probably wouldn’t have come to mind.  Not because he wasn’t great, but because he was writing my favourite books, The Amazing Spider-Man, Marvel Team-Up and the 1970s Incredible Hulk, when I was too you to appreciate or realize, who was writing each issue.  Len’s run with Ross Andru (my all-time, tits up, favourite Spider-Man artist) in the mid-seventies, is where I cut my fanboy teeth.  I mean Hell, last fall I picked up an old issue of The Incredible Hulk (#214) that I loved as a kid.  Unbeknownst to me, it was written by, yes you guessed it, Len Wein.

Len and Ross’s stories, from that time, solidified my opinion of not only who Spider-Man and Peter Parker was and still should be, but also what a hero should be.  Under Len, Spider-Man fought a many crazy and colourful villains, maintained one of the best supporting Spidey casts ever, all the while grounding Peter’s life in reality.  It was Peter’s apartment from this time, which I still think of as his home.  Power cable spool for a coffee table and Elvis Costello posters on the walls and all. 

The more and more I read of Len’s prolific writing in the 70s and 80s, I realize just how much he had written for both Marvel and DC.  In the days before “event books” guys like Len, wrote stories that I consider the glue which keep (no matter how much both companies try to destroy it) each Universe together.   

I haven’t even mentioned that Len co-created Wolverine and plotted the early issues of the new X-Men.  Stories which helped save the franchise, and give us one of the most popular versions of the team.

Obviously I can only comment on Len’s work, not Len the man.  A man whom by all accounts these past few days, was a pretty great guy in real life too.

From a guy who is just realizing now, how much he really appreciated all of your work over the years, thanks Len Wein!  Rest in peace you awesome specimen of a writer.