A Lifetime Fan of Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man
We first introduced the Evans’ Spider-Man collection about a year ago – but COVID swooped in and slowed us down from pricing all of it until last month. Now we’d like to introduce you to Todd Evans, dressed above as Doc Ock, his favorite villain. He hand made the entire costume about 6 years ago. His daughter Harper really enjoyed being Spider-Girl and wore the mask the entire day. It was difficult chasing a 3 year old in that rig, but made for some funny moments!
Todd wasn’t much older than Harper when he became a fan of Spider-Man. Here’s more about his lifetime love of the character in his own words:
“It all started with the 1967 Spider-Man cartoon on Saturday mornings to comic books themselves. I loved the Buddy L toys along with the Secret Wars line of toys. My first Amazing Spider-Man book read was #238, the 1st appearance of Hobgoblin.
Comic books were my escape growing up as the middle child of five. My older brothers were obsessed with Star Wars, my kid brother was all about sports, and my sister adored My Little Pony.
Comics were all mine and I really loved Spider-Man’s rogues gallery of villains and how human he was.
Spider-Man is the everyman hero, a regular person gifted with extraordinary power and forced to accept the responsibility that comes with it through personal tragedy. His suffering creates a deeper sense of empathy for others, and he uses his powers to prevent strangers from having to endure the pain he has to live with forever. But he doesn’t let that pain turn him into a brooding loner.
He’s not just the friendly neighborhood Spider-Man, he’s your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man. If you happen to live in his stomping grounds, you might end up making his acquaintance.
I used comics to escape from life for awhile from my tour in Iraq. I would read them in my cot with a flashlight in Baghdad after a rough day.
My heroes were Stan Lee, Steve Ditko, Jack Kirby, John Romita and Todd Mcfarlane.
In Amazing Spider-Man #33, a beaten, bruised and nearly broken Spider-Man overcomes all obstacles in his way, pushing past all known limits to survive and fight another day. Who can’t respect a character like that.”