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The newly relaunched Amazing Spider-Man #1 takes the Spider-Man/Seinfeld connection a step further by having the webhead visit Jerry Seinfeld’s apartment — except it’s home to Aleksei Sytsevich, the Rhino. The horn-headed supervillain has just gone on a mindless rampage through the streets of New York before collapsing from a sudden heart attack, so Spider-Man investigates with a B&E at Aleksei’s apartment.
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The Rhino’s apartment is an exact replica of Jerry Seinfeld’s apartment, right down to the placement of the furniture and the lampshade (“What’s the deal with lampshades? I mean, if it’s a lamp, why do you want shade?”) There’s no Superman statue on the entertainment shelf or a freeloading neighbor, but otherwise, it’s a perfect match.
Unlike the show about nothing, the new Amazing Spider-Man #1 — from writer Joe Kelly (Ben 10, Deadpool) and artist Pepe Larraz (X-Men: Fall of the House of X, Blood Hunt) — is about Peter Parker’s search for a job. While interviewing for a Supervising Engineer of Cooperative Disciplines position at Rand Enterprises, the Parker Luck strikes again, and Peter suits up as Spider-Man to rein in the rampaging Rhino (who has semi-reformed in recent years). As it turns out, the Rhino attack was caused by Roderick Kingsley, a.k.a. the Hobgoblin, and his mysterious benefactor: the shadowy Hellgate.
In a letter addressed to fans included in Amazing Spider-Man #1, Spain-born artist Larraz noted he was inspired by two seminal American writer-artists of the 1990s — Spider-Man‘s Todd McFarlane and Erik Larsen — so it stands to reason that another ’90s icon, Seinfeld, would also provide inspiration.
McFarlane and Larsen’s adjectiveless Spider-Man comic “blew my mind,” Larraz wrote. “The making of American comic books was something so remote that it was almost mythical. It was impossible for me to draw American comic books.”
Recognizing Spanish comic book artists Carlos Pacheco (Fantastic Four), Salvador Larroca (X-Men), and Pasqual Ferry (Heroes for Hire), Larraz continued, “[They] opened the gates of America to us, the kids across the Atlantic, Suddenly, a Spaniard could draw American comic books. But when I got hired and started knowing this industry from the inside, it was only climbing the hill to see the mountain. I realized how far I was from drawing Amazing Spider-Man. It was the peak, the top. It was impossible for a newbie like me to get to draw Amazing Spider-Man. And, well, here we are.”
The Amazing Spider-Man #1 (2025) is on sale now from Marvel Comics.
