Tangled Webs: The Spider-Man Artist Who Became a Prominent Politician

This was a major story during the 2012 presidential election so it’s entirely possible that many of you have already heard this before. But it is an interesting episode in the lives of the professionals who produced Spider-Man comics. And it selfishly allows me to combine my love of Spider-Man with my interest in politics.

Paul Ryan was rather young when he started working in comics. He was 19 when he got his first Marvel job, inking The Thing #27. He became the illustrator on the series, which was followed by his work on the first issues of the New Universe title DP7, and Marvel’s Quasar. His highest profile comic was Amazing Spider-Man Annual #21, best known as the issue in which Peter and Mary Jane got married.

In the 1990s, Paul Ryan left comics to work in advertising. He got involved with the conservative organization Empower America (now known as FreedomWorks), founded by former congressman and HUD Secretary Jack Kemp. When Kemp became Bob Dole’s running mate in 1996, Ryan joined the campaign as a policy adviser. He used the connections made that year to run for Congress in his native Wisconsin in 1998. His last comics work was a brief stint on the Spider-Man newspaper strip, and a contribution to the 1996 Superman: Wedding Annual special.

He gained a reputation as one of the Republicans’ top policy wonks, and became the Chairman of the House Budget committee when the GOP took back the House of Representatives in the 2010 elections.

He was Mitt Romney’s running mate in 2012. In 2014, he got his dream job of being Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, which is in charge of taxation. He was so respected by his party that when John Boehner resigned as Speaker of the House, Ryan was basically drafted for the high profile position. There’s speculation that he’s planning to leave Congress in the coming weeks, and that he may run for President at some point in the future.

Paul Ryan hasn’t really talked much about his work as a Spider-Man artist. Scuttllebutt is that he’d rather not give interviewers more of an excuse to bring up Ayn Rand, given Ditko’s objectivist views. Ryan was known for giving copies of Atlas Shrugged to everyone who worked in his congressional office.

Brad had previously talked (in Episode 106) about how an interview he was supposed to do with Paul Ryan in 2010, when Ryan was trying to promote the Republican agenda for Missouri voters, was cancelled at the last minute, perhaps due to concerns that the guy who runs a Spider-Man website might ask a former Spider-Man artist about his background in comics.

The only time Paul Ryan ever discussed his Spider-Man work was in an appearance on Fox News’s Red Eye, which has to be seen to be believed. If the rumors are true about his impending retirement, he might soon be able to talk about it more.