The New York Times ran an article today about how artist John Romita Jr. was jumping from Marvel Comics over to DC to draw Superman, calling it “the equivalent of Derek Jeter leaving the Yankees to play for the Mets.”

I was touched to see that John mentioned me by name in the piece, repeating a comment of mine which he’s shared many times before.

Mr. Romita said that Scott Edelman, the Marvel editor who gave him his first break, told him, “I don’t believe in nepotism, but I don’t believe in anti-nepotism either,” before offering him the art chores on Iron Man. Mr. Romita’s parents’ approach was more tough love: “We never went out of our way to make his path any easier,” his father said.

For the record:

While I did state to John and everyone else back then that the only thing worse than nepotism was anti-nepositism, and that a talented newcomer shouldn’t not get work because of fears of nepotism accusations, I had nothing to do with his eventually getting to draw Iron Man. Except in the most indirect way, of course, because I suppose the editor who later gave him that gig might have been impressed by the job I had made sure was sent his way.

Instead, the story I pushed to get assigned to John was “Chaos at the Coffee Bean,” a Spider-Man story I wrote which appeared as a back-up in 1977′s Amazing Spider-Man Annual #11.

The Times did acknowledge that as having been John’s first story, because many paragraphs before my name was mentioned, the writer of the piece stated that “Mr. Romita, whose first published story for Marvel was in 1977 and featured Spider-Man, would eventually draw most of its superheroes,” so I assume the comment about Iron Man later on was an accidental conflation of two different events.

Chek out the splash page of that career-launching story below.

I thought there was a poetry to John’s first assignment being to draw the character his father had drawn for so many years. Plus, it was a not-so-subtle way of telling those who thought us guilty of abetting nepotism—”So what?”

Glad it all worked out for you, John!