JB, I know you must get this a million times, but I miss seeing your work at Marvel & DC. But I love you playing with the characters in your commisions.

It seems like you're one of the few who "get it" right.

Great commission though kinda makes me wish Spider-man was fighting his own foes.  Loving the Spider-man villains lately, been waiting for a JB Rhino. Is he from a certain era? Wasn't expecting that kind of texture on his outfit.

John doesn't talk much about the story development process when he sets about creating these "big-story" commissions and that's a shame. Every picture tells a story, after all.

Perhaps John's process is so rapid (near instantaneous?) and natural that it would become a case of Holmes wearily describing to Watson the steps by which his conlusions were arrived at.

I understand that some artists are happy to just go for the "cool" visual, but I feel John is so grounded in logic and common sense that there is a backstory to every aspect of the commission. Take the Goblin grabbing the cape; it's in keeping with his personality and not a thing a Bat-foe would usually do. Is that how that particular visual came to be?

Or the Vulture apparently waiting for the others to finish with The Batman so that he can swoop down upon the carrion.

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That's pretty much it. 99% of the time, when I read the description Jim Warden sends me, an instant "snapshot" appears in my head. In fact, one of the reasons I will occasionally decline a commission request is that the snapshot DOESN'T take immediate shape. I have learned the hard way that my "process" really does not allow much room for working and reworking a concept. Sometimes I will nudge the snapshot one way or another, when I discover it doesn't really work on a flat piece of paper (even after all these years I occasionally trip myself up by thinking, without realizing it, in 3D), and as I noted upthread there will be some manipulation in terms of placing which figures where in these crowd scenes -- but even there, I am still working from that instinctual shapshot.

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Take the Goblin grabbing the cape; it's in keeping with his personality and not a thing a Bat-foe would usually do. Is that how that particular visual came to be?

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I wanted each of the characters to be showing off their powers and abilities in some way, without banging into each other, and somehow having the Goblin grabbing Batman's cape seemed appropriate -- plus it gave me a nice, strong line cutting across that quadrant of the image.

I wanted each of the characters to be showing off their powers and abilities in some way

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This is one of your strengths -- an instinctual grasp for the essence of a character and the ability to sum it all up in one panel. I've mentioned before how in OHOTMU yours were always the best, most representative panels included, often included both 'cause and effect' when demonstrating someone's powers.

You perfectly capture the Goblin's capricious nature here.