Putting Al Milgrom on The Spot
Hear what the creator of The Spot wants people to know about his creation
As I write this, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse has had the second highest weekend at the domestic box office in 2023 (raking in almost $120.7M its opening weekend). In other words, it’s a huge hit. One of the breakout stars from the movie is a supervillain known as The Spot (voiced by Jason Schwartzman).
The Spot is a supervillain who has not been a part of the collective pop culture consciousness in the way some of Spider-Man’s other villains are. The Spot (whose real name is Jonathan Ohnn) was created by Al Milgrom in the pages of Spectacular Spider-Man #97-100 (with Herb Trimpe doing the interior pencils for issues #97-99) that were published from 1984-85. His origin story is an interesting one. Jonathan Ohnn is a scientist working for Kingpin who has begun attempting to figure out a way to replicate the powers of the superhero known as Cloak. I talked about Cloak briefly in my Maximum Carnage retrospective, but he essentially can open up a portal to the Dark Dimension from inside his cloak.
Through his experimentation, Ohnn manages to successfully open up a portal to the Dark Dimension. Unfortunately for him, he is quickly sucked into that portal. Due to a malfunction in the equipment he was using to create the portal, he ends up in a dimension that serves as kind of a liminal space between the Dark Dimension and our own that is essentially a space of vast white nothingness pockmarked by black portals to the Dark Dimension. Ohnn uses one of the portals to travel back to our reality, but in the process he is transformed into a being of all white skin covered in circular black portals. Thus The Spot is born.
The Spot’s powers are pretty straightforward. He’s covered in portals that objects and people can travel through to be transported elsewhere. He’s also able to generate additional portals that he can use to transport himself or others. It’s a very fun power from a visual standpoint, and it really translates well via animation.
That’s probably why despite having a fairly limited number of appearances in the comics, The Spot has now made appearances in Spider-Man: The Animated Series (1994), Marvel’s Spider-Man (2017), and now Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (2023).
I recently had the pleasure of chatting with Al Milgrom about a host of topics. The following is our conversation dealing specifically with The Spot.
(Note: discussion of The Spot arose organically during a conversation regarding a specific arc he wrote during his time on Spectacular Spider-Man.)
My favorite part of The Spot is his civilian identity. His name is Jonathan Ohnn (pronounced “on”). He was in the cartoon show (Spider-Man: The Animated Series from the ‘90s), and they called him Jonathan Ohnn (pronounced “own”). That misses the pun because it’s Jonathan Ohnn: Johnny On The Spot.
That makes much more sense.
I like my puns. It’s a good pun except the idiots behind Spider-Man: The Animated Series made it Johnny Own The Spot. No, he doesn’t own the spot. It’s Johnny On The Spot. Come on. I guess I should have spelled it more phonetically like A-H-N, and they probably would have gotten it that way.
I’ve been mispronouncing it this whole time. It’s probably because of the cartoon.
Make sure and correct it so that people reading the Substack know it’s Johnny On The Spot.
Oh, I’ll make sure people know.
Thanks. I’m trying to spread the word. I wonder if they’re gonna address that in the Spider-Verse movie at all. They’ll probably get it wrong. (Note from Future Josh: I can confirm after a rewatch that his real name is never spoken.)
Have you seen it yet?
No, I’ll wait until it’s on streaming.
The Spot is the main villain in the film.
Oh, is he? Well that’s cool!
Yeah, he is the primary villain, and he’s really blowing up in popularity online. I was wondering if you were aware of that. People are even doing fan art.
No, I was not aware of that. You know? That’s gratifying.
I’m glad to be able to tell you that! I’ve had people who are not big comic book fans coming up to me and asking about The Spot because they know I read comics. It’s been fun to talk about this character with them.
I’m glad to hear it. I think he’s kind of a cool character and visually very interesting. That cover I did for his first appearance I think is one of the better ones from that run of covers I did for Spectacular Spider-Man that I was very happy with. It’s very striking. I even like the bright yellow background.
Me too. It really pops.
I only wish I hadn’t sold the original artwork a few years back. I’m sure it’s worth a lot more now!
Another question I had about The Spot was the level of coordination between you and Herb Trimpe who did the interior artwork on that issue. Did he have much input on the look of The Spot?
No, he had no input. I love Herb, and I love his work. I wrote the issue and in order to show Herb what The Spot should look like and how his powers work, I drew the cover (for Spectacular Spider-Man #99) first before he ever drew the issue. So I wrote the character and drew the first definitive drawing of the character.
(Note: following the interview, I emailed Mr. Milgrom some of The Spot fan art that has been circulating on social media. This is his response.)
Thanks for showing these to me. Some very cool interpretations...
Always gratifying to have other artists draw a character I created!
Best--Al
That’s the extent of the conversation dealing with The Spot, but worry not: the rest of our discussion will be published as part of a different piece I’m currently writing.
In the meantime, I encourage folks to check out Milgrom’s run on Spectacular Spider-Man as a writer that went from issue #90 until #100. It’s all currently available on Marvel Unlimited.
If you would like to hear me talk about Star Wars comics, check out the podcast Pathways: A Sith Podcast where I talk about those rascally Dark Side Force wielders with my far more knowledgeable pals, Russell and Anne.