Archives by Tag: Spider-Man
Generation Goat #8 – New Year’s Goat
We’re back! In this episode, Chris and Jon ramble through the December holidays, the perils of hot dogs, and the allure of Skee-Ball prizes! We also discuss the return of songs from our High School Band, Avatar, Spider-Man, and the problem of living in Britain in Winter. All of this, and more, as we try to recapture the “glory” of the Goat! Come on, give it a try… it still beats prison, folks!
Have a listen!
Cross-posted from Songs That Saved Your Life.
John Romita, Sr. Draws Variant Cover for AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #600
John Romita, Sr., one of the most important Amazing Spider-Man artists of all time, is returning to draw a variant cover for #600. Newsarama has the full version, and it’s definitely a sweet piece. A commenter over there was trying to poop on it, saying “this cover looks str8 out of the 1970’s,” obviously not understanding that that’s the fucking point, but I ain’t letting that get me down. Romita, Sr. still has it, in my opinion. What about you?
2009 GF5 Tournament Round 3: Batman vs. Spider-Man
The Comics bracket of the Tournament is the only bracket where the top four seeds have made it to the Sweet Sixteen, making both of the matchups in the comics bracket this round absolutely star-studded affairs. First up: Batman vs. Spider-Man. Each major comic book company has two sort-of premiere characters. For DC, it’s Batman and Superman. For Marvel, it’s Spider-Man and the X-Men. Bats and the X-Men sort of represent, to me at least, the dark side of things, while Spidey and Supes represent the light side of things. So, in this dark time, it’s Batman and the X-Men who I expect to make it through.
But, with your help, anything’s possible. Batman or Spider-Man? It’s your choice. Vote now, and vote as many times as you’d like!
61% (14)
39% (9)2009 GF5 Tournament Round 2 Winners, Part One
The first half of Round 2 is over. Congratulations to all of the Star Trek, Lost, Buffy, Star Wars, Batman, Spider-Man, Superman, and X-Men geeks out there. Voting on the second half of Round 2 starts tomorrow morning.
2009 GF5 Tournament Round 2: Spider-Man vs. Iron Man
Did you know that Iron Man and Spider-Man slept together, once upon a time? Yep, they did. Or, well, their alter-egos did while they were each operating under assumed identities during an undercover assignment in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. This was depicted in the film Wonder Boys. In that film, Tony Stark (goatee-less, and going by the name Terry Crabtree) seduces a young Peter Parker (who is, at that time, posing as a college student named James Leer). At the film’s conclusion, the narrator, Professor Grady Tripp, tells us that Crabtree and Leer ended up in New York, not coincidentally the headquarters of both Spidey and Old Buckethead.
Anyway, this matchup may seem decidedly unfair on paper—how does a guy who shoots webs defeat a guy who shoots repulsor rays?—but remember that Spidey is capable of far more than he lets on, and that, in the beginning of the “One More Day” debacle, Spider-Man captured Iron Man in his webs quite easily.
Vote now!
59% (10)
41% (7)2009 GF5 Tournament Round 1 Winners in Comics
The first round of competition in the Comics bracket of the 1st Annual Geek Force Five Tournament is over! We had a few more blowouts in this bracket than we’ve had in previous brackets, but the competition was, in general, still tight. Here’s a quick snapshot of how things went down.
- Old Man Wayne, aka Batman was more than a match for the fairy tale creatures of Fables, even without the other half of the Dynamic Duo at his side.
- In a close fight that was accompanied by one of the most contentious (and amusing) comment threads in the history of Geek Force Five, Frank Miller bested Alan Moore.
- Ed Brubaker came close to being the only creator to knock off a creation in the first round, but he did eventually lose to Iron Man (40% to 60%).
- Bendis was no match for Spider-Man, Grant Morrison was no match for the Watchmen, and Jim Lee was no match for Captain America.
- Jesse Custer and the cast of Preacher couldn’t take down Man of Steel. In fact, they didn’t even put up much of a fight, losing to Superman 27% to 73%.
- And, last but not least, the X-Men stomped on the Last Man to the tune of 76% to 24%.
Voting for the Music bracket starts soon. And, after that, it’s on to the second round.
2009 GF5 Tournament Round 1: Spider-Man vs. Brian Bendis
Spider-Man is arguably the most notable single character in Marvel Comics lore. But he’s up against one of Marvel’s most noted creators of the moment. How does the oeuvre of Brian Michael Bendis stack up against the exploits of our friendly neighborhood Spider-Man? That’s up to you to decide, Fivers. Choose, and choose well.
82% (14)
18% (3)President Obama - Savior of the Comics Industry
Who’d thunk it? The most wanted guest-star in the comic book industry right now is President Barack Obama. His appearance in Amazing Spider-Man #583 reportedly helped Marvel sell more than 300,000 copies of the title. And I’m not sure what it did for sales Savage Dragon #145, but I’m sure Dragon creator Erik Larsen’s got a few extra pennies in his piggy bank now, too. Rumor has it that the President’s next comic book appearance will be in the pages of Rob Liefeld’s Youngblood, and this has me wondering if where we’re going to see Obama pop up next. Anybody have any predictions?
Marvel Mythos and Media #7 - The Other
Mythos:
New to Marvel Mythos and Media? Please check out my previous columns!
Welcome back! This week, we’re going to focusing upon a single storyline in a single article. That is a first for this column, where it seems like I’m becoming quite longwinded. In another first, we’re going to be dealing with my favorite character, Marvel’s golden egg himself, Peter Parker, the amazing Spider-Man.
It’s not original, I know, but he’ll always be my favorite.
As Marvel emerged from its bankruptcy woes of the 90s, they managed to convince a large name to take on Spider-Man. J. Michael Straczynski, a television writer whose credits include Babylon 5 and the much underrated Jeremiah, was landed to helm the title. During his run, he was known for inciting controversy amongst the fans. We won’t be rehashing that here, but if you’re curious, you can certainly look for other fanboy rants online about Gwen Stacy and her phantom pregnancy.
Like him or not, this man shook up Spidey’s universe.
Before the newest Spider-Man storyline that ticked every off, the dissolution of his marriage, Straczynski crafted a tale entitled “The Other” with the aid of some other writers, including noted scribe, Peter David. This is a tale that when examined, makes it look like Spidey was headed for a bold new direction that never reached a culmination. While the writing during this story arc is goofy and a bit juvenile in many places, it begins with a creepy and out of place sex scene.
Sex is goofy and awkward enough without it being superhero sex.
This storyline begins innocently enough, featuring a new villain who I don’t believe has been used since this arc. In another peculiar move, this villain is introduced in this major storyline despite being exceedingly underwritten, possessing a goofy look, and having powers that are eye-roll worthy. Declaring himself the god of machines, he can control all machinery. Looking at him, it’s a wonder he survives even a page without being torn apart by even the weakest of superheroes.
To make things even worse, he always has a cocky, smarmy look to him.
Spider-Man has a tough time taking down this chump, and he is only able to survive by remembering some new-age martial arts techniques given to him by a very blandly-written Captain America.
Peter is making a classic “What the *%() is this guy talking about?” face.
How the hell did Spidey barely survive an encounter with Tracer? The answers are forthcoming after he receives some tests from an underground superhero nurse. Notice the art on this next shot? “The Other” storyline was also used as a way to hype their new Spidey title, Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man, and to continue pumping up their Marvel Knights line of comics. This next shot shows the manga feel that was being given to the Marvel Knights title.
Peter reveals to Mary Jane that he’s dying…but why?
Predictably, Peter is less than happy to learn of his death sentence. Earlier in the Straczynski run, it had been established that Peter was tied into some larger supernatural spider powers phenomenon. At the heart of this, they placed an extremely powerful and mysterious being by the name of Morlun. At this low point, Morlun makes a reappearance.
Forget the manga-esque art; this is a great example of how to make a villain look imposing.
While Morlun’s reappearance and gloating over Peter’s situation is of interest, the fact that he’s running on limited time is of more concern. All his super-smart superhero pals are unable to help him. Mr. Fantastic and Henry Pym are both stumped as to the cause or the solution. However, they both realize that there’s one man on the planet who knows more about radiation infection, the origin of Spidey’s powers, than anybody else. There’s just a slight problem: that man has the tendency to turn into the Hulk.
The Hulk proves to be “reluctant” to help them.
Unfortunately, after forcing the Hulk to revert to his level-headed self, Bruce Banner has no answers. He surmises that he could find a solution, but he would need time, and Peter’s time is running out. Why they would entrust a man who hasn’t been able to solve his own green problem is never addressed. Running out of options, Peter journeys to Wakanda to visit the Black Panther, who gives him some “special” leafy greens that he must imbibe. Insert obvious drug joke here.
Did they really think this would work?
After the super-salad attempt is dashed, Peter tries Dr. Strange. Dr. Strange gives a two page equivalent to a shoulder shrug before telling Peter that he needs to get ready to die. Ouch. Time to work on that bedside manner. At this point, the shark is totally jumped. Tony Stark lends May and Mary Jane some Iron Man armor so they can break into Dr. Doom’s castle and use his time machine to show them a scene of Peter’s parents from the past. What?! The Avengers and Fantastic Four can’t defeat this guy, but a weakened Spider-man with Mary Jane and Aunt May in cruddy armor can mow their way through the castle?
Horrible.
After a few more bucket list items crossed off, Peter is set upon by Morlun while cruising around as Spider-Man. Declaring that it’s time, Morlun makes it pretty obvious that he is going to kill Peter once and for all. Making good on his promise, Morlun proceeds to beat the tar out of him in one of the most violent mainstream Marvel fights I’ve seen.
Morlun rips out Spidey’s eyeball and eats it. No joke.
The beating leaves Spidey in awful shape, hovering near death. When unmasked by the paramedics, there are no worries about his being recognized, because his face is a sloppy mess.
Will this give you nightmares?
After having his mangled body carted away to the hospital, Mary Jane and his friends from the Avengers begin a tense bedside vigil, but the prognosis is not good. Oddly, the heroes leave the room unguarded with Mary Jane and Peter. Predictably, Morlun shows up, stating that he’s going to consume Spider-Man’s powers. At this point, Spider-Man is awakened, turning into some type of half-spider half-man before eating Morlun…starting with his head.
Despite some flaws, the story has a few great moments of which this is one. I love the “Aw, &*()&!” look in Morlun’s eyes in that panel.
His body torn from the stress of this strange possession, Peter Parker, Spider-Man, dies. As the heroes and Mary-Jane prepare for life without him, his body is seemingly attacked while being interred in Avengers Tower.
Wrinkly.
Any reader can surmise that Spider-Man is not going to stay dead and that this looks like the obvious first step to bringing him back. This is confirmed by a shot of school children by the riverfront, one of whom notices a peculiar cocoon.
It looks like a really big booger.
In a dream-like state, Peter is confronted by a bizarre pair of creatures, telling him that he must embrace the spider part of himself. Without this evolution, this force states that he will die. Ultimately, Peter takes the advice, experiencing a rebirth.
Evolve or die. Nice tusks.
This leads to the teary reunion and such, but the storyline itself isn’t nearly as important as the set-up to something bigger for Spider-Man. That’s what we’ll be examining in Media today.
Media:
I’ve alluded to the supernatural aspect during the Mythos portion of this column. Any regular reader of this column should notice that I’m trying to show the connections between the graphic medium and American culture at that point in time. In my previous columns, I’ve dealt with characters from the seventies, an era that was heavily into the supernatural. The eighties were marked by gritty realism as the world was affected by the business boom, the further evolution of corporations, rampant crime, the last gasps of the Cold War etc. However, in the last few years, the desire for supernatural storylines and the fantastic has returned.
Some flaws…but it helped bring horror movies back.
The profitability of the supernatural is at an all-time high as well. Horror movies are relatively cheap to produce and can easily be staffed with inexpensive actors. However, there’s always an audience. Also, the import of Japanese movies like The Ring and The Grudge helped to reinvigorate the genre. Even my favorite, zombie movies, made a comeback thanks to Zack Snyder’s remake of Dawn of the Dead. Even television has produced some minor successes utilizing this renewal in interest in the darker side.
I know they’re pretty boys, but this is the best show you’re not watching if you’re a horror movie buff.
Perhaps it seems like I’ve wandered off-topic, but bear with me. Despite the renewal of interest in the supernatural, Straczynski’s ideas were shelved due to his leaving the book and Marvel’s conflicting plans. Firstly, there was a Civil War coming, something that was foreshadowed in the last page of this story arc. Tony Stark is shown constructing new armor for Spider-Man, a derivative of his own design. This would become a symbol of Peter’s conflict when the war between heroes began.
Spider-Man always gets the coolest costumes. Every one is solid. Original, black, or Stark.
Now, there was still a chance that this supernatural aspect of Spider-Man’s powers would be revisited after the war, but Joe Quesada, the editor-in-chief of Marvel, decided that he had to resolve something that had been bugging him. Thus, the marriage was annihilated and fans were left confused. In this new and altered Spidey world, did “The Other” even happen?
I had a chance to hear him speak a half-year before the Spidey marriage event unfolded. This man DESPISES the idea of a married Spidey. Don’t hold your breath on a Mary Jane-Peter renewal under his tenure.
In this new, more “real” Spidey world, it appears there isn’t room for a more supernatural “spider” connection that he found during “The Other.” While I have to admit that I’ve really been digging the comics the last few months, I can’t help but wonder what might have been. Until next time...watch for the monsters in the mirrors!
*All images used are from Marvel Comics.
Worth Your Consideration #022
- The February issue of Empire features several photos of the upcoming film adaptation of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Among them, the shot I’ve included above. Let me tell you: seeing the Phelps twins in what appears to be Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes sets my mind at ease about the upcoming film. If they’re keeping this scene, then they’re going to get the adaptation right, in my humble opinion.
- CineLive magazine has some new photos, too.
- Oh, and Entertainment Weekly has a brief preview.
- In other movie news, Ain’t It Cool continues their uniformly doom-and-gloom coverage of the upcoming X-Men Origins: Wolverine with a brief item on that film’s latest promotional image. Oh well. I’m still excited.
- In comics news, the Associated Press reported this week that President Elect Barack Obama would be appearing in an upcoming issue of Amazing Spider-Man. The issue, #583 of the series, hits the stands this Wednesday. I’m guessing it’ll be sold out within a couple of hours, but we’ll see.
- The legal fight between Warner Brothers and Fox over Watchmen may be coming to a close, reports AICN. Nobody’s sure how much money is changing hands, but even a penny is more than Fox deserves, according to what I’ve been reading. Bright side: at least this means the movie may actually come out, after all.
- Back to comics (as opposed to comic book adaptations): Newsarama has an interesting piece up on comic book shops suggesting that one of the keys to success in the specialty shop arena is opting out of stocking back issues. It’s an interesting bit of advice, and the comic shops I’ve been inside recently all seem to be taking it to heart. I miss back issues, but I’m becoming much more of a trade paperback guy myself.
- Just because I can’t get over how cool it is that my favorite band is giving away 405 gigs of free HD concert video, here’s a Mashable article about how much more awesome Nine Inch Nails is when compared to Metallica.
- Way on the other end of the Awesomeness Scale as far as most people are concerned (though not me, because I think they’re just as awesome), Aerosmith can’t wait to get back into the studio. Seriously, man, if you haven’t heard their blues record Honkin on Bobo, you should give it a spin. It gives hope that they’ll actually do something closer to 1970s Aerosmith than 1990s Aerosmith, and that could be really nifty. At least I think so.
- Okay, now that I’ve lost all of your respect by admitting I’m an Aerosmith nut, let’s talk Lost and try to win it back (your respect, that is). The title of the eleventh episode of season five will be “Whatever Happened, Happened”. Oh, and danger might be bringing two Left Behinders together, two that we might not expect. Well, unless, like me, you were seeing the signs of this development as far back as the finale of season three...
- If you are so overwhelmed by my geekiness that you’d like to unfriend me on Facebook or something, you should know that, if you can find nine other losers to unfriend, a Whopper might be in your future.
- Speaking of geeks: after reading about this Facebook/Burger King development, Jason Kottke did something extraordinarily awesome. He calculated Facebook’s valuation in Whoppers.
- Two more...
- My favorite blogger of all time, Mrs. Heather Armstrong (better known as Dooce), has a book coming out. It’s called It Sucked and Then I Cried: How I Had A Baby, A Breakdown, and A Much Needed Margarita. It comes out on March 24 and she’s doing a tour that’ll stop in New York, Chicago, San Francisco and other cities (but sadly not Boston). I can’t wait to read it.
- Darren Aronofsky, director of The Wrestler (which I can’t wait to see), thinks that professional wrestlers belong in the Screen Actor’s Guild. Says Aronofsky, “There’s really no reason why these guys are not in SAG...They’re in front of a camera performing and doing stunts, and they should have that protection. They should have health insurance and they should be protected.” I couldn’t agree more. Regardless of what one thinks of the sport, I think it’s ridiculous to deny these performers the same union rights that are afforded to other actors and stuntpeople.
