i think this spidey evolution thing has gotten out of hand...

January 31, 2006 8:34 PM

Spider-man, for many of us, has been a tried and true character which many of us have grown up with. For my fellow comic geeks, I'm sure many of you will agree at having enjoyed the stories for many years. However, the recent "The Other" storyline has harped on a series of evolutions(literally, not figuratively) that our webslinger has undergone of late. Of which an upcoming costume change is the least.
posted by Doorstop (65 comments total)

yeah, it's my first post. i chose a really nerdy topic.
posted by Doorstop at 8:34 PM on January 31, 2006

It'd be better if there were a summary, somewhere, of what this new story line were about?
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 8:50 PM on January 31, 2006

But in a year from now, he'll be back the exact way he was one year ago. That's the nature of comics.
posted by Doug at 8:50 PM on January 31, 2006

Please comic book gods, strike Joe Quesada down dead. Please! That guy has only gotten worse over the years.
posted by skallas at 8:51 PM on January 31, 2006

It's been established that the costume change is to be temporary.
posted by kafziel at 8:53 PM on January 31, 2006

yeah, what's the plot? Is it that he has a clone somewhere that he never knew about? or that his parents who died when he was young and left him in the care of Aunt May & Uncle Ben aren't really dead? Or has the reincarnated Gwen Stacy finally hooked up with the reincarnated Jean Gray and gotten into some sexy undead zombie supergirlfriend on zombie superphoenix lesbian action?*



*this is a serious question, because if that's what the plot of The Others is about, I'll buy it. Or bittorrent it at the very least.
posted by jonson at 8:59 PM on January 31, 2006

Yeah, my understanding is the costume change is only temporary. Which is as it should be. Who is their right mind would try to fuck with the iconic Ditko design*?

Well, certain editors trying to sell more comics by using gimmicks would. Ah, I answered my own question.

Anyway, it'll be gone before Spider-man 3 hits the movie theaters.


*Okay, the symbiote costume was pretty badass, but aside from that. ;)
posted by kosher_jenny at 9:03 PM on January 31, 2006

Can someone in the know please explain the plotline? Otherwise this post is mostly useless.
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 9:05 PM on January 31, 2006

Spiderman kills his children and then himself, and the family proceeds to haunt their lavish house whilst their ghostly handyman and wife try to show them what they've done.

Also, Spidey's hunky war-casualty husband stops by.
posted by cortex at 9:10 PM on January 31, 2006

Remixed Spider-man comic strips (NSFW)
posted by the_bone at 9:14 PM on January 31, 2006

Um i'll try with the plot explination. For the past few years, Spidey has had a bad guy named Morlun chase him around. Spiderman finds out heisn'y the only guy with spider-powers, which are now being made out to be totemic and imparted to worthies by spiderbites, and Morlun is kinda a vampire that eats spiderpowers. But Spiderman is different from the other spiderguys throughout history because his spider was irradiated. Morlun beat Spidey almost to death and then tried to suck his powers in the hospital, but Spidey sucked Morlun instead. Then Spidey died. Then he shed his dead husk and regrew in a cocoon. And now he's got more spidery spider powers. He can see in the dark. He's stronger. He can use a web to detect movement. I'm sure there's more. Oh and he's got organic web shooters like the movie, but they did that a few years ago.

I think this is right. I hope it helps. I don't think it's a big deal. He's just a little more spidery is all.
posted by thecjm at 9:18 PM on January 31, 2006

Oh and he's a full-on Avenger now too, so they've dropped the Spiderman is an outsider even amongst his superpeers subtext that's been around for the past 40 years.
posted by thecjm at 9:20 PM on January 31, 2006

thanks, thecjm, you beat me to that. you summed it up pretty well. yeah i'm iffy about the entire spidey storyline thing. and, quite frankly, ironman is a toolish character and should not be designing costumes. ever. i mean friggin mechanical spiderlegs coming out of spidey's back? shit.
posted by Doorstop at 9:30 PM on January 31, 2006

you know, I loved everything strazcynski has done with spidey's personal and social life.

i've hated everything he's done with the powers.

that's exactly what superhero comics need. more cheap mysticism.
posted by shmegegge at 9:31 PM on January 31, 2006

reminds me of another costume change:


posted by vaportrail at 9:33 PM on January 31, 2006

New costume? Yeah, that'll stick.
posted by Robot Johnny at 9:37 PM on January 31, 2006

This was worse than crap. If you hold one of the issues up to your ear, you can hear the paper crying about having to convey this garbage.

Ten reasons why this is the worse Spider Man story ever. In no particular order.

1. Spider-man supposedly had a fatal disease. But it was never revealed what it was, how he got it, or what the particulars were. None of the Marvel genius characters could help, and Peter Parker, no scientific slouch himself, just "Aw, shucks" his way through it and never so much as broke a sweat trying to figure out why he was going to die.

2. Morlun beat Spider-Man to death. Here's a guy who dodges bullets and can swing to the top of a building in a lickety-split. But he let a guy who cannot follow him upward beat him to death on the ground. This reminded me of Doomsday vs. Superman. Another lame piece of crap writing engineered specifically to make the character die.

3. Aunt May and Mary Jane accompanied Peter Parker in (please pass the pain-killers) old Iron Man armor back in time through one of Doctor Doom's unused time machines. I'm not even sure I remember that right, but I simply cannot allow myself the punishment of checking the facts. Suffice it to say, yes, Aunt May wore an old Iron Man outfit and kicked some ass in it.

4. Once again, Peter Parker may not be Peter Parker. Though his "body" died he was reborn as "something else". Maybe him. maybe the Other. Maybe a "spider who wanted to be a man. Maybe a clone. Maybe a walking, talking turd. In the mirror he sees a spider monster thing with sharp teeth. Big fun.

5. Throughout this fiasco, Tony Stark is pushing Spider-Man to wear a new costume. Peter never asks, never seems interested. But Tony Stark, like he's all of a sudden papa super-hero and he wants to take little Petey into the back room for some secret games, wants to make Spider Man a new outfit to dress him up in. Smarmy much?

6. Morlun is a high-collared, dark haired, energy drinking, eye-glowing, unstoppable nobody who reminded me of Morbius. A high-collared, dark-haired, energy drinking, unstoppable nobody with a very similar name.

7. Spider-man now has retractable claws.

7b. Seriously. Spider-man now has pointy retractable "stingers" that come out from his wrists and they can suck the life out of you or somethine. Seriously.

7c. I'm not kidding. I think Marvel is on a mission to put retractable pointy bits into all of their characters.

7d. The book even had the audacity to note that SPIDERS DO NOT HAVE STINGERS. But, the Spider-god says, well, hey, we might evolve them someday, so it's plausible that you have them now. BAT SHIT. By that same token it would be plausible if Spider-Man had grown a twelve-foot cock and big pink fluffy wings.

8. Peter busts out of the belly of his dead body, and makes a cocoon or something before re-emerging as, uh, Peter or something. Meanwhile his dead body is eaten by spiders, or not, and becomes a girl "opposite" that looks a lot like Venom without the logo. Dr. Strange suspects the universe saw fit to make her because it was pissed off at Spider-Man for living. WTF? Seriously, WTF? How many of these universe spdier-god spawned things do we need? Didn't we just have some spider chick come from the nether-world to eat Spidey? I blocked that from my memory too, but I seem to remember it recently.

9. J. Michael Straczynski. Now, J. wrote some damn fine TV, and he's written SOME damn fine comic books. But his spooge has now permanantly soiled my friendly neighborhood Spider-Man. Once he invented a super-powered love child of Gwen Stacy and the Green Goblin, he deserved to get kicked in the jimmies. Now he's just a bad man. No one will ever quite be able to unfuck what he hath fucked.

10. Retractable God damn wrist stingers. Damn it.
posted by JWright at 9:40 PM on January 31, 2006

Oh and he's a full-on Avenger now too, so they've dropped the Spiderman is an outsider even amongst his superpeers subtext that's been around for the past 40 years.

Really? I haven't kept up for a long time, but that kinda blows. Spidey's supposed to be like Charlie Brown. A bit of an everyman dork with a crush on a redhead. Who can also climb walls, or something... The first big costume change during The Secret Wars was traumatic enough.

I like Strazcynski and I like Peter David, but I just dunno.

On preview: JWright, Seriously? Old Iron Man Armor?!? I have to go barf now.
posted by Cyrano at 9:44 PM on January 31, 2006

I forgot the wrist-spikes!
posted by thecjm at 9:45 PM on January 31, 2006

All things in comics are temporary except the death of Captain Marvel and Bucky (still?).

Remember when Spidey had god-like cosmic powers for a year or so:


posted by skallas at 9:45 PM on January 31, 2006

Or the symbiotic costume spidey got during Secret Wars:


posted by skallas at 9:47 PM on January 31, 2006

In other old comic fan griping news: Who would win a fight between the new Red Hood and the Winter Soldier? Or does the reergence of Jason Todd and Bucky Barnes as muderous baddies make losers out of all of us?
posted by thecjm at 9:48 PM on January 31, 2006

Remember when Spidey had god-like cosmic powers for a year or so
I think "a year or so" is a bit of an exaggeration ...
posted by kaemaril at 9:54 PM on January 31, 2006

Thanks for reminding me why I only stick to Ultimate Spider-man, JWright. Yeesh.
posted by kosher_jenny at 9:55 PM on January 31, 2006

For a more interesting character reimagining, try Paul Pope on Batman Year 100.
posted by camcgee at 9:57 PM on January 31, 2006

what is this? batman jumped in the lazarus pit? weird, but interesting.
posted by Doorstop at 10:05 PM on January 31, 2006

Like people have said above, this is so far from permanent that it's not even funny. Marvel has been building to an event called Civil War, which will split the heroes in half over a retread of the old Mutant Registration Act crossbred with the Patriot Act.

I didn't pay a dime to read the dreck that was "The Other," and even free, the story was dreck. Potentially cool idea, absolutely terrible execution. They really should've just done a 10-year anniversary of the godforsaken Clone Saga.

For what it's worth, Hitch's version of the Iron Spidey suit (from the second link) looks pretty cool - and periodic costume changes can work great (see Morrison's New X-Men)...but pretty much every part of this event exemplifies why I stopped reading these damn things in the first place.

(storms off to read Seven Soldiers, notes the irony, and continues storming)
posted by one.louder.ash! at 10:07 PM on January 31, 2006

Nothing ever changes in comics. The whole "Death of Superman" scam made the scales fall from my eyes. There's always a reset button cheat that puts everything back the way it was - only you're out the money you spent on innumerable bogus "event of the century" issues. It's Malibu Stacy: with NEW HAT! syndrome.
posted by slatternus at 10:07 PM on January 31, 2006

wait... jason todd is alive?! as in, the dead robin who was dead because no one in comic book reader land liked him. robin was beaten and exploded to death, and whose dead body was carried by batman from the scene and buried by that same batman.

you're fuckin' kidding me.
posted by shmegegge at 10:19 PM on January 31, 2006

I've never been a spidey fan, but as someone who's been through every awful permutation of the X-Men I feel for them...
posted by Artw at 10:24 PM on January 31, 2006

In a related story, Kyle Baker's Plastic Man is still cancelled.

Comics: One of the few entertainment mediums where you can hate the industry and the fans equally.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 10:38 PM on January 31, 2006

Stories like this — don't get me started on Judd bjorkin' Winick, thecjm — are written by hacks. Plain, simple, incompetent hacks that shouldn't be writing for a high-school newspaper, much less classic characters adored by generations of kids.

Writing for superheroes is like playing jazz. "Autumn Leaves" has been around for umpteen years and it's been played eleventy-bajillion times by guys better than you and I, and it's damn near impossible to find a way to express it in your own voice — but that's the challenge. That's what makes it worth doing. Of course we could throw in some cheap gimmick, but then it wouldn't be "Autumn Leaves" so much as it'd be a standard that we pillaged into tinder for our own little wet dream.

Of course you can put "your stamp" on a classic superhero by giving him a new costume or bringing dead characters back to life. Congratulations, you've stuck your hands into wet cement. Now try to do it within the canon, try to express your own creativity within the limits of the character. Much more difficult — and consequently, much more worthy of recognition when it happens. Pissing all over something doesn't constitute "bringing a fresh perspective."

Loeb's and Sale's Superman For All Seasons was hands-down, far and away the best comic produced in the last 20 years, and I don't even like Superman stories. It was a plain, old-fashioned, no frills superhero story — and it was expressed with poignancy by two guys who really know their craft. Read that, then come back and revisit some of the swill being churned out by the likes of Judd Winick...and then ask for your money back.
posted by cribcage at 10:44 PM on January 31, 2006

Hey JWright, can I have your phone number in case I'm on a game show and they ask me a Spiderman question and I get one call?

I kind of like the new costume. Change is good and he does eventually always go back to the first one, which isn't really the first one anyway.
posted by fenriq at 11:00 PM on January 31, 2006

comics ≠ superheroes
posted by muckster at 11:04 PM on January 31, 2006

it would be plausible if Spider-Man had grown a twelve-foot cock and big pink fluffy wings.

Hello, new markets!!!

There are some comics that you stop reading and then you don't pick them up again EVER. Enjoy your memories and move on.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 12:25 AM on February 1, 2006

I hate myself for knowing this, but apparently Bucky is also back, as the Winter Soldier. Jason Todd has returned, due to strange powers greasing the revolving door of superhero mortality. Even Rita Farr is back, although possibly at the cost of John Byrne ever being allowed near a comic book again.

It's a busy time.
posted by tannhauser at 1:41 AM on February 1, 2006

I don't know whether I should admit this, but I always assumed that they try to change Spiderman's costume because the Ditko design is just plain fiddly to draw and slows everybody down.
posted by Grangousier at 1:52 AM on February 1, 2006

Jwright: I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
posted by Swandive at 2:09 AM on February 1, 2006

Aunt May in armor? Time machines? WTF?!

I'll have to ask the counter-guy at my lcs about this... I bought 'The Other', but only the issues written by Peter David and JMS because I's heard that Hudlin was teh suX0r.

And that costume? I'm with JWright and numerous other people – since when was Tony Stark Peter's Sugar-daddy? It'd be nice to see PP get back into the laboratory and possibly even pick up another degree, and quit with the basement-unabomber spider-engineer routine.

You've definitely got to watch out for the neo-Marvel bullpen – Quesada, Bendis and Whedon are all a bit over-rated and that 'House of M' bit was pretty much a waste – the Scarlet Witch and her chaos-magic should have been front and center with someone as imaginitive as Grant Morrison to write it. Instead, we got Bendis and some lame alternate-reality story, as if DC's alternate-Earths have come to visit the Marvel U. with increasing frequency - Ultimates, Marvel Zombies and all the rest.

Wanda Maximoff is/was arguably the most interesting B- or C-string character in the Marvel U. and has been ignored since Byrne's run on the stepchild Avengers West Coast.

Don't get me wrong here – Bendis has done some great things with his street-level characters – Daredevil, Luke Cage, Danny Rand (Iron Fist) and his overnight invention, Jessica Drew – but I think Wanda was probably just a little beyond his scope. The ret-conning that 'House of M' has done for Marvel has been unfortunate. Some good stories may come of it, but the flavor of 'M' should have been more than Peter Parker crying about the fact that he's not married to Gwen Stacy in an alternate reality with 2.5 kids.

posted by vhsiv at 4:24 AM on February 1, 2006

Ha. I thought thecjm was kidding with his summary then JWright verified it. Marvel has obviously gone insane. And don't just blame the writers. There are editors behind them either giving them some of these horrid ideas, or at least giving them the go ahead.

I suspect they saw that Japanese version of Spider-Man and thought it rocked so hard they'd integrate it into the American canon.

"And remember to clean your ears."
posted by effwerd at 5:35 AM on February 1, 2006

The best part of this post is the Poster at the bottom of the second link:

Based on Leonardo Da Vinci's Vitruvian Man, this image of Spidey was drawn by Marvel Editor-in-Chief Joe Quesada and inked by Richard Isanove. The vitruvian man is famous for its cryptic Latin text written backwards across the drawing. In the poster, Joe and Richard creatively interpreted Da Vinci's words.

And the text?

TOP:
Requiescat in pace - Rest in peace / Acta est fabula - The play is over / Obesa cantavit - The fat lady has sung / Omnia mors aequat - Death equals all things / Mors ultima linea rerum est - Death is everything's final limit / Nil desperandum! - Never despair! / Non omnis moriar - Not all of me will die / Id imperfectum manet dum confectum erit - It ain't over until it's over / Omnia mutantur, nihil interit - Everything changes, nothing perishes / In dentibus anticis frustrum magnum spiniciae habes - You have a big piece of spinach in your front teeth

BOTTOM
Quesada Isavove
Dum spiro, spero - While I breathe, I hope / Natura nihil fit in frustra - Nature does nothing in vain
Respice post te, mortalem te esse memento - Look around you, remember that you are mortal / Aegroto, dum anima est, spes esse dicitur - It is said that for a sick man, there is hope as long as there is life / Dum tempus habemus, operemur bonum - While we have the time, let us do good / Frangar non flectar - I am broken, I am not deflected / Quid quid latine dictum sit, altum videtur - Anything said in Latin sounds profound / Fac ut vivas - Get a life / Quam terribilis est haec hora - How fearful is this hour / A fronte praecipitium a tergo lupi - A precipice in front, wolves behind / Perfer et obdura; dolor hic tibi proderit olim - Be patient and tough; some day this pain will be useful to you / Forsan miseros meliora sequentur - For those in misery perhaps better things will follow / Non mortem timemus, sed cogitationem mortis - We do not fear death, but the thought of death / Post tenebras lux - After the darkness, light / Nonne de novo eboraco venis? - You're from New York, aren't you? / Raptus regaliter - Royally screwed
posted by ColdChef at 5:36 AM on February 1, 2006

his overnight invention, Jessica Drew

My comic book geekery must not let this go past. Jessica Drew - Spider-Woman - appeared in the 1970s originally, and even had a Saturday morning cartoon for a season (on ABC).

The recent issue of New Avengers which revealed her connection to the evil organization HYDRA? Is completely in continuity - she was once a HYDRA agent who got turned to the good side, et cetera et cetera. I was amazed at him doing that - he's crapped all over so many things that actually paying attention to the past was a shock.

And the cover to that issue restored my schoolboy faith in comics: a sexy woman in a costume that was a full-body unitard, not random straps or a microbikini, and wasn't skeletally skin with a pair of strapped-on beachballs. She had real curves. I was impressed by the artwork, but I have no idea who the artist was.
posted by mephron at 6:18 AM on February 1, 2006

She had real curves. I was impressed by the artwork, but I have no idea who the artist was.

I believe Frank Cho drew it, as well as the rest of the issue.

The Other was very disappointing, and was kind of a retread of a crappy storyline from Spectacular Spider-Man during Avengers: Disassembled. (The one where Peter turned into a spider. Didn't he get organic web-shooters then?)

I've been enjoying Strazynski's run less and less on Amazing (it was what got me reading Spider-Man again), and I think I've pinpointed why. Spider-Man just doesn't work in events on a cosmic scale. He's much more interesting in down-to-earth storylines. He doesn't really work for me in New Avengers, either, but the recent issue involving the deal with Jameson was good.
posted by emptybowl at 6:51 AM on February 1, 2006

Oh, and vhsiv, did you mean Jessica JONES from Alias, who *is* a creation of Bendis? Like mephron said Jessica Drew, a.k.a. Spider-Woman, had been around for about 30 years.
posted by emptybowl at 6:53 AM on February 1, 2006

The above is the reason that I've stayed away from superhero comics that have been around longer than a couple of years. I love comic books, and I even kind of like superhero stuff, but the sheer amount of back story and craziness that goes on means I just don't have the time. I am digging Nextwave so far though, but the only reason I picked it up is because Ellis is the writer.
posted by JeremyT at 7:19 AM on February 1, 2006

jason todd is alive?!

Definitely. Ok, maybe. Or at least it looks like he is. They haven't really gotten around to explaining exactly how that could happen.

For a while it was Clayface posing as a grown up Jason Todd. Now there's somebody running around that looks like Todd and knows stuff only he'd know, only now he kills criminals rather than locking them up. [Cue dramatic music]

He wears a red hood (like the joker before he became the joker), but when he's taken off the hood, he's also wearing the little black Robin mask underneath. This 2X masking may make perfect sense to him, but has left me perplexed.
posted by Gamblor at 8:02 AM on February 1, 2006

Ugh. I bailed on Spidey during the first run-in with Morlun.

Characters that I want to see have real stories: Captain Marvel (that was a really great, funny series for a while), Plasticman, Dr. Strange, Silver Surfer, Nick Fury...
posted by klangklangston at 9:36 AM on February 1, 2006

It's pretty interesting how willing Marvel is to hand 80% of their output to a couple of guys with glaring storytelling problems. Aside from Straczysnki stinking up a couple of the major franchises (aside from his Spider-crimes, his Fantastic Four stuff is slow-paced and stupid; the child-welfare business is the lamest attempt at real-world dramatic tension I've ever seen), the current Bendis Bloat means that a good chunk of the rest of the Marvel U is swamped in irritating pseudohip teen dialogue.

If those two guys could be put onto a rocket and fired into the sun (or even just reduced to one book each), it'd be a much better time for Marvel.

Current Marvel bright spots: Peter David's X-Factor looks promising, and you can't go wrong with Ryan Sook's art; Nextwave is funny, for now, at least; and if you don't like the Milligan/Allred Dead Girl/Dr. Strange revival, you don't like fun and I hate you.
posted by COBRA! at 9:43 AM on February 1, 2006

I think that’s the big problem with Marvel, et. al. No storytelling skills. Especially lately.
posted by Smedleyman at 9:59 AM on February 1, 2006

Hm. So Straczynski writes this plot in 2006, and we think it's god-awful. Why do I get the strange feeling that if Alan Moore had written the same thing in 1987, it would have been one of the greatest comic storylines ever?
posted by Faint of Butt at 10:39 AM on February 1, 2006

I bailed after issue #300 of The Amazing Spiderman. I thought that was a nice little ending, switching back to the red and blue, bringing down Venom, going back to his wife. The End.

I think I have issues after that but I tend to ignore them, and I stopped collecting Marvel in the mid-90s. Still have a few Vertigo titles (and the erratic Planetary), but Spidey will always be one of my favorites -- I just choose to ignore the past 12-15 years, is all.

I think I'll just enjoy Raimi's film version.
posted by linux at 10:55 AM on February 1, 2006

Hm. So Straczynski writes this plot in 2006, and we think it's god-awful. Why do I get the strange feeling that if Alan Moore had written the same thing in 1987, it would have been one of the greatest comic storylines ever?

Because Alan Moore is good with characterization, pacing, and dialogue (he's primarily a comics writer; Straczynski's a slumming TV writer). More than anything, it's not the plot ideas that are wrong, it's the execution.
posted by COBRA! at 11:21 AM on February 1, 2006

I've been downloading a lot of old comics lately (to complete storylines of comics I already own), like Dr Strange, Captain America (300s), and other stuff.. I've been wanting to get spider-man, but I don't know whether to get amazing, spectacular, or web of spider man, and even then which era. I have samples from many throughout the years and I don't know which to go with (all of them, probably in the end.)

As for the costume change, I feel it will be temporary. The alien costume was around for quite a while, and he took on some regular spidey missions with it, so I wouldn't be too worried. Spider-man is an icon, and since he's already been in 2 movies, and is coming out with probably 2 more with a red and blue costume, they wouldn't want to blow that basic commercial continuity.
posted by BlackLeotardFront at 12:17 PM on February 1, 2006

Because Alan Moore is good with characterization, pacing, and dialogue (he's primarily a comics writer; Straczynski's a slumming TV writer). More than anything, it's not the plot ideas that are wrong, it's the execution.

That was a very helpful answer, COBRA!; thanks. I didn't realize that so much was wrong with the comics beyond the premise itself. (NB: I'm a huge Alan Moore fan, and think what he did with Swamp Thing was one of the gutsiest, most brilliantly twisted coups ever pulled off in superherodom. If Moore had written this same plot, it probably would have been one of the greatest ever.)
posted by Faint of Butt at 12:32 PM on February 1, 2006

Spider-Man had grown a twelve-foot cock and big pink fluffy wings

SUBSCIRBE!!1!
posted by antifreez_ at 12:52 PM on February 1, 2006

"Remixed Spider-man comic strips (NSFW)"

Jesus... thank you so so much. Okay, Creeps! Let Hitler go! This is brilliant.
posted by nthdegx at 1:01 PM on February 1, 2006

New suit?

http://www.newsarama.com/marvelnew/Spider-Man/amazing/Straczynski.htm

Check the last picture. Aha.. Whoosh.

Synopses above missed out the fact that morlun ate pete's right eye. Of course, it grew back, but eh..
posted by Mossy at 1:23 PM on February 1, 2006

WTF? HE'S GOING TO BE ABLE TO FLY, TOO?

May I please wake up now?
posted by JWright at 1:54 PM on February 1, 2006

Ya know, it's funny. Spidey was the only mainstream Marvel I read as a kid besides New Mutants. I tended to read weird (but not that weird) stuff like ElfQuest or Alien Legion from Epic. I stopped around issue 320 or so. Right around when he got those cosmic powers actually.

I still read comics. I loved the shoutout to Paul Pope upthread - he's the only creator that will force me to buy something. I read Blab, Ware and Kochalka and all that hipster garbage (I kid!).

Lately I've been feeling nostalgic, though, and decided to check out what Spidey was up to. I had heard rumblings about Clone Sagas and Aunt May dying and not dying and blah blah blah. So, as I liked JR JR's art, I picked up the ASM trades reprinting Strascynski's work. I've liked the human side and the science teacher angle has been enjoyable if not realistic. JSM seemed to have a good feel for Peter and Aunt May both and things seemed like what you'd want out of this - nostalgic, everything in its right place, but also more adult and slightly updated. The Morlun thing and the Shade thing have felt a bit clunky. I agree with those upthread who felt JSM was awkward in the cosmic/action phases.

I just picked up Book 3 this week and don't read the single issues at all. So, this thread has served as a warning. I had planned to stop getting the books after JR JR's run was over. What I've read in this thread has definitely convinced me!

However, to followup on the Spidey remixes, which make me laugh everytime I see that page, I wanted to include one of my all-time favorite Metafilter finds - Nagraj vs. Shakoora from Raj Comics. This has Batman, Superman and Spidey (all unauthorized, I imagine). I'd love to find an actual copy of this somewhere...
posted by Slothrop at 2:09 PM on February 1, 2006

On behalf of Superman, I'd like to welcome Spidey to the world of lame costume changes done to juice interest in an old character. You know, for kids.


posted by owillis at 1:38 AM on February 2, 2006

By that same token it would be plausible if Spider-Man had grown a twelve-foot cock and big pink fluffy wings.

Dude! Spoiler warning!
posted by EarBucket at 4:54 AM on February 2, 2006

How do you get into writing comics? 'cause I couldn't do worse.
posted by Smedleyman at 11:18 AM on February 2, 2006

Dangit. Super late to the super party.

Didn't Spidey lose an eye or something? If so, his new costume is seriously lacking in a pirate theme.
posted by robocop is bleeding at 7:09 AM on February 8, 2006

Then again, pirates have kind of jumped the shark. What we need is a new icon to join the ranks of ninja, pirate, robot, and zombie. But what? Whom?

Dandies?
Cricket Players?
Mamluks?
Spacemen?

Whooooooommmm!!!????onetywhat?
posted by robocop is bleeding at 7:12 AM on February 9, 2006

Well, there's always Mario, I guess.
posted by robocop is bleeding at 1:11 PM on February 9, 2006