Tagged: Damage Control

Joe Corallo: Your Friendly Neighborhood Spectacular

This past weekend I saw Spider-Man Homecoming with my friend Chap. We went to the theater right by us early in the afternoon on Saturday. It was the best experience I’ve had seeing a Spider-Man movie in theaters since I saw Spider-Man 2 with fellow ComicMix writer Arthur Tebbel back in 2004. That was thirteen years ago.

So much of what makes this movie work is Spider-Man himself. Tom Holland (no relation to Alec Holland, a.k.a. Swamp Thing) manages to nail playing both a boy with a superhero physique with enough awkward mannerisms to make it totally believable that he would be perceived as big nerd even by nerd science school standards. He handles the social anxiety and doubt of a teenage Peter Parker better than just about anyone else I’d seen play it or write it. Tom Holland approaches the character with a neediness, desperation, love, and affection that really elevates Spider-Man into being a character that’s unique in this overcrowded superhero landscape which should help make this franchise stand out in future movies. I imagine Tom Holland will also be getting a lot of offers to play roles that Michael Cera would have been offered ten years ago.

Michael Keaton is a stellar villain here, and after Kurt Russell in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 shows a course correction on Marvel’s part in terms of making better villains. This has been one of the shared universe’s weakest points. Keaton elevates a silly, gimmicky comic book villain into a character with nuance and strong motivation. The downside here is that if you want to go read a comic with a good Vulture story, good luck finding one as good as this.

Many of the background characters were people of color, which was very refreshing. Peter’s best friend, his love interest, Flash Thompson, the high school gym teacher, the principal, Shocker and many others were non-white. These movies need to do this more often in order to keep them fresh and timely. Yes, not all of these characters were nonwhite, but many of them were created fifty to nearly eighty years ago and the times they are a changin’. They also gavespecial thanks to Dwayne McDuffie in the credits, as he created Damage Control. I made it a point to look for his name.

Needing more of a Spider-Man fix this weekend I took my copy of Kraven’s Last Hunt off the shelf and read that as well. It’s a very different kind of Spider-Man story; the exact opposite of what was offered in Spider-Man Homecoming. The optimism was replaced with cynicism, the love and affection coming from Kraven in his own sick way as Spider-Man, through the fate of circumstance, is reduced to a damaged shell of his former self; at least for a time. The stakes are higher and the villains more lethal.

Kraven’s Last Hunt is a thoughtful work exploring life, depression, and how we move past trauma. It’s one of my favorite Spider-Man stories, but in part because of how untypical it is for a Spider-Man story. If the character went down that direction more often, it would lose its impact. While it’s a darker place, it’s the kind of story I do think this new Spider-Man movie franchise could tackle towards the very end.

I know that I was saying earlier how this movie makes Vulture a more interesting villain than he typically is, but in all honesty, the most depressing thing that comes from watching Spider-Man Homecoming is that no Spider-Man story is like it. If you weren’t reading the comics and now you wanted to, I cannot recommend a single Spider-Man comic that feels the same way. The closet might be BendisUltimate Spider-Man which will always have a special place in my heart for bringing me back to Marvel Comics, but even then it’s much different.

You like Ned? Too bad! You like Liz? Oh well! Do you like this Flash Thompson? Go somewhere else! Does this Spider-Man speak to you more than any others you’ve seen in the movies or on TV? Sorry, but you’ll have to wait until the next movie because he’s not like this in any of the comics.

I grew up loving Spider-Man. Yes, I know I wrote that whole long column about how much I love X-Men, but Spider-Man was up there for me too. I loved watching Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends, the 90s animated series, collecting the action figures from it, playing video games like The Amazing Spider-Man vs The Kingpin, Spider-Man and Venom: Maximum Carnage which was just a Streets of Rage clone but I still enjoyed it, and a whole lot more.

I really love the character. I want to love the comics so badly. I haven’t liked the comics in years. In many years. It saddens me that a character I grew up loving so thoroughly and was excited to talk about and get immersed in through comics and games as a kid has so thoroughly alienated me. The character has been diminished through clones, copycat characters, alternate universes, gimmicks, clumsy resets, body swapping, and moves to go backward instead of forwards.

I know some people are enjoying the current Spider-Verse and I’m glad they are. Not every comic should be written for me. However, after seeing Spider-Man Homecoming I have some hope that maybe, just maybe, the comics will restore some of that magic that’s been lost over time in the same way that Tom Holland showed me that Spider-Man is still spectacular.

Marc Alan Fishman: Iron Batman v. Super Captain America

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In the not too distant future we’ll be privy to both Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Overly Long Titles and Captain America: Civility and Zombies. Seemingly, both will deal with complimentary issues pertaining to the culpability of collateral damage surrounding the super-inhabited world. In lesser terms, it’s pretty clear when you level a city (or level half of one, and almost use another as a projectile) someone has to pay. And no, I don’t mean asking Tony or Bruce-Bruce for a spare billion to cover the insurance.

At the core of both movies – and yes, I’m speculating – we’re dealing with the balance of proactive protection versus reactive process improvement. Regulating and regularly checking the populace for gifts is certainly one way to do it. It’s no different, one might postulate, than registering a weapon they own. Iron Man’s stance, as is Mr. Wayne’s, is cemented in fear of the unknown. How are we to protect the ones we love when the man down the street could be a psychopath with a gun or just Mr. Psycho? Forcing the population to divulge their hidden talents by way of polite force might be one way to hedge your bets. Because you don’t know when someone might grow up to be Speedball.

That being said, does creating such a registry or law become a civil liberty issue? In the comics, it’s the basis for Cap’s catharsis. Cry freedom, Mr. Rogers. And to Superman’s point: holding him in check when there’s literally nothing on Earth that can do that is just a waste of resources. The best you can do is trust that Big Blue will keep us safe. Being proactive effectively allows for the proliferation of some unforeseeable doomsday device built to destroy a hero gone wild. And if you build it? Well, it’s inviting someone to fire it – whether Kal-El is cuckoo or not. Better, I suppose, if you make plans to build it after the first building accidentally collapses due to super-fighting? I guess I’m unsure.

The topic is very real when we live in a nation that needs an executive order to help suppress out-of-control gun violence. Could you imagine the field day Fox News would have if New York was actually attacked by invading aliens? I can here the subsequent call of candidate Donald Trump to first “build a wall between dimensions… and make the Chitauri pay for it.” and then “…ban all super powered people from being in our country until we figure it all out”. If not Trump, perhaps a war mongering Chris “The Blob” Christy, Ted “Bomb Them Till They Glow Like Dr. Light” Cruz, or Dr. Ben “Sleepwalker” Carson would chime in with a retort that the destruction of Metropolis occurred not because newly freed political prisoners from the Phantom Zone were exacting revenge for their lost world… but because President Obama didn’t allow the NSA access to General Zod’s Facebook. But I digress.

The truth of the matter is that there’s no right answer. Batman and Iron Man have every right to want to be as informed as possible about the dangers of the world. They are tinkerers and toy-makers of the highest degree. A problem is built to be dismantled, and put back together better; be it your shrapnel-filled heart, or the world at large. So too though is Captain America and Superman’s right to say that our country was built on the ideology of freedom. That a man is innocent until proven guilty. For as much damage that befell Sokovia or Metropolis, there is no blame to be had towards those who tried to protect it. Ultron and Zod pulled the triggers. The heroes merely jumped in the line of fire. They couldn’t help the falling debris. The needs of the many outweighed the needs of the few. Wait, that was Star Trek!

So, whose side will you be on? For me, I’ll be on the side of being entertained. Because my bleeding liberal heart in the real world still longs for the day Scarlet Witch whispers “No more guns.”