Now, a new Twitter feed @markofspiderman has popped up, along with what appear to be latitude and longitude for comic book stores in New York, Atlanta, and Denver, noting that property of Peter Parker has been lost.
What was lost, we don’t know yet. But as soon as we hear, we’ll let you know– right after we sell our tips to the Daily Bugle, of course.
Of course, if anybody finds anything interesting, our “Contact Us” form is right at the top of the page… or you can comment below.
The Amazing Spider-Man comes out July 3rd, and stars Andrew Garfield, Emma Stone, Denis Leary, Rhys Ifans, Sally Field, and Martin Sheen.
UPDATE 5:35 PM: And now he’s losing things in Phoenix… are we sure it’s not Nightcrawler teleporting all over the country?
UPDATE 6:15 PM: Hello, Seattle… we’re listening.
UPDATE 6:37 PM: According to @dag_kurt, he’s gotten to one of the Atlanta locations, where he found a backpack. Photos to come.
Shit. Five more minutes. Just five more minutes. One eye open, I grapple for the phone. Shit. Goddamn it. There it is. Flip it open. Hit the snooze button.
Quiet.
I snuggle under the covers.
And I’m wide awake.
The Giants are playing the Falcons today in the first round of the NFL playoffs. Kickoff at 1 p.m. Probably there are people already at the stadium, setting up their tailgating parties, firing up the grills, sipping hot coffee or tea (and, sadly, guzzling the first beer of the day.)
Glenn (my brother) is probably on the road already, driving up from the New Jersey suburbs of Philadelphia. Probably almost all of Philadelphia is rooting for the Falcons to kick the Giants’ collective ass. It’s not easy being a Giants fan down there.
Okay, I’m up. It’s cold. Shit, yesterday it was over 60°. Today, not so much. Good football weather thought. I put on my robe. Go into the kitchen. I squint at the bright light as I flip the switch. Turn on the stove for my cuppa tea. Can’t do anything without my cuppa.
Go into the bedroom. Put my robe on. Shit, it’s really cold. Good football weather, though. ‘Specially for the Giants. The Falcons play indoors. The cold and the crazy winds at Giants Stadium – I refuse to call it Metlife Stadium – will hopefully work against them. I turn on my computer.
The teapot is whistling. I pour my nice cuppa tea. Last night I prepared everything; the steaks are marinating, hot dogs are in aluminum foil, the cooler and the grill are pulled out and ready, utensils, paper plates, everything’s set. Glenn’s bringing the Bloody Marys and the charcoal. Food tastes better without that propane smoke.
Got about an hour, hour-and-a-half ‘till Glenn gets here. All I gotta do is sit down and write my column. Then take a shower and get dressed.
I wonder how Eli is feeling? Where is Victor Cruz right now? Is Justin Tuck already in the locker room? Is Mathias Kiwanuka having tea too? Or coffee?
What’s going through the minds of the Giants? And the Falcons, for that matter?
I wonder about superheroes and their evil doppelgangers. What if their battles were scheduled? What if they watched films of last week’s battle? What if they studied playbooks? Would they be replaying that sack, thinking “if only I’d just stepped to the left?” Would they be thinking about that perfectly thrown right hook that somehow missed? What would they do, what would they think about before going up against each other?
7:30 a.m. The doorbell has rung. This column is now interrupted because Glenn is already at my door and we’re going to the Giants game! Go, big blue!
5:55 p.m. I’m back. Giants won! 24 – 2. (Falcons got a safety due to a bullshit call by the end zone ref who threw a flag 25 seconds after the play was called dead. (I really, really, really hate when the refs do that.) Gotta admit the first quarter sucked (for both teams), and the second quarter wasn’t much either, although the Giants did score a TD to make it 7 – 2 at the half. But the second half rocked!
Okay, where was I?
Right. Got it.
Wouldn’t it be interesting to write a story about the hours before an “epic battle” between the hero and the villain? You never actually see the fight scene – well, maybe the first punch, the way Rocky III ends, y’know? You just build up the tension going on inside the hero, inside the villain. It could start like my morning did, with the alarm clock shattering the deep sleep of Peter Parker and Mary Jane – sorry, but I prefer that “timeline.” And Electro was up all night, couldn’t sleep, thinking about his past battles with Spider-Man and letting his inferiority complex eat at him. Captain America wanders the streets of Washington, D.C., past the Capitol building and the monuments, ending up at Arlington cemetery, while the Red Skull visits Auschwitz, remembering the “glory” of the Third Reich. Doctor Strange spends the night in deep meditation, while the Silver Dagger ponders God and the Catholic Church at the Basilica of St. Peter in Rome.
I could go on – and end up writing a story treatment and then some asshole will read it here, and I’ll get all pissed off, so I’ll stop here.
Before my brain starts playing tricks on me and I get all upset that I’m not actually writing these things anymore because, y’know, Mindy Newell is a has-been and Mindy Newell is a bitch and Mindy Newell never really had any talent, just a great set of gams which she used to get work, and…
Well that’s not really true. If you know anything about my history you will know the last thing I’d ever do is kiss ass.
It’s simply not in my DNA not now, not ever. I’ve been in many a situation where a well place smack on someone’s ass would have been very beneficial to me but I just couldn’t do it.
I’ve tried to kiss some ass. I really have. I wanted to kiss some ass. I was even looking forward (she was fine) to kissing some ass at one point but I just… could… not…do it.
What always stops me is my inability to show respect to those who do not deserve it.
Respect is a very big thing with me. I’d rather have someone’s respect than just about anything else. To get my respect is not hard on a personal level all I really need on that level is for you to treat me with respect and you have mine.
On a professional level getting my respect is not easy. I’m not the guy to tip toe around people’s absence of professionalism. If you have ever read any of my articles on Michael Davis World (plug!) then you may have noticed a recurring theme in my rants: customer service or the lack there of.
I don’t care if you are an artist, IBM or Larry the Hot Dog Vender, if I’m going to write you a check for your services your professionalism had better be your A game. Anything less than an A game I’ll never work with you or use your services again. You can forget any respect I may have had for you because that my friend, like the old south, is gone with the wind.
Chief among all the reasons I have for liking The New 52 from DC is the massive amount of respect I have because DC went there.
DC comics went where no other comic book company in the world went before: they started over. If the books sucked which they still would have had my respect. There are some in The New 52 that have left me wondering why they went into the direction they went but for the most part I like or love what they have done.
Liking or even loving what DC Comics did with the re-boot creatively is not the main reason I like The New 52. It’s really about respect and balls.
I respect the balls the editors at DC showed in going there.
Every die-hard comic book fan has thought how cool it would be to completely overhaul a comic book universe. The fan forums are filled with what’s wrong with DC, what the problem is with Marvel, or what was Dark Horse thinking? I don’t think there is any comic book universe that is so darn cool that everyone agrees they are doing everything right. I’ll let you in on a little secret; I’m a closet Archie fan. Actually, I’m a huge fan of Little Archie. I’m not sure they even do Little Archie stories anymore but when I was a kid I loved me some Little Archie.
That’s the only comic book universe I had no problem with. The Little Archie universe was perfect to me. Because I was such a fan of Little Archie I tried the regular Archie books.
After reading the regular Archie books for a while I decided if I ran the Archie universe the first thing I would do was have Archie tap Veronica and Betty’s ass.
Hell, I’d have Archie tap them both at the same time. You think that’s bad? Then you don’t want to know the plans I had for Mr. Fantastic.
That’s why it’s good not to have fan’s revamp comic book universes.
Like any young fan, I often wondered why comic book companies don’t do the obvious. Why can’t Uncle Ben come back? Why did Gwen Stacy have to stay dead? Why doesn’t Superman tap the ass of all those people whose initials are LL?
Lois Lane, Lana Lang, Lucy Lane, Lori Lemaris? If I were in charge of the Superman Universe Clark would have had some serious LL booty. I mean the LL list is endless!
Lara Lor, Linda Lang, Lighting Lad, Lex Luthor…eh…wait a sec…maybe tapping all the LL’s is not a great idea after all. Another reason it seems that fans should not be in charge of universes.
So, as fans we don’t have the power to make massive changes in our comic book universes but why don’t the comic companies make massive cool ass changes a lot more?
Yes. Every so often some new event happens that sorta, kinda, changes stuff but not really. Not like you are I would have changed it.
Massive, cool, earth shattering new shit that will be the envy of all of comicdom!
DC went there.
However, as easy as it may seem to fans to simply hit the reset button it’s not easy at all. You may think as I did when I was just a fan that imagination is all you really need to run a comic book universe and you would be as wrong as I was.
If you are Larry Comics and you started your comic book company a couple of years ago you can reboot all you want and the only people you have to please is your new fan base.
DC Comics has been around since 1935. That’s a lot of history to muck with.
The people at DC Comics just couldn’t sit in a room and decide to do this. That’s not how it works in the real world. The people who came up with the reboot idea had to sell that idea to the parent company and that parent company is Time Warner. Time Warner is one of the biggest entertainment companies in the world.
I’m not sure what kind of relationship DC has with Time Warner. Time Warner could be completely hands off. I doubt it, but that could be the case. DC may have complete control over the comics and Time Warner may not give a sheet.
I’d think something this big would have had to be run up the flagpole at corporate on some level. Again, I’m not aware of DC’s relationship with Time Warner so I can only speculate from my own corporate experience.
I’ve been President or President and CEO at a few entertainment companies and any major decision over a certain dollar amount I made had to be at presented to the powers that be on some level.
When I ran Motown Animation & Filmworks I was hired to create, develop and sell film and television properties. When I decided to do a comic book line, Motown Machineworks, I had to create a business plan, present it to my boss and hope to God it did not crash and burn.
That’s what a lot of fans don’t understand about comics. It’s a fantastic medium and great entertainment, but it’s a business.
Whoever came up with the reboot and then sold the idea to corporate had good creative intentions to be sure but something that big has a lot more to worry about than creative ideas.
Regardless if the ideas were great or if Time Warner is hands off or not, if the reboot would have been a dismal failure heads may have rolled.
This is the real world folks, with great power comes great responsibility is truer in the real world than in comics. Peter Parker fails to stop a guy who then busts a cap in his Uncle is tragic but at any point Marvel could change that.
Real people put their careers in play on some level. I don’t know to what extent those people were at risk if at all but something as big as a reboot it stands to reason that someone’s ass would be on the line if it went south.
It’s easy to talk a big game when it’s not your ass on the line. It’s not so easy when that great power comes with a great responsibility that could result in you having a real bad ending to your story.
I hope everyone’s Thanksgiving holiday was amazing. I myself hosted festivities for the first time in our new home. It was here, in 2011 where Marc Alan Fishman finally graduated from the kiddie table. Looks like all it took was making a meal for 10 people, in my own home. But with the assistance of my fantastic in-laws, and even more fantastic(ly pregnant) wife… we done pulled off a doosy. After last week’s lov-in, I unbuckled my belt, let my gut out, and took stock in those things that didn’t quite make me a happy camper. Sure, my initial articles covered some of those (The X-Men, Barry Allen, and Hal Jordon to name a few)… but here we are, nearing the end of the year. What exactly happened that cause my beard to stand on end? Let the hatespew begin!
Epic Events of Extremely Excessive Inanity
To be truly fair, I could spend the entirely of this editorial tearing DC and Marvel both for their predilection to create crappy crossover events. But let’s boil it down to the brass tacks, shall we? Simply put, these money-sucking whores create bloated wastes of ink and paper, all based on the idea that “everything you know will change.” This of course, preys on our fan-boy fear of being left behind. And it would seem over the course of the Aughts, such as they were, the Big Two have perfected their scheme:
Create a main book where all the bullet point action takes place. A few not so significant people will die. One or two major ones might kick it too. A great evil rises up. It looks insurmountable. Then a legion of the most marketable heroes get some brilliant form of upgrade, or a lost and forgotten hero comes back from the dead, or some other deus ex machina reveals itself in the nick of time for one last issue of double page Photoshopped explosions. What follows is generally seven to twenty seven epilogues setting up the next six months of editorial mandated character changes.
But it’s never just that one main title now, is it? These mega-loads of mega-suck bleed into the entire continuity of issues. Soon every book you’d normally pick up features the event-du-jour’s nom de plum across its masthead. What follows is generally exposition taken from bullet point A before bullet point B from the main series. Not reading that series? Well, I guess it sucks to be you. I was loving, L-O-V-I-N-G Matt Fraction’s Incredible Iron Man series until Fear Itself. And for four issues straight, all the world building he’d done was cast aside so I could follow Tony into Asgard to get drunk, swear, and make some action-figure-waiting-to-happen weapon variants for random heroes to use. Did I follow Fear Itself? No. Thanks for wasting my time, money, and love of the Iron Man book.
Don’t think for a second DC skates by here either, kiddos. Those cash-craving carnivores did one worse; they let the deus ex machina implode their entire line of comics. Flashpoint, by and large, will sit in my collection next to Countdown to Final Crisis as a testament to everything wrong with comic books today. “But why did you keep buying them, if you hated them so much?” Well… One – I’m a masochist. Two – the series promised to feature at least one or two characters I’d normally not get to read about. Three; – I didn’t want to come out of the other side confused as to why everything changed. Flashpoint even had the nerve to release wave after wave of mini-series to take us around this “Age of Not Quite Apocalypse.” And while Batman: Knight of Vengeance delivered an amazing Elseworlds tale, it was just that… An Elseworlds tale. Slap any title card you wanted on the cover, Dan, Geoff, and Jim. We all knew it should have said “Flash Point Over There and Distract The Fanboys While We Hit The Reset Button.”
4/5ths of the DCNu
And since we’re on the subject… the next thing that ground my gears was the rebooting of the DC Universe itself. I give credit where credit is due. It was a bold move that in fact did raise awareness, sales, and general levels of hope amongst the comic book readers of the world. But by and large, it was all smoke pellets and Mirror Masters.
Let’s face facts. Superman, Wonder Woman, the JLA, and Aquaman all got the reboots needed to make them matter again. Batman and Green Lantern may have gotten shiny new #1s on their books, but didn’t reboot a damned thing. Batgirl got to disappoint the handicapped community (not that the book is bad mind you, but still…), and a plethora of bad ideas were hurled out with hopes any of it would stick. What we’re left with is a mangled mess of a few fantastic books littered amongst total garbage. All the solid character-building moments that gave DC a strong legacy and continuity were thrown out with the bath water in hopes that a #1 and a power-cycle would somehow make comic books appeal to the masses who aren’t reading comic books. Guess what? Sales may have increased, but not by that much. Walk out on the street today, and ask a passer-by who OMAC, Voodoo, or Captain Atom are. Don’t be surprised when they need to Google it.
It’s still too early to say exactly what impact this reboot is going to make. Suffice to say, I hardly believe I’ll be telling my son “Oh yeah, in 2011, it all changed. DC created the new paradigm by which all comic books were created.” More likely? “Oh yeah, in 2011 DC rebooted everything, because they figured they’d move more issues if they had #1 on them. Superman turned out really good. I kind of forgot everything else.”
The Fallacy of Death in Comics
If 2011 has taught us nothing else, then we should all learn this: Death is meaningless in comic books. In the long-long ago, in a time and place far far away from here… dying meant dying. No mysterious body swaps. No time-bullets. No psuedo-science backtracking. Dead meant dead. In 2011, Marvel iced the Human Torch, Bucky Barnes (again…), and Thor (again, again). Human Torch didn’t even stay chilled long enough to be missed. With Fantastic Four #600, his mighty resurrection (as predicted by just about everyone) came to pass. In Fear Itself, Bucky and Thor each bit the dust. Who here is man enough to say they’ll stay that way for 365 days? With The Avengers movie hitting megaplexes next summer, I doubt Mr. Odinson will be resting for even a fortnight. Oh, and it looks like the Phoenix force is coming back too. As it stands, I can’t even tell you for sure who is alive and who isn’t. Only Ultimate Peter Parker seems to be the most likely candidate for a spot next to Gwen Stacy of the 616 in the land of the “neva’ coming back.” And thanks largely to Flashpoint, DC was able to kill off whole portions of their catalog, with the promise to thaw them out the second sales dip. Did someone say JSA?
Goodbye 2011. May 2012 boast less deaths and less events. See you next week, when my column resets back to #1.
In this rare, never before seen crossover between The Amazing Spider-Man (starring Nicholas Hammond) and The Brady Bunch, we see Peter Parker in a relationship with Marcia Brady. That is, until Peter’s Spider-Sense predicts a fatal accident for Marcia. Can Spidey save Marcia in time, or will the ringing words of “with great power, comes great responsibility” prevent Peter from pursuing his heart’s desire?
If you’re a regular reader of this column, you know that my daughter, Alixandra Gould – yes, she’s keeping her name – married the love of her life, Jeffrey Christopher Gonzalez, last week. (A big thank you! to Mike Gold for posting a beautiful column last week that I posted on Facebook, then e-mailed to every single person I’ve ever met just to make sure they read it, and which Alix and Jeff thought was terrifically cool.) So of course I decided to write about superhero marriages this week. Not a big leap, is it?
I just finished googling “superhero marriages.” There were “about” 7,750,000 hits in 0.23 seconds, the most recent being a slide show in the Huffington Post posted only four days ago – well, five days ago since this appears on Monday – on November 9, 2011 titled “Comic Book Weddings: 8 Of Our Favorite Superhero Weddings.” In order, they are (1) Spider-Man, a.k.a. Peter Parker, and Mary Jane Watson in 1987’s The Amazing Spider-Man Giant Annual; (2) 1962’s The Incredible Hulk #319 in which Bruce Banner and Betty Ross’ nuptials are interrupted by a “special guest”; (3) The X-Men’s Scott Summers (Cyclops) and Jean Grey (Phoenix) in 1994; (4) Wonder Woman in her eponymous title married Mr. Monster in 1965 – ‘nuff said!; (5) Aquaman and Mera in Aquaman #18, 1964; (6) “Death Waits to Kiss the Bride” screamed the cover of Lois Lane #128 in 1972 – featuring the now iconic picture of Superman holding somebody’s dead body; (7) The Flash races down the altar to stop Iris West from marrying the wrong Barry Allen in The Flash #165, 1966; and (8) Wonder Girl, a.k.a. Donna Troy, marries Terry Long in Tales Of The Teen Titans #50, 1985.)
How did they miss Reed Richards and Sue Storm Richards, a.k.a. Mr. Fantastic and The Invisible Woman? Im-not-so-ho, Reed and Sue are the most realistically portrayed marriage “pros” in the comics universe.
The couple married in 1965, making this year the 46th anniversary of their being a Mr. and Mrs. (They look pretty damn remarkable, don’t they? Must be all those visits to the Negative Zone.) Down through the years, Reed and Sue “have and held, for better or for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health,” and have loved and cherished each other through everything the Marvel Universe could and continues to throw at them, including “real life” curves like a miscarriage, potential affairs, political differences, and a brother’s death.
Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson came pretty close in matching the Richards’ record – not in years married, but in a realistic view of marriage – but then Marvel decided to “disappear” their relationship. Clark Kent and Lois Lane had a wonderful thing going, too, but DC recently terminated without prejudice that couple, too.
And what the hell happened to Scott and Jean?
Jean Loring, the wife of Ray Palmer (The Atom) has a “mental breakdown” and goes on a rampage, killing Sue Dibny, the wife of the Elongated Man (Ralph Dibny), in one of the most gruesome scenes I’ve ever seen in any comic.
Betty Banner, wife of Bruce Banner (The Hulk) was abused, suffered miscarriages, was turned into a harpy, and died. She got better and turned red.
By now you know, unless you’re a fan who really reads nothing but comics and sees/hears nothing that’s not comics related: we had us a storm, we north easterners, and it was a humdinger. Lots of snow – lots! – before Halloween which royally screwed things up hereabouts and drove Mari and me onto the wet and gleaming roads looking for a motel with a vacancy because our house had neither heat nor light. Main problem seemed to be that the trees still bore leaves and their weight, added to the weight of the snow, caused the timber to fall, much of it across power lines. Cue music:
Away in a manger
No crib for a bed,
Poor little Denny
Lay down his bald head…
Okay, wrong holiday and we did a bit better than Joe the Carpenter and his family. We found a Holiday Inn near the Jersey border that had suffered a cancellation and so we didn’t have to spend the dark hours in a cold house, a car, or a manger.
And you know, I’m not complaining! I choose to live here, partly because I like the seasons and, as Diana Ross admonished, “take the bitter with the sweet.” Mari and I can consider the whole thing an unexpected little adventure, though if the power hadn’t returned this morning, I’d probably be calling it something else.
Of course, if I lived in Peter Parker’s New York I wouldn’t be bothered by meteorological matters. Same would be true if I lived in Metropolis, Star City, Gotham City…anywhere in comicbookland. There’s seldom snow there, or much rain, not a lot of wind or heat or humidity, and that’s a minor league shame. Not that I’d want Pete’s Spidey suit sticking to his armpits, or Batman have to put on galoshes over his boots. But in a story, weather can be a tool. It can add texture and realism to the fictional settings, complications to the hero’s various quests (and without complications, those quests aren’t terribly involving). It can even be a major plot point, one that drives the action of the narrative. Or a source of humor. Or a reflection of the protagonist’s psyche. It can establish mood and it can help to establish locale. It could give a city character, as fog does for London and San Francisco or rain does for Seattle.
What is the weather like in Star City? Does the local television weather guy begin every report with, “It looks like another bland day here in our area…”
The exception, as is so often the case, is Central City, the New York doppelganger where Will Eisner’s Spirit fought whatever Eisner thought up to give him problems. It rains there. And snows. And gets warm. And the stuff is a joy to read, and if you’re looking for some recommended reading, well…most, if not all, of the Spirit stories have been reprinted. What I’m saying is, no excuses.
But for now…Hey look! A tree has fallen across my front yard. That hasn’t happened since…the damn hurricane a few months ago.
Walking home from food shopping, thinking about this week’s column. Thinking about all the “news that’s fit to print” (and some not) about the portrayal of women in comics. And I thought, has anyone written about the portrayal of men in comics? I’m talking down and dirty, hot stuff, glistening muscle, chest hair or no chest hair?, blue brown or green eyes, skin-tight costume, hunky super-duper M-E-N.
Distaff geeks unite!
I’ll start. Off the top of my head, and in no particular order:
Dick Grayson, a.k.a. Robin in New Teen Titans written by Marv Wolman and drawn by George Pérez. He looked like a guy I had a crush on in high school… and for years afterwards.
Clark Kent, a.k.a. Superman, drawn by Curt Swan, Jerry Ordway, John Byrne, and many others, up to and including Rags Morales and Jesus Marino.
Hal Jordan, a.k.a. Green Lantern. Just read recently that Julie Schwartz wanted him to look like Paul Newman. Explains a lot.
Scott Summers, a.k.a. Cyclops. Who’s behind those Foster Grants?
Peter Parker, a.k.a. Spider-Man. It was Revenge of the Nerds, thanks to J. Michael Straczynski and John Romita, Jr!
Adam Strange. Why can’t a Zeta-beam land him in my bedroom?
Now for the “live-action”:
Christian Bale makes delicious eye candy and engenders dirty thoughts as Bruce Wayne/Batman. But isn’t it odd that the comic version doesn’t make my “off-the-of-my-head” list?
Of course the true superhero, Christopher Reeve. “Easy, miss. I’ve got you.”
And I have always, always, always had a thing for Robert Downey Jr. Can’t tell you how many times I’ve watched Iron Man. Even sat through Iron Man more than twice just to look at him. Special mention for Sherlock Holmes.
Not so much for the blondes, generally. Though there is Chris Hemsworth as Thor. And Robert Redford (“See ya, Hubble”) in The Way We Were. And Jason Lewis as Jared Smith on Sex And The City – the scene where he shaves his signature long, blonde, thick hair in solidarity with Samantha as she loses her hair due to the chemotherapy, well, every man who has ever questioned why his girlfriend or wife left him should be chained to a chair ala Malcom McDowell in A Clockwork Orange and forced to watch that scene over and over and over until he screams Igetitigetitigetitigetit!
uh, sorry ‘bout that. where was i? she said sheepishly.
John Wesley Shipp as The Flash on the too-soon cancelled TV series.
No quibbling allowed on the next four. I am the columnist. I am allowed my all things Buffy. Anyway, maybe they started out as live-action characters, but they all appear in comics now. And don’t give me any lip about any of them not technically being superheroes. I don’t see you fighting demons and vampires and saving the world over and over again.
David Boreanaz as Angel, first on Buffy and then on the eponymous TV series. Broody, morose, dark and tragic. A vampire Hamlet.
Alexis Denisof as Wesley Wyndam-Pryce. I envy Alyson Hannigan.
James Marsters as Spike, a.k.a. William the Bloody. Just for the record, I’m one of those who believe in Spike and Buffy 4 Ever. S.W.A.K.
J. August Richards as Charles Gunn. He almost didn’t make the list, ‘cause his selfish actions led to the death of Fred, but I can’t deny that bod’!
Anthony Stewart Head as Rupert Giles. Loved him ever since the Folger commercials. ‘Sides, I’m a sucker for British accents. Ask John Higgins.
What’cha think of my choices, fellow geek women? Who are yours? Martha, y’ wanna start?
When Manny awoke he was looking down the barrel of an Arizona State Trooper’s gun. He and Juan and the illegal brothers and sisters they were transporting to a better life in Arizona were all sitting on the side of the road hands on head encircled by other State Troopers.
Something in Manny’s head was tingling, as if it was some kind of warning. Manny looked around for something he did not know what until he found it, the spider he was bitten by.
“That’s your spider sense, Ese!” said the spider.
End of part 1
Part 2
Manny quickly reclosed his eyes hoping to wake up from the dream soon. “This can’t be happening. OK. Get a grip Manny, get a grip.” He thought while keeping his eyes shut tight as if the tighter they were the less real the situation will be.
Manny thinks, “OK, it’s possible that Juan and I were stopped by State Troopers. That’s possible. It’s also possible that I’m on the side of the road with my illegal brothers and sisters we were transporting to a better life in Arizona. It’s impossible that the spider that bit me is talking to me. That’s just not possible. So that means everything that’s happening is not happening. I must have had some bad rice or bad beans in my rice and beans.”
“It’s happening, Ese.” Said the spider. You better open your eyes before one of these troopers take them being closed as a threat.”
“Now I know I’m dreaming! How in the world could a state trooper take my eyes being closed as a threa…”
The Ultimate Universe’s next Spider-Man will be a half-black, half-Hispanic teen named Miles Morales. As revealed in today’s USA Today, the new Ultimate Spider-Man #1 will be the most radical next step in differentiating the imprint from the core Marvel Universe.
Brian Michael Bendis, one of the Ultimate Universe’s chief architects, will write the new series, debuting in September, with art from Sara Pichelli. But first, Morales will be introduced in this week’s Ultimate Fallout #4. The miniseries’ title refers to the repercussions felt in the superhero community over recent events including the death of Peter Parker.
“The theme is the same: With great power comes great responsibility,” Bendis told the newspaper. “He’s going to learn that. Then he has to figure out what that means.”
The notion of making Parker’s successor a man of color was partly inspired by the NBC series Community. Star Donald Glover had been campaigning via Twitter for consideration as the lead in the Sony reboot of the live-action film series, a role that was given to Andrew Garfield. Last fall, the season premiere featured Glover in Spider-Man pajamas. “He looked fantastic!” Bendis said. “I saw him in the costume and thought, ‘I would like to read that book.’ So I was glad I was writing that book.”
The Italian artist used Glover as the inspiration for Morales’ look much as the Ultimate Nick Fury was largely inspired by Samuel L. Jackson who went on to play Fury in the Marvel Universe film series beginning with Iron Man in 2008.
“It’s certainly long overdue,” Bendis said. “Even though there’s some amazing African-American and minority characters bouncing around in all the superhero universes, it’s still crazy lopsided.” It should be noted that the Spider-Man who operated with organic webshooters in the 2099 speculative future line of comics was a Hispanic named Miguel O’Hara. Morales will also be the product of a mixed heritage, much as Alonso himself is from a mix of cultures (his father is Mexican, his mother is British).
“What you have is a Spider-Man for the 21st century who’s reflective of our culture and diversity. We think that readers will fall in love with Miles Morales the same way they fell in love with Peter Parker,” Axel Alonso, Marvel’s Editor-in-Chief, told the paper. Parker’s supporting cast, including Gwen Stacy and Aunt May will figure in the early storylines.
Spider-Man was created by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko in 1962 and by 1999 it was decided the series (and the larger Marvel Universe) was a little too insular for the casual reader. Then-president Bill Jemas decided a parallel line of books could take those core concepts and retell the stories using modern storytelling and characterizations. The Ultimate Universe was introduced in 2000 and was an immediate success, powered by Bendis and Mark Bagley’s Spider-Man. By 2010, though, the UU and MU were strikingly similar so things were dramatically shaken up in a series of cataclysmic events that shook the UU’s status quo, beginning with the wholesale slaughter of half the X-Men, including Wolverine. Those events continued to play out, leading to Spider-Man’s heroic sacrifice, taking a bullet from the Punisher, intended for Captain America.
