Tagged: The Sandman

Bob Ingersoll: The Law Is A Ass #372

Columns / The Law Is A Ass
October 9, 2015

SPIDER-MAN’S FIGHT WITH SANDMAN WAS FRAUD WITH PERIL

Ok, while it wasn’t enough to make him a threat or a menace, what Spider-Man did wasn’t very nice.

It was Mike Barr, a long-time friend and even longer-timed comic-book reader, who reminded me of this story. Mike’s a friend and comic-book reader of such long standing that when he said Spider-Man #4, I knew which comic he meant. When the long-timers say Spider-Man # 4, we only mean one book. We don’t need no steenkin’ adjectives. Or even volume numbers. For us the original The Amazing Spider-Man was Spider-Man and Spider-Man #4 can only mean what is now clumsily called: The Amazing Spider-Man v 1 #4.

In the middle of this story, the first appearance of the villain Sandman, said villain was running from the cops and decided to hide out in Midtown High School, which seems the perfect place to hide. Considering the level of intelligence Sandman’s shown over the years, I’m not sure anyone would ever think to look for him in a school. Unfortunately for Sandman, it wasn’t such a perfect hideout, after all.

If you’re a long-enough-time reader, such as Mike, or me and you get to call The Amazing Spider-Man # 4 by its nickname, you’ll remember that at this point in Spidey’s career he was still a high school student and Midtown High is the high school he attended. If you’re not, either read the Spider-Man wiki entry I’ve already linked to in this column or take my word for it.

Spider-Man and Sandman then had the story’s obligatory fight scene in the school. And – SPOILER ALERT! – Spider-Man won. Then Spider-Man remembered that he hadn’t taken any pictures of the fight scene, pictures for which Daily Bugle editor, J. Jonah Jameson would “pay a fortune.” That’s when Spider-Man decided to improvise.

Improvise, that is, if you mean by “improvise,” make stuff up. And seeing as how that’s what improvise means on Whose Line Is It Anyway? I guess I can mean that, too.

So Spider-Man set his camera up so that it would take pictures. Then he went to the fire bucket…

If you’re in the target Spider-Man age demographic that Marvel’s shooting for in 2015, you probably don’t remember fire buckets. Older buildings, of which schools are usually a subset, used to have fire buckets in them; buckets filled with sand. (Maybe they still have fire buckets in them. I haven’t seen one in quite a while, but I don’t know.) The intent was that someone could throw sand from the bucket on a small fire – particularly an oil fire upon which one shouldn’t throw water – and smother it with the sand.

…went to the fire bucket and grabbed a handful of sand. Spidey threw the sand into the air and dived through it, to make it look like he was fighting the sand. Then he threw another handful of sand into the air and punched it. I guess Spidey took it seriously when someone told him to go pound sand. Then Peter Parker sold the pictures of this “fight with Sandman” to Jameson for big bucks.

Wait, this was noted cheapskate J. Johan Jameson we’re talking about. Peter probably sold him the photos for chump change and a key to the employee wash room. And not even the executive washroom.

What Peter did when he sold Jameson those pictures was wrong. It was fraud. Don’t believe me. How about Noah Webster, would you believe him? He said fraud is an “intentional perversion of truth in order to induce another to part with something of value or to surrender a legal right.”

So let’s see. Peter acted intentionally; I mean I don’t think he threw the sand into the air and punched it by accident. He perverted the truth by faking pictures of Spider-Man’s fight with Sandman and passing them off as the real thing. And he induced J. Jonah Jameson to part with something of value. Hey, chump change and a key to the employee washroom have some value. Even if it’s not the executive washroom.

Still don’t believe me? Then would you believe the New York State Assembly, which made what Peter did a crime? For the purposes of New York’s fraud prosecutions NY Penal Law 170.00 defines a “written instrument” as “any instrument or article … containing written or printed matter or the equivalent thereof used for the purpose of reciting, embodying, conveying or recording information.” A photograph would be an “instrument” containing “printed matter or the equivalent thereof” used to convey information. That takes care of the appetizer, let’s move to the main course, Forgery in the third degree. NY Penal Law 170.05 defines said crime as “falsely mak[ing] a “written instrument” with “intent to defraud, deceive or injury another.” Peter falsely made a written instrument – photographs – with the intent to deceive Jonah and injure him by taking his money. That’s close enough for government work. And considering the police and prosecutors do government work, it counts.

Finally, if you don’t believe me, would you believe Peter himself? Because, in The Amazing Spider-Man# 4, he justified what he was doing by thinking, “Since this really happened a few minutes ago, it can’t be unethical! It’s like shooting a re-take of a movie!” Methinks when a man doth protest to himself too much, he knows he’s doing something wrong. Trust me, anytime someone thinks, “this can’t be unethical,” it is.

After all, if what Peter did – faking news stories – wasn’t wrong, people such as Brian Williams, Stephen Glass, and Jayson Blair would still have their old jobs. They don’t, so you can draw your own conclusions.

Of course, that’s nothing to what Peter did to Jameson in The Amazing Spider-Man #9, but that’s, literally, another story. And, maybe another column.

Comics Reviews (July 29th, 2015)

Reviews
July 29, 2015

Fables #150

From worst to best of what I bought.

Sandman Overture: Special Edition #5

The quality of the bonus material in this is really, amazingly, egregiously shit. I think my favorite this time is once again the Neil Gaiman interview, which is five questions long and consists of questions like “What’s on The Sandman ‘s iPod,” a question that manages to find an impressive variety of ways to be stupid, including “why is the editor of this book referring to the main character as The Sandman,” “why are we still using ‘iPod’ as a cultural signifier in 2015,” and my personal favorite, “why did anyone think this was a good question to ask Neil Gaiman?” The only decent bit is the short Dave McKean essay about his process creating the covers. All in all, especially given the considerable number of months they have to pull these special editions together, this is one of the biggest rip-offs in comics at $4.99.

Daredevil #17

Surprised that this one ranks so low for me, but it completely left me cold. Can’t even particularly articulate a reason, although it doesn’t help that I have no real sense of who half the characters are. The Shroud has been appearing for a while, and I get the broad strokes but… nothing sparks for me about him and his plot. Ikari, I vaguely remember, but he seems to just be Daredevil who can see, which, OK, that’s kinda flat. This storyline was working as a operatic and inevitable Daredevil/Kingpin finale, but this puts the emphasis on the wrong parts of the story.

1602: Witch Hunter Angela #2

I found myself a bit lost in this one. Part of it is marketing; I’d expected something a bit more Neil Gaiman pastiche, and instead it’s very much the Gillen/Bennett Angela book filtered through the 1602 aesthetic, with very little of the underlying Gaiman remaining. Was less amused by the 1602 Guardians than I’d hoped from the cover. All in all, this was a bit of a misfire, though the five-page story-within-a-story was cute.

Fables #150

Actually out last week, but I missed it then and grabbed it this week instead. Turns out releasing your final issue as a trade paperback goes poorly for your regular readers. And is, all in all, a more than slightly ludicrous idea. It’s not fair to call it overdone or undeserved; much as it lost gradual steam over its run, Fables was a landmark series, and earned an unapologetically maximalist conclusion. But equally, after an extended final installment and (not kidding) fifteen epilogues, culminating in a gatefold spread to match the gatefold cover, not a single panel of which was even half as good as Legends in Exile, it’s tough to actually praise either. Like a double album a decade after a musician’s best work: you’re glad it exists, but you wish you hadn’t spent money on it.

Sex Criminals #11

Another solid installment long on hilarity and character bits, although a bit ruthless in terms of picking up after a six month absence; this does not feel like the first issue of a new story arc in the least. But that’s neither here nor there; it’s a new issue of Sex Criminals, and as wonderful as you’d expect given that.

Lazarus #18

There’s definitely parts of the plot here I’m having trouble keeping track of – in particular, I’m at a complete loss for anything that’s happening in the combat scenes besides the character moments. Though I suspect some fog of war is the point. In any case, that only sort of matters – it’s only the mid-size plot I’m losing. The broad strokes are pleasantly clear, and the issue introduces its POV characters well enough to flow on its own merits. Good stuff, in other words, and an effective demonstration of how to do a big, plot-heavy political epic as a serialized comic. I should sit down with the run so far and marathon it sometime soon, as I suspect I’ll really love it.

Thors #2

Man, I’d forgotten what Jason Aaron is like when he’s actually writing good stuff. Police procedural multi-Thor book is just a golden premise that’s almost impossible not to like. Unlike a lot of the Secret Wars books, this one keeps its central premise in tight focus, so it’s easy to keep up with the plot (a particularly big issue as Secret Wars gets stretched out – this is off until September now), using a neatly high concept murder mystery as a hook to keep things running. Effective and fun. Why can’t they all be this good?

Batgirl #42

Love the Batgirl/Gordon!Batman relationship, with Barbara cheekily giving her father advice and instructions and calling him a rookie. Love Tarr’s willingness to work with high panel count pages, which I really think give comics a lovely rhythm. All in all, really just love this book – good superhero fun with a strong aesthetic. Mildly astonished to find it my favorite book of the week, but I think that’s just an idiosyncratic week and my brain being particularly bad at remembering month-old plot threads this week such that this was about my speed.

Originally published on PhilipSandifer.com.