My big bad Spider-Man page

As a forty-something, I always hope that the old stories will be able to rekindle-some of the adventure and sincerity I lack in the adventure and sincerity alternatives out there. Alas, the memories are always better than the real thing; we see this especially in the Spider-man clone series, as it treads confusingly along all-too-similar story lines (hey – we’re all clones, so who are we really?), and error-prone posing (who is Kaine anyway, and why is he always lurking in the shadows?). This clone-fest is marred by being a mishmash of several titles, and also rehashes Peter’s “me ‘n’ Aunt May” reminisces just all too often and again. Silly stuff.

But the series is powerful, with creators floating in and out of the scene, and we get all sorts of nutty combinations. Good stuff is brewing, even among the nonsense.

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Spider-Man: the Complete Clone Saga Epic, Book 1 – Volume 1 goes back to the original cloning, telling the tale of the clone’s birth and nurturing under the insane Jackal, side-by-side with a Gwen Stacey clone, in one long, stylistic re-telling of the original Jackal story with the Spider-man clone the Gwen Stacey clone, the confrontation and “death” of the Jackal in the stadium, with the clone’s/Ben’s first awakening outside of the incinerator building; then there is also “The Parker Legacy”, which also goes into that first day after awakening), leading up to Reilly’s escape from town. Then there are three issues of “The Lost Years”, describing Ben Reilly’s wander around the US, which ends up in Salt Lake City (why?). There are lots of rainy scenes and lots of self-pity in those nutty early Ben Reilly adventures (hey – we see him drinking a beer!!), drawn by John Romita JR, the “wild long-haired biker Peter Parker stories”, with the “young Kaine, before he got his scars” stuff, Louise Kennedy, her partner Joseph Raven, all sorts of Salt Lake City murkiness… and we never learn how Kaine’s confrontation there with the nascent Scarlet Spider melds with his bizarre spurt of street violence (or his hatred for Reilly… and Parker… and his later kindness to Parker… and their feuds… and how he protects Mary Jane… and how he tries to take out Spider-man’s enemies… AUGH!!!). Nice blend here of JR Jr pencils and Klaus Jansen inks – beautiful!! Strange drama with Raven’s son, with the lookalike Mary Jane, silly stuff, but also the first deadly confrontation of Kaine (one of many), and the fatal fingerprint (Kaine’s, but he’s a clone of Peter, so it’s Peter’s print). May having her initial panic attack, to be discovered by Mary Jane… and the start of lots of nutty performances by our former funky chick, now slave to a never-present Parker. Silly again. But the scenes of Spider-man confronting Ben Reilly are infused with plenty of pain and anguish. Nice stuff. The Ravencroft story begins (weird Judas Traveller stories), with its strange stalemate, an episode that tells us… nothing!!! At least the two Spiders team up to very quickly defeat Carnage (huh?) Traveller is cool… although he doesn’t do much, ever (well… he poses, he studies, he brags, and sometimes he confronts Ben Reilly by destroying the city around him… before disappearing again…).

After Ravencroft, we look more closely at Ben Reilly, and he emerges in his Scarlet Spider uniform for the first time, and goes on a few boring adventures against common thugs. Venom drifts into the story, so does Betty Brant (who has a brief sort-of-romance with Ben Reilly!!), and the writers introduce a poor slob homeless guy who’s eventually killed off (social commentary time). Venom comes into the picture a lot, mostly a good guy now, but still totally insane. Some lady with symbiotic costuming also shows up, and everyone fights each other.

I find that the stories can be enjoyed much more if you just look at the pictures – the text is so pompous, it’s still mainly the art that really rules this world!! Even if it sometimes makes PP look fat (thanks, JR Jr), or is generally over-blown. Some “saving-of-innocents” stuff happening here (tractor trailers careening out of control, etc). One issue is pencilled AND inked by Sal Buscema, which is a first in my mind – it looks good.

Some bonus material tacked onto the end – early sketches, alternate covers, etc.

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Spider-Man: the Complete Clone Saga Epic, Book 2 – This title has its various reviews of the Spider Man legend, with its confrontations between the many Spider-mans. The collection starts off with some story about Puma and Nocturne (ambiguous, the story doesn’t really go anywhere); lots of scuffling with an out-of-control Puma, while Mary Jane has a useless reunion with her sister. Feelgood stuff, and we learn a little bit more about her former life and her real parents (dad was a nasty guy, a writer, a heavy drinker, etc). Then comes Daredevil, or whoever he was after the death of Matt Murdock, with Spider-man trying to find out from him how to kill off his alter ego. No wisdom there, and also another dead end.

Then starts a weird story – Vulture and Owl team up, Vulture cooks up a deadly virus, which Spider-man gets infected with. The next issues are about Spidey dealing with it, leading up to Spidey getting help from Doctor Octopus – seems Doc Ock can’t imagine a world without his most worthy adversary – and Doc Ock’s eventual murder by Kaine!! Holy smokes!!!! And Peter even has a near-death experience, ha ha haaaa… Wild stuff, man!!!!! There’s Ock’s funeral, and the sexy Stunner goes into mourning. Sad… Meanwhile Tombstone shows up, and the son of Kraven the Hunter (he calls himself the Grim Hunter – oooh!!!) also shows up. Kaine lurks about, which is what he does best, popping up from time to time. Kaine is haunted by a vision of Mary Jane lying in a pool of blood, murdered, which is probably a red herring, because nothing happens in that department, year after year. J Jonah Jameson has turned into a softy, helping Spider-man out all the time. Kaine fights/murders street thugs, attacks the Scarlet Spider from behind, then tussles with the Grim Hunter, killing him too. It’s nuts! Then Mary Jane lays the big news on Peter – pregnant!! The look of horror on Peter’s face at the end of that issue is fairly creepy, but of course that’s the cliffhanger in action – in the end he’s actually happy. Good!

There’s a new story line starting after the death of Doctor Octopus with Elias Hargrave, Ock’s cousin. Interesting stuff there. Strange to see Betty Brant so hateful towards Peter. There’s a reunion of the Sinister Six, now with only four members (Mysterio, Electro, the Vulture and the Hobgoblin. In one “giant-sized” Spider-Man Unlimited, the two Spiders take on Terror Unlimited (commandos in Iron Man-like suits of smart-armour) as they take over part of the World Trade Center in New York (yes, unfortunate combination… this was, of course, pre-9/11). Lots of crazy murders, including of Rich Gannon, the homeless dude who had cameos in earlier tales. Oh yeah, and Mary Jane is involved too – she was lunching at the restaurant the terrorists took over. Right. Not one of the better Spider-Man adventures. The book ends with the Spiders heading out to the Catskills, drawn by a mystic vision of The Jackal (caused by… what). Kaine shows up too, as well as come sort of deformed proto-Kaine, who beats up the Scarlet Spider, and then… turns his back on him. What’s going on? We get a rejuvenated Jackal, who’s been genetically stewing himself for a decade. Nutty! And, as usual, there’s just way too many clones, and the story ends with no progress in the storyline – nothing has happened, except that the Jackal has revealed himself, and we see the Kaine clone (briefly).

Most of the art in this one is very good, in particular one of the Doctor Octopus stories, which has breakdowns by Sal Buscema and “finishes” by Bill Sienkiewicz, a really amazing combination, given how cool either of these guys are on their own. This is the same gang that does the death of Doc Ock (where there’s a nice ttwo-page spread showing Ock kissing Peter Parker (actually, it’s mouth-to-mouth resuscitation) in one panel, and his girlfriend Stunner in another. To that point, I love how the juxtapose the death battle of a major Spider-man adversary, with family bliss between Peter and Mary-Jane, who are building a crib for the child they are expecting, ha ha…

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Spider-Man: the Complete Clone Saga Epic, Book 3 – This is the third edition of the clone digest that Marvel put together, and starts with a rehash of the past few years of clone wars, before getting into a very cool edition pencilled by Sal Buscema and inked by Bill Sienkiewicz, which shows a confrontation between the mysterious Scrier, the Jackal, Jack, and Kaine… and the release of yet another Parker clone! Or is this the real one? MJ goes to the doctor, and Flash Thomson gets involved in some silly battle with the Jackal’s gene monsters. This launches into the silly Planet Symbiotes story line, where the Symbiotes nearly take over Earth… but Eddie Brock’s Other helps our heroes to destroy his entire race. Say what?!? Nothing’s great about this, not even the art. This one shows Spider-man and the Scarlet Spider ally for a while, and even Venom becomes part of the picture… and so does a giant Carnage, who feeds on symbiotes, before being done in by a tanker explosion. Silly. Traveller seems to be studying Spider-man’s character now, not trying to figure out how to defeat him, although he and Ben have a great confrontation! Peter and Ben have a few serious conversations. Aunt May reveals she knew who Peter was all along… and the she dies! This is after years of her being in a coma. Wow…

The rest of the series is about mourning May, and figuring out why Peter Parker is in jail, and why he’s always freaking out. There’s a cool little episode showing a young Peter freaking out at the bullies, drawn by Darick Robertson, nice. Raven gets tortured by Kaine and even Stunner, Mary Jane gets kidnapped by Kaine, who seems to have a vision that he’s seen her lying in a pool of blood, and seems to be trying to prevent that, it’s all nutty. Kaine constantly defeats his foes, murdering the bad guys, but running away from the defeated good guys. Weird. Mary Jane with a gun – ooh, sassy! Peter and Ben switching uniforms, switching spots, taking on the freaky Peter-mutant. A silly episode of the Sinister Six taking on Kaine (before he takes them on, I guess), and then another re-hash of the moralistic creation of the young Spider-man. The End.

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Spider-Man: The Complete Clone Saga Book 4 – This volume got very poor reviews; I can see why it was disliked, especially the lame episodes that include the teenage The New Warriors. But it also had its interesting and surreal moments, such as the weird alternative Miles Warren and Gwen Stacey (the good clones), and also the twin trials of Peter Parker (by a judge and jury) and the other trial of Spider-man by Traveller and his court of merry psychotics. “The Battle For Aunt May’s Soul” is a trippy nightmare with Traveller and Scrier, with Spider-man given the choice of saving the world, or inadvertently saving Traveller. Huh?!?! Several issues have that great Sal Buscema/Bill Sienkiewicz art pairing, which I love, and our heroes go crazy. But… there’s the lame Firefist line, about a psychopath who’s out there killing vagabonds… with the appearance of a “good guy” Goblin. Huh?!?! Sometimes there’s a break in continuity between stories, which is peculiar… maybe because of varying production schedules (the later issue is drawn first or consecutively, etc).

The highlight of the book is probably the trial of Peter Parker, with its ironic testimonials by Betty Brant (nice art), and even the art credits, which go on about “courtroom coverage”, “police artist”, “court stenographers”, “judge”, “jury”, “executioner” for the art, script, editor, publisher, etc roles. The mock trial of Spider-man in “Judgement at Bedlam” is sheer nonsense and kangaroo court lunacy. Love it. Stunner has a role here, but she’s not too interesting… There’s the weird confession of Kaine, and Peter Parker freaking out when he finds out that he’s the clone after all… much self-pity to follow. Right in the middle we get a weird Jackal-narrated walk-through of Spider-man’s world (which for some reason includes The New Warriors) as the Jackal uploads Spider-memories into another clone, the incredibly weird Spidercide. He’s introduced in an episode of the incredibly immature The New Warriors (not destined to become a classic Marvel title, despite the hot Asian chick who wears Strange Tales t-shirts and has a Stimpy phone). The Jackal launches a terroristic bio-war by poisoning an entire town (why?), there’s another strange interaction with The Punisher, fighting between Spider-man and the Scarlet Spider and Spidercide, which gets weird, an alliance between Spidercide and Scrier (why? is it because Scrier finally does something active?), an army of enemy spider-clones, more dissolving Gwens (it’s like a broken record now), before the finale where all of the bad guys die… finally (terrible art in that one).

Sadly, this volume shows Ben Reilly as the voice of reason, while Peter Parker turns into a sniveling weirdo, who at one point even sides with the Jackal! Mary Jane Parker is a freaky Frau. Then there’s the re-appearance of the Green Goblin as… a crazy hero? Kaine shows up, but rather than being a lunatic killer he’s more like some guys who pops up here and there at random. By now I’ve lost track of who he hates, whether it’s Peter Parker or Ben Reilly. Even the characters in the story have lost track.

As usual, the art is (mostly) amazing, with cool shots of a very nice Gwen Stacey, Mary Jane Watson (usually attractive, sometimes funny-looking), and nice moods and variety throughout.

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Spider-Man: Origin Of The Species – I loved the title story – cool, gritty art that reminded me of an indie comic. I like how Paul Azaceta (and later his partner Matthew Southworth) draws gritty lines and Spidey with small eye-covers (they keep getting bigger and bigger with all these cutesy versions of Spidey), and how they have wicked, edgy cartoon-ey situations. Naturally, we have plenty of Spidey-drama – Peter seems to be between girlfriends at the moment – but at least there’s not much of Aunt May, and when we see her she’s a party-chick and entertaining wife of J Jonah Jameson’s dad, Jay. Weird jokes about Peter wearing an ugly “gag gift” sweater on the hottest day of summer, and the entrance of a pregnant, horned Lili Hollister, giving birth on a cafe floor, wild rooftop chases baby-in-hand (kind of like a Bruce Willis movie), the entrance of Tombstone and Shocker (minor Spidey-villains from ages ago), and then incomes a horribly deformed Doc Ock (so that’s what he’s like now – I haven’t bought a comic in 25 years, good to catch up to what my favorite characters are up to these days… yeesh!!). And then along comes… the Lizard! Really amazing stuff!! I like the scene where he talks down a raging Rhino, and his brief confrontation with Mysterio (props to the authors, who make it brief – Mysterio is a one-trick pony who should not cause Spidey any grief any more at this stage in the game). Cool use of Chameleon, that other one-trick pony who’s actually interesting. Love how Spidey soaks down part of a riverfront building in the Hudson River just to apprehend five villains! By the end of the book, Spidey is toying with his opponent, and I love that.

“Arms against a sea of troubles” tells the story of Doctor Octopus, from the day of his fourth-grade school field trip to the aquarium, when he became fascinated by a real octopus, through his days as a jailbird after being apprehended by a young spider. Not bad, not that great either though… “Another Door” is a little piece of Peter Parker drama, with Vin Gonsales, Carlie the cop, and a menacing Harry Osborn, a misadventure with Overdrive, Peter Parker dressed up as J Jonah Jameson for Hallowe’en. Then there’s a silly piece about Spidey running afoul of city by-laws when he wants to tidy up a truck wreck that is blocking traffic (?!?!), and an even sillier one about Norah the reporter, all sassy dialogue and ultra-stylized “art”. Next! A few more forgettable short stories, and then a helpful recap of the Spider-man Saga that brings us up to the current story. Not bad. Also a few dossiers of Spider-man characters thrown in. Meh…

This edition didn’t get high marks by reviewers, probably because the key story didn’t strike their fancies, or they resented the inferior quality of the tacked-on stories. I think that the the key story has everything I expect in a great comic, that being fantastic art, a certain level of maturity, a relative lack of cheesy situations, and a few upsets and surprises – as well as a hero who somehow, despite major setbacks, manages to keep it all together.

DVD

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The Amazing Spider-man – Wow, I’ve seen a re-boot a mere 10 years since the first Spider-man movie hit the theaters. Okay, so Tobet Maguire wasn’t the most awesome Spider-man (it seems like James Franco would have made a better bet, the way things have turned out, but at least he’s not become as typecast as Maguire now is and lives to act again). This one tries different things – it doesn’t make a big deal about Peter Parker being an outcast and a science geek, it just makes him a social outcast (the science geek is only hinted at). It hints at Peter’s parents, which was ignored for the first 40 years of Spider-man’s history. It rushes right into “someone close to Peter is told his secret identity”, again something that didn’t happen ever. So it breaks a lot of taboos right off the bat. It also tells simple stories – Peter chases the Lizard, because it’s some sort of game. He fights him, nearly dies, others do, no one is sure why. And why does the Lizard crave universal lizard-ness? We’re never really convinced.

The plot is awful. Andrew Garfield is a bit too twitchy to be Peter Parker, his head too small, his lips too bloody, his teeth too grey… ditto for Emma Stone as Gwen Stacy. Bad things will happen. And yet, the story is pleasant, perhaps due to the CG, which really works! I liked it, probably for the first time ever.

The screenplay, for all of its limitations, also does its best to make the sequel self-evident – we need to meet Norman Osborn, we need to find out what happens to Uncle Ben’s killer (does he, I don’t know, become the possessor of the Cosmic Cube, or the recipient of the alien Spider-man suit/Venom/Carnage thingy), we need to, I suppose, watch Gwen Stacy get thrown off the Brooklyn Bridge. And maybe we need to also meet another Mary Jane Watson.

Let’s see what happens. I may not have liked the movie a lot, but my son did, my friend did, my wife did, all of the people I went to see it did, all of the people in the theatre liked it… hmmm…

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