Surprisingly, I'm enjoying Amazing Spider-Man's Legacy storyline

[SPOILERS for the current “Fall of Parker” storyline in Amazing Spider-Man, in particular the cliffhanger to the most recent issue and also various plot points from adjectiveless Spider-Man]

I was not expecting to. Okay, I do wish we'd had more chance to enjoy the Parker Industries status quo (especially as I only started to like that status quo with the launch of the current series) so much so I was very skeptical about taking Peter back to the Daily Bugle.

The thing is, though, that the specific angle offers something new and interesting. I was afraid of it being a pure nostalgia exercise given that Marvel has all but announced their intention to set the engines to maximum pander.

But Peter Parker as a science writer sounds like it could be fun. Given that this is the Marvel Universe this means he could end up in all sorts of situations that build on the scientist side of the character I so enjoyed seeing explored at Parker Industries. It means that we keep the mature aspect of the character (even if he is still a prat) that I think Marvel should retain so long as Miles Morales is swinging around as the teenage Spider-Man.

That having been said, I wonder where they're going with Miles in Spider-Man and this idea that maybe he might adopt a new superhero identity. Maybe this is down to Bendis leaving and wanting to throw one last curveball to the readership.

Personally? I'd rather he remain Spider-Man because it allows Marvel to have their teenage hero cake and eat it too so we don't end up having to have Peter reverting to a younger man again as in Brand New Day. On the other hand it would be nice to see Miles get his own identity even if only to show that a newer character can survive outside of being a legacy.

If they can, of course. 

Chinese knock-off Legos are a trip

In my ongoing search for cheap Battlefleet Gothic miniatures, I was directed to Ali Express. Its a website hosting mainly Chinese small businesses. Sadly, I keep missing the boat on BGF minis, which go up and come down on a seemingly random basis, but in the process I have discovered a source of comedy gold I never even knew existed:

Knock-off Legos. I mean, have you ever made a Lego diorama and thought that what it really, really needed...

… was a WWII-era German anti-aircraft emplacement! This isn't even the only Second World War figures the store stocks, they do entire Lego infantry platoons for all sides of the conflict. Oh, and speaking of fascists rendered with plastic yellow skin, though somewhat more realistically in this case:

Donald Trump mini-figure with choice of hair or MAGA hat. Its the superhero branding that really makes the comedy. They even painted one of those meme expressions on his face. I have to admit, I kind of want one but not as much as I want this...

Someone made a Ben Reilly figure complete with hoodie! This one I might actually buy on the excuse of testing the oayment system and delivery time for this service. Also, just the fact that after all these years someone has actually made Scarlet Spider merch is more pleasing to me than it reasonably should be. In fact, the levels of nerd that some of these stores reach is actually half the fun. This character set was good for a lot of laughs when I showed it to some friends...

Yes, “Lt. Zulu” is a funny transliteration error but just take a look at Edward Rayburn in the bottom right. My friends and I had some real fun riffing on “The Adventures of Edward Rayburn” until I took a moment to Google him and discovered that, yes, there was actually an Edward Rayburn in Star Trek. He's only in one episode of Star Trek (TOS: What Are Little Girls Made Of?) but he is 100% a canon character, just some random one-episode security officer, and now he has a toy. That's sweet. No idea how it came to pass but it is sweet.

On a more random note...

… there in the bottom right hand corner, the Edward Rayburn Position as it will now be called, South African Military Dictator Batman. This store actually has a wealth of strange Batman variants such as...

… Pride Batman...

… “Glam Metal Batman”, which is perhaps the best deployment of the Joel Schumacher costume design ever conceived...

… Fairy Princess Batman with tutu and painted on booties...

… and, my personal favourite, Batman in a zebra costume with, for no logical reason, a luminous head component. This all pales in comparison, though, to the “Avengers Horror Movie Pack”:

This, as you can see, contains a whole two members of the Marvel Cinematic Universe plus the Joker, Ash, Freddie Kreuger, Chucky, Jack Skellington and some random Sith. If nothing else, this leads me to believe that in China there's a very different popular reading of Nightmare Before Christmas and Big Hero Six.

Now, if I can just catch this website in the ten minutes a week they have Space Marine Strike Cruisers up, I will be a happy man. And if I don't I'll just be a man with a Scarlet Spider mini-figure in the post, which amounts to the same thing. 

Comic Reviews

Have I been sent anything with Nazis in it this week? What is wrong with the world that this is even a concern for me?

Ben Reilly: Scarlet Spider #1

Okay, old favourite character being relaunched by Nazis Are Cool-era Marvel. Deep breaths... deep breaths... open the comic... and...

Well, okay, so first thing we learn is Ben got his new costume by mugging a cosplayer and, of course, this all spins out of his recent heel turn as the Jackal in The Clone Conspiracy so this is hardly the Scarlet Spider I remember from the not-exactly-good old days. Peter David is doing his best, poor chap, but I honestly wonder if this thing is salvagable. Ben's USP back in the day was that he'd been dealt a truly crappy hand but the old Parker morals still guided him. I knew I wasn't going to get the old Daily Grind Coffee Shop crew back in this series but I had hoped Ben might be a bit more “himself” than he was as the Jackal.

What David chooses to focus on is the internal struggle between the two versions of Ben: the Scarlet Spider and the Jackal, with both turning up as delusions from time to time to get on Ben's nerves. Most of the issue is that, basically, with a little side trip to tease the fact that Kaine knows Ben's still alive and is pissed.

I'm in for the second issue but if that doesn't absolutely grab me, well, I get to save some money. Still, at least he's not a Nazi.

Infamous Iron Man #7

Well, shucks, if this wasn't the perfect example of why I still read Bendis' comics after all these years. Whether you like his very conversational, talky style or not, you have to admit that Bendis just gets how to write the relationships between characters.

The first half of this issue is a big fight, starting with a huge meeting of villains that Doom breaks up in order to lay the smackdown on just about every costumed villain in New York which segues into an after-the-fact post mortem of events. The other half of the issue is a gorgeously atmospheric conversation between Doom and Ben Grimm that Alex Maleev and Matt Hollingsworth draw the absolute hell out of: close-ups, deep shadows, the perfect level of detail to every facial expression. You couldn't direct actors this perfectly in a million years, its the sort of scene the sequential art form was made for. Bendis goes deep into the decades of feelings and emotions (both as people and characters) that inform how these two characters interact and then, with a fantastic cliffhanger, he promises to top it next issue.

And not a Nazi in sight.

Detective Comics #955

Dear James Tynion IV, stop making me ship things, your humble servant, James.

Seriously, that ballet dancer that yelled at Cass in #950 found Cass after she got slashed up by Lady Shiva and nursed her back to health. And she read Cass children's stories as she slept. Its too cute. Then Cass went and cut her way through about a million ninjas. Which was not as cute but was equally awesome. This is mostly a big fight issue with everyone aside from Cass captured and most of them naked, too.

Also, what is it with comic writers hating people called Ullysses right now? First that Inhuman who started Civil War II and now this Colony dickhead with who makes chemical weapons and steals Tim's costume?

Mother Panic #6

I really like how this arc is filling us in on Violet's home life at the same time as deepening the weirdness that surrounds her operation. For instance, in this issue we get some closure on the whole business of those funny rats Violet's mother was talking to and it just serves to make it all stranger. That aside, there's a great scene of a woman Violet us dating reacting to the violence of Violet's life in an interesting an complex way, not so much scared of the fact Vi can be violent (she even admits it was probably justified) but of the way Violet looks as she hit the guy. Its a more complex treatment, brief as it is, than most fiction usually allows for.

Patsy Walker AKA Hellcat #17

And so it ends, my favourite series in the stands.

Its a self-consciously light weight little epilogue to the series as Patsy finally gets her royalties from her mother's books and takes her friends on a shopping spree. Everyone gets to do their bit: Tom and Ian are cute, Jubilee gets to do cool vampire things (and wear her classic costume!) and there's one last set of silly villains for Patsy to be unreasonably nice to. I'm going to miss this series and I hope writer Kate Leth and artist Brittney L. Williams have more work lined up because both have made such a huge impression on me over the course of the series.

This really just is the most adorable series.

Mighty Thor #18

Always good to see Quentin Quire knocking around, especially as it manages to act as a little bit of a Wolverine & The X-Men reunion with him, Kid Gladiator, Warbird and even Krakoa turning up. I've actually really enjoyed this arc with Thor and the Shi'Ar gods getting into a bit of barny and having Jason Aaron return to some of his old X-Men characters is a delightful little bonus.

Honestly, Quire is the main attraction of this issue, the narcissistic little puke gets a wonderful line in selfish prattle that completely flips the tone of the whole arc so far. Plus, that's always a fun personality to pit against someone as serious as Thor. 

Twenty years late, Marvel, but thank you

(Spoilers for Dead No More: The Clone Conspiracy and suchlike tie-in stuffs)

Nostalgia is a funny thing. I realise, intellectually, that the Clone Saga was crap. It was an incestuous, over-extended, poorly edited mess. By the end it was so confused that Marvel even published a parody one-shot about how desperate they were to end the thing.

And yet I started reading comics around the time of the Clone Saga. There is a part of me that will always feel, deep down in my gut, that Spider-Man is a blond guy called Ben who works in a coffeeshop not this Parker guy with his science and his journalism. I know I'm wrong, I know that I just happened to start reading during a replacement hero storyline but part of me will always believe (as I was, originally, meant to) that Ben Reilly is the one, true Spider-Man.

He also had the best Spider-Man costume. You can keep your classic look and your black costume, this is the best design.

True, he was only Spider-Man for a year but back then that meant four monthly series, team-up books, crossovers and the quarterly Spider-Man Unlimited oversized specials. There was, quite simply, a lot of material where Ben was Spider-Man and once he died he was just sort of forgotten. He just wasn't mentioned for about ten years, the forgotten Spider-Man.

Then, at some point, enough time had passed and suddenly Ben Reilly was a nostalgia object. He got a mention here and there; there was a Brand New Day storyline about his wilderness years; his nemesis Kaine made a comeback and even started using Ben's Scarlet Spider identity; and, an alternate universe version made an appearance in Spider-Verse. He was a legitimate part of the franchise's history and, as a fan of the character, that was kind of satisfying.

Plus, those appearances were really good. The Brand New Day storyline treated Ben's years as a homeless drifter with seriousness, looking into what a Spider-Man with a hell of a lot less privilege would look like as the Clone Saga-era stuff only managed on its best day. The Spider-Verse version took a different tac, examining the renewed optimism of Ben's time in the Spidey suit, a Ben reclaiming a life that wasn't Peter's but was a full and fulfilling life after his years on the road. Even the Kaine version of Scarlet Spider was pretty entertaining.

So, as much as I'm sure Ben will be a very different character after The Clone Conspiracy, I feel confident Marvel has a plan to honour the past and origins of the character. Plus, writing duties on this thing are with Peter David, a man basically known these days for coming up with innovative angles on existing properties that take them in different directions that still feel like natural progressions of past eras (X-Factor, Spider-Man 2099, Young Justice, to name a few).

Though I'm not entirely sold on the built-in hoodie. I know where they're coming from, referencing the original Scarlet Spider costume but... meh. 

Let's talk about this new Spider-Man

(Spoilers for Captain America: Civil War, especially the bits about Spider-Man)

My thoughts on Civil War are complex and we'll get to them once they've percolated a little longer. The short, tentative, early version is that it's a good film. The good bits are amazing but the bad bits are a little too vital to the plot to entirely ignore. Overall I'd say its a better film (certainly a better Avengers film) than Age Of Ultron but not as good as Winter Soldier, there are just a few things I want to work out before I discuss the whole film at any length.

Tom Holland as Spider-Man, though? I know where I stand there. I like him, I'm looking forward to the new movie.

Okay, okay, I know the character is only in this film as an extended trailer to reassure the audience that this reboot will go better than the last one (and let's hope so, if we have to go through this again, Aunt May will end up in her teens) but that doesn't stop it from being very convincing.

So what's to like about this version? Well, for one thing I think Holland's version is the best yet at the half-sardonic, half-hysterical fight banter. For another, he has a couple of moments of utter panic in his first scene which sell how he hasn't been doing this long and doesn't have the coping mechanisms in place for when Peter and Spider-Man's worlds collide, which is a pretty big element of a lot of Spider-Man stories. Seriously, Tony Stark frantically signalling to Peter to be cool by blinking with both eyes would be the cutest thing in this film if not for the Vision trying to cook.

The costume looks better than the trailer led us to believe (and is there an element or two of Ben Reilly's suit there? Just me?) and there are plenty of cool “Spider-Man poses” to keep things visually interesting. The new ebbing also looks great, too. Most of all though, Holland splits the difference between the two previous versions. He's a believable teenager (like Garfield) and he isn't classically “Hollywood attractive” (like Maguire, sorry pardon).

Of course, holding down a couple of extended scenes and holding down an entire movie are two different things. On the evidence, Holland at least has the charisma to stand out in an ensemble piece. Rumour has it, based largely on the title Spider-Man: Homecoming, that Marvel and Sony are going for more of a Buffy-style high school dramedy, which I think Holland would be perfect for.

Time will tell, of course, and for the first time in years I find myself looking forward to a Spider-Man movie. 

Spider-Man movies version 3.0

It seems, and by “seems” I mean “has been officially confirmed” that Marvel and Sony have finally agreed to shared custody of the Spider-Man film license.

When I read the news the phrase that struck out to me was “Andrew Garfield will likely be recast”. I did a bit of a double take at that, to be honest, not because I'm particularly fond of his version of Peter Parker but because it sounded harsher than they meant. I mean, recasting Spider-Man I can understand, but to go so far as to recast Andrew Garfield? That's just plain cruel, the lad doesn't deserve that.

As an unabashed Marvel Studios fanboy and a not being fond of the Amazing Spider-Man reboot I'm looking forward to this. It seems the deal is that Sony will continue to make solo Spider-Man projects and Marvel will then use that Spider-Man in crossover projects.

There were rumours a while back that Spider-Man would be the post-credits teaser in Captain America: Civil War, so maybe that's on again. Spider-Man turning up in an Avengers movie is a stone cold bonker certainty just because of the amount of money that would make (an amount of money that has been enough just in theory to make Sony not want to lose the license).

Another reboot, then, and in my own humble opinion I just want to put this out there:

Do we really need another origin? I'm not saying the Andrew Garfield version should continue, that project is pretty much damned by its own critical and financial failure, but that story's been told twice in recent memory and it was hardly obscure to begin with. Uncle Ben is almost as famous an origin as Krypton blowing up or the Waynes being gunned down in the street. Spider-Man is one of the few superheroes where the filmmakers can rely on the audience having a genuine working knowledge of the character.

So maybe this time let's just get on with things? Cover the origin in a flashback or a montage and dive straight into the adventure. One of the problems with Amazing Spider-Man 1 was the creators trying to redo the origin in a way that was markedly different from Raimi's Spider-Man, hence the incoherent speech Michael Sheen rambles his way through instead of saying “With great power comes great responsibility” and the painfully C-list villain.

Of course, this could all go wrong. Marvel will have an exec on the Sony projects so two studios that don't exactly have a history of getting on will be working together closely, pursuing their own projects with the same property simultaneously.

Maybe this will finally be the moment when Marvel Studios finally over-reaches itself. And I'd like to be clear: this prophecy of doom isn't motivated by Sony's involvement, it isn't like I believe them to be completely incapable, depending on my mood I credit them with either two or three decent Spider-Man movies. Rather, I think that what might sink Spider-Man 3.0 is what sunk Spider-Man 2.0 and even the final instalment of Spider-Man 1.0: design by committee. Two companies, two sets of execs reporting to two sets of bean-counters on a multi-billion dollar property.

Maybe tomorrow nothing will have been announced and I can get back to whimsical fun about comics or sexual politics. I keep meaning to write something about the sexual morals of Saved By The Bell (no, seriously) but people will insist on announcing things, its most inconvenient. 

The Spectacular Spider-Gwen

Let me preface this by saying that whilst I'm not as in love with this issue and this character as a lot of people on the internet I found it interesting and I really hope a Gwen Stacy: Spider-Woman limited series or ongoing is in the works.

Also, the problem might be me. I went into this very keen to keep my enthusiasm on a leash. I get like that when a character is as insistently marketed to me as “Spider-Gwen” was. The dialogue-free art preview of the issue on Comicbook Resources was introduced with a headline telling me I'd want a Gwen ongoing just from reading three pages of pretty pictures. So I tried not to fall under the spell.

It worked anyway, I'm under the spell, I want more of this character and here's why:

(SPOILERS ahead for Edge of Spider-Verse #2, you have been warned.)

Here's a funny thing: the interesting angle with re-interpreting most characters is to take the original and see how their essential characteristics work when they're given a new twist like updating their origin to the modern day (Ultimate Spider-Man) or being born into another culture (Superman: Red Son) or inserted into another genre (Marvel Mangaverse). You can't really do that with Gwen Stacy because under the hood of that character... well, there isn't any “there” in there. She's a poorly defined Silver Age girlfriend character that most modern fans know of primarily because of how she died and how that event defined decades of Spider-Man's character development.

It has to be admitted, up front, that the character Latour introduces is only halfway Gwen Stacy. Given how storytelling and sexual politics have changed since the 1970s creating a new take on this character basically means creating a whole new character surrounded by familiar props.

At this, Latour succeeds admirably and I flat out love his set-up. He covers the origin of Spider-Woman in two pages of single panel flashbacks covering the usual high points: spider bite, vacuous celebrity, original sin, public distrust and effective fugitive status. Bish, bash, bosh. What's really interesting is the nature of Gwen's original sin:

(LOOK, SERIOUSLY, SPOILERS)

Peter Parker dies because of her. In this turn of events she uses her powers to save him from bullies and Peter, consumed by a sense of worthlessness, becomes the Lizard to show people how tough he can be with SCIENCE! If nothing else allying the idea of Peter with the Lizard means the Amazing Spider-Man films finally get some decent legacy in the comics, as little as they deserve them. Somehow this kills him and Spider-Woman is blamed, her father Captain George Stacy unknowingly leading the hunt for his own daughter.

Captain Stacy is actually the only part of the issue I didn't like. Now, as much as I might bash the classic Gwen, I always like her father when I read Silver Age Spidey comics. He was a great character and an interesting surrogate father for Peter, a calming emotional influence to practically everyone around him. This version is pretty much just another slightly overweight New York cop. Still, a couple of good character moments between him and Gwen give me hope he could be closer to the character I loved than he seems.

She's also a drummer in a band where Mary Jane is the lead vocalist and I really hope that was meant to be a metaphor. No one notices the drummer but they set the whole tone and rhythm of a band and here we have the character who is the very Platonic ideal of Spider-Man girlfriends being the dependable backing to the most culturally visible of Spider-Man girlfriends.

Most of all is the moment at the end when Gwen unmasks for her father, admitting that Peter's death is her fault but not in the direct fashion Captain Stacy and J. Jonah Jameson had assumed. Now, this is the big moment that took me from just liking the visual (we'll get there) to thinking this character had some real legs to her. A long-standing problem I have with Silver Age Gwen is how the narrative was fine with Peter lying to her: she never finds out or is told his identity and she even blames Spider-Man for her father's death. This is a whole mess of issues that would take a whole post or more to untangle but the bottom line is this: Peter lies to her continuously whilst fully intending to marry her and, presumably, continue to lie to her for the rest of her life.

This Gwen, at gun point incidentally, admits to her mistakes and her identity. Partly to escape, yes, but also because she wants someone she loves to understand her and stop blaming her for a crime she didn't commit, even though they don't consciously blame her. The issue ends there but she could have destroyed her own life by taking responsibility for her actions. She could now be a fugitive and her father's reaction is less than entirely positive so who knows how he'll process these revelations?

And good grief, do I like that costume: the colour combinations are unusual and very different from the classic Spider-suit; the white stands out against backgrounds while the black gives it an element of stealth but also strategically taking emphasis off Gwen's sexual characteristics; and I love the blue outlines on the web patterns. Plus, it has a hood (like Spoiler, another favourite costume) and the eye lenses seem to be outlined in red eyeliner, which is a funny signifier that is really the only design decision here based on gender tropes. Really, when was the last time you saw a female superhero costume that de-emphasised the character's breasts and hips?

She's slated for two more appearances during Spider-Verse but I really hope that isn't all the plans Marvel has for her. 

The Comics Ramble Goes Soap Opera

I've always liked a dose of soap opera in my comics. Most likely this is because I got into comics through the 1990's X-Men cartoon and black-and-white collections of the Chris Claremont run. I just bring this up because soap opera dynamics seem to be something of a theme in the comics I bought this week, the Marvel ones at least.

All-New X-Men #15

I don't hate Cyclops but I have to admit the character has rarely interested me. All too often he has this “perfect soldier” character to him that I can't get into at all. Even the teenage version of the character, both here and in the Sixcties comics, has this problem. In this issue, however, Bendis has him do something that made me absolutely love the character:

He and Bobby Drake use their powers to stop a car thief the police are pursuing at high speed. They do it casually, with affected nonchalance, as if this is a doddle and somehow beneath them. They don't do it because of high-minded morals or in accordance with Xavier's dream but because they want to impress some girls they've only just met.

Actually all the scenes with the random girls (who I hope turn up later) absolutely shine, especially when Scott hears one of the girls say she wishes she was a mutant. This absolutely bemuses Cyclops:

“... we're just so used to people hating us […] that it's - - it's just odd that anybody would romanticize our situation.”

And then I started to understand Scott because suddenly his personality related to something real I could understand. This Scott comes from a time when there was no public mutant culture, no visibility for people like him and because his mutation is outwardly and explicitly dangerous he's had more reason than most hide what he is. Scott is, in an allegorical sense, a homosexual who has just moved from a place where he was totally closeted and even vaguely ashamed of who he was to somewhere he can “come out” in relative safety. He can now be publicly associated with being a mutant and, whilst one guy does a runner in fear, he can even use it to impress cute people.

Yet in spite of all this the best scene of the issue is Jean Grey meeting her future daughter Rachel for the first time. This has to be a heavily-anticipated meeting, I admit I've been looking forward to it for a while. Bendis, genius tease that he is, reduces it to a perfectly executed sight gag where neither woman can figure out how to handle this incredibly bizarre situation.

Dial H #15

Was this the end? I don't remember the series being announced as ending but it seems a pretty conclusive close to the story.

Regardless of whether this is the end or just the “season finale” this was a grand tying up of threads (wires?) from the rest of the series. We got the origin of the dials, a glimpse of the world of the Exchange and even the identity of O. The Exchange is an absolutely perfect Meiville creation, well up there with Railsea or the inter-dimensional weirdness of The City & The City.

Unfortunately it was so good I can't bear risking the spoilers that doing an It's The End, But... post would entail.

I just hope that someday we see Open Window Man in a comic of his own.

And talking of series I'm going to miss...

X-Factor #260

Only two issues to go! Aw.... but Peter David is certainly leaving on a high. I like that he isn't just giving the characters inconclusive endings, which I admit was about the only thing I didn't like about Dial H #15. My favourite conclusion so far was having Rahne join the church as trainee deacon.

This issue was Polaris getting drunk and then having a punch-up with her half-brother Pietro, former semi-regular X-Factor pseudo-villain. It was worth it just for scenes of Polaris drunkenly explaining the crap she's been through since joining X-Factor to a bemused and slightly frightened bartender. The superhero fight with Quicksilver was just icing on the plate.

The end did leave me curious as Polaris was offered a place with another X-Factor. Peter David is going to be a hard act to follow but I'll give a chance so see if I like it. Upon which subject:

Superior Spider-Man #15

I cannot, for the life of me, work out whether I like this series or not.

On the one hand I love the innovation: Peter Parker's body possessed by the mind of Doctor Octopus is absolutely brilliant. I especially like Anna Maria, Doc Ock's study buddy and potential girlfriend, who makes a wonderful addition to the sprawling Spider-Man supporting cast.

I also like that people are starting to catch on that something is up, not least of them Peter's ex (and CSI) Carlie Cooper. This unfortunately brings us to the part of the story I am not enjoying: the way Doc Ock's arrogance plays off the supporting cast. Whilst I can see that the angle is firmly on Ock frittering away his second chance at life the cringe comedy of his interactions with others (most especially the Horizon Labs cast) grates on my nerves.

I know, as everyone knows, that Peter will be back someday but I also know that this isn't in the immediate future or Slott wouldn't have killed off the “ghost” of Peter haunting Ock. Much like the series as a whole I don't know how I feel about this: the series is interesting but there are significant aspects of the writing that I don't like.

To drop or not to drop? That is the question.