It Ain't Tobey Maguire

Ah, the wonders of the Internet. Marvel.com has finally brought to the U.S. this bizarre meld of Eastern and Western pop culture, Toei's 1970's SPIDER-MAN live action TV series. Featuring all the trademarks of Japanese live action superhero shows: breakneck pacing, awful acting, mind-bendingly cheesy special effects, and editing that bears no resemblance to logic. Oh, and he's got a transforming giant robot. And a flying race car. And he announces himself to his foes as "An emissary from Hell!" Delirious.

Spidey Helps Obama; Obama Helps Spidey

My comics retailer, COMICS INK of Culver City, was good enough to save me a copy of this past week's issue of THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN, which reportedly sold out the day it was released. That's because it included a backup story in which Spidey, covering the inauguration as news photog Peter Parker, springs into action and foils a (really stupid) plot by his old enemy The Chameleon. The story obviously plays off of Obama's comments during the campaign that his favorite super-hero is Spider-Man.

As an old fan of Spidey's habit of trash-talking villains, I must admit I laughed out loud at his quip as he smashed Chameleon in the chops: "Ya hear that, Chameleon? The President-Elect here just appointed me . . . secretary of shuttin' you up!"

One More Deus Ex Machina

What a tangled web Marvel weaves - Los Angeles Times


The LA Times Calendar Section ran this article about the climax of Marvel's "One More Day" storyline, in which (spoiler warnings) Marvel decided to do a "hard reset" on the hitherto linear storyline describing the life of Peter Parker, aka Spider-Man.  For the uninitiated, Spider-Man's been published for 46 years; and the various Spider-Man comics that were part of Marvel continuity told a long, serialized story of Peter's various loves and losses, culminating 20 years ago (our time, not Spidey's) in his marriage to Mary Jane Watson, the girl his aunt's best friend set him up with (and who he avoided like the plague for several issues, in a running gag that ended with one of the most famous comics panels of all time:  He meeting this supposed pity-date and discovers she is a ravishing beauty, as only John Romita can draw one).

Making a long story short (and again, due spoiler warnings given), Marvel recently put Spidey into quite a corner.  Due to misplaced trust, Peter revealed his secret identity on national TV.  The end result was that his beloved Aunt May took an assassin's bullet.  Peter compromised most of his moral values trying to save her life.  At the end, he and Mary Jane jointly accepted a Satan-like demon's offer to save May's life and erase the public's knowledge of Spidey's identity -- at the cost of erasing the fact that Peter and MJ ever married.

This rebooted continuity is apparently designed to make the title more friendly to those who jump over to it from the Spider-Man movies (where Peter and MJ are an item, but not married); and to please nostalgic fans who felt that the true Peter Parker was the nerd who kept throwing away his chances with gorgeous women.  But deus ex machina changes like this (which are SOP at Marvel rival DC) just erase any interest I might have in stories that rely on a continuity that changes with the prevailing wind.  I'm still up, however, for a fun Spider-Man story that focuses on character, not precedent.

Blogged with Flock

Spider-Man: Third Time's Charming

Last night, we went to The Bridge to see SPIDER-MAN 3. Although the theatre had been showing the movie on multiple screens round-the-clock since midnight, the 10:30 p.m. showing was packed. That augers well for a movie that has apparently been scheduled to jump to the head of a summer season packed with sequels. (The other two big #3's -- SHREK and PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN -- are also scheduled to open this month.)

As for the movie, I was primed for dissapointment, based on the reviews by Kenneth Turan (for the LA Times and NPR) and Owen Glieberman (for Entertainment Weekly). Fortunately, I was disappointed in my disappointment: It was pretty damn good. In fact, the three Spidey movies have set a benchmark among superhero franchises in maintaining a high level of quality through three movies. (Remember SUPERMAN 3? Or, if your memory doesn't go back that far, last year's X-MEN III?) A large chunk of the credit must go to keeping the same visionary director (Sam Raimi) and the same excellent cast across three movies.

This, of course, is the movie where the creators broke from the previous two movies' format of one bad guy per movie (each of whom dies in the movie -- cinema villains seldom go to jail); and instead had multiple bad guys. Even revealing how many they had would be giving away good sections of the plot. Even so, the plot does not just focus on the external hero vs. villain battles (although those are some of the most spectacular ever captured on film); this is a movie about relationships in trouble. All kinds of relationships. Current boyfriends and girlfriends. Past boyfriends and girlfriends. Guy-guy friendships. Guy-guy-girl friendships. Work rivalries. Even a broken relationship between a guy and a black puddle of goo from outer space. (Hell hath no fury like a symbiote scorned.)

It also features Peter Parker (Toby Maguire) either out of costume, or wearing it like a pair of power underwear, through several conflicts -- both emotional and physical. Even when he's in the Spidey-suit, the director finds every excuse to either rip his hood off or tear it open. Part of it is his desire to focus on that expressive hounddog-puppy face of Maguire. But I can also see the logic in staging some of the battles in civilian clothes: A scene of two guys whaling the tar out of each other feels a lot more personal when they're clad in mufti than when they're wearing face-concealing masks.

The movie loses some of the benefits the previous two drew from having a single villain, who could be developed in depth. The second one also had the asset of a screenplay by Michael Chabon. The lack of these assets no doubt set off a lot of the critics who loved the first two. But I still walked away feeling I had received my umpteen dollars (The Bridge's tickets are expensive) worth.