This Week in Comics

I’ve been reading comics since 1961. In the late ‘70’s I discovered fandom when some a fellow fan named Mark Earnst from New Hampshire reached out to me and asked me to join his amateur Publishing Alliance (APA) which I did, that APA became known as Phoenix. In 1981, I sold my first professional article, The Ditko Days, to Amazing Heroes; marking me the first person from Phoenix to go pro. By 1996 when the market crashed, I became the most prolific journalist in the field of comics, having contributed to nearly ever comic fanzine (as well as several of the major and minor comic publishers) that were being published at the time.

After the crash which took out virtually all of the fanzines, I switched over to the web, publishing reviews and articles to a number of websites. In the nearly 30 years since then, I’ve “outlived” half a dozen or so sites that have gone dark (one of which just announced this week that it is shuttering early in 2026), and yet I still continue to write about comics, films, TV, and other things which catch my fancy (including writing and publishing my own comics and books).

Yes, I love comics.

This past week I picked up some comics that I want to talk about. Topping off my list is the Marvel/DC Deadpool Batman team-up. Normally I rather enjoy cross-company team-ups, and over the years have collected quite a number of them, and, as a rule, have enjoyed them. Unfortunately, Deadpool/Batman isn’t one of them. While I understand why the two companied chose both characters for a team-up, (The purpose of the book is sales, so put two of the most popular/recognizable characters together for the biggest bang for your buck), still, they couldn’t be two more mismatched characters if they tried. (Batman/Moon Knight, Batman/Daredevil would be more evenly matched and/or logical pairings.)

To be sure, the story does sort of balance out as the Joker is the villain of the piece, thus clashing Joker’s brand of crazy up against Deadpool’s, unfortunately, Deadpool’s chaotic crazy simply doesn’t play well against Batman’s stoicism. (At this point in this essay, I feel it necessary to point out that while I do so enjoy Ryan Reynolds depiction of the Merc with a Mouth, I find the comicbook version not only excessively tedious, but endlessly overused.)

The story has Deadpool dropped into Batman’s Gotham as a hitman for hire tagged to take out the Dark Knight by none other than the Joker himself, who has concocted yet another scheme to kill hundreds of citizens of the city. As can be expected, even as the plan goes predictably array all three of the main characters seem horribly mismatched, as they are pretzeled into the mash-up required to make the story work. So, yeah, not my favorite team-up.

Fortunately, while the Batman/Deadpool story was the lead story, there were other team-ups in the book. Next up is a Captain America/Wonder Woman tale (which makes more sense as a team-up), Still, while this pairing makes more sense as both characters have strong patriotic themes running through their histories, the story itself has them crossing paths throughout their respective histories, as they bounce around through time periods, from WWII to the present day and into a far-flung future. It has them confronting Hitler in the bunker, fighting Galactus, the death of Supergirl during the Crisis on Infinite Earths storyline, opposing Maxwell Lord, and chilling on the JLA Satellite.

There is also a story teaming Krypto and Jeff the Shark that is, well, inexplicably whatever.  Following that is a teaming of Daredevil and Green Arrow (again, another unusual pairing, Green Arrow and Hawkeye would have been much better for obvious reasons, especially as this is not the lead talk, but four stories back). Then comes a two-page Rocket Racoon and Green Lantern short, followed by a three page Frank Miller Wolverine/Batman clash. The issue is rounded out by another three-pager staring Logo (and no, I have no idea who this is, save that it appears to be a mash-up of Lobo and Wolverine), who trashes an Iron Man stand-in, and chats with a substitute Thanos, in a story that make less sense than any of the others.

Finally, in a move that defies explanation, there is an ad in the book that is for the very book itself. The only answer we can consider as passingly rational is that the ad was placed in all comics produced that month, and wound up in the title it was pimping, by accident (because no one was pruning the ads).

I also picked a facsimile reprint edition of Batman #47 (1948) because I occasionally enjoy checking out Golden Age comics. As to why I do this, is often beyond me when I actually read the Golden Age stories. Even as a teen when I first started reading reprints of those Golden Age tales I’m always surprised that—given the level of storytelling itself—how comics manages to survive to even get to the Silver Age. Sorry kids, most to the stories from that era that I’ve read are, quite honestly, barely readable (a sentiment I’ve had confirmed by other comic aficionados (pros and fans alike).

And finally, I received two comicbook Kickstarter packages this past week, First a grouping of 10 books from G-Man Comics as well as a reprint collection from Heavy Metal/Metal Hurlant (which I haven’t read as of yet but am excited to read both). I’ve previously read and reviewed two groups of G-Man Kickstarter comics, and while it’s been a while since I read any Heavy Metal comic mags, I’m familiar enough with what to expect from this and the other issues I’ve received (and yet still have yet to read).

Well, given that this is Thanksgiving weekend I’m sure that I’ll have plenty of time to red my ay through those comics.

Everybody hates Spider-Man (or so it seems)

I know what you’re asking yourselves right about now. Who could hate Spidey? Isn’t he the lovable Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man? Even J.J.J. likes Spidey these days. OK, yeah, Spidey still does have a rogue’s gallery of villains who, in all probability, still aren’t so fond of him, but among the general populace, who could hate our wall-crawling hero?

Well, just the other day I came home from the comic shop, and I brought with me, a handful, a handful-and-a-half of short-run Spider-Man titles, including Spider-Man & Wolverine #1, Predator Versus Spider-Man #1 & 2, and Godzilla vs Spider-Man #1, in this batch I also brought home Captain America # 14 & 15,and I must say, that these books paint a very interesting picture of who the House of Ideas believe my old pal Spidey to be.

So, let’s just sort this out, shall we? While teaming Spidey and Wolverine has become a pretty standard pairing by now, getting teamed up with a guy with adamantium claws and a penchant for high-octane fights could be considered dangerous, even for someone with a early-warning danger sense. And then, as if that pairing wasn’t off-putting enough, Spidey then has to face off against both a Predator—an interstellar neigh unstoppable killing machine, and Godzilla—the monstrous, radioactive, fire-breathing, king of the Kajus.

Now while I’m totally “Team Spidey” I’m not entirely sure that these parings are exactly within his weight class, if you know what I mean.

And then, as if this wasn’t enough Spidey is then teamed up with Captain America (Steve Rogers) and Thor to learn what happened to the city of Broxton, Ohio, after the appearance of Asgard landed on Earth and the city disappeared (courtesy of the god of hammers no less)

Now, while all of this seems to be way over the top of team-ups for the Web-Head, let us look at the individual stories.

First up, Logan is contacted by an old SHIELD agent about a missing directory a master database of all the world’s double agents and recruited him to recover it. So, he then conscripts Peter Parker to help him locate it, resulting in them running afoul of Omega Red and Kraven the Hunter who also want the directory. During the fight they discover that Mysterio is involved and somehow seem to wind up in some sort of mind swap twist of their past that somehow seems to involve Peter’s former spy parents.

In the Predator issues, it is a wicked hot several day in in NYC where An ancient Predator who has been stalking the planet for some 100 years but only of supremely hot days becomes active once again and is now trolling through the subways of the Big Apple during a city-wide blackout that has Mary Jane trapped underground in the subway system being chased by the Predator while Spider-Man is racing to catch up and rescue her.

Next we have Spidey facing off against Godzilla in a throwback, continuity retcon implant occurring just after Spidey returns from the (first) Secret Wars and wearing the black Symbiote Spidey suit. We do have to say that we really did enjoy this story most of all, due mostly to the off-handed flippant way writer Joe Kelly penned the story, full of throwback anarchism and references to random Spidey events that took place during that time frame. Nice going, Joe!

Finally, we are treated to Peter wanting to call up Steve Rogers just to chat, and Steve having a heart-to-heart with a woman who is a neighbor about how tough it is for a superhero like him to have “just friends” with others due to the uniqueness of their situation. (Is the other person a normal, or also a hero, and if a hero does that other person know that Steve is a hero.) Then having Steve call Pete, only to be be himself to be called upon by Thor and to ask if Pete wants to join in as Spider-Man. Which Pete totally does, resulting in a couple of very cute moments between Spidey and Cap.

All-in-all we really did enjoy all of the books (mostly because they involved Spidey, and partially because each was well-written and thus, we are interested in seeing how each turn out. (Here it should be noted that the Godzilla storyline appears to be written across several titles as the giant Kaju is appearing in several other Marvel titles which we believe are all somehow tied together forming a much larger story.

We understand that adding Spider-Man (Wolverine, Predator, or Gojira (ゴジラ) to a storyline can add readers(cash) to a title, so yeah, while these types of stories can often simply pretzel-logic the storylines or characterizations of various the various characters involved, but we can (and often have) simply dismiss all of our objections because the story is so good. Your milage may differ.

One Hulk, Two Hulk, Green Hulk, Red Hulk Or Wait, Why is the Hulk Red?

With the release of Captain America: New World Order, We — as a comicbook aficionado, historian, journalist, and creator for over 60 years — have been repeatedly asked by several of our non-comics friends and family this very same question, “Wait, why is the Hulk red? (and when did he become red?)” Well funny story about all that, this didn’t just happen with this film, but the seeds of which were planted way back before the creation of the Marvel Universe. Back then, Marvel was still mostly Westerns and Monster comics. Before the introduction of the character we now know as the Hulk, there was another “Hulk”, In Journey Into Mystery #62 (1960) the psychic predator, Xemnu, created by Stan Lee and Larry Lieber, and was referred to as "the Hulk" before Bruce Banner's version even existed. Then, later in ’62 When Banner came on the scene, he transformed into a gray Hulk, but we’ll get to that in a minute, first, we want to talk about Chris Giarrusso and a strip he created called Bullpen Bits (which later evolved into Mini Marvels) that ran on the Bullpen Bulletin Pages in Marvel comics beginning in 1999. (Oh, if you want to know what I think of the actual Captain America film check out my review, over here).

We mention Chris because it was in his strip with little cartoon characters of the various Marvel characters (Giarrusso described it as Marvel done “Peanuts style” doing silly things. According to Chris it was in 2008 that Jeph Loeb and Ed McGuinness created the Red Hulk in the regular Marvel Universe. later Paul Tobin, Sean McKeever, and Marc Sumerak, each contributed to the Mini Marvels run of stories. Later on, Jeph’s daughter, Audrey, while in high school, got the gig writing the Mini Hulks strip soon after with art by me. It was a Mini Marvel adaptation of an already existing character. Neither Chris or Audrey had any hand in the creation of Red Hulk. but it was Audrey's idea to include a Blue Hulk, which was unique to the strip. The Mini Marvels strip eventually graduating into a series of full-sized one-shot comics and trade paperbacks.

In addition to the regular Marvel characters that were being spoofed in that strip, Audrey, Chris Giarrusso and later Paul Tobin, Sean McKeever, and Marc Sumerak, all contributed to the Mini Marvels run of stories. Needless to say, the very concept of different colored Hulks apparently garnered enough traction amongst the Marvel staff that they made their way into the mainstream Marvel books. Still, it is important to understand that when Hulk first appeared in Incredible Hulk #1 (1962) co-created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby he was in fact gray. According to Marvel Lore, when that book appeared in print the actual coloring process of comics wasn’t sophisticated enough to maintain the same gray hue throughout (causing the Hulk to range in color from light to dark gray, to purple to blue to green, so the decision was made to color him green going forward).

Thus, it wasn’t until the second issue that the Hulk appeared as “normal” green self (Incredible Hulk #2, May 1962). Therefore, it was a green Hulk that existed in comics (with him later appearing from 1977–1982 on our TV screens in the form of Lou Ferrigno (with Bill Bixby portraying his alter ego of David Bruce Banner. Then, back in the comicbooks, in February of 1980, Bruce Banner’s Cousin, Jennifer Walters, was involved in a near fatal accident and received a transfusion of Bruce’s irradiated blood which transformed her into the Savage She-Hulk. (In 2022 She Hulk also got her own TV series on Disney+ with Tatiana Maslany as Jennifer and Malia Arrayah She-Hulk.

Interestingly enough, when the series was announced there were some conservative newsreaders who bemoaned the “Woke agenda” of a female hulk, without realizing that the character had been created some 40 years earlier, and not so much as an attempt to create a progressive character, but as a way for Marvel to protect their copyright on the name “Hulk” as a superhero.) In fact, during the run of The Incredible Hulk TV series, in a recorded interview, a journalist even asked Bill Bixby if there had been any talk of a female Hulk showing up, which Bixby thought was a good idea, but never actually occurred in the show.

Back in the Marvel comics, in 2015 the character, Amadeus Cho, also became a green Hulk, (The Totally Awesome Hulk #1), after being exposed to a concentrated dose of gamma radiation while attempting to save his friends from a villainous attack, essentially mirroring the origin story of Bruce Banner, this radiation triggered a similar transformation within Cho’s body, allowing him to turn into a powerful, green Hulk-like form. Two other gamma-irradiated characters (villains, actually) in the Hulk mythos are the Abomination (Emil Blonsky (1967), played by Tim Roth in The Incredible Hulk, 2008 and She-Hulk ‘22) and The Leader (Samuel Sterns, 1967) played by Tim Blake Nelson in both The Incredible Hulk (2008), and Captain America Brave New World (2025)

The Gray Hulk eventually reappeared in Incredible Hulk #324 (July 1986) while Peter David was writing the series. In this incarnation, Gray Hulk wasn’t so much of raging monster, as he was a Vegas crime boss named “Mr. Joe Fixit”. It wasn’t until the mid-to-late 2000s that Hulks began to take on more of a variety of rainbow hues. As noted, before, this began in a humorous strip entitled Bullpen Bits that appeared in various Marvel comics on the Bullpen Bulletins Page, written by Audrey Loeb, Chris Giarrusso, Marc Sumerak, Sean McKeever, and Paul Tobin (and which Giarrusso drew) it was in that strip that tiny red and blue Hulks were introduced.

In January of 2008 Jeph Loeb (Audrey’s father) and Ed McGuinness introduced Red Hulk in a new volume of Hulk comic. At first the actual identity of Red Hulk was unknown, but two years after his introduction, he was revealed to be General Thaddeus E. “Thunderbolt” Ross. (This came as something of a surprise to everyone, as the character of Thunderbolt Ross had been killed some 20 years earlier. No explanation was given for this resurrection. This was, of course, followed in 2009 by the appearance of Red She-Hulk in Hulk (Vol. 2 #15) who turned out to be General Ross’ daughter, Betty, who ultimately morphed into Red Harpy (2019 in Immortal Hulk #16). Betty had been previously transformed into a Green Harpy way back in Incredible Hulk #168 (July 1973).

Other Hulks have included a Purple Hulk who first appeared in Avengers #24 (March 2012) created by Brian Michael Bendis and Daniel Acuna, who turned out to be Norman Osborn (formerly The Green Goblin, one of Spider-Man’s most notorious foes). Norman was given Super Adaptoid technology which he used to absorb all the powers of the Avengers at once, Hulk included… and nearly killing himself in the process. Outside of the comics, Happy Hogan became a purple Hulk during the events of the What If…? animated series.

While an Orange Hulk originally appeared as a playable character in the videogame Marvel vs. Capcom, this Hulk was not given any significance storyline but played slightly different from the standard Hulk later an Orange Hulk was introduced to the comics by Rick Remender and Mark Brooks Uncanny X-Force #12 (July 2011). This “Solar Hulk” was from Earth-295 (the Main Marvel Earth is 616). Orange Hulk seems to have gained his powers from solar radiation in the same way that Bruce Banner traditionally gained his through gamma radiation. It is also implied that he is stronger during daylight hours.

Blue Hulk who became Captain Universe in Incredible Hulk #1 (November 2005) was created by Jay Faerber and Carlos Magno. However, someone else who could well deserve the title of the Blue Hulk is Rick Jones. When Rick was exposed to gamma radiation by the Intelligencia in Hulk (Vol. 2) #2, he became a new type of Abomination, christening himself the ‘A-Bomb’ Hulk. As to why he became blue instead of green, it was assumed that since the Gamma radiation had been combined with other forms of radiation, it altered his skin tone to blue rather than green. He was later cured of the radiation and returned to his human form.

There was also a Brown Hulk who first appeared in The Incredible Hulk (Vol. 2 #13, February 2000). This “Devil Hulk” (which was created by Paul Jenkins and Ron Garney was actually less of a physical monster and more of an inner demon for Bruce Banner to wrestle with intellectually rather than physically.

Then there was a Black Hulk from Avengers & X-Men: AXIS #4 (November 2014) by Rick Remender and Leinil Francis Yu who was the character Kluh (this Hulk was linked to yet another incarnation of a greenish, deformed Hulk, referred to as “Guilt Hulk” who was just one of several split personalities of Banner formed by his abuse by his father Brian Banner.

Next is Yellow Hulk (this one enhanced by the villainous scientific group A.I.M.) who was introduced in Matthew K. Manning and Marcio Fiorito’s Marvel Action: Avengers #9 in 2018. The Yellow Hulk is a result of the godlike Nightmare messing with Captain America’s mind. Nightmare brought Steve Rogers’ nightmares to life, creating a pocket reality where his Avengers allies had been corrupted by the terrorist group Advanced Idea Mechanics (A.I.M.) The Yellow Hulk is seemingly identical to the Savage Hulk in power and personality, but now A.I.M.’s signature shade of yellow.

Apparently, there is also another individual who is a yellow Hulk, and that is Jackson Lenard who is a character created by the gaming company Legend but eventually used in the Marvel Universe. He is a friend of Dr. Banners who was trying to find a cure for the Hulk but was turned into one himself!

Silver Hulk (otherwise known as Galactus’ Herald was designed by Ron Lim, and appeared in the one-shot comic What If...? Galactus Transformed Hulk? #1 (2025). The story sees Galactus choosing Bruce Banner as his new herald, imbuing him with the Power Cosmic.

Finally, there is actually a White Hulk (a Hulk clone) which appeared in James Kochalka’s story Hulk Squad, Smash! from Strange Tales Volume 5 #1, (September 2, 2009). The White Hulk was essentially written as a joke character in the anthology of weird and wild stories. Needless to say, given the nature of Marvel’s multiverse it means this character does officially exist in Marvel canon, and he’s described as part of a team of experimental Hulk clones created by the government.

Actually, there is “technically” one more Hulk-like character, and that is a “Skin-Tone Hulk” (Doc Samson), a psychiatrist who attempted to steal Hulk’s powers. While Samson became incredibly muscular, only his hair turned green. In the past, Bruce Banner has shown the rare ability to use his Hulk strength when still in human form (see Bruce Jones and Mike Deodato’s Jr.’s Incredible Hulk Volume 2 #50, 2003), suggesting he too qualifies for the ‘skin-tone Hulk’ title.

As a postscript to all of this, our friend, Ray Felix has independently developed a Red Hulk-type character that he wound up using in his own Bronx Heroes comic series A World Without Superheroes. That character eventually came to be known as Rampage. and went on to appear in Bronx Villains #1 from Ray’s production company Bronx Heroes.

Oh Canada!

I've long had a love of and desire to collect specialty comics. That is to say comics that either contain corporate characters selling or appearing in comics that are sponsored by other companies (not their respective publishers) or comics where the characters are pushing some sort of pro-social cause. Quite a few of these comics have been from Marvel, DC, and Archie, and I have amassed quite a few of them. 

Recently I acquired one that came out way back in 2001 for which I had long been searching. Well it arrived the other day and I've just finished reading it, and while I enjoyed it, I do have just one minor beef with it, which I plan on sharing with all'y'all now. 

As you can plainly see, the comic in question is Marvel's Wolverine Son of Canada, which was subsidized by Doritos/Lays, and was issued only in Canada. In this comic, native son Wolverine, along with Spider-Man and The Hulk get sucked through a vortex and wind up in The Great White North (where they eventually meet up with Storm, Captain America, Silver Surfer, Thing, and Thor all of whom have been captured by minions of Blastaar). 

To cut to the chase, the heroes manage to free their friends, and defeat Blastaar and his minions with relative ease (hey, it's only a 16-page comic with 2 pages of ads). My issue is this. I found a typo (printo, really as it was probably hand lettered). The error came on page two where Wolverine says "This is Vancouver, British Columbia." and Spider-Man responds, "Canada? Where in Canada? which makes no sense as Wolverine just said that they were in Vancouver, British Columbia. Causing me to think that Spidey was supposed to have said "We're in Canada? which would have made much more sense.

(I placed arrows on the art so you could better see what I was talking about above. 

Not a big deal, but, honestly, my editor-sense was buzzing.

Having gone through that, I just wanted to add one more image from the comic, which is a shot of Cabot Tower on Signal Hill in Newfoundland, but only because my good buddy Roger Keel lives in Newfoundland, and I thought he might be entertained by its inclusion in the comic. 

Well, that's all I have for today, now I have to get back to my real work so I can go catch the last matinee of Captain America New World Order later today. 

Captain Spider-Man

Given that today is Punch a Nazi Day…er, Independence Day we decided to pen a tale of two of our favorite iconic heroes; Spider-Man and Captain America.

In the beginning, there was the Hero, and the Hero was with man, and the Hero was man. This is the way it was in the beginning. There is a reason that we worship Heroes. We love and adore them, and we know that as much as we admire them, we will never be them, but still we not only aspire to be like them, we choose to emulate them. Then when they fail, we abandon them to the fates. As it turns out, every generation throws a Hero up the pop charts, only to wait to watch when they inevitably fall.

By this I mean that as a people, we aspire to work towards a greater good. We want to perceive the world as allegory, with a higher power or powers directing us, or even acting in concert with us. We want to believe that there are those among us who will rise up and lead or protect and rescue us in our hour of need (i.e.: The 7^th Calvary, The Marines, A White Knight, if you will).

It is my contention that there are, and always have been, those who take up the mantle of patrón, those who are willing to put themselves in harm’s way to protect those of us who are weaker. Joseph Campbell talked about the Hero’s Journey; that path that an ordinary individual must take to become the person that are destined to become. I believe in destiny not so much as a force of nature, but more as a character — one of many actors on the scene — than as an immutable path that can never be altered.

So, yes, there are heroes, and yes, sometimes those heroes fail, but that doesn’t not stop us from either believing in them, or continuing to craft stories about them, whether real or fictional.

As for me, I am a member of the cult of Heroes. I am, at my core, a Heroist. That is to say that I, perceive myself to be a founding member of the cult of Heroes, because of this, I find that I must misquote Voltaire and say that I truly believe that if Heroes did not exist, then we would have been required to create them. Obviously, both sides of that last statement are true.

Captain America is one of those heroes. Created by Jack Kirby in 1940, Captain America has grown to become the living embodiment of America. A symbol of how we perceive ourselves. There is this great story about Kirby, when he was working at the Timely/Marvel offices, Jack took a phone call. The voice on the other end said, “There are three of us down here in the lobby. We want to see the guy who does this disgusting comicbook [Captain America] and show him what real Nazis would do to his Captain America.” To the horror of others in the office, Kirby rolled up his sleeves and headed downstairs. However, by the time he arrived in the building’s lobby, the callers were gone.

Cap is a one-of-a-kind hero who understands that he is more than just some guy in a suit who fights crime. He is an icon in that he is the embodiment of the very ideals upon which this country was founded. You want to talk Truth, Justice, and The American Way? Let’s talk about Captain America; a trans-generational hero who will stand his ground and “Do this all day” if need be. He is the guy who rushes into a building with an active shooter when everyone else is running out. A Hero’s hero. A rallying cry to the downtrodden and to those who will sacrifice everything for those without a voice.

And yet, he isn’t the only one.

It has long been my contention that Spider-Man is the Captain America of my generation (I came of age during Stan, Jack, and Steve’s launching of the Marvel Age of comics), and I wish to take a moment or two of your time to expound my theory. Like Steve Rogers before him, Peter Parker was born a skinny lad with a pure heart. As a young man, Steve trended towards the arts, while Peter was intoxicated by science. What links both of them is that each had a strong sense of obligation and duty to others.

While not much is known of Steve’s parents, the little we do know is that Steve was born July 4, 1922, to Sarah and Joseph Rogers, Irish Catholic immigrants. Rogers grew up a frail youth in New York City during the Great Depression. His father passed away when Steve was a child and his mother died from pneumonia when Steve was in his late teens. Other than these few facts — and that he had a strong sense of duty, honor, and humility instilled in him by his parents — precious little else is known about Rogers’ early life. Truth to tell, Steve’s real story began when he was injected with the Super Soldier formula and exposed to Vita rays, becoming Captain America.

Much more is known about Peter Parker’s formative years, he’s the son of Richard and Mary Parker. The Parkers were a pair of S.H.I.E.L.D. agents who died on an assignment while fighting the Red Skull. Peter in turn, was raised by his uncle and aunt, Ben and May Parker. When Peter was 15, he was attending a science exhibit and was bitten by a radioactive spider which gave him his powers. Shortly thereafter his uncle was killed by a burglar that Peter later realized he could have stopped prior to the assault on his uncle, if only he acted. This incident transformed Peter into Spider-Man for real.

Like Steve before him, Peter was also instilled with a strong sense of duty, honor, and humility courtesy of his aunt and uncle. Perhaps the most well-known hero mantra in all of fiction are the words uttered by Peter’s Uncle Ben to him as a youth, “With great power must also come great responsibility.” It was these words that propelled Peter, as Spider-Man to help others in need.

We have long contended that the only real difference between Peter and Steve is that Steve had the unique and dubious advantage of having been wrapped in the flag and trained by the military. Peter, for his part had to figure out his powers on his own. It was then Peter’s ill fortune to inadvertently run afoul of Daily Bugle publisher, J. Jonah Jameson (when Spidey rescued Jameson’s son, astronaut John Jameson on an ill-fated space mission). It was this selfless act that caused the self-aggrandizing Jameson Sr. to decide that Spidey was a show-boating glory hound taking fame away from “real” heroes like his son John.

Had it not been for Jameson’s massive ego, and over-blown sense of self-importance Spider-Man wouldn’t have had to wait so long for acceptance and credibility among the general populace (heroes like Cap, Daredevil, and others tended to believe in his heroic nature from the start). Still, one can only wonder (and we have) how different would Peter’s life have been if he too had had the advantage of a military experience. Well (without going into too many specifics) consider the following, if Peter had acquired military training, coming to the attention of Col. Fury, who had just been installed as the head of S.H.I.E.L.D. recruits Peter as both a scientist and super-agent. Then when Steve steps down as Cap

(In Captain America #153 (1972) Steve Englehart determined to close the gap on the 1950s reboot of Cap as a commie smasher (something that Stan eradicated with Cap coming out of the ice direct from WWII into the then present in Avengers #4. This led to Steve’s disillusionment of maintaining the role of America’s hero, causing him to step down as Cap and taking up the role of Nomad. Steve eventually took up the role of Cap in Captain America #184).

During this interim period, Fury taps Peter to become the new Captain America. Having already established his Spider-Man persona, Peter determines to maintain a bit of his own history even as he steps into his new role as America’s Captain, and adapts the stars and stripes of Cap’s Iconic costume to his own Spider-sensibilities. Needless to say, when Steve determines to take up the shield once more, Peter becomes, well, Captain Spider-Man.

To be sure, as a life-long Spidey fan, I have thought long and hard about this particular incarnation of my webbed hero, but clearly I’m not the only one who has considered this version of Spidey-Cap, as the accompanying photo and article of an actual cosplay costume indicates.

Stan Lee's Marvel Cameos

We all know that Stan Lee is Marvel’s ultimate showman, and that he has appeared in a number of Marvel's recent films. Here is a compilation of nearly all of his cameos...



Here is Stan’s “Appearance” in the cartoon Big Hero 6.



Enjoy!

Avengers: Age of Ultron @ Subway

Well, for a while now we’ve been complaining about the fact that since Disney bought Marvel Comics there seems to have been no Marvel movie toy tie-ins with any fast food restaurant. It has long been our opinion that Disney is leery of they “Your food made my kid fat” mantra of some folk, and have thus cut back on this form of marketing. Another theory is that as the Avenger films are not necessarily deemed as "kid fare" Disney has simply opted not to pitch to fast food chains (mot very likely due to all of the other kid-friendly items out there in the marketplace).

Well, while we are still looking for Marvel Movie/fast food figures and toys, we did recently see that Subway is issuing a bunch of Avenger tie-ins to go with the new Ultron film. The “toys” are actually a group of six cardboard fold-out figures that require assembling, and look rather cool.

There is also a drink cup with a code on it that is redeemable for prizes on the Subway website. 

Oh, and here is the Poster for the promotion.