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.

Talk about “Losers”

So I saw The Losers the other night, and I want to say a couple of things right up front. First, I don't think that I’ve ever read the vertigo comic (there a regular DC Comic entitled The Losers several years ago that followed a bunch of WW II soldiers that I do recall reading, but this is not them — too bad, I think that would made for a better movie). Second, I really wanted to like this film (and on some quilt pleasure level, I kind of do), but honestly, it really is a bad movie, and I’m really sorry about that. Third, the good news is that it is bright, shiny, and lots of stuff blows up rather spectacularly (and there is a really pretty girl mixed in with the lead roles), so perhaps it’s targeted audience will simply not notice that it is badly written with incredibly stilted (need I say, “comicbook” dialogue).

Yeah, sorry folks, this one really does blow chunks. There is nothing new on the screen, everyone is a two-dimensional character with no depth, no soul, and no real reason to care, other than to see the next big explosion. It is sort of a throwback to the over-the-top ‘80s action films of Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone, and Bruce Willis, only not nearly as entertaining, or, well, nuanced. In fact, it is the epitome of the old Hollywood joke of someone watching an Oscar-worthy film and saying ±I can do that” then churning out the worst grade "Z" version of it, and not understanding the difference.

No, folks, I've never read the Vertigo/DC comic, but I can only hope that it it is written way better than this. The story is about a group of Special Forces soldiers who for no apparent reason, are betrayed by some über-slick Spook operative who seems intent on manufacturing a terrorist attack on U.S. soil (killing thousands), just so he can remake foreign policy so that it once again “makes sense” (Imagine, if you will that elements of U.S. intelligence precipitated 9/11 to rally American patriotism so that they can engage in a pair of wars to “Put the U.S. back on track.” In the hands of a Ken Follett or John le Carré this would make a compelling novel, but here it is just another badly-written comicbook movie.

Sorry, kids, the trailer gave me high hopes, but the film simply didn’t deliver. Jason Patric’s depiction of Max (the bad Spook, who precipitates all the evil in the film) smirks and mugs his way through this film as if her were in MacGruber (the up-coming MacGyver-spoof), while the rest of the cast are clearly in a different, more serious film (Commando, Predator). Needless to say, this gives the film a very uneven feel. As an aside, one of the previews shown with this film was for The A-Team, a big-screen treatment of the ‘80s action show. and even that trailer looks like a hollow mockery of this film, so you know that one is going to stiff.

Marvel just announced that — after its big-budget Avengers films (Thor, Captain America, The Avengers — all due through 2012) it will pull back and issue a number of films with second and third-tier characters that will be made with far more modest budgets ($20-$40 million) that will allow them to roll out several at a time, be a bit edgier in their feel and approach, and make the studio less vulnerable to the possibility of a colossal flop (think Superman Returns). I can’t help but to think that DC should have taken that route with this film.