Stories That Were Never Told That We Wish We Had Read

Gary Cohn and his longtime friend and writing partner, Dan Mishkin, entered the comicbook industry together in 1980 following correspondence with Jack C. Harris, an editor over at DC Comics. That first work—drawn by Steve Ditko—was the three-page short story On the Day of His Return" which appeared in Time Warp #3 (Feb.–March). This initial sale was soon followed by the team creating Amethyst, Princess of Gemworld with artist Ernie Colón then going on (with Paris Cullins) to create Blue Devil. Cohn and artist Ron Randall co-created the Barren Earth.

From there Cohn has gone on to write for several other comicbook companies, including Archie, Crusade, Marvel, Mattel, and Renegade Press. He also wrote several stories for William Tucci's Crusade Comics including an intercompany crossover between Crusade's Shi and Marvel Comics' Daredevil. Cohn also wrote three Hardy Boys and two Nancy Drew novels. After a while, Cohn left comics and became a teacher at the Information Technology High School in Long Island City, retiring in 2017.

Needless to say, just knowing what Gary did over the years as a comicbook writer, isn’t to know all of it, just recently he published a comicbook-sized “memoir” of work he pitch, but for one reason or another never wound up in publication. The book, The Will-Be’s that Weren’t is nothing short of an amazing look back into things that Gary had pitched to various publishers but were never published, even though (now that we’ve read this book) we wish that they had been.

This book is a collection of at least three projects that Gary pitched that got through various stages of production, from proposal, to outline, to script, to pencils, to inks, to lettered pages. Behind each and every project, Gary provides a backstory the names of his collaborators, as well as sketchy details about what company and editor passed on the project (all names have been altered to protect those that were involved). The three projects are referred to as El Demon, Hellrazers, and Bete Noire.

First up is El Demon. As Gary tells the talk, back when he was writing for Big Corporate Comics (which he refers to as BC—draw your own conclusions as to whom it really was). Gary pointed out that during those days there were essentially two games in town, BC and Phenomenal Comics about which he pitched story ideas. From there, Gary went on to obliquely describe a couple of BC characters before launching into his description of El Demon, whom he described as a Zorro copy with a supernatural gimmick.

To Phenomenal, he pitched an idea about their ghostly western character, “Weird Rider”, (again not the real name), that had been updated from riding a horse to a motorcycle. Unfortunately, his take on “Weird Rider” didn’t fly, so he revamped it into his El Demon concept and took it back to BC. This is one story that went from a pitch to a proposal, to an illustrated story, but that’s where it unfortunately ended, as the story was never published. Fortunately for us, Gry still had all of the various stages of this process which he reprinted in this tome with truly amazing art by Ron Randall.

Next up is Hellrazers, which was a pitch to add to Phenomenal’s futuristic 2222universe. According to Gary, the Hellrazers was based off a concept he had a decade earlier called The Others. Calling once again upon Randall, Gary pitched his revised concept to a Phenomenal editor (Bobby M). Once again, it unfortunately went nowhere (Gary doesn’t remember if the title was canceled, or the entire 2222 universe was scrapped), but a 20-page story was mostly fully illustrated, which he reprints without the dialogue which was apparently lost somewhere along the way.

Gary did include his proposal for The Others, which was about a group of children who were taken from their homes in 1916 by aliens and taken off planet, only to be returned some 70 years later each child (who were handicapped when taken) have become enhanced by the aliens, and this group of kids were to be turned into a superteam.

Finally, we come to The Dark Man, A.K.A. Blackheart, A.K.A. Blackheart in Nightown, A.K.A. Bete Noire (The Dark Beast). Here Gary suggested to Dan Mishkin that they develop a Batman-like character called The Dark Man. Unfortunately, it went nowhere, but a decade later, Gary developed a new wrinkle to the character, where he lived in an alternate 1890, where vampires had come over on the Mayflower, and now the New World was populated by a hoard of vampires.

Gary cast Bete Noire as a mysterious creature of the night, very much in the mold of Batman who is pursuing a serial killer with a vampire modus operandi, leaving his victims bloodless. While pursuing the killer, somehow Bete Noire finds himself transported to an alternate dimension where “his” city is now a Victorian nightmare that is controlled by vampires. With no way back Bete Noire must now do what he can to rid the city of its nightmarish curse. This pitch also comes with art by Ron Randall.

Each of the above pitches are wonderfully entertaining not just from the concept of the pitch themselves, but in the way that we get to see the entire process, from idea, to pitch, to plot, to script, to art. Very rarely do we get to see the entire process of how an idea comes about, and being ale to see these older ideas of Gary’s is a real thrill. We know that Gary produces a small batch of these comics, hopefully, when he runs out he will either reprint them, or create another book, with other concepts of his. We can only hope.

10 years of Terrificon, and finally a comicbook!

For the past 10 years, Mitch Hallock has been helming Terrificon—a super-sized comicbook convention—at the Mohegan Sun in Uncasville, on the eastern border of Connecticut. One of the things that makes the show so successful is that Mitch is first and foremost a comicbook aficionado, and his show is most assuredly comicbook-centric, concentrating on guests who have worked in or adjacent to the field of comics. He is especially adept in booking comicbook stars from the ‘80s & ‘90s. This was especially true this year when the show released its first show-related comicbook Captain Terrificon Presents: The Scarry Squad.

The comic, written by Paul Kupperberg, with art by Pat & Tim Kennedy, inks by Barbara Kaalberg, and lettering and color by the late Mortt Todd (who passed away about a month after the show). The 24-page comic has a three-page back-up strip (Harley the Terrifidog in A Study in Mylar) by Paul with pencils by Rich Maurizio, inks and colors by Ken Weaton, and colors by Robert Snyser. Interestingly enough, this comic was aided and abetted by a supporting eight-page comic strip that appeared in the convention’s program book. This supporting comic, written by Mitch, and illustrated by George Deep, tells the origin story of Captain Terrificon.

To start with Paul’s story (which was originally intended to appear in the sadly short-lived Charlton Arrow line of comics, itself a pro/fan reboot of the late great line of Charlton Comics.) The Scarry Squad is a group of four young cosplayers who keep losing the costume contest to a different group of entitled and slightly bullyish cosplayers who keep winning. After their latest loss, the squad is majorly disheartened, especially after being teased about their continuing string of losses.

After the con, the squad not only grouses about their most recent loss—which they attribute to their lack of funds to produce winning costumes—but are further disheartened over a humiliating video of them that was uploaded by the leader of their rivals. What lifts their spirits is when their leader, Ziggy Scarry, discovers the costume of a very cool character in an old Ditko story. The discover of the Winnie the Witch character leads them to discover others, including Countess Von Bludd, Baron Wearwulf, and Mr. Bones. His sister Winnie, who is also their costumer declares that she can make the new set of costumes.

Afterwards, she and Connie Sangra go off to locate materials for the costumes, While wandering through town they discover this odd curio shop, the Arcania Boutique run by a mysterious Professor Coffin. It is in this shop that they find all of the materials that they need to construct the new set of costumes. Just as they are checking out Winnie locates Ajax, an odd golem-like plushy to which she takes a shine and keeps as well. As they walk away from the shop with their purchases, the shop itself reverts to an abandoned out-of-business location. Fully supplied with their purchases, Winnie sets about crafting a new set of costumes that the Squad then wear to the next Terrificon. When they arrive at the show, they are greeted by none other than Mitch himself, who marvels over their amazing costumes. So impressed with them that Mitch invites them into Ballroom D which houses Professor Strangelo’s House of Horror, however, just as they approach the ballroom, a hooded and robed cosplayer bursts out of the ballroom carrying the Professor’s Amulet of Cthulhu, not only is the amulet priceless, but it is claimed to be an object of great evil.

As the Squad takes off after the hooded figure, their rivals, Reid Foster’s group—not to be outdone—also take up pursuit. As both Reid and Ziggy close in on the thief, Ajax (who has mystically come to life) manages to trip the thief up causing the demonic force that possessed him to transfer to Reid. The tale winds up with the police escorting the confused thief away, Ziggy and his squad being congratulated on stopping the would-be thief, and Reid and his crew also walking off with Reid now in possession of the mystical amulet.

In the back-up tale, all of the dealers at a comic show discover that their 8.5 and higher graded comics all mysteriously reduced to dust. As Harley the Terrificdog wanders through the show, it seems that every dealer has befallen the same fate. As Mitch arrives on the scene, he discovers only one dealer, Darryl Nearmint, has any bagged/boarded/slabbed 8.5 or higher comics for sale, and he is selling them like hotcakes. However, Harley discovers that Nearmint has used a teleportation device and a mouse to swipe all of the missing comics and replace them with dust so that he would be the only dealer at the show with any high-graded comics. Needless to say, this tale also ends with the culprit being escorted out by police as Harley is being praised.

Which brings us to Mitch’s story in the program guide. Here we learn of the origin of Captain Terrificon. Kyle Kirby, a lifelong comicbook fan is cosplaying as the good captain and is headed for the Mohegan Sun to go to the Con, when he is confronted by his arch enemy, Benny the Cranky comic store owner, A.K.A. Novelty Man. Who zaps Kyle with some sort of Cosmic ray gun, throwing them both through a portal into a different dimension. This act transforms each of them into the person they are cosplaying and sets them into an epic brawl. As the two bash each other out, they wind up at the Con. The fight (and the story) ends with Novelty Man in possession of the Cosmic Comic, and Captain Terrificon changed once again.

All three comic stories are fun, engaging, and we wish that Terrificon and other major comic conventions would create comicbook tie-ins to their respective shows. Not that it actually relevant or even important, while the back-up story and the program comic were specifically created for this show, the Scarry Squad story (as already pointed out) was originally intended for a different publication. The Scarry Squad story became involved with the “magic” of a change in a couple of dialogue word balloons, as well as the addition of in-comic references to Terrificon inserted into the story. All-in-all the three stories were fun and made for a very cool piece of convention swag, especially for those of us who really love comics. Hopefully we’ll see another Terrificon comicbook next year.

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For those comic collectors and fans who are unaware of the history, Charlton was a Connecticut-based comicbook company with a publishing history that not only ran from 1944 to 1985, but through which an impressive array of legendary writers and artists got their start. Though never as popular as DC, Marvel, or even Archie, Charlton had a long run and produced a line of successful publications like. While they didn’t produce the superhero icons that other publishers did, they released a variety of titles that have become beloved by millions. When Charlton closed shop, they sold off most of their properties, (including a group of which that wound up transformed into the Watchmen), with many others left to languish in limbo. However, if anything, appreciation of those old comics and the characters that populated them, has grown over the years. 

An itsy-bitsy Spider Tale

As anyone who has been reading this blog for any period of time already knows, not only am I a huge comicbook fan, but I’m specifically a major Spider-Man fan. As it turns out, my love of Spider-Man, has morphed into an appreciation of all things spider, so yeah, over the years I found myself following most (if not all) of the spider-related characters in the Marvel Universe; Joining on-line spider-related online groups, wearing spider-themed T-shirts, and of course spider toys.

As can be expected, I’ve also been drawn to other spider characters as well these include Dell Comics Spider Queen. Given that Dell is no longer in business and their Golden Age characters are all in the Public Domain, and that I now write for InDELLible Comics (where we use Dell and other PD characters in new stories) I’m in the process of crafting a story with Spider Queen as the main character.

Needless to say, a short while ago, I came across the female spider character, Arachna from X53 Studios LLC, and backed a three-volume set of her adventures. When the comics arrived, I was very excited and set about to read all three issues.  Unfortunately, my anticipation of reading the series simply did not measure up to my actual reading of the series.

I don’t want to say that it was a bad series, what I am going to say is that I’ve come to the conclusion that I was simply not the target audience of the series. Perhaps, I might have been a couple of four decades ago, but as I age, I find that I am interested in different things. My issue is that the character, Arachna is a young, buxom female whose rogue’s gallery tends to be other young buxom women. When they fight, their clothes (as can be expected with these types of indie comics) tend to get ripped off (as often as not fully exposing them).

As I said, when I was in my 20s this type of storytelling would perhaps have been more interesting to me, but as I close in on 70, I find it superficially banal. I get it that sex sells, but honestly, I would prefer an actual story. The problem here is that throughout the three-issue series, Arachna keeps making not just bad decisions but the same bad decisions over and over, getting herself beat up, captured, bound, and stripped (Fredric Wertham must be as giddy as a schoolgirl in whatever funnybook hell in which he currently resides).

Again, I’m not saying this is a bad Indie comic, I’m saying that it really doesn’t seem to be living up to its true potential Although, it is entirely possible that I simply because I grew up of Stan, Jack, Steve, and JRSr, I simply expect better from my preferred entertainment.

Your mileage may differ.

 

Let's hear it for James Gunn!

We honestly have to give Director James Gunn top marks for finally producing a superhero movie that I, personally, have been waiting years to see. He has developed the “initial” movie in a planned ongoing mythology that bypasses the (so-called) “mandatory” (re)telling of the hero’s origin when the lead actor has been replaced and does what I’ve been talking about for quite some time now. Just tell a story.  In one interview, Gunn said it himself. “We don’t need to go there.” Gunn’s statement acknowledges that—for all intents and purposes—we all know the basic elements of Superman’s origin and his arrival here on Earth.

Needless to say, while there certainly are many superhero characters who are not known by the general public, there are quite a few whose origins are already known or already explained in previous films. As I’ve pointed out elsewhere (over and over) retelling a character’s origin is something oddly specific to superhero films. Rebooting a story and retelling the main character’s origin is just bad storytelling. By way of example, Let’s look at the cinematic history of James Bond, perhaps one of the most well-known fictional characters who doesn’t wear spandex.

Since his debut film, Dr. No in 1962, there have been 29 Bond films (including the original Casino Royal and Never say Never), seven actors (including David Nivin) who have played Bond, and some 27 villains. Further, we never got an actual origin story for Bond until Daniel Craig portrayed him in Casino Royal (2006). Compared to Lex Luthor appearing in five of the seven solo live action films; Green Goblin appearing in three of the Eight solo live action Spider-Man films; Magneto appearing in eight of the 14 X-Men films; and the Joker appearing in seven of the 13 Batman films.

My point here is that many of these comicbook characters have been around for 87 (Superman) to 62 (X-Men) years, and yet the films keep going back to the same legacy villains when each of the various heroes has around 100 (or more) villains, not every film has to go back to the same small group of villains when each of them have such a wide wealth of a rogues gallery. This is why Marvel introducing movies with The Guardians of the Galaxy (under Gunn), Ant Man, and Dr, Strange, are important.

Hopefully, now that Gunn has brought the Guy Gardner Green Lantern, Metamorpho, and The Engineer into the DC Cinematic Universe (with the promise of more of the same) we can all move past that there are only a few heroes with only one villain each.

 

Truth, Justice, and a Better Tomorrow: A Superman Story

So, we just came from watching the new James Gunn Superman flick—which we thoroughly loved—and we wanted to talk a little bit about it. This isn’t our review, we’ll be writing and posting about that later (We’ll link back here to hook you up with that review as soon as it is written, posted, and approved). But for now, what we want to do here is to talk a little bit about how there are reports on social media about how Gunn turned Superman “Woke” and they don’t like it.

To those people who feel this way, all I have to say (as someone who has been reading comics since 1961, working in the field as a journalist since 1981, and as a comicbook creator since 1986) You have no idea what you are talking about here. And trust me, as I’m something of an expert in this.

But first, allow me to go back a few years when the first Wonder Woman film came out in 2017. Back then a pair of conservative talking heads whined on-air about how disrespectful it was that the film changed her uniform from red, white, and blue like Superman’s. This without clearly realizing that her costume was never red, white, and blue, and neither was Superman’s. Hers has always been red, gold, and blue, while Superman’s was red, Yellow, and blue. Further, neither of them are actually Americans, Wonder Woman is from the mythical island of Themyscira, while Superman (Kal-El) was born on the planet Krypton and is (technically) on Earth (and in the U.S.) illegally.

Next up, in 2022 other conservative TV talking heads (probably from the same network) were griping that Marvel has gone woke by creating a female Hulk, without realizing that She-Hulk first appeared some 43 years earlier in her own Marvel Comicbook. According to information at the time, the character was created to protect the company’s trademark on the green-skinned Hulk character’s name. In fact, there is a video clip of a reporter interviewing Bill Bixby (who played David Banner on the TV show. That clip is shown below.

My point with these first couple of paragraphs is that quite often, the folks on (pretend) TV news shows very often don’t know, or even understand, even the simplest of things (which can be looked up) on which they are reporting, and if they can get simple (not important) things like those I cited wrong, then how can we trust them getting actual important news correct.

Then there is the case of Dean Cain (who played Clark Kent/Superman) in the CBS TV show Lois & Clark, The New Adventures of Superman (1973–1977). Sometimes, proving that even when they have some understanding of who the character is because they actually played them on TV. Cain re-entered public awareness recently with his negative assessment over Gunn’s film (without even having seen the film). Cain claimed that the film is too woke because it celebrates Superman as an immigrant (somehow forgetting that only is he an illegal immigrant, but that there was an episode of Lois & Clark that dealt with the same topic.

Another issue the conservative Cain mentioned about the film is Gunn’s changing the long-standing mantra first associated with Superman m the 1950s TV show, stands for “Truth, Justice, and the American way” to “Truth, Justice, and a better tomorrow”. Well, two things here. First, under our current administration, America isn’t as welcoming to immigrants as we were in the ‘50s. Second (and more relevant to the character) those of us who actually read comics already know that back in 2011 (Action Comics #900), Superman addressed the full council of the UN and renounced his U.S. citizenship and declared himself to be a citizen of the world. Thus, making the “…for a better tomorrow” a far more reasonable pledge.

THIS JUST IN!

Shortly after posting this article, we learned that Dean Cain (who is Japanese American and whose father's entire family was interned in a camp in Idaho during WWII) has recently announced that he is joining ICE! 

Having written all that, we have seen the new Superman film and let us state that we fully enjoyed it and state that it is easily one of the best stand-alone Superman films ever made (and the presence of Krypto certainly helped in that regard). Further, the appearance of the Justice Gang (especially Metamorpho, an old favorite of ours) added to the film’s fun. Plus, the addition of Nicholas Hoult as Lex Luthor was simply brilliant. Ultimately, we believe that a large part of the misunderstandings covered in this article stem from the fact that many folks still believe that superhero films, and the comics from which they are based, are still “junk” or “kiddy” fare, and not legitimate literature or cinema. And frankly, as far as we’re concerned, that’s simply a crying shame.

* * *

Oh, and just to let all’y’all know that I know what I’m talking about, in 1961 I moved from reading syndicated newspaper comic strips to reading comicbooks. Around 1978 I joined comicbook fandom and began to contribute to an APA (Amateur Publishing Alliance). In 1981 my first comicbook article was published in Amazing Heroes #5. In 1986 my first comicbook (Agent Unknown: Renegade Press) was published. I spent the next 15-20 years working as a journalist in comics, writing for virtually all of the magazines that covered the comicbook industry. Currently I still post about comics both here and over at HubPages, I also still write comics at Dark Fire Press, and other indie publishers. 

 

Funnybooks I’ve Recently Read

So, I figured that I’d share with all’y’all my thoughts on a bunch of funybooks I’ve recently read. (Just so everyone understands, I’ve been reading comics since around ’61 or so, with much of my early reading done while sitting on the newsstand of my uncle’s grocery store. It was him that called them “Funnybooks” and that name stuck with me so much that when I launched my comicbook imprint, I called it Funnybook City.) But I digress.

To return to the topic at hand, the comics I picked up most recently. First up, issues 1–5 of Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man (which tie into the eponymous Disney+ series—I’ll review the Disney+ series in a different post). While the comic and the animated series each follow a slightly different path, they both focus in on a somewhat divergent path. Each of them telling the tale of our favorite wallcrawler (According to Google, the series (for both the comic and the TV show, independent of each other) is set in an alternate MCU timeline, specifically one that closely mirrors the main MCU but with key differences, making it a “What If?” scenario. It’s not considered part of the main 616 universe but is still part of the larger Marvel multiverse. The show is designed to explore a Spider-Man story within an MCU-like setting without directly impacting the main continuity. 

To be sure, the core of both the comic and the streaming series are that Peter is in high school, gets bitten by an irradiated spider, and gains the proportionate strength of a spider, then sets out to do good. The comic is written by Christos Gage and illustrated by Eric Gapstur, and it retells the origin of Spider-Man, but in a simpler style targeted towards a younger audience (ironically enough, presumably targeted to an audience the same age I was when I first began reading comics in 1962.)

The origin is mostly the same (young Peter, an irradiated spider) with the addition of some new twists and friends; Nico Minoru, her foster mom, Susan O’Hara, a (much) younger Aunt May, as well as existing in a modern timeframe. Some old characters are also reintroduced, but in updated versions (Silvermane, Man Mountain Marko, The Enforcers). Also, Peter’s first Spider-Costume is very retro different (a tank on his back with web fluid and long tubes conveying the fluid to his wrist-shooters).

The overall story itself revolves around Silvermane wanting to buy the land on which Midtown High sits and the kids (and Spider-Man) not wanting that to happen (all while attending another high school that is specifically for especially talented kids. The story is entertaining, and we certainly hope that Marvel reaches its target audience with this title, and more kids come to have the same appreciation for both Spider-Man, and comics that my association with them resulted from sitting on Uncle Franks’s newsstand when I was that age.

Having recently watched (and reviewed) Thunderbolts*  I picked up the first two issues of the newest comicbook incarnation of their comicbook. It wasn’t until I got them home that I realized that the comic actually came out in 2024. Still, upon reading it I discovered that (while I had read various runs of the previous incarnations of this title, I was still a bit surprised by the nature of this version of the team. Just in case you have only seen the film, let me do a quick recap of the comic here.

A little bit of comicbook history

The first appearance of the original incarnation of the comicbook team, Thunderbolts, (created by Kurt Busiek and Mark Bagley) was in The Incredible Hulk #449 (January 1997). The team itself showed up after the presumed deaths of Avengers and Fantastic Four and consisted of Citizen V, Atlas, Mach-1, Meteorite, Songbird, and Techno. One month later, in February, Thunderbolts #1 hit stands. However, it was later revealed that they were, in fact, the Masters of Evil, led by none other than long-time Avenger villain, Baron Zemo, who was aiming to gain public trust for his nefarious purposes. While this was their beginning, over the years, the team has evolved into an actual superhero team giving us quite a few iterations of the Thunderbolts, each exploring themes of redemption and second chances.

In this ’24 version of the team (by Jackson Lanzing & Collin Kelly as writers, and Geraldo Borges as artist) we are presented with a roster that was quite similar to the cinematic version of the team. Here, the team consists of Bucky (as team leader), a Life Model Decoy of Valentina Allegra de Fontaine, Sharon Carter as the Destroyer, and Red Guardian, with Black Widow (in a new spidery costume) joining them in issue #2. The White Widow, Chang-Chi, and The Captain (John Walker) also join the team during the series four-issue run.

In the first issue, the team went up against the latest incarnation of The Red Skull, killing him and torching his South American HQ. In the second issue the team goes up against the (then) current incarnation of the Hellfire Club which is being led by Kingpin (who was no longer the mayor of NYC as this was taking place during the Gang War storyline in the Spider-titles with Luke Cage as Mayor). Eventually going up against Doctor Doom himself!

The two issues we read were so good that we were honestly disappointed to learn that the series was over and we were unable to find the other two issues or the trade paperback edition either. Still, it was a really cool spy/assassin and anti-hero team, and we really did enjoy the two issues we read (we may try to fine the other two issues moving forward).

Next on our list is Vatican City #1 (from Dark Horse by Mark Millar & Peter Berg). This is a interesting horror story were a horde of vampires take over the world, save for mankind’s last holdout, which is Vatican City. As we only have one issue, what we have to go on is that one evening, in a coordinated attack (at night around the globe) the vampires come out of hiding and methodically descend on the human population until all that is left is the Holy City of the Vatican. The issue concludes with the vampires breaching the catacombs in an attempt to free their queen.

Perhaps our favorite comic is Metamorpho The Element Man #1. We have fond memories of reading this book when it first appeared (between 1965 and 1968). The character was created by Bob Haney, and initially illustrated by  Ramona Fradon. We recall it being fun, hip, and quite cool at the time. We are happy to report that this first issue is every bit as fun, hip, and cool as we remember, with all of the original elements of what made it so much fun still intact. We can only assume that Rex Mason’s re-appearance in comics is wholly due to his showing up in the new Superman flick. To which we say, Huzzah!

The last book on our list today is Marvel’s Rivals which we are sorry to announce is a dismal disappointment. Truthfully, we really did want to enjoy this comic but couldn’t get past the first few pages as there was way too much dialogue and not nearly enough art to enjoy. The story so obviously takes place in a non 616 timeline (as evidence of a female Galactus) who spent so much time yammering about who could tell what, that it quite frankly simply turned us off to even completing the book.

That will teach me to spend just a little more time pursuing the book before actually buying it. Sigh.

 

 

 

 

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.