Tag Archive: jackal


A Fan’s Reluctant Return – First Thoughts on Spider-Island

Filed under: EGM (Electronic Gaming Monthly), Written — Leave a comment
September 13, 2011

Originally Published: August 24, 2011, on EGMNOW.COM

Ever want to do whatever a spider can?

Growing up there were always two superheroes I gravitated to the most, Batman from DC and Spider-Man from Marvel. The distinct advantage that these two heroes had was that when I was just getting into comics, they had some of the most epic storylines in comics history, which are still referenced to this day. Batman had Knightfall and Spidey had Maximum Carnage. Batman also had movies and Adam West TV reruns, and Spidey had video games where he fought the Sinister Six, teamed up with the X-Men, and did whatever else a spider can and they both later had awesome mid-90s cartoons. With that kind of media bombardment, it wasn’t hard for those two to rise above the rest in my young geeky life.

As the years progressed, these two remained my favorites, even after learning as much as I could about Green Lantern, Flash, Superman, the X-Men, Fantastic Four, Iron Man, the Incredible Hulk and many others. That is until a fateful story arc called One More Day in 2007-2008 cast Spidey in a shadow from which I thought he could never return for me. Marvel had re-launched Spider-Man in one of the most ridiculous ways imaginable when Spidey sold his marriage to Mary Jane to Mephisto to save Aunt May. I understand comics are all about the unimaginable overcoming the unimaginable, but this felt like a slap in the face for someone who had devoted the better part of 20 years to this character. I hate that arc so much that I don’t even want to put a representative image of any of those four covers in this story because they all make me so sick to my stomach. Spidey had some mistakes before like The Clone Saga and what not, but this had felt like Marvel had painted themselves into a corner with the Civil War fallout and basically copped out of trying to fix it. I had tried to continue to read Amazing Spider-Man after this, but after only a couple of issues, I could not stand the new direction the comic had taken and so I imposed a boycott to never buy anything revolving around Spider-Man again. This meant I could still read Avengers related comics and crossovers, but Amazing Spider-Man was dead to me. The core character of who Spider-Man was had been drastically changed and I could never look at him the same way ever again.

Fast-forward to the present day. I had successfully maintained my boycott comic book-wise for over three years. I had played the video games (Web of Shadows was so-so, but I loved Shattered Dimensions), but much like the media bombardment from my childhood, I would have to have been living under a rock to have not noticed the Spider-Island push, especially as I still read a lot of Marvel comics. So here I was, with a jumping off point that could take me back into the Spider-Man universe and with a lot of distance from the arc that had pushed me away from Spidey to begin with. So I picked up Amazing Spider-Man #667, the first part of Spider-Island, as well as the Venom and Cloak and Dagger crossovers.

Honestly, I wasn’t impressed. Coming back into the character now, I still see a lot of the shortcomings from the direction he took back in 2008 and the character has become completely un-relatable to me. I think part of the lasting appeal of comic characters is how much one could imagine themselves in the shoes of the hero and I think that Spider-Man has stagnated, possibly even devolved in those regards. I will finish following at least the Spider-Island story arc though to give Spidey a chance to win me back, especially because the Venom and Cloak and Dagger crossovers started off brilliantly. And you might say that giving him only five or six issues to win me back may seem fickle, but it only took four issues to turn me away from him for three years. If this is supposed to be the ground-breaking “Spider-Event of the Decade” arc that it has been hyped to be, then there should be no problem in hooking me back in. But this arc seems more like “The Clone Saga Part 2″ than anything Spider-Man fans old or new should be excited about, and at this rate the boycott will start again in November when this event ends.

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Just Call Me J. Jonah Jameson

Filed under: Written — Leave a comment
April 24, 2010

Originally Published: October 1, 2009, on 1050ESPN.com (now ESPNNewYork.com), Lundberg.me, and Comicvine.com

There are a bevy of articles that I owe the geek community right now. I should be writing about Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2 or Batman/Superman: Public Enemies (both are on their way, I promise!), but this last Wednesday, like every Wednesday, I headed to my local comic retailer (Time Warp Comics and Games, 555 Pompton Ave. in Cedar Grove, NJ, 07009. Give a shout out to everyone there) and saw something that needed to be addressed. As I thumbed through the regulars from my pull list, I saw something on the shelf that renewed a fire in my belly I had long since let die down.

After the One More Day Spider-Man story arc, my frustration with Marvel and their treatment of the web head had reached an all-time high. One of the sloppiest re-launches in history had just occurred with Spidey (more like a lobotomy) and almost everything my generation had known and loved about Spider-Man was flushed down the drain along with the fact that Marvel had painted themselves into a corner…again.

Instead of letting the old crone that is Aunt May just die, especially after a séance with Madame Web confirming that Aunt May was at peace, and having Spider-Man take Mary Jane into hiding just like Luke Cage did with Jessica Jones, they have Spidey sell his marriage to Mephisto in order to push the reset button. Every “mistake” that Peter Parker ever made was changed and about 400 issues of continuity were erased.

It was at this instance that I boycotted everything having to do with Spider-Man (except New Avengers, but if Jessica Jones mentions one more time she had a crush on Peter Parker in high school, that is being added to my boycott list as well). I wouldn’t even play as him in Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2 except in the beginning when you have to. I accepted that my favorite Marvel character was dead to me and that maybe it was time I grew up a little and cut down my weekly comics list.

Now, since I’ve boycotted everything past the first couple of issues of the re-launch (they made Mary Jane a superhero for cryin’ out loud!) I don’t know if anything has been resolved because I haven’t read anything, but a small part of me died, much like the small part of Peter Parker that forever knows his greatest mistake was giving up his love for MJ.

My two favorite super-heroes during my early years, like many people in my generation, were Batman and Spider-Man. I believe many people love these characters because of their humanity. Batman in more literal terms, Spider-Man in more figurative terms because even though he had super powers, the gamut of emotions and struggles he had to deal with hit close to home for many of us.

I like to believe they also gave us the most hope. Batman helped us believe there was always a way out of every bad situation as long as you properly prepared yourself. Spider-Man gave us hope because even through all his pain and torment, he still found true love and also found ways to persevere.

This re-launch destroyed Spider-Man in such a way that I can’t look at him anymore without feeling hate in my heart because I can’t relate to a reset button no matter how hard I try.

With that rant out of the way, I go back to why this seething anger and hatred resurfaced months after the initial offense and ensuing boycott. While at the comic store, I noticed on the shelf the first issue of a six issue miniseries. It was the start of how Spider-Man’s infamous Clone Saga SHOULD have played out and it opened with a one page, heartfelt apology from the folks behind it.

I nearly ripped the issue to shreds on the spot, but, for once, a cooler head prevailed and I placed it back on the shelf with no incident.

In my life, the Clone Saga was the first destruction of Spider-Man. At the time though, it was a more forgivable sin for me because I was a small lad and my knowledge of Spider-Man comics was limited to what had inspired me to read Spidey’s comics, the Maximum Carnage arc (which is still the best Spider-Man arc I ever read).

The thing that fueled the anger was the fact that 20 years after the disastrously drawn out plotline, Marvel admitted, in print, to one of their greatest mistakes. As a fan, it was like a slap in the face. An apology will not fix the two years of wasted paper and ink that the Clone Saga caused nor will it bring back any of the characters who were bumped off after the fan base started warming up to them (unless this most recent re-launch decides to do it all over again so this way Marvel can really stomp on our hearts).

I don’t understand why Marvel feels it necessary to try to vindicate their mistakes by pressing the panic button whenever there is some negative backlash for their risk taking. I REALLY don’t understand why they keep bringing these mistakes back up years after they have been forgiven in the collective consciousness only to re-open long since healed scars. All I know is I miss Spider-Man. I miss the REAL Spider-Man. The Spider-Man that I grew up with, that was married to Mary Jane, had to team-up with Venom every now and then to take on Carnage, and could still make some sweet wise-cracks. Get me Tom DeFalco RIGHT NOW!

-Ray Carsillo

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