THE 4: Reasons to Love Spider-Man

There are actually 73 reasons to love Spider-Man, but due to time constraints and laziness I have reduced them to the 4 most important. If you have other reasons for loving Spidey, please share them.

1) The Nerdiness
	Superman pretended to be a nerd. Spider-Man was a nerd. Peter Parker was a socially inept kid, a complete dork that you could relate to. That was the brilliance of Stan Lee‘s creation and the only reason why Tobey Maguire can star in a superhero movie without being laughed off the screen. It also put every geek on the lookout for a radioactive spider.

2) The Villains
	You can be the coolest superhero in the universe, but if your enemies are crap, then you might as well hang it up. From Doc Ock to the Lizard to Sandman, Spider-Man battles the baddest baddies. The Green Goblin scared the pants off me as a kid, so it was probably good that Venom wasn’t around during my childhood years.

3) The Suit
	A superhero is only as good as his costume. If you have a lame get-up, you have a lame superhero. Whether it’s black or red and blue, Spidey has one of the most kick-ass costumes in comicdom. There’s an Iron Spider-Man suit kicking around now that I’m not too crazy about, but two out of three ain’t bad. Either way, Spidey is all about the suit.

4) The Theme
	“Spider-Man, Spider-Man / Does whatever a spider can / Spins a web, any size / Catches thieves just like flies / Look out, here comes the Spider-Man…” In its toe-tapping elegance, the theme to the 1967 Spider-Man cartoon has been branded into the synapses of every Spidey fan. And we wouldn’t have it any other way.

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Lame Superhero of the Week: Spider-Boy

Real Name: Peter Ross
First Appearance: Spider-Boy #1 (1996)
Affiliations: Daily Bugle, Project Cadmus
Aliases: Arach-Kid, Mall-Crawler, Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Boy
Creators: Karl Kesel, Mike Wieringo
Lame Abilities: Can manipulate gravity and stick to solid surfaces; enhance his strength, speed, and agility to superhuman levels; uses a special pistol that shoots synthetic spider webs.

Maybe they should have named him Spider-Lad. Spider-Boy has three strikes against him: 1) He’s a clone. 2) His name ends in “Boy.” 3) He shoots webs out of a special pistol.

Spider-Boy was a character in one of those alternate universes, where usually anything goes and bad ideas go to die. He was a clone of not only Spider-Man but of Superboy — not Superman, but Superboy — as well, only adding to the lameness. The mash-up was part of the Amalgam event in the middle ’90s, when Marvel and DC characters were combined into one. There was a Batman – Wolverine character named Dark Claw, a Man-Thing and Man-Bat character named Bat-Thing, and so on. Two series of 12 Amalgam books were released.

Super-Spider-Lad, the result of an experiment by Project Cadmus, doesn’t really have any spider-like abilities. He can manipulate gravity so that he can walk up walls, increase his strength, and jump really high. He also wears a leather jacket, which hasn’t been cool since the days of Fonzie. Thankfully, Spider-Boy has appeared in only two comics.

Spider-Man had gone 35 years without a “boy” or “lad” version. It should have stayed that way. There’s only one Spider-Man. Besides, wasn’t the original Spider-Man a boy himself?

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Lame Superhero of the Week: Matter Eater Lad

Real Name: Tenzil Kem
First Appearance: Adventure Comics #303 (1962)
Affiliations: Legion of Super Heroes
Associates: Shrinking Violet, Brainiac 5
Lame Abilities: Can bite and eat all forms of matter…without gaining a pound

Another lame lad, Matter Eater has one of the stupidest super powers in comicdom. He can eat matter! Doesn’t sound impressive? Well, Matter Eater Lad can eat anything, even Taco Bell after drinking all night…kind of like Kirstie Alley before she met Jenny Craig. Except, of course, Matter Eater Lad doesn’t gain any weight.

Matter Eater Lad is a member of that super lame team of heroes from the 30th century, the Legion of Super Heroes. Matter Eater, whose real name is Tenzil Kem, comes from the planet Bismoll (a play on Pepto Bismol). All inhabitants of the planet have the same super-eating ability of Matter Eater Lad. As the lame lad explains, “Gradually, over a period of eons, microbes made all food there poisonous… Just as gradually, evolution transformed my race so we could eat anything without being harmed!” Huh? Why didn’t they just adapt to the damn “poison” then? According to the super eater, ray guns taste good, iron chains taste like chocolate cake, and sucking on a metal pipe is, well, use your imagination. (more…)

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Fan Creating BSG-Terminator-TechTV Comic

Jay Santos had just about the geekiest idea ever — to do a comic combining his three loves — “Battlestar Galactica,” “The Terminator,” and, yes, “TechTV.” Santos says, “I’m a huge Sci-Fi and TechTV geek. I fell in love with ‘Battlestar Galactica’… I was thinking about Cylons and somehow Terminators popped into my head. Be kind of funny if Battlestar Galactica left Caprica and then escaped from the Cylons and then they get to Earth — and then they find out what the frack! They have toasters too. So I decided to write a fan-based comic book.”

Then, things got even geekier. Santos decided “to write many of the people [from TechTV] directly into my comic book as part of the resistance fighting the machines.” Characters include Diggnation’s Kevin Rose and Alex Albrecht and “Attack of the Show” co-hosts Kevin Pereira and Olivia Munn.

The 120-page comic, titled “Battlestar Galactica Vs. Skynet,” will be available for free online. Santos has a few artists working on it, but he needs more help. Interested artists should email him at zoomtechtv@yahoo.com.

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2007 Eisner Awards Nominees

The nominess for the 2007 Eisner Awards have been announced. Ballots will be going out in May to comics creators, editors, publishers, and retailers. The results will be announced in a gala awards ceremony July 27 at the San Diego Convention Center.

See full list of nominees below. (more…)

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Comic Buzz: Batman and the Mad Monk

BATMAN AND THE MAD MONK
Art and story by Matt Wagner

I have a bad habit of judging books by their covers. That’s why I have such a shitty comic-book collection, which includes such titles as “US 1,” “Jemm, Son of Saturn,” and something called “Obnoxio the Clown Vs. the X-Men.” So, learning from past experience, I snatched up “Batman and the Mad Monk” the second I saw the cover. Though, this time I got lucky.

The six-issue mini-series, by Matt Wagner, has some of the best covers I’ve seen in a long time. Inspired by classic Batman stories and 1930s movie serials, “Batman and the Mad Monk” is the second part of Wagner’s “Dark Moon Rising” series, which began with “Batman and the Monster Men.” The new series, which has been collected in a trade paperback (available April 18), takes place during the “Batman: Year One” era and nicely captures the style of the Frank Miller – Dave Mazzucchelli book, though it lacks some of its predecessor’s grittiness (but we’re talking Frank Miller here). In the story, Bats is on the trail of the Mad Monk, a mysterious villain in a red hood and robe who likes to kidnap young ladies and drain them of their blood. Meanwhile, Captain Gordon fights police corruption and begins to cement his burgeoning relationship with the Bat-Man. It’s based on a 1939 “Detective Comics” story called “Batman Versus the Vampire.”

It’s a worthwhile story. Nothing mind-blowing here. The comic’s real treat is Wagner’s art. It’s like a Fleischer Superman cartoon in comic form, full of retro coolness. If you’re a Batman fan or a fan of movie serials, definitely check this one out.

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Lame Superhero of the Week: Aqualad

Real Name: Garth. Just Garth.
Aliases: Aquaboy, Gill-Head
First Appearance: Adventure Comics #269 (1960)
Associates: Aquaman, Aquagirl, manatees, dolphins
Lame Abilities: Communicates with underwater creatures, real good swimmer, fabulous legs, walrus straddling
Creators: Robert Bernstein, Ramona Fradon

Any time your name ends in the word “lad,” you just bought yourself a first-class ticket to lamesville. But if that wasn’t bad enough, Aqualad has the double bad luck of being the young (and strictly platonic) companion of Aquaman, one of the least respected and least masculine superheroes in the history of comics. Aqualad rides dolphins, gets into questionable positions with walruses (for evidence, check the photo to the left), and has smoother legs than Robin. To further his lameness, Aqualad was voiced by Wil Wheaton on the “Teen Titans” animated series. Not that Wil is really lame, but he’s not the most macho guy in the galaxy.

Aqualad, who’s real name is Garth, is an amphibious humanoid who was once a prince of Atlantis. He was left to die because of some Atlantean superstition about babies with purple eyes. As a little boy, he was terrified of fish. But after Aquaman found him, he cured Aqualad. The two had many underwater adventures together and the rest is lame history.

In the ’90s, Aqualad got a makeover. Ol’ Gill-Head reappeared as Tempest, a tough guy with mystical abilities who shoots purple energy blasts from his eyes. To increase his machismo, he even stole Aquaman’s lover, Dolphin, and married her. Take that, Aquaman!

Posted in Comic Books, Lame Superheroes | 4 Comments »

Will Eisner Doc Debuting at Tribeca Film Festival

Comic book fans have one more reason to check out New York’s Tribeca Film Festival. The big draw, of course, is the “Spider-Man 3″ premiere on April 30th, but the festival will also include the documentary “Will Eisner: Portrait of a Sequential Life,” about the life of the influential comic book creator.

“This is not only exciting for comic fans everywhere, it’s a testament to what the Tribeca Film Festival has come to stand for,” said the documentary’s director Andrew D. Cooke. “There’s a reason why this is one of the hottest festivals around. They’re not afraid to embrace the duality of filmmaking — the popcorn event picture on one hand and the low budget labor of love, which our documentary is, on the other.”

The film includes Stan Lee, Michael Chabon, Kurt Vonnegut, Jules Feiffer, Frank Miller, and many others sharing their stories about Eisner.

Will Eisner, who was born in Brooklyn, New York and created “The Spirit,” died in 2005 while the documentary was being made. He served as an inspiration to many of the biggest names in the comics industry. His life story was the inspiration for Michael Chabon’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel “The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay” and “The Spirit” is being made into a feature film by Frank Miller.

The Tribeca Film Festival runs from April 25th to May 6th. For more information, visit tribecafilmfestival.org.

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Comic Buzz: American Splendor: Another Day

AMERICAN SPLENDOR: ANOTHER DAY – VOL. 1
Written by Harvey Pekar; Art by Dean Haspiel, Eddie Campbell, Ty Templeton and others

Harvey Pekar’s four-issue Vertigo mini-series consists of boring, uninspired, pointless, self-indulgent non-stories. And I couldn’t stop reading them. I read each issue in one quick burst, then reached for the next one.

Confused? Let me clear that up.

I never read a Harvey Pekar comic before his Vertigo series, and only vaguely remember him from his “Late Night With David Letterman” appearances. Harvey came to my attention with the release of the “America Splendor” movie starring Paul Giamatti. In the movie Harvey is portrayed as a deeply neurotic schlub destined to always lose, an angry, ugly, little man (sorry, Harvey) who leads an uneventful life (unless you count his many setbacks and personal tragedies). I found the Harvey Pekar character fascinating.

His comics are much the same. “American Splendor” is an artless chronicle of one man’s life, an unadulterated look at a screwed-up, unglamorous man. In the black-and-white Vertigo series, which has been collected in a trade paperback called “American Splendor: Another Day,” you get to watch Harvey fix a toilet. Experience Harvey talking on the phone. Witness Harvey obsessing over his stepdaughter’s lost glasses. Overhear Harvey worrying about his comic sales. I found his comics fascinating, too.

I prefer stories that have plots and some attempt at resolutions. “American Splendor,” like life, has neither. The stories are simple and unadorned and, most importantly, honest. You get the sense you’re watching a real human being; Harvey’s artless style infuses his comics with a sincerity and realism that allows you to really connect with his character. It’s uplifiting to know someone like Harvey Pekar is still making comic books and telling his stories his way. Through it all, Harvey might be happy to know that his misery has had a positive effect on the world. At least in some small corner of it, anyway.

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Lame Superhero of the Week: Super Trucker U.S.

Real Name: Ulysses Solomon (U.S.) Archer
First Appearance: US 1 #1 (1983)
Associates: Poppa Wheelie, Wide Load Annie, Mary McGrill, Retread
Enemies: The Highwayman, Midnight, Baron van Blimp
Lame Abilities: Excellent athlete, tech expert, metal alloy skull that picks up CB transmissions and allows U.S. to head-butt like a bastard
Creators: Al Milgrom, Jim Shooter

The best lame comics have lame origin stories. “US 1″ came into exist not through the inspiration of a writer or artist; it was born in a marketing office. In the early 1980s Tyco created a line of electric trucking toys. A few years later they approached Marvel about doing a comic based on the toys. And Marvel bit.

Then, in 1983, in a lame reverse merchandising move, the “US 1″ comic hit the stands. And I bit. I was nine years old and excited to own a first issue of a series. This was an investment, I thought, that would pay off when I was in my early 30s, leading to an early retirement. Twenty-four years later “US 1″ comics are worth about six cents a copy and I am about 45 years away from retirement.

The hero of “US 1,” Ulysses Solomon Archer (U.S.A, get it?), graduated from college magna cum laude with a degree in computer program design and electronics engineering, among other things. He was quarterback of his football team. So, what does this athletic genius want to do with his life? Get hemorrhoids and drive a truck. Sounds like this guy shoots real low when it comes to career goals. (more…)

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