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revlyncox · 4 years ago

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Superhero Values (2021)

Whether we have great powers or simply great responsibilities, we return to our values to guide our actions. This talk was revised and expanded for the Washington Ethical Society, February 21, 2021.

Earlier, you gave some advice to “Human Person” (a fictional superhero who “visited” earlier in the Platform) about compassion, understanding, and commitment, which are easier words to say than to practice. It helps to have role models, even if their stories didn’t happen exactly in the way they are told. It seems to me that mythology, fiction, and maybe even history can supply us with examples of values we can agree on. Stories that have captured our imaginations in the past may remind us of the people we hope to become.

When I was a kid, Batman was the lead character in some of those stories. He showed up in comic books and Pez dispensers, but the most influential form of Batman from my childhood was the Adam West character on television. When I was six or seven years old, the other kids who went to my babysitter and I used to run around the yard chasing super villains, pretending the basement steps were the Bat Cave, and generally doing our part for the good of Gotham City. We all traded roles as the heroes, heroines, and the various arch-nemeses.

I learned a couple of things from the Bat-team. I learned that superheroes have origin stories, events that changed the direction of their lives. You might not be able to tell from looking at them, especially in their secret identities, but every superhero has a past. The Bat-team also taught me that superheroes struggle with power. Whether the super skills come from hard work, cool gadgets, or another planet, heroes have to figure out the most effective and responsible way to use those skills. Finally, I learned that superheroes form coalitions. Batman and Robin and Batgirl worked together, not to mention Commissioner Gordon and Chief O’Hara. Even an independent vigilante needs other people for the toughest problems.

Come to think of it, those same things are true for all of us. Each of us has to decide how to respond to the past. Individually and as a group, we are faced with questions of power and responsibility. Teaming up with other people is a source of strength, in spite of and perhaps because of our differences. I think these characteristics of superheroes call attention to WES’s future as a community.

Heroes Have Origins

First, superheroes have origin stories. Some event from the past sparked the character’s discovery of talents and passions, leading to a new sense of identity and purpose. Those events might be associated with death or separation from a loved one, or with the loss of the character’s pre-heroic dreams.

Superman’s powers come from his extra-planetary birth, but his ideas about truth, justice, and the American way come from Martha and Jonathan Kent. There is some speculation that Superman’s creators (Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster) modeled him after Moses, a baby whose people faced destruction, and was carried in a small vessel to a land where his birth identity had to be concealed.

There is a category of stories in which the characters have qualities that were typical in their place of origin, but something called them to help people in a world similar to our own, where their profound difference turned out to be a gift. Wonder Woman, Black Panther, AquaMan, and Valkyrie fall into this category.

On the other hand, some superheroes start off with an event of pain or trauma, like Peter Parker’s radioactive spider bite to become Spiderman. Batman’s path is a response to trauma. In the Watchmen mini-series on HBO, one of the characters’ commitment to justice came from being a survivor of the 1921 white supremacist attack on Tulsa, Oklahoma. Ms. Marvel’s Kamala Khan is mainly in this category, having gained her powers during an unusual event.

Whatever the story, most extra-human comic book characters have faced a life-changing event that seems to isolate them from important people in their lives. Often, the character will acquire or discover or place new value on a gift or a talent they have during that experience. Picking up these pieces of loss, loneliness, and strength, the character eventually forges a new sense of purpose.

Michael Servetus (Miguel Serveto) is someone from history whose story follows this pattern a bit. He wasn’t always brave, and he wasn’t known for being kind, but he did set himself apart and commit his life to the truth as he saw it. I wouldn’t necessarily call him a Humanist, but he was a free thinker in that he defied the orthodoxy of his time, and his sacrifices made it possible for the people who came after him to do even more questioning of creeds, dogmas, and oppressive religious organizations.

When Servetus read the Bible for himself for the first time as a young student in the 1520s, he was shocked to discover no evidence for the doctrine of the Trinity. In 1531, he published a tract, De Trinitatis Erroribus (On the Errors of the Trinity), seemingly convinced that people would see it his way if only they would listen. That’s not what happened. He was run out of town, his books were confiscated, and the Supreme Council of the Inquisition started looking for him.

This is where the secret identity comes in. Servetus fled to Paris and assumed the name of Michel de Villeneuve. He had a varied career as de Villeneuve, first as an editor and publisher, then as a doctor. He worked on a seven-volume edition of the Bible, adding insightful footnotes. He was the first European to publish about the link between the pulmonary and respiratory systems.

During his time as the personal physician for the Archbishop of Vienne, he secretly worked on his next theological treatise, Christianismi Restitutio (The Restoration of Christianity). He also struck up a correspondence with his old classmate, John Calvin. Servetus was not diplomatic in his criticisms of Calvin’s writing, and Calvin broke off correspondence. Servetus seemed to think that their exchange was illuminating, because he included copies of the letters when he sent an advance copy of the Restitutio to Geneva.

The publication of the Restitutio in 1553 marked the end of Servetus’ secret identity. Both Protestant and Catholic authorities pursued him as a dangerous heretic. He was burned at the stake on October 27, 1553, by the order of The Council of Geneva. Reportedly, he maintained his beliefs until the end, shouting heretical prayers from the flames. The Catholic Inquisition in France burned Servetus in effigy a few months later. There were a lot of people who didn’t want his ideas to be heard. Luckily for us, a few copies of his books were preserved, and went on to generate new ideas among religious reformers for over 450 years.

Now, I’m not saying Michael Servetus was a superhero. It might be hard to identify with him in some ways. Though he had ideas that were called Unitarian at the time, Unitarian Universalists oday would disagree with most of what he wrote, as would most Ethical Culturists. His creeds don’t match most of our beliefs; though some of his deeds, such as challenging authority and being a medical provider, might resonate. Nevertheless, we can see how a turning point in someone’s life can bring isolation, energy, purpose, abilities, and vulnerabilities, all at the same time. His origins were more like Spiderman than Superman: Being in the right place at the right time, Servetus was bitten by the free thinking bug. He had to adopt an alter ego, but the bug also afforded him the drive and the insight to make great contributions to scholarship and religious freedom.

How often is it the same for those of us who are regular folks? The events that make us who we are may bring a sense of loss or loneliness. These same events may bring a chance for us to develop new talents, or personal connection to the work we aspire to do. Passion and vulnerability can come from a single point in time.

The thing that sets a superhero origin story apart from a villain origin story is how the character translates their past into a future of meaning and purpose. Most of us are not consistently villains or heroes; we have to choose in every moment how to draw from our past to make choices in the present. We can’t control the historical facts of our origin stories. Even if our own choices led to the turning points in our lives, they are in the past now. What we can do is bring our values to the way we understand those turning points, and to our decisions about what to do with the gifts we have now. Let’s do our best to choose to use our origins well.

Heroes Form Coalitions

The very first appearance of Spiderman (in Amazing Fantasy #15 in 1962) saw the teenage Peter Parker misusing his new powers, only to have his negligence contribute to the death of his Uncle Ben, one of his adoptive parents. Peter’s understanding of Ben’s teaching that “With great power there must also come—great responsibility!” shaped his character from then on. The spider counterparts from other universes, heroes like Gwen Stacy and Miles Morales, also have turning points on that theme.

Superhero characters struggling with power and responsibility would have benefitted from reading about James Luther Adams, who was a professor at Harvard during the 1950s and 1960s. Adams had a great deal to say about power and what that meant for the responsibilities of movements for liberation.

Between 1927 and the late 1930s, Adams made several trips to Germany, a country that was renowned for philosophical scholarship. He spoke with religious and academic leaders, was detained for questioning by the Gestapo, and developed a sense of urgency about the political, cultural, moral, and spiritual crisis that went along with the rise of the Nazi party. While Adams developed great respect for the anti-Nazi Confessing Church movement, he noticed that Germany’s churches as a whole were not pushing back against the crisis.

Adams said that individual and organized philosophy should be “examined.” There must be a path for critique, self-correction, and development. Adams wrote, “the achievement of freedom in community requires the power of organization and the organization of power.”

In that same period when Adams was noticing trends of power, organization, and responsibility in Germany, Humanists in the United States were also teaming up. The roots of some of these relationships went back to the Free Religious Association, which was the group where Felix Adler hung around with Ralph Waldo Emerson and the other Transcendentalists. The FRA led to another trend called the “Ethical Basis” group within Unitarianism.

I’m drawing here from The Humanist Way: An Introduction to Ethical Humanist Religion, a book by former WES Senior Leader Ed Ericson. Ericson writes that, by the end of the nineteenth century, the Ethical Basis bloc had successfully advocated that inclusion as either a member or a clergy person in Unitarian congregations be purely on an ethical basis rather than having any doctrinal basis. Ericson continues:

They resisted all attempts to impose any theological requirement, however broadly such a test might be construed. Like Felix Adler’s Ethical Culture, the Ethical Basis Unitarians regarded the dedicated ethical life to be inherently religious without any necessary underpinning of theological belief. This concurrence of views resulted in a close working relationship between the leaders of the Ethical Societies of Chicago and St. Louis and their ministerial counterparts in the Western Unitarian Conference.

(Ericson, The Humanist Way, p. 46-47)

Ericson goes on to say that, while this cohort was concentrated in the midwest, Octavius Brooks Frothingham in New York also largely shared Adler’s philosophy. Ericson also points out that the Ethical Basis cohort provided “a seedbed where organized religious Humanism, under that name, would first put down roots in American soil,” making this development of interest to Ethical Humanism. So, already at the turn of the century, there is some superhero teaming up going on. It gets better!

In 1913, the Unitarian minister John H. Dietrich began using the term “Humanism” to identify his non-theistic philosophy of religion. Dietrich said that he first encountered the term as a religious designation in the text of a lecture delivered to the London Ethical Society (Ericson, p. 61). Ericson writes that “the Ethical Union in Britain had described their movement by the turn of the century.” Ethical Culture in the United States started identifying more closely as a unique expression within the broader Humanist movement a little later, not until after Adler’s death in 1933. At that point, they found a whole league’s worth of Humanists to team up with.

But back to Dietrich, who discovered that his colleague Curtis Reese in Chicago was writing about the same kind of philosophy. Having found each other, they attracted others to the growing Humanist movement. By 1927, they had connected with scientists, philosophers, and journalists, who collectively were turning out what Ericson describes as “a torrent of books, articles, sermons and lectures” (p. 67) that established Humanism as a significant force in American society. In 1933, thirty-four of these prominent figures signed on to The Humanist Manifesto.

Later groups wrote the Humanist Manifesto II of 1973 and the Humanist Manifesto III of 2003. The original 1933 document set a historic precedent, bringing together people from a variety of perspectives and settings. Unitarian and Universalist ministers were well represented, along with V.T. Thayer, Director of the Ethical Culture Schools of New York, plus A. Eustace Haydon and Lester Mondale, who later became Ethical leaders (Ericson, p. 70).

I would suggest that the Washington Ethical Society, by affiliating with both the Unitarian Universalist Association and the American Ethical Union, is living out the spirit of cooperation that has powered the Humanist movement in the United States from its inception. Ethical Humanism is a unique expression and tradition within the larger Humanist movement, and yet that larger movement remains important for understanding who we are and what we are here to do. We come to a deeper understanding of identity and mission when we team up.

In fiction, superheroes seem to gravitate to one another. From the X-Men to the Avengers to the Teen Titans, collections of lead characters become ensembles. They have very different abilities and outlooks. Teaming up isn’t always easy, and it can be risky. Household squabbles may become epic battles if super abilities get out of hand. However, when they combine their gifts in the same direction, they can tackle complex problems that none of them would be able to handle alone.

This is why we form coalitions, too. WES is a community of people who have many differences in your individual lives. Diversity in creed and unity in deed, WES members are able to learn together, make music together, serve the community, and witness for justice, without worrying too much about who is an atheist or an agnostic or a theist or a polytheist. Whether among members, or in coalition with our neighbors across religious or geographic lines, we are able to put differences aside as we work for the benefit of our shared community. It does happen, though, that human beings forget, or retreat into what we think is a bubble of sameness, or narrow our scope of what seems possible.

Let’s build on what is already going well as we resist the shrinking of our horizons. There may be partners in our community that we have yet to meet. There may be institutes for exceptional heroes, or halls of justice, that we have to overcome our internalized hurdles of classism and racism before we can join.

At the very least, we can ensure that we’re making the most of our super team here at WES. Like the superheroes, we can do more and support each other when we come together.

Conclusion

There is a lot that WES has in common with an assembly of superheroes. Each one of us has an origin story, a set of events that shaped our talents, passions, and vulnerabilities. Each one of us has the opportunity to shape that story into a life of meaning and purpose. Like superheroes, it is incumbent on us to come to terms with power. Our collective abilities and assets make us a force to be reckoned with, and it is up to us to do the moral discernment to make sure we’re doing a good job wielding that power. Our honesty with each other and practicing all of our shared values and commitments will help. Like the best superheroes, we form alliances. Within the WES community, we share our specialized powers and support one another to accomplish goals none of us could handle alone. In our coalitions with other groups, we build bridges that support compassion. May all that has been divided be made whole.

May it be so.

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multiverseofmiracleshq · 4 years ago

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TWELVE DAYS OF CHRISTMAS MIRACLES DAYS ONE & TWO ( BODY SWITCH ): back again by popular demand it’s a day of body changing. just like always, you’ll have all the memories of your host body. once again we’ve given everyone a new, unique pairing, and like last year we’ve entered open characters into the mix and some swaps aren’t reciprocal. below you’ll find each character listed and the fc used. the arrow will indicate whose body they are in, and that does not mean that person is in theirs. let us know if you have any questions, otherwise, welcome to the whacky world of waking up as someone else.

abigail brand → jean-paul beaubier ( fc: matthew daddario ) alex summers → tabitha smith ( fc: hailee steinfeld ) america chavez → xandra neramani ( fc: kaylee bryant ) amka aliyak → nadia van dyne ( fc: zoey deutch ) betsy braddock → alex summers ( fc: oliver jackson cohen ) billy kaplan → teddy altman ( fc: cody christian ) bobby drake → jimmy hudson ( fc: liam hemsworth ) bobby drake (older) → older hank mccoy ( fc: karl urban ) bucky barnes → yelena belova ( fc: florence pugh ) bucky barnes (616) → veronica eden ( fc: victoria pedretti ) carol danvers → sam wilson ( fc: anthony mackie ) charles xavier → moira mactaggart ( fc: thandie newton ) clint barton → kate bishop ( fc: camila mendes ) crystalia amaquelin → pietro maximoff ( fc: aaron taylor-johnson ) daken → jeanne-marie beaubier ( fc: phoebe tonkin ) danielle moonstar → rahne sinclair ( fc: sophie skelton ) drax → peter quill ( fc: derek theler ) emma frost → kate pryde ( fc: zoe kravitz ) erik lehnsherr → charles xavier ( fc: idris elba ) felicia hardy → michelle jones ( fc: zendaya ) gamora → mantis ( fc: pom klementieff ) gerry drew → jessica drew ( fc: inbar lavi ) gwenpool → v special body. can’t participate. gwen stacy → peter parker ( fc: tom holland ) gwen stacy (65) → miles morales ( fc: jordan fisher ) illyana rasputin → older scott summers ( fc: matt bomer ) hank mccoy → bobby drake ( fc: dylan o’brien ) hank mccoy (older) → betsy braddock ( fc: jodie comer ) james rogers → tommy shepherd ( fc: gregg sulkin ) jean grey → hank mccoy ( taron egertonn ) jean grey (older) → logan howlett ( hugh jackman ) jean-paul beaubier → abigail brand ( fc: crystal reed ) jeanne-marie beaubier → daken ( fc: charles melton ) jessica drew → clint barton ( fc: chris pine ) jimmy hudson → laura kinney ( fc: lulu antariksa ) julian keller → lana baumgarter ( fc: danielle rose russell ) kamala khan → scott summers ( fc: steven r mcqueen ) kate bishop → america chavez ( fc: lindsey morgan ) kate pryde → emma frost ( fc: margot robbie ) lana baumgartner → lori baumgartner ( fc: anne hathaway ) laura kinney → julian keller ( fc: noah centineo ) loki laufayson → rosalind solomon ( fc: ana de armas ) lorna dane → rogue ( fc: eiza gonzalez ) michelle jones → gwen stacy ( fc: olivia holt ) miles morales → 65 gwen stacy ( fc: jenny boyd ) moira mactaggert → her body is taken, but moira is nowhere to be found. nadia van dyne → amka aliyak ( fc: anna lambe ) natasha romanoff → bucky barnes ( fc: sebastian stan ) nathan summers → esme cuckoo ( fc: skyler samuels ) peter parker → tony stark ( fc: robert downey jr ) peter quill → gamora ( fc: zoe saldana ) pietro maximoff → crystalia amaquelin ( fc: holland roden ) rahne sinclair → danielle moonstar ( fc: devery jacobs ) remy lebeau → lorna dane ( fc: paulina singer ) ripley ryan → carol danvers ( fc: rebecca rittenhouse ) rogue → remy lebeau ( fc: jack falahee ) rosalind solomon → thor odinson ( fc: chris hemsworth ) sam alexander → tiana toomes ( fc: brittany o’grady ) sam wilson → steve rogers ( fc: chris evans ) scott summers → illyana rasputin ( fc: kristine froseth ) scott summers (older) → older jean grey ( fc: rachel mcadams ) stepford, esme → quentin quire ( fc: dane dehaan ) stephen strange → wanda maximoff ( fc: elizabeth olsen ) steve rogers → natasha romanoff ( fc: scarlet johansson ) susan storm → stephen strange ( fc: benedict cumberbatch ) tabitha smith → nathan summers ( fc: thomas doherty ) theodore altman → billy kaplan ( fc: nick robinson ) thor odinson → rocket raccoon ( fc: raccoon ) tiana toomes → sam alexander ( fc: alberto rosende ) tommy shepherd → james rogers ( fc: dominic sherwood ) tony stark → teenaged morgan stark ( fc: katherine langford ) valkyrie → loki laufayson ( fc: tom hiddleston ) veronica eden → felicia hardy ( fc: emeraude toubia ) wanda maximoff → erik lehnsherr ( fc: giancarlo esposito ) xandra neramani → cal’syee neramani ( fc: kate siegel ) yelena belova → 616 bucky barnes ( fc: richard madden )

#event: tdocm 2020 #tdocm 2020: day one #tdocm 2020: day two #momevents

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maaarine · 5 years ago

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MBTI Typing Index: Names Q-T

Name starts with: A B, C D, E F, G H, I J K L, M N O P, Q R S T, U V W X Y Z.

Christian QUESADA (ESTJ)

Sara QUIN (ENTP)

Tegan QUIN (ENTP)

Zoë QUINN (INFP)

Daniel RADCLIFFE (ENFP)

Dennis RADER (ISTJ)

Charlotte RAMPLING (INFJ)

Gordon RAMSAY (ESTJ)

Giuliana RANCIC (ESFJ)

Ayn RAND (ISTJ)

Megan RAPINOE (ESTP)

Naval RAVIKANT (INTJ)

Jeremy RENNER (ISTP)

Raphaëlle RICCI (INTJ)

Damien RICE (INFP)

Tim RICE-OXLEY (INFJ)

Keith RICHARDS (ESTP)

Jon RICHARDSON (INTJ)

Alan RICKMAN (INTJ)

Tom RIDGEWELL (ENTP)

Ransom RIGGS (INFP)

Rihanna / Robyn FENTY (ESTP)

Guy RITCHIE (ENTJ)

Joan RIVERS (ESFP)

Robert REDFORD (INFJ)

Vanessa REDGRAVE (INFJ)

Eddie REDMAYNE (INFP)

Norman REEDUS (ISFP)

Keanu REEVES (ISFP)

Ryan REYNOLDS (ENTP)

Trent REZNOR (INFP)

Shonda RHIMES (ENFJ)

Mel ROBBINS (ENTJ)

Michel ROCARD (ENTJ)

Dennis RODMAN (ESTP)

Olivia RODRIGO (ESFJ)

Michelle RODRIGUEZ (ESTP)

Joe ROGAN (ESTP)

Seth ROGEN (ENTP)

Fred ROGERS (INFP)

Maggie ROGERS (INFP)

Cristiano RONALDO (ESTP)

Mark RONSON (ISFP)

Sally ROONEY (INFJ)

Arden ROSE (ENFP)

Tracee Ellis ROSS (ENFP)

Eric ROTH (INFJ)

Philip ROTH (ENTP)

Kristen ROUPENIAN (ENFP)

Mickey ROURKE (ESTP)

Joanne K. ROWLING (INFJ)

Arundhati ROY (INFJ)

Mark RUFFALO (ISFP)

RuPaul / RuPaul CHARLES (ENFP)

Bertrand RUSSELL (ENTP)

Winona RYDER (INFP)

Mark RYLANCE (INFP)

Anna SACCONE JOLY (ISFJ)

Jonathan SACCONE JOLY (ESFP)

Oliver SACKS (INFP)

Sade / Sade ADU (ISFP)

Claire SAFFITZ (ENFJ)

Sebastião SALGADO (INFJ)

Jonas SALK (INTJ)

Sheryl SANDBERG (ENFJ)

Thomas SANDERS (ENFP)

Adam SANDLER (ESTP)

Susan SARANDON (ENFP)

Michel SARDOU (ESTJ)

Anita SARKEESIAN (ENFJ)

Nicolas SARKOZY (ESTJ)

Jean-Paul SARTRE (INTP)

Marjane SATRAPI (ENFP)

Reshma SAUJANI (ENFJ)

Adam SAVAGE (ENTP)

Antonin SCALIA (ESTJ)

Matthias SCHOENAERTS (ISTP)

Amy SCHUMER (ENFP)

Arnold SCHWARZENEGGER (ENTJ)

Andrew SCOTT (INFP)

Ridley SCOTT (ENTJ)

Roy SCRANTON (INTJ)

Roger SCRUTON (INTJ)

John SEARLE (ENTP)

Amy SEDARIS (ENFP)

David SEDARIS (INTP)

Jerry SEINFELD (ENTJ)

Jason SEGEL (ENFP)

Léa SEYDOUX (ISFP)

Elif SHAFAK (INFP)

Faiza SHAHEEN (ENFJ)

Yara SHAHIDI (ENFJ)

Shakira / Shakira RIPOLL (ESFJ)

Tupac SHAKUR (ENFP)

Michael SHANNON (ISTP)

Ben SHAPIRO (ESTJ)

Maria SHARAPOVA (ENTJ)

Robert SHEEHAN (ENFP)

Michael SHEEN (ENFP)

Judith SHEINDLIN (ESTJ)

Dax SHEPARD (ENTP)

Amy SHERMAN-PALLADINO (ENFP)

Kiernan SHIPKA (ESFJ)

David SHRIGLEY (INTP)

SIA / Sia FURLER (ENFP)

Daniel SIEGEL (INFJ)

Jason SILVA (ENFP)

Nate SILVER (INTP)

Sarah SILVERMAN (ENFP)

David SIMON (INFJ)

Paul SIMON (INFP)

Nina SIMONE (INFP)

O.J. SIMPSON (ESTP)

Lily SINGH (ENFP)

Tarsem SINGH (ENFP)

Troye SIVAN (ISFP)

Jojo SIWA (ESFP)

Jenny SLATE (ENFP)

Leïla SLIMANI (INFJ)

Jorja SMITH (ISFP)

Kiki SMITH (INFP)

Patti SMITH (INFP)

Sam SMITH (ESFP)

Will SMITH (ESFP)

Zadie SMITH (INFJ)

Edward SNOWDEN (INTJ)

Timothy SNYDER (INTJ)

Zack SNYDER (ESFP)

Salvador SOBRAL (INFP)

Steven SODERBERGH (ENTJ)

Soko / Stéphanie SOKOLINSKI (ENFP)

Solange / Solange KNOWLES (ISFP)

Rebecca SOLNIT (INFP)

Julien SOLOMITA (ESTP)

Stephen SONDHEIM (INTJ)

Susan SONTAG (INTJ)

Aaron SORKIN (INTP)

Sonia SOTOMAYOR (ENTJ)

Gareth SOUTHGATE (ISTJ)

Kevin SPACEY (ENTJ)

James SPADER (INTP)

Britney SPEARS (ISFJ)

Regina SPEKTOR (INFP)

Tori SPELLING (ISFJ)

Diana SPENCER (ISFP)

Steven SPIELBERG (INFP)

Baruch SPINOZA (INTP)

Bruce SPRINGSTEEN (ISFP)

Cole SPROUSE (ENTP)

St. Vincent / Annie CLARK (INFJ)

Lakeith STANFIELD (ISTP)

Joey STARR (ESTP)

Gwen STEFANI (ESFP)

Gloria STEINEM (ENTJ)

Amandla STENBERG (INFP)

Dan STEVENS (ENFJ)

Michael STEVENS (ENTP)

Sufjan STEVENS (INFJ)

Jon STEWART (ENTP)

Kristen STEWART (ISTP)

Martha STEWART (ENFJ)

Rory STEWART (INTJ)

Michael STIPE (INFP)

Emma STONE (ENFP)

Stormzy / Michael OMARI (ESFP)

Meryl STREEP (ENFJ)

Donna STRICKLAND (ENTJ)

Jeremy STRONG (INFP)

Bjarne STROUSTRUP (INTP)

Michael STUHLBARG (INFP)

Nicola STURGEON (ENTJ)

Tom STURRIDGE (INFP)

Harry STYLES (ESFP)

Zoe SUGG (ESFJ)

Taylor SWIFT (ESFJ)

Tilda SWINTON (INTP)

Kara SWISHER (ENTJ)

Omar SY (ESFP)

Oli SYKES (ISFP)

Wanda SYKES (ESFP)

Amber TAMBLYN (ENFP)

Tamino / Tamino FOUAD (ISFP)

Terence TAO (INTP)

Quentin TARANTINO (ENTP)

Donna TARTT (INFJ)

Elizabeth TAYLOR (ESFP)

Aaron TAYLOR-JOHNSON (ISFP)

Sam TAYLOR-JOHNSON (ISFP)

Tekashi69 / 6ix9ine / Daniel HERNANDEZ (ESTP)

Miles TELLER (ESTP)

David TENNANT (ENFP)

Nikola TESLA (INTP)

Virgil TEXAS (INTP)

Michelle THALLER (ENTP)

Margaret THATCHER (ESTJ)

The Weeknd / Abel TESFAYE (ISFP)

Charlize THERON (ENTJ)

Louis THEROUX (ENTP)

Peter THIEL (INTP)

Clarence THOMAS (ESTJ)

Kristin Scott THOMAS (ENTJ)

Emma THOMPSON (ENTP)

Maura TIERNEY (ISTP)

Meg TILLY (INFP)

Krista TIPPETT (INFJ)

Lily TOMLIN (ENTP)

Louis TOMLINSON (ENFP)

Giulio TONONI (INTJ)

Meghan TRAINOR (ESFP)

Joachim TRIER (ENFJ)

Donald TRUMP (ESTP)

Ivanka TRUMP (ISFJ)

Alan TUDYK (ENTP)

Cenzo TUIHANI (ISFP)

Alex TURNER (INTP)

Sophie TURNER (ESFP)

Tina TURNER (ESFP)

Jeff TWEEDY (INFP)

Liv TYLER (ISFP)

Name starts with: A B, C D, E F, G H, I J K L, M N O P, Q R S T, U V W X Y Z.

#mbtiindex

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tabloidtoc · 6 years ago

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In Touch, April 29

Cover: Kim Kardashian and Kanye West -- Baby no. 4 and divorcing

Page 1: Contents

Page 2: Who Wore It Better? Iskra Lawrence vs. Issa Rae, Lili Reinhart vs. Lily Collins

Page 3: Please don’t wear feathers, Vanessa Hudgens vs. Emma Roberts

Page 4: Casting Lori Loughlin and Felicity Huffman: The Movie -- Judith Light as Felicity, Nick Nolte as William H. Macy, Kylie Jenner as Olivia Jade, John Stamos as Mossimo Giannulli, Candace Cameron Bure as Lori

Page 5: Drake’s nonstop spending spree, Makeover of the Week -- Demi Lovato in a new bob, Demi Moore’s collection of more than 3000 dolls is worth more than $2 million, Gratitude of the Week -- Kit Harington on nabbing a couple of beers from the executive producers fridge on Game of Thrones, Gripe of the Week -- Stephanie Pratt on her brother Spencer and his wife Heidi Montag

Page 6: Crib of the Week -- Jessica Alba’s cozy sanctuary in Beverly Hills, Chris Hemsworth sneaks his daughter on to the Tower of Terror ride at Disney

Page 8: Celebrity Shoplifters -- Jax Taylor, Megan Fox, Khloe Kardashian, Kim Richards, Winona Ryder, Lindsay Lohan

Page 9: Mike “The Situation” Sorrentino’s prison posse, Cardi B and Offset buy half a street near Atlanta, Man Candy of the Week -- Lenny Kravitz, Winner of the Week -- Queer Eye fans raise more than $98,000 to help one of the show’s subjects go back to college, Loser of the Week -- Tarek El Moussa blabs that ex-wife Christina Anstead is having a baby boy

Page 10: Up Close -- Jimmy Fallon and Drew Barrymore

Page 11: Kaley Cuoco, Blake Shelton and Gwen Stefani, Katy Perry

Page 12: Busy Philipps and Mandy Moore, Tina Fey, Jude Law in a white Speedo

Page 13: Jennifer Aniston

Page 14: David Harbour and Milla Jovovich, Dwayne Wade and Gabrielle Union and Justin Timberlake and Jessica Biel, David Hasselhoff

Page 16: The Avengers on Jimmy Kimmel -- Robert Downey Jr., Scarlett Johansson, Chris Hemsworth and Paul Rudd

Page 17: Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan reunite, Ryan Seacrest and Kelly Ripa and Hugh Jackman, Please don’t wear fur

Page 18: Coachella -- Katy Perry and Zedd, Ariana Grande and 4 of the members of ‘NSync -- Joey Fatone and Lance Bass and JC Chasez and Chris Kirkpatrick, Please try a vegan diet

Page 19: Kristen Stewart and Sara Dinkin, Selena Gomez and Cardi B, Kendall Jenner

Page 20: John Legend and Chrissy Teigen and kids

Page 21: Kourtney Kardashian, Whitney Port, Prince Harry

Page 22: Drinking Games -- Paul “DJ Pauly D” Delvecchio and Vinny Guadagnino, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau and Tim Kash

Page 23: Mila Kunis, Coco Rocha, Hoda Kotb and Jenna Bush Hager

Page 24: Cover Story -- Just as baby no. 4 is arriving Kim Kardashian walks out on Kanye West

Page 28: Fights, money demands and lies cause the Real Housewives to implode

Page 30: Wendy Williams showdown with the mistress

Page 32: Gypsy Rose Blanchard was abused by her mother for nearly 24 year then killed her; now she’s getting her happily ever after behind bars

Page 34: Do They Look Like Who They’re Playing? Taron Egerton as Elton John, Russell Crowe as Roger Ailes, Nicole Kidman as Gretchen Carlson, Charlize Theron as Megyn Kelly

Page 35: Matt Smith as Robert Mapplethorpe, Zac Efron as Ted Bundy, Margot Robbie as Sharon Tate, Michelle Williams as Gwen Verdon, Cynthia Erivo as Harriet Tubman

Page 36: Tom Cruise is acting irritable and impatient on the set of Top Gun: Maverick

Page 37: Networks are clamoring to make a movie about The View, Felicity Huffman’s former assistant tells all, Star Sightings -- Elaine Welteroth, Teresa Giudice, Sophia Bush, Cardi B and G-Eazy, Ryan Cabrera, Blind Item

Page 38: Why Ben Affleck and Lindsay Shookus split again

Page 39: Hailey Baldwin thinks Justin Bieber looks too scruffy and shaggy, Katherine Scwarzenegger vetoed signing a prenup with Chris Pratt, Miranda Lambert’s new husband Brendan McLoughlin banned any extra men from being on tour with her and women only as opening acts

Page 42: Florida socialite Jackie Siegel says her daughter may be gone but she lives on in her heart and will never be forgotten

Page 44: Plastic surgery shockers -- Nicole Kidman, Khloe Kardashian, Jennifer Lopez

Page 45: Jennie Garth, Kate Middleton

Page 46: Style -- Pretty in Pastel -- Alexa Chung, Dakota Fanning, Gigi Hadid, Rita Ora

Page 47: Miranda Kerr, Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, Karlie Kloss

Page 48: Sustainable Style

Page 49: Kate Hudson

Page 50: Beauty -- Eco-friendly favorites -- Olivia Wilde

Page 52: Did I Really Do That? Elle Fanning, Carrie Underwood, Gigi Hadid

Page 54: Sneak Preview -- Chambers

Page 56: Animal Overload

Page 57: My dog looks like Milo Ventimiglia

Page 58: My Night at Home -- Kate del Castillo, Guess Whose Former Roommate -- Lindsay Lohan, Jonah Hill, Lauren Graham, Penn Badgley, Justin Timberlake, Brad Pitt, Ryan Gosling, Jason Priestley, Milo Ventimiglia, Connie Britton, Justin Long, Raven-Symone

Page 60: Double Take -- Charlize Theron at Disneyland’s Pixar Pier

Page 62: Horoscope -- Taurus John Cena

Page 64: Last laughs

#tabloid #kim kardashian #kim kardashian west #kanye west

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hellzyeahthewebwieldingavenger · 6 years ago

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There was so much wrong with this I was compelled to debunk it line by line.

“The biggest successes in the business, character-wise, tend to have more than one axis that they revolve around; take away one, and everything goes wildly off course. ”

This isn’t universally true. Spider-Man for example is defined by power and responsibility. Responsibility can be somewhat broad though and relate to work, family,self-respect, community as well as being a hero so if that’s what you meant then okay. Similarly power can mean more than just super powers. After all Spider-Man’s original sin with the burglar was something he didn’t need super powers to have prevented.

“Yes, Batman’s very much about Justice, that’s what he teaches us about…but as a character, he’s defined by the idea of Family from the start, with the deaths of his parents to the various Robins, Alfred and Gordon, and even up to his old, familiar relationship with Gotham itself.”

This is somewhat debatable given that Batman’s family ties were not present in his first appearance and Alfred was not truly a father figure to him until post-crisis, nearly 5 years after his creation; arguably the same is true of Gordon. But because of his origin and Robin’s and his relationship with Robin okay it does make a lot of sense to say he’s about justice but justice in specific relation to family ties.

“Superman wants to show us how to hope and work for a better world, but the kink that gives his relationship with humanity weight and definition is his alienation from those he loves so much. Even if it’s subtle in its presence, stories from All-Star to Birthright have taken that principle to heart in their portrayals of Clark Kent: take that away, and you end up with something like the largely unconflicted, uber-patriotic Man-God of John Byrne’s Man Of Steel (which I know to be many people’s benchmark for the character, but that’s a discussion for another time). ”

This however was your first big misinterpretation.

That particular interpretation of Superman was absolutely absent from his character until like the Silver Age when, to cash in on the science fiction craze of the time, they leaned harder on his alien origins.

Post-crisis they went back to him not feeling all that alienated if at all, and outright rejecting said alien heritage, codifying that he is a human first and foremost.

Some say that these are two equally valid interpretations but the truth is they really aren’t. The entire premise of Superman as originally envisioned by his creators was an immigration allegory combined with a power fantasy. But it wasn’t just any given immigration allegory, it wasn’t as broad as to be anything. It was specifically the allegory of the idealized ultimate American immigrant, the American dream played out in a superhero/science fiction outlet. He wasn’t merely an immigrant, but very much an integrated immigrant who adopted the ideals of his new home and brought with him helpful traits from his place of origin with which to enrichen and help out his new home.

The idea that he felt alienated and not a part of humanity and that was a great tension between himself and those he loved like his parents or Lois...that was honestly an invention after the fact and a huge betrayal of the fundamental defining point of the character. Practically the opposite.

It is in truth a MISinterpretation.

Does that mean Birthright and All-Star Superman and Byrne’s Man of Steel are mutually exclusive?

I don’t know.

But it isn’t merely a case of Byrne being the benchmark for many people. Fact is...he got it objectively correct because he was doing what Siegel and Shuster were doing. If Birthright/All-Star are mutually exclusive then I guess yeah, sorry Waid and Morrisson did in fact get it wrong.

Which shouldn’t be surprising. Waid and Morrisson wanted to effectively reboot Superman BACk to his pre-crisis self circa the 2000s and Morrisson and Waid used said ideas for those stories, with Morisson kinda of rebooting Superman in the Nu52. Cut to 2016 and nu52 Superman was unrebooted back to his post-crisis self (more or less) after the Nu52 (inspired very much by pre-crisis Superman and leaning even harder on the ‘I’m so alienated, let me date this Amazonian demi-godess from an isolated mythic nation’ than pre-crisis itself ever did) utterly failed.

“Many, if you asked them what Parker’s second irreducible element is, would say that the big idea in play is the experience of being a teenager.”

No it isn’t.

“And it’s hardly unfounded.”

Yes it is.

“Voices throughout the online comics community, from Chris Sims[1][2] to Sequart’s own Colin Smith[3] (R.I.P., TooBusyThinkingAboutMyComics) to David Brothers[4], among many others, put forward that idea to greater or lesser degrees.”

And those voices are grossly mistaken.

“And they’re not wrong, not really.”

Again, yes they are.

Let’s contextualize things properly.

Circa the early 1960s the true concept of ‘the teen’ was at best incredibly new and at worst didn’t truly exist. Indeed as originally envisioned by Lee and Ditko Peter was a SENIOR not a 15 year old. He was going on trips out of town on his own within the first 10 issues. Aunt May was talking about him getting married within the first 20 and he considered proposing to Betty before he even hit college.

In those high school years Peter actually DIDN’T spend most of his civilian time in a high school setting. It happened but he was mostly centred upont he Bugle, a place of work.

He was working to support himself, Aunt May and generally financially support the household as the man of the house in lieu of Uncle Ben.

THAT...is the exact opposite of being defined by youth. Even in the early 1960s a teenager wouldn’t have been defined so heavily by their employment, let alone an employment as the breadwinner for the family, the one upon who’s shoulders everything rested.

That is very much an ADULT responsibility. Which makes sense. Realistically lsing your father and having to adopt that responsibility would cause you to grow up faster in many respects. Couple this with the fact that neither Lee or Ditko were even of the same generation as 1960s teens and from a time period where the teenager truly didn’t exist and you as a youngster had to step up earlier and basically go from child to young adult with little in between and it makes a lot of sense, whereas ‘he’s about youth and being a teenager’ absolutely doesn’t.

That’s nothing more than a modern idea we project backwards onto those older stories.

The experience of being a teen had little to do with defining Spider-Man’s character, it just happened to be something relatively different for the time period and indeed Stan Lee stated he called him Spider-MAN in the first place because he intended from the outset for Peter to age into adulthood eventually, and keep going at which point calling himself Spider-BOY made little sense. This is corroborated by the fact that Lee in the stories and in other interviews has repeatedly stated he always intended Peter to eventually marry (a decided adult experience) Gwen Stacy. He equally stated he was pleased in the comics and newspaper strips to see Peter’s character development from teen to married guy and looked forward to him eventually having children.

If part of the core idea of Spider-Man was his youthfulness then these ideas should’ve been anethma to his co-creator. A character defined by youth and the experiences of being a teen can never age out of that period of his life or be intended to age out of that period without destroying the fundamental core of the character, or at least a huge part of the fundamental core.

But that didn’t happen. Spider-Man left high school within the first 3-4 years of his existence and it is in fact the ROMITA era in college which until the early 2000s (when USM began being pushed as the definitve Spider-Man ever) was seen as the true blue golden age of Spider-Man.

There is after all a reason why versions of Spider-man set in high school USE so much stuff from the college era. Few TV shows, movies, video games or alternate universe comics set in Spider-Man’s high school years DON’T feature college era characters like Harry Osborn, Gwen Stacy, Mary Jane, Joe Robertson, Norman Osborn, Black Cat or plot lines relevant from the college years, such as Harry’s drug addiction, Norman being unmasked as the Goblin, the debut of the Rhino, the Shcoker, the Kingpin, Silvermane/other gangsters. Few in fact ever depict Spidey in a relationship with Betty Brant or in a love triangle with her and Liz Allan. Liz herself hasn’t gotten as much play as the above listed college era characters and whenever she does it’s usually in a second fiddle position to said college era characters.

Indeed in the majority of adaptations prior to 2008 (a mere 10 years ago) placed Spider-Man in college instead of high school or else transitioned him into college very quickly. Sam Raimi’s first movie, which is the single most reverential one to the Ditko run, has Peter transition into college by the halfway point of the film.* In the 1994 Spider-Man cartoon (which had a huge influence upon the Raimi trilogy and Venom over all) Spider-Man was only n high school for one flashback sequence and in college the rest of the time and that show had very direct involvement and consultation from Stan Lee. In the upcoming and highly anticipated Insomniac video game, Spider-Man’s story begins POST-College. In the 1970s Spider-Man newspaper strips by Stan Lee himself, the story begins in college and Spider-Man’s origin is even retold to take place in college. Again that’s by the CREATOR of Spider-Man.

It’s very obvious that the teenage/high school experience is NOT key or relevant to the character at all.

Indeed the Ditko issues depicting him in high school don’t place much focus upon his schoolwork, zits, or high school dating and the like. The most it is relevant is being bullied by Flash but that wasn’t in every issue or got half as much panel time as Jameson and the Bugle stuff. Which again, was affiliated with Peter’s work, work being an ADULT aspect of life, not a particularly youthful/high school experience.

You are correct in your assessment that power/responsibility isn’t the sole axis for Spider-Man’s character.

But wholly incorrect that ‘youth’ is the other axis. In truth it’s...being a normal guy.

THAT was the actual point Lee and Ditko had in mind. The Hero who could be YOU! Spider-Man was the everyman hero, the hero with relatable problems. His other axis was that he was ORDINARY relatively speaking, not that he was young.

This is corroborated by long term (as in began in the 1970s) fan and Spider-Man analyst J.R. Fettinger:

Peter's appeal was not that he was a loser (although his hard times was a big factor in his popularity), but that he was ordinary.

I remembered something that one of Hero Realm's co-creators, the "late" George Berryman, told me in the early days of the Realm was that Marvel President Bill Jemas "hates MJ, hates the baby, and wants Spidey to be a kid again."

Hmmm.

For some reason I became hung up on the phrase of wanting Spidey to be a kid again. And finally, I figured out why it was bothering me - and that's because it presumes that Spidey was a kid in the first place. And he wasn't. Not really. At least not the kind of kid the Marvel execs who have been desperate to de-age him think he was.

You doubt?

First of all, we do have to acknowledge that while many of us related to Peter Parker in one way or another (which is the root of his popularity), how many of us are really like him? The second part of that question is how many kids did you know in high school who were like Peter Parker? Let's establish that Peter was 15 at the time of the spider bite (supported by the recent Civil War where Peter tells the media he has been Spider-Man since he was 15 years old). He probably turns 16 before too long and is 17 by Amazing Spider-Man #16 when Matt Murdock, whose radar senses are pretty accurate, estimates his age. Let's look at what kind of "kid" Peter Parker really was in the Lee-Ditko, Lee-Romita, Sr. days:

After the death of Uncle Ben, Peter becomes the head of the household because Aunt May becomes too frail and senile to do much of anything (the way she was written at that time). Although Aunt May cooks him wheatcakes and worries about him being sick, Peter is the one with the primary source of income, and he is also her primary caregiver, a very atypical situation for a 15 or 16 year old.

Speaking of Peter's employment, I probably really don't need to talk about the inherent absurdity of a high schooler becoming one of the premier photographers of that great metropolitan newspaper, the Daily Bugle.

Peter's (and Spidey's) quick, razor-sharp witticisms tend to be the product of a more mature, experienced, well-read individual given the topical references, like maybe a middle-aged writer. Just a guess. There are too many to mention, but one of my favorite of Peter's overwritten zingers occurs in Amazing Spider-Man #26, when having had enough of Flash Thompson's big mouth, he states "I'm in no mood for your musclebound mirth today! And the same goes for your gang of grinning hyenas." Hey, I love this stuff, but if Peter were doing this on TV in one of those typical teen-age oriented shows where the kids have all the brains and wisdom and the parents are largely ineffectual buffoons, his character would be pilloried by the critics for being too highbrow, clever, or simply obnoxious for a teenager. I did know someone in college who was the quickest with a great comeback as anyone I have ever met before or since, but he was an English and literature major, not a science major (he's now an English professor and writer, so there seems to be a logical connect).

Speaking of the science major thing, I am probably in the minority opinion on this, but the extent of Peter's genius leaves me a bit cold. I do like the idea that he is this brainy guy whom everyone thinks is a nerd, but is really this terrific superhero. But seriously, an expert in complex polymers by age 15 (as Roger Stern once illustrated - in order to demonstrate that Peter was already on the road to the web fluid thing)? And then there's that anti-magnetic inverter he uses in Amazing #2 to take out the Vulture. And don't forget how he whipped up an antidote to temporarily cure the Lizard all in the space of a couple of panels in Amazing #6. I have a feeling that any kid this smart would not be in the New York City public school system, or any public school system.

So, ultimately, Peter Parker was never a real kid, not in the sense that real kids are, but he was really an adult in a teenager's body. He had the weight of the world on his shoulders like an adult, and he had true adult responsibilities. In a way, Peter Parker was very much like Charlie Brown of Peanuts fame. Charles Schulz's famous character was never really just a plain kid - he was a neurotic adult in the body of an eight year old (or however old he was). And talk about topical references, Peanuts was loaded with them. However, Schultz's clever writing, wit, and keen understanding of human foibles made this accessible to both young and old. It wouldn't have mattered whether Charlie was five or 15, Schultz's marvelous writing would have carried the message in an entertaining style.

Now, I am not implying that no teenager has ever become head of the household, or held a permanent job before graduation, or had a lightning fast wit, or been a super-genius and still at a public school (but was there ever anyone who was all of those). Nor am I trying to take anyway any of the fun of the early days of Spider-Man, nor ruin any of the fantasy conceits, because that's what it is - fantasy. We recognize that and enjoy it anyway. The point I am making is that for anyone, whether they be a Marvel suit, editor, writer, or someone from Wizard to get hung up on Peter's youth being the core of his popularity, and something that must be repeatedly revisited in order to make the titles popular again, is either blind, in denial, or simply not doing their homework on the character.

And if you want to handwave his views because he is a fan and observer (like Sims et al listed above) then consider this...Tom DeFalco agrees with him. Tom DeFalco has stated more than once that Spider-Man is about responsibility and NOT youth.

To get why that is a big deal, Tom DeFalco is also a long time fan. As in began reading in 1962 with Amazing Fantasy #15. He edited Spider-Man for years. He wrote THREE runs on Spider-Man and a 10+ year long run on a pseudo sequel called Spider-Girl. He was EIC of Marvel for a time and wrote a book literally called ‘Spider-Man: the Ultimate Guide’.

He is infinitely more qualified to discuss Spider-Man than any of the other people listed in this article or in my response sans Stan Lee himself.**

And he corroborates my and Fettinger’s point, that Spider-Man is definitely NOT about youth/the teenage high school experience.

“Moreover The high school years, and everything that comes with them, are indisputably at the center of the earliest adventures.”

Yes and no.

Spider-Man was in high school for the first 28 issues so yes.

But high school EXPERIENCES were 100% indisputably NOT the centre of the stories for that time period and again, Spider-Man became MORE popular and his true golden age was defined AFTER high school.

“ It’s a well people have been going back to for years from the late, lamented Spectacular Spider-Man cartoon; to David Lapham and Tony Harris’s With Great Power; Marvel Adventures Spider-Man; Sean McKeever, Takeshi Miyazawa and David Hahn’s Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane; twice over with Ultimate Spider-Man by Brian Bendis and assorted artists (in my opinion, the most effective comic at recapturing the spirit of the Lee / Ditko years during the first run with Bagley…though again, that’s a topic for another time); and soon enough once more with Dan Slott and Ramon Perez’s “Learning To Crawl”. ”

And again, notice how all of those within Spider-Man’s 55+ year history only relate to stuff from the last 18. Spider-Man hit 56 years old recently. 18/56 is merely less than 33 percent of all of Spider-Man’s history wherein the high school era is being revisted over and over and over again.

It has even less weight when you consider the trend merely started because

a) USM was popular and USM’s success owed much more to Bagley’s art and the accessibility afforded it by being a singular self-contained narrative with a clear starting point. Read issue one or volume 1 of the trades and then keep going, no need to crossover into Ultimate Spectacular or Ultimate Web of Spider-Man

b) USM got started up by the disastrous EIC Bill Jemas who ignorantly believed Spider-Man to be defined by youth

c) The Spec cartoon was set in high school first and foremost to simply differentiate itself from almost every adaptation prior to it which DIDN’T centre things in high school and a desire to try something that had never been done before. The long term plan was for the show to run 5 seasons of high school before transitioning into DVD movies set in college

d) Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane was aimed as a tweenage all ages audience thus centring things on high school experiences made more sense as that was more directly relating to the age of the audience

e) Around the same time period Superman’s origins were revisted multiple times because people just LIKE going back to the early years inherently.

This doesn’t spell out ‘high school is more inherently Spider-Man and better for the character’. It spells out ‘this is something different we’re milking for all it’s worth whilst getting stuck in a rut creatively.

Hell THAT IS WHY Insomniac are NOT doing high school OR college for their game.

Additionally USM DID NOT recapture the spirit of the original Ditko stories. People believe they did because they liked it or else because that narrative has been repeated. But a simple analysis of the Ditko High school years to USM reveals countless differences between he two, differences which very seriously alter the spirit of the original stories. Ditko Peter had no real friends and his first romance wasn’t serious at all. He was constantly anxious over May’s health and being a provider for the family. Jameson was a constant source of harassment in and out of costume and a major force impacting his life, with his whole job as a photographer meant to get one over on his harasser. Ditko Peter was over all lonely and on edge a lot emotionally.

NONE of that applies to Ultimate Spider-Man under Bendis. Peter is more chilled out and whilst not a member of the in-crowd, clearly isn’t lonely having a friendship group. His first romance with MJ isn’t not serious, it’s a very deep committed love that involves her acting as a confidant which was absolutely NOT the case in the original Ditko stories. Jameson is barely there and his smear campaign against Spider-Man is not the most important aspect of their relationship or has a huge impact upon Peter’s life. Gwen Stacy lives with him. Nick Fury has an important presence upon his life and Aunt May is the bread winner, provider and is never a source of worry due to being pretty healthy for her age.

It is truly NOT a spiritual successor to the Ditko run at all.

“Those earliest of stories are at the center of everything good about the character…”

Again, no they aren’t. Mary Jane, Gwen Stacy, Harry Osborn, the Green Goblin and everything awesome about the College era (which I will remind you was MORE popular than the High school era) proves that assessment incorrect.

“The Parker Luck, in those earliest days? Largely amounted to costumes shrinking in the wash, or misunderstandings with his girlfriend(s… You unmitigated cad), or his aunt just not getting it, man”

Aunt May not getting it was a college era thing, not prevalent in the high school era.

“but from any objective standpoint the boy was leading a charmed life. So why the misery? Because he’s a teenager. ”

No. The misery was because he didn’t lead a charmed life. This is patently obvious from the stories.

He had no friends.

His girlfriend Betty Brant was often unreasonable and became insanely jealous whenever Liz like...talked to him!

His mother figure was often in poor health creating huge financial burdens.

Jameson verbally abused him and shortchanged him at work.

The public hated and feared him and believed him to be a criminal.

He risked his life routinely.

He was ostracized and bullied at school.

Oh yeah...and his father figure was dead and he blamed himself for it.

To dismiss all that and chalk up his misery via ‘he’s a teenager of course he’d be moody’ is a gross misinterpretation of the character and a highly unsympathetic attempt to analyze him.

I’m not saying his woes weren’t over exaggerated due to his age, but serious and justifiable cause for sadness Peter absolutely had.

“Because it’s always the end of the world at 16, when in truth the world isn’t set against him (something we’ll be getting back to), but his problems simply result from misunderstandings, from the basic realities of his situation, and from screw-ups entirely on his own part. ”

Again this is objectively wrong. SOMETIMES yes there are screw ups of his own makings, but Flash’s bullying, Jameson’s smear campaign and May’s illnesses were the biggest sources of woe in his life and none of those were his fault. Those were instances where thw world really was unjustifiably against him. Jameson had no right cause to smear Spider-Man. Flash wasn’t in the right to bully Peter. And May and Peter didn’t deserve to go through May’s frail health.

“His was a situation entirely relatable, a lonely boy hiding behind a false face and acting as the man he wants to be, getting the strength over time to become that man himself. ”

No he WAS a man who’d had to grow up in a lot of ways fast just to cope with the burdens of life. See what Fettinger wrote above as well as Amazing Fantasy #16 and ASM #400’s backup story by DeMatteis, both of which have Peter in the past and in hindsight referring to himself as a growing up with the death of uncle Ben.

You are channelling Sims misinterpretation here.

Both his and your argument hinges upon Spider-Man being a facade Peter adopts when he becomes Spider-Man like he’s Superman or Batman in reverse.

But that isn’t the case. Spider-Man isn’t an ACT Peter performs, it’s just him, freed from certain constraints.

In or out of the costume he is who he is.

“A kid who refuses to tell the people closest to him about himself, in theory for their own good, but deep down because he’s terrified of being rejected the same way so many do when you’re growing up and defining your identity. ”

Or because you know nobody in the high school years were shown as trustworthy besides Aunt May who a doctor more or less told him ‘If you surprise her enough she WILL die!’

The more people who know something the bigger the chance that it’ll slip out. If May found out then as far as Peter knew that WOULD kill her, end of story.

So who was he SUPPOSED to trust with his big secret besides her?

Betty Brant? The woman who worked directly with the millionaire news mogul who HATED him? The woman who’d proven herself to have some criminal ties and who was generally unreasonable far too often?

Liz Allan who partook in the mocking and bullying of Peter until she abruptly started to like him?

Flash, his bully and tormentor?

Jameson his OTHER tormentor?

There was NOBODY for Peter to safely tell his secret to without risking it coming out to Aunt May.

And his fear of rejection wasn’t stemming from teenage angst (because AGAIN, the concept of the teenager as we know it today didn’t truly exist in the 1960s) but from Jameson painting him as a criminal.

In fact Peter DID come clean in ASM #87 during the college era to people who HAD been close to him and whom he sincerely loved and cared for and had infinitely more reason to trust than anyone in the high school era.

Know what happened?

They DID reject him!

“As the challenges increase, so too does he rise to meet them, maturing into the sort of person capable of realizing the responsibilities he’s taken on, and the storytelling engine I mentioned earlier purrs, as do sales figures.”

Or you know he meets those responsibilities from the outset and as word of mouth and confidence in the series grows so too do sales until Romita took over, aged Peter into adulthood and told fun less angsty (so...less teenaged) stories which resulted in stratospheric sales.

“Lifting some big-ass machinery aside, that’s the comic where his puppy-dog relationship with Betty Brant comes to a conclusive end, not out of manufactured concern that revealing his secret will somehow lead to her demise (that worry wouldn’t come to the forefront of his concerns until…oh, let’s say about 88 issues later), but from the simple and adult acknowledgement that it would never work between the two no matter how they feel. ”

No. Peter and Betty ENDED their relationship in ASM #30 not #33. ASM #33 just underscored the ending. It ended in ASM #30 because Peter realized Betty didn’t and couldn’t want to marry a man who risked his life as he did.

He’d already ended it, ASM #33 just confirmed his decision as correct.

“That’swhere he finally meets JJJ on his own terms and gets one up on the skinflint. That’s where he finally, at least in theory, manages to overcome the shame of his first and greatest failure by saving Aunt May. It had been getting built up to for a while, with Peter graduating high school and getting into college, but things were still on hold with his preoccupation with his aunt’s medical problems distracting from his rapidly-growing new cast. ”

I don’t necessarily disagree that Peter completely corsses the threshold into adulthood with the Master Planner trilogy but this actually undermines your earlier argument that the character was built around and doesn’t work without being defined by youth.

I’ve already laid out how that was never the case but for the sake of argument let’s say you are right and he had been about youth up until ASM #33 when he grows up.

How comes the character dealt with mostly similar social and personal issues (exempting lonliness and bullying) after that point in addition to new more adult ones and sales and acclaim went UP?

“In the last Ditko issues, you see Peter going out of his way to connect with his new classmates, an idea that would have been anathema to him not many issues earlier, and turning down the advances of a potential Betty Brant in the making in ASM #36 because he’s managed to figure out where that will go”

Again no, your assessment is that Peter turned down that girl because he figured out it’d be a retread of Betty brant. In truth that was a mistaken presumption he made naively. He believed she valued his brains and therefore it’d turn out like Betty. He was wrong.

“Suddenly the stakes are higher. Aunt May’s condition worsens. The fabled money problems start to come to the forefront, though at the moment they’re mostly limited to not being able to pay for dates or his snazzy new motorcycle, rather than the life-or-death issue it would become later. ”

Again this is a poorly researched assessment. Aunt May had been having health problems throughout the Ditko run, with 3 near fatal health problems alone. Peter had money problems related to those and other things literally from ASM #1.

Your assessment is that these things didn’t exist or didn’t exist as prominently until the Romita era but this is probably incorrect. They were there in big ways and merely continued into the Romita era.

You could argue they were more prominent because there were more instances of those things, but the Romita (more accurately the post-Ditko Stan Lee run) lasted LONGER than the Ditko era over all so of course that was the case.

“And even as the situation worsens, he doesn’t crumble under the pressure, because he’s changed enough as a hero and a man to rise to those challenges, even if he’ll never rise above them.”

But he didn’t crumble before such challenges before during the High school years and in certain cases DID rise above such challenges.

“But with exceptions like Mary Jane’s arrival, “Spider-Man No More” and the rightly famous Harry Osborn drug issues, Stan’s remaining time on Spider-Man would never reach the heights of his collaboration with Ditko. ”

Yeah, remember how sales went down after Ditko left...except they didn’t.

Remember how all those Ditko stories like Kraven crashing Flash’s leaving party, or the Petrified Tablet Saga, or the Brand of the Brainwasher, or Doc Ock boarding with Aunt May, or Captain Stacy’s death or the first Rhino stories, the first Colonel Jupiter story, the debut of Shocker, Kingpin or Norman Osborn remember he was the Goblin the first time, were so much better than everything after Ditko left and got acclaimed or revisted in adaptations, retellings and flashbacks over the course of decades?

Oh wait a minute all of those were post-Ditko stories.

“It started to congeal into familiarity, the never-ending soap opera that others would come to imitate—after all, it’s far easier to replicate the success of something when it can be reduced down to a formula, rather than a constant series of innovations—and would eventually be accepted itself as an essential element of the character.”

Yes but this applies to the majority of comic book runs wherein a writer lingers for too long. Lee’s F4 work dipped in quality over time.

Post-Gwen’s death the quality markedly improved.

“And as a result of this, and the desire to reduce Spider-Man to an easily-repeatable equation being applied to the earlier stories causing the strip-mining of only the surface elements, the core character philosophies of the Spider-Man franchise would be twisted into Loss and the Soap Opera dynamics mentioned earlier.”

No they weren’t. They were twisted into ‘he’s a loser’ and even that wasn’t a perennial thing. It applies to the Woflman run, the Mackie/Byrne reboot, Brand New Day and Slott’s run.

“One good example of the problem is the relatively recent “Mysterioso” arc of Amazing Spider-Man #618-620, by Dan Slott and Marcos Martin. Good writing, ”

There is no such thing as a Dan Slott Spider-Man story with good writing because Dan Slott is an objectively aweful Spider-Man writer.

In this story alone you have him nonsensically ignore Mysterio’s death in Daredevil saying he faked it. How the Hell does Mysterio fake out DD’s hyper senses?

“What, you don’t remember Carlie Cooper’s father, introduced in that arc as having been a cop who died years earlier but actually being alive and really being in the crooked pocket of Mysterio but is taken down by his daughter getting her to make an emotional breakthrough, none of this having anything to do with Spider-Man himself and actually completely distracting from the engaging main plot and it worked about as well as this overlong sentence?”

See you just spelled out a huge reason why this arc cannot logically be said to have good writing.

“It’s gone from Peter having trouble explaining himself to the person who can’t be trusted with even the simplest tasks—and in fact, he has become truly forgetful and neglectful a great deal of the time. He’s gone from a whiz-kid who has to take pictures of himself to pay the bills because of his aunt to the 250 I.Q. mega-genius who can barely scrape by, an empathetic naturally good-humored friend who can’t hold a relationship, a trouble-magnet whose luck once explainable by his own mistakes and misfortunes can at this point only be explained by witchcraft. He’s become the loser he was always afraid he was. What are we supposed to learn from this irresponsible schmuck, exactly?”

This is the single most poignant and insightful comment in the article. But this only applies to Spider-Man from 2008 onwards. This WASN’T true of the JMS era Spider-Man.

“So if he isn’t about loss (at least not, I’d argue, in a manner that can really work long-term at such a high level as what’s been going on for so long), but he’s not really about being a teenager either, what is he ‘about’?

He’s about growing.”

Jesus Christ no, he isn’t.

He’s not about growing, about being a teen or about loss.

He’s about power+responsibility within the context of being a relatively normal person.

THAT’S WHY HE’S CALLED SO RELATABLE!

THAT’S why he’s referred to by Stan Lee himself as the hero who could be you.

“That scene above in ASM #8 (by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, which is as official as if Marvel the corporate entity gained sentience and started writing comics on its own), where Spidey’s hogtying the Human Torch? Johnny’s not secretly the Chameleon in disguise, nor is he being mind-controlled by Dr. Doom or the Ringmaster. Peter’s doing it because he’s angry at the guy getting all the breaks he doesn’t, and feels like publicly ruining his day. This was not, by the way, the slightest bit uncharacteristic of Peter Parker as we’d seen him up to this point.”

Actually it absolutely was, especially when you consider the story actually happens after ASM #21 when Peter had already matured a bit.

You need to understand that this story whilst being published IN ASM...in truth is actually more of a Strange Tales Human Torch story.

There is no personal life stakes for Spider-Man and Spidey is himself the only character from his own comic to appear, everyone else from the Torch to the FF, Dorrie Evans and the other Torch supporting cast are from Strange Tales. And as if to confirm things, this was the ONLY Spider-Man story during the Ditko era published in ASM and it’s annuals NOT worked on by Ditko himself.

We all know of the Marvel method which rendered the artists of each story vital contributors to the stories at hand. Well if Stan Lee was working with Ditko vs. Kirby on a particular project the end results, including the characterization, were not necessarily going to be the same. In fact they often were not.

Kirby didn’t create or understand Spider-Man. Ditko did and Ditko DIDN’T characetrize Spidey like this during most of his run, including up until this point.

Additionally to differentiate themselves from DC, the Marvel pantheon routinely had the heroes bicker and dislike one another whenever they met up. It was rare for that to NOT be the case in the Silver Age.

And routinely in the Silver Age the guest stars were painted more unfavourably than the resident main character(s). This was the case for most of the F4’s appearences in ASM.

ASM #8 is a reversal because like I said, it’s not actually a Spider-Man story. It’s a left over Strange Tales story. It’s a Torch story which means Torch is painted positively whilst Spider-Man is painted as a jerk, synergy and consistent characterization be damned.

“In the earliest material, Peter Parker was a dick, and that went on long after the mugger got turned in. ”

No he absolutely wasn’t. Moments where he was a dick perhaps but this is a toxically cynical and unsympathetic misinterpretation of the character in line with the bullshit of ‘he lived a charmed life’.

I’ve seen it before and it never holds up.

Worse is the notion of he was a dick even after the mugger was turned in. Like...his Dad just died dude FFS.

“ His immediate response after Ben was killed? Keep on going with the show business until Jameson starts going after him.”

Yeah in order to earn money to support Aunt May and allow them to keep their home because they were facing eminent eviction.

He wasn’t resolving to continue with show business INSTEAD of fighting crime, that was evident from ASM #1 and #2 as well as from the untold stories from Amazing Fantasy #16-18.

“His first couple saves are at least in part about His Good Name, whether saving Jameson’s son with the idea that it would get him on the old man’s good side, or going after the Chameleon for impersonating him, and even once he starts going after criminals on a consistent basis it’s initially only for photography money. ”

Again you’ve not properly paid attention and your interpretation is rooted in cynicism.

Yeah IN PART he was going after those things for the sake of his reputation. But that wasn’t the root of it at all.

He saves John Jameson because he saw someone in need he doesn’t even mention the idea that saving him will help his reputation until after the fact and it’s an afterthought. He simply saw someone who needed help and so he acted as he hadn’t done before with the burglar.

In the Chameleon story he spots the Chameleon getting away with government secrets (a HUGE deal in the Cold War 1960s) and sees his helicopter getting away so he leaps into action.

Is he doing it to exonerate himself or would he have done that had he realized a spy was making away with stolen secrets right in front of him anyway?

Given how in the same comic book he leapt into action to save a life immediately it’s very obviously the latter that doubles up as the former. And even it was to exonerate himself that’s hardly a selfish dick move.

A criminal committed a crime and framed him for it. It isn’t selfish or a dick move to bring him to justice.

Equally even if he was fighting crimes to rehabilitate his reputation, again his damaged rep was how he lost a reliable source of income that he needed to survive and support his aunt and household. It isn’t selfish and dickish to attempt to help your reputation under those circumstances.

As for going after criminals for photography money this is again a misrepresentation of Spider-Man’s motives.

In ASM #2 it’s implied the Vulture’s presence isn’t huge. Some people don’t even believe he exists. It’s ambiguous as to when exactly Peter himself learned of his existence and even if he did already know he had the more pressing problem of earning money to pay the rent for himself and aunt May, he might not have figured out or gotten a routine going for actively crime fighting yet.

He seeks out the Vulture for profit initially yes but again earning money isn’t selfish or a dick move. He needed to do it to survive and support Aunt May. He GETS the pictures and therefore his source of income after being beaten by the Vulture but states that he’s already resolved to be a costumed adventurer before upgrading his belt. In other words he had already decided to fight crime and just saw a way to (pardon the pub) kill 2 birds with one stone. To this end he initiates a rematch with Vulture even though he didn’t HAVE to if he was in it just for the money. He already had the pictures he didn’t NEED to end the public menace of the Vulture and he wasn’t naive enough to believe that doing so would change Jonah’s tune.

But he did it anyway because he WAS trying to be a hero.

“He takes stupid chances. He’s desperate for cash. He insults and attacks undeserving people. ”

Apart from being desperate for cash (which would mean his efforts for helping his rep or earning money WOULDN’T make him a dick) he literally never does this at any point in the Ditko run. He maybe insults ONE person who doesn’t deserve it once.

“He fakes pictures of Sandman and Electro with the flimsiest of moral justifications.”

No. He faked pictures of the Sandman out of youthful naivete and then did it with Electro to earn money to SAVE AUNT MAY’S LIFE!

Journalistic ethics can go suck the big one if they need to be sacrificed for the sake of saving a human life for God’s sake.

He felt bad about the latter showing how he wasn’t a dick and had grown and consequently accepted the reprimands that eventually came from faking such pictures.

“He’s got a chip on his shoulder the size of Queens and can barely begin to control his temper.”

Again bullshit. He controls his temper plenty hence he only once lashes out at Flash twice and obviously not fully since he never used his strength to seriously injure him.

As for having a chip on your shoulder no shit. His Dad’s dead, his mother is sickly and he’s trying to hold it all together whilst some asshole on the news lies about him and he’s bullied at school.

OF COURSE he has a chip on his shoulder.

“He’ll lash out at people on suspicion or anger alone,”

Again he literally never did this.

“ and in some early stories he just plain gave up or ran away until he learned his lesson or circumstances changed. ”

Yeah he did but that doesn’t make him a dick. It makes him human. He quit TWICE by the way. Once after Doc Ock owned his ass and broke his confidence (which can happen to anyone of any age) and once when everything went wrong and Aunt May was dying. She got better and gave him a pep talk.

This again is something that can happen to anyone and isn’t an example of being qa dick.

Does it maybe show him as being a kid.

Sure.

But that wasn’t the POINT. Stan Lee wanted him to be realistic and he happened to be a youngster. So he relatively speaking wrote him believably within that context, but as I said youth was never THE point.

Nor was growth because EVERY Silver Age marvel character grew and developed, whether they were teens like Rick Jones, Spider-Man and the Torchor adults like Doctor Strange, Reed Richards and Ben Grimm.

“He’s a bitter, arrogant know-it-all who looks down on virtually everyone around him, and even if we can’t blame him with all he goes through, he’s often far afield of anything resembling “likeable”.”

Except for all those readers of the time and sine who called him likable and relatable you mean.

Your just being utterly cynical.

I mean who does he ACTUALLY look down on really? Flash and the people who bully him who display anti-intellectual tendencies. Jameson who is a blowhard slander hound. Oh and the super villains who waste their talents on hurting people so fuck them.

Beyond those people he looks down sometimes on fellow heroes but every hero looked down upon basically every other hero in Silver Age Marvel and real talk, Spider-Man had it rougher than most of them anyway so he wasn’t wrong to think he WAS better than them.

But he didn’t look down on Betty or Aunt May or Uncle Ben or other people. SO he isn’t that arrogant most of the time (a little bit early on when he hasn’t faced down major foes like Doc Ock yet but then that stops by issue #3) and his bitterness is well earned.

So you are again misinterpreting.

Moreover those things apply to many differnet Marvel Silver Age characters.

Reed, Ben, and Sue, all adults, had plenty of moments of aggression, immaturity and the like. Not because the point was they are those things but just because that’s how Stan happened to write most of his characters back then. Hank Pym could be an aggressive jerk. Captain America could be an aggressive immature jerk, e.g. when he tried to inspire Hank Pym by attacking him.

“But he changes, so completely many seem to forget he was ever anything other than the official co-saint of the Marvel Universe alongside Steve Rogers. Perhaps it’s in part because of this misunderstanding that Spider-Man 2—starring Peter Parker being Very Sad because he won’t trust the people around him with information that directly impacts their safety, and pushing himself so hard he can’t even effectively fight crime anymore, defeating the purpose altogether of him taking the pain of the entirety of New York unto himself like a bargain-basement Christ—is widely considered the high-water mark of the character’s modern history, while the Peter Parker of The Amazing Spider-Man—who actually acts like a teenager, keeps on making mistakes and operating under selfish motives even after the mugging and has to learn, and is willing to place hope in tomorrow and try and still make a happy life for himself alongside the obligations he must shoulder—is quite widely considered a “douchebag”.”

Dear God this is so wrongheaded it hurts.

In the Raimi movies Peter thinks that entrusting MJ with his secret will endanger her because she likes Spider-Man so she’d want to be with him more. Which HAPPENS. He was 100% correct, she literally ditches her wedding for him!

But he WANTED to push her away because in her NOT being too close to him she would be safer. Which is also 100% correct but he evolved by the end of the second movie to be at peace with that risk and accepting that it was her choice.

It didn’t defeat the purpose it was a lesson he needed to LEARN. But his logic can’t be questioned.

As for Harry or Aunt May, he feared May would hate and reject him and that’s his goddam MOTHER so obviously he wasn’t going to tell her until he couldn’t stand it any more. And the other guy was his best friend and in his case he already wanted to kill him and then TRIED to do that in the third movie so again peter was right.

In Spider-Man 2 Peter doesn’t push himself too hard, he merely tries to balance everyday life with being a hero and finds it a struggle as was the case in the comic it was originally based upon. His mind and body suspend his powers because subconsciously he wants to be free of the burden but it wasn’t like if he’d taken things easier it wouldn’t have happened. He wasn’t going too hard, he was going normally but normally is hard when you are a hero. In fact the whole ‘he loses his powers because he doesn’t want them’ thing IS from a Ditko issue so your point is moot.

As for Garfield Spider-Man unless you grade him on the curve he was kind of a douchebag. Not so much in what he does but how he did it. He was overly cocky for the character, e.g. his dip and kiss of Gwen in the second movie. That movie that along with the first one you know...killed the franchise so hard Marvel Studios had to save them.

So...why is Spider-Man 2 not a high water mark again?

No to mention comparing the two by damning Spider-Man 2 is foolish because they are not the same ages or at the same points in their lives.

“He grows, he shifts, he learns lessons and forgets them and falls and picks himself back up, and he never stops pushing forward. He takes on the responsibility of becoming the Man he claims to be, that others need him to be, even if he doesn’t consciously realize it at first. That’s how he was built, and how he was visibly meant to keep going at first. That’s the “in”, that’s what makes him an everyman we can all relate to, because no one ever stops growing up.”

Yes and no.

Yes he was designed to grow and develop, but everyone stops growing up when they hit adulthood, they just don’t stop growing as people.

No though that wasn’t what made him relatable. The reltability WAS the point, not the growing up. He was relatable because he dealt with down to Earth normal life problems along with relatively realistic problems spiralling out of being a superhero and just having normal life experines anyway.

Countless movies present everyman characters who are NOT teenagers or people in the midst of reaching adulthood but who are already there. The Ghostbusters for example. These are not characters who grow up but are relatable nevertheless.

Peter remained relatable in the 80s and 90s and 2000s even though he HAD grown up and HAD hit adulthood a long time before.

“It’s what differentiates him, makes him real, compared to Superman or Batman or the FF or Captain America. ”

But THEY all grew and developed too! Less so with Superman and Batman but all the Silver Age Marvel characters grew and developed!

“And while the steps needed to keep that wheel moving are still implemented, one aching step at a time, it’s still drowned out by a deluge of perfectly satisfactory but no longer cutting-edge superhero adventures (that is, when such steps aren’t rolled back altogether, Mr. Quesada). ”

I don’t even understand this part.

“*describes the Joe Casey Bounce comic* So again: is that the only future? Is that the sole way any trace of Spider-Man as originally envisioned and executed can survive?”

First of all the Bounce sounds like it has a shallow misinformed grasp of Spider-Man.

Second of all the vision and execution of Spider-Man doesn’t need weird Indie AU knock offs to survive.

Spider-Man works at any age because he’s about being a normal guy defined by responsibility. He merely HAPPEND to start off as a teen for the sake of some novelty but it was never going to be the forever more status quo or inherently the appeal of the character.

Consider how many Spider-Man fans were forged in consequent decades via media adaptations of the character where he was more or less at a static age. He might’ve developed and grown but he didn’t begin as a teen or a high schooler in those?

How many people jumped into the comics in the 80s-2000s where Spider-Man was an adult and not aging much but was still written as a vibrant three dimensional character defined by being relatively down to Earth....and it worked.

I’m not saying character development isn’t critically vital at all, just that the notion that it’s dependent upon going from youngster to adulthood is not the inherent necessity of the character outside of adaptations which seek to replicate the mythology. 616 Spider-Man is in his early 30s and can keep going forward from there and work just fine because character development can still happen regardless of his age.

Fundamentally your logic here is Spider-Man grew up therefore that is the point of his character. But as I’ve said or implied before this, that applies to every Marvel character.

The X-Men being teens wasn’t truly the point, the point was bigotry and they became MORE popular when they were replaced by adult characters in Giant-Sized X-Men. They even graduated very quickly. But growth wasn’t the point for them either. Nor the F4 who grew and changed nor Daredevil nor the Avengers.

Growth is just part of many examples of good storytelling and part of what definied the Marvel Universe as a whole .

It’s blind to remove Spider-Man from that context and codify that it’s what he specifically was about.

“While limited, growth has happened for the character, and it tended to be in some of the better stories of the last decade plus. Whether starting to guide children like he himself once was in the solid early sections of J. Michael Straczynski and John Romita Jr.’s run on the main title; confronting the nature of his role as a superhero in relation to his villains and Peter Parker’s own role in society in Mark Millar, Terry Dodson and Frank Cho’s Marvel Knights: Spider-Man (a largely overlooked gem by the former, and the most traditional of his modern work besides perhaps his Fantastic Four run); having him take his mission to the next level in both technology and dedication in Dan Slott and Marcos Martin’s modern classic “No One Dies”; showing what would happen if Peter Parker finally started to pursue his dreams as well as his duties in Slott’s “Big Time”, or revealing what would happen to a Spider-Man who couldn’t grow in Superior Spider-Man under Slott again, Peter Parker can still keep moving forward one step at a time, still undergo the growth that informs his responsibilities which informs his growth and so and so on into forever, and still maintain what he is: the normal guy in the world of giants.”

Okay...I actually agree with this but not the way you reached this conclusion via ‘He’s obviously ABOUT being a teen/growing up.’

“At the time of writing, I’m soon to pick up the newly relaunched Amazing Spider-Man by Dan Slott and Humberto Ramos. Given that he wrote three of those examples I just listed, I have fairly high hopes.”

Slot progessed Peter, then regressed him and even amidst all that he didn’t progress him in the right direction.

You stated that he should be a normal guy. Slott turned him into a super scientist and then later a 1%er

“This is going to be by the writer who had him come back from the dead in part by admitting that being Spider-Man is actually pretty fun.”

It was also by the writer who turned Doc Ock into a rapist and proceeded to use him and variant versions of Spider-Man to show use how lame the original was before mutating the original into an Iron Man rip off.

Hindsight sucks the big one I guess.

*Even if you say he came of age at the end of the movie the movie was one part of a three part story in which he spent most of his time NOT as a teen or someone growing up. He was just an adult.

**Also he more than anybody advocated and pushed for Peter to age forward into adult life experiences, such as parenthood even though his favourite era was Spider-Man as a high schooler (makes sense that was the era he began with). The fact that his fav era was Spider-Man as a teen and yet he maintains SPider-Man was never about youth and advocated for him to be MORE adult adds much to his credibility.

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yessadirichards · 5 years ago

Photo

IOC admits postponing Olympics an option, but cancellation 'not on agenda'

The International Olympic Committee acknowledged which way the wind was blowing.

LAUSANNE - The International Olympic Committee said Sunday that postponing the 2020 Olympics is one of its options as the world grapples with the coronavirus pandemic, but that cancellation of the Tokyo showpiece was "not on the agenda".

The IOC has faced strong pressure to push back the Games, scheduled from July 24 to August 9, from sporting federations and athletes worried about the health risk as the COVID-19 global death tally went past 13,000 on Sunday.

IOC president Thomas Bach said a decision on when the Games take place would be made "within the next four weeks".

"Human lives take precedence over everything, including the staging of the Games," Bach wrote in an open letter to athletes.

"We have, as indicated before, been thinking in different scenarios and are adapting them almost day by day."

But, he added that "there are significant improvements in Japan" and he still had hopes the Games could be held on schedule, even if that would present logistical difficulties.

"A final decision about the date of the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 now would still be premature," he said.

Bach explained that the IOC was discussing its options with health authorities and stakeholders.

"We are confident that we will have finalised these discussions within the next four weeks."

He made clear that there would a Games in Tokyo at some point.

"Cancellation would not solve any problem and would help nobody," Bach said. "Therefore it is not on our agenda."

- Thumbs down-

The idea of holding the Games on schedule has drawn a swelling chorus of objections.

On Sunday, nine-time Olympic track and field champion Carl Lewis, as well as the head of French athletics added their voices to the US and French swimming federations, the US and Spanish athletics federations, the Norwegian Olympic Committee and past and current athletes.

Sprinter and long jumper Lewis, who won gold at four different Olympics, told Houston television station KRIV, that he backed calls for postponement.

"I just think it's really difficult for an athlete to prepare, to train, to keep their motivation if there's complete uncertainty. That's the hardest thing," he said.

"I think a more comfortable situation would be two years and put it in the Olympic year with the Winter Olympics (Beijing 2022) and then make it kind of a celebratory Olympic year."

World Athletics, the governing body of track and field, said they were "ready to work with the IOC and all sport on an alternative date".

"World Athletics welcomes discussions with the IOC to postpone the Tokyo Olympic Games and wrote to the IOC earlier today to relay this feedback from its Area Presidents, Council and athletes," it said in a statement.

On Saturday, World Athletics president Sebastian Coe told AFP that the sporting world was in "uncharted territory".

"I don't think we should have the Olympic Games at all costs, certainly not at the cost of athlete safety," said Coe.

US media reported on Sunday that American athletes had voted during a virtual town hall with US Olympic and Paralympic Committee (USOPC) officials and given Tokyo the thumbs down.

Almost three-quarters of the 300 athletes who met online with USOPC supported delaying the Games, USA Today reported.

In all, 70 percent of the athletes supported a postponement with another 23 percent saying it would depend on the consequences, according to details supplied by a member of the USOPC Athletes Advisory Council.

- 'Really selfish' -

Almost a quarter wanted a decision no later than April 15, while 18 percent wanted an immediate decision.

"I feel the IOC is being really, really selfish in trying to push it," US hammer thrower Gwen Berry said. "And there's no need to push it."

US swim and athletics trials to determine the nation's two largest Olympic delegations are set for June.

"The right and responsible thing to do is to prioritise everyone's health and safety and appropriately recognise the toll this difficult situation has, and continues to take, on our athletes and their Olympic Games preparations," said USA Track and Field chief Max Siegel.

"For those reasons, USATF is respectfully requesting that the USOPC advocate to the IOC for the postponement of the 2020 Olympic Games."

The head of the French athletics federation said postponement was inevitable.

"Everyone agrees that the Games cannot be held on the dates planned," Andre Giraud said.

"If the crisis is contained by the end of May, we can envisage a postponement of the Games to the autumn. But Plan C would be a six-month or one-year postponement," he said.

#yessadirichards

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harpcamera1-blog · 6 years ago

Text

Crowdsourcing the Grand Opening of Trader Joe’s on Grand Street

From the looks of things, your neighbors took Friday’s opening of Trader Joe’s on Grand Street very seriously. Laurie Gwen Shapiro reports that her friend Juliet Goldsand was the very first customer when the store opened at 8 a.m. She arrived at 6:45 a.m.

Some of you shared photos with us. Here’s a shot from Lisa Arbisser showing the crazy lines outside the store later in the day:

How about another aerial angle from François Lacherez?

From Victoria Reichelt’s Facebook:

And this one from Abe L:

A few more from Ronni Siegel:

Source: http://www.thelodownny.com/leslog/2018/10/crowdsourcing-the-grand-opening-of-trader-joes-on-grand-street.html

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tozoa · 8 years ago

Note

ヾ(⌐■_■)ノ♪: what are your favorite band(s)/artist(s)?

Hoooooboy this’ll take a minute:

ABBA

AC/DC

Access

The Ad Libs

Afterburn

Agiman

Agnelli & Nelson

Ahmet Ertenu

Ai Otsuka

AiK

Airbase feat. Floria Ambra

Airwave

AKB48

Akeboshi

Aki Kudou

Akioka Ou

Akitaka Tohyama

Akon, Stat Quo & Bobby Creekwater

Alberto Ginastera

Alchemist

Alessia Cara

Alex Aero

Alex Clare

alex gopher

Alex Stealthy

Alex Whitcombe & Big C

Alexander Von Pitanic: Salzburg Camerata Academica

Alfred Hitchcock

Alice D In Wonderland

Alice in Chains

Alien Ant Farm

All American Rejects

Allegri

Allie Moss

Allister Brimble

The Allman Brothers Band

The Allman Joys

Allure

Aluto

Alvin Risk

The Ambush

Amiina

Amilcare Ponchielli

Amy Lee

An Horse

Andain

André Visior & Kay Stone

Andrew Bayer

AndrewShumMusic

Andy Duguid

angela

The Angels

Animotion

ann lee

Anna Calvi

ANNA TSUCHIYA inspi'NANA (BLACK STONES)

Annabel

Anointed

Antonín Dvořák

Antonio Montana

Antonio Vivaldi

Aoi Тeshima

Apocalyptica

Aquaplex

Arai Akino

The Archies

Archigram

Argonaut

Aria

Armin

Armor For Sleep

Arrakis

Art of Dying

Art Of Trance

Ashtar Command

Asou Kaori

Asuka Sakai / Yu Miyake

atfc

Atlantis

The Auranaut

autokratz

The Avalons

Avenged Sevenfold

AWOLNATION

Ayana

Ayla

Ayumi Hamasaki

Backstreet Boys

Balearic Bill

Ballroom

Bamboo Lounge

Banyan Tree

Baracoa

The Bar-Kays

Basic Perspective

Bastille

Danny Elfman

The Beach Boys

Beach House

Beachwood Sparks

Beady Eye

Bear McCreary

Beastie Boys

The Beatles

Beck

Bee Gees

bellone

The Belmonts

Beltek

Ben Shaw

benassi bros

Benzino

Berlin Symphony Orchestra

Bernhard Güller: Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra

Bert Weedon

Best Coast

Bibio

Biffy Clyro

Bill Elm and Woody Jackson

Bill Haley & The Comets

Billie Ray Martin

Billy Idol

Binary Finary

Bing Crosby

the biz

Bizarre

Black Lips

The Black Ryder

Frank Black

Blank & Jones

Bless The Fallen

Blink-182

Blood For Blood

Blood Red Shoes

Blue Gender

Blue Rock

The Bluetones

Bo Burnham

BOA

Bob & Gene

Bobby “Boris” Pickett & The Crypt-Kickers

Bobby Creekwater

Bobby Tank

Bokusatsu Tenshi Dokuro-chan

Bon Jovi

Bone Chrusher & Three Days Gra

Bonnie Tyler

Booty Bronx

Botany

Boy & Bear

A Boy Called Joni

boys noize

Brad Knauber

the bravery

Breaking Benjamin

BREAKWATER

Breeder

Brendon Maclean

Brian Eno

Brian Lebarton

Bride of Frankenstein

Bright Eyes

Britney Spears

Broken Social Scene

Brooks and Dunn

Brother

Bruce Faulconer

Buckner & Garcia

The Budos Band

The Buggles

Bulgarian Womens Choir

Bullitt

The Buoys

Steve Burns

BYPASS

Bystrik Režucha: Slovak Philharmonic Orchestra

Cabala

cajuan

Camerata Academica Salzburg

Camerata Romana

Camille Saint-Saëns

Canibus

Canvas2

Canyon

Cappizzi Pickett

Carl B.

Carl Doy

Carl Michalski: Vienna Opera Orchestra

Carl Perkins

Carly Rae Jepsen

Cary Brothers

Casa Royale

Cascada

Cashis

Cass

The Phantom of the Opera

Catcher

Cave Man

Cavo

CeCe Winans

CERRONE

Chad & Jeremy

CHAKA KHAN

Channel Tribe

Chant

The Chantays

Charles Gounod

Charlotte Martin

Charm City Devils

Chata

Cheap Trick

The Chemical Brothers

Chicane

Chieko Kawabe

Chiho

Chikita Violenta

Chiller Twist

The Chimes

Choopie & Shmuel

Chopin

Choro Club

Chouken Denkanyuu

Christina Aguilera

Christy Nockels

Chronamut

Chrono Crusade

Chuck Berry

Cignus X

Cindy Morgan

The Civil Wars

CJ Bolland

Clannad

Clarence “Frogman” Henry

The Classics

Classified Project

Claude Debussy

Clear View

Clive Tanaka Y Su Orquesta

Cloud 69

Clouded Leopard

Club Quake

Matrix soundtrack

C-Murder

Coast 2 Coast

Coca & Villa

Cold

Cold Cave

Coldplay

Commission

Conjure One

Connie Francis

Continuous Cool

The Contours

Control Freaks

The Cowsills

Crash and the Boys

Cressida

The Crests

Crispin Glover

Crydajam

Cryoshell

Culture Club

Curtis Mayfield

Cut Copy

D’ Alt Vila

D.R.U.G.S.

D12

Daft Punk

dahlback & cost

The Daktaris

Dale Hawkins

The Danleers

Danny & The Juniors

Danny Elfman

DarkMateria

Darkstar

DARLIN’

Datarock

dataworx

Dave Angel

dave spoon

david guetta

David Hasselhoff

David Hodges

David MeShow

Dawes

Dawnseekers

De Hideki

De Trainer Derek

Deadlock

Deadmau5

Dean Martin

DearS

Death Cab For A Cutie

Del Shannon

Delerium

Denchuu Shinkyuu

Deniro

Depeche Mode

Der Dritte Raum

DeVotchKa

Dexys Midnight Runners

The Diamonds

Die Firma

digitalism

Dimrain47

Dion & The Belmonts

Dionne Warwick

Disparition

Disturbed

DJ Cor Fijneman

DJ Crazy Chris

DJ Dazzle

DJ Eremit

DJ Hooligan

DJ Jan

Dj Kitkiller

DJ Marco Bailey

DJ Merlyn

DJ Morgoth

DJ Philip

DJ Skee & THX

DJ Slug

DJ Tiësto

DJ Ton T.B.

DJ TripleStar

Dj-janer

djt93901

Dmitri Kabalevsky

DNAngel

Do As Infinity

Dobre & DJ Theor

DOKAKA

Dokmai

Dom

Dom Kennedy

Dominic Plaza

Dominion

Don & Juan

Don Burnham, Patty Kistner

Donna Burke

Dos Deviants

Douster, Savage Skulls & Robyn

Dove Beat

Dr. Dre

The Dreamlovers

The Drifters

Drumfire

Duane Allman

Dubravka Tomšič

The Duprees

Duran Duran

Dylaln Lloyd

E Nomine

Earl Lewis & The Channels

EDDIE JOHNS

Eddy Arnold

Edvard Grieg

Edward MacDowell

EDWIN BIRDSONG

Effective Force

Eiko Shimamiya

El Trono de Mexico

Electric Pulse

electric six

Electro-Prompt

Elie

ELISA

Ellie Goulding

Elvis Presley

The Embers

Emigrate

Emika

Eminem

Emmanuel Top

equaleyes

Es Vedra

Escaflowne

Essit Muzique

Estuera

The Eternals

Eufonius

Eurythmics

Evanescence

Eve

Everlast

The Everly Brothers

Evolver

Existone

Exit

Fabiana

faithless

Fall Out Boy

Falling in Reverse

Fanfarlo

Fantasia

FAT JoE

Fats Domino

Faylan

Feeling B

Felix Da Housecat

Felix Mendelssohn

Fictivsion

Field Music

Friend

Filterheadz

Finger Eleven

Fire & Ice

First Aid Kit

First Arsch

First Class

First State

fischerspooner

The Five Americans

Five Finger Death Punch

Fix To Fax

The Fixx

The Flamingos

Flipsyde

FLOW

Fluid Inc.

Fluid Ounces

Flyleaf

Fontella Bass

Fonzerelli

Fool’s Gold

Format #1

Fortress

Foster

Foster the People

The Four Lads

Four Seasons

Four Tet

The Four Tops

Fox

francesco farfa

Francis Poulenc

Frank Black

Frank Shipway: Royal Philharmonic Orchestra

Frank Sinatra

Frankie Goes To Hollywood

Frankie Lymon & The Teenagers

Frankie Valli & The Four Seasons

František Drdla

Franz Ferdinand

Franz Liszt

Franz Schubert

Franz Von Suppé

The Fray

Fred Baker

Freddy Cannon

Frédéric Chopin

Free Radical

Fridge

fripSide

G. Love

Gabriel & Dresden

Gabriel Pares

Gabrielle

Gackt

Gaetano Donizetti

Gakupo

The Game

Games

Garrett Davis and Kirsten Lepore

Gary Chapman

Gela Zilkha

GEORGE DUKE

George Frideric Handel

George Thorogood & The Destroyers

Georges Bizet

The Gift

Gilbert O'Sullivan

Gioachino Rossini

Girls Bravo

Giuseppe Verdi

Glasser

Glenn Morisson

Global Experience

Gôji Tsuno

golden bug

Goldenscan

goldfrapp

Goo Goo Dolls

Good Charlotte

Gorillaz

Gotou Mai

Gouryella

gracia

Graeme Norgate, Grant Kirkhope

Grayarea feat. Erik Shepard

Grease

Green Day

The Green Martian

Green Martian

Greg Vail

Groove Park

Groovezone

Groundswell

GTR

Gucci Mane

Gui Boratto

Guy Mitchell

Gwen Stefani

H.I.M

Hadouken!

Haga Keita

Hal David, John Cacavas

Hamaguchi Shirou

Hammock Brothers

Hans Zimmer

Harada Hitomi

Hardy Heller and Ray Boye

Harry Bluestone

Harry Lubin

Harry101UK

Hashimoto Miyuki

Hatsune Miku

Hayes Carll

Hazuki Erino

heartless1298

Helen Forrest

Hélène Gal

Hello Seahorse!

Henry Adolph: Philharmonia Slavonica

Henry Jackman

Henry Mancini

Hensha

Herb Alpert

Hermann Abel: Camerata Academica Salzburg

Hideki Tobeta

HIR

Hirasawa Susumu

Hirohashi Ryou

Hiroko Taguchi

Hironobu Kageyama

Hiroshi Okubo

hitomi

Holden & Thompson

Hole In One

Holly Miranda

Holy Ghost!

Hoobastank

Horie Yui

Hotel Lights

The Hour Glass

The Hues Corporation

Hundred Waters

Hybrid

Hyperdrive Inc

I:Cube

Ian Pooley

Ice Cube

Ichigo 100%

Ichiko

Idiot Pilot

Ikimonogakari

Ikkitousen

Ilaria Graziano

The Imaginations

Imagine Dragons

Imogen Heap

The Inchtabokatables

Indigoflare

Infected Mushroom

in-grid

The Ink Spots

Inoi team

Insigma

Interflow

The Interludes

Iommi

Ishida Yoko

The Isley Brothers

Israel Kamakawiwo'ole

Itou Shizuka

Iyukai

J Daniel

J. Geils Band

J.E. Sawyer

J.E. Sawyer, James Melilli

J.S. Bach

Ja Rule

Jack Wall and Sam Hulick

Jackie & The Starlights

Jackson C. Frank

Jacques Offenbach

Jadakiss

Jaimy & Kenny D

Jakatta feat. Seal

Jake & Jesse

James Iha

Jamie Grace

Jamie Lidell

Jan Driver

Jan Johnston

Jars Of Clay

JASEfos feat. Claire van der Boom

Jason Graves

Jason Michael Carroll

Jason Steele

Jay & The Americans

Jaytech

Jay-Z

Jean Sudbury

Jedidja

Jeff Williams

Jeremy Fisher

Jericho

Jermaine Dupri

Jerome ‘Pacman’ Elia

JERRY GOLDSMITH

Jerry Lee Lewis

Jerry Ropero

JES

Jesper Kyd

Jetta

Jimang

Jimmy Charles

The Jive Five

joachim garraud

Johan Gielen pres. Abena

Johann Pachelbel

Johann Sebastian Bach

Johann Strauss

Johann Strauss Jr.

Johannes Brahms

John Dahlback

John Farnham

Johnny Bond

Johnny Cash

Johnny Preston

Johnny Thunder

Joker Jam

Joman

Jon Lajoie

Jonas Steur

The Jones Sisters

Jose Gonzalez

Joseph Haydn - Kodaly Quartet

Journey

JPL

JT Functions

Judas Priest

Jukai

Julia Fischer & Academy of St. Martin In the Fields

Julien-K

Julius Drake & Ian Bostridge

Jun Sasaki

Junkie Xl

Junko Nishi

Jyukai

Kagami Seira

Kagamine Len

Kagamine Rin

Kageyama Hironobu

Kai Tracid

Kaito

Kakazu Yumi, Asakawa Yuu, Orikasa Fumiko & Toyoguchi Megumi

Kalafina

Kalafut & Fygle

Kaleido Star

Kamaya Painters

Kamui

Kamui Gakupo

Kane & Abel

Kanno Youko

Kanye West

KAORI

Kaori Utatsuki

Karen Overton

KAREN YOUNG

Karin

Katamari Soul Trains

Katie Thompson

Katou Idzumi

Katsuro Tajima

Katy Perry

Kawada Mami

Kawai Eri

Kawai Kenji

Kawasumi Ayako

Kay Kyser

Kazuki Yanagawa

Kazuma Jinnouchi

Kei Shindou

Kekou Souchi

Ken Nakagawa

Kenji Ohtsuki & Fumihiko Kitsutaka

KID

Kidz In the Hall

Kikuko Inoue

The Killers

Kim Ann Foxman & Andy Butler

kim fai

Kimito Lopez

King Unique

KINYA

kirina

Kirk Franklin & The Family

Kitagawa Katsutoshi

Kitagawa Shouri

Kitamura Eri

KIYO

Kiyoura Natsumi

kmc feat. sandy

KOAN Sound

Kobayashi

Koda kumi

Kôji Kaya

KOKIA

Konami Kukeiha Club

Konishi Kayo & Kondoo Yukio

Kool & the Gang

Korn

kos

KOTOKO

Kourin

K-taro Takanami

Kubota Mina

Kugimiya Rie

Kuko

Kuko & Torikki SHirai

Kuko & Yasumi

Brett Kull

Kumi Koda

Kuniva (D12)

Kusakanmuri

Kuwashima Houko

Kyary Pamyu Pamyu

L.S.G.

La Gusana Ciega

La Roux

La Sera

Lain

Larry Hall

Late Night Alumni

Laura Veirs

Laurence Siegel: London Festival Orchestra

LCD Soundsystem

Le Butcherettes

Le Knight Club

Leama

Ledisi

Lee Andrews & The Hearts

Lee Fields

Lemon 8

Léo Delibes

Leon Bolier pres. Inner Stories

Leonid Rudenko

Les Charts

les visiteurs feat. tommie sunshine

Leslie Gore

The Letter Y

Level 42

Lex

Lia

Liam Finn

Libor Pešek: Slovak Philharmonic Orchestra

Life According To Bozo

Lily

Linda Perhacs

Linkin Park

John Linnell

Lionel Richie

Lisa Coleman & Wendy Melvoin

lisa miskovsky

LITTLE ANTHONY & THE IMPERIALS

Little Big Man

Little Tin Frog

Lloyd Banks feat. Akon

LMFAO

LN Movement

LNQ

Local Natives

Lock

Logan Whitehurst

Loic Bertrand: Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra

The London Symphony Orchestra

The Lonely Island

LONG SHOT PARTY

The Long Winters

Loop Control

looseheadz

Lord Of Trance

Lost Weekend Western Swing Band

Lou Christie

Lou Reed & Metallica

LOVERIN TAMBURIN

Lucinda Williams

Ludwig Van Beethoven

Luminary

Lyle Workman

M.I.K.E.

Mac Miller

Mac Zimms

Mack 10

MadamEdea

Madness

Mads Arp

Magdalene Keibel Combo

Mai Kadowaki

Mai Yamane

Major League

Makino Yui

Malcolm McLaren

Malibu Beach

The Mamas & The Papas

Mami Kawada

Man On Earth

Manna

Mannheim Steamroller

Mantovani

Maor Levi

MAORICA

Maracca

Marathons

Marc Marzenit

Marco Bailey

Marcus Schossow

Mariàn Pivka

Marica

Mariko Takase

Marilyn Manson

mario piu’

Mark Mancina

Mark Norman

Marmalade Boy

Maroon 5

Martian Successor Nadesico

Martin ODonnell

Martin Rex

Marty Robbins

Masako Iwanaga

Masako Nozawa & Mayumi Sho

Masami Nakatsukasa

Masami Okui

Mason

Mass Missile

Master P Feat. Bone Thugs-N-Harmony & Silkk The Shocker

Mastodon

The Mat 1 EP

Matchbox Twenty

mathias schaffhauser

Matt Lange

Matt Nathanson

matt samuels

Maurice F. Henschel: Pretoria Philharmonic Orchestra

Maurice Ravel

Mauro Picotto

Max Graham

Max Raabe & Palast Orchester

Maximum The Hormone

Maxwell

maya

May'n & Nakajima Megumi

Mayumi Fujita

The McCoys

Mechalie Jamison

meg rock

Megumi Hayashibara

Megumi Nakajima

Megurine Luka

Mejale Pirates

Mekka

MELL

Memory Tapes

Menahan Street Band

Mermaid Melody

Metallica

Metric

Mia X Feat. Mystikal

Michael Armstrong

Michael Giacchino

Michael Jackson

Michael McCann

Michael W. Smith

Michoacan

Mick Boogie

The Micronauts

Middle Class Rut

Midori no Hibi

Midway

The Mighty Imperials

Miguel

Mike Morasky

Mikerobenics

Mikuni Shimokawa

David Miller

Milos Karadaglic

The Mindbenders

Minnie Riperton

Mishka

Mitch Ryder & The Detroit Wheels

Mitsunori Ikeda

Miyuki Hashimoto

Miyuki Kanbe

Mizuki Nana

Mizuki, Nittoku Inoue

Mockba

Modest Mouse

Mono Puff

Monolith

MONORAL

The Monotones

Montell Jordan

Moogwai

Moonbeam

moonbootica

Motocraft

Motorcitysoul

Motorcycle

Movado

Movie Screen Orchestra

Mozzart

Murray Gold & BBC National Orchestra of Wales

Mutemath

My Chemical Romance

My Darkest Days

Mylene Farmer et Seal

Mystery Skulls

Mystical

myuu

Nakajima Ai

Nalin & Kane

Nana

Nana Kitade

Naomi Davis & Sugarman Three

Naomi Shelton & The Gospel Queens

Nat King Cole

Natural High

Naughty Boy

NCB

Neil Davidge

New Vaudeville Band

Newsboys

Nic Chagall

Nice Peter

Nickelson

The Nightcaps

Nihils

Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov

Nino Nardini

Nino/Round Table

Nirvana

Noa Assembly

Nobuo Uematsu, Nittoku Inoue

Norato

Norin & Rad

Notorious B.I.G

NY Alliance

Obie Trice

Obie, Kuniva, Stat Quo, Bobby Creekwater, Cashis

Odyssee

Ohara Sayaka

Ohmi Tomoe

Ohmna

OK Go

Okui Aki

OLIVER CHEATHAM

Oliver Lieb

Oliver Von Dohnányi: Slovak National Phiharmonic Orchestra

Olivia Lufkin

The Olympics

Omori Toshiyuki

One Republic

Oomori Toshiyuki

oOoOO

ORANGE RANGE

Orbital Velocity

Orgasm Death Gimmick

The Oriëntalist

Orita Donichi

Oscar Araujo

Ｏｔｏｍａｎｉａ

The Outlaws

Owl City

Ozgur Can

P.O.S.

Pablo Gargano

The Pains of Being Pure At Heart

Palast Orchester mit Max Raabe

Panic! At The Disco

Papa Roach

Paradise Kiss

Paradise Road

Paramore

Parker & Hanson

Patrick Stump

Patty & the Emblems

Paul Johnson

Paul Oakenfold

Pearl Kyoudai

Peggy Lee

Pendulum

The Penguins

Percy Faith

Pete Thomas, Ashley Slater, Laurie Stras

Peter Falk: Vienna Volksoper Orchestra

Peter Schmalfuss

Petter

Petula Clark

N'Sync

phil collins

Phuture

Pink Elephant

Plain White T’s

planet funk

Planisphere

Plastic Boy

The Platters

Plumtree

Pob feat. X-Avia

The Poets of Rhythm

Point Of Grace

Kanto Symphony

The Polyphonic Spree

PoppinS

Porno Graffitti

Port O'Brien

Powerman 5000

PrEmoEffect

Eliza Rickman

Prince

The Prodigy

Project Monolith

Proof

PSY

Puddle of Mudd

Puhdys

PULLTOP

Pulser

Push

PWB

Qattara

QMAVALLOW

Quadran

Queen

R Kelly

R.O.N

Rachael Starr

Rammstein

Rank 1

rava

Rawrthaas

Ray Conniff

Read or Die

Reba McEntire

Rebecca St. James

Rec

Recepter

Rei

Reinhard Voigt

Renato Girolami, Nicolaus Esterhazy Sinfonia, Hungarian Radio Chorus, Janusz Monarcha, Regina Schorg & Bo Skovhus

Reprise

The Republic Tigers

Reynada Hill

rhu

Richard Gibbs

Richard Marx

Richard Strauss

Richie Valens

Rick James

Rick Springfield

Ricky Martin

Rie Tanaka

Rihanna

Rin Kagimine

Rise Against

Riva

Rival Sons

The Rivieras

RJD2

Roach Motel

Rob Searle

robbie rivera

Robert Babicz

Robert Benfer

Robert Francis

Robert Palmer

Robert Schumann

Robin Beanland

The Roc Project

Rocky Chack

Rodrigo y Gabriela

the rogue element

The Rolling Stones

Ronnie And The Schoolmates

Ronnie Dove

The Roots

The Roues Brothers

Roy Orbison

Royal Philharmonic Orchestra

The Royal Teens

Roze

Rui Da Silva

Rui Nagai

rune rk

Russ Gabriel’s Audio Spectrum

S.B. McCafferty

Saint Seiya

Saitou Chiwa

Sakamoto Maaya

Sakin

Salia

Salt Tank

Sam The Sham & The Pharaohs

Sambuca

San

Sander Van Doorn & Julian Jordan

Sandor Czech Ensemble

Sandy Fox

Saori Nishihata

Sasaki Nozomi

Sasako Shigeharu

Satoko Yamano & Kageyama…

scanty 88

Schiller

School Of Rock

Scoop

score

Scott Grooves

Seabear

Seal

Sean Dexter

Seatbelts

Sebastian Tellier

The Second Coming

Seether

Self

Senoo Takeshi

Serial Experiments Lain

Serj Tankian

Sex Bomb-Omb

Shah & Laruso pres. Global Experience

The Shangri-Las

Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings

SHARP 2

Sharp Tools

She Keeps Bees

The Shells

Sheryl Nome starring May'n

The Shields

Shigeru Matsuzaki

Shikata Akiko

Shimamiya Eiko

Shinedown

Shinichi Ishihara

Shinji Orito/Magome Togoshi

Shiny Toy Guns

Shoji Sugiyama, Yu Miyake

Show Luo Feat. Koda Kumi

SID

Sierra Swan

sikk

Silent Breed

SiLK

silvercity

Simon

Simple Minds

Sinichi Ishihara

Sisko

Sister Princess

SISTER SLEDGE

Skillet

Skrillex

Skull Drugrey

The Skyliners

Slipknot

Small Black

Smart System

The Smashing Pumpkins

Smith & Pledger pres. Aspekt

SMS no Minasan

The Sneaker

Snoop Dogg

Snow Patrol

Soft Cell

The Soft Pack

Solar Factor

Solar Stone

Solar Stone and JES

Solaris Heights

Solid Globe

Solkrieg

sonique

SONOROUS

Soulja Slim

South London Voodoo

Space Shuffle

The Spainiels

Sparklehorse

Spiral

Split Second

Squeeze

Staind

Stardust

Stat Quo

A Static Lullaby

Steady Mobbin

Steam

Stephen Rippy

Steve Conte

Steve Forte Rio

Steve Jablonsky

Steve May

Steve Winwood

Steven Curtis Chapman

Stone Factory

Stone Sour

Strauss

Stray Cats

Stray Dog

streetlife dj’s

Strong Arm Steady

Stuck in the Sound

The Students

Styles Of Beyond

Styxx

Suara

Sugarman Three

Sum 41

SUN

Sunburst

Sunday Club

Superspy

The Supremes

Surfer Blood

Susan Ashton

Susumu Hirasawa

Suzuki Konomi

Svetlana Stanceva; Alberto Lizzio: Mozart Festival Orchestra

Swifty McVay & Mr. Porter

The Swimmer

Sylvia Cápová

Symphony Of Love II

System of a Down

Systematic Parts

T. Rex

T.L.T.

Tainaka Sachi

Takahashi Youko

Takeshi Senoo

Taking Back Sunday

Talib Kweli

Taneri

Tastexperience

TATA VEGA

Taucher

Taxigirl

TCY Force

Tears For Fears

Teddyloid

Teebs

Teikoku Yousei

The Temper Trap

The Temptations

TENMON & Eiichiro Yanagi / minori

Tex Beneke and Margaret Whiting

Theory Of A Dead Man

They Might Be Giants

Third Man

This Radiant Boy

Thomas Bangalter

Thomas Schumacher

The Thompson Twins

Three Days Grace

Three Drives

Tiger Army

Till Lindemann & Richard Kruspe

Tilt

Timothy Bloom

Tina Turner

TLC

Todd Rundgren

Together

Tokyo Mew Mew

TOM

Tom Cloud

Tom Mangan

Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers

tomas andersson

Tommy James & The Shondells

Tomoe Ohmi

Tomoki Hasegawa

Tomomitsu Kaneko

Tony Yayo

Toro y Moi

Melanie Martinez

Jason Trachtenburg

Tranquilizer

Transa

Tremor

Trigun

The Troggs

Tupac

Turboweekend

Twila Paris

Twilight

Twilight-Perception

Two Steps from Hell

UGK Feat. N.O. Joe

UNDER17

The Used

Ushio Hashimoto

Utada Hikaru

Utah Saints

UVERworld

The Vaccines

Vanessa Mae

VDM

Vegas Soul

The Veil Kings

Vengaboys

The Videos

Vimana

Vince Guaraldi Trio

Vincent de Moor

Viper 2

Vitamin String Quartet

Vitaminless

Vladimir Petroschoff: Berliner Festival Orchestra

The Vogues

Voltaire

Vondelpark

The Voyager

V-Three

W.A. Mozart

Wada Kaoru

Waffle

Wang Chung

the wanted

Way Out West

Wayne Fontana & The Mindbenders

Weird Al Yankovic

West & Storm

Wheed Baskin

The Whigs

White Lies

White Rabbits

Wighnomy Bros.

Wild Bunch

Will.I.Am

William Elliot Whitmore

William Fitzsimmons

William Hartnell

The Willows

Wiz Khalifa

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Woods

World Clique

The Wrens

Xero

Xzibit

Yahel

Yanase Natsumi

Yanni

Yasunori Iwasaki

Yeasayer

Ylvis

Yo Hitoto

Yoko

Yoko Kanno

Yoshino Yuuji

Youko Ishida

Young Parisians

Yousei Teikoku

Yu Miyake

Yui Horie

Yuka

Yuri Misawa

Yves DeRyter

Zack Knight

zdar

Zedd

Zoo Brazil

#long post

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