#like they say Gwen’s the best and Liz is evil

[detectivewebs]

People with the inability to form opinions about the media they consume and just go with the content face value piss me off. Wtf dym that you agree with everything the show is saying? ITS SAYING BAD THINGS LIKE OBJECTIVELY BAD AND UR IGNORING IT BECAUSE YOU ACCEPT EVERYTHING IT SAYS FACE VALUE!

[tomdutch]

"i wouldn’t say she has no traits, rather the very few that she does have are written so badly and are so stereotypical that it makes her boring" YES. YES TO ALL THAT.

plus the bits in ffh when she was spilling "cultural" facts made me cringe so much: they tried to make her sound witty and smart, but as a european, the only vibes i got from her were "person x goes abroad, learns something new, gets it wrong, but still tries to lecture other people about it" -> "boh" being the "anti-aloha" joke? they got the meaning of the word wrong. the italian words she says when talking about mysterio? the sentence is grammatically incorrect (can’t believe writers at m*rvel get paid and don’t even bother to check when they use a different language)

lliterally the most stereotypical american (sorry americans) thing ever imo, and she’s supposed to be unconventional and not-like-other-girls, but I guess the only spark of brilliance was used with liz, when they took the popular girl trope, but instead of making her a walking mean girl stereotype, they made her intelligent and nice and you could actually see and understand why she would be popular...

bring back my girl liz, you monsters, they don’t even mention her in interviews because they know they really screwed up with her 😭 tom has been talking about the vulture, and not once has he said a thing about the character's daughter, who also happened to be the girl peter loved 😭 instead he’s really pushing the spideychelle narrative (like the whole "harry osborn being played by timothée chalamet and turning evil because he wants mj and fights with peter bc of that") to compensate for the fact that they had no progression in the movies... it’s like he’s thinking "maybe if i sound convincing enough, people will believe that mj is a relevant character and that this love story wasn’t built on nothing"... sorry tom, but i can’t forgive you for that 😭💔

god yes absolutely. i hateddddd the boh thing so much i was sitting there watching it like 🧍🏽‍♀️ is this what they call character? this is the best they could’ve given mj? the girl who the plot now suddenly revolves around wooing bc she’s so cool and wonderful off screen? 😭 pls.

i’m of the opinion that romantic subplots are not really necessary in spider-man films mostly bc the original trilogy did a horrid job setting it up and, while i do love gwen in tasm, i still have some criticism of her relationship with peter. so for me, making the ENTIRE plot of a film revolve around a love interest is already an… unfortunate choice. but then putting absolutely no effort in creating a dynamic character is so insulting 😭 like y’all disregard everything hoco built up just to make mj’s character, who was a glorified extra in it, worse? you give her nothing?

and you can tell zendaya really tried to make the best of it in the interviews but the base of the character is so bad and so lazy that the more effort she put, the more cringy and awkward it was to watch. it was just so unattractive, i could barely sit through peter and mj’s scenes together. even the moment shippers are obsessed with, the “you’re pretty too” part was sooo palpably awkward and not in a cute way 😭 i’m not opposed to some wholesome awkward moments between two teens who like each other and it’s clear mcu writers know how to do it bc they delivered in hoco with lizpeter, but they dropped the ball so hard with mj and it sucks. if they had to essentially kill off liz from the whole universe, the least they could’ve done is make sure mj, who had little potential in hoco, is properly characterised.

but naur… instead we get necklaces referencing a femicide and scooby doo that shit. i’ve read so many fics that created an amazing version of mj that i actually liked and that didn’t abandon those stereotypical edgy girl traits, but they worked with them and made them enjoyable and funny. mcu writers really need a lesson from some authors on here bc this mj they shoving down our throats is simply not it.

anyway whoo this ask had me going 😭 i really enjoy analysing films with y’all, it’s so fun to hear your opinions

[monaisme]

Day 26: recovery

*TRIGGER WARNING: Features major depressive episode, suicidal thoughts, and self neglect

Day 26: recovery

No one was quite sure what Peter was feeling, if Tony was being honest.

On the first day after—well, Tony guessed that it could be called the confrontation, no one had really approached him at all. He’d been in the med bay first for his own treatment, and then to wait on word about May. Once he’d heard the prognosis, he was out of there like a flash and in his own room in the tower. They’d figured that he needed that time to process.

None of the Avengers had heard of this Green Goblin character before, but he’d apparently been an old nemesis of the Spider-Kid and had a vendetta against Peter personally that hinged on psychotic.

Peter had thought he was gone; had assumed that the quiet had meant he’d curled up and died in a hole somewhere, but he’d been biding his time. He’d been waiting.

It broke Tony’s heart to do it, but being Tony Stark meant that he needed to take care of things that someone like Steve couldn’t manage. He had to go. SHIELD wasn’t asking.

But Pepper said she’d check on him.

Pepper had noted how sullen and withdrawn he’d been when she brought his breakfast to his room. She had knocked and then waited... and waited. When he didn’t answer, she’d asked FRIDAY to confirm that he was okay. The AI informed her that his stats were within normal parameters but that he was unmoving in his bed, and Pepper had freaked. Visions of Peter falling unconscious during the night flashed through her mind so she’d used her emergency override and stormed in, breakfast tray and all— but he was fine. He’d covered his head with his blanket and decided to hide away from the world.

After taking a minute to calm down from her scare, Pepper had been certain she heard him crying. She’d tried so hard to comfort him, of course, but he’d pulled the blankets tighter around himself. Pepper figured she’d respect his need for some time alone so she’d patted him on his good arm and left him to it.

After thinking about it, she wondered if Peter needed someone from the team to lean on—someone who understood what he had gone through. She spoke with Steve who swore he’d take over. She could put it out of her mind.

She thought of all the meetings she still had pending on her list and Steve was Captain America, so she did.

Yeah.

Steve had gotten a completely different reaction from the kid. It was a quick and clear rage. Steve was bringing dinner. He’d knocked and then entered carrying a tray of sandwiches and some bottles of juice. Peter needed to eat, and they’d left him alone for lunch at Pepper’s request so...

The lamp flying through the air and striking the doorframe only inches from Steve’s face had been unexpected. The shrieks of ‘Get out!’ over and over and over again had been unnerving. The hate-filled stare from the red-faced Peter was more than upsetting.

And Steve had no idea how to deal with it.

Steve put down the tray of food with an apology and backed out of the room.

Things hadn’t gone well, and in a fit of emotional constipation, Steve Rogers chose to delegate.

Tower staff were recruited to drop meals off at the door until further notice.

No one ensured that they were eaten.

It was the fourth day after when Tony finally had his chance to come. He’d been busy dealing with Damage Control, inventorying an evil goblin lair, and a gaggle of idiot politicians who were demanding answers that he didn’t have. He’d realized too late that having a debrief with Peter after the confrontation would have been a good idea, but that was neither here nor there.

This was a new day and it was going to be great. Tony knew that Pepper had some trouble with Peter that first day, but he was here now. Peter just needed someone he was comfortable with to bring him out of his funk. Tony was bringing news of his aunt that was tentatively promising and he’d managed to get a buttload of bacon croissanwiches from Burger King, the kid’s favourite. The medical staff had even mentioned that Peter could potentially get his cast off today, so it was going to be a good day.

Tony arrived at Peter’s room clutching the brown paper bag, knocked out a ‘shave-and-a-hair-cut,’ and waited for Peter to open the door.

No answer. That was weird.

Tony knocked again. “Peter? It’s Tony. Open the door!” He waited a few seconds. “Peter, I brought breakfast sandwiches!”

Still nothing.

Tony thought for a second and wondered, “FRIDAY, Peter’s still in his room, right?”

“Yes, Boss. Peter Parker is in his room.”

“Perfect. Tell the Spider-baby to let me in. The sandwiches are getting cold.”

The AI responded in an unexpected way. “I’m sorry, Boss. Peter seems to be unable to respond.”

“Excuse me? Did you say ‘unable to respond?’”

“Yes, Boss.”

“Dammit, FRIDAY! Emergency override Alpha-1-1-9-Charlie. Open the damn door!”

The lock on Peter’s door unlatched and Tony rushed into the dark room, adding his bag of breakfast to a pile of uneaten and rotting food.  Tony half-registered what that could mean before rushing to the barely conscious boy.

Tony knelt on the floor next to the bed. “Pete? Hey, kiddo?” Tony tapped his gaunt cheek. “Can you hear me?” He ran his calloused fingers through Peter’s unwashed hair. “Kid?”

Peter blinked. “Tony?” he whispered.

Tony smiled. “Hey, Pete. It’s me.” He noticed the smell in the room. When was the last time someone had checked on him? “Are you sick, bud? Do you need me to call the med bay?”

Peter barely shook his head ‘no.’

That was when Tony saw the profound sadness in his eyes, “What’s goin’ on then?”

Peter shook his head again and closed his eyes. “No more.”

Not know what the boy was talking about, Tony pushed, “What do you mean ‘no more,’ Peter? I’ve been away, kid. You’ve got to give me more.”

He opened his eyes again, struggled to focus. “Can’ hurt ‘em an’more.”

At that, Tony scanned the room, wondered who ‘them’ was, and really took in what he was seeing. The food in the corner—Pepper had tried to bring him breakfast that first full day. She’d mentioned leaving the tray that he recognized. It was untouched. Tony assumed that the fact that there was no plastic wrap anywhere that the sandwiches had been left, too. This didn’t make sense. “Peter, when did you eat last, bud?”

Peter pulled the blanket over his head with his good hand, just like he’d done with Pepper, but Tony couldn’t allow it. He pulled the blanket from Peter’s weak grasp and took his hand in his. “Peter?” Tony felt the weight loss before he saw it, but then saw how bony and frail Peter’s wrist looked. “Peter, I’m gonna take a look at you, kiddo.” He pulled the blanket back and gasped.

“FRIDAY, contact Bruce, tell him to get here now!” Tony barked, “Let him know we need an IV and nutrients, ASAP.”

It had been at least three full days and the weight loss was already visible and disturbing, even through the sweat soaked pyjamas. “Pete? What’s goin’ on? Why aren’t you eating?”

He must’ve been delirious because he started babbling. “I can’t anymore, Ms’r Stark. They all die... ‘Cuz I‘m Spid’man.”

Tony thought he’d understood what he was saying, but why would Peter think...? Who died? Because he’s Spider-Man?

“Pete?” Tony leaned in closer. “Peter, I don’t understand, sweetheart. Please tell me.”

He looked like he was trying to cry, but was too weak or too dehydrated. “I can’t keep hurtin’ ‘em, Mis’r Stark...” Peter became more agitated as he listed the names, “Cap’in Stacey... Gw-Gwen... Ben...“

“Peter. Those aren’t your fault. I promise.”

Peter didn’t hear him, “Mis’r Stark, I killed Gwen! An’ I hurt ‘em... Co’nel Rhodes, Liz... an’ May’s gonna hate me. I know i’s true.” Then he looked Tony is the eyes, need Tony to believe him. “’S true, ‘cuz I hate me, too.”

A knock on the door interrupted Peter’s confessional. Tony looked up at Bruce as he let himself in. “Thank goodness! Bruce. He hasn’t had anything since before the Goblin. Can you fix him up?”

Peter whined at the additional intruder in the room and then closed his eyes.

Concerned, Bruce rushed over and took Tony’s place by the bed. “What do you mean by anything?” Bruce took a quick glance around him and then focussed on the boy. He started pulling supplies from his large duffle bag. “Has he been sick? With his enhanced metabolism, going that long without eating could be--”

Tony knew exactly what it could be, and that was why he couldn’t bear the burden alone. “Bruce, I think he’s suicidal.”

And Peter started hyperventilating.

Tony realized what he’d done right away. “Shit. Peter, I’m so sorry. That was a real dumbass thing to say and I shouldn’t have, huh?” He didn’t want to move Bruce, but Peter needed him, too. “Here, I’m gonna just...” Tony rushed around to the other side of the bed and climbed on and over to Peter. He rested against the headboard, nudged up right next to Peter and started running his hand through Peter’s hair again. “I’m here, Pete. I just don’t quite get what happening, but I need you to be okay, and Bruce here is the best so...” Peter wasn’t focussed on much of anything, but Tony kept trying. “Did you know that Brucie here has seven PhDs and not one of them gives him permission to do stitches? Pretty incredible, right?” Tony hoped distraction would work.

It didn’t.

Peter tried to grasp at the covers he’d hidden under before, but his strength was leaving him.

“It’s okay, Peter, we’ve got you,” Bruce caught on to Tony’s train of thought. “And I promise no stitches.” He thought he understood what Peter was trying for and reached over the boy to pull the blanket over his legs. “You must be kind of chilly, hey?”

Peter tried to reach for the blanket again, but he was losing his battle with his panic attack.

“Hey, hey, Peter. You’re safe here.” Tony soothed from beside him. “I know you’re feeling pretty bad right now, but we’re gonna help you, okay?”

Peter shook his head ‘no.’ “I can’t—I can’t—I can’t—“ Peter’s eyelids fluttered shut and his head lolled to the side.

“Bruce?!” Tony called out.

But Bruce was already on it. He grabbed Peter’s wrist to check his pulse. “It’s there, but fast. Let me just...” Bruce was off and doing his ‘not a doctor’ doctor thing and that was all that mattered to Tony. Blood pressure, lungs and heart were checked. “He’s weak, Tony, and definitely needs medical intervention.”

Bruce dug through his bag again, pulling out an IV bag and assorted wipes and tape. He reached up behind the bed to place the bag on the hook all Avengers Tower superhero quarters had for exactly this reason and got to work.

“He’s really dehydrated, Tony,” he said after his third attempt at finding a vein. “If I can’t get this one then...” Bruce held his breath, checked the line, and then checked it again. “Oh, thank goodess! I’m gathering that the kid would prefer to be here in his quarters right now so...”

Tony nodded. “Yeah, and I’m not so sure I want SHIELD involved in something like this anyways, at least not yet. A broken bone is one thing, a shrink is something else...”

Both of the men thought of their “mental health assessments” and the stigmas they still fought back against. Hell, even Steve has shirked the whole assessment thing. Those SHIELD folks were hacks.

Bruce had to ask, though, “Tony, can you tell me how the hell this got so bad?” He was so confused. “I mean, we dealt with that other green guy a few days ago, and everything was fine.” Then Bruce thought of Peter’s aunt, still in the med bay while the doctors figured out how best to help her with her arm... “Okay, not fine, but still? How did we get from there to this?”

Tony seethed at the question. “I don’t know, Bruce. I thought I’d left people in place, but I guess I was wrong...” He wasn’t looking forward to those conversations. “When I find out, though, I’ll let you know.”

Bruce pressed a tender hand to Peter’s forehead to check for warmth, then kept it there for a beat longer. “We probably have a bit of time before he wakes up, but I’d like to monitor him for a while and maybe come up with a plan before then.”

Tony agreed. “Grab a chair, Brucie. I need to figure some things out, too, so you may as well be comfortable.”

“What do you mean?”

Tony sighed, “Before you got here, he was upset. I mean, he’s upset about his aunt, but he started listing other people that he’s hurt... and he said he’s killed—which we all know is total bullshit, but there’s something in this kid’s head that isn’t telling him the truth and it’s killing him.”

Bruce looked at Tony, “Well, then I guess we have some questions to find answers for so we can heal the kid.”

“I guess we do, Tony replied, “FRIDAY, who the hell is Gwen, and how is she connected to our Peter?”

FRIDAY responded almost immediately. “Sir, one match has been found for a Gwendolyne Maxine Stacey; born September 6, 2001 in Manhattan, New York. She died on August 14, 2015. Cause of death was reported as blunt force trauma to the head. Would you like me to continue, Sir?”

Bruce and Tony shared a glance. “Hit me, Girl.”

“While there were no witnesses to the incident, the autopsy report details evidence that the fatal injury occurred as a result of a fall from an estimated 170 feet in a campus clock tower.”

“Damn.” Tony ran his hand down his face in frustration.

“Sir, there is more.”

He almost said no. Almost. “Keep going then.”

“Yes, Sir. There is a note in the report that was not released to the public. The cause of death may have been a broken neck as both injuries would have been fatal and appeared to have happened simultaneously. Police reports indicate that a single strand of webbing was found on the victim’s torso. This, in conjunction with injures found on the body indicate that Spider-Man was on scene and had attempted to prevent a negative outcome. With the estimated velocity of the fall, the sudden stop from Spider-Man’s effort resulted in extreme cervical recoil, resulting in a broken neck and severing of the spinal column.”

Both men blanched.

“The Green Goblin was found on scene and confessed to being responsible for the death of Ms. Stacey, Sir. Would you like me to continue?”

“No thank you, FRI. That’s enough.”

They stood there, lost in their thoughts and staring at the boy who tried so damned hard all the damned time.

“2015 was just after Ben died and just before May sold their house to move to the apartment in Queens. He started going to Midtown around then, too.” Tony was recalling the basic information he’d looked at when he’d been searching for the kid for Germany.

Bruce was upset. “And neither of them ever mentioned this?”

Tony shook his head. “May has only just stopped spitting every time she says my name,” he joked weakly. “And the other is a teenage boy with abandonment issues. What do you think?”

Bruce smiled a little, “Got it.”

Tony paled further, “Oh, no. May.”

Bruce turned green, in a safely nauseous way. “He must have been trying to catch her in a way that would keep that from happening again. When Goblin tossed May off the building, he must have panicked.” Bruce was visualizing the confrontation, “And then with the greater height, plus Peter dealing with blood loss and a concussion—Oh, Tony! He did the best he could!” Bruce felt his pulse start racing, stopped speaking, took a calming breath, and resumed. “May should have been dead.”

Tony sighed, “We know that, but does he? ‘Cause he’s ended up with a broken arm and his aunt may never fully use her own arm again... Shit.” Tony rolled off the bed and paced. “This kid never gets a break, does he?”

“It doesn’t seem like it, but we’re gonna change that,” Bruce promised. “I know someone, he helps me with my, uh...” Bruce caught himself, and blushed as though embarrassed. “He helps me with my stress and is just a really nice guy. I bet he could help out with Peter.”

Thinking back on all that Peter said, Tony added, “I bet he could help May, too.”

They were quiet again, then Bruce had a thought. “I’m not a psychiatrist, but I’m guessing this is major depressive disorder. I’ve done some research for my own...” Bruce stopped himself again, then rephrased. “Okay. I’ve researched it some, and I’m concerned about the whole not eating thing. I believe you when you say he’s suicidal, but starvation is not a common method for teenage boys. It may be a separate symptom. What do we do about that?”

Tony was already feeling overwhelmed by the situation as a whole. Find a solution to it was beginning to feel insurmountable. How could they do this?—Fix this boy while keeping prying eyes from discovering? And who could they trust? And how could they explain away so many people coming in and out of the tower? And...

“The cabin.”

“Sorry, Tony, you’ll have to explain that one to me. I’m lost.”

Tony stopped pacing and grinned big at Bruce. “I just bought a cabin! It’s supposed to be another engagement present for Pepper but, well...” Tony wondered again where she’d been these last days. “Well, maybe we can use it as a home base. The kid needs a break—hell! I think you and I will conveniently need a break, too. We can all head out, relax, enjoy the fresh air—and Peter can just rest. We’ll be close by. It’s only 45 minutes from the city if you drive like a grandma. We can have people come to us and no one will be the wiser!” The thoughts were flying. “I can get FRIDAY prepped for integration before too long and between the three of us, we’d have a busy work project and could have the cabin inhabitable in no time.”

Bruce just stared at Tony.

“Was that too much?” Tony seemed unsure.

Bruce’s mouth opened... and then closed, and then finally, “I think that’s perfect. And after she’s better, his aunt can come out for a bit. How would that work, space wise?” If they were talking logistics, he was going all in.

“Oh, there’s room. She’ll need to take some time off of work, and her boss is a real—“ And there, reality kicked Tony in the teeth. “Shit. Wait. We’re going to have to make some arrangement for the two of them. Get rent paid up for a few months, utilities, and so on.”

“Tony?”

“May is a nurse... was a nurse. We’re gonna have to work from the ground up on this—and we’ll have to tread lightly. May is as stubborn as they come, but she’s a mama bear if ever there was one, so she’ll do anything to help Peter.” Tony felt tired. “It’ll be a balance, but we’ll get them help, whatever they need.”

Peter stirred so Bruce took the time to recheck his blood pressure.

“It’s better. The fluids are helping... and between the two of us, we’ll figure out the rest. I promise. Okay, Tony?”

Tony thought of all the things this boy... his boy had already been through, and how he’d been alone against the world. He maybe thought of Bruce and himself, but only a little and how they’d been alone, too. There was no way Tony would allow that to happen for any of them again, and so he replied with an emphatic nod, “Okay.”

 @febuwhump

[hellzyeahthewebwieldingavenger]

ASM vol 5 #25/826 Story 1 Thoughts

Wow!

Now THIS is how you do a milestone issue...even though the milestone was last issue but whatever!

In some ways this issue reminded me of a lot of DC’s recent milestone issues for the Trinity. Wonder Woman’s 75th Anniversary special, Action Comics #1000, Detective Comics #1000.

By this I mean you have multiple artists contributing and the story feels like vignettes.

The difference though is that most of these vignettes are in fact part of the same story.

The downside of that is that it does make the main story ‘Opening Night’ feel somewhat disjointed because there are 3 or 4 endings. It could’ve been easily fixed by simply presenting the Syndicate pages and the Gleason pencilled pages as their own stories (which functionally they are) or at least as clearly labelled epilogues.

That’s a nitpick though because the main story over all was fantastic, no pu....actually pun very much intended. Why not Spencer likes his puns and meta jokes and there was plenty of the latter in this issue. Case in point Kindred’s jabs about continuity.

Let me get some minor negatives out of the way.

The changing artists really, really didn’t complement one another exempting Kev Walker and Ottley’s work. Ramos’ artwork wasn’t well integrated with the rest of the art at all, as was the case with his work in the Heist arc back in the earlier issues. Gleason’s work I will give a little more of a pass too because as presented it feels so much like it’s own separate story and has consistent art within those pages it’s not really a problem. But with Ramos and Ottley it’s very jarring.

Now it is the lesser evil because I’d rather have Ramos draw some pages and panels rather than the whole issue. Reserving him for, let’s face it, the less important B-plot of the main story whilst Ottley does the heavy lifting on the main story is a great compromise.

Other small complaints I have involve Mary Jane herself and her storyline.

For starters...Carlie Cooper is back. Now she isn’t used badly, it’s just...I hate that character. I don’t think many people have many positives to say about her and there is baggage associated with her. So if she is destined to become MJ’s go to buddy then that’s going to grind my gears (especially when we consider she let MJ risk her life by dating Otto in Superior, what a jerk!) and I’d infinitely prefer a wholesale new character or an old established character (Liz, Glory, Jill Stacy even?).

Buuuuuuuut on the flipside Carlie was better suited to being MJ’s sidekick in this story given she got involved in some of the action. Possibly even seeing her get zapped was Spencer putting in a piece of catharsis for the many fans he knows honestly hate this character.

Secondly we got MJ’s acting career. Now there are three little problems I have with it that might not even be problems. Let me explain.

a)      MJ claims she lost her Secret Hospital job because of the nature of her life. I took that very much as an implication associated with her connection to Spider-Man. Problem is...she didn’t lose her job because of Spider-Man. Her role just happened to be cut back and eventually if I remember correctly she either quit following a deranged fan assaulting her or she was outright fired. Now in defence of her comment and of Spencer, the line doesn’t explicitly mention Peter or anything like that so it could easily be taken as her life being in general crazy regardless. Bear this in mind for something else I’m going to bring up

b)      MJ claims she never liked being famous. That really struck me because of course MJ wanted to be famous from day 1. Now you could easily argue that when we first met MJ she was younger and had yet to experience fame, so now she feels differently. Buuuuuuut she was a model in her adulthood. She pursued acting as a soap star, and as a movie star and as a stage star and took a job at Stark industries and at various points was modelling during those jobs. Soooooooooo what gives? I mean....maybe you could say she hated aspects of being famous but the speech seems weird and inconsistent in and of itself even. I’m hoping I’m just missing something

c)       MJ says she had trouble fitting in and then over did it in social situations. I dunno if that’s really true. It could be bad phrasing on Spencer’s part but really MJ always did fit in, her facade helped her to fit in, it was partially engineered to help her to do that. Is that what he means though?

d)      MJ becoming a famous actress again gives me mixed feelings. Spider-Man is the everyman and whilst temporary fame that comes crashing down is one thing, if she is long term famous it kind of meddles with the everyman aspect of Spider-Man. An aspiring actress, even a low key soap star is different a more if you will ‘domestic’ form of fame. But that’s more a criticism of where this might lead so it could wind up being fine.

One final, final little problem I had was another example of worried where this MIGHT lead. In Kindred’s lair we see a wall depicting different Spider-Heroes and so now I’m facepalming that the climax to his storyline will be a huge crossover event affair that demands I read Miles and Gwen’s and Jessica Drew’s titles.

Again a nitpick at best, at worst something to worry about in the future not the present.

Everything else in the main story was beautiful.

MJ’s connection to acting is restored. Wonderful. It’s my preferred profession for her because it taps into Peter’s double life and her own history with her party girl facade.

The speech was well written and delivered and I liked the meta aspect of her giving it whilst disguised as a famous super hero wife!

Spencer continued to find a way to handle the old criticism lobbied against MJ/the marriage that it Mary Jane simply waited by a window (even though I think that’s fine sometimes) or just got stood up on dates all the time by having MJ have friends she can hang out with. This is one aspect where Carlie, because she is in on the secret, helps a lot I must admit.

Spencer also renders Mary Jane very well rounded.

Look I LOVE seeing instances where Mary Jane shines as cool, as bad ass and the like, but sometimes if handled poorly it can come off as idolizing her.

Spencer avoids this by giving MJ flaws.

She’s jealous of Melanie’s success which she sees as something that could have been her’s.* She has tiny doubts about Peter’s sincerity. She admits she struggles to fit in and feels uncomfortably exposed in the limelight.

But she’s also, brave, self-sacrificing, resourceful and, most importantly in this story, a good actress (apparently being able to impersonate Melanie’s voice...or maybe that’s something no one thought about because this is a non-audio medium).

The effect is to make Mary Jane truly the hero of the story, not just because she is ‘taking point’ in the main story but because she feels complex and nuanced, just as Peter is.

My quibbles above aside, Spencer really is a good Mary Jane writer and for Spider-Man that’s an important consideration for a writer (just as being a good Lois Lane writer or good Alfred writer is for Superman and Batman). He’s done her justice 99% of the time he’s written her and it says an awful lot about him and his priorities for this title that he’d give the lion’s share of a milestone issue over to her.

It also says a lot of his abilities to make good stories out of well...clean up duty.

Let’s be brutally honest here the majority of Spencer’s issues have revolved around stories really designed to fix things after BND and Slott’s run.

Back to Basics fixed Peter and MJ’s relationship and mostly reconstructed Peter’s character by having him own up to the diploma debacle and zero in on who the man was and who the spider was by literally separating the two.

The Heist reconstructed Peter and Felicia’s relationship and fleshed out why MJ and Peter were getting back together as quickly as they did.

Those poorly drawn Bachalo issues fixed Ned Leeds not being dead.

Hunted fixed Kraven not being dead and Shed and more stuff with Felicia

Now this issue has fixed MJ and Peter’s future’s to some extent. Peter is back at ESU and MJ is back to acting. Not only does she now have a Stark free job situation but it’s a job that’s her home away from home as I discussed a bit above.

The issue also does some clean up with Curt Connors, restoring the pre-Hunted status quo and by extension facilitating something else comfortingly familiar by having Connors teach Peter.**

Speaking of Connors, I can’t recall off the top of my head (having not eaten breakfast yet) if Connors had safehouses before now to keep him safe from his family. I know that has been the case in other stories, such as the Forever Young novel from a couple of years ago, but in the comics I can’t recall. If not then it’s a great thing for Spencer to integrate. If so it’s a great thing for Spencer to have remembered and gives Spider-Man a meaningful subplot to work with whilst Mary Jane takes the limelight in the main plot.

Now let’s move onto Mysterio. As I predicted last issue the doctor was Rinehart but I was mistaken in believing it was the real Rinehart. Spencer, and Mysterio, were so good at their jobs that I was successfully fooled into thinking Mysterio really had died last issue. The idea that Rinehart was really Mysterio and Mysterio was really someone else never occurred to me and was an ingenious twist.

But like all good mysteries it had clues right there for us to see as last issue signposted the disappearance of Mysterio’s former doctor,  who we now know was tricked into becoming Mysterio so beck could escape. What sold it was the inner monologue of Rinehart talking about Beck as a separate person. This would’ve been a cheap trick under a lesser writer but Spencer justifies it by claiming Mysterio was method. Just brilliant. As was tying in MJ’s agent and new found fame to Mysterio and his film script.

We also get some more tantalizing tidbits about Kindred. He doesn’t like killing innocent people if he doesn’t have to. The idea of him being an established villain now looks much less likely. And did you notice that when we first see him in the issue...he’s sticking to the wall...surrounded by spiders...and later has them crawling out of his bandages...and is targeting other Spider people...hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm????????????????

That about does it for what I call the ‘main main story’, we move now onto what should’ve been epilogues.

There isn’t much to say about the Syndicate pages beyond they were good for what they were, they eloquently tie into the main story and set up the next arc.

Much more interesting are the Gleason pages, and not just because the art looks so nice and so much better than Ramos.

On the one hand I am wary of Spider-Man comics bringing in too much of the shared universe because it messes up a lot of the drama and stakes. But as a little side story meant to set up something else that’s fine and what a set up.

Spider-Man 2099 is back!

Now I feel like I should really catch up on his solo book. I kept buying it but stopped reading it around Civil War II!

I honestly have NO IDEA where this is going beyond thinking it might have something to do with Kindred’s interest in all the other spider people??????

Beyond all that...not much to say.

I’m not going to tell you that I recommend you pick this issue up because....c’mon...you know you already did...and loved it!

   *Importantly, if Spencer intended it this way, MJ missed out on Melanie’s success because of something not  connected to Spider-Man. I was worried the story was going in for this idea that being with Peter has cost Mary Jane a successful career, but in this issue, through Melaine we see that wasn’t the case.

MJ’s life led her to quit a role that was already being reduced but it wasn’t because of Spider-Man stuff at all.

This is not just refreshing and healthy for their relationship, it’s also realistic. Take that every bullshit AU about MJ being famous by not dating Spidey!

**By the way I was going to criticise Connors having both arms in human form but then I double checked issue #2 and that was the case there too. I keep forgetting that he has both arms now it’s just so weird to see.

[traincat]

speaking of mcu spidey weirdness, am i the only one who feels like they tried to fuse flash with a harry on a particularly bad trip? i remember him being brown in a comic timeline but never mean when sober. and after pheathers, making the bully a smart member of a minority group just feels tonedeaft

I think there’s a very good argument for Norman and Harry being mixed race in the main canon, because I think Norman reads best as a character if there’s something about him that he’s personally and to his detriment deeply ashamed of and repressed about and that he goes to great lengths to cover up. This could be that he’s mixed race --- the tight curl pattern of the Osborn hair, and Harry’s afro in Spider-Gwen’s flashback scenes could lend themselves to this -- or that he’s Jewish -- again, the tight curl pattern of the Osborn hair and Harry’s afro in the Spider-Gwen flashbacks, along with the extremely questionable decision to have Harry bullied for being rich by having kids call him “the Green Goblin.” (It is actually still antisemitic if you don’t actually go all the way there, Jason Latour.) The self-hating Jew aspect definitely becomes problematic in a canon where Peter Parker isn’t himself openly and proudly canonically Jewish, so I tend to steer clear of this one, though I do think it could be very interesting in terms of Norman turning himself into the ultimate stereotype of the wealth-hoarding evil Jewish business man through his own self-hatred. My current favorite reading of Norman is that Norman is a deeply repressed gay man. There’s plenty of subtext here to support this: the obsession with Peter Parker as the young and strong masculine ideal, the deeply campy original Green Goblin design with the fuschia purse and the huge fake eyelashes, Norman’s eschewing and disdain for his genetic descendants, the paralleling between Norman’s abuse of Harry with a father’s sexual abuse of his son in The Child Within, and the seduction and later the torture of Flash Thompson when Norman recruited him to be his assistant after his return from the dead. It’s all potentially, to use a word I hate, very problematic without a deft hand in the storytelling, but I think done right and balanced against some honest and positive representation any of the above could offer up some very good stories.��

Anyway, all that Osborn stuff aside, yeah, the decisions made with Flash in the MCU truly baffle me. I like the casting of Tony Revolori, who I really enjoyed in Grand Hotel Budapest, but the decision to make him a nerd who verbally bullies Peter instead of a jock who antagonizes Peter is bizarre, to say the least. I think I read an article somewhere that said the change was made because jocks aren’t the “in kids” anymore, which, like, presents a weird picture of current American high school politics where all the nerds are just picking on each other now in an attempt to become the new pop culture ruling class. Then there’s the fact that Flash, now A Smart Kid, is routinely passed over in favor of Peter, kicked off the decathlon in favor of Peter, and, during the Washington Monument scene, depicted as a person who would rather save a trophy than help his classmate and in-comics high school girlfriend, Liz. So now that Flash is brown, the MCU has decided to portray him as a smart kid who is routinely passed over for the supposedly smarter white kid, and a materialistic coward beside. I’ve seen Homecoming get a lot of praise for its diverse cast, and I have to say I do like much of the casting, but the follow through in the actual movie is, I would say, far less progressive than it looks on paper. See also: this being the first Spider-Man movie with a black love interest and coincidentally the first Spider-Man movie without a kiss scene in it, and the erasure of Mary Jane’s identity by pasting her nickname onto a character the screenwriters have been very open about saying isn’t Mary Jane, a character who isn’t even given a last name within the film, following the massive racist backlash after rumors broke out that Zendaya was playing Mary Jane. 

It’s also important, in my opinion, to note that in main comics continuity Flash Thompson’s childhood was marked by violent and repeated physical abuse by his father. The Amazing Spider-Man (2012) is the only film franchise to reference this, even though Flash Thompson is a character who has appeared in all three Spider-Man film franchises. The Thompson family in 616 is depicted as extremely blue collar: Flash is a high school football star whose father is a cop and an alcoholic who beats his son and ridicules his wife. They live in a modest apartment. MCU Flash, by contrast, is depicted as a nerd who drives a very expensive car and gets ousted from the academic decathlon by Peter, who doesn’t even care about the decathlon and just needs an excuse to go to DC where -- conveniences of all plot conveniences -- the decathlon is being held. I mean, they just bussed my dad out to Brooklyn when he was a mathlete, but whatever. (Spider-Man: Homecoming has a deeply weird undercurrent about financial status; almost everyone in the movie is either depicted as comfortably middle class, including the Parkers, or as rich.) I’m going to admit: the scene where Peter steals and wrecks Flash’s car made me deeply uncomfortable in the theater, knowing Flash’s comics backstory. Absence of on-screen or referenced abuse is not, in and of itself, a lack of that abuse within the story, or rather an erasure of the contents of the work the story was adapted from. If we assume 616 is the main universe, and that everything leads out of there, then from my perspective, unless other evidence is offered up, there’s no reason to assume things don’t line up, i.e., without direct evidence otherwise I have to assume Flash is still a victim of parental abuse. Expensive gifts like a car isn’t direct evidence against that. Flash being a nerd now isn’t direct evidence against that.

(Spectacular Spider-Man #-1)

(Amazing Spider-Man #574)

(Venom (2011) #27)

So I think about scenes like this and then I think about Flash being the butt of the joke in Spider-Man: Homecoming over Peter stealing his car and at the very least, I have to say, I’m not happy with the lack of nuance presented, or the implication that the MCU’s Flash couldn’t be a victim of abuse because he’s a rich nerd in this iteration. It is, now that you mention it, a bizarrely Harry Osborn-esque take on the character: the expensive car, the rich background, smart but not as smart as Peter, a bit of a jerk to Peter in their early acquaintanceship in a verbal rather than a physical way, not exactly the bravest crayon in the box. But there’s an issue in that too because, like Flash, although rarely depicted as physically, Harry was also abused in his childhood by his father. So we’re back to square one with the car scene and some troubling implications, turning a character who bears the name of one abused character and wears the traits of another into the butt of a joke so Audi could fit another car into the movie. 

Like I said, I do like the casting and I think Revolori is a great actor and did his best with the part he was given -- I just wish the character had been handled by the writers and director with any compassion. A big part of me wishes that instead of pasting Ned Leeds’ name over Ganke Lee, Miles Morales’ best friend, the MCU had compressed the timeline and just let Flash Thompson inhabit his future rule as Peter Parker’s best friend. Instead, we get Flash Thompson, The One Note Bully: Nerd Remix. 

[hellyeahheroes]

Barbara Rodriguez = Michelle Jones?

I saw this comparison and I just wanted to give my take.

As you know, I am anti-MCU Peter Parker. I will be the first to list things the character stole from Miles Morales, from private school to best friend. To thematic motivations and costume colors. MCU Pete took two storylines including my girlfriend’s dad is evil which in all of Peter’s history, was never a thing. MCU Pete is white Miles Morales.

But the Barbara comparison? I am not sure. For those who do not know whom she is, Barbara is Miles Morales primary love interest. Here is a visual.

So visually she sort of looks like Zendaya but personality wise, it’s different. And yeah, you can say that how MCU Peter and MJ is similar in that Peter is smitten with Liz so he doesn’t notice MJ being Helga Pataki. Miles didn’t notice Barbara either. He was literally skirt chasing all over but failed to notice the girl who he did a class project with.

But again that is classic Peter Parker. He hyperfocuses on Betty Brant, Liz Allen, and Gwen Stacy that he completely disregards his fooooine ass red headed neighbor. So it is not necessarily a characteristic that is uncommon for Peter.

And then we get to the personality and to be fair to Homecoming, a lot of Barbara’s characterization was unknown to the reader because Bendis was going to leave that to the next writer as he was leaving Marvel. So when Homecoming was out, very little was known about Barbara except she was an artist(not specifying what kind), and she likes bantering with Miles. There is also a hint that she may be biracial too since she was compared to Alicia Keys. Oh and she is actually Miles’ inter dimensional soulmate that Molecule Man saved from the destruction of the Ultimate Universe as thanks to Miles for giving him a burger(long fucking story).

A lot of Barbara’s character comes from literally the last 7 months. We learn that she is a rapper. We learn that she has a devious trouble making streak. We learn that at least half her family descended from Cali and she has a little cousin who is at risk of being deported.

If Michelle starts dropping bars, then ring the alarm. Regardless, Michelle is probably the most original characterization of MCU Spider-Man. There is really not a lot of inspiration that you can say came from any interpretation of Mary Jane or Gwen.

And then there is the whole knowing love interest is Spider-Man thing that MCU casually dropped and yeah, Mary Jane always knew Peter Parker was Spider-Man even before they formally met. It was one of the biggest reveals in Spider-Man mythos that explained nearly years of writing her character.

In fact, Barbara probably has more in common with 616 MJ than she does Michelle. Just like MJ she knows Miles is Spider-Man and just like MJ, Miles not telling her is causing a rift in their relationship.

Michelle’s reveal that she knows was for comedic effect which is unlike both 616 and Barbara. There is no tension. It is played for laughs. It is a joke.

And again, Miles and Barbara are only 20 or so issues old. They have a lot of character dynamic to explore before we can call her Miles’ MJ even though she was obviously designated as such.

So no. I don’t buy it.

@ubernegro

[inhumansforever]

Ms. Marvel #25 Review

spoilers spoilers spoilers spoilers spoilers spoilers spoilers spoilers spoilers

The ‘Teenage Wasteland’ story arc begins here as Kamala’s buddies try to pick of the super heroing slack during Ms. Marvel’s mysterious absence.  From the creative team of G Willow Wilson, Nico Leon and Ian Herring Recap and review following the jump.

Ms. Marvel is missing and Jersey City has been left unprotected.  Kamala’s good friends, Zoe, Nakia, Mike and Gabe are all quite worried that all manner of mayhem might ensue were the all the bad guys outer to discover Ms. M’s absence.  Hence they have hoisted it upon themselves to take up Ms. Marvel’s mantel, dress up as her and keep the denizens of Jersey City safe and believing that their hero is there to protect them.  

And the city may very well need this protection, for the weird and evil scientist, Dr. Gregory Balthazar Knox, has just been granted parol and has been released from prison.  Knox is actually the super villain known as ‘The Inventor’ and is one of the first major adversaries Ms. Marvel tangled with in her short career as a costumed hero.   It looks like Kamala has chosen the wrong time for her sabbatical in that The Inventor is sure to be up to all manner of dastardly deeds now that he’s free.  

Elsewhere, Mike is roaming the rooftops of downtown Jersey City trying her best to fill Ms. Marvel’s shoes, and uniform, and there’s also a cheap wig (which she forgot to remove the price tag from).  

Mike spots a robber (who is very conveniently dressed as a robber) trying to pilfer some priceless pearls from an older woman.  Mike jumps onto the scene, using a rigged-together inflatable device to mimic Ms. marvel’s embiggoned fist.  At first the robber laughs at this un-intimidating display, but laughs no more when the inflated fist wallops him into next Tuesday.  Her job accomplished, Mike attempts to make a dramatic exit which results in her falling off a rooftop and into a dumpster.  

Back at Gabe’s basement hideout, Mike exclaims that she’s had it.  Playing the role of Ms. Marvel has been rather difficult and she has sprained everything that she has left to sprain.  It’s someone else’s turn to take a shift.  The others lament that this would all be easier were Kamala there to help.  None of Kamala’s pals know that she and Ms. Marvel are one and the same; the fact that Ms. M and Kamala have both gone missing at the same time seems to strike them as little more than a mere coincidence.  

In any case, Zoe agrees that she’s be next at playing the role of Ms. Marvel… she’s confident that it’ll go well; you know, since she’s been doing some cross/fit of late (plus she has a copy of ‘Pakour for Dummies’ so it’s certain to go fine).

The next day at school, their classmate, Neftali, has come looking for Kamala.  It’s Wednesday, sandwich day, and Neftali has brought with him a deluxe kosher hoggie for his pal.  This is the character’s first introduction in the pages of Ms. Marvel, but apparently the two are friends and usually share sandwiches on Wednesday.  He is perplexed by Kamala’s friend’s seeming lack of concern over Kamala’s whereabout.  

Nakia and the others have grown rather accustomed to Kamala disappearing for long spats at a time.   Between Ms. Marvel’s adventures as a solo hero coupled with her participation with both The Champions and Secret Warriors, Kamala likely misses a lot of school and the others seem to have just become used to it.  Neftali, however, doesn’t like it at all and sets upon finding out where Kamala is and delivering her her sandwich (or be mildly inconvenienced in trying).  

Fortunately, Neftali has a pretty boss scooter that he uses to shoot over the Khan household where he finds Aamir in the process of loading up a moving van, prepping for his and his new wife moving into an apartment of their own.   Aamir appears to know what’s up with his sister; she’s taking a break and Aamir is not about to spill the beans on her whereabouts.  Aamir is not about to get on his sister’s bad side; he and his wife are expecting a baby any day now and Aamir is going to need all the help (and babysitting) that Kamala may have to offer.  Still, Aamir is able to convince Neftali that Kamala is okay and that he has no need to worry about her wellbeing.  

That night, Zoe has donned the Ms. Marvel garb and wig and doing her part to patrol the city and assure the citizenship that Ms. Marvel still has their backs.  Smartly, Zoe has chosen an affluent, low-crime neighborhood to patrol.   It is here that Zoe is approached by Laal Khanjeer, The Red Dagger.  

The Dagger sees right through Zoe’s disguise.  He knows the real Ms. Marvel quite well and is rather certain she doesn’t have blue eyes and caucasian skin.  He demands to know what has been down with the real Ms. Marvel, but Zoe is able to turn the tables on him by asking why it is he’s so interested…  The Dagger has a big ol’ crush on Ms. Marvel and he bashfully goes on the defensive, explaining that things did not go so well between them on their last adventure together; he’s been quite worried about her.

Zoe and The Dagger’s conversation is cut short when a screaming old man rolls by on his slow-speed motorized rascal.  Newly arrived from Karachi, The Dagger is not sure whether or not such an occurrence is a normal thing here in the states.  Zoe has to admit it isn’t and she catches up with the old-timer to see what the problem is.   The man explains that he’s escaped his assisted living home because someone there has been locking up the residents in a science dungeon.  

Concerned that the old fellow might be suffering from some type of age related cognitive issue, Zoe and The Dagger escort him back to the Sundown Senior Sanctuary.  Whist doing so, The Dagger laments that in his home country they would never treat their elders in such a way; one’s grandparents deserve respect and should be cared for by their families.  Here here.  

Despite the old man’s claims of peril, the Sundown Senior Sanctuary seems to a nice enough place.  There’s a spirited game of checkers going down as well as an old codger who appears perfectly content chucking a bunch of stuffed animals out the window (which does look rather fun).  

Despite the apparent lack of any danger, The Dagger insists that he and Zoe have a look around just to be sure.  Begrudgingly, Zoe agrees and as they look around they encounter Bob the orderly who demands they vacate immediately.  This ‘Bob’ is quite obviously Dr. Gregory Balthazar Knox.  Yet, in his guise as a super villain, Knox wore this weird bird costume so neither recognize him (although Zoe does sense something familiar about him).  

Quite suddenly, a mechanical arm crashes through the wall, its mechanized hand grabbing Zoe and picking her up.  The Dagger tries to rescue her but they both end up falling down to the side of the building.  Fortunately they land safely in the pile of stuffed animals that old dude had been chucking out the window.  Thanks gramps!

The two get up and see before them the creature that had attacked them: some type of giant chameleon cyborg!  Uh oh!   

And it is here that the issue concludes with the promise of continuation.  

It’s an interesting and fun irony that an issue that doesn’t feature a single appearance of the real Ms. Marvel should feel so unequivocally ‘Ms. Marvel-esque’ in tone, style and substance.  The quippy but authentic dialogue, continued strong character development, and fun but still perilous adventure is all here… it’s only Kamala herself who is missing.  Yet I don’t miss her too terribly in that I love her supporting cast and am quite happy for a story arc putting them in the center spotlight.  

Zoe especially shined in this issue.  She is such an intriguing characters in that she has transformed so much from her first appearance (where she was a one-dimension and stereotypical cheerleader mean-girl) to her current status as a wholly unique, fully fleshed-out, interesting and relatable character.  Zoe is merely a component of Ms. Marvel’s supporting cast, yet she has more depth and development of personality than most characters who star in their own book (or books plural).  It reminds me of the Lee/Ditko era of Amazing Spider-Man where Petey’s pal, Harry Osborn, Gwen Stacy, Flash Thompson and Liz Allen all played pivotal roles in the stories, making Spidey’s world feel real and multidimensional.  

Zoe and The Red Dagger make for a great pairing.  Outside of their shared concern for Kamala, the two have almost nothing in common yet they play off one another in a wonderful fashion.  G Willow Wilson’s skill at providing her characters such a unique and idiosyncratic sense of voice makes the dialogue such a treat to read.  

I also appreciated the addition of Neftali to the crew.  It’s difficult to say what the story is with this guy, where he’s been all this time and how it is that he has access to such highly coveted sandwiches, but I’m definitely interested in learning more.  The scene between him and Aamir is particularly intriguing... not because of what is said, but rather what is not said.  I like that there can be a scene between one character who is quite obviously Muslim and another who is quite obviously Jewish and the matter of culture and religion is not at all a factor.  

Also, as a Jewish guy myself, it is always nice to see a fellow Jew introduced as a character.  I can already hear the haters lamenting the overtly political correctness of Kamala’s running crew being so very diverse, but representation does matter and it just feels good to see someone like me as a part of the Ms. Marvel cast.  

Likewise, I’m glad to see The Inventor make a subsequent appearance.  As a comic, Ms. Marvel really needs to start accruing a more stable rogues gallery; and the Inventor’s return is an excellent step in that direction.  It makes for an interesting twist that he has gone from targeting shiftless teenagers to setting his sights on shuffled-away senior citizens.  It’s sinisterly clever that he always goes after those who are pushed off to the fringes, who may be the least likely to be missed.  Based on his prior appearance, The Inventor has expressed a particular animosity toward those he see as not contributing to society; perhaps he feels the same way toward the elderly.  He’s just a bad dude.  

A lot of the fellow Ms. Marvel fans I’ve spoken with are still holding out hope that Kamala/Bruno might still happen.  Although it’s a shipping I respect, I actually much prefer Kareem.  Of course I would also be fine with Kamala not having a love interest at all.  She’s just a teenager and anything outside of holding hands is likely to be more than what she is currently interested.  Still, I think the Red Dagger is super cool and I’m psyched that he’s going play a central role in this adventure.  

Artist, Diego Olortegu, had illustrated the previous two issue.  Mr. Olortegu is a very talented artist, yet I didn’t feel as though he was a particularly good fit for Ms. Marvel.  This issue is illustrated by Nico Leon who is much more apt in capturing that distinctive look and aesthetic that has come to be something of a hallmark of the title.  Similar to Adrain Alphona and Takeshi Miyazawa, Leon absolutely excels at providing the kinds of facial expression, panel layouts, detailed backgrounds, sight gags and all the fun little tidbits that makes the series so special.  In particular, I liked Gabe zipping about his basement on a hover-board, Zoe’s reading ‘Pakour for Dummies,’ and the sign at the Sundown Senior Sanctuary reminding residents not to feed cake to Fluffy the dog.  

I’ve long-since run out of ways to laud Ian Herring’s color work, so I’ll just repeat once more that it is flawless and Mr. Herring’s coloring has remained just as crucial a component to the specialness of Ms. Marvel as the wrting and illustration.

Another fantastic read and highly recommended.  This is the last issue of Ms. Marvel for 2017 and I can say once more that the series has easily earned a spot on my top ten best comics of the year. A must read.  Five out of Five Lockjaws.  

[mrsspidermanmaryjanewatsonparker]

Part 1

I fucking hate the comicscube at the best of times. Quite apart from honestly arguing (even before OMD) that in altering time Peter never made the deal and therefore was absolved of it, they consistently publish bullshit like this.

Strap in.

“It’s pretty obvious at this point that the marriage between Spider-Man and Mary Jane Watson was an abject failure. In the over 50 years of Spider-Man’s existence, his comics have been some of the most consistently entertaining in all of the medium, except for the nearly 20 year span when he was married. If you look at the list of his most beloved storylines, almost all occur before or after the marriage years, with a few exceptions. That cannot be a coincidence.”

 Wow they don’t even try to hide their bias.

 It’s pretty obvious that the marriage was an abject failure.

 That marriage that lasted 20 years, needs to be teased as returning to spike sales, got it’s own universe in Marvel’s biggest ever event comic, was the most successful story during said event outside of the main book and got it’s own spin-off series off the back of that that’s outlasted similar efforts and gotten consistent critical acclaim.

 Yeah...abject failure. I hope these guys used protection whilst they were bending over for Marvel.

 Let’s break this first paragraph down.

 Could it be that lists of his most beloved stories contain less stories from during the marriage due to:

 -          Sexism directed at the marriage due to Mary Jane’s presence within it (MJ is a historical target for sexism within fandom and marvel offices) as well as the desire to have Spidey be ‘a swinging single’ (which he rarely was before the marriage but whatever)

 -          A consistently pushed narrative that reinforces an anti-marriage stance upon people before they ever even pick up a storyline from when he was married. This also applies to the Clone Saga which isn’t a story so much as it is an era and within that era contains multiple very strong stories

  -          Compilers of list typically being comic book news sites which have vested financial interests in siding with the companies narratives AND supporting their most recent content meaning there is undue bias and praise given to recent works regardless of whether it’s warranted?

 -          Half the marriage occurring in the 1990s when there was WIDESPREAD creative problems within the comic book industry which included a prioritization of gimmicks, style over substance and quantity over quality. The last one was a big problem for Spider-Man who had to support a minimum of FOUR monthly titles, each coming out a week after another and typically telling individual stories, for most of the decade. This was toxic overexposure for the character AND all characters within the narrative compromising over all quality and it was a problem MOST characters suffered from.

 Or you know maybe Spider-Man being married was the reason a lot of 90s X-men and 90s Teen Titans and most of 90s Image comics had serious quality problems too?

  But hey let’s move on to other parts of this opening...er...lie. Yeah. Lie is a good word.

 Spider-Man comics have been consistently entertaining except for the 20 years when he was married.

 I’m not mathematician but if 20 out of 55 years was allegedly unentertaining that means over 36% of your content was NOT entertaining, well over one quarter.

 So this piece of shit article is already shooting itself in the foot. If 36+% of unentertaining content is NOT entertaining then your series is by definition NOT consistently entertaining jackass.

 Now obviously we all know the allegation that there is 20 straight years of crap in Spider-Man is an outright lie but let’s dive deeper into that notion.

 Consistently entertaining?

  Lol...no.

 I love and adore Spider-Man but I’m not blind to when the seires was bad.

  Fact is after the Master Planner Saga the iconic Lee/Ditko run was not that great. Better than most stuff today sure and interesting historically but as stories unto themselves they pale in comparison to what came before and were angry and even pessimistic.

  This is why in the very first Romita era Spider-Man issue (ASM #39) we opened up with everyone being hooked on happy pills (sans Jameson because he’s beyond medication) and everyone is playing nice with one another.

 Lee and Romita did some great stories but not too long after Peter and Gwen became a couple in earnest the series’ quality began again to flag mostly due to Stan Lee probably writing it for a bit too long.

 There were some exceptions of course but it’s really, really obvious that by and large the second half of Stan’s run with Romita (or even his run over all) isn’t in the same league as what he was doing in the first half.

 And frankly Amazing Spider-Man #100-110 is pretty consistently mediocre or forgettable, especially when Roy Thomas was ripping off King Kong for some reason. Hell I’ll say it, Amazing Spider-Man #100 is straight up bad. It’s a clipshow, within a dream sequence repetitive of OTHER dream sequences we’ve seen in the series culminating in something dumb as fuck in the form of Spidey having six arms.

 We then get Conway’s run which is again forgettable until Gwen dies and then it gets interesting. But not really in so far as the superhero action. No, most of Conway’s 1970s superheroics tended to also be lame or mediocre barring some exceptions. However the personal life stuff which constituted less than half of each issue was better than it had been in years.

 We then got Len Wein’s run. Again, some exceptions not withstanding this is a run mostly remembered for bring back Harry, hooking him up with Liz and introducing a new Green Goblin who lasted five minutes.

 Parts of it are bad but mostly it’s just aggressively average but nowhere near the heights of the series past.

 Spectacular began during this run and the issues were a mess of uneven quality for a long time.

 Wolfman took over from Wein and whilst his stories were more exciting due to actually having more momentum they were flawed and regressive for various characters with a clear cut agenda and reductive idea of Spider-Man. Again some GREAT stuff but not what you would call consistent...not when he was chasing the disco era so much. Bill Mantlo in Spec was maybe doing more consistent and lower key work at that time.

 Then Denny O’Neil showed up and presented us with absolutely nothing of value whatsoever for a few years.

 This was the first ever time Spider-Man had an overall run that was honestly bad and it was the early 1980s.

 We got our asses saved by Roger Stern who, his issues writing women aside, gave us many classic stories as did Mantlo in Spec. However we then began the long painful ride in Spectacular of seeing Felicia’s character get dragged through the mud by mantle and then Jim Mooney. Not all bad but that’s just my point...not consistent.

 Now when DeFalco was handling ASm and Peter David was handling Spec that was consistently awesome....so long as you don’t count the utter mess that was Web of Spider-Man. Oops...it does count. Still 2 outta 3 good books ain’t bad I suppose.

 Oh but now we come to the real evil don’t we.

 The marriage.

 Mmmmmhmmmm this begins the horrible 20 year long train to OMD marked by wall to wall garbage right.

 Well...not exactly because we open with Kraven’s Last Hunt.

 What’s that?

 One of the most highly regarded Spider-Man stories of all times that on occasion tops the charts for greatest Spider-Man stories of all time occurring DURING the marriage?

 Impossible!

 It must be a fluke.

 It’s not like it heavily relied upon the marriage as part of the status quo to tell it’s story and provide emotional payoffs or anything...oh wait...yes it did and the creator 100% confirmed this.

 Ah but after this though we have the real garbage don’t we. We have the Michelinie run on Spider-Man that opens with...oh...the debut of the unquestionably most popular and famous Spider-Man of all time who fills a role within Spider-Man’s rogue’s gallery that had never been occupied before: the evil counterpart to the hero.

 Huh?

 Insane.

 Another fluke.

 I mean what else do we have in this run?

 Oh, Peter Parker growing and maturing as a person precisely because he is now navigating life as a newly wed and acting competently in his crime fighting duties. And MJ also growing as a person, including trying to balance her career with Peter’s. The pair of them going through a new take on ‘Spider-Man has cash problems’ and a solid subversion of the damsel in distress trope.

 Well I guess someone can have multiple flukes in a row what else did the early Michelinie issues really accomplish besides all that...and the second Venom story...that is regarded as the best Venom story ever...and is often put among the best Spidey stories of all time even by the anit-marriage Wizard magazine.

 Er....how about those other books though right! Spec and Web must still suck a lot by this point in time.

 They sure do. After Peter David writes a powerful sequel to his iconic Death of Jean DeWolff storyline Gerry Conway takes over both Spec and Web and creates another long lasting villain in the form of Tombstone, gives character development to a beloved, classic POC supporting character in the form of Joe Robertson and generally explores the supporting cast a lot.

 THEN we have a fun crossover between all the books where Spider-Man fights opponents usually out of his league because he has cosmic powers and so we ask questions about how Peter should use these new immense powers responsibly cutting to the heart of the series.

 Awwwwww crap. It looks like these early marriage stories have turned out to have failed our ��20 years of unentertaining garbage’ test.

 But the 90s are here now and we all know there was NOTHING worthwhile published during that time period.

 The debut of Carnage.

 The Harry Osborn Saga by the guy who wrote Kraven’s Last Hunt and in fact his entire run on Spectacular Spider-Man.

 Amazing Spider-Man #400

 The Lost Years

 Final Adventure.

  Spidey’s tie ins to Onslaught.

  Redemption.

  Revelations.

 Citizen Osborn also by the guy who did KLH and in fact his SECOND entire run on Spectacular.

 Identity Crisis

 Freefall

 Yep NOTHING redeemable whatsoever.

  EVERYTHING in the 90s was melting clones or Mackie/Byrne/Kavanagh nonsense.

 Everything.

 Okay maybe not EVERYTHING...or like...most of it...but A LOT of it really did suck you guys so that’s kinda sorta maybe like saying EVERYTHING in the 90s was unentertaining.

 Just like how every story before OMD in the 2000s when PSidey was married wasn’t entertaining.

 Remember that first Morlun arc with one of the best new jobs and battles for Spidey ever and the unquestionably most noteworthy new villain for him since Carnage in 1992?

 Unentertaining!

 Remember that poignant 9/11 issue?

 Unentertaining!

  Remember that conversation where Aunt May learned his secret identity finally?

 Unentertaining!

  Remember that airport conversation where Peter and MJ reconnected?

 Unentertaining!

  Remember the arc after that which organically and slowly got them back to being intimate in a believable way?

 Unentertaining!

  Remember the critically acclaimed first 12 issues of Marvel Knights that spiderfan.org declared to be more the main book than ASM?

 Unentertaining!

 Remember everyone waxing lyrical about Spidey joining the Avengers and unmasking in Civil War.

 Well apparently they were mostly lying about that.

 Remember the 100% BEST Black Cat story of all time by Sacasa in Sensational Spider-Man?

 Unentertaining!

 Remember Back in Black, the story where Spider-Man finally beat Kingpin in a satisfying manner?

 Unentertaining!

  Remember that Matt Fraction annual entirely about the marriage that was nominated for an Eisner award, an honour never before or since bestowed upon any Spider-Man story at all?

 Unentertaining!

 Ah well now we’re through the woods into the nirvana of post-OMD Spider-Man we’ve truly reached the pinnacle of Spider-Man quality haven’t we.

 Like these five separate stories that feature, threaten or heavily imply rape!

 Or this story about Spider-Man and Black Cat acting out of character horny teenagers.

 Or THIS story about the Lizard’s entire character being eviscerated!

 Oooooooh lookee here Spider-Man has a one night stand with a sexist AND racist ‘hot Latina’ stereotype of a character who then goes on to break the law by destroying his property and committing physical assault despite apparently being a lawyer.

 And hey hey, what a treat a SEQUEL to the worst Spider-Man story of all time that, wait, wait YES, it actually manages to be WORSE than the original story AND make the original story seem worse in hindsight too!

 How lucky we were back then.

 But the good times haven’t stopped.

 Since we’ve been blessed with Dan Slott’s writing we’ve been treated too:

 Amazing Spider-Man consistently treated like it’s Marvel Team Up complete with guest stars or characters who aren’t Peter Parker taking centre stage very frequently

 31 issues worth of Doctor octopus as the lead character instead of Spider-Man

 A modern version of Maximum Carnage except instead of the visually interesting villains of Carnage and Shriek going on a street level killing spree it’s the visually dull Morlun and his variant action figure family going bullshit magical crap that has little-no place in Spider-Man...while they kill beloved characters for shock value.

  Spider-Man acting like a manchild as he is also turned into a rip-off of Iron Man instead of anything resembling Spider-Man!

  Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay

 How ‘consistently entertaining’.

  And by entertaining I mean KILL IT WITH FIRE!

 Huh, wait a tick....it’s almost like the quality of Spider-Man’s stories have actually NOT been all that consistent in terms of their quality and that during those 20 marriage years there were more than a few good stories, some of which HAVE made it into countdown lists of the best Spider-Man stories.

 But what do I know.

 I’m just someone who’s worked on literal comic book info books, knows Spider-Man lore fairly deeply, has read a lot of this stuff and can maybe consider not oversimplifying something into a lazy conclusion like ‘no marriage stories exist in this list because obviously the marriage sucked’.

  “But how could something as relatively minor (in a fictional sense) as a relationship status be such a detriment to entertaining comics?”

 Because narrow minded jackasses like this author kept trying to get rid of it under false pretenses and wound up facilitating some of the worst stories ever.

 The worst parts of the Clone Saga?

 The Mackie Byrne reboot.

 OMD.

 Everything post-OMD.

  These are literally the worst of the worst Spider-Man stories and all of them have involved trying to either deep six the marriage or make Spider-Man work after the fact.

[peterpcrkcr]

Just Friends | A Peter Parker Imagine

8; 12; 39; 67.

Peter Parker x Reader requested by an anon. Thanks! Words: 1,420 Disclaimer: uhm secret identity reveal alert so if you don’t know who spiderman is get da hell out of here! lil angsty but it’s really all over the place. 

“Peter! Wait!” You were holding one of his notebooks, a dark blue one with a drawing of an old city villain on the cover. It had been two years since the Vulture had been caught, and you and Peter were seniors now. He was planning on going to Empire State University in the Fall, and you were planning to travel abroad and to take a gap year. You’d had part time jobs all through high school just so you wouldn’t have to worry about a single thing when you left New York. “Parker!”

He didn’t hear you at all. His mind was racing with the fact that there were things he needed to do and he couldn’t just do them as Peter Parker. Peter was focused on one thing and one thing only: fighting crime and vanquishing evil. His school work was already done, his projects easy to finish when he got home later that night. Aunt May would understand, but she wouldn’t be pleased. Peter set his sights on a new foe, but when a person focused on one thing, the mind drifts from something else.

Peter didn’t hear you as he webbed his backpack underneath the fire exit stairs of an apartment building in the middle of an alleyway. Your jaw dropped to the floor, but your eyes stayed glued to him as he stripped off his clothes and slipped on the Spider-Man’s suit. It was saggy until he did something to the front of them, and then is sucked up all the extra fabric and hugged his skin nicely. You gasped louder than you intended, and he turned to face you, eyes shooting wide open, as well as you could tell. 

“How long have you been standing there?” He asked you in a somewhat filtered voice, but overall the same. You shook your head and turned on your heels and practically ran away from him.

“Hey, wait!” He flung a web out of the alley and landed right next to you. He walked at the same page as you were jogging, and it made you even angrier. “Come on, (y/n). Please talk to me.”

“Stop following me, Spider-Man.” You mocked him as you rolled your eyes, annoyed that you honestly thought the two of you were friends. Maybe more than friends, you couldn’t tell because any time you cuddled up to him he had to leave, and now you knew why. 

“You followed me!” His voice squeaked from being upset. Any other time you might’ve thought it was cute, but this was not one of those times.

You turned and planted your feet shoulder width apart. Pointed a finger right beneath his nose and leaned in so close he had to see right inside your soul, and you were angry. “When were you ever going to tell me? Huh Pet-”

He set a hand over your mouth, but you bit his hand hard enough for him to jerk back. It was either from pain or because he was genuinely surprised you’d done it. “Ouch, (y/n)!”

“Don’t cover my mouth again or I’ll knock you right out of that suit.” You were more serious than you had ever been about anything before.

“I’m sorry, I just can’t let my secret get out.” He was sincere, and pleading. You huffed out a very annoyed breath and continued walking.

“I’m sure I’m not the only one who you’ve told, or shown. I’m just the only one of them that wasn’t in the plan.” You spoke to the open air in front of you. You pushed passed people on the streets. You just clutched his notebook to your chest and shook with the heavy backpack you were carrying, unsure of how Peter could escape school with almost nothing in his bag.

“That’s not exactly true...” He mumbled, but you heard him. You also heard him ask you to stop so the two of you could talk. “Come on.”

“What Parker?” You let his name fall through clenched teeth so it was lost to the hiss of your tongue. He stepped back once you stopped, this time in another alleyway. “What do you have to say? I’ve known you for three and a half years and you didn’t think to tell me one time that you were Spider-Man? I like to think I’m a reasonable person and that I can keep secrets really well... I never told Liz you liked her, or Gwen, or Betty, which were weird crushes anyway since they hated Spider-Man, but whatever. We’ve been studying for almost two years together and not once, not once did you think to tell me that you were maybe this guy?”

“By not telling you I was keeping a target off of your back. We both know that once you knew my secret you would do whatever you could to help me. You’re like that, helpful and compassionate. I can’t have anyone getting involved like that!” His voice was 

“Oh my god, P- Spider-Man. You’re such a liar. I bet Ned has helped you before, probably many times since you guys are best friends. I honestly should’ve guessed it considering Ned couldn’t stop talking about how you were a closer personal friend to Spider-Man for like an entire year. Also, you draw the things you’re afraid of inside your notebooks. Vulture? He was the first bad guy Spider-Man went after, right? You were so young I bet that traumatized you for life, and now you’re this guy I don’t even know?” You threw his notebook at him, wiped away the one angry tear that broke over the barrier of your eyelids. You turned to leave the alleyway, but he stopped you with a weak and simple please. “What?”

“You didn’t deserve all of the stress that comes with knowing.” He took one of your hands, you eyes looked down at his gloved hand, and when you looked back up you wanted to be looking into the eyes of Peter Parker, but didn’t entirely mind the mask of Spider-Man. “My Uncle told me that with great power comes great responsibility. You’ve been setting up your travel route, deciding where to start. You’ve been cutting study sessions to make plans with your friends abroad. It wasn’t just me pulling away.”

“But what about college? You said you were going this fall. How can you do that and this superhero thing?” You were whispering and squeezing his hand for him to feel the urgency behind your words. He shook his head a little bit, looked away from you to the people outside of the alley. They had no idea. “Peter,” you let his name fall away like the freeing of a dove. “You’ve got to do what you’ve got to do, but don’t forget about the side of you that let’s your skin feel the sun, okay?”

“I-I won’t.” He let your hand go and prepared to leave. “How does it feel?”

“What? How does what feel?” You stepped toward him, he looked away before dramatically looking back toward you and that made you laugh a little, a complete turn around in the tension you felt just a second before. 

“To know that Spider-Man’s got a thing for you?”

“Wha-?”

“See you at study group, right?” He asked, cutting you off. You nodded your head and watched as he ran out of the alley and swung up and over the small deli shops around you. 

“What an asshole.” You said as you laughed and blushed you whole way home, his crumpled notebook regained in your possession and held to your chest. Like a schoolgirl you felt the spark of a new adventure when at the end of July you were leaving town for along while. “I can’t believe he said he likes me.”

When you got to your apartment and scrolled on Tumblr for what seemed like 30 minutes but was definitely four and a half hours, Spider-Man came knocking on your window. When you opened it he pulled off his mask and at the sight of his tussled hair, and wild brow, your eyes felt like there were stars bursting from them. 

“Oh my god, you have a crush on me!” Peter said in a teasing tone as he got out of his suit to put on regular clothes. You rolled your eyes. “Say it!”

“I think I might tolerate you a lot more now that you’re not hiding anything from me.” You tapped his node with the eraser of your number 2 pencil.

[filmreviews]

Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017) dir. Jon Watts Pretty good movie, very weak adaptation. It is definitely the best Spider-Man movie since Spider-Man 2, but it’s nowhere near as good as Spider-Man 2. I know people complained, but Uncle Ben not being present and not even being mentioned by name undermines Peter Parker as a character. Aunt May (Marisa Tomei) being younger while making sense from a logical standpoint undermines Peter Parker as a character. Peter does a lot of risky shit in the movie, and why? To prove his worth to Tony Stark while simultaneously dodging Tony Stark? It doesn’t make any sense. Peter didn’t even seem that close to Aunt May this time around, and he’s meant to be extremely close to her. Aunt May is supposed to keep Peter Parker grounded. She’s the only real family he has left, she’s basically his mom, if you’re a fan of Mark Millar she is his mom. She’s lost her husband. She’s old and can’t work. She needs Peter and he needs her. That’s supposed to be their relationship, Homecoming turned her into the cool hot aunt. Adaptations adapt, change is necessary and expected, but changes should be to expand on a concept and not change it completely without providing an alternative. Want to make Aunt May younger? Cool, but give her a disorder, make her handicapped, something so she can still serve her function as a character. 

Again, he may have been the smartest, but making Midtown a private science-oriented high school undermines Peter as a character. He’s less impressive, he’s less of an outcast, and that’s what Peter truly is. Not an everyman character, but an outcast. 

Liz Allan (Laura Harrier) was boring and underwritten. Ned was horrible. God, I fucking hated Ned. I’m still trying to figure out if I disliked him or if I just disliked Peter having a close friend, probably both. His only purpose was to be the funny fat friend and sometimes help Peter get out of sticky (no pun intended) situations. Michelle (Zendaya), I don’t even know what they were going for with Michelle. She was awkward, apathetic, and kept bringing up social justice, and of course at the end she revealed herself to be “MJ” which was abhorrent. Mary Jane Watson is a great character, and just because she was annoying and ugly in the Raimi movies, they’ll never try a proper version of her again? Everybody would like her if it were done right. Everything about Michelle screamed Gwen Stacey and it’s almost a complete departure from how she was portrayed in the Webb series with Emma Stone. It would’ve been a great adaptation of Gwen Stacey and those dumbasses decided to instead throw Mary Jane Watson under the bus yet again, great job. Flash Thompson (Tony Revelori) was fantastic. The original Flash Thompson was an asshole that would just hurl insults at Peter Parker, he wasn’t a physical bully. The only thing I didn’t like was that Flash was constantly ragged on by the other Decathlon kids, it made his mocking less effective.

Finally, The Vulture (Michael Keaton). Great costume. I’m not gonna say he didn’t have enough screentime, but I wish had more real personal character moments with him. Michael Keaton was great, but The Vulture is probably my biggest problem with the movie. Like, that nigga was not evil. He killed people and he did illegal shit, but I legitimately don’t think he did anything wrong. He was more Robin Hood than Darth Vader. Peter makes such a big deal about going after The Vulture in the movie, even leaving Liz at prom to pursue him (also, Liz Allan was a senior and Peter was 15? Why did no one think that was weird? How was that even allowed? At my prom you couldn’t bring anyone more than a year younger than you. If they had sex Liz would be a rapist, and she looked interested. Thank you Jon Watts for giving us borderline rapist Liz Allan), and it’s just like, why does it matter? Why the fuck should Peter Parker care about The Vulture? Peter Parker, a character who’s supposed to be poor and is supposed to have a hard time with money, is now dedicated to taking down a working class man? For what? Talk about not understanding your characters. And it’s not like The Vulture was screwing over real actual innocent people, he was fucking with a billionaire who could afford to lose a few things. Tony Stark screwed Adrian and friends out of work, and they were screwing back, it’s only fair. 

What else? What else? No spider sense, that was shit. Tony’s super technological suit was shit.The soundtrack was shit. I can’t really judge Tom Holland’s performance as Peter Parker because he wasn’t playing Peter Parker. Tom Holland has a baby voice, which would be fine if he were actually 15 in real life, but he’s a grown man who’s voice probably isn’t going to change as Peter ages. Donald Glover can’t act for shit. He had one big scene in the movie and it was insufferable. Good lord, fuck Donald Glover, and fuck his cameo as Miles’s uncle. Miles Morales is so fucking boring. 

[kinghorsehead]

Here’s a little thing I’ve been working on, I’m not really sure where to put stuff like this, I’ll probably put it on my AO3 later

The Power of the multiverse in the palm of her hand. 

This wasn't how Doctor Olivia Octavius imaged her sunday to go, but every road trip had a few speed bumps. 

For now, the speed bump was several broken bones, possible internal bleeding, and being stranded in a universe that wasn't her own. 

She couldn't stay here, she knew she couldn't Not because she didn't want to, but she had seen what being in other universes did to the Spiders. They would glitch and become highly unstable until their own atoms shook themselves into nothing. She didn't know how much time she had here. A few days at the most. Before she could do anything, she had to at least get herself in a condition to move.

It was hell, dragging herself using her neuro-connected extra arms through this version of New York. At least the streets were all the same. Getting out of Murdoch Tower was about as easy as one could expect when you were a nobody underneath the tower of the city's crime lord. She couldn't alert anyone of her presense. She needed out, and she needed out fast. 

Her first glitch came when she had just gotten out of the building, escaping into a sewer tunnel to avoid detection. Her body was made out of molten lava, freezing as if she were left in the vacuum of space, being pulled apart and crushed back together all at once. It was only for a moment, but the increased pain of all of her injuries from being slammed by a bus didn't make things any easier for Liv. 

She was in the sewers, with no fear of being attacked by any goons or guards. She screamed as loud as her lungs would let her, writing in pain even after the glitch had come and gone. Her body was next to useless right now. At least she still had her working tendrils to move herself along.

The next day was spent in that very same sewer, forcing bones back into place and keeping herself from passing out or going into shock. She was a doctor, but this was not her specialty, she couldn't be careful. Glitches happened every four to six hours, she found out. The intensity would only increase slightly by each one, but she felt like the number would spiral out of control quickly. 

Time was not on her side. Even with her bones set in place, the more pressing matter was that she lacked the tools and influence in this world to be able to escape before her body destroyed itself. 

And that was when it happened.

Looking overhead, hiding in an alley as she took food from an unfortunate hotdog vendor, Liv saw her objective. An unmistakable blur of black, white, and pink. A wide grin spread over Liv's features. 

The Spider-Woman. 

The plan formed itself after that. but it had to be put into action in the next two days. Liv had hoped for a week, but as time passed, she only gave herself three days at the very maximum to get herself out of here. 

Before she could work on getting Spider-Woman, she needed resources. By fortune, or perhaps just a multiversal fact, her counterpart on this earth was also a highly regarded scientist. Unfortunately, this Otto Octavius had fallen from grace, mentally bonded with his pet octopus, and works for some dubious people in order to fund his projects. Sounded almost familiar. 

Getting into the headquarters of the organization known as SILK was something difficult. Unlike Murdoch, who was simply this universe's version of Kingpin, SILK was highly trained and highly advanced. 

Otto was out, and Liv was in. She didn't need much time, just enough to gather materials and start working on her next creation. It was simple, but the technique was very theoretical. Two-to-one odds that she would die, but it was better than wasting away in this universe. 

With her machine completed, she made her escape. It was time to put her plan into action.

Getting the attention of Spider-Woman wasn't hard. All she had to do was crush a few cars and be evil long enough to catch the attention of the Hero. 

And catching her was no joke. The young spiderman from her universe was as green as a pea, and though he proved himself in the end, it was the group effort of him and five others to stop her and Kingpin. By far, Spider-Woman was the best of the five, being in her prime and at the top of her game. 

Another glitch. As she predicted, they were getting worse. It wouldn't be long before it would kill her. 

A few cars were thrown, people were screaming, and the police were being fought with ease. With another vile smile, Liv watched as Spider-Woman swooped in and webbed up a flying car before it could hit the ground and any bystanders. 

"You!" Spider-Woman pointed at Liv. This was indeed the one that she had fought at the collider. It was the only way to explain how she had been recognized so fast. "Don't you have your own universe to terrorize?" "I can assure you, miss, if I had a way of going back to my universe, I would be there by now. Unfortunately, time isn't on my side, as I'm sure you're aware." She took no time in lunging at Spider-Woman, her tendrils snaking forward with the intent on wrapping her up. 

It was easy to take note of the fact that Liv's body barely moved. All of her movements were carried out by her tendrils that moved her this way and that. She still had to be careful about over-exerting herself and ricking further harm to her own body during the fight. She just needed to win for barely a moment. After that, she didn't care what happened. 

It was too easy, Liv knew this to be a fact. It was obvious by the shattered goggled, burns, scratches, and blood, and how she moved and acted that Liv was in a bad place, and Spider-Woman wasn't a merciless person. While Liv knew that Spider-Woman was capable of so much more, this was exactly what Liv wanted. 

Liv even let the rope slip a little, and let Spider-Woman have the upper hand in the fight to draw her in. With the flips and the webs as spiders are typical to do, it wasn't long before Spider-Woman had Liv in her trap.

"I don't like seeing you like this. But when you're stuck on the raft, I guess I won't have to see you at all." Spider-Woman declared, staring down the defeated Liv who was trapped in webbing just over 164th street. 

"Well, I'm glad this is all ending nicely, then." Liv smiled sweetly at Spider-Woman, Judging by the lack of action taken by Spider-Woman, Liv had to assume that her slight movements hadn't set off her Spider Sense just yet. It was time to truly set them off.

With a grunt and a sudden jerk, Liv attempted to force herself out of the webbing, but to no avail. Spider-Woman reacted just as she had planned, and this was her window.

In barely a moment, Liv had escaped from the webbing that confinded her, and pulled down the hood that Spider-Woman wore over her mask. With all of the strength she could muster, Liv attached a metalic circlet to Spider-Woman's head and began tapping quickly onto a control panel on her arm. With another jerk, Spider-Woman grabbed Liv and forced her away. The circlet was ripped off of her head with little care, and Spider-Woman suddenly felt no remorse of brining a wounded woman to justice. More webs, more than one needed to produce to contain someone were shot out and wrapped around Liv, restraining her while the cops came in to take her away. 

Before the police could even say anything to Spider-Woman, she was gone, leaving Liz on the street. 

Hours passed, nothing. Spider-Woman had returned to her home  and resumed her life as a normal teenager. Well, as normal as you could get for a girl who was bitten by a radioactive spider. A quiet dinner with little to say other than how Spider-Woman defeated a new villain. 

When she returned to her room to retire for the night, she set her costume out on the bed. With a look at the mirror, she tilted her head and smiled. Something would have to be done about the hair, and maybe the peircings, but it was all right. Yes. Her name was Gwen Stacy, she reminded herself. This was a new chapter in her life, one that gave her all the time that she needed.

Her eyes landed back on the costume. With the exception of the Web Shooters, it was all just cloth and mesh. This would have to change. The costume suddenly needed enhancements, changes, maybe a whole new costume altogether. 

She laughed. This was not the normal laugh that would come from Gwen. This was something else, something much higher, sweeter, and somehow one hundred times more vile than ever before. 

Yes, Doctor Olivia Octavius had done it. She had switched bodies with the Spider-Woman of this universe, but she couldn't just doing the same old same old again. She was Gwen Stacy now, but she had to be better than Gwen.

She had to be Superior.

[f4liveblogarchives]

Fantastic Four Vol. 1 #102

Sun March 19 2018 [22:10:42] <Wackd> Alright, here we go, the last ever Stan Lee/Jack Kirby comic published during Jack Kirby's time at Marvel. [22:10:54] <Wackd> But not, I should note, the last ever Stan Lee/Jack Kirby comic. [22:11:14] <Wackd> FANTASTIC FOUR VOL 1 NO 102 [22:11:41] <Wackd> "This is the one you've been waiting for!" Well, in a kind of morbid, melancholy sort of way, yeah. [22:12:32] <Wackd> Continuing the recent trend of stories opening with Ben/Alicia related adorableness, Ben has the flu! [22:13:00] <Wackd> How is this physiologically possible? Who knows! Marvel genetics is a strange and wonderful thing. [22:13:24] <Wackd> ...oh, wait. That's Crystal. [22:13:34] <Wackd> Dammit Jack learn how to draw more women. [22:14:13] <maxwellelvis> Say what you want about Steve Ditko, at least you know you won't be mistaking Liz Allen for Gwen Stacy. [22:14:23] <Wackd> Ben's sneezes cause explosions. [22:14:26] <maxwellelvis> Granted, that's probably because Gwen was a Romulan, but still... [22:14:36] <Wackd> MARVEL GENETICS ARE A STRANGE AND WONDERFUL THING [22:15:06] <MousaThe14_> He has very powerful lung-like organs [22:15:14] <Wackd> So anyway Reed is worried about Franklin catching the flu. [22:15:48] <Wackd> "It's not good for me, though, seriously, fuck childcare"

[22:16:03] <MousaThe14_> I reasonable concern since we don’t what a flu could mutate to inside of Ben [22:17:33] <MousaThe14_> Childcare is for other superheroes [22:18:06] <MousaThe14_> But not all superheroes, merely the womenfolk, manly men like Reed are exempt [22:18:08] <maxwellelvis> Childcare is for DC superheroes [22:18:43] <maxwellelvis> Though at that time, I think the number of DC superheroes who had kids could be counted on one hand, one finger, even. [22:18:46] <Wackd> Meanwhile, Namor discovers the Savage Land. [22:18:50] <maxwellelvis> And that finger was Plastic Man. [22:18:53] <MousaThe14_> Childcare is making all your kids the best detectives [22:18:55] <Wackd>

[22:19:17] <maxwellelvis> Isn't the Savage Land in the South Pole? [22:19:25] <Wackd> Yes., [22:19:31] <Wackd> Namor's taken a trip to Antarctica. [22:19:35] <maxwellelvis> Oh right. [22:19:47] <MousaThe14_> Sometimes he likes to get away from it all [22:19:54] <MousaThe14_> From all of civilization [22:20:02] <MousaThe14_> In an ice continent [22:20:02] <maxwellelvis> He goes to the poles occasionally to throw tantrums, frighten Inuits, and break superheroes out of ice blocks. [22:20:13] <Wackd> Say, does that vaguely penisy helmet look familiar to anyone? [22:20:18] <Wackd> Eh, it's probably nothing. [22:20:20] <MousaThe14_> Namor is not a social man [22:20:43] <maxwellelvis> They're pterosaurs, Wackd, they all look like that. [22:20:51] <maxwellelvis> Oh, HELMET [22:20:56] <MousaThe14_> Oh hey, I think Magneto fell from Asteroid M [22:21:17] <Wackd> Johnny gift-wrapped a box of cough medicine for Ben. [22:21:20] <Wackd> Phenominal. [22:21:32] <MousaThe14_> Wait a minute... red... purple.. [22:21:43] <MousaThe14_> THAT IS MAGNETO! [22:21:45] <Wackd> Yeah no it's Magneto. [22:21:46] <maxwellelvis> I was going to ask if Magneto was supposed to still be a prisoner of the Stranger at this time, but it's 1970 [22:22:13] <Wackd> And he's apparently made a hasty recovery because back in NYC, someone's just ripped the top of a building off. [22:22:56] <maxwellelvis> This is probably very soon after Uncanny X-Men was canceled. [22:22:56] <Wackd> Can't have a last Kirby issue without some last Kirby dots.

[22:23:16] <maxwellelvis> So this is as much play as Magneto can hope for for the next... five years. [22:23:40] <maxwellelvis> Last time was saw the X-Men, they were in Las Vegas, fighting the Hulk. [22:23:56] <Wackd> Back inside, Reed has engineered a new formula for Franklin, because the only way he can take an interest in his child is treating him as a guinea pig. [22:24:33] <Wackd> BEN: "Nuts! That's what happens when a superhero goes domestic!" *thinking* "'N I wish it would happen ta me." [22:25:42] <Wackd> Back in Namor's hold, Magneto is fucking around with some science to make his magnetism more powerful, when he's summoned to speak to Namor. [22:25:50] <Wackd> So I guess he's been using his shit without asking? [22:26:07] <maxwellelvis> Yeah. [22:26:17] <maxwellelvis> Magneto and Namor have a history at this point. [22:26:40] <Wackd> Namor's face just SCREAMS "ugh, get a load of this guy"

[22:26:41] <MousaThe14_> Namor: "Dude, what did I say about borrowing my stuff!" [22:27:20] <Wackd> Namor is...nooooot thrilled that Magneto wants to go to war. [22:27:25] <Wackd> He's considering it. But he's not thrilled. [22:27:49] <maxwellelvis> Namor was the first new recruit into the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. After the founding members Magneto, Mastermind, Toad, Scarlet Witch, and Quicksilver. [22:28:09] <Wackd> Back in NYC, Reed has discovered that the magnetic energy that's ripping buildings apart is emanating from Atlantis. [22:28:10] <MousaThe14_> I imagine that didn't last long [22:28:13] <maxwellelvis> I think Magento at one point also tried to recruit Thor to join the Brotherhood. [22:28:14] <Wackd> Namor's gonna be pisssssssed [22:28:23] <maxwellelvis> About one issue before Namor split. [22:28:24] <Wackd> Ah yes, famed evil mutant, Thor [22:28:35] <MousaThe14_> Pre-Claremont Margneto was not a three dimensional man [22:28:57] <maxwellelvis> This was VERY early in Thor's career, when nobody really knew what Thor's deal was. He could have been a Mutant for all Magneto knew. [22:29:42] <MousaThe14_> He also unironically called himself evil [22:29:50] <Wackd> Reed is planning countermeasures when electric wires start attacking Ben. [22:30:01] <Wackd> And then Reed. [22:30:29] <Wackd> And then Johnny gets shot with a "vacuum blast" from Reed's "control board." [22:30:38] <Wackd> Why does he even HAVE that lever? [22:31:25] <Wackd> Fortunately, Crystal manages to blow up the machine before it can attack again, and now Magneto can't attack with any more of Reed's electronics, because that's how that works. [22:32:34] <MousaThe14_> Freaking magnets, this is exactly how they work [22:33:34] <maxwellelvis> I'm not surprised Namor's not at all leaping to aide Magneto. He has a kingdom to think of now, he can't put them at risk for a fight he has no real part of. [22:36:03] <Wackd> So anyway, Ben decides that they might as well attack at Atlantis, if they're gonna be like that. [22:37:22] <Wackd> See, Reed had set up a "concussion missile" as a potential countermeasure. [22:37:43] <Wackd> Shoulda made it require two-factor authentication, Reed. [22:39:06] <Wackd> So, this countermeasure is actually part of Magneto's plan...somehow. Because Namor doesn't know NYC is being attacked, Magneto can claim the Fantastic Four are starting shit. [22:39:27] <MousaThe14_> ... okay [22:40:07] <Wackd> OH! Okay. This wasn't the missile. Magneto shook Atlantis. [22:40:15] <Wackd> The impending missile is just a bonus. [22:40:42] <maxwellelvis> He gets rid of the Four AND Namor at the same time? I assume was Magneto's goal? [22:41:00] <Wackd> He's not gotten rid of either party...yet. [22:41:24] <Wackd> By attacking both and pinning it on the other, Magneto can incite Namor to war against the surface world. [22:41:35] <Wackd> And both sides will think the other started it. [22:41:53] <maxwellelvis> That's what I mean. [22:42:09] <Wackd> Ah. [22:42:32] <Wackd> And so, cliffhanger, as both sides gear up for war. [22:44:55] <Wackd> We'll never get to see how Jack Kirby would've ended it. He left for DC, and John Romita took over. [22:45:29] <Wackd> But before we get to that, we need to talk about this. [22:45:47] <Wackd> FANTASTIC FOUR: THE LOST ADVENTURE