#matt murderock

[popculturebuffet]

Into The Spider-Verse: Spider-Gwen (Edge of Spider-Verse #2)

Hello all you happy true beliviers! We're back into the spider-verse just in time for national women's month and the third of our main trio of spiders: Gwen Stacey, the spectacular Spider-Woman, referred often to as Spider-Gwen to disguish her from the various earth 616 spider-women before she was rebranded Ghost Spider.

Yeah Spider-Gwen is a lot to unpack, so let's take it from the stop. Spider-Gwen is a variant of Gwen Stacey, who you may remember from some adaptions as the Amazing Spider-Man films, being peter's prop for that hilarious dance number in spider-man 3 that's in my eyes even more rediculous than his saturday night fever schtick, and from cartoons appearing as an updated version of her classic self in Specatcular Spider-Man and as Spider-Gwen in Ultimate Spidey, Marvel's Spider-Man, Spidey and HIs Amazing Friend and Marvel Rising.

For those less familiar with the comics, Gwen Stacey was peter's very second love intrest. Gwen was introduced late into Steve Ditko's run as one of the mileu of jackasses constantly taunting peter parker, this time as he entered college. As seen with Amazing Fantasy at the time peter was a loner Dottie, a rebel, who was mostly picked on. He had one girlfriend briefly, Betty Brant, but after her brother died she became paranoid about him taking pictures of spider-man, blaming spider-man for his death and worrying he'd lead to Peter's. So really.. Aunt may was all peter had for the first 30 or so issues.

Once Ditko left though Lee decided to shake things up as peter had entered college. Since new Artist John Romita drew characters a bit more handsomely, he decided to expand peter's friend group: Harry Osborn, who picked on him previously, decided he had it wrong about peter and genuinely tried to befriend the guy, serving as a nice contrast to the various assholes. It also made sense: people who are withdrawn or feel trapped in the high school hiearchy can often find friends easier in College, where people may be open to trying new thems or not bogged down by history. Granted Peter also had flash there as a rival , Lee coudln't take all his pain away or he woudln't be peter, but he now had a friend.. and soon had love intrests.

Peter soon ended up in a brief archie style love triangle between Mary Jane Watson, at the time a viacious party animal who'd been oft hinted at in a running gag where May tried to set them up and Peter assumed "nice girl" meant

Which has aged like fine egg left on a sidewalk for 9 days. This is where Gwen came in. Gwen like harry realized she might of misjudged peter especially after finding out he snubbed her and harry at first because Aunt May was sick, as part of the legendary "If This Be My Destiny" three parter. The two dated for a long time and she was a fan faviorite with many of a fan, some who'd get promoted to managment, preferring her over MJ. The thing was in the original comics.. Gwen was pretty one note. She was just "nice" and "love intrest". See while stan lee was good at MANY things, creative worlds, working with great artists, showmanship, coming up with brilliant premises for characters… he was absolutely awful at writing women , at least during the silver age. Most of his women's main trait's were "love intrest" or "girl" or "getting overly emotoinal". Their powers were often limited as was their influence, with sue storm ONLY being able to turn invsible at first before gaining her forcefields, and Jean Grey's telekensis being very limited. While Janet Van Dyne got better with her stings and stuff, she was often depicted as flighty. Gwen is , as you can see, far from his worst but is just kinda there to be the "good girl" in contrast to mj at first, then to just cause friction with peter whenever his double identity impcats their romance. She was a plot device, not a person.

She kept on like this till a new writer jumped on board Gerry Conway. Conway had decided someone needed to die as it'd been a while since uncle Ben and while George Stacey, gwen's dad, had in the line of duty, he wasn't close to peter and was mainly killed to drive a wedge betwen him and Gwen. So he ended up deciding on Gwen to both motivate the poor boy and to clear up the cast a bit. So Gwen became famous.. for her death, the legendary "The night gwen stacey died" which I showed the utmost respect and reverence to in my amazing fantasy #15 review

The story is incredibly well crafted though, and the art is gorgeous. It's only weakness.. is being a MASSIVE example of Women in Refregirators syndrome, with Gwen being killed to motivate peter and not having any real agency in her death. Said death at least would haunt peter for the rest of his career and still comes up on occasion. There were clones, terrible retcons not worth mentoining and other things involving gwen, but she remained dead and still is…. in the 616.

Thankfully marvel had a merry multiverse and Dan Slott had plans to explore that in an upcoming event comic Spider-Verse, which while sharing a name and vauge premise of uniting a bunch of spider people with the movie, is nothing like it and involves the spider-person hutning inheretors. I have not read it as it was at a time when Dan Slott's run on the book took a massive dive, so I can't really speak for it's quality. But good event or no it did give us a lot of great new spider-people to go with established variants like Spider-Ham, Spider-Man 2099 and Spider-Man Noir, and Gwen was one of them.

Gwen was an editor's suggestion and a brilliant one: Take the biggest victim in spider-man history , and make HER the one who gets bit by the spider. All Dan Slott really had was the idea to give her a trench coat costume and the red and blues, but the actual making of her went to Jason Latour.

For context as I found out in my research… Jason Latour is a sexually harassing creep. At 2017's Thought Bubble fest, he followed around artist Lauren Tracey who at the time was in her early 20's to his 40's just to add to it, and stalked her, then kissed her against her will. After Tracey revealed the allegations, Latour tried to claim he didn't remember the incident.. only for tons of others to come forward and reveal he was also creepy twoards them or friend sof theres. They likely knew.. but didn't have the power to come forward. Latour weakly apologized and hasn't worked for Marvel since. It was deeply disapointing to find out someone I respected… was an ashole who used his power to harass women, make them feel deeply uncomfortable and affect their careers. He was one of MANY in the industry who did this and I doubt he'll be the last I talk about but it's super depressing he used his power like this and he can promptly fuck himself.

I won't be letting this affect my judgement of the comic itself. It's hard and i'll likely look like this the whole itme i'm typing this

But I have to judge the issue by it's own merits, while still stressing the creator isn't to be worshipped. It's a good object lesson to remember that terrible people can make good art. I try to avoid covering that art to glorify them. It's why despite being a massive x-men fan and having grown up with the story you likely wont' see Joss Whedon's Astonishing X-Men covered on here unless someone comissions it. Like this it's an important part of comics history and can't just be.. forgotten, but the creator shouldn't be on any sort of pedestal for it unless he truly and completely has repented for what he's done and even then what he's done shoudln't be forgotten in the process.

Now getting into Prailne's and Dick's creative process, Pralines and Dick decided to really swing for the fences. This was an alternate universe.. so he decided to make it really alternate. Instead of a cheery if often weepy coed, Gwen was a troubled college freshman who was reseved and steady out of costume and freer in it.. at a terrible cost. He and Rodregiuz gave her a hood to symbolize the weight she carries and acccents of purple and blue to really help the costume pop against the white, while also giving her the mask to keep up the "anyone can wear the mask" motif from Peter and Miles.

The result wasn't a hit with Dan But he ended up eating his words and fully agreeing they made the right call. The result was an INSTANT hit from her first apperance and quickly got an ongoing. I MIGHT talk about it in the future, it's tricky with Pralines and Dick being the writer. For now though let's go under the cut and into the spider-verse as we explore the startling origin of Spider-Gwen.

So we open with Band Practice for the Mary Janes, the band Gwen is drummer for. Her bandmates are naturally this universe's Mary Jane Watson, along with Glory Grant, a friend of peters in the main universe who worked as Jonah's asstiant and Betty Brant, who I previously mentioned and also worked as Jonah's assitant.

The band plays their signature , and likely only, original song,

I mean that would rule but naturally instead it's called Face it Tiger. I.. I will neve rbe tired of that being a thing nor imagining waht this riot grrl esque song sounds like in my head. Pralines and Dick makes a smart move here: instead of just having the issue go through Gwen's origin, like it seems what other one shots of edge of the spider-verse i've glanced at do, we get the origin in one beautiful two page spread, told quick, susicntly but still with enough emotoinal punch. We get some of the blanks filled in later, but it's enough to make the story work and get a sense of who THIS gwen is.

I also like all the small touches here: the times square having advertisments for Janet Van Dyne with her wearing her classic outfit and signifying she's still the wasp here, and Dzzler. Just little nods. I also like the MC Hammer joke.

On the origin itslef it's great following most of the same beats btu cleverly twisting peter parker: We saw what he was during Amazing Fantasy: he was resentful, alone, and had no one. Here we see where that might of gone where he instead ends up as the alternate version of one of his own villians, dying tragically trying to be popular and loved like Gwen's alter ego.

Glory gets gwen to snap out of it but she can't open up for obvious reasons. MJ here.. is more of a dick, lacking the main universe MJ's better nature and instead being a snippy mean girl.

We then get a fairly sad scene of reflection, of Gwen sitting on the billboard, feeling it was her fault peter died. Much like with Uncle Ben and our peter, that's not necessarily true, but you can undrestand her guilt: he followed in her example. her DEFENDING him isn't her fault, nor him feeling insecure over it, that's just good ole toxic masculinity, but she still went into it for wealth and fame and showed what someone trying to do the same could end up as.

We then get her talking to her father, who views her music more as a distraction, and wants her to focus, while Gwen understandably.. dosen't want to do that. We also find out George Stacey.. is the one hunting gwen.

We also get a nice brief scene of her and a cop trying to shoot her. She webs him up and wisecracks ab it, showing she's far more assertive behind the mask and gets some freedom from it… though it also feels like a coping meachanism, a way to avoid the pain she's going through from Peter's death and her own father hunting her and not supporting her. To try and use the freedom much like peter does to shake off her torubles. It's this kind of thing that shows Pralines and Dick REALLY gets what makes a spider-man story work and what makes these some of the best.

So we cut to our villians for this issue: The Rhino and Matt Murdock.

Yeah one of the bigger swings of this universe, and one of the reasons I enjoy it so much, is that rather than just go the normal alternate universe route we see in most comics of "this reality but one things diffrent", Pralines and Dick switches it up and has a BUCNH of little thigns be diffrent that are not remotely impacted by the fact Gwen is who she is here: The Fantastic FOur are non existant with Ben Grimm being a cop while Reed Richards is a child progedy, Wolverine and Kitty Pryde are shield agents with Logan being a functionally immnortal samurai, Howard T Duck is the president of the united states, and Janet Van Dyne is retired from superheroics and instead super wealthy, Sam wilson is a woman and the captain america who came here from the 40's, and so on. I love how many swings this place takes.

Matt Murdock is the biggest though: instead of becoming an upstanding young man, he was blinded in an accident that also killed his mom and his dad's death happened earlier.. and the Hand got a hold of him. As a result this Matt is everytihing the 616 matt isn't: cruel, selfish while still being every bit as compitent and charasmatic and as we find out later, EVERY bit as powerful. Matt is Gwen's arch enemy and the big bad of this universe, serving as the mouth of sauron for the kingpin.. while clearly planning to dethrone his old boss nad rule.

As for what he's up to with Rhino, whose grey skinned here instead of in a rhino costume it's simple: He's putting a hit out on George. He wants him dead both because the Good Captain's an issue for their operations and general.. and as an issue for Spider-Woman he could be leverage to bring her on their side.

That night it's a concert and instead of waiting for gwen whose just a tad late.. her band goes on anyway

Gwen soon has bigger issue's though as The Rhino shows up to kill her dad and while she's able to stop that, he bear hugs her, nearly crushing her.. but like any spidey, she has a near unstoppable will in he and thus cleverly beats him.. by drumming her way out.

She then FINISHES it by punching the fucker through a wall.

God damn is every spider person's first fight going to one up the next one? I mean we've gone from scaring a thug to near death, to fighting an electric man who knocked out their universes avengers equivleent with ease, to drumming a guy , beating him some more than putting him thorugh that fucking wall, Frank Murphy Style. By the time we get to spider-ham is he just going to whip out a machine gun on funny animal mysterio? We'll fine out I suppose

It's here I gotta stop to comment on Robi Rodregueiz' art. It's gorgeous, stylezed, being very remincent of ditkos but with more of a colorful pop to it. It's kinetic, in your face and perfect for the character and a large reason why i didn't nope out of this; the character isn't just good because of Pralines and Dick, but because of Rodieguesz art really caputring her form her pain to her punches perfectly.

SO gwen saved her dad.. problem is her dad dosen't know it's her and believe sin due process. Gwen rightly points out the problem in that: she didn't kill peter but thanks to JJJ a blood thirsty mob thinks she did and will try and kill her before trial, and that's not getting into the cops who tried to shoot her on sight. Captain Stacey vows to bring her in no matter what it takes.. so Gwen has to pull her trump card, throwing earlier words he said back at him.

It's a beauitful speech that sums up why she's like this: it's her responsiblity> She has the power, she has to use it and going to jail just to prove she's innocent helps no one. Her innocence helps no one. But this.. this can help everyone. George reluctantly lets her go and an emotoinal ending, Gwen's father letting her go both of their futures uncertain and their relationship as father and daughter even more so…. is undercut a bit by this guy.

Yeah look I know who this is, Spider-UK he's also a captain britan, defenders of the crown and the multiverse, long story that naturally for me is x-men adjacent. But to anyone coming in just to see this character after one of her many adaptation apperances or just ucrious is going to be fucking confused. I get this wans't MEANT to lead into an ongoing.. but even story wise puncuating a heartwrenching ending with british spider-man creeping on some random balcony shadowed ominosuly makes him come off more like he's going to add Gwen to some horrifying collection than you know, recurit her to save the universe.

Gwen would go on to the frequently hinted at ongoing and greater hearts btu as a start.. this issue is fantastic. It gets who she is across quick, makes her distinct from our gwen, and all the better than her honestly, and sets a lot of what would make the character famous in stone. It's not a huge shock every version of gwen since has been this nor that this is one of the best spider-man stories in the last decade. Pralines and Dick may suck.. but this story dosen't and is worth checking out for the art alone. Just maybe get it second hand or something.

Next Time we thankfully have a creator who HASN'T sexually harassed a woman as next week we take a look at SP/DR from my boy Gerard Way. Until then keep on swingin and thanks for reading.

[context-is-for-kingpins]

You still doing requests? What about something with Spider-Gwen and Matt Murderock? Please and thank you.

The short answer is Yes! Why haven’t I done something like that already?!

The long answer is Yes but I probly won’t get around to it til I get more settled in with my new home and job. Sooooo it might be a little while...

[devilsdare-arc]

i’ve spent a lot of time in your head lately. / for murderock because 🤠

punisher max. | ACCEPTING

castle talks about his head like a place, like he’s crawled inside him and lived there while he’s been on his little hunt, and matt—matt doesn’t quite think he’s wrong and doesn’t quite mind if he’s right.he gives a quiet hmm in thought, idly trailing his fingers down the handle of his cane. castle has never seen him draw the blade, but he’s certainly smart enough to make inferences—or maybe he’ll just enjoy the show, heavy-handed as that might be.

either way.

“—you sound like you like it there.”

[mattelektras]

Since today is Sunday to 'confess Jessie our random fancasts', I can come to tell you that I always dreamed of Eddie Redmayne as Matt Murdock? Well, now it's Charlie Cox and blah blah, but I'm reading Spider Gwen's comics and I imagine that Matt Murderock as Redmayne? Idk this is so random and I'm sorry! Did you have/had a favorite fan cast for Matt before Charlie comes?

adhfksjs its sleepover night n confession time i can work w that. ive never had anyone for matt at all tbh he’s really hard to visualize like i enjoy charlie cox as matt but he doesnt look like him at all imo??? when is the tyranny of brown haired matt going to die he is ginger he is a redhead!!!! re: redmayne tho...... ehhhh he’s not hot enough to be matt for me??? like matt is a mess and he looks like i wouldve shoved him in a locker in high school but everyone loves him he needs 2 be hot and i feel like i could mistake eddie redmayne for every geography teacher ive ever had

[ao3feed-daredevil]

Beautful

read it on the AO3 at https://ift.tt/2VGEOTY

by God_of_worms

Matthew catches the wrong spider in his web, but makes do.

Words: 859, Chapters: 1/1, Language: English

Series: Part 1 of mceu oneshots

Fandoms: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Marvel, daredevil - Fandom, Spider-Man - All Media Types, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences

Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death

Characters: Matt Murdock, Matt Murderock, Peter Parker

Relationships: matt murderock & peter parker, Matt Murdock & Peter Parker, Peter Parker & Matt Murdock

Additional Tags: Multiverse Shenanigans

read it on the AO3 at https://ift.tt/2VGEOTY

[scottsumrners]

the defenders: matt murdock sacrificed himself to protect this city

matt murderock, who could have left with them but decided to stay behind and hang out with his dead girlfriend one last time: yeah sure thats how it happened

[gatogummie]

Matt Murdock: do my little horns piss you off? Does it make you want to hurt me?

[gatogummie]

Perhaps....god is good...

[gatogummie]

the icon came out of murderock in this corruption arc i stg

day 15 of super prompts!!

[gatogummie]

draws white matt murderock once and runs off