#the spider pulp

[maxwell-grant]

(SPIDERVERSE SPOILERS TIMES TWO)

I looked through camrips and tried putting together as many tidbits of dialogue as I could from that split-second comic cover interlude, since those tend to foreshadow the dialogue of the scenes in question. There’s some others I can’t make out due to image quality and we’ll have to wait for the streaming release to see more, but in the meanwhile I was able to make out these speech bubbles. I’m using “-” to fill in missing parts:

“Uncle Aaron!”

“-how much you need what I got and, trust me, that'll be the beginning of a whole new family business. Kid, your dad should be proud of you no matter what. Not making you scared to come out from behind that mask.”

“Yeah, that whole “Not-” thing

“Uncle Aaron, you can say whatever. But I can't let you kill this guy. I just can't.”. “Yeah, I-”

“You and I are going to take care of a bad guy. A real bad guy”. ”Who?”

(I’m assuming the named villain is Scorpion since the name starts with S-c-o and there’s a P, and also with the following line)

(images compiled by @tokyofro​)

“Did you look up the Scorpion on the web?” “Yes Uncle Aaron, I did”. “Then you know I wasn’t lying, he’s a dangerous cat”.  “What does this have to do with-”. “You wanna be a superhero, now’s your chance”

“You ran away? YOU RAN AWAY?! Is that the kind of man you are?

MILES: “You really don’t care who you hurt? What did the world do to you to make you think it’s okay for you to be this way? 

So my theory, going off by these and particularly the “What did the world do to you?” line from Miles and (presumably) Prowler!Miles telling him that they��re going to go after “a real bad guy”, is that Prowler!Miles is going to be exploring the idea of Miles Morales turned villain protagonist/anti-hero. It seems to be picking and uniting separate strands like Prowler’s original role as a darker counterpart to Spider-Man / a gadget-wielding morally compromised crimefighter who eventually turns face / Spider-Man-as-Batman, Earth-616 Miles being a villain, and Miles’s contentious relationship with his original setting and current status as an Ultimate Marvel refugee who quite literally jumped ship from the darker and all-around shittier home universe he was meant to be in, among others, to consolidate them into Miles’ confrontation with himself.

The first Spiderverse shows a lot how strongly Miles listens to and respects and values the input from his uncle (and vice versa, only Miles is able to bring Aaron out of the Prowler mask, even when Aaron knows he’s going to die the second he hesitates and uses that second to shield Miles’ identity), and he’s looking for guidance, someone to model himself after, because he’s a very intelligent kid trying to live up to the potential everyone keeps telling him he has, trying to live up to what his parents worked so hard to give him. He finds role models in Spider-Man and an entire group of Spider-People there to lead by example and catch him when he falls, and with his uncle giving his life away to not only save him, but urge him to stay on the right path. It wasn’t just meeting Peter Parker at the collider that saved Miles, it was rising up to the challenge in Spiderverse 1 and Uncle Aaron using his last breath to shut the door on Miles making the mistakes he did, and so Miles makes himself into the Spider-Man his world needs, filling in a spot needed upon left vacant.

Whether Earth-42 was supposed to have a proper Peter Parker Spider-Man and that never came to pass, or it was supposed to have it’s own Miles Morales get bitten and become Spider-Man like the Spot flashback indicates, Earth-42 Miles is what happens when none of that comes to pass. No Spider-Man protecting the world, no spider bite and sacrifice to pass along the mantle, no pressure and assistance from Aunt May and the others who’ve been there and can help him if he can help himself first, no Spider-Man mentors to show him the ropes, Jefferson dead and his mom having to struggle with Aaron’s help to get by, supervillain cartels burning the streets down, and the only person who can remotely help is his uncle, who will never get the heroic sacrifice or wake-up call to change his ways or inspire his nephew to strive for something better. Because there isn’t anything better, and if there is, it isn’t here, someone took it away. After all, Miles and Aaron don’t show any surprise upon hearing about all that different dimension spider-power talk, and whether they know or even blame Miles for taking the opportunity that was theirs, they’ll hardly be that thrilled to meet someone who clearly had better opportunities than they did, if he can talk about them being good guys with choices to be better.

It’s possible that Prowler! Miles isn’t even that much of a villain, or even as much of a mercenary as Uncle Aaron was as the Prowler. It’s possible, and far more tragic if so, if becoming the Prowler was simply as good as it got for this earth’s Miles. If it was the only way they could survive in a Sinister Six-run city and make ends meet and provide Rio with enough to get by, if it was all they could strive for in a world where there is nothing and no one to show a better way, or even if this is the only way Miles can help anyone and make amends for the sacrifice of his father, as most Spider-Men do upon losing their loved ones. Whether this Miles has never had any positive examples to follow, or worse, he once did and this is the best he can do in living up to them. Because on Spidey’s shadow, lives The Prowler, Spider-Man when forced to play by Batman rules.

No web swinging and super speed, so the motorbike will have to do. No healing powers or toughness, the body armor can only take so much. Incapacitating-yet-non-lethal thunderstrikes at your fingertips and invisibility are not an option (although MAN wouldn’t those be convenient for a caped burglar, huh), so you settle for high-tech murder claws and hope those and the camouflage do the trick in protecting you for another day. No guiding superheroes with your best interests in mind, only super-criminals and the only one of those you lucked into being on your family’s side. Your survival dangling on a knife’s edge, so if you don’t take that knife and use it, the next guy to take it won’t be so kind. Traits that are no stranger to Spider-Man stories or related characters, whether they predate him or follow in his example.

(Left-to-right: The Spider by Dan Schkade, Taylor Hebert (Worm) fan-art by tactilescream)

Or, what happens when your bug-themed crimefighter, with lots of personal baggage and trauma and flaws to contend with from the get-go, is thrust headfirst into surviving and defeating an endlessly escalating superpower-backed war on crime against which they are hopelessly outmatched, with no Spider-Safety Net status quo and super powers to catch them, as they fall and keep falling and keep weaving bigger handbaskets to catch larger handfuls of hell inside, because that’s what it means to be “the only thing standing between this city and oblivion” when you can’t juggle cars but everyone around you can, and they are more than willing to toss them at you and your mother and uncle whether you can fight back or not, so you might as well be able to, right?

And so we get the battle between Miles Morales of Earth-1610, who’s spent two movies proving himself to be not just as good a Spider-Man as any other, but The Most Spider-Man, the Spider-Man who’s the ultimate underdog and pariah as well as the ultimate fighter and scrapper, who beats hundreds of others to try and upend their ultimate fate. Versus the Miles Morales of Earth-42, his shadow come to roost, the one who could be anything except be Spider-Man, and so he can settle for being Not-Spider-Man until he can catch the real deal, and then they’ll have much to do together.

[browsethestacks]

The Spider

Art by Bruce Timm

[brotherconstant]

Louisa Guy in every episode (9/24) Slow Horses | 3.03 "Negotiating with Tigers"

[weirdlookindog]

Rudolf Sieber-Lonati - Klinik der Verdammten (Clinic of the Damned)

cover art from Silber Grusel-Krimi #86, March 11, 1975

[kilianromero]

Illustration by John Fleming Gould for The Spider Cover (1942)

[chernobog13]

THE SPIDER RETURNS (1941).

This is 15-chapter serial is the sequel to The Spider's Web (1938), each featuring the pulp hero The Spider.

[autisticaradiamegido]

day 8

newwwwww d&d party!! i have posted about elis before (my scrunkly wizard in the middle there) but he’s getting real play time now so here’s his friends: glinda (buff half-elf lesbian wifeguy), luna (world’s most pickupable gnome rogue), and Sir Walter (foppish princeboy hobgoblin who hates it here so so bad and literally doesnt respect any of these people.)

[driveintheaterofthemind]

Vintage Paperback - The Spider #03: The Prince Of Evil by Grant Stockbridge (1985)

Art by Frank Kelly Freas

Dimedia Inc.

[lovingknight]

🕸

[weirdlookindog]

Malcolm H. Smith - More Spinned Against

(Fantasy Fiction - June 1953)

[maxwell-grant]

Since it's been going around, how would various pulp heroes take on the Death Note murders, and would they survive the ordeal?

A couple of clarifications:

There is a possibility that Ogon Bat, who is a "God of Justice", is either already some kind of shinigami, or at least able to speak with and interact with Ryuk just fine.

The Golden Amazon and Emilia the Ragdoll could definitely kick Kira's ass and solve the case, but they absolutely should not be aware of the existence of the Death Note, that would just make things worse.

You'd think The Monarch / The Blue Morpho getting his hands on the Death Note would be an equally apocalyptic scenario but I don't think he'd even know what to do with it. He very clearly just wants to get one guy, and became the Blue Morpho so he could kill everyone standing in the way of getting that guy, and he's very clearly been putting off killing that one guy for years now. The Death Note is the solution to a problem he defines his life around trying and failing to solve. He'd be stumped.

Doc Savage, well on one hand of course he would solve the case, he's Doc Savage, if Kira was in a Doc Savage story the whole Shinigami business would have been smoke and mirrors perpetrated by criminals with access to a heart attack inducing machine with a perfectly logical explanation. On the other hand, Doc Savage is one of the only guys in here who is globally famous with his full name and face on the papers, so realistically Kira would nail him very quickly. I'm gonna split the difference by saying Doc would solve the case either way.

Nick Carter does most of the things Doc Savage does except he actually does regularly encounter weird fantastical kitchen sink bullshit on the regular, so I think he'd have a much easier time wrapping his head around the Death Note's particulars.

The Spider would not intuit the mechanics of the Death Note, he probably would not be aware of there even being a thing as a Death Note, but by the end of the story in the last paragraph he would have killed Kira one way or another, very possibly by accident. Same goes for the sword-n-sorcery characters featured there, they would have gotten their kills by the end of it (Spear would probably have the easiest time, he's just a caveman with a giant tyrannosaurus on his side and neither of them have names Light can use to kill them, he's fucked)

Six-Gun Gorilla does have a name that Light could use, but A: He would never find out, B: He would never think a gorilla would be his undoing, and C: There's a decent chance Ryuk would let the gorilla hunt and kill him because it's funny and so would be handing Six-Gun Gorilla the Death Note.

Nyctalope would probably survive Kira's usual method of execution given his heart is artificial, but I don't think he'd be able to crack the case, he's not much of a detective. A lot of these characters were chosen because they have different skillsets that don't make them as suited for uncovering this case regardless of how smart they are.

There is a decent chance that Hugo Danner would figure out Kira by complete accident, and most likely beg Light to find a way to kill him.

Nick and Nora Charles would not solve it but they'd be okay, the case would probably solve itself and they'd laugh it off.

I could also put Blue Morpho, El Sombra, The Whisperer, Black Bat and Hugo Danner in a "Would somehow make the situation worse" category.

Putting the names of the characters below the cut:

Can intuit the mechanics / Can solve the case -The Shadow, Arsene Lupin, Sherlock Holmes, Mexican Fantomas -Heiji Zenigata, Ogon Bat, Thomas Carnacki, Silver John/John the Balladeer, Sar Dubnotal -Nero Wolfe, Tom Strong, Tesla Strong, Nick Carter, Captain Harlock, Golden Amazon -Ducky (Lavender Jack), Rufus Carter, Theresa Ferrier (Lavender Jack), Emilia the Ragdoll, Carmen Sandiego, Rocambole

Can intuit the mechanics / Could not solve the case -The Spirit, The Phantom, Edison Hark (The Good Asian), Lavender Jack -G-8, Green Lama, Peter Cannon, Jules Grandin, Wesley Dodds, Judex -Indiana Jones, Spider-Man Noir, John Blacksad, John Thunstone, Nyctalope, Tintin, Solomon Kane

Cannot the mechanics / Can solve the case -The Spider, The Avenger, Doc Savage, Honoria Crabb -Assane Diop, Conan the Barbarian, Lobster Johnson, Tarzan, Dick Tracy -Flash Gordon, Professor Challenger, Red Sonja, Scrooge McDuck, Imaro -Byomkesh Bakshi, Six-Gun Gorilla, Spear (Primal), Black Terror, The Blue Morpho

Cannot intuit the mechanics / Could not solve the case -Moon Man, Green Hornet & Kato, Lone Ranger, The Scarecrow of Romney Marsh -Phillip Marlowe, Domino Lady, Rocketeer, Miss Fury, Hugo Danner, John Carter -Zorro, Black Bat, El Sombra, Shaft, Sailor Steve Costigan -Darkman, The Whisperer, Nick & Nora Charles, Crimson Clown

[vintagecola]

back on my pulp cover redraws - the shocking conclusion(!) - Wuthering Heights

[oakendesk]

movie poster - The Mystery Of The Green Spider - 1960

artist unknown (German poster)

[fleepunte]

i cannot explain to another human how awesome my taste in movies are. they are so fucking good that sometimes i just feel blown away and honored to exist in the same universe as these films, truly. fuck you if you dont like my movies. you dont deserve oxygen, sorry. <3

[gameraboy2]

"The Spider and the Jewels of Hell" The Spider, December 1940 Cover by Rafael DeSoto

[chernobog13]

The Spider and a werewolf by Dan Brereton.