Spiderman Crib Sheet

Spiderman, as one of the brightest stars of the Marvel universe, and maybe having the most to lose by revealing his identity, went through a lot because of Civil War.

The whole thing started with Peter Parker seemingly in the pocket of Tony Stark, depicted as both beneficial, with the new suit stark gave him and it's extra robot arms and sleek colors, to the overwhelming control. Peter was the face of the Superhero registration Act, the lynchpin of the whole plotline, and it started out with him and Iron Man acting like Batman and Robin.

A telling sign that the cooperation would not last was when Peter found tracking and recording bugs in his fancy new suit. Then he fought Captain America, winning by default as Cap had to get away, but webbing Cap's shield where he could retrieve it after he left it behind.

When he went rogue, he took Mary Jane and Aunt May into hiding with him, but before they were completely secure, Aunt May was shot by one of the Kingpin's costumed assassins. Peter was grief-stricken, May was hospitalized under constantly changing aliases as they tried to hide from Iron Man and the government. In the end, Tony Stark personally financed May's medical care, through his butler, but there was nothing they could ultimately do, she was going to die.

The series "One More Day," was Peter trying to find some way to save his Aunt May, and when you run in the circles he has run in, you surely start thinking there is a way around this mortality thing. Nobody could help him, until Mephisto appeared, offering a deal. If Peter were to agree to leave Mary Jane, breaking up what he called "true love", he would restore Aunt May's life.

Mephisto is one of Marvel's versions of the devil. It seems to me that he was the one that brought in the Ghost Rider, but maybe not the father of the former hero they called the Son of Satan. One cool place to find all of those facts out, from far more detail oriented people than me, is the Marvel Comics Database Wiki, one of the places I found to catch myself up.

Mary Jane made the deal for Peter, ending their marriage but making Mephisto agree to several other terms, such as getting Peter out of the jams he was in, mostly from revealing his identity. In the current series, Brand New Day, which may or may not be open ended, everything has changed.

There is a list on the second issue of exactly what happened, but let me put it in a nutshell: Peter is back to living with Aunt May, he never revealed his identity, is not even dating Mary Jane, and is just starting to break the rules against superheroes working without being registered.

Doing this plot turn, around one of the central characters of the whole Civil War saga, is a serious crime against consistency. Really? Making one person forget a secret identity is old hat, but an entire country? It strains the suspension of disbelief.

It was a price they had to pay, somebody had written Spiderman into a corner and he had to get out. If they planned it like they did it, shame on them, but I can accept that they needed to change it up. Peter Parker is essentially living the same five yers of his life over and over, for forty years now, inconsistency might be the rule, not the exception.

It's happened before, more than once. One broken plot string was "The Scarlet Spider," as Marvel tried to find a way to kick start sales for their character back in the 90's. I bought some of these issues, and they are some of the few older comics I have left.

JUST SO NOBODY THINKS I AM DELUSIONAL:
I realize that Marvel is just selling comic books, and have little or no respect for their characters. They will pull nearly any stunt it takes to sell comics and avoid the bankruptcy that they went through in the 90's. I hope they fired the writers who screwed Spidey up this last time and I hope they found someone who can guide his character back to health, of course, ending back up with Mary Jane.

Comic Crib Sheet

I don't think of myself as middle aged, but I am by every definition.
And I don't think of myself as a geek, but here I am writing a blog post about comic books. I also never tire of making light of my own contradictions, or definitions.

All that said, sitting here this evening, I have figured out why I really started this blog, other than a place to eventually show off my cool Ruby comic book Database application.
I can catch everyone up.

I know you're out there, former comic book readers, or casual readers, who every once in a while just want to know what's going on with those characters they grew up with. Unfortunately, like tuning into a soap opera after a couple years and finding out that wait, he's not dead? he's married to..?

here is the crib sheet for comics today:

Captain America, Steve Rogers, died.

Iron Man took over SHIELD, and pretty much the world.

Spider-man and everyone else not rebelling unmasked and registered.

Spiderman broke from the government, became an outlaw, and finally made a deal with the devil. Now he is living as Peter Parker, single, never having revealed his Identity, never having met Aunt May, therefore sparing her life.


Thor has come back from the dead, or wherever immortal Gods go, First thing he did was kick Iron Man's ass for making an android from his DNA and using it in the Civil War.

Bucky is now Captain America.

That's it, I'm trying to keep it short. Also, I don't know what's going on with DC, haven't been sucked back into that vortex, yet.

They Killed Captain America?

This may be old news, but in comic time and plot developments, it is maybe just now time to examine this whole issue. After 8 issues, it is at least not just a cliffhanger trick.
They killed Captain America.
If Civil War, the crossover series and epic marvel tale, did anything, it galvanized Captain America as the hero of heroes. Hell, even the other heroes idolized him, and when he came up against the superhero registration act, well many of the other costumed bunch followed him just because of that. It was one of the most intriguing aspects of the whole series.

And after it was over, when he finally turned himself in, he was killed by an assassin's bullet. Marvel has had little shame exploiting the whole storyline, with many variant and special editions of the issue where it happened, as well as shameless shells of the story published as well. Oddly, it has made Captains America's comic more interesting than I ever remember it, with the cast of characters he left behind.

One character stood out, Bucky, Cap's WW2 sidekick, called Winter Soldier and released from a life of work as an assassin himself and without many of Captain America's inconvenient morals. While everyone else was lamenting their hero's loss, Bucky just went out to kill whoever was responsible.

In the end, he ended back in the custody of Iron Man and SHIELD, unofficially because Iron Man, the image of authoritarianism in the whole Civil War series and now running SHIELD, had a special message and mission for Bucky, Captain America wanted Bucky to carry on his legacy. Anyone who didn't see this coming, even in my scanty recap, raise your hands and go to PBS Kids, otherwise, follow along with me.

Bucky is now Captain America, check him out. I'd review the issue but I am sure others are doing that, I bought it, and enjoyed it, and like the look of the modified Captain America. This may be one of those few gems, this issue, Captain America #34, which you will wish you had bought or kept in 20 years. The comic book lottery ticket, as I call them. It was enough for me to go back and buy the variant cover at the comic store, which I noticed had been turned around and put towards the back of the row on the rack, sure sign that Comic-book guy at the store was thinking as I was.

Comic Obsession - Why?

I have a little bit of a comic problem, I can't quite let them go. I'm not "Comic Book Guy", never was, but I've always gone back to the rack and bought comics, even after managing to kick them for a while.

I am talking about them like an addictive substance, maybe that's a little bit of other parts of my life coming through but it's mostly because the shoe fits. One of the things that irritates me about comics most is the way they constantly mix metaphors. Ha Ha.

Still, I've gotten something from them through the years and have been in line for most of the real attempts at making my old heroes into motion pictures( The Hulk, Elektra and a couple of others don't qualify for me). I've been reading comics since the '70's, with steady gaps in my following back then too. I just can't stick with anything it seems. I had Hulk #182, where Wolverine first appears, had it for years, but when I was ten, I thought it would be cool to cut out the little figure and play with them, yea, I did that. I had the entire first appearance of Venom, and the X-men's when Wolverine, Nightcrawler, Colossus, and Rogue first appeared. Are my geek credentials there for you yet? I had the Joker killing Robin, and Ghost Rider when he was fun.

I had a select set of comics I liked, and followed them semi-constantly over the years, but as a comic fan, eventually you realize they are constantly bending you over. I started getting pissed when Marvel came up with their endless series of crossovers. The first big one was "the Secret Wars," where all the heroes went off to fight and you ended up having to buy extra comics just to follow it. Then, it was the Phoenix saga, recently condensed and made into a movie, which stretched me to my limits on what I would buy and ended just as stupidly as the movie.

That ended it for me with Marvel for a while. I switched to DC, and the Flash, Justice League, Green Lantern, and the big one, Batman. I'd always followed DC a little, but those always seemed like the types of stories that just got churned out. Yea, I know that nearly no comic, and none of the popular ones were any great leaps in story-telling, but they absolutely had their moments. For instance, when Flash went on trial for the alleged murder of one of his villains. And, the Justice League made me laugh out loud on a regular basis.

Then I got tired and dropped out for a long time. Now I'm back.
It all started when I saw an advertisement somewhere about a new crossover, Civil War, from Marvel that promised to deliver real consequences, and set the heroes against each other over a government act for all heroes to register. Yes, it was a rehash of the whole mutants vs. government plots of virtually every X-men title, but only to start. I was prepared to be disappointed, but found my way to the comic book store and began following it.

It wasn't bad, and seeing the heroes I had followed, pitted against each other and showing something resembling real, complicated reactions to the issues. I'm not of the opinion that my superheroes have to have feelings, and almost any time they have tried to mix them into a comic, it's been melodramatic and boring, but it was done well. Well enough to nearly pull me back in.

Add to that they have brought back one of my early favorites, Nova, given him his own comic, and a few new characters that I like, and I am back more than I ever was before. Oddly, maturity has made me more of a comics fan.

I've been collecting comics again now for a couple years, all of them nicely bagged and boxed, and spent a good amount of time this last month building a database and adding them to it.

Then there's the whole deal of starting a blog about it and writing an overly long introductory post.
It's safe to say I'm obsessed.