Spectacular Spider-Man

Adaptation from one form of media to another always brings with it a series of challenges as the interaction between audience and art is also changed. This difficulty can be seen no more clearly when comic books are adapted to other media such as television or film. More often than not adaptations using comic books as source material evolve into eye-candy with little substance or, in some cases, resemblance to the original. For every successful venture (Spider-Man, Iron-Man) there have been countless other failures (League of Extraordinary Gentleman, Electra, Howard the Duck, need I go on?). One area where comic books have seen some degree of continual success is an adaptation into an animated television show.

The animated medium allows for much of the character design, exotic locals, and stupendous super-powers to remain intact when such elements could break the bank in a feature film. A weekly television show also allows for a more episodic mode of storytelling, and this results in a longer narrative that is conducive for fleshing out the characters (a feature film often has to cram 30 years of comic book history into 2 hours). It is then the challenge of the writers and directors to use decades of source material to come up with a new set of stories that will do justice to the character, appease legions of ravenous fanboys, and bring in new viewers. No small task, but one done with great aplomb in the new animated series The Spectacular Spider-Man, the 7th animated series to feature our friendly neighbourhood wall crawler.

The series takes place in the modern times with Peter Parker in high school. In fact everyone is in high school. And I mean everyone as Gwen Stacey, Harry Osborn, Flash Thompson, Liz Allen, Glory Grant, Kong, Hobie Brown, Rand Robertson, and Mary Jane all go to the same school. This does not divert too much from the source material, and it does give the viewer in the know a little wink wink to what may be coming.

Peter volunteers with Dr. Conners, whose workman is Max Dillon (Electro), and whose lab assistant is Eddie Brock. Eddie's parents dies in the same plane crash that killed Peter's folks. Tombstone is a crime boss, Norman Osborn makes super-villains for him, oh, and Dr. Otto Octavius works for Osborn. The point I am trying to make is that the show nicely ties everything and everyone together. As strange as it may seem this does not come across as contrived; the storytelling is just that good.

The series gains it strength from being able to rely on all of the good things that every other comic book, movie, or television show has ever done about Spider-Man. The final product is a mix of Amazing Spider-Man (concept, characters), Ultimate Spider-man (setting, updated timeline), the Spider-Man movie (several action sequences pay homage), and even other animated series (the symbiote comes to earth on John Jameson's shuttle). There is also a continual nod back to Ditko's original visuals with each episode ending with Spider-Man's eyes and red and black webbing appearing over the New York skyline.

So should you watch this show? The answer is a resounding yes. It currently runs on the CW and started September 7th in Canada on Teletoon. So if you have a television and cable I would set aside ½ hour each week to check out Spidey. However, I would advise against purchasing anything just yet. The first season is broken into 4 story arcs that are being released on DVD separately at $14.99 each. You will end up paying $60 for a 13 episode season. B.S. When the CW finally gets there money grubbing head straight a complete season will be released. Normally a 13 episode animated season goes for around $30 and has lot of extra features. For shame CW, for shame.

One last thing: the theme song is great. Not as good as the 60s theme song but then again what is. Is he strong? Listen bud, he's got radioactive blood. Why that didn't win a Grammy I'll never know.

Retro Review: The Infinity Gauntlet

The Infinity Gauntlet TPB

Cost: $28

1991 was an interesting year for comic books: the industry’s biggest artists were poised to leave Marvel Comics and form Image; the tsunami of die-cut-holo-foil-wrap-around-cover issues had not hit yet; Superman wasn’t dead yet; and there were no Spider-man clones. Yes, in many ways 1991 was the calm before the storm that was the mid-nineties, in which the industry self-imploded. There is a lot of horrible stuff from this time, but some of it was good back then, and still can hold its own now.

One such storyline is The Infinity Gauntlet, a six issue mini-series written by Jim Starlin that chronicles the tale of the super-villain Thanos who uses infinite power (by obtaining the titular gauntlet) to destroy half of the sentient life in the universe. Opposing him are a host of Earth’s heroes, cosmic entities, and even Dr. Doom (who despite being a megalomaniacal despot himself, doesn’t want to see his own people erased into oblivion, a pre-cursor no doubt to him crying in the ASM 9/11 issue).

The storyline is tight and accessible for new readers (a year of special issues and Silver Surfer books led up to this, but they are not required reading for the miniseries), something that current big event books could learn from (I’m looking at you Final Crisis). The art by George Perez and Ron Lim is masterful storytelling and the change in artist does not disrupt the flow of the artwork. Legend Perez’s abilities as an artist were celebrated even back then but Ron Lim is no slouch. Lim has since fallen into obscurity but he is a consistent, quality artist that always was just shy of the recognition that he deserved (even back then he was always pegged at the #7 or 8 spot in the Wizard Top Ten Artists page).

This team can tell a story, a skill that many of the “top” artists of today are sorely lacking. If I have one minor quibble in terms of continuity I have always been bugged by the Hulk jumping out of Thanos’ way on page 10 of issue #4, only to completely disappear until issue #5. Many of the other heroes are killed or defeated by Thanos, but the Hulk never is, suggesting that the creative team simply had too many characters to think about and forgot to follow up on the Jade Giant’s appearance.

Viewed alone the story is a great big-event-cosmic-crossover, however, it is weakened in some ways that its sequels, Infinity War and Infinity Crusade, are vastly inferior and, in some cases, nigh-unreadable. So should you rush out and purchase this 17 year-old super-battle? Well at 6 issues it takes about 2 hours to read and costs $28, well worth the price of admission, however, you should know that you could probably do some digging and find the single issues on ebay for much cheaper. Also be well warned that if after reading this you feel the need to purchase Infinity War or Crusade; you might as well light your money on fire. If you are really curious to find out what happens next just read the Wikipedia entries.

The Essential Godzilla

The Essential Godzilla

Cost: $20

On occasion my frequent forays into the world of pop culture nerdom reveal that of the most unexpected and happy of circumstances: a true surprise. I was met with just such a surprise this week when I decided to read Marvel’s Essential Godzilla. The trade paperback is part of Marvel’s Essentials line: a cheap, black & white way to read some great (or in some cases no so great) old stories.

The Essential Godzilla is a complete collection of the 24 issue series that ran from 1977-1979 and tells the story of the gargantuan monster’s rampage throughout the Marvel Universe. My first surprise in reading this was that it actually takes place in Marvel continuity. I was fully expecting this to be some kind of half-assed adaptation of Godzilla vs. Monster Zero or something, but was instead treated to a compelling story of Dum Dum Duggan and S.H.E.I.L.D hunting the king of the monsters through 24 jam packed issues of smashing.

S.H.E.I.L.D is aided along the way by Japanese scientists, a giant robot controlled by a 12 year old boy, the Fantastic Four, the Avengers, and Spider-man. The series touches on several genres as well, with a series of giant monster throwdowns, a wild west yarn, and a time travel story all completing Godzilla’s tale. The hidden jem of the series is a sad and gripping tale of a compulsive gambler who happens to be in Vegas when Gojira strikes. I will not reveal more, but sufficed to say it is not your standard 70’s monster fare.

So, my intrepid readers, if you are asking if this bit of comic book history is worth the price of admission then the answer is a resounding yes. At $20 for 6 hours worth of entertainment you would be hard pressed to find anything on the comic shelf this Wednesday that comes even close. And if you are a Godzilla fan this should be on your shelf right now, or you should be hanging up your Mothra underoos in shame.

Final Crisis #1

Release Date: May 2008

Cost: $4

We are in a unique time in the comics industry. The writers and artists of today grew up reading comics and thus are just as nerdy as we are. Stan Lee and Jack Kirby (among others, settle down Dikto fanboys) created some of the most memorable superheroes ever, but they didn’t grow up reading them. We are now in an age when an artist or writer is able to reshape and work with the very characters that drew them to comics.

Sometimes this is great, but sometimes I feel like I am being put through a test. I remember thinking that every issue of Universe X made me feel like I was constantly being quizzed on my knowledge of the Marvel Universe. It's not pleasant to wade through an issue desperately trying to remember why this or that character was important back in 1973.

This brings us to today’s review, Final Crisis #1 from DC comics. This is the final chapter in the Crisis Trilogy (after Crisis on Infinite Earths and Infinite Crisis) and will also be the final saga of the multiverse. As DC comics’ big summer crossover it will feature almost every major hero and villain in the DC universe. Summer crossovers should be fun and easy to read: a reward for longstanding fans, but also a jumping on point for new readers.

Final Crisis does not help new readers at all. You are flung in media res to several divergent storylines which seem to stem from the death of the New Gods characters. But maybe I am getting a little ahead of myself. Are you confused? So was I about 3 pages in. I guess that I should have read the 51 issue series Countdown to Infinite Crisis, along with the Death of the New Gods miniseries, but, silly me, I thought that I could pick up Final Crisis and have some idea of what was going on.

To sum up some of the story points the New God Orion is dead, Darkseid is in human form, Libra has killed Martian Manhunter and there is some kind of side story with the Monitors. Oh and Anthro (the first boy on earth) and Katmandi (the last boy on earth) are also in it.

The art by J.G. Jones is great and the dialogue by Grant Morrison is stellar, but I am put off by comments such as these:

"When we started work on Final Crisis, J.G. and I had no idea what was going to happen in Countdown or Death Of The New Gods because neither of those books existed at that point. The Countdown writers were later asked to ‘seed’ material from Final Crisis and in some cases, probably due to the pressure of filling the pages of a weekly book, that seeding amounted to entire plotlines veering off in directions I had never envisaged, anticipated or planned for in Final Crisis. "
—Grant Morrison

What!? Your original ideas for the plot of this series changed due to the insanity of publishing a 51-week prequel comic? That is ridiculous.

So should you buy it? $4 per comic for 20 minutes of entertainment is $12 per hour. Pretty pricey for the superhero exam you are going to be forced to take. If you knew who Anthro was before this article you should definitely pick it up. It will probably match your Hawk and Dove bed-sheets or your Haunted Tank underpants. If you are not the hardest of hardcore DC fans, but still love DC and wish to know how Superman and Green Lantern will get out of this one, wait until there is a collected trade paperback. In the mean time read the Wikipedia entry for Final Crisis once a month. That you can understand.

Amazing Spider-Man #555-557

Release Date: April 2008

Cost: $3 per issue

Normally I would only review a single issue at one time, but since Marvel has decided to publish ASM an abnormal three times monthly it makes more sense to talk about all three issues as a complete story.

I'll give a quick recap for those who might not be familiar with the current publishing cycle of Amazing Spider-man: ASM has always been the best selling of the Spider-man titles and the most important storyline-wise. So it must have made sense to Marvel to cancel every other Spider-man title and publish 3 times the number of ASM books, with all 3 issues making up a self-contained story. To complicate matters further the title has no consistent creative team as writers, inkers, and pencillers change every month. This wouldn't be a huge problem except for the fact that each creative team has control over every new character that they create. Thus, some interesting characters introduced six issues ago have not been seen or heard from for two months. This makes any storyline seem disjointed, and each set of 3 issues doesn't seem to connect to the previous or subsequent story arc.

All of this might make it seem that I am unimpressed with ASM right now, but that isn't exactly true. The Brand New Day concept isn't bad. The past 2 years of Amazing Spider-man storylines have mostly dealt with plotlines outside of the Spider-man universe. Major Marvel events like Civil War have dominated the Spidey landscape taking the character too far from the tried and tested status quo. To correct this, Marvel brought in a deus ex machina and erased the events of the last several years from Spidey's timeline. Now I am not a fan of timeline changes; writing should never be so ridiculous that it has to be fixed by magically erasing the past, but something really had to done.

After this "correction", all ASM stories have been published under the "Brand New Day" moniker. They make an attempt to return Spider-man to the status quo.

This brings us to issues #555-557. These issues quite nicely point out the current problem with Amazing Spider-man. Even though there is three times the comic every month, there isn't three times the story.

Our tale begins with Spider-man and Wolverine talking about breakfast cereal. Riveting stuff. Dr. Strange sends them on a mission and the duo end up saving a professor from Mayan warriors. Oh and there is a blizzard. The subsequent issues deal with the extreme cold, more Mayan warriors, a death deity, and the required plot twist/double cross. Despite all of this the story falls flat. The issues do nothing to advance Spider-man's personal storyline and are completely forgettable. I also have very little faith that Mayan Death Deity will become a re-occurring villain.

I find it ironic that the move to publish ASM three times monthly was done in part to emphasize the importance of title, but they have decided to focus on storylines that might not have made the cut for Web of Spider-man 15 years ago.

All in all the story will take you about 45 minutes to read. At $3 an issue that is about $12 dollars an hour worth of entertainment. For the Spider-man fanatic this will be a must have, but anyone else should pass these issues by.

I can only hope that next month brings a better story or Brand New Day will be another failed concept in Spidey publication history. Clone saga anyone?

Retro Review-Super Mario Bros: The Lost Levels

Release Date: 

June 3, 1986 (Famicom Disk System)

October 1, 2007 (Nintendo Wii Virtual Console)

Cost: $6 (Nintendo Wii Virtual Console)

For most of us who grew up North America in the 1980's Super Mario Bros. 2 conjures up images of Shy-guys, using the Princess to float around, and Birdo (one of the first trans-gendered characters in video games). However, this actually isn't Super Mario Bros. 2. This game is actually the Japanese game Yume Kojo: Doki Doki Panic with characters from the Super Mario universe inserted in for the North American audience. You see the real Super Mario Bros. 2 was too close to Super Mario Brothers 1 and Nintendo figured that a North American audience wouldn't like so similar a game. 

When it was finally released in N.A. the game was retitled Super Mario Bros. The Lost Levels. Originally available for the SNES as part of the game Super Mario All-Stars, it is now available for download on the Virtual Console. This will allow a new generation of gamers decide if Nintendo was correct in thinking that we wouldn't enjoy so similar a game.  

True, it is very similar to Super Mario Bros. 1 in terms of gameplay, sound, and graphics, but it does have one very important difference...it is insanely hard. 

Right away in world 1-1 you will notice a difference in the difficulty level. First, there are mushrooms that don't make you bigger, they kill you. We have been trained to run at the first mushroom that we see, so it is no surprise that I was killed on world 1-1. 

I managed to overcome my Pavlovian conditioning and made it all the way to world 3. and found a warp zone. I was expecting to jump ahead a few levels, but I was astonished to find out that this warp zone sent me back to world 1. What the heck! It took me hours to make it here! Now you sent me back to world 1? Despondent, I shut off the game before I lost my mind. (There are more examples of how difficult this game is, but I want you to be amazed and angered by yourself).

Returning back the game hours later, I really started to get into it. Yes, it is much harder than the Super Mario Bros. you remember, and, yes, it will drive you to the brink of insanity, but you will have fun with this lost little gem. 

It currently costs $6 to download to your Wii, if you have a SNES you could pick up a used copy of Super Mario Allstars for about $15. You will get at least 6 hours worth of entertainment out this, probably more. I still haven't finished this game yet, but I feel that I have my $1 per hour of entertainment out of this game. 

For any Super Mario fan out there, if you haven't played this game yet, what are you waiting for? For anyone else, especially if you can't handle dying repeatedly during a gaming session, let this one pass on by. 

Oh, and one final tip: the red piranha plants can rise out of the pipes even when you are standing on them. Treachery!

Secret Invasion #1

Release Date: April 2, 2008

Cost: $3.99

Well, it is that time of year again: the birds are singing, the snow is melting, and the House of Ideas is getting ready to wow us with another big event storyline. This brings us to Secret Invasion, the latest in a string of high-profile, universe-changing storylines from Marvel comics.

In the past, these big event crossovers have allowed for some of the most memorable and beloved storylines in comics. Some are well received (Infinity Gauntlet) while others are immediately forgotten (Contest of Champions II). They let us see our favourite superheroes working together to prevent the end of the universe as we know it, and, year after year, we clamour to read the latest epic.

Lately though, Marvel Crossovers have been pretty disappointing. Yes, they have been commercially successful, but all too often they have started out strong but ended with a lacklustre finish. I cite Civil War and World War Hulk as examples of this. So I was slightly trepidatious when I reached for the first issue of Secret Invasion.

Brainchild of Brian Michael Bendis, Secret Invasion involves the realization that the shape shifting aliens known as the Skrulls have been secretly impersonating Marvel heroes and villains for years. Bendis has stated that this story has been planned for years, and that there were clues hidden in all of his books since 2004.

Now the Skrulls are making their move and I must say, original fears aside, issue 1 of 8 did not disappoint. Firstly, I should note that the cover was exceptional. Gabriele Dell'Otto gives us a iconic image of Skrulls posing as heroes. The title graphics are great, as the lettering really invokes a 1950's sci-fi invasion of the body-snatchers feel. The front cover is easily destined to become as recognizable as the first issues of Infinity Gauntlet or Kingdome Come.

For the most part, the art is solid. Jae Lee can really tell a story, which, for those artists coming out of the Image era, is no small feat. I do have a few problems with flow; at times the jump from panel to panel was unclear (the section in the Thunderbolts Mountain is an example of this) and this hurts the reader’s ability to piece together an already complex series of divergent storylines.

The main storyline has our heroes investigating the crash landing of a Skrull transport in the Savage Land. Upon opening up the transport the heroes discover the ship full of Marvel Heroes (essentially themselves) wearing costumes from the 70's. Bendis wastes no time in establishing the seriousness of the Skrull threat. The Skrulls manage to take out Iron Man, his entire computer network, S.H.I.E.L.D., and the Baxter Building. In addition, more major characters are revealed to be Skrulls.

This issue demonstrates the incredible potential for this storyline as a giant bottle of white out. Much in the way that DC used Crisis on Infinite Earths to correct their storylines, Marvel has the chance to fix or change any storyline of the last 20 years. Did your favourite hero die? Don't worry that one was a Skrull. Did your favourite hero get a new stupid costume? Skrull. Did your favourite hero get married? Or took up knitting? Or acted in a way totally different than 30 years of character development would dictate? Skrull. Skrull. Skrull.

I am not saying that Marvel will use this series as an opportunity to change history, but not everyone can make a deal with Mephisto and erase 10 years of storylines.

All this aside, issue #1 was solid read and I immediately wanted to read issue #2. In many ways that is the litmus test for a great comic. I still must caution that Marvel crossovers historically start out strong and end with a whimper. So, should you buy it? It took me about 20 minutes to read and it cost about $4, but will you get $12 per hour worth of entertainment for this? The series lasts until November, so you will not see a collected edition in hardcover until December, and you probably won't see a TPB until March or April of 2009. If you are a Marvel fan buy it now, but if you are just interested to see what might be happening over in the Marvel Universe, wait until the trade comes out.

On a final note boo-urns to Joe Quesada for a letters column that shamelessly promotes other Marvel TPBs that deal with Skrulls or the Secret Invasion. We know what is out there; don't push it on us.