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#15. Random Thoughts Before Spider-Man Arrives

The date today, as I am writing this piece, is April 30th 2002. By midnight tonight, it will be only two days before I catch the new Spider-Man movie at my new job working for AMC Theatres. After all the customers and shoppers are escorted out of the Westshore Plaza mall, my managers will begin the employee only screening of the film. Of course, we won’t be the only ones catching the movie early. I’m sure there will be theatres across the country giving special midnight screenings to anyone willing to make the show and put up the cash Terence Nuzum says he may even make one. As fortunate as that sounds for us, I got a call last night from one of my good friends in California. Apparently, Jeff beat us all to the punch and attended the premiere. Curse him.

Everyone from the cast to the crew, and even Stan Lee himself, made the premiere. There were tons of other celebrities, though Jeff neglected to mention specifics. He told me a really cool story about Stan, though, which I hope eventually catches up to the ignorant fanboys *cough* Alex Ross *cough* who have decided Lee is some kind of hack. Jules Asner from E! Entertainment happened to attend the festivities that night and caught Lee as he was posing for pictures with the crowds and press (imagine an 80-year-old man jumping around and doing Spider-Man action poses, yes). When Asner started to interview Lee on camera, she credited him as the creator of the title character, at which point he interrupted her and made some things clear. Now, bear with me folks, as I simplify a description of something seen by someone else that I received on the phone at 2:00 in the morning. Stan stopped Asner and declared himself as the co-creator, whereas Steve Ditko was the artist who co-created Spider-Man and was unsung as one of the people who should be credited for it. He went on to explain that Ditko was uncomfortable with such publicity, which is absolutely true (I even heard he turned down free tickets from Sony to appear at the premiere). Seeing as how The Man was being bombarded with praise and press, on television no less, and he took the time to point out Steve Ditko’s seemingly forgotten involvement all this and Lee stood to gain nothing from doing so I really have to say that anyone with declarations of fraud on a man they nothing of would deserve a punch in the face from this point on. That and honestly I’m really, really sick of hearing about it.

The event went on until the show began, which aired with an all-new Marvel Films logo designed to imprint all their new productions for audiences. What’s the point of making a Marvel movie if people don’t even know it is one, right? Apparently, it’s an animation of a running film reel with frames that appear as comic book panels, moving fast enough so that you can make out a few characters here and there but not completely. It will be interesting to see, as it represents a new age in mainstream access to Marvel Comics content. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, you will when Daredevil hits the big screen and Incredible Hulk and X-Men 2 and Otherwise, I really don’t want to spoil anything for anyone, as I got most of my questions answered while I talked with Jeff. Being that he is one of the most rabid Spider-Man fans I know, I can say his enthusiasm has sure done a lot for my confidence for the picture. He went ahead and gave me the scoops on the weakest parts of the production, and let me tell you, they were small and they were few. I know some of you have been suffering a long time from such wonderful movies as Captain America and Batman & Robin, but you really should try and perk up a bit. You’ve been dreading the negative possibilities of this film for 20+ years (at least since the 70’s TV series) and now you’ve got just a few days, you may as well lighten up at this point. Your attitude won’t make one ounce of difference, as Spider-Man will either work or it will not.

Returning To Comics
It’s been months since I’ve written a column for Wake Up, but I think I have the time and resources to continue writing for Nolan. I’m not entirely sure if Wake Up will continue as it was or as frequent, or if I’ll be introducing something different over time but I hope this is the start of a consistent contribution to Pop Culture Review. To kick off the return of this column, I want to do everything I can to make Spider-Man content easily accessible to any readers who may be interested in returning to the comics. I want to begin by offering my introduction to modern Spider-Man comics that I wrote for PCR last year, as pretty much everything I said still holds true. Meanwhile, I’m going to offer a few new pieces on what is currently available to fans of the character, both in the comic market (individual issues) and collected for bookshelves (trade paperbacks). Marvel has worked really hard to make some of the best projects possible for new and old readers alike, so that they won’t botch the opportunity to improve readership as they did with the first X-Men film.

I’ll provide a run down of the books you can buy reprinting the classic runs (Stan Lee, Steve Ditko, Romita, etc), the more contemporary material (Kraven’s Last Hunt, McFarlane, etc) and the best of the new works by the likes of J. Michael Straczynski (writer/creator of Babylon 5). Then we’ll get into some of the new mini-series and one-shots produced to coincide with the film release, as well as the latest return of Green Goblin. After that, I’ll talk a little about some of the upcoming plans for the Spider-Man franchise, including the launch of the new Black Cat monthly series and year-end changes for Amazing Spider-Man. Hopefully these updates will be enough to entice you guys to go out and buy some comics.