Some Spider-Man Trailers (2021)

I hear the calls, the pleas, for people to know what their most obscure Spider-Man obsessed weirdo thinks of these new Spider-Man properties on the horizon. Worry not, for I have come to answer the call. Let's see what this shit's about.

We're gonna start off with the thing I am less likely to hate entirely, and that's the recently announced sequel to the PS4's Marvel's Spider-Man, called Marvel's Spider-Man 2.

Seeing as how I really liked the first game, I have high hopes for this one. I haven't played Miles Morales yet because the PS4 version seems to be not-great in terms of performance, and I'm not buying a PS5 until they make a Spider-Man version that bundles with the new game. No Elden Ring for me until 2023.

For obvious impressions, looks like we'll get Kraven and Venom as villains in this game, which in most other media I would find to be too much, but the first game balanced a lot of villains at once and did a real good job, so I'm not worried. Kraven as a big bad would be cool, but he might just be a first act villain to be replaced by... Venom? Doc Ock wasn't in the trailers too much, so there's likely a lot of surprises ahead.

Now, who's gonna be Venom? The post-credits sequence of the first game hinted the symbiote was being used to cure Harry Osborn of whatever disease he had, so he might be a likely candidate. They could introduce Eddie Brock, flesh him out as a normal guy before the symbiote gets all gooey on him. It's pretty much a sure thing that Peter will get it first, because that's the kind of blatant fanservice the first game was so good at.

On a more speculative note, how's Miles Morales going to factor in here? In the middle of the trailer it looks like Peter and Miles are performing a takedown together. Could this mean co-op? It could just mean Miles is an AI-controller partner, like your Last of Us or something, but co-op is my dream. Two Spider-Mans, working together! That would be so rad. Normally I'd be a bit mad at the 4 robot legs Spider-Man sports during a couple clips in the trailer, seeing as how they're either a Superior thing or a MCU thing, but there was already a suit in the original game that gave you robot legs for a short time, so I can't be too mad.

At any rate, glad we're finally getting something about it, and hopefully we're all still alive by 2023.

On a more recent note, (And I mean really recent)

Venom 2! I had some problems with the first one, but over time I've come to appreciate it a bit more. At least they didn't make the symbiote some symbol for inner darkness, instead it's just a shitty asshole in the form of goo who calls Eddie a loser. You take what you can get.

Carnage has been a sore spot for me since they announced that Woody Harrelson would be Cletus Kasady. For reasons I do not have time to explain, I hate Woody Harrelson. For reasons I have just enough time to explain, he's not great for Carnage. Cletus is supposed to be a young, wiry guy, full of twitchy psychopath energy. Harrelson is old. I honestly think Robert Pattinson would have been a better choice, but unfortunately for all of us, he's Batman.

I was wondering how they would give Kasady a symbiote, since it's not like Cletus and Eddie would be sharing a jail cell, and it looks like they just had him fuckin' bite Eddie. It's pretty a pretty crazy thing for a crazy man to do, but... does it make any sense? I might be asking the wrong questions.

I like how even though Venom is clearly the symbiote wrapping around Eddie and making him all buff and big, Carnage looks to be made entirely of goo, so much so that he can just open a hole in his chest. Hopefully when the fight starts it's a little less confusing than two very similarly colored lumps of goo smashing into one another.

There's a couple shots of Shriek in the trailer, probably in the same prison as Carnage. In the comics they had a relationship, and it seems pretty likely here too. I'm anticipating what they'll do with that whole thing. Since the first Venom wasn't so bad in the end, I'm not dreading this. Whether or not I'll see it in a reasonable timeframe is a different matter.

Now for the bad one.

Maaaaaaan.

Listen, I am willing to admit this is just me. I'm the malcontent here. But MCU Spider-Man. I don't like him. The last two movies have been him fighting Iron Man villains, either trying to impress Iron Dad or following the orders of Grandpa Fury. Hell, in Far From Home it seemed like he didn't even want to be Spider-Man. And don't get me started on the glasses!

The point is: MCU Spider-Man and I don't get along. And I wasn't too enthused by the reveal of yet another new suit before the trailer even dropped. So, in the context of my regard for the previous two films I want to say:

This doesn't look as bad.

Sheesh, at least this is Peter doing a thing on his own that he just wants to do, even if it's not crime-fighting. It really seems like he doesn't want to fight crime. But! Dr. Strange is more like your free-wheeling uncle who takes you to the old record shop and lets you have ice cream for dinner, instead of someone telling Peter what to do yet again. That doesn't utterly offend my sensibilities.

By now everyone's heard the rumors about this film featuring the two previous Live Action Spider-Man iterations, and every day that seems more likely. Especially considering Alfred Molina's back. I know a lot of people are real hyped for this, but once again I'm the needless contrarian. I want to make this clear, I loved Spider-Verse. It was phenomenal, the best Spider-Man movie ever made. So the last thing I want is a watered-down Disney bullshit take on it, where nobody on the production gets Spider-Man the way I do. Into The Spider-Verse got it.

I don't care to speculate too much on what form this multiverse is going to take. Maybe they'll just mash up all the previous universes by the end so we get Electro and Doc Ock in the MCU. It would be fitting if Spider-Man's new villains aren't even his again, they're just the villains of alternate-universe Spider-Men. I would like to see Andrew Garfield again, since he's my favorite. But overall I'm just not that excited. In any case, I don't know what the release situation is gonna be for this, theaters? Streaming? Both? It looks like they're aiming for a theatrical release, but as I think we've all seen the deadly virus propagating through the countryside doesn't really care what movie studios want. Ah well. I'll see it eventually.

Spider-Man Redemption Parts 3 and 4

Oh hey, did somebody want more irrelevant Spider-Man comics from the 90's nobody cares about?

No? Oh.

Well. Here it is anyway.

Comic Review: Spider-Man: Redemption Parts 3 & 4

As we ended last issue, Ben Reilly's girlfriend Janine was being carted away by the police for the murder of her father, whom she killed in self defense. Maybe by now things have gotten better?

Looks like somebody's got a case of the mondays! Janine is being held in jail, awaiting trial. As she's being transported in a prison van, a mysterious man breaks into the van and frees her, under pretense of taking vigilante justice.

YES! There's the window breakage I need! Doors are for losers!

Anyway turns out it was Ben Reilly in disguise, come to bust her out of the joint so they can go on the run together. Kaine watches from afar, until he falls off a roof.

He's still mad that Ben could ever be happy while Kaine is still a mutated garbage pile of a man. I can relate. His needlessly convoluted plan, however, remains in motion.

We meet back with Ben and Janine, planning for their flight from justice. But Ben won't go on until Janine explains why she left all those years ago. Turns out, it was under threat from Kaine, who, as he does, broke into their house at night and kidnapped Janine. Then he takes her on top of the Golden Gate Bridge, because I guess they were in San Francisco. Oh hey, maybe they'll see Venom! So tell me, why did Kaine take her on this particular field trip?

C'mon Kaine! You don't gotta take nobody on top of a bridge for that! Just quietly resent and wish misfortune upon them until you collapse into a pile of your own spite and cynicism. Like the rest of us!

...But I'll keep the bridge in mind...

So yeah, Kaine makes Janine write a fake suicide note and somehow whips up a fake body for the authorities to fish out. Ben's understanding enough now that they've been reunited, but it doesn't last long!

Doors, Kaine! They're on every building! You just turn a knob! At least with a window you can see where you're going! No wonder you're not accepted by society. Well that and the fact that you put a bomb in the diner.

Wait, come again?

The last issue opens with Kaine saving the other patrons of the diner. See? He's not all bad, though I guess this is the part where he lets Ben and/or Janine perish in the flames. That's what this was all leading up to? He really could've killed either of them at any other point. Blowing up a diner doesn't really connect with the rest of what he's done thusfar, but whatever, at least it led up to something.

OR NOT.

So it looks like Kaine's thrown his whole giant, three issues worth of plan out the window. Man, that must be quite a disappointment. How's he taking it?

These millennials and their suicide jokes, right?

Ben refuses, of course, and urges Kaine to turn himself into the authorities. Instead, they fall back on old habits and start beating the crap out of each other. The police arrive, I'm assuming called because of the diner explosion, and try to break them up. Kaine grabs an officer and flees to a billboard, where cops are ready to shoot to kill. At the last minute Ben shoves Kaine out of the line of fire. Well, now that they both have a chance to calm down, I'm sure Kaine will see where he went wrong.

We've all been there, buddy.

But it turns out Ben's words have had an effect, as Kaine surrenders to the police. Unfortunately for Ben, Janine's come to the same decision, wanting to finally put her past behind her. You know, that's a nice little bow on top of this and all, but really we could've gotten here much earlier if Ben hadn't broken her free. As long as he's not planning anything this time.

WAIT BEN NO YOU'LL START IT ALL OVER AGAIN

Venom: Funeral Pyre

Coming as a complete surprise to me, Venom's the talk of the town! After the recent film, which I didn't think was super great, and a few new series Marvel is putting out, one of which put the symbiote back on Brock, people actually know who he is again. Who would've guessed anyone would still care about a giant buff goo-man with sharp fangs and a slobbery tongue? Well, anyone aside from me. I always cared. Even when he was stupid. Especially when he's stupid. Like this.

Comic Review: Venom: Funeral Pyre

Funeral Pyre is yet another of the Venom limited series that took place after Lethal Protector. These were a bit of a mixed bag. Obviously I love Lethal Protector, but you get stuff like The Madness as well, which... you know. Funeral Pyre falls along the latter side of the spectrum, though it still holds a special place in my heart.

We begin on the rough and tumble streets of Oakland, near Venom's current stomping grounds, as a gang called the... Jadoo are terrorizing people for no reason at all. One of their prospective members seems less than thrilled with the situation.

After they go chasing some old guy and his nephew with no aim in sight, the new guy saves the kid and sends him for help. Who else does the kid go to but somebody no one should ever ask for guidance.

Turns out the new member is actually a journalist, investigating old HYDRA labs in California, one of which happens to be the base of Jadoo. Gray, the journalist, decided to join in order to check out the old lab, but now he needs to kill someone to be initiated, or be killed himself. You know, boilerplate gang stuff. Rescuing him is easily within Venom's purview, as long as someone even more unhinged doesn't show up and ruin everything.

Shit.

So instead of everyone fleeing to their homes and calling their mothers, the Punisher's arrival somehow sparks a gang war. In the first of many distractions, Venom briefly fights the Punisher before he remembers he has shit to do. Back with JADOO, Gray explores the hideout and finds the old lab, still operational after all this time.

No time for that though, because there's a gang war on! Back with Venom, he's had no luck finding Gray, but he does find Punisher, who quickly hits him with a sonic beam and traps him in a jail cell. In the next issue, using a tendril of the symbiote, he breaks free and starts punching Punisher's van.

Gray, however, is having a poor go of it.

Having committed murder, Gray falls into despair. But now Venom's free, and with the skills he garnered as an investigative journalist, I'm sure he'll be right on Gray's trail in no time!

So his strategy is to talk to everyone still alive in town and just ask them who has a birthmark. Or just grab people at random and see if they have a birthmark or not.

Given that this is not the best canvassing method, Venom takes longer than the Punisher to find the Jadoo HQ. The Punisher slaughters his way through, forcing Gray into the HYDRA lab, specifically the testing chamber.

He pops out glowing red and real mad. Last at the finish line, Venom finally arrives at the lab, but not to a warm welcome.

As the final issue begins, Pyre, as he's now referring to himself, zaps Venom and Punisher with microwave blasts, which cook Venom like a frozen mac and cheese. They fight for a bit, with Pyre being a little bit unreasonable assigning blame. I mean, he did join a gang with no plan. It's not Venom's fault he's an idiot. The Punisher tries to nullify Pyre's power with "anti-waves" but it doesn't work.

After Venom pins him down with some equipment from the ceiling, Pyre decides to just burn the whole place down. Long story short, Venom and Punisher escape and Gray, after having committed murder and mutated into a superpowered red guy with 80's hair, probably dies. What's Venom's takeaway from all of this?

I think I'd call it more an endless stream of incompetence from everyone involved, but you do you. What's important is: dozens of people have died and nobody is ever going to be held accountable. And Pyre will never be seen again. Great job, Venom!

Venom (2018)

Venom sure was... a movie.

I'm almost unsure what to say about it. Going in, I was sure it would be the second coming of Catwoman, some weird, zany, tonally dissonant film where I would laugh the whole time. That's only, maybe, half true?

The film starts with Eddie Brock, investigative journalist, who fucks up really bad and gets fired from his job and dumped by his fiancee. There's no Spider-Man involved, which we all saw coming, but what they did doesn't really add up. It sort of skips right to the part where his life is ruined because I guess you need that to be Venom, but it didn't lead anywhere. If his life had been going fine when he found the symbiote it really wouldn't have been much different. The villain, Carlton Drake, gets symbiotes from space. Somewhere. It doesn't matter. Brock gets ahold of one and doesn't so much become Venom as the symbiote, this time just named Venom, uses his body like a puppet.

I don't really get Brock's character. Through the whole film he doesn't have any agency, he's either being taken somewhere by the evil guys or being puppeted around by the symbiote. He's more or less a bumbling idiot through the entire film, being dragged this way and that without doing much on his own. There's no character arcs to speak of, except for maybe Venom (the name of the symbiote, I must reiterate, not the character of Brock and the symbiote together) who starts out evil and then at the end of the film... isn't.

That's how a lot of things in this movie go. The symbiote is harmful to wear until it isn't. The villainous symbiote just pops out of nowhere for the fight at the end. Venom wants to fight the evil symbiote at the end, despite never having mentioned it. The evil guy has very nebulous reasons, involving global warming and overpopulation, for everything that he does. Does Eddie ever actually get control of the suit? Is host compatibility important for who can wear a symbiote? How did the symbiotes survive in space? The film just doesn't seem interested in answering these questions.

There was a lot of talk earlier this week about how Tom Hardy said his favorite parts of the movie were cut, and I think it's pretty noticeable when you watch it. The bits that had a rapport between Brock and Venom were enjoyable at times, but there just didn't seem to be enough of them. Would it actually have improved the film? I dunno. Once bonded, Brock just acts like a lunatic, which I'll admit was pretty funny whenever it happened. The thing is, I have no idea if the humor was intentional. Nobody else was laughing when Tom Hardy dumped a bag of frozen tater tots on his face, ate chicken from the garbage, and vomited.

The action scenes were okay most of the time, with the symbiote being used in creative ways that I liked, but the final, like so many other superhero films, seemed to come out of nowhere. You never learn about the relationship between Venom and the other symbiotes, and then they fight. It was really hard to follow, when two very similarly colored piles of goo splat across the screen you can't really get a good grasp of who's doing what.

It's just so difficult to call this a Venom movie when it had very little to do with the classic Marvel character. It had nothing to do with Spider-Man, very little of Brock and the symbiote working towards the same ends, and none of the usual hatred and bile Venom usually comes with. Brock had little to no motivation for anything he did, and neither did the symbiote. Most of the movie was them trying not to be blown up by exploding drones.

It's hard to have a strong opinion of this movie, because there wasn't a lot going on. Tom Hardy as Brock is more funny than anything, which is weird when you consider the character he was supposed to portray. Venom, the symbiote, also voiced by Hardy, is evil, but then he's not, and the changes don't have any drive behind them. Venom and Brock never really agree on anything, there's no point where they both work together or become one character, like comics Venom. Things are one way until they aren't anymore. Did they just cut a lot from the middle which would have added these things? I'm not usually a guy who roots for longer movies, but a 190 minute runtime might have been better for this.

I'm not certain this will get a sequel, what with Sony being very tetchy on sequels if the film doesn't do super well, but I can't help but think a sequel could be better. You have all the groundwork laid for the symbiotes so they could actually work on the relationship between Venom and Eddie. Of course, it's been said the plans are for a Symbiote Movie Universe, in which case, please no.

Soooo... was it bad? I dunno. If anything it was just stupid. Things were brought up and dropped without mention, it seemed like nothing happened even though certainly something must have. It wasn't necessarily a mess, but it never came together. I either expected more, or a whole lot less.

Venom First Trailer

So... Venom Theatrical Trailer. It's... out.

I, uh. Hm. I'm not really sure what to say about it. I'm thinking my thinly-veiling pessimism from the last trailer was appropriate.

Firstly, looks like the Agent Venom rumors were wrong, which I'm relieved about, but what's the deal with Tom Hardy's voice? Why does he have to put on some weird accent for each movie he's in? Is it even an accent, or just an odd inflection on random syllables? But I can't just blame Hardy, these lines are terrible.

"The guy you work for is the evil person."

Who... who wrote that? Speaking of voices, why in god's name did they give the symbiote a voice? And not just any voice, but the most cliche evil voice anyone has ever used. Why is it just evil right out of the gate? Typically, the symbiote is a character in-itself, but it doesn't need to actually talk to anyone to do that. They're just going with the laziest thing possible, and making the symbiote as close to a devil on his shoulder as they can get.

Unsurprisingly, doesn't look like Spider-Man is involved. Just looks like Eddie Brock stumbled on a secret company program and got the symbiote, which then makes him be evil. Is he even going to have an active role in this movie? Looks like they're going with the rote superhero story where Bad Guy is made the same time Good Guy is, Good Guy fights Bad Guy minions for most of it, and at the end Good beats Bad, the end. You'd think with an antihero as the lead, they might mix it up a bit, but from this it looks like the villains are unambiguously bad, so whatever Brock does is good.

I guess the suit looks... okay? I'm not sure I like the slimy texture of it, but I don't know what else I could expect. The eyes look too small for me. I always thought they looked better when they were bigger, more jagged, and more expressive. Since Spider-Man probably isn't a part of this, Venom looks sorta like him just because. They could have done worse, but I'm not blown away.

The only thing we can't get from this trailer is details on the villain. Obviously it's going to be the "evil person," Carlton Drake, as we were so charitably told, but the real question is: How is he going to have a big fight at the end. My guess is he's going to either alter the symbiote or find a new one and become Carnage. That seems the most predictable route, so there we go.

Gotta say guys, this is inching ever closer to Amazing Spider-Man 2 territory. But then again, after The Emoji Movie, did anyone expect Sony Pictures to produce something good? There's still a chance I won't hate it, but you won't catch me holding my breath.

Venom Teaser Trailer

Did you guys know there's a Venom movie coming out? It hasn't really become reality to me yet, everything I've been hearing about it sounds like rumors from a soon-to-be-cancelled project. But I guess it is actually happening, 'cause we got this teaser trailer.

In contrast to the other Sony Spider-Man film being made, Into the Spider-Verse, I'm not super excited about this one.

It just seems weird to me to have a Venom standalone movie without him being introduced with Spider-Man. Is Spider-Man gonna be in it? If not, why does he have a big spider on his chest? I'm almost afraid they would just get rid of that, but more than likely they'll just make up some bullshit reason.

From the looks of things, the film may have Eddie Brock's cancer as a prevalent story element, which was made a part of his history well after he was introduced in the comics. There's a lot of shots of hospitals and stuff, including an MRI, but then again, it could be he's subject to some kind of experiment involving the symbiote.

Speaking of the symbiote, the teaser shows what looks like a crashed spaceship, and afterwards a shot with a bunch of scientists with a tube of goo, so it doesn't look like they'll do the space shuttle thing from the 90's Spider-Man animated series.

I just don't know about Tom Hardy playing Eddie Brock. He was good in Mad Max, but Bane left a bad taste in my mouth I can never wash away. If this is meant to tie in with current Homecoming Spider-Man, the age difference between them would be really weird. Brock is supposed to be a contemporary of Peter Parker, which ties in with the whole evil double thing he's got going on.

It may be even more odd if the rumors currently circulating are true, and that this is less a retelling of the classic Eddie Brock Venom and more like Agent Venom, the newer iteration with Flash Thompson. I'm wary of that, since Agent Venom only worked because it had two characters' histories to work from, both Flash and the symbiote's. If Eddie Brock in this film has no connection to Spider-Man or Peter Parker, is he even really Venom?

It can't be judged too harshly based on a single teaser trailer, but I'm gonna dial down my cautious optimism to thinly veiled pessimism. There's no way I'm not gonna see a Venom movie when it first comes out, but at this point I'm expecting less Amazing Spider-Man, and more Amazing Spider-Man 2.

Spider-Man Reign

Spider-Man: Reign is one of those things I always thought I wanted to read. The idea of a hero who had given up finding new resolve and purpose appealed to me. That was the Dark Knight Returns' entire conceit, and it revitalized Batman in the public eye. The other factor that reeled me in was seeing an ultimately good character pushed to their limits, suffering such trauma that their ideals were tested and sometimes broken. Again, Dark Knight Returns featured that in spades, but my interest was solidified with Spider-Man: Back in Black, where he hunts down the gunman who shot Aunt May.

What I mean to say is, Spider-Man: Reign looked like it had all the right pieces in place to be a classic story you could point to whenever someone commented that Spider-Man was too childish. Unfortunately, in their zeal to create an "adult" Spider-Man story, their result was childishly grim, somber for the sake of it, and seemingly written by someone who had no idea what Spider-Man was about.

Comic Review: Spider-Man Reign

The basic story is that it's the far future, New York is ruled by some techno-facist regime, called, unironically, the Reign. Peter Parker is an old widower who works at flower shop, for some reason. One day J. Jonah Jameson, now the oldest man in the world, comes back to find Peter and convinces him to be Spider-Man again, while the Mayor of New York sets in motion a protective barrier around the city, called The Web. It all ends up with a bunch of old supervillains fighting Spider-Man again, the corpse of Doc Ock digs up the corpse of Mary Jane, and it was all a plan for Venom to eat everyone in the city.

So it's virtually a play-by-play ripoff of the Dark Knight Returns, but with none of the substance. It's easy to say that DKR was needlessly grim, or had stereotypes of the antagonists, but at least it had a point. One of those points, admittedly, was that liberals are bad. Granted! But the big theme that story centered around was that people don't change. Bruce Wayne could never escape being Batman, The Joker would always be a psychopath, Two-Face would forever feel his scars, and Jim Gordon would always be a good man. Despite what those GODDAMN PINKO COMMIES believe, there's something at the core of someone that doesn't go away. Neither time, nor therapy, nor healing can get rid of it.

Spider-Man Reign, however, does not have this kind of theming. Peter Parker isn't just old, he's crazy. He hallucinates the whole time and when he puts on the Spider-Man suit he acts like a man possessed. Is he at any point lucid during the entire story? There's no character development with him, it just reveals that Mary Jane actually died from cancer from Peter's radioactive "body fluids." It wouldn't have been difficult to cobble together something about "Responsibility" or "Power." Instead this was just empty.

In DKR, you had a lot of characters return to show how the progress of time had affected them. Harvey Dent was crazier than ever, Green Arrow became an underground dissident missing an arm, and Superman was a government crony. You could see the steps between the present day and these versions of the characters. Events in the past still affected them greatly, with the superhero ban causing Bruce Wayne to retire and Superman to end up an employee of Ronald Reagan. There was more under the surface of that book, where events you weren't around to witness had altered these people, all you could see was the echo of things that took place.

In Reign, there's none of that. Why are there no other superheros in New York? Why did a fascist regime take hold? Is it just New York? None of these questions are answered, or even really alluded to. Hell, this regime hardly affects Peter Parker at all, the only reason he had to retire was Mary Jane's death, from his... "love"

Nobody else from modern Marvel is around. No Iron Man, no Fantastic 4, and there's not even an excuse to explain their absence. They just stopped existing. Jameson returns, but instead of the brash newspaperman he used to be, he's a raving crackpot who brings kids to an old church and yells at them. Why did he go crazy? I dunno. The Sinister Six returns, only now they're the Sinner Six, and they aren't different at all. They don't even look like they've aged. Why put a story in the future if you're going to ignore the passage of time?!

No bland facsimile for DKR would be complete without the young girl viewpoint character. Dark Knight had Carrie Kelly, who became Robin, that... spunky chick? To be honest, she didn't really have that much agency, she just seemed to be there to show how STUPID her LIBTARD PARENTS are, and provide some hero worship for Batman. I'll give Reign some points here, because the female protagonist here, who's name is... Wait, what's her name?

Okay, so she's never given a name. She's mostly a viewpoint character so you can see what Jameson's doing, but near the end she leads resistence against the symbiotes. Then it's revealed she's Sandman's daughter, and then she's shot and dies. Okay, maybe I'm just cutting her some slack because she's not ruining an old character, they just made a new one that's mediocre.

So yeah, it's derivative of Dark Knight Returns, we all know that, they even marketed it as such. But how does it compare to a similar Spider-Man story, Back In Black?

Back in Black takes place after the first Marvel Civil War, when Spider-Man revealed his identity, but betrayed Iron Man once he found out Tony became a monster. Peter, now a criminal for breaking the Superhero Registration Act, is targeted by a hitman, who ends up missing Peter and shooting Aunt May instead. Spider-Man goes on a rampage, finding out who's responsible while trying to save May's life despite being a wanted man. I love it.

Back In Black is an example of a Spider-Man story that trends towards a darker tone, but doesn't feel childish or stupid. Reign ain't that. In BIB, Peter doesn't joke at anyone. He's pushed to his emotional limit and is willing to do things he's never done before to get revenge. In Reign, he jokes, but not what you're thinking. It's as if Kaare Andrews heard that Spider-Man tells jokes while he's fighting villains, but didn't quite understand what that meant. We all know Spider-Man does little quips and makes fun of his villains, but in Reign he just... tells jokes.

The big difference is, BIB Peter still feels like Peter Parker, in Reign we not only missed the character development in the past, we don't get any during the book itself. It's as if they tried to make it cosmetically similar to Spider-Man, without the heart. At one point, he quotes the old Spider-Man cartoon theme.

It mixes things like a graffiti artist being beaten half to death with somebody quoting the Beverly Hillbillies theme. It's not making some kind of statement about finding light in times of darkness, it's just slapdash writing. It doesn't quite reach the level of puerile cynicism as Millar's stuff, like Kick-Ass, but it's certainly close. There's no subtlety about the drama, it more or less just runs down the laundry list of Peter's dead loved ones, multiple times. They literally shove a dead Mary Jane in your face.

Back in Black took itself very seriously, presenting the things Spider-Man did as skirting the line of morality and absolutely crossing that line legally. Reign doesn't know if it wants to play it seriously or not, trying to show serious drama but breaking the tone a scene later. At least if it were more campy, like the 90's clone stuff, it could be enjoyable in some way.

That's really the sum of it, Spider-Man Reign was never sure about what it wanted to be. It didn't harken back to the old days of Spider-Man, nor did it try to develop the character in a different direction. It's a shame, really. I'm sure they could've done something with this story, instead of this paint-by-numbers ripoff. Was there a vision for this? Did anybody in the process for creating this have an actual inspired moment? Creating a Dark Knight Returns for Spider-Man could be a cool jumping-off point, but you have to do something different! Give it a core of optimism, make the characters seem like real people! As it is, this comic is just aimless, and it seems to me, a huge waste of potential.

New Ways To Die Parts 5 and 6

Time for the next installment of the series that wouldn't die, New Ways To Die.

Amazing Spider-Man #572 & #573

It starts with Peter helping to rebuild the homeless shelter destroyed by the terrible Venom/Anti-Venom fight we all had to witness last issue. Inside are all the illegal sweatshop workers we all forgot about because 12 different plotlines are running through this thing.

The Chinese talk to Martin Li about how they've been used for illegal medical trials by Oscorp, because apparently Osborn can't just limit the evil to only one part of his life.

Speaking of Osborn, we go with him as he explains to his men that the guns he just made will home in on Spider-Man, based on the tech on his camera. Osborn then explains they'll go with Bullseye alone, since he needs Songbird and Radioactive Man to help him fix the symbiote.

Anti-Venom, who had snuck in earlier, grabs Peter's camera when everyone leaves. Back with Gargan, we see Norman extract a sample of the Anti-Venom, before he heads to another part of the lab, where he has- HOLY SHIT.

WHAT WHY WHO WHY

...Okay, that's

No, I can't do it. This is grotesque! See those jars on the left? THOSE ARE HIS ORGANS.

So that's Freak, who apparently can't die, and his body just generates a countermeasure to whatever just killed him. I don't know. He's like a horrible disgusting ripoff of Doomsday.

Norman injects him with Anti-Venom, which, apparently, makes him produce a super Venom? I don't really get it. I mean, the only thing I know about this guy is instantly contradicted. Really, shouldn't something that heals him just heal him a bit? Does his body really need to counteract it? To be honest, the less time thinking about that guy, the better.

As Norman goes a little Koo-koo in his lab, Bullseye and the troops end up at Harry's coffee shop, where Peter, Harry and Lily are talking. Wait, now that they can track him, wouldn't they instantly recognize that Peter is Spider-Man? He's standing right there! I guess they never considered Parker might be Spider-Man, even though they found a camera taking pictures of Spider-Man with no Parker there, and there's only three people, Parker included, that could now possibly be Spider-Man, and the fact that Norman knew Peter was Spider-Man WAS A GODDAMN PLOT POINT FOR THE ENTIRE TIME GREEN GOBLIN EXISTED!

Sorry, lost my cool there for a bit. But don't worry, cool's back.

The troops throw smoke grenades, as Pete, Harry and Lily flee. Peter "runs for help", crawls around, and punches a dude in the head. He quickly wishes he hadn't done that.

Did those bullets just curve? Bullets don't work that way. So, he's been shot. A lot, judging by those bullet-trails. Can they explain how he's still moving?

So you're telling me you can get shot 20 times, but as long as they miss your major organs, you can still run around?! Apparently, Spider-Man runs on HP, and it's not 0 yet. Anti-Venom comes out of nowhere to kick the shit out of some dudes, then hands Peter back his camera. Spidey quickly figures out what's going on. When Bullseye comes to finish him off, Spider-Man throws a web ball at him which has his chest-spider, and tracking chip, on it. Since the Thunderbolt soldiers can't take orders very well, this happens.

Wait, if the magic moving bullets are so damn accurate, shouldn't they shoot the chip in his hand, not his chest? There's nothing on his chest for them to home towards. Even if you accept that somehow bullets can change their trajectory mid-flight, this still makes no goddamn sense!

Since Spider-Man pretty much just killed Bullseye, the battle's over, and Anti-Venom offers to tell Spidey where Osborn is.

Back with Osborn, he shows up at the lab dressed in the whole Green Goblin outfit, because nothing makes the Feds want to make you lead a team like a garish clashing outfit you wore while killing people. He reveals the thing he was making in his workshop, and gives it to Gargan. Uh oh, I don't think I'm gonna like this.

I don't like it.

The next issue begins with Harry talking to Norman, with Norman doing the whole "Join me, and we can rule the Galaxy as father and son" thing he's always going on about. Spider-Man and Anti-Venom head over to Oscorp, and go in separate doors. Songbird quickly spots Spidey, and zaps him, only to be met with something really unpleasant.

SHPLOP

There is no way to make that panel okay. Keep in mind, that's Anti-Venom's main power. Shooting white glop at people. And some people wonder why I don't like him.

Scorp-Venom and Anti-Venom start fighting, as Harry and Norman try to find the real Spider-Man. He finds them pretty quickly, smashing into Norman from the ceiling. Man, he does that a lot in this storyline. I feel like I should've kept a counter. He does it, what, at least once an issue. Norman pushes a button, summoning the glider, which scratches Spider-Man on the way over. After jumping on the glider himself, Norman raises some questions.

Now, this is supposed to make us believe Harry's relapsed into Goblinism and is, in fact, Menace. We know better because we're from the future.

Spider-Man jumps on GG and smashes him through some walls, until he finds a room full of Chinese people strapped to the walls. Before anything can be done, Norman activates the self-destruct mechanism, forcing Spider-Man to save the test subjects. Spidey reluctantly frees Songbird and Radioactive Man and mostly everyone flees, except for the Wonder Twins.

Take out the dialogue and you have the weirdest porn ever made.

Venom realizes he can't kill Brock, because the symbiote still has feelings for its ex. I expect later that night, the symbiote will drunk-dial him and try to reminisce about the good times. The building collapses, but don't worry, everyone important got out okay. Well, except Spider-Man.

I guess the Thunderbolts decide killing Spider-Man should be put on the back burner, so the next day Norman announces that Spidey was buried under the rubble, but still man, he was making all kinds of cures in there, so you should hate Spider-Man just in case he comes back to life.

Back at an Oscorp office, the gang is looking through some books, looking for some research materials, to dissociate Harry from the human testing, presumably. As Harry goes into the next room, Peter's about to grab another book on the shelf when this happens:

Yeah, foreshadowing? Harry finds the file he needs and they all leave.

Back at the homeless shelter, all the former test subjects are there, and apparently all the miracle healing has ceased, as well as most people relapsing. Martin Li has an uncharacteristic bought of crankiness, CoughMr.Negativecough, as Anti-Venom shows he's still alive in the ending narration.

Finally! We're done! And what's the damage? Pretty much everything. This story is unpleasant, uncomfortable, and not well thought out. The tons of plot threads dangling through it only needlessly complicate matters, while the main story itself is just downright dumb. The fake politics are forgotten halfway through, the Chinese test subjects are never really explained, and Anti-Venom. Just Anti-Venom. His inclusion alone would be enough to make this series bad, but when you combine it with everything else, this thing becomes a train wreck.

The art's done by John Romita Jr., who's usually pretty good. Unfortunately, he seemed to be stuck on Grim 'n' Dirty Mode while drawing this, because everything he depicts just seems icky. I suppose there's not much you can do when you're asked to draw a guy who shoots white goo at people, but I'm still not much of a fan.

The writer: Dan Slott. This was before Big Time, but more importantly before Superior Spider-Man. There are things he can write well and things he cannot, and this storyline showcases most of what he can't. This was made during the time when Amazing Spider-Man had a few rotating writers, and how Slott became the main writer I may never understand. Especially considering he continued to write things like this:

Well, it's still better than Superior.

Parts 1 and 2

Parts 3 and 4