The 10 Most Embarrassing Spider-Man Moments?!?

Hey, gang, let's reminisce about the Top 10 Embarrassing Moment's In Spider-Man's Career, as told by...

...at least you weren't paid in Bitcoin, Spidey...

Sigh...people still fail to realize that the Spider-Mobile was a brilliant satirical critique of the Batmobile!

This was from Spectacular Spider-Man Annual #12 (1992). As such, it missed a whole plethora of future embarrassing Spidey moments that would surely make the list today:

**The Clone Saga would be good for at least two or three...maybe four or five!

**The costume Tony Stark made for you

**That whole "The Other" business

**The fact that Norman Osborn got it on with your girlfriend more than you ever did, and the result was kids who tried to kill you.

**Radioactive Spider-Semen

**The time Norman Osborn...look, just any story about Osborn after he "came back from death" is pretty much terrible and embarrassing

**Maximum Carnage

**The time Spidey revealed his secret identity to the world for Tony Stark's PR machine. and then was shocked--shocked--that it might put his loved ones in danger!!

**The time Spidey made a deal with THE DEVIL to save Aunt May's life (Meanwhile, ghostly Uncle Ben is grumbling, "What am I, chopped liver? Why no supernatural shenanigans to save me?")

Geez, we haven't even gotten to "had my body stolen by Doc Ock" yet!

Hay, Marvel, we're going to need a longer annual!

The True History Of Spider-Man?

It's "nearly a thousand years"in the future, and some acheologists have made an amazing find:

Ah, yes, the "garbled history as seen from the future" story. Always an excuse for fun, and sometimes even some pointed meta-jibes.

Hey, and it's Tom DeFalco's last issue, too. Let's see how he does on his way out!

Zing!!

And...

"Five or six books published about his life every month..." Heh.

True dat!!

Of course, you can take it to the point of silliness...

And, perhaps most importantly:

What, no historians claim the marriage was erased by a deal with the Lord Of Evil?

Either the future is filled with dumb historians...or maybe One More Day got undone? One can only hope...

No, I won't let that go.

From Amazing Spider-Man #439 (1998)

700 Ways To Die

As most of you must have heard by now, in August's Amazing Spider-Man #692, Spidey is going to get a teenage sidekick named Alpha.

But, as you also may recall, Dan Slott has promised us that Amazing Spider-Man #700 something "massive" and "seismic" and incredible will happen, with implications that it is going to impact every other Marvel book.

Well, that surely can't be a coincidence, can it? Obviously, Spidey's attempts to mentor young Alpha in the "with great power comes great responsibility" lesson is going to conclude in something ridiculously earth-shattering.

So, given that Dan Slott is a damn fine writer who has my full trust, let's toss around some irresponsible speculation, shall we? Let's talk about the possibilities:

SPIDER-MAN DIES:

Not likely. Marvel just played the "Peter Parker" dies card, over in the Ultimate Universe, and repeating a gimmick so soon, especially when most of the press & general public don't grok the difference between Ultimate Spidey & 616 Spidey, would be a sure way to get everyone to tune out. Even a fake death wouldn't be terribly sellable, at this point.

Oh, I'm sure that if he chose, Slott could come up with perfectly acceptable stories (Spidey dies protecting Alpha, who takes his place! Alpha turns evil & kills Spidey!), the proximity to Miles Morales' debut means this has about a 0% chance.

ALPHA DIES:

Possible. In and of itself, that doesn't seem at all "seismic." But consider the possibilities contained therein...
**Spidey blames himself, and quits. Well, we've been there done that quite a bit, and not seismic or massive. Not likely.
**Spidey goes on a big vengeance quest for those who are responsible for Alpha's death. A Spider-Man who really snaps and goes rogue, tearing through the villain community, and don't letting any hero stop him, has some possibilities. We've done this with other heroes, though...
**Peter Parker takes his "no one dies" philosophy to heart, and decides that Alpha's death proves that kids shouldn't be heroes, and he goes all Armor Wars to shut down all the youthful heroes--Avengers Academy, New Mutants, Future Foundation, etc. Granted, this may be too similar to Civil War/Initiative storyline, but you could get some mileage out of that concept.

There's one more "Alpha dies" scenario, but let's come back to that one later...

ALPHA TURNS EVIL:

And of course, immediately calls himself Omega. C'mon, we can see that one coming a mile away.

Of course, there are a lot of variations here, including Alpha Gets Corrupted By Power, Alpha Was Really Evil All Along, Alpha Is Controlled/Misled By Enemy X, etc. But none of those are particularly massive or universe-shattering, unless Spidey goes on a huge quest to bring him down that crosses over all over the place.

There are other possibilities, too, including Alpha is as clone of Uncle Ben, or Alpha is really another Norman Osborn bastard, but those ain't gonna happen, either.

So what is going to happen? Well, this is why they don't let me write comic books:

ANOTHER ONE MORE DAY

OK, OK, I know. Trust me, no one hated One More Day more than I did. And yet, since we're stuck with it, maybe Slott can do something with it.

Because honestly, Mephisto must be pretty bummed out by the bargain he made with Peter Parker. Yeah, that great "once in a millennia" love is gone, but it's hard to see much impact on the universe, really. Even Peter and Mary Jane mostly just shrug about their lost relationship.

Indeed, things have really never looked better for Peter Parker. He's a member of the FF and Avengers, he's recognized by (almost) everyone as a hero, he's saved the entire world a couple of times, he's got a high-paying science job...everything's coming up roses for Parker, and that must really tick of Mephisto. Sets a bad precedent for futures deals, you see.

So, what if...what if Mephisto corrupts Alpha (or, maybe if he was Alpha all along?). And what if Mephisto sets Alpha up to kills hundreds or thousands of people? And Spider-Man has his "no one dies" ideal, but the only way to save all the innocent civilians would be...to kill Alpha??

And not only that, but Mephisto arranges it so that no one knows that Alpha has turned, and has everyone--I mean everyone--witness Spidey kill the young and "innocent" hero. And somehow, he reveals himself as Peter Parker at the same time.

So no more Big Time. Spider-Man, hunted by police again and by everyone else. No allies, because everyone saw him do it. No more job, more hot-shot scientist friends, no more secret identity, no more Avengers, no more FF, no more allies anywhere. From the heights, Spider-Man and Peter Parker are brought down to the lowest depths.

Now that sounds more like how a deal with Mephisto is supposed to turn out, doesn't it?

OK, I'm wrong, of course. Feel free to come back in December and tell me what an idiot I am (or tell me now, beat the Christmas rush!!)

Still...it's seismic, it's earth-shattering, it would impact plenty of other books, it would be a very Peter Parker end to Big Time, it might serve to somewhat redeem some tiniest portion of One More Day...I'm sold. But again, that's why they don't let me write comic books...

One More Day, DC Silver Age Style!!

It turns out that Peter Parker isn't the only comic character who turns to deals with Satan for marital purposes.

Lois Lane has gone to see her former college boyfriend perform as Mephistopheles in touring production of Faust. Which leads to the following bit of idle chit-chat:

Well, we all know that idle chit-chat is the devil's best friend, as later that night:






Uh-oh.

Well, after continuing to prove his bona fides by making Superman propose and unpropose and propose yet again, "Satan" reveals to the audience that he is really...

Yes, Kal-El, every random conversational metaphor, even if obviously not meant to be taken literally must be punished firmly!! What a tough life Lois must lead, with her every utterance subject to the Kryptonian thought police:

Lois: I could kill for a burger right now.

Superman: What a rash thing to say! Lois must be taught a lesson!!

But what about those purprted souls of Scarface Malone and his gang?

Yes, because the Kandorian Emergency Squad exists at your beck and call to help you pull pranks on Lois.

Continuing the stunt, Superman/Satan offers Lois a way out:


Uh-oh...hoist on your own petard, Man Of Steel!!

It turns out that by this time, Lois has sussed out that it's really Superman ("Satan's" handwriting on that contract, you see, was identical to Superman's. And of course Lois had memorized what Superman's handwriting looks like). So she's sticking it to the guy:

Man, even the Kandorians are mocking you, bro.

Fortunately, Silver Age authors realized that married heroes were anathema, with no good stories to tell (except for imaginary ones). So Lois lets him off the hook:




Oh, man, Leo Dorfman used Satan to set up a super-marriage, and then tear it apart, all in the same 10-page story! Eat that, Quesada!!

From Lois Lane #41 (1963), as reprinted in Lois Lane #86 (1968).

Manic Monday--A Plague For Their Dowries

"I say, we will have no more marriages..."
-Hamlet Act III Scene i

Of course, Hamlet said that while feigning (?) madness. DC? Apparently, it's now corporate policy.

We already knew that the New New (New) DC Universe is going to "One More Day" Clark Kent and Lois Lane's marriage--never married, nope, not even really dating. Apparently, it's too tough to write a married Superman--Lois gives him "too much support," they need Superman to "struggle" more and be more "isolated" and "broody."

Jim Lee said Friday that the marriage had made writers "complacent." You'd think the answer to that would be to tell your writers to write better, rather than toss the relationship, but the inmates are in charge at DC.

Lee went on to say "[Superman] had this love of his life that he couldn't necessarily obtain, and that's something that was kind of missing from that mythology." Which kind of proves that Lee never actually read a Silver Age Superman story, because that's not how I remember things: Superman could have "obtained" Lois anytime--he was the one playing hard to get.

But yesterday we found out that was just the beginning. New Flash cowriter and penciller Francis Manapul told a panel "[Barry Allen] and Iris were never married. He's dating someone, but playing the field a bit. He's fast enough for all the ladies."

Wow.

First, you have to wonder why DC was so insistent on bringing Barry back, if they were going to change his background, get rid of his friends and family, and change his personality--"playing the field"?!? Barry Allen?!?!

Second, I've opined in this space before about the wondrous storytelling possibilities Iris Allen presents. She's a time traveling, body-shifting Lois Lane, with Superman's origin, and everyone she touches becomes a God of Speed. To claim that she somehow makes writers complacent or limits storytelling possibilities is just foolish. But no, all that is outweighed by the fact that the pre-adolescents in the DC He-Man Woman Haters Clubhouse think marriage is icky.

But aside from all the relationships now fiated away with a hand wave, and aside from all the currently existing characters who've never been born because of DC's "our heroes must be younger and not married to be more relatable" policy, here's the problem:

If DC's not going to have any married characters, doesn't that ruin the (melo)drama of having their heroes date? If this policy means that Lois and Clark can never marry, what's the point of watching them date, if you've already declared that their relationship can go no farther? Having Barry Allen "play the field"--aside from projected wish fulfillment by the creators, how can that provide better storytelling possibilities, if you've already declared a large set of those possibilities out of bounds? Isn't removing the possibility (and even the desirability) of marriage just as likely to lead to complacency by writers, just as limiting to character growth?

Sadly, DC has seemingly and unironically taken Hamlet's rant to heart:

If thou dost marry, I'll give thee this plague for thy dowry: be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as snow, thou shalt not escape calumny. Get thee to a nunnery, go.

Buddy Baker, you'd best be watching over your shoulder...

Goodbye, Peter Parker?!?

So, are we tired of talking about Wonder Woman yet? Here's something to take your mind off of it:


Thursday CBR published an interview with Marvel's Spider-Man editor Steve Wacker, and somehow completely buried the lede! Talking about Spider-stuff after One Moment In Time, Wacker says:

It sort of gives Pete a moment to assess all the stuff that's happened to him for the last 100 or so issues. Beyond that, we've already started talking about the fact that it might be time for a new, or at least better, Spider-Man. I feel like we've done as much as we can do in terms of Peter Parker's time as Spider-Man.

What?!?

Aside from the obvious--if in the two years after One More Day you've already "done as much as you can with Peter Parker," what was the point of that sell-your-soul-to-Satan fiasco?--the big question is, would Marvel really to sneak in such a monumental announcement 4/5ths of the way through a long interview, just before a holiday weekend??

(And, were the CBR author and editor in such a hurry to leave for a long Fourth that they didn't even bother to listen to what Wacker was saying? Or ask a follow-up question? You just let him drop that bomb and go on??)

Well...maybe I'm reading too much into this. There are enough weasel words in that quote--"started talking about," "might be," "I feel," etc--that maybe it's just a tease, or some tentative half-discussed plan.

But then, in the very last paragraph, discussing the forthcoming Spider-Man/Fantastic Four mini-series:

That will give readers a good sense of the relationship between that team and Spider-Man, which will play into some of the stuff we'd like to do over the next year as well, whenever we have our new Spider-Man..."

"Whenever we have our new Spider-Man."

Sounds like a done deal, doesn't it?

So thanks, Marvel, for breaking up Peter and Mary Jane's marriage to make Peter a "better" Spider-Man, and then turn around and have Peter no longer be Spider-Man. Smooth.

Meanwhile, let's prepare to welcome our (no doubt temporary) "new and better" Spider-Man. So--Kaine? Ben Reilly? Flash Thompson? Wolverine? (He can obviously handle the work load)...

Bonus points if it's John Jameson...

Beating A Dead Horse

Because this still bothers the hell out of me years later...

Remember--Marvel had Peter Parker willingly make a deal with this guy:

Now, even if I grant that having Peter Parker single somehow magically makes for better comic stories than having him married, the way that which that was accomplished says something about Joe Quesada and JMS, doesn't it?

This is, after all, the Marvel Universe. So you could have had the Beyonder do it, or have Spidey use a Cosmic Cube, or Doctor Strange cast a spell, or a thousand other ways to save Aunt May.

But no, you guys opted to have a hero make a deal with "the black heart that pumps its putrid bile into the farthest corners of the universe." Because that's what heroes do, apparently.

Seriously, you guys thought this was the best way to accomplish your goal??

And that's why Joe Quesada is the last person on Earth who should be shepherding Marvel through the Heroic Age...

Sigh...

Blame my foray into Marvel 1985 for reminding me about this appearance of Mephisto in Fantastic Four #277 by Byrne, Byrne and Ordway...

The Marvel 1990s Apology Tour

First, we get X-Men Forever, which, well, how to describe this? It lets Chris Claremont pick up the X-Men continuity from Adjectiveless X-Men #3, when he quit/was dumped from the title. He's going to tell the stories that he would have told had Jim Lee and Whilce Portacio not taken over, and he'll ignore the last 18 years of X-continuity.

OK, crazy, sure. It sounds like an odd vanity project and all. But essentially harmless.

But then there's this from the Marvel's September solicits:

SPIDER-MAN: THE CLONE SAGA #1 (of 6)
Written by HOWARD MACKIE & TOM DEFALCO
Penciled by TODD NAUCK
Cover by PASQUAL FERRY
You’ve been asking for it...and now it’s here: THE CLONE SAGA!!! Marvel’s most controversial event of all time returns with a vengeance, presenting the Clone Saga as it was originally intended to be told! From the minds behind the crossover that changed comics forever and the artist that introduced Spider-Man to President Obama, it’s six issues of twists and turns that will shock fans old and new alike! Be here as Peter Parker’s worst nightmare begins again...now with an ending you have to see to believe!
32 PGS./Rated T+ ...$3.99

So...now we're going to have a series telling the Clone Saga story as it would have been had editorial and marketing not frelled it up.

This is pretty heady stuff. This is current Marvel editorial essentially saying that they frakked up their two biggest franchises back in the 1990s. It's as if they're going back and apologizing for their screw-ups, which is very un-Marvel.

I suppose next we can expect a series showing what would have happened had they not had Johnny Storm marry a Skrull, and a series detailing what would have happened had Heroes Reborn never happened.

And there's now hope, that 15 or so years from now, we'll get a 6-issue limited series detailing what would have happened in Spider-Man had One More Day never happened.

Well, we can hope.

Marvel 1989 Week--Amazing Spider-Man #314

I've said it before, I'll say it again...people bitch a lot about comics in the 1990's (and often with good justification). But most of the trends they find distasteful started in the 1980's.

Which brings us to:

I mean, look at that cover! Look at Spidey's impossibly shaped feet, look at Mary Jane's impossibly long coat, look at all the incredible detail that distracts from the overall flow and design sense of the cover--the very miss-the-forest-for-the-trees art approach that swallowed and engulfed the 90s.

And whom can we thank for this?

Ah, Todd McFarlane, the man who famously left Marvel because he didn't want to draw characters that he didn't own--only to basically give up drawing to end up with a lucrative career making statues of characters he doesn't own. Irony indeed.

Back to our story...as you can see by the splash page and the cover, it's Christmas time, and Peter and Mary Jane have been evicted.

A note for all you younger readers: once upon a time, Peter Parker was married!! I know, crazy, huh? How could Spider-Man ever be popular...with a wife?!? How could you ever do a story about power and responsibility, about having to live with Aunt May, about stopping crime--if Peter Parker were married?!?

OK, OMD ranting done. What's going on here?

Well, there was this insane billionaire stalking Mary Jane, and he tried to kidnap her...and when that failed and he ended up incarcerated, he apparently found a way to contravene New York landlord/tenant laws and evict the Parkers, with zero notice (and on Christmas Eve, and on a Saturday, to boot!), from their condo in the building which he owned. Whatever shall they do?

Aunt May offers to taker them in, but no soap--Peter's being a prideful butthead.

Meanwhile, I've got to pick on David Michelinie a bit here, because what follows here is perhaps the stupidest thing he's ever written:

Really, David? Howell Thurston III? A dumb Gilligan's Island joke in 1989?!? (A good one I could have accepted...). Sheesh. Anyway, this scene is to set up the silly "overworked accountant decides to get his own by robbing the boss on Christmas Eve" storyline that provides the only real action in the book.

Well, not the only action, as Spider-Man does spring into action against a mugger:

You know, McFarlane did draw a good Spider-Man...so why don't I like any of the other characters he draws? Is the overly-cartoony style somehow more appropriate for Spidey's costume and physicality? Or am I just nuts?

Oh, and we can't forget--if it's McFarlane, there's going to be web porn:

Anyway, Parker hits the old friend/Xmas party circuit, looking for a place he and Mary Jane can crash. But the old Parker luck kicks in, and everybody is full up or has too many of their own problems for neurotic Parker to impose upon...except Flash Thompson:

Whatta stand-up guy (well, not anymore)(sorry). Now Pete feels so guilty he's gotta go visit Uncle Ben's grave:

Damn, I love unnecessary splash pages that feel compelled to show every single leaf and every single wind line because the artist had no idea of how to actually draw a static scene without tarting it up...

Meanwhile, our page-consuming robbery subplot is getting ready to collide with our hero's angst...but first the villains have to take a special hostage:

And the great coincidence machine is running full blast, because the bad guys decide to take a shortcut through that very same cemetery (because there's no other way these storylines could possibly intersect).

So it's time for our THIRD lecture this issue on power and responsibility yada yada...

Hey, look--more web porn:

Now this is a Spidey I'd be scared of:

But surprisingly enough (if you haven't been paying attention, or haven't wondered why Santa was taken hostage), Webhead is NOT the one who kayos the final bad guy!



After more uneasy juxtaposition between cartoony and menacing, Peter discovers that he's not the only one visiting Uncle Ben that night.



Yay!! Peter's going to have sex with his wife in his childhood bed within earshot of the woman who raised him!! How creepy/exciting!!

And next issue:

DAMN!! Missed it by this much!! Oh, well...

And I'm still not gonna forgive Michelinie for that Howell Thurston III bit.

One interesting aspect of the Marvel books of April 1989, as no fewer than 7 of the ad pages were dedicated to video games and accessories.

I wouldn't have thought so much advertising would have been going on back then...but the games companies were fighting fiercely for their shares of the NES pie. How fiercely?

Yup, in 1989 they were trying to convince us that Pac-Man was still rad.

ELSEWHERE IN THE MARVEL UNIVERSE:

At this point Spidey had 2 other mags, Spectacular and Web Of. He was pretty popular, and Marvel was intent on making good use of that. First, this label was sprayed on the cover of all his mags:

Give 'em bonus points for the ability to mock the sprawl of their own mutant mags. But they also liked to guest-star Spidey all over the place, namely:

You see, kids, before the She-Hulk was the product of "biological material" from the Hulk and an alternate future Thundra...(more seriously, I loved Byrne's She-Hulk. Where the hell is the Essential Sensational She-Hulk?!?) And look, kids, you can do cheesecake without fish-nets or ass close-ups...

Oh, yeah, and She-Hulk had her head cut off this issue...