Well, as long as someone melted, I'm happy. I was beginning to think that I'd just imagined the whole thing.

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Dad was flammable

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And when the CLONED Gwen Stacy came back , she melted , like all the other clones , including
"The Scarlet Spider" .

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Ben Reilly was a Clone
Gwen Stacy was a Clone
Peters returning parents were really psycho robot clone monsters created by Mendel Stromm.
Everything was being manipulated (for about 3 years of the storyline) by Norman Osborn (the real Green Goblin) , who now owns the Daily Planet , and , last time i read , had kidnapped Peter and Mary Janes supposedly "dead" child after Mary Jane was poisoned by one of his associates before she gave birth.

The Jackal is cloned , adjusted , cloned ,and god knows how many times hes going to show up.

Venom is dead. his symbiote was killed by a triple dose of Dopamine Blocker which expunged his alien other forcibly , killing it.

Carnage is in Ravenscroft. Hes probably going to escape again and kill lots of people.

Doc Ock was dead , returned , and was last seen being very fat and killing people as some kind of mob enforcer.

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"Life Sucks, Then you Die. The bit inbetween isnt very funny either"

VENOM DIED AGAIN?????

(Daggit... now I gotta find some back-issues! I *know* this happened during my hiatus... I would have remembered this.)

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This is not my empire.

Actually, that's exactly why I like him. I've always felt Batman was one of the more sympathetic superheroes. He didn't get fabulous powers as a gift, like from being born a mutant or getting bitten by a radioactive spider, he earned them. He set a goal and he never stopped working towards it. He travelled the world for years studying and learning all sorts of martial arts and developing connections and stuff. The whole "independently wealthy" thing notwithstanding, he's a self-made superhero. And though he uses a lot of technology -- which, mind you, he's mostly developed himself -- he uses it as a tool; it's not like he derives all his powers from some robotic exoskeleton or something. If you or I were to decide to become a superhero, we'd probably end up being something like Batman.

Also, I realize that it's "just a comic book" and the outcome of stories is dictated by what'll keep the readers happy and all, but I find it preposterous to think that Spider-man could beat a whole team of X-Men. That just seems like bad math to me.

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The what mentioned above is total fiction. Please don't take it seriously!

I like Spiderman purely because he takes the piss out of the villains. But I'm afraid my comic book experience begins and ends with the Transformers comics I used to read when I was a kid. Which I'm guessing is no surprise to you all.

It's the Daily Bugle, not Planet. It was the Chameleon, not Mendel Stromm. And it's "Spider-Man", not "Spiderman".

-- Handy Andy

Not really. It probably just depends on the situation. I know there have been stories where Spidey and Wolverine have fought one on one. In some cases, Spidey wins. In others, it's a draw. I think Wolverine did win ONCE. In this particular situation, the deal was that they weren't taking him seriously. I don't remember the specifics of WHY, but the groups that the Beyonder had transported split into three factions: Mutant, 'other' hero, and villain. Spider-Man wanted to ask Xavier about something. When the X-team wouldn't let him, he barrelled through them. They TRIED to stop him, but the truth is that he's just to fast for them. I'm sure if Nightcrawler or Quicksilver had been there, they could have possibly slowed him down enough to let Cyclops blast him.

Sometimes being outnumbered is an impetus to fight your best, and sometimes being in the group that outnumbers causes overconfidence, which can be detrimental. (After all, you are talking about a guy who had to fight several TEAMS of villains -- not the least of which was the Sinister Six in various incarnations -- alone. And win.)

One thing about Hero-on-Hero battles is that they have to end rather quickly, or someone would get seriously hurt. Again, speaking of the Secret Wars fight, if it had been allowed to go longer, Spidey would likely have tired to the point where the X-guys could overpower him. To me, Spidey "won" the fight because they never touched him once. He, on the other hand, was quite the nuisance with his webbing, and I think he even had to smack Cyclops around a little. (It's been ages since I read this story, but the "outcome" sticks out in my mind because of how many people always tried to tell me how much better the X-Men were than Spidey. "Well, if that's the case, how'd THIS happen??" Oh well.)

Tangentally, since the subject of Batman's origins popped up: Have you ever noticed that many of our super heroes have tragic pasts? Batman became a vigilante because his parents were killed in front of him as a boy. The drive that evil_d spoke of came from his desire that what he experienced would not happen to anyone else. He then took in Dick Grayson and trained him because it *did* happen again, and he felt he was in the unique position to understand. Peter Parker, who was bitten by that spider, tried to use his new powers for fame, but because he didn't use them to stop a bad guy, his dear uncle, who was like a father to him, was murdered. "With great power comes great responsibility." I love that phrase.

Superman came from a doomed world. While his upbringing isn't tragic -- he had very loving "parents" on earth -- his history still has that edge of tragedy to it. Daredevil (whose exploits I've never actually followed, so if I'm wrong, someone PLEASE correct me!) got hit by a bus and lost his sight, but gained a "radar" ability.

Frank Castle (aka The Punisher), who is ALSO not a "super" hero, witnessed his entire family murdered by a gang, I believe, and swore an oath to rid the world of this type of scum. He and Spidey have crossed paths a few times. They're not friends.

Even the TransFormers, since kramer brought them up -- they've been engaged in a civil war for billions and billions of years, and are still fighting today in Dreamwave comics! (Titan is reprinting some of the Marvel issues, and I'm loving re-reading these stories. Volume 5 will reprint some issues of the UK version of the TF comics!)

So much tragedy, and so much good being done with that energy. I *love* comics!!

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This is not my empire.

quote:

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It's the Daily Bugle, not Planet. It was the Chameleon, not Mendel Stromm. And it's "Spider-Man", not "Spiderman".

-- Handy Andy

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Thank you for clearing this up. Wolverine is my friend Kaylor's favorite guy, and the only comic he read when wolverine fights spiderman is when wolverine wins, which makes him feel big because to his knowledge, wolverine and spidey only fought once, and wolverine won.His favorite beats my favorite.

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I seem to remember Spider-man once beat up Iron Man, too. So he does seem to have a pretty good record against other superheroes.

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As for the X-Men, one reason I never followed their comics on a regular basis, is for the reason Josh stated: There's just too blasted many of them.

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Give me Preacher any day.

Ill second that. I cannot WAIT for the movie. The comic has been one of the best of all time.

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"Life Sucks, Then you Die. The bit inbetween isnt very funny either"

I for one, am eager to see if someone can pull off a Watchmen movie.

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...Trot and Cap'n Bill were free from anxiety and care. Button-Bright never worried about anything. The Scarecrow, not being able to sleep, looked out of the window and tried to count the stars.

...but who watches the scriptwriter, director, and producers of The Watchmen?

The problem with Watchmen is that it's nasty as fuck. Remember Spawn? It was watered down for youngsters, but not enough - it was still rated too strongly for kids to see it, cutting out a huge slice of its potential audience. Unfortunately, they watered it down enough that the fans said, "What the fuck...?" This disregards the fact that the director (McFarlane himself, as I recall) was utterly inept, and the whole movie reeked.

The only way a Watchmen movie could be done properly would be with a very modest budget ($us40M tops - which was, incidentally, the budget of Event Horizon, which looked much more expensive) and Guild-get-fucked overseas production. Then you would need a passionate and talented director who knows and likes the material, and already has a good production team together.

Hmmm... anyone feel like sending Peter Jackson a Watchmen omnibus edition, and then praying really hard?

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This signature has performed an illegal operation and has been shut down.

Bear this in mind.

Hollywood currently LOVES the comic book. Its seen as the new source of the almighty Dollar. Daredevil , Hulk , X-Men , Spiderman , Road to Perdition , all have movies coming out in the next 12 months.

Silver Surfer , Captain America , Iron Man , Fifth Legion , Good Omens , Sandman , Preacher , Alien Legion , Batman:Year One , Bulletproof Monk , Black Panther , Catwoman , Cloak and Dagger , The Darkness , Deadpool (I PRAY that one makes it) , Doc Savage , Doc Strange , Fantastic Four , Gen 13 , Green Hornet , Green Lantern , Ghost Rider , Hellboy , Iron Fist , Cavalier and Clay ,Luke Cage , Morbius , Mort the Dead Teenager , Prime , Shadowman , Spawn 2 , Submariner , Watchmen , Wonder Woman , and Werewolf By Night , are all in the concept or development stage , and should be seen within the next 2-3 years , unless the bubble bursts in which case expect to see 90% of those projects cancelled.

Oh

And those fans of Watchmen. Theres already been one Script written for it , which was rejected by the director , Terry Gilliam , for being "Simply not dark enough".

Watch this Space.

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"Life Sucks, Then you Die. The bit inbetween isnt very funny either"

Gilliam's directing??? YES!!!

While Gilliam and Jackson make very different films, I regard them as being in the same class of director - originality, integrity, endless black humour...

Gilliam isn't the most reliable of directors (I have found that his determinedly original thinking can sometimes run off and leave the audience behind) but he overflowing buckets of talent and style, and also has that die-hard bloody-mindedness to create his own vision despite the pressures of the studio (thankfully not going so far as to be a bastard about it like Kubrick was).

Fantastic Four has sadly been in production hell for around five years, perhaps longer. Then again, The Hulk has been there for about the same period, and is finally being made (Eric Bana! Legend!!!) so maybe FF will ride the wave and end up in actual production, too.

One bit of trivia, had it not been for the bankruptcy of Carolco tying up the rights to a whole swag of properties in endless red tape, Spider-Man would have been made back in the mid to late nineties by... James Cameron. *gag* He was trying to get it made for a decade - it was one of his first choices of project after Terminator's success - but it had very complicated rights, and he kept setting it aside to work on something else. Just before Titanic he gave up on it for good.

...and Spidey-fans worldwide breathed a sigh of relief.

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This signature has performed an illegal operation and has been shut down.

As for Watchmen , yeh , i would say Gilliam is one of the few who could do it Justice.

The only other one is a director who has publicly stated hes never going to do another comic book adaptation.

Tim Burton.

Nuff Said.

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"Life Sucks, Then you Die. The bit inbetween isnt very funny either"

Not true. I nearly cried for a week because Cameron dropped out.

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This is not my empire.

WTF? No movies for Top 10, Too Much Coffee Man, Johnny the Homicidal Maniac or Reality Check?

Bastards.

And why the hell is it that millions of people go to see movies based on comics when it's a freakin miracle for a comic to sell a quarter million copies?

In case you don't know, I hope to do a comic myself. Still have no idea what to do about all the money I'll lose on it.

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"Only things I approve of should exist." -some guy on the internet

I share your pain, NeoVid. I'd love to see a JTHM movie... done right.

And don't you know that movies are adult entertainment? Those silly comic books are just for kids.

I wonder if Watchmen has just too damned much to cram into a single movie without losing a lot of depth in the translation. The flashbacks and little details about how history is different with these folks (winning in Vietnam, 4 terms for Nixon, electric cars and hydrants, pirate comics) are what make it such a rich experience. The whole context is reveals like peeling back layers of an onion -- can that be translated into something that is watchable on the screen?

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...Trot and Cap'n Bill were free from anxiety and care. Button-Bright never worried about anything. The Scarecrow, not being able to sleep, looked out of the window and tried to count the stars.

I think ive also said before that i would KILL to see a JTHM movie. Currently , i play Quake 2 using the JTHM model and Skins. It rocks like never before.

That said , considering how utterly non-linear everything JTHM does tends to be , how do you turn it into a movie? It would work far better in cartoon form , a la Earthworm Jim.

I still recall the outstandingly bizarre bit in EJ where , during a combat scene , they suddenly interrupt for "30 seconds of dancing turtles" , for no apparent reason , then go back to the fight.

Comic Genius

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"Life Sucks, Then you Die. The bit inbetween isnt very funny either"

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I think ive also said before that i would KILL to see a JTHM movie. Currently , i play Quake 2 using the JTHM model and Skins. It rocks like never before.

That said , considering how utterly non-linear everything JTHM does tends to be , how do you turn it into a movie? It would work far better in cartoon form , a la Earthworm Jim.

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