SPIDER-MAN'S MARRIED AGAIN!!! (Sorta . . .)

So Spider-Man's Satanic divorce, which I blogged about here before, has officially been retracted . . . in the Spider-Man newspaper comic strip.

Mary Jane just walks out, Bobby Ewing style, after taking a shower. The whole unmarried thing, in the newspaper comic, was all a dream!

Wow. Even more impressive: there's still a Spider-Man newspaper strip?

Apparently.

Okay, so all the moral implications of my earlier postings still apply, but it's an interesting footnote . . . in one arm of the Spider-Man publishing universe, he's happily married.

~ Ben

Nano Film Review #17 -- Pan's Labyrinth

Just to get this in quickly, since I did the Hellboy II review . . .

Pan's Labyrinth is brutal and beautiful. Savage and whimsical. Realistic and fantastic. Not for the weak hearted, but also not for the callous hearted.

Hey! A "Nano Film Review" that lived up to it's name!

~ Ben

Nano Film Review #11 -- Prince Caspian

I'm just going to cut to the chase:

The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian was amazing.

It was more intense than the first film, and younger children may be disturbed by that. Violence has series consequences in this movie. So do mistakes. And our four heroes make some serious mistakes.

But the movie itself is beautiful. And the themes and messages in the movie, well, they're there if you're looking for them.

I was a little worried about this movie, though. The first one was, to me, really well done. All the things I like about the first movie were in this one, only better. (I am hoping for an extended edition, though.)

So, Speed Racer is going to be kicked to the curb by Narnia. Too bad, I liked Speed Racer. It'll be interesting to see how Iron Man holds up this weekend. People are predicting Narnia to knock it out of the top slot. Next weekend sees the new Indiana Jones movie. How will the Narnians fare against the man with the whip?

~ Ben

Spider-Man's Deal with the Devil

Okay. So.

The Editor-in-Chief of Marvel Comics has been publicly saying for a while now that Spider-Man's marriage held the character back. "There are no stories that can be told with a married Spidey that can't be told with an un-married Spidey, but there ARE stories you can't tell with a married Spidey that you can tell with an un-married Spidey." He's gone on to say how married life is so much less exciting than unmarried life and a bunch of other stuff.

I don't read Spidey. I read The Incredible Hulk. (Click on those three links for one of the best comic storylines I've read in recent history from a major comic book company, excluding, of course this one and this one -- but I'm biased.)

I haven't read Spidey in a long time. I always did find his marriage to go against type. I mean, Peter Parker, the Spider-Man, is supposed to be a down on his luck guy and he's married to a supermodel who loves him very much and is fun and intelligent.

The guy has it good.

HAD it good.

So Marvel's EiC and the Spider-Man editorial staff decide a married Spider-Man is not a character kids can relate to. And they figure out a way to make it so he was never married, he lives in his aunt's house, and he's still thirty-something.

That's right, the kids will be able to relate to that version of Spidey better, right?

Now, they couldn't have Spidey get divorced, because that would be sitting a bad example for the kids who don't relate to him. So how can they get Spidey to be able to get single again so he can live with his aging aunt and be able to "have *** and download ****" (direct quote). (Hm, maybe I shouldn't include the actual words since I have no idea what the Google Ads will turn up if it focuses on those as keywords, but you can click the link, which will take you to a worksafe convention report where some upset fans confronted the Marvel EiC about the issue.) (And yes, I'm aware of the irony that "divorce" is considered a bad example for kids, but "pre-marital relations" and dirty pictures from the internet are used as and example of the good life that makes being single so exciting but I guess aren't so much of a bad example for the kids who aren't reading Spider-Man because they can't relate to him being married.)

Whew. Okay, so I'm being a little facetious and I'm sure that Mr. Q was as well. He made a stupid joke about things single Spidey can do that married Spidey can't do and he got called on it and now it's on the internet for everyone to see.

Here's the real problem I have. First, restrictions on characters enhance creativity in my experience. When you have restrictions that you have to deal with, you end up pushing yourself creatively. So a married Spidey SHOULD be pushing the creators to be creative, find a way to make the stories work. Make the stories relevant.

Second, the way Spidey gets separated from his wife is . . . he makes a deal with the devil.

A literal deal with the devil.

See, his aunt is about to die and the only option is the devil (not the ACTUAL devil, but a high level alternate from the Marvel Superhero Universe), who says he'll give Spidey his aunt back if Spidey gives up the one thing that gives him the most happiness: his marriage.

Now, let's keep in mind . . . Spidey is an educated man. A scientist able to create web shooters when he was in high school. He's fought some of the world's most evil people . . . some of the universe's most evil beings.
Okay, forgetting for a moment that Spidey is a genius -- literally. Don't you think he may have:

1. Noticed how some of his friends who have made deals with the devil and end up getting the bad end of things . . . ?

2. Seen some of the half-dozen Twilight Zone episodes where someone makes a deal with the devil and it backfires horribly . . . ?

3. Read some of the great literature, from Irving to Faust, showing how evil presents something that looks wonderful to us at first glance, but ends up hurting us more than it helped us . . . ?

4. At LEAST seen the Saturday Night Live Halloween episode where Jon Lovitz plays the devil going to People's Court, where he is being sued by a woman who signed a deal with him to make her to best hair stylist in the world, only to become SO good that they only need their hair done once and then never again, meaning NO RETURN CUSTOMERS!!! The devil's answer: "I'm the devil, it's what I do."

"It's what I do!!!"

C'mon, Spidey! Even Jon Lovitz knows this!!!

And that's the problem I have with this whole debacle.

Spidey, your Aunt's about to die and the DEVIL comes to you with a way to bring her back, and you're gonna trust him? I don't care HOW distraught you are . . . something's going to go wrong! Remember the hairdresser! She had NO RETURNING CUSTOMERS! And that was just a business deal. We're talking life or death here!

Wait, here's another example from your good buddy Ghost Rider. (Remember? You were in the Fantastic Four with him.) He makes a deal with the devil (same devil you just made your deal with) to save his father from an incurable disease. Only to have his father DIE the next day in a STUNT MOTORCYCLE ACCIDENT!

So remember kids, when it comes to marriage, DIVORCE isn't a very good thing to do . . . but making a deal with the supreme evil of the universe to nullify the marriage so it never happened is.

~ Ben

Nano Film Review #1 -- Beowolf

Here's my review for the recent screen adaptation of Beowulf:

Neil Gaiman and Roger Avary, you're two of the most creative writers in Hollywood and that's the best ending you guys could come up with? Really? Robert Zemeckis, why was it animated again? Animation works best when it's stylized to serve the film. Flesh and blood characters would have probably elevated this movie from interesting technological achievement to engaging retelling of an age old story.

Maybe I should have seen it in IMAX 3D.

~ Ben

Hobbit Film News!!!

Peter Jackson is producing The Hobbit.

Hmmm. He's only producing. So, I guess, I'm not sure if it's good news or not.

I'm leaning toward "good news".

I'm hoping for good news.

It'll be a few years before we know, though.

I have to say, though, that some of the most inspiring books for me as a "artist" (in quites, because my arts are not drawing-based) have been the "Art of" books that came out with the movies.

The Art of The Fellowship of the Ring
The Art of The Two Towers
The Art of The Return of the King

All of them are extremely cool, just to browse, but also if you want to get some in depth glimpses behind the creative process of developing those monstrously huge movies.

But the best of the bunch is:

The Art of Lord of the Rings

The above book is my favorite because it has concept art from all three movies, but the artwork seems to be more eclectic.

Another amazing book, not linked to the movies directly, although the artist was one of the concept designers for the movies, is Alan Lee's Lord of the Rings Sketchbook.

All of these books are "must haves", in my humble opinion, for anyone involved in creating fantasy creatures, worlds, or comics. I find them inspiring, and it's interesting to see how armor evolves in artists minds, or to see abandoned creature concepts, etc.

As long as these guys are involved in The Hobbit I know that the movie will be a visual feast. But the question is, will they find someone who can match the way Peter Jackson tapped into that vision of Middle-Earth. When I watched those movies, I thought to myself, "That may not be the way I envisioned it, but that certainly looks like the way it should be."

Time will tell.

Speaking of getting a peak into how things develop, I'm very curious about this: The History of The Hobbit. It's got an unpublished draft of the book and unpublished maps and illustrations. Seems interesting.

~ Ben