"Is he strong? Listen bud - he's got radioactive blood."
--Spider-Man Theme, The Ramones

Two completely unrelated spider topics tonight. The first features actual spiders. Monday night after we had moved all the boxes in, heading down to the basement to use the computer, I was confronted with a spider. This was no ordinary spider, mind you. Possibly a giant evil space spider. The thing was the size of a watermelon. Well, a watermelon the size of a Hot Wheels. Undaunted by thoughts of the danger I was facing, I quickly devised a plan. The horror lay in wait next to a shoe, the perfect smashing instrument - but to reach for that shoe would be to alert the creature. I stealthily crept away to retrieve a boot, returning with my weapon to find the thing still unsuspecting. One solid blow was all it took to bring the battle to a decisive end in my favor.

Why does this matter, you ask? It matters because more than anything else, I am afraid of spiders. It's pretty bad, to the point where I actually fainted the first time I saw Arachnohobia, right at the first spider bite. If someone tried to get me to make phonecalls or socialize by threatening me with spiders, there's a good chance that I would be willing to call strangers to organize clubbing. Yeah, that bad. The reason that spiders scare me so much is that they cheat by moving in three dimensions. Like, an ant on any surface will go up down, left right. Essentially its stuck on an XY-axis. Even a silverfish (silverfish are creepy-ass motherfuckers, for those of you who have never seen one) has that limitation. A spider, on the other hand, always has the Z axis available, and never in a predictable way. They drop from ceilings, leap outward from walls, and jump up at you. Definitely not my cup of tea. So all in all, this whole event was really a personal triumph for me. I fucking r0><><0r.

Second spider related issue is (*Drumroll, open the envelope, dramatic pause*) the new Spider-Man. Bet you didn't see that one coming. I just don't know where to start on this...

First off, the movie is really good. From there I connect to other superhero movies. Superhero movies have been a mixed bag, on the whole. You have some really really good ones, like the first Superman and Batman, arguably Spawn, and most recently Blade and X-Men. I think X-Men singlehandedly saved the genre. From what, you ask? The rest of the superhero movies. The Batman and Superman series both became increasingly bad. Captain America was terrible. The Punisher was good for a Dolph Lundgren film, but failed as a comic adaptation. Don't get me started on Judge Dredd. And The Fantastic Four was so bad that they basically finished it and didn't release it. IMHO, Spider-Man marks the pinnacle of comic-movie adaptations.

*SPOILERS MAYBE*
On to the raving. Seeing this movie was a religious experience. Its going up with Amelie and LotR as one of the best movies I've ever seen in the theatres. I happen to be a diehard oldschool hardcore Spider-Man fan. He's always been my favorite superhero, so I was a little nervous about how the movie was going to treat him. Sam Raimi did not dissapoint. The most important thing I was worried about was (of course) how faithful they were going to be to the comic. And there are some fairly big changes - all the things that are supposed to occur with Gwen Stacey, for instance, occur with Mary Jane instead. It was Gwen Stacey, for example, who the Green Goblin drops off the bridge. Another major issue was Spidey's webshooters. In the comic, Parker builds them (that nerd). In the movie, they grow in as a part of his hands. And there was a lot more, of course. But somehow, amid the splendor that was this movie, I didn't mind. Raimi managed to make all of those things into points of pride for those who realize them instead of glaring errors. Whenever I saw a difference between movie and comic, my grin simply widened, thoughts of comic uberness dancing in my head.

And it has Bruce Campbell and Randy "Macho Man" Savage in it. How cool is that?

The last thing that I love about the movie - and Spider-Man in general - is that he really is a New York hero. Whereas most "Set in New York" movies focus on Manhattan or Brooklyn, the movie took place in both Manhattan and Queens. Ayla lives down the block from a few of the scenes. Walking back to Karina's house after the movie, we had the ability to say "This is where that shot was filmed." Very literally - the Baskin-Robbins he swings past was very sadly closed when we got to it, though. That just kicks ass. And the part where all the people on the bridge were throwing things at the Goblin, and the whole "Friendly neighborhood Spider-Man" thing... I just get a kick out of it.

The best example, though, occurred during the Age of Onslaught series. I'm not going to go into detail about the guy - suffice to say that the Avengers, X-Men, Fantastic Four, and random assorted heroes like the Hulk and Spider-Man are all down in the trenches staring at this two-story tall guy standing in the middle of Central Park and wondering how to stop him. Major major badass. So Onslaught destroys a few city blocks with a wave of his hand, and Spider-Man, quite honestly the weakest and least internally famous superhero at the scene steps out of the trench, points at Onslaught, and yells "That was the last good bagel place on the upper east side - now you're going down!"

Damn straight, Spider-Man. Damn straight.

Keep sending donations - I could really use them.
6 Donors so far.

Back