He's BAA-AACK...!


It's time for the summer blockbusters to hit the silver screens once again, and this season is starting off with probably THE movie of the year... SPIDERMAN - 3

Our favorite webslinger's third installment is loaded with everything a "spider-fan" could want. My only concern is that the filmakers might be trying to put 4 hours of story into a 2 hour movie, what with all the villains (3 of them), personal revelations, love interests AND going to college. It's touted as the most expensive movie to date, but I can't help thinking if less could be more (as the first movie was). Time will tell.
Sure there's the special effects bonanza, that are sure to give some folks vertigo (and if you've ever BEEN to New York, you'll know what I'm talking about).

Being a follower of Spidey over the decades (since issue #39 anyway - mid 60s), I can't help but be just a bit intrigued by the "literary license" the screenwriters take with the original storylines. OK...so a "radioactive" spider bites Peter Parker, imbuing him with proportional strengths and abilities of a spider (actually an amalgam of arachnoids) HIS size...I'm OK with that. No, Parker doesn't succumb to any form of cancer, and given the fact that a genetically-altered "super" spider "could" rewrite Parker's DNA to account for the new found abilities, it's not even beyond the realm of plausibility.

I tuned in to the History Channel's "Spiderman-Tech" show last night, and with very few exceptions, a person like Peter Parker "could" exist. Call it a guilty pleasure on my part, but I find it a marvelous diversion from all the "usual" happenings around town. The show explained the science behind the fantasy. An hour well spent.

Will this third movie make some SERIOUS cashola?
You bet yer wallcrawlers it will!
My beef (however unfounded) is with the deluge of movie "tie-ins"...all the STUFF you'll find everywhere you go from the cash-saving aisles of Wal-Mart to the cholesterol-strewn fast food joints, to the grocer's shelves. Spiderman pillows, slippers, sneakers, vitamins, shirts, hats, action figures, games (the Spiderman Monopoly game DOES peak my interest though), cereals...you name it, it'll have Spidey on it. Wouldn't mind having a "web-shooter" though...lol!

To me that's a tad on the OVERKILL side. I liked it much better when you had a much narrower choice of items concerning any character or movie. Hell, I have a spidey sweatshirt with the (Romita-drawn comic version) hero himself and the "THWWIP" of his web-shooter emblazoned in comic style lettering on it...and I love that shirt. It's much nicer, more original and (imho) better than what all we have in our faces today.

But we've come to "expect" all the merchandising...and interestingly enough, a lot of our problems stem from this constant overmarketing. People can appreciate it more when there is less (except for gas at the pumps...lol), but we demand MORE...and MORE...and still MORE. And of course, our tastes wain all too soon, our attention becomes diverted (after about 30 minutes) and we move on to the NEXT item or venue.

Time was a movie could run at the theatres for OVER A YEAR. I recall BEN HUR, FUNNY GIRL, SWEET CHARITY, and THE SOUND OF MUSIC all playing at various downtown theatres in Philly for well OVER a year each! Now, we're lucky if ANY movie stays at #1 at the Box Office for more than a month...our tastes have become that fickle. Same goes for music, but we'll touch on that another day. We've become accustomed to "wait for the DVD" to come out. And I confess to being just as guilty. personally, I'm holding out for the "3-DVD set" of the Spiderman movies, because I predict that's EXACTLY what the marketers will be doing soon enough (think by year's end).

These comic characters became "people" we grew UP with...the same cannot be said today, for they are just "not the same" as in decades past. We really don't have "comics" per se any longer...we have "graphic novels", costing about 5-10 times MORE than a comic used to.
Gone are the days of waiting at the drug store every Wednesday for the shipments to arrive (after school) so we could blow the week's lunch money on this month's issues AND maybe have enough left over for a chocolate soda at the fountain up front. Now you pretty much have to visit a "comic book" store.
That former ambience is somehow absent...
And I miss that.

Will that turn me off from comics?
Not really.

Spidey was one of my FIRST "Marvel" superhero comics, along with X-Men and Fantasic Four (DC's favorites for me were Superman, Green Lantern and Adam Strange), and you never forget or turn your back on those you first admired. THAT was real "hero-worship", and did us no harm at all.

We all need a hero in our lives...whether it's a mentor, a father, a teacher, or yes...even a fantasy superhero swinging through the concrete canyons of New York.

We can learn from them and their exploits, and in that process, we can become better people for just having known them.

Excelsior!