Editorial: Six Things I Hope We've Learned From Previous Spider-man Movies

First, a moment of silence for the Late, Great Leonard Nimoy. We’ll miss you, Mr. Spock… Now, on with the show.

In case you’ve been living under a rock the last couple of weeks, Spider-man is going to be introduced into the main Marvel Movie Universe. With that, odds are we’re going to have to see another reboot of the franchise. Oh joy. The legal and continuity difficulties that Marvel has made for itself. I want to stress that I do like the Spider-man films, both the original trilogy and the new… diology? Dualogy? Did I just make up words? Whatever, I like four of the five movies. Spider-man 3 can suck an egg. A rotten one. Filled with the most unpleasant things imaginable. Ugh, I hate you Spider-man 3. That being said, there were a few major missteps in the making of the good movies. Which leads me into the next topic, six things I hope we’ve learned from the other Spider-man films.

A decent start. Shame how it all ended.

First and foremost, you can’t please everybody. It’s impossible, and a stupid thing to try. Let me explain. My brothers and I love superheroes, and by and large we agree on a fair number of topics. We all like Marvel over DC, and specific groups and characters like the X-men, Captain America, and so on. Admittedly this is most likely because my older brother, Scott, shaped the opinions of myself and our younger brother, Matt. Nature verses Nurture argument for another day. Now, if I were to sit us down and write down five things that we want to see in the new main Marvel Spider-man, we’d probably have at the very least ten different answer. I can already see Matt’s, 1. Include Punisher, 2. Make Punisher have equal screen time to Spider-man, 3. Make it a Punisher movie. And this comes from three guys with similar tastes. Imagine the differences in opinion with fifty or a hundred people as the test sample. A freak out from Adventure Time comes to mind. “Everyone wants different things! And some of them want stuff that’s exactly the thing the others don’t want.” Which is precisely my point. You’ll have guys like me that love Venom, and guys who hate him like Sam Raimi reportedly does. Some will want to see Harry Osborn do the villain thing, others don’t even want to see the rich boy. At all. Some will even be happy to see a Peter, Gwen, and Mary Jane love triangle. In case you don’t immediately guess my feelings on the matter, sharp objects in my eyes sounds more appealing. In summation, don’t try something that is literally impossible. What we need is for the creative team to shoot for pleasing as many people as possible, and make it as amazing as possible. If you give me a great film with Scorpion as the villain when I wanted Venom, granted I’ll be a little bummed, but I won’t be upset. And the next one kind of feeds into this.

Such wasted potential...

Number Two, Two villains, MAX. If you want to do like Amazing Spider-man 2 started to do and introduce the civilian ID of another villain, that’s fine. I’m talking the dudes that get into costume and attack the hero on relatively equal footing. Just don’t screw it up with a ten minute glorified cameo. If you have any more than two villains, the movie gets cluttered and no one gets enough screen time. Think Spider-man 3, where we had Sandman, Harry Goblin, Black Suit Spider-man, and Venom. That was WWWWWAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYYY too many. Venom had like twenty minutes, in a nearly three hour film. That is beyond insulting. We don’t want to just see a costume, a name and/or veiled reference to a character. We want to see a well-adapted version of a character we know. We didn’t get that with Venom in Spider-man 3, and we didn’t get that with Rhino in The Amazing Spider-man 2. Heck, we didn’t even get a satisfactory closing fight scene with Rhino. This is especially true if you fall back to the old movie standard of killing off the villain at the end. If we’re getting one movie, just ONE movie with these guys, please do us the courtesy of making it the best darn representation of the villain you can muster. Which means plenty of screen time, and development. Which means we need to FOCUS on one or two characters. And again, this point leads into the next.

Words cannot describe my level of hatred
for this refuse.

Don’t make changes just for the sake of change. I’m thinking specifically of Doc Ock in Spider-man 2. They take the cold, narcissistic, vain, pig headed Otto Octavius, gave him a wife, feelings, and made his tentacles the real villain. Any other Doctor Octopus wouldn’t need convincing to rebuild his machine. He wouldn’t mourn anyone killed in by his actions. He’d just do it to prove he’s the superior intellectual. Same goes for Peter Parker in the Amazing Spider-man. They took the nerdy, socially awkward Peter and turned him into a “Totally awesome dude” that skateboards and stuff, who is only socially outcast because…. I have no idea why. He just is. That is STUPID. Don’t get me wrong, I understand it is an adaptation, and as an adaptation obviously things will be cut, warped or otherwise changed to fit the medium, time allotment, and so on. Still, fans of Spider-man want to see at least something that is recognizable to the source material. The ultimate foe of Spider-man is Norman Osborn the original Green Goblin, Doc Ock is an antisocial sociopath not a poetry spouting romantic, Eddie Brock does have some redeeming characteristics and so on. These things are slightly more set in stone than character ages, precisely how they met, and what exactly the villain’s evil plan is. So again, change what you need to tell a good story, but don’t just make massive alterations to make your movie separate from the source material or previous movies.

I liked it.

The fourth thing, an active heroine is better than a passive heroine. Most people I know preferred Emma Stone’s Gwen Stacey over Kirsten Dunst’s Mary Jane Watson. This is for a number of reasons, though chief among them for me is that Gwen was actually helpful, and wasn’t kidnapped in every film to just be bait for Spider-man. Gwen was in danger in Amazing Spider-man one, not because the Lizard knew she was important to Spidey, she was in danger because she slipped into Oscorp to make the Lizard Cure. Still in danger, still could die, but she’s not the bait and prize for the Web Slinger. Same goes in AS2, she was initially put in danger, and later killed, because she ran in to help Spider-man beat the baddies. Unlike MJ, who was kidnapped a minimum of three times, simply because of her connection to Spider-man and/or Peter Parker. That’s just silly. Guys, I get it, the whole save the girl fantasy is well ingrained into the male psyche, but we need to evolve with the times. Any love interest to a Superhero, powered or non-powered, is in constant danger. And to just have her/him kidnapped is just lazy writing. I feel this way regardless of which Spider-man leading lady they choose to go with, be it Gwen, Mary Jane, or the obscure of the obscure Liz Allen. Give me a woman that’ll at least try to punch a baddy in the teeth over one that gets tied to the railroad tracks and lays there until the situation changes. What can I say, I have a thing for the Spitfire type. More interesting ladies, more interesting stories, more interesting movies.

I like parts of it.

Fifth on the list, We. Don’t. Need. The. Origin. Story. Or more accurately we don’t need the entire origin story retold, again. I think just about everyone knows the whole dorky kid bitten by radioactive spider, gets superpowers, tries to make something of himself, has a selfish but ultimately justifiable dick moment that causes a crook to get away, who later kills Uncle Ben. You don’t need to go over it every single time we start over. We can totally start with a Year One scenario, he’s been Spidey for a while and is now just getting to fight a big time supervillain. Don’t get me wrong, we need to see Uncle Ben die, but it can be a quick little summary in the opening credits, Spider-man mentions how it’s still messing with him. That sort of thing. The death of Uncle Ben is a pivotal moment in young Peter Parker’s life, but let’s face it, the dorky teen phase isn’t 100% necessary. It’s perhaps the one thing that the main Spider-man shows, Spider-man: The Animated Series, The Spectacular Spider-man and Ultimate Spider-man, got right is that we don’t need the beginning beginning stuff. We can jump right to Peter figuring it out, and still develop an emotional connection to the character. In medias res is your friend writers. And let’s face it, Peter is largely a generic nerd before getting his powers. Cut and paste him with just about any other dorky teenager. It’s after he gets his powers, loses Uncle Ben and starts the whole dual identity thing that he gets interesting. Feel free to disagree with me.

Really optimistic and excited. Yes, you read that right.

Finally, don’t be afraid to start small. At his core, Spider-man is a street level Superhero. Sure, he gets wrapped up in fate of the world type plots, but most of the time he just gets on the bad side of a lowlife that later gained superpowers. We don’t need a Lizard with “make Lizard World” plot, or Electro “darken New York City” plot. We can start off with a lesser villain, a Shocker, a Hammerhead, a Tombstone, a Chameleon, a Craven the Hunter, a Hobgoblin, a Hydroman, a Mysterio or Boomerang. On second thought, not the last one. He sucks. What I’m getting at is the first baddie can just be a lowlife thug that Spider-man helps arrest, who later gets superpowers and starts a revenge plot. We can build to Doc Ock with his evil destroy the world plot, or Green Goblin with his own take over the world plot. Heck, we could start off with one of those two arming Spider-man’s main foe of the movie. I could totally see Otto or Norman outfitting small time thug Herman Schultz with his Shocker gauntlets, or giving Quentin Beck the more dangerous toys that turned a special effects expert into the fishbowl headed villain Mysterio. After besting these smaller time, but still formidable foes, do the big boys step up and try to squash the Spider. We could even see the obsessive hatred grow in the Avengers 3 when Thanos rears his big purple mug. In a larger cinematic universe, we have the time to take things slow and build to something great. Granted, this one might be a bit more difficult if Spider-man is introduced in Captain America 3, if they try to stick to the source material. Kind of hard to start small when in the previous movie he was in, Spider-man was a major lynch pin in the Pro and Anti registration groups plans/propaganda.It might not be doable, but something to consider.

So that’s it, six things that I hope we learned from the previous Spider-man films. A new reboot in the main universe has the potential to be the greatest hero thing that Marvel keeps spouting on about. If we actually learn from previous missteps, Spider-man can get back up there to the same level of popularity as Iron Man, Captain America and the Guardians of the Galaxy. At least, I hope he can. Next time, let’s do another editorial. You, me, and the Multi-verse.

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Hero Profile: GL Simon Baz

Okay, so this guy needs a little more background than I initially thought. Simon Baz is the first new Green Lantern after the DC Comics New Fifty Two reboot. Some revised history is needed. In the new Fifty Two timeline, Sinestro is still a part of the Green Lantern Corps having been forcibly re-recruited by the Guardians who want to give him a second chance. Hal Jordan has officially retired from the Corps, but moonlights as a GL using a ring that Sinestro had created himself. I think that’s enough background, let’s get to it.

Seriously, why? Why would he need that?

Simon Baz is a Lebanese-American. He grew up in Dearborn Michigan, things were relatively good for Simon… until the September 11^th terrorist attacks in 2001. After that, Simon and his older sister Sira were relentlessly tormented, which is weird when you remember that they were both born in America and had never been to Lebanon or any part of the Middle East. No one ever said racism was smart. In the classic chicken-egg situation, Simon grew up to be a criminal. He participated in illegal street races, one of which put his brother-in-law in a coma, and started stealing cars after Detroit’s economic down turn. One night he was really unlucky, he’d been fired from his job and in an attempt to make money and relieve stress he stole a van, which had a bomb inside it. Not a good night.

Desperate to  get rid of the bomb, but not wanting anyone to get hurt, Simon drove the bomb truck into the abandoned car factory he’d worked at, and then ran like hell. The bomb went off, but thankfully no one was hurt. Unfortunately, the bombing of an abandoned factory is viewed as an act of Terrorism by the US government. Hm… nothing racy about that, is there? While Simon was being questioned so CIA/FBI/NSA types, Sinestro and Hal’s rings started to malfunction. The two rings fused together, and shot off to find a new host, believing it’s two previous hosts were dead. The ring selected Simon, slipped on his finger and breaks him out of custody. Since the superhero stuff is beyond their paygrade, the Agent’s contact Amanda Waller. The JLA also pick up on this and begin investigate Hal’s disappearance. And while Simon recovers from his injuries and his ordeal, the Third Army begins to spread on Earth.

All human GL's thus far. It's a good group.

Oy, right, these guys. A little more information dumping then. Remember the Guardian’s first attempt at intergalactic peace keepers, the Manhunters? They were scrapped for being ineffective after the incident in Sector 666. Well, after the Sinestro Corps War, Red Lantern War, the Darkest Night incident, and a number of poorly performing Lanterns, some of the Guardians felt that the Green Lantern Corps was also a failure. They decided to make their new, “Third Army” a group of artificial super soldiers made from the Guardian’s Biomass and fueled by their power.

Simon, after waking up, starts trying to be an overall better human being and Green Lantern. He stops an incursion from the Third Army, but then is almost immediately apprehended by the Justice League after being accused of kidnapping Hal. While in their custody, Batman tries to take the ring from Simon, but it goes into defensive mode, blasting everyone other than Simon in sight. Simon flies off, finds his sister, and the two start looking for the owner of the van that Simon stole. The Third Army beats them to the home of the actual terrorist and kill him. Simon meets up with the FBI agent that interrogated him at the house and they found all the weapons in the basement. A GL Squirrel (yes, they are thing) named B’dg came looking for Hal. B’dg takes Simon to a place where he can decipher a pair of messages left with his new ring. Hal warns Simon that the Guardians have snapped and are creating the Third Army, and asks him to tell his girlfriend Carol Ferris that he loves her. Sinestro’s message is a little more…egotistical. He tells Simon that he’d direct his ring to Simon, feeling a kindred spirit in the young man. Sinestro thought that Simon was able to overcome Fear like Sinestro did, and he was his recruit/replacement to be the one to take out the Guardians. Since then, Simon has done his best to take out the Third Army, fight the insane Guardians, the equally insane and dangerous First Lantern Volthoom, joins the JLA, fights the villain Black Hand and the Black Lantern Corps, and tries to get heroes like Hal back on their feet. He’s a good guy.

Is that a Light Construct tattoo? Interesting.

Simon’s powers are identical to other GL’s: Creating Force Fields, flight, Hard-Light projections, and translating languages. I’ve got to applaud Simon for being the first Mask wearing GL that is smart enough to wear an ENTIRE mask, not just a Domino type thing. But, he does lose points since his artist felt he needed to be “edgy” by having him on the cover with a gun in hand. He’s. A. Green. Lantern. Literally any weapon other than the Power Ring is useless!

Simon has yet to appear in anything. Not surprising really, he’s only like two and a half years old.

Simon Baz is an interesting concept for a character. I’ve always thought that they could use a little more color in the GL Corps. The redemptive elements of his story, criminal turned hero, is very interesting. A possible glimpse into his future has the Book of Oa stating he’ll train the first Earth Woman Green Lantern, pushes the power of the Green Lantern Rings, and eventually comes to be known as the Miracle Worker. Hopefully, with his similar messiah elements to his story he won’t fade into obscurity like with Kyle Rayner. Here’s hoping. He’s the righteous, redemptive, rambunctious Green Lantern Simon Baz. Next time, the first editorial in a while, What I hope we Learned from the Spider-man Movies.

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_Baz

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Hero Profile: GL Kyle Rayner

Every now and then Heroes are consumed by either a malevolent force, or the darkness within themselves. We see it every time DC creates a parallel world where Superman goes nuts, when Marvel’s Jean Grey, Cyclops and a few others were consumed by the power of the Phoenix Force, or when various demonic beings consume a hero’s soul. It happens more often than you’d think. But we’ll get more into that in a few minutes. First we’ll talk about Kyle Rayner, the messiah of the Green Lantern Corps. Let’s get to it.

Lantern over the heart, nice touch.

Kyle Rayner started life as a gifted but poorly funded graphic artist in LA. He was raised by his single mother, his father having abandoned them shortly after Kyle was conceived. It was later revealed his father was CIA Agent, so the whole leaving thing might not make him a complete jerk. Things in Kyle’s life were hard, but manageable until that fateful day.

Hal Jordan had suffered many defeats in his past, but none surpassed the destruction of his home town, Coast City at the hands of the insane tyrant, Mongul. Thousands died and Hal blamed himself for every single life that was lost that day. Hal’s grief stricken made it easy for Parallax, the Fear Entity that had been locked away within the GL Central Power Battery and that had infected Hal some time before, to seize control. Driven insane by his grief and Parallax’s influence, Hal went on a killing spree. His own ring was destroyed, but he collected several more as he killed his brethren. Apparently the Guardian’s never made a contingency for if a “worthy” Lantern lost it. Poor planning on their part, not going to lie. Hal made it to Oa, and massacred the Guardian’s as well, all except Ganthet, who managed to escape. The last Guardian made it to Earth, gravely wounded. Kyle stumbled across the dying Ganthet. Hal, now going by Parallax, set up residence on Oa and started a career as one of the most evil and destructive beings of the DC-Universe.

Kyle holds the record for most GL costume redesigns

Ganthet, knowing the need for a Green Lantern, used his energies to reconstruct Hal’s ring and gave it to Kyle. Early versions had Ganthet scowling, stating “You’ll have to do,” while recent retcons have him smiling and saying “It would seem I chose well.” It was stated that Kyle was chosen not because he was fearless, like Hal and previous Lanterns, but because he could feel his fears and overcome them. Kyle, while psyched to be chosen to be the last Green Lantern, took his responsibility lightly. His girlfriend, Alexandra DeWitt, did her best to change that. She encouraged him to make his own GL costume, so he wouldn’t be mistaken for Hal Jordan. She helped him train with his power ring and basic hand to hand combat so he’d be able to face his foes. And she was always encouraging him to be more. Unfortunately, as Kyle was just gaining confidence in his new role, she was brutally murdered by the supervillain Major Force and had her remains stuffed into a refrigerator. This actually started the trope, or at least gave the name to the trope, of a female character being killed, injured, or depowered in order to further a male characters story arch. There is a website dedicated to this, Women in Refrigerators that keeps an extensive list. It’s a little disheartening. Enough digression.

Kyle tracked down Major Force, beat him within an inch of his life, and spent some time torturing the supervillain before being stopped by the LAPD’s Special Crimes Unit. (SCU handles all the supervillain related crimes.) Personally, I’d have found a way to kill the immortal supervillain. Tall order? Yes, but I find I can be very creative. Kyle, obviously shaken by his girlfriend’s grim end, vowed to take his role as the Green Lantern more seriously, and moved to New York as a means of getting a fresh start. He joined the Justice League, forming close friendships with the Flash (Wally West), as well as several surviving former GL’s like Alan Scott, Guy Gardner, and John Stewart (all of which take the title up again). Kyle has also helped rebuild the Lantern Corps, revived Hal Jordan (he recovered enough of his own mind to willingly sacrifice himself to reignite the sun) after it was discovered that Parallax was to blame for his crimes, and even became the vessel for both the Green Energy Entity Ion and later the Yellow Energy Entity Parallax as well. Unlike Hal, he was able to more or less contain Parallax’s evil. While unfortunately Kyle will probably always be synonymous with brutal violence against female characters, he’ll always be one of the best Green Lanterns.

I wonder if he also get's heckled for the whole mask thing?

Kyle has the standard GL power set; Hard Light Projection, Force Field Generation, Flight, and Translating any language. His ring also has additional safety measures. It was formed from the remains of Hal Jordan’s original ring and some new elements. Ganthet designed this new ring to only be used by Kyle, the chose Lantern, Hal, whose essence was still imprinted on the Ring, or by someone closely related to them by blood. Parents, children, grandchildren and so on. The vivid imagination of an artist also gives Kyle a unique advantage, as his constructs are closely related to his craft. When Kyle is around you could bet money that you’ll see bright green versions of various anime and cartoon characters flying around. How humiliating would it be to be the supervillain punched out by Bugs Bunny or Mickey Mouse? Kyle has also been shown to have a unique affinity to the various Rings and the emotional spectrum, so much so he was eventually chosen to be the White Lantern. But I’ll get to that another time.

Despite being the Green Lantern’s chosen one, Kyle has been used once in other media. Yeah, one time. And even then they coopted elements of Hal Jordan to mix into him, much like what they did when adding bits of Barry Allen into their Wally West. Not so great a fate for the guy created to save the GL franchise.

Kyle using all Seven Ring types. I'm gonna do it,
Power UNLIMITED POWER!

Kyle appeared in Superman: The Animated Series, in the episode “In Brightest Day.” In it newspaper commercial artist Kyle Rayner is chosen by Abin Sur to be the new Green Lantern after being assaulted by Sinestro. Kyle and Superman teamed up to beat Sinestro, and Kyle was later welcomed into the GL Corps. After this he was largely a cameo or namedropped character. He’s mentioned in the Justice League episode “Hearts and Minds” where after being beaten by the mad Tyrant Despero, John Stewart needed to be retrained by former mentor and lover Katma Tui. She makes a crack that John is worse than that “Rayner kid” he sent to her. He’s present at Superman’s funeral in the first episode of the “Here After” two parter. His only significant episode was “The Return” where the Amazo Android supposedly destroyed Oa. He’s one of the few remaining Lanterns and joins John Stewart to try and get vengeance for the fallen GL’s and the Guardians.

I’d like to think that if Green Lantern: The Animated Series had been able to continue he’d have been introduced, most likely tied to the Blackest Night Storyline. But, alas, it will never be.

Much like Alan Scott, I don’t really know enough about Kyle to make heads or tails of him. He comes across as a good man, bearing the heavy weight of being the Green Lantern’s chosen one. Again, it’s a shame that in certain circles he’ll probably always be tied to the Woman in the Fridge trope, and thus not well liked. It’s worse than what Hank Pym did to Janet, but at least Hank actually committed the atrocious act he is connected to. I am willing to bet the more I look into Kyle, the more I’ll enjoy the character. And that’s all I can say about that. He’s the honest, heroic, Herculean, hero, Green Lantern Kyle Rayner. Next up, the newest Green Lantern, Simon Baz. 

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