Spider-Man General Discussion

You could argue it’s become an albatross around his damn neck at this point

That is true.

Its either that or the slap, he has become rather strangled by the neck to both of them.

Even sadder is that MCU Tony will never get the amount of shit Pym received for making Ultron.

Its all rather unfair really.

Edited by slimcoder on Dec 4th 2018 at 9:20:06 AM

I read the Ultron origins issues when the movie came out and it was bizarre. Ultron appears and then reveals a flashback that Pym invented him and then that memory was erased...I mean how do you invent a robot so powerful that it hyponotizes you into forgetting you created him and then takes revenge on you. I mean that's bizarro Frankenstein. Tony making Ultron does make more logical sense and it allowed MCU Hank to finally escape the shadow of wife-beating Hank a bit which is basically down to incompetence on the part of the artist. Like during the Clone Saga, Peter stressed out accidentally attacked MJ while pregnant (a moment recreated, rather gut-wrenchingly in the Spider-Man 3 movie albeit one that I still think shouldn't have been there) but it never stuck to him.

But Marvel Universe tends to be pretty interdisciplinary you know. Peter for instead made these web-shooters and web-fluid so that means his field is industrial chemicals and so on, and chemistry is his jam...but he's also shown as a physicist and biologist (though as per the Six-Arms Saga not a very good one).

Edited by Revolutionary_Jack on Dec 4th 2018 at 9:25:25 AM

Let Hank Pym have his evil robot son.

And let his evil robot son have his own robot son.

For is that not the American dream?

The only good Ultron is Mark the Ultron.

They should bring him back. For is there not a begrudgingly good Doombot in a snazzy suit? yes.

Have any of you guys seen Demon Seed, a really cool sci-fi movie in The '70s. It's in my opinion the best take on Ultron, a robot with an Oedipus Complex. Much better than Age of Ultron at any rate (despite the fact that I actually did like James Spader's approach). Avengers: Age of Ultron is an example of the trailer being better than the movie (the Pinocchio Got No Strings one which made Ultron more scary and cool).

Since I'd like to stay on-brand...Spider-Man has tussled with rogues outside his gallery a lot: Dr. Doom, Juggernaut most notably. But what about Ultron? I mean an actual fight and not part of some Avengers team-up. Spider-Man's fought clones and so on, but an actual robot villain is something he hasn't tackled to my knowledge.

It would be cool to actually think up some rogues that could be given to Spider-Man for a few issues or semi-permanent basis. If you want you guys can add to it go ahead. Someone like the Puppetmaster who is an underused but pretty interesting Fantastic Four villain could be a good Spidey villain I think. I also loved the Nightmare issues in Ultimate Spider-Man, where Bendis takes this classic Dr. Strange villain and uses it with Spidey in a way that's creepy and really horrifying. That bit in his Ultimatum tie-in (better than the actual Ultimatum comic of course) where Spidey tells Nightmare that what Magneto does is scarier than him and he's Not Afraid of You Anymore is pretty good.

Edited by Revolutionary_Jack on Dec 4th 2018 at 9:43:55 AM

What’s beautiful about Pym & Ultron’s relationship is how they create a hilarious dysfunctional family dynamic.

Plus Ultron’s son Vision married the Scarlet Witch connecting the Pym family to the House of Magnus & since Cyclops has basically become like a son to Mags then that means the similarly dysfunctional Summers family is connected.

It’s the trifecta of dysfunctional families.

Now back to the whole redemption idea, the point with Ock is that he keeps getting a chance to redeem himself and keeps botching it. I mean Ock himself acknowledges it at the end of Superior Spider-Man since he deletes himself to spare Peter any baggage. Of course the whole back up mind thing is still proof Ock is a supervillain at heart, that's what set him apart from Wanda who is more misguided and is genuinely remorseful. I doubt the new Superior will last long, personally. Like the whole reason why Superior sold well in the first place was the shock value, without that all we have to carry the arc is Ock's character arc and Gage's writing.

Well were discussing a fun topic just now but sure let’s go back to that.

..... Ooooh are Spidey & Deadpool still dating?

Well Spider-Man has rented out his villains out on occasion, Kingpin was a Spider-Man Villain, and both he and Electro tangled with Daredevil. Green Goblin has become an Avengers villain. Doc Ock has beaten the Hulk once, thanks to the power of the worf effect. Has Spider-Man fought the Mandarin? I feel like he could make a decent villain for Spidey. Also besides the Living Brain, i don't think Spider-man fought any robots. We don't talk about LM Ds.

Edited by RedHunter543 on Dec 4th 2018 at 9:55:52 AM

there are a lot of dysfunctional families in the marvel universe. Almost like they are trying to send a message about single people?

Remember: Pietro was also married to Crystal, which brings in the Inhuman Royal Family.

The thing about redemption is that on a certain character level I can buy Spider-Man wanting to give people a second chance and hoping for the best. He's on his own Redemption Quest after all since he became Spider-Man for failing to help Uncle Ben and Peter will never forgive himself for what he did even if Aunt May would (and did do when she found out). But the word and concept of "redemption" is subject to a lot of abuse, misuse, and misunderstanding and it can be cheapened. And it's also these days a little out of synch. I mean we live in the age of Bojack Horseman and Rick and Morty and for that matter even Marvel Cinematic Universe where Downey Jr.'s Tony is a character who struggles really hard to redeem himself because he started at 40 with all these powers and the consequences of his previous decades actions biting him even after he's turned good. Basically our age is quite skeptical about the old idea of redemption and second chances because we know about enabling, we know about Ignored Epiphany and so on.

So the audience has changed, grown a little more sophisticated about it, and to see Slott's Dr. Ock Superior story it feels wrong and dated. I mean if you squint, Superior Spider-Man is like Rick Sanchez but that character doesn't work in a Spider-Man story, certainly not as someone we are supposed to think as worthy of redemption and so on...

Spidey has rented villains out but rarely gets villains sent his way. Dr. Doom has appeared in a few key Spider-Man issues and he was the first Marvel-wide villain he fought. Juggernaut had that classic issue. But since then not many.

I remember reading the Newspaper Spider-Man strip and seeing Spider-Man battle Magneto and that was my first introduction to Magneto, and when the X-Men movie came out, I knew who he was. Spider-Man's battle with Magneto is a lot of fun because Spidey doesn't have metals on him (since the web-shooters in the comic IIRC were made of non-metal containers or something) so it balances them out and it's a big reflex fight and so on. Magneto also showed up in the classic Spider-Man cartoon I believe. Ultron would also be interesting to see tussle with Spider-Man. Obviously Spider-Man can't fight guys like Ego the Living Planet or Galactus-level threats (except for that Firelord issue of course). His fight in Ultimate Spider-Man with Nightmare was cool. In Renew You Vows he goes against Mr. Sinister, who is basically the Jackal but actually scary and makes cloning work and make sense. And the Puppetmaster could work with Spider-Man I think.

Edited by Revolutionary_Jack on Dec 4th 2018 at 10:06:10 AM

Since we were talking about Ultron: I love Alkhema. His evil robot bride who betrayed him, not because she disagreed with his goal of wiping out humanity, but because she thought his grand schemes to wipe humanity out all at once were stupid and it would be more fun to kill humanity off one-by-one. Alkhema's the best genocidal robot, because she's the only one who really enjoys genocide for the sake of genocide.

See this is why we need to introduce Ultron to Spider-Man. Keep him locked in the toxic dynamic with Hank Pym and he's going to find new robots and robot girlfriends and basically keep doing that again and again, because again he's a robot in a toxic dynamic what else is he going to do. Have him bounce with other heroes especially in individual issues and you can do more with both characters. Putting Ultron and Spider-Man would be interesting because Spider-Man hasn't fought sentient AI robots as a rule even if as a sci-fi themed hero it's in his alley. And of course Spidey is the underdog so that works with Ultron. And Ultron can be a Generic Doomsday Villain if you keep having him do world-ending plots. And you know Ultron is a Marvel-wide villain that I can see Spidey tackling unlike Thanos or Galactus or Annihilus or Kang the Conqueror or Dormammu who are are all way too esoteric and cosmic. Ultron is man made and earth-made.

We need to set more dates between Spidey and non-trad dates is all I am saying. It'd be good for Spidey and good for other rogues.

Now see I knew I was missing someone.

So that’s 4 dysfunctional families.

They can have a big old family barbecue with Pym, Mags, Scott, & Black Bolt fighting over who gets to be grill master.

Edited by slimcoder on Dec 4th 2018 at 11:01:48 AM

Dude.

Come on.

Everyone knows that Scott's going to be the best griller of those four. We already learned in Black Bolt's solo that he can't even cook an egg. Magneto's not likely to have much experience with cooking. That leaves it between Scott and Hank, and let's be real, Scott has definitely spent a lot of time studying how to grill the perfect burger, hot dog, steak, potato, whatever else you want to throw on there. He's methodical. He's read books. He's watched cooking shows. He's talked to other X-Men at school barbecues. He's learned.

Hank's probably not bad with a barbecue. But Scott? Scott knows the cooking times down to the second, and he never lets his mind wander off the food.

With Hank, there's a risk of him getting distracted by something and the food getting burned and somehow he's summoned other-dimensional invaders with the new tongs he invented. Scott is focused. He will not leave his post. The food will be cooked, and it will be good, and everyone will have a good time, for that is the mission that day.

So Scott mans the grill. Hank stands by offering input that Scott politely listens to and promptly ignores. Black Bolt and Magneto stand awkwardly off to the side, eating potato salad in silence.

Perfect.

Newspaper Spider-Man's latest arc involves Luke Cage controlled by the Purple Man, who reveals his power is significantly diminished so he can only control one person,(he'd also been suffering from amnesia until Luke pushed him out of the way of a speeding car, which jogged his memory. MJ in the meantime is finally back from her Marvella 2 publicity tour

Edited by Zarius on Dec 5th 2018 at 2:36:31 AM

I am not sure Purple Man should be in a comic that is so Lighter and Softer and nerfed. I mean the modern version of that character, and the reason he's become a name, comes from Bendis and that one is definitely NSFW. On a side-note the Spider-Man game, Spider-Man: Web of Shadows (a cool and gimmicky game that actually allows you choice on using Regular and/or Symbiote suit with player consequences and to choose between MJ and Felicia with different branching paths), has Luke Cage too as a cutscene character, where he's sent by Spider-Man to look after MJ and he ends up teaming with her (wielding shotgun) to fight down symbiote zombies. It has the most 616-faithful version of MJ in any medium I can think of, even if as a game it's middling like most Spidey-games until Insomniac's masterpiece were. You can watch the cutscenes though I think Spidey Black Cat shippers may not like the game too much.

But in general the newspaper comic does actually do a lot of crossover episodes with other Marvel heroes and it's pretty fun and entertaining when it does that.

Hey, don't make fun. Medusa made that potato salad, and it is delicious!

Too bad she got a lot of her hair in it. Gross.

It probably has raisins in it. We don't want her damn potato salad! We want Black Panther's potato salad!

You fool! Her hair is a living part of her, and she would not dare let even a single stand of it be sullied by common potato salad.