Requiem: Ultimate Comics Spider-Man #200 Review

I really enjoy the Miles Morales version of Spider-Man in Marvel’s Ultimate Universe, but I am always gonna have a soft spot for Peter Parker. Which, for a superhero comic fan, is about as controversial a statement as decrying Nazis, or perhaps coming down on the negative side of human trafficking, but it doesn’t make it any less true. Not only was the Ultimate version of Peter a pretty solid modernization of the character, while still keeping his core values and characterization, but it allowed we readers to see something we don’t normally get to see: the actual conclusion of the character’s story.

Sure, we get nods toward final stories with Marvel’s The End periodic series of books (and some of those are damn good) and in a few DC Elseworlds stories, but they’re never really final in a satisfying way. Because yeah, they’re endings, but then they, you know, end. And part of why any comics fan loves these stories is that they are ongoing. So while we sometimes see a beloved character go down, we don’t see the aftermath in a serious, ongoing way. But we got that with the death of Peter Parker in Ultimate Spider-Man almost three years ago, with the Death of Peter Parker, which was a really spectacular story. I recently reread the issue with Peter’s public memorial, and when the little girl asked Aunt May if she was Spider-Man’s mommy, and if she needed a hug? Jesus, if I could get my hands on whatever motherfucker was cutting onions in a room that dusty…

But that story concluded, and we moved on to Miles Morales, as comics do… but in real life, when someone gets killed, people don’t just yank up stakes and start paying attention to a new person, unless your name is Michael Peterson and you don’t mind explaining your weird behavior to members of the law enforcement community. In real life, those losses stick around for a while… and that brings us to Ultimate Spider-Man #200, which is a long reminiscence of Peter’s life, and shows how some of the regulars from the original series are doing. And while there isn’t any action and no current storylines are really affected, it’s damn nice to check in with Aunt May, Gwen Stacy, Mary Jane and some of the other former regulars on this title.

Unless you hate Brian Michael Bendis’s “guys sitting around a table talking” issues. Because then you’ll hate this.

Shocking: Spider-Man 2099 By Peter David And Will Sliney Confirmed

I didn’t read Spider-Man 2099 when it first came out in 1992, for a few reasons. 1992 was the year Image Comics debuted and when The Death of Superman was released, so an alternate universe packed with what looked, at face value, like “X-Treme!” gimmick knockoffs meant to get us to buy two books with the same character every months, and God knows that only a savage would double-ship a character to make some extra bank. Besides, in 1992 I was a junior an college and only had money for six comics a week, or one comic a week and beer. I think we all know that I made the prudent and wise choice.

By the time I graduated and started having a few bucks in my pocket to buy more comics, Marvel was playing peek-a-boo with crippling bankruptcy, firing editors left and right, Peter David had left the book, and it seemed like my money would be better used on Vertigo books, or perhaps by chucking it into an open gutter.

So I wasn’t particularly familiar with the character beyond the knowledge that his alter ego was Miguel O’Hara and he said “Shock!” a shitload for reasons I could never fucking understand. He’s been an intriguing presence in the modern Marvel Universe by way of his appearances in The Superior Spider-Man, but not a big enough presence that I’ve really felt like I’ve gotten to know the character. Although he still says “shock!” an awful Goddamned fucking lot.

Well, that’s gonna change come July, when Marvel is publishing a new Spider-Man 2099 standalone title, written by Peter David with art by Fearless Defenders artist Will Sliney.

Not Kosher: Marvel Announces Spider-Verse

We’re a little late to the party on this one, but Marvel is already starting to hype the first big event of the soon-to-be freshly Peter Parker-centric reboot of The Amazing Spider-Man… because God knows that you need to market the living shit out of a book where you completely blow up the status quo to, well, return to the status quo. Jesus, Marvel and writer Dan Slott threw a pudgy, nearsighted, vainglorious motormouth into the Spider-Man suit for the past 15 months and have set sales records; I doubt you need to set the world alight to get people to read a Spider-Man book featuring the original dude.

Frankly, just seeing Peter Parker back in the saddle is enough of an event to get me excited… and yet this one sounds ambitious and kinda interesting. It’s called Spider-Verse, it’s gonna be written by Dan Slott with art by Olivier Coipel, it’ll be coming out in November starting in The Amazing Spider-Man #9, and it’s gonna feature Spider-Man.

Whaddya mean, “which Spider-Man?” Spider-Man! You know… all of them. Ever.

Seriously: check it out:

Don’t Start None; Won’t Be None – Hey, Kids! First 10 Minutes Of Captain America: The Winter Soldier

Ok, here’s the thing – I maintain, and will continue to maintain, that Chris Evans has never been, nor will ever be, better in a comic book movie than his turn as Jensen in 2010’s The Losers. Now, while I might have been in the minority in that respect, check out the infamous Don’t Stop Believing scene from that movie and then get back to me.

I’ll wait.

No, seriously. I’ll wait.

Ok, so, now that you’ve seen that…HOLY SHIT THE FIRST TEN MINUTES OF THE NEW CAPTAIN AMERICA MOVIE…HOLY FUCK!!!!!!!!!111!!!!!!11!!!!!!1

Ok, then. So.

Captain America: The Winter Soldier opens April 4, 2014 here in the good ol’ US of A, where, if you are very good in life, you can be repeatedly lapped by Steve Rogers and then given cybernetic weaponized flight armor for your troubles.

Now, more importantly, bonus material.

Meet Black Widow – Captain America Movie Sequel Featurette

Hey, kids! Did you really dig Natasha Romanoff, aka Black Widow, in her various appearances in Iron Man 2 and The Avengers? Did you wish you could see more of her?

No, not that way, you perverts.

Well, it looks like she’s going to have a very central role in the upcoming Captain America: The Winter Soldier movie. And, she’s got her own stand alone movie in the works, although it’s just in the beginning stages of getting past being a twinkle in Marvel’s pants eye. Take a look at this new featurette focusing on the lady herself!

Captain America: The Winter Soldier opens in US theaters April 4, 2014.

Via Bleeding Cool.

Spin-Offs And Spin-Outs: Skottie Young To Write And Draw Rocket Raccoon

It has been a ridiculously busy weekend here at the Crisis On Infinite Midlives Home Office. Yesterday, I thought I’d get tricky and get my car inspected the first day of the month after last year’s inspection expired, so I could go 13 months without having to worry about it. Well, I drive a performance car and – funny story – it turns out that the reason they replace tires so often in auto races is that performance tires wear out faster than normal all-weather radials you see on regular cars. Which means that my tires, which only have 18,500 miles on them, don’t have enough tread to pass the inspection. So not only do I have a big, arrest-me-yellow “REJECTED” sticker (literally – the cops are supposed to arrest you if they see you driving with that sticker), but – another funny story – it turns out that my car needs two different-sized tires, and neither are of the size or type that one finds in a local purveyor of automobile tires.

So I have been frantically trying to find someone who can put tires on this fucking car sometime tomorrow, because while I admit that I bought my car because it was fun to drive – there are perks to being middle aged without kids – it is also something I use to drive to the job that pays for the fucking thing. So it has been a busy day on the phone, not to mention the time required by yesterday’s “story conference” with contributors Trebuchet and PixieStyx, which basically consisted of heavy drinking and alternating shouts of, “No, you should write more stuff!”

So while we are late to the party on this one, it has been announced that Skottie Young will be writing and drawing a Rocket Raccoon comic to be released in July, just in time for the Guardians of The Galaxy movie release on July 31st. And not only that, but a few pages of the book’s art have been released, which you can check out after the jump.

New Amazing Spider-Man 2 Trailer – More Previously Unseen Footage

This new trailer for The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is called “The Rise Of Electro”. It clocks in at just over three minutes long and seems to contain some previously unseen footage. Almost certainly it contains more shots of Jamie Foxx’s Electro in action. However, there are also some great dialogue teasers between Peter and Aunt May about what secrets the family may be keeping regarding the death of his parents. The new incarnation of Harry Osborn comes off as suitably emo and creepy, very much Peter’s opposite. My only concern with this movie is that they’re trying to shoehorn in three villains: Electro, The Rhino, and The Green Goblin. Split focus was a major downfall of Sam Raimi’s final Spider-Man effort, Spider-Man 3. Part of what made the reboot work so well was allowing the story to focus on the battle with one enemy, while the characters were given room in the story to flesh themselves out. I hope this new movie doesn’t give the characters short shrift by trying to stuff too many of them in for the sake of spectacle.

The Amazing Spider-Man 2 opens in US theaters on May 2, 2014.

Via Bleeding Cool.

I’m Gonna Blow Up The Ark, Rene: Daredevil #36 Review

Editor’s Note: No one on the white hat side has ever hidden his or her spoilers with less than noble intent.

About 20 years ago, I worked in a job that put me in close proximity with many lawyers. And not the kind of lawyers who champion the powerless and regularly make the short lists for major federal benches, but the kind that advertise during the times of day and kinds of shows likely to be shown in hospital waiting rooms. The kind would chase an ambulance, fake a slip-and-fall, and then sue the ambulance. Real lowlives with cut-rate law school diplomas and Rolodexes full of the kinds of doctors who will certify, from their second floor walk-up offices, that their patients have no legs.

One time I saw one of these guy’s clients get busted for insurance fraud after claiming he had permanent debilitating neck pain, and then being caught fronting a thrash headbanger band for a two-hour bar set. I remember another lawyer for whom our standard operating procedure was to immediately counter-sue for frivolous litigation the instant he sent us a letter, not just because he represented the lowest form of Lawrence Brake-Stander, but because he’d lost frivolous litigation lawsuits repeatedly over the years.

Those weasels never got disbarred. In my (admittedly limited) experience, the only way a lawyer gets disbarred is if he wears a mask, but rather than going out to defend the innocent, he uses it to expose himself to the elderly. And even then, they might get a pass for psychological reasons. You know, if they just can find some doctor who will swear before God that, despite all evidence to the contrary, they have a medical condition.

So, while reading Daredevil #36, I had a little difficulty completely believing that Matt Murdock would be disbarred, even considering the extreme circumstances under which he became embroiled in ethics charges. But that’s my problem and not writer Mark Waid’s, who put together a hell of an issue to close out the third volume of Daredevil. This comic doesn’t just shake up the status quo, it puts two into the back of its head… while still remaining somewhat believable and, if you think about it, not being so outlandish that it will completely blow up the character as he has stood for the past half decade or so.

Except yeah: the real New York Bar would just put a strongly-worded letter in his file if he showed up for his hearing sober, speaking English and without the blood of innocents dripping from his Cthuhlu fangs.

The Man In The Castle: The Punisher #1 Review

So it’s only been about a year or so since the conclusion of Greg Rucka’s run on The Punisher – a run that we very much liked here at Crisis On Infinite Midlives. And in the meantime, we have had Punisher running around with The Thunderbolts, which has been fun but not exactly the natural habitat for a lone killer based on those pulp mercenary novels of the 60s and 70s where a lone man with a gun killed as many scumbags as it took for the writer to make his contract’s word count.

And sure, we’ve had a few tastes of the old loner, killing-criminals-alone-is-my-business-and-business-is-good Punisher in the meantime, but for every one of those, we’ve also had something like Space Punisher – fun, but not exactly The Punisher that long-time purists probably want to see. Sure, I like a fun guy wth a gun blowing shit up now and again, but in general, I like my Punisher like I like my steak: bloody, homicidal, and likely to kill not only you but your whole family. Which is why I am not welcome in finer dining establishments. Well, that and the obvious public drunkenness. But I digress.

So now, more than a year after Marvel Now started, we finally have a new solo Punisher title, written by Nathan Edmondson and drawn by Mitch Gerads. And it’s a Punisher that doesn’t include Venom or Elektra, that doesn’t have him out fighting weird supervillains, and instead has him back on the streets, fighting street-level crime with deadly force again. So a guy like me, who likes old-school Punisher, should be happy as a pig in shit, right?

Well, kinda.

Kimota! – With A Word, The Value Of Your Back Issues Tumble: Review Of Miracleman #1

This week, Marvel comics began selling reprints of Miracleman. Miracleman #1 includes the eleven page prologue story “The Invaders From The Future”, originally published in 1985, along with “A Dream Of Flying”, parts 1 and 2, which were originally published in 1982 by Warrior magazine. Miracleman creator, Mick Anglo, wrote the prologue. Alan Moore, who chose to have his name stripped from this reprint, wrote “A Dream Of Flying”. Indeed, if you look at the inside cover where the author typically is listed, it instead says “The Original Writer”. It’s like Moore has never heard of Alan Smithee.

I’ve never read any of the Miracleman books before. My only exposure to them was watching Rob one night in a drunken Ebay war to track down the fabled 15th issue, where I gather one of the good guys goes bad and does something truly heinous to the city of London and it’s received more poorly than when Superman and Zod do the same thing in Man Of Steel. However, having read much of Moore’s other work, I can see the appeal the Miracleman story must have had for him: Golden Age hero whose story he re imagines in the early 80s, when the apple cheeked Boy Scout heroes of the 50s could be more thoroughly examined for their dark undersides. It is a theme Moore has visited often since, in Watchmen and as recently as the Image Comics, originally as Awesome Comics, reboot of Supreme.