The Amazing Beer Slogan

The Spider-Man fan in me really likes the slogan for MillerCoors beer. Forgive me if it's been around for a while, but I just noticed it for the first time this morning.

Beer commercials often end some sort of a reminder to drink responsibly. But the Coors commercial I heard on the radio this morning ended with:

"With great beer comes great responsibility."

That's pretty cool. I can just imagine Uncle Ben cracking open a cold one passing it to Peter Parker and giving him that advice as he sips his first beer.

Spidey Split

Allow me to geek out for a moment here...

Marvel Comics has announced their intention to break up the marriage between Spider-Man and his wife of about 21 years, Mary Jane.

It’s been no secret that comic book creators for years now have thought it was a mistake marry these two. Many thought having Peter Parker married to fashion model spoiled a key aspect of the character – that the super hero was really a nerd who had trouble paying the bills and was awkward with girls.

Although I don’t agree with that assessment, I understand where they’re coming from. But the storyline they’ve come up with for ending the marriage is ridiculous!

After Peter Parker's beloved Aunt May was wounded in an attack, Spider-Man and Mary Jane reluctantly struck a deal with the devil-like Mephisto in which he erased everyone's memory of the couple's time together in exchange for May being restored to good health.

Apparently, as much as they don't want a married Spider-Man, they also don't want a divorced Spider-Man. So they came up with this ludicrous story that amounts to what Star Trek fans refer to as "the instant reset button." This is like Bobby Ewing showing up in the shower on "Dallas" -- it was all a dream, it never happened!

I was collecting comics when Spidey and MJ got married. In fact, I actually own two copies of Amazing Spider-Man Annual #21 (it was released with two versions of the cover). At the time I thought it was cool, and I didn’t at all think it took away from that “real life” aspect of the character. If anything it enhanced it, by adding a new source of stress to Peter Parkers life. He now had to hold his marriage together while fighting crime. More importantly, it allowed the characters to grow and evolve.

If you want to read stories about what the character used to be like, isn’t that what the Ultimate Spider-Man series is for? Or can’t readers pick up a back issue or a reprint?

Meanwhile, the AP article I read about this quoted a user on a Marvel message board who summed it all up:

"Considering I have been reading Spider-Man for exactly 20 years now, and that seems to be the amount of time [Editor-in Chief Joe Quesada] has decided to rip from Spider-Man continuity, can I simply return all of my Spider-Man comics for a full refund?"

Caught in a tangled web

I got to see the long-awaited “Spider-Man 3” last night. Although I won’t say it was a bad movie, I have to admit I was a little disappointed.

Regular readers will recall I’ve been expressing some reservations about this movie for quite some time. I was hoping I’d be wrong. Oh well.

There’s just too much in this movie. It’s got three classic villains from the comic books. Any one of them could have carried the movie on their own as the single main bad guy. But instead they all get short changed to a degree—especially Venom. He’s one of the all-time top Spider-Man bad guys and yet he barely got any of the screen time he deserved.

And as if the three bad guys (Sandman and the second Green Goblin being the other two) weren’t enough, they also cram in Gwen Stacey (and her police captain father).

I also didn’t care for parts of the “Dark Peter Parker” storyline. This was a deviation from the way the story of Spidey’s black, alien costume was handled in the comics. To me, it was reminiscent of the mid-1990s, around the time I stopped collecting comics, when storylines at the time resulted in the Spidey books becoming much too dark for their own good. The fun was sucked right out of Spider-Man then, and that’s what happened again in this movie.

Like I said, it wasn’t all bad. There were still some moments I liked and some parts that were fun. But overall this movie just tried too hard.

I loved the first two movies so much and was optimistic director Sam Raimi knew what he was doing and would pull this one off. Now I hope whoever does the inevitable “Spider-Man 4” takes a less is more approach delivers a much simpler story. I’m going to start the campaign now for the Lizard as the next featured villain.

SIDE NOTE: That shot above reminds me a lot of the cover of "Web of Spider-man #1." I wonder if that was intentional? If so, then well done. I always loved that cover.

Another Spidey sneak

After watching "Heroes" last night I rushed to the computer to watch the 7:30 clip from "Spider-Man 3" on NBC.com. Well that didn't work too well. I waited forever and couldn't get the clip to load!

Fortunately, Harry Knowles came through once again. He's got a link where you can download the clip (it's supposed to disappear from NBC.com tonight). Or if you're really impatient, just watch it here...

Beware the Black Suit!

Check out this cool-as-heck new poster for "Spider-Man 3." I spotted it on Ain't It Cool News this morning.

Watch for the new Spidey 3 trailer Monday night during "Heroes." Maybe we'll finally see some official shots of Venom in action?

Ther are only about two months to go until the movies hits theaters!

Spidey sneak

I spotted this on Ain't It Cool News this morning. Here's another sneal preview of "Spider-Man 3."

There is still no sign of Venom, but we see plenty of his alter ego, Eddie Brock, and we're give a decent sense of the storyline...

The lost 'Spider-Man' footage

Well, Sony seems to have successfully exorcised that unfinished "Spider-Man 3" trailer from the Web. I can't find it anywhere.

TMZ.com has an article about how the movie studio scrambled to plug the leak and how Google and YouTube find themselves caught in a tangled web (get it?) when it comes to uploading copyrighted material.

But here's a screen grab of the top secret footage they don't want you to see...

Venom!

I don't how long this will last before it gets yanked--but check out this alternate trailer for "Spider-Man 3."

The big nit-pick on the one that came out last Thursday was there was still no sign of Venom. Then this trailer leaked out over the weekend. It's longer and clearly unfinished. A lot of the shots are missing their effects or are animatics. But stick around for the very end and you won't be disappointed!



A link to this trailer went up on Ain't It Cool News over the weekend and then was quickly removed when Harry Knowles got a phone call from the Sony folks. I guess they wanted to keep Venom under wraps a little longer. But a quick search found it on YouTube. They'll probably get the cease and desist order too, so enjoy it while you can!

UPDATE: Well that didn't last long. About an hour after I published this post, I went to play the trailer for a co-worker and it was already gone. So I've replaced the YouTube version with one from Google Video. We'll see how long that lasts.

In the meantime, in case that gets yanked too, you can see a screen grab of Venom here.

My geek sense is tingling!

Speaking of "Spider-Man 3," here's the new trailer.



They're still not showing us Venom (although some concept art leaked out earlier this week), but Sandman looks great.

It looks like this is going to be a pretty dark Spidey film. It seems like the overall theme is going to be how thirst for revenge can consume a man's soul.

It looks like it's going to be great. I know what I'll be doing the weekend of May 4!

Energized Spider-Man!

While checking out iFilm in geeky anticipation of the new "Spider-Man 3" trailer, I found this commercial for Energized Spider-Man.



I got this toy for Christmas in 1978! He had a "web" you could pull out of his hand and hook onto a clamp that you'd attach to a table or bookshelf or whatever. Then watch him climb!

The other big gifts that Christmas: my spiffy "Star Wars" jammies, a Kenner X-Wing fighter and an Oscar Goldman doll (he was the Six Million Dollar Man's boss--he came with an exploding briefcase).

'Spider-Man 3' trailer arrives!

Heads up, true believers. Here’s some more geek news…

All right, I had my reservations. But I am now more pumped than ever for “Spider-Man 3.”

The teaser trailer was released today. You’ll be able to see it in theaters starting tomorrow with “Superman Returns.”

I’m still a little hesitant about Topher Grace as Venom.

But everything else in this trailer looks fantastic. Sandman looked great. Bryce Dallas Howard looked perfect as Gwen Stacey—right down to the black band in her hair. And even if it’s not the same black costume from the comics, it still looked pretty cool seeing the black goo covering up Spidey.

I have faith Sam Raimi will pull together a great movie.

Mark your calendar for May 4, 2007.

Beware the apple bus!

The kids enjoy surfing YouTube with me for funny, kid-friendly video clips.

Their favorite at the moment is “Spider-Man: The Peril of Doc Ock” (see below). It’s basically “Spider-Man 2” condensed down to just under four minutes. Oh yeah, it’s also done completely with Legos. It even includes the sequence where Spidey and Dr. Octopus duke it out on top of a moving commuter train.

The other morning Thomas woke up and came down stairs to fine me sitting at the computer. He crawled up into my lap and asked to see the “apple bus.” I had no idea what he was talking about, but he insisted there was an apple bus video with a train in it.

Somehow I figured out he was talking about the Spider-Man video, although I still didn’t get the apple bus connection.

Then when Doc Ock appeared on screen, with his mechanical arms flailing about, Thomas declared, “He an apple bus!”

That’s when the light bulb went off.

“You mean octopus?” I asked.

“Yeah, apple bus,” he answered.

So without further ado, here’s Spider-Man vs. the evil Dr. Apple Bus…

Back in black

This was all over the Internet today. So if you’re a geek like me, then you’ve already seen this. But I’m posting it anyway.

This is the first official teaser poster for “Spider-Man 3.” The official movie site stresses that this is not a black and white photo, but rather it shows Tobey Maguire wearing a black Spidey costume.

This of course further fueled the rumors that Topher Grace will be playing Venom in the movie.

Comic book nerds are all excited about this. Personally, as much as I loved Venom when he first appeared in 1988 I’m really not sure he’s a good fit for this film series or that Topher Grace would be the right actor for the part.

I’m also not wild about this teaser poster. If you have to actually explain that it’s not a black and white image, then exactly how effective is it?

Also, I always thought Spidey’s black costume in the comics was kind of cool and I’m disappointed that they’re not sticking to that design.

Still, the first two movies were so good that I’m willing to give Sam Raimi the benefit of the doubt. Surely, he must know what he’s doing, right?