Before you go much further in your Mad Scientist High reading this week, I’d like to take a moment to let you know that the first digital collection has gone on sale! 130+ strips, a DRM-free PDF, updated strip-by-strip commentary, and all for $3!!
If you want to talk about inessential movies to make, I would think that a Spider-Man origin story movie would be near the top of the list. I mean, it’s only been 10 years since the first Sam Rami Spider-Man came out, and it’s not like that trilogy of movies was exactly an obscure one. And besides, Spider-Man wasn’t even an unknown quantity before Tobey Maguire put on his mask; he’s constantly vying with Superman and Wolverine for first place in the Superhero-With-The-Most-Pop-Cultural-Penetration marathon. We really didn’t need to spend tens of millions of dollars having another Uncle Ben tell another Peter Parker that, “with great power, comes great responsibility,” and subsequently forcing Peter to learn that lesson in excruciating detail.
That all being said, I’m more excited for The Amazing Spider-Man than I ever expected to be. I really like the idea of different series of filmmakers and actors tackling the same character in succession, bringing their different takes on the heroes and villains to life, much the same way different comic book creative teams can produce stunningly different stories, despite having the same basic casts. That first Amazing Spider-Man trailer was pretty nifty (that first-person perspective sequence grabbed me, thoroughly and well), and it’s hit two of my great arbitrary casting buttons with Emma Stone and Martin Sheen. If they’re involved with something, I’m automatically more interested than I would’ve been otherwise. Not interested enough to try and alter my genome, but enough that I’ll happily go see the movie on a Sunday morning.
Little Larry Lewis has not wasted a lot of time since he made his way back to Earth, has he?