I Can See Your House From Here - Archives
vol 2 number 36
This is going to be a huge summer for movies -- we're talking the size of Russell Crowe's sense of self-importance -- and I for one couldn't be happier. In the first month alone, there's The Scorpion King , Star Wars Episode II , Insomnia , and Jason X (when you've seen the first nine in the series, inertia becomes a powerful force, so sue me). Any excitement is measured against one movie, though, and the rest fall short of the bar. When you've been waiting for a live-action version of a franchise for five-sixths of your life, like I have, there are some high standards at work. I only hope that Spider-Man lives up to my expectations.
On the shallowest of levels (what I will call the Hollywood level), it has a lot going for it: Sam Raimi, a director who has gone from a cult-classic favorite of mine ( Evil Dead ) to acclaimed big-budget productions like A Simple Plan . A big name cast including Willem Dafoe, Tobey Maguire, and Kirsten Dunst. A budget approaching 140 million dollars. A good script that stays true to the source material is there too, and that's the foundation of it all.
It's that script -- or more specifically, the source material -- that gets me the most. I've been reading Spider-Man comics for twenty-five years now. Those aren't the only books I read, of course; in fact, I pick up about fifty to sixty titles a month, partly because I review them for a website, but mostly because I love reading them. Of them all, though, Spider-Man is the only title I've read consistently since 1977, when I bought my very first issue off the magazine rack in a Dothan, Alabama convenience store. It was issue Amazing Spider-Man #169, titled "Confrontation." The cover showed J. Jonah Jameson, Peter Parker's boss and thorn in Spider-Man's side, with pictures proving once and for all that Peter Parker and Spider-Man were one and the same. I was hooked -- I have since owned a copy of every issue at one point in time or another, including some that cost me thousands of dollars (but sold later for healthy profit).
So you've gathered that I'm a slightly unbalanced soul, willing to spend money that could have paid off a used car on newsprint and funny pictures. There's a little of the collector's mentality behind it, sure, but it's what is at the heart of the book that grabbed me so hard, a heart strong enough that I have bought the book through financially difficult times and runs of horrible writing or art. What makes the book so special is a sense of connection with Spider-Man -- not in a spandex-and-vigilante sort of way, but rather in a being the best hero you can be sort of way.
I assume everyone's seen Superman (the Christopher Reeves film) or Batman (the franchise in which Batman forgot what his alter ego Bruce Wayne really looked like). Those two, along with Spider-Man, make up the holy trinity of the spandex club -- all household names, stars of TV, movies, video games, and Burger King giveaways, on top of their own monthly titles. They are the elder statesmen of the super-hero scene, and one of the three is virtually guaranteed to be a young person's introduction to comic books. But I never liked Superman or Batman all that much; I never quite got the characters. Superman was a science fiction double feature -- a young baby rocketed from his dying planet by his parents, landing on Earth and discovering as his grew older that his alien physiology gave him super-powers like flight and invulnerability. Batman was a pulp fiction detective, a billionaire orphan dressed like a flying rat and acting out revenge fantasies nightly. Both are good characters, but your average comic book reader isn't invulnerable, rich, handsome, and brilliant. The early characters in comics were fantasies on the highest order, models of perfection. It almost seemed like they became heroes because their daytime lives were so perfectly and unerringly dull.
No, the average comic reader doesn't fit in. Maybe he's a little too thin or too heavy, too smart, not enough into sports or cars to hang out with the in-crowd. That was Peter Parker -- a science-minded bookworm who got bullied and picked on, and dreamed of dating the cute redhead. As a kid, as a teenager, and as an adult, I could and still do identify with that. He's not a perfect hero; he makes mistakes and sometimes loses. His negligence caused the death of his Uncle Ben, his father figure; his girlfriend was killed in a fight with a super-powered villain. But despite all of this -- or perhaps in spite of it -- he continues to use his powers, gained at the bite of a radioactive spider (I didn't say it was completely realistic), to try to make the world a better place.
I'm glad that Leonardo DiCaprio didn't get cast as Spider-Man/Peter Parker. The movie needed a Tobey Maguire for the part, slightly geeky and gawky, unsure of himself but courageous and noble. Having Maguire makes Kirsten Dunst that much more beautiful, Willem Dafoe that much more menacing. And I hope that the film does a huge box-office, and that the kids who go see the film will get into comic book stores and start reading the stories. With athletic and entertainment role models that spend more time at bars and behind them than practicing what they preach, the world needs a hero like Spider-Man. There needs to be an example of a kid that got pushed around, and used his powers not for revenge but to save others from being bullied. Kids should be able to see a hero that worries about his family, who does his best at work and school, who understands that, "With great power comes great responsibility." There are other comic books that demonstrate good values, but unlike Batman or Superman or any number of other characters, there's a good chance that readers will see a little of themselves in Peter Parker, and therefore in Spider-Man.
Plus, I'm ready to see George Lucas and his ego put in their place. Is that so wrong?
Kenn McCracken was bitten by a radioactive nerd, giving him the proportionate strength and speed of a nerd.