Spider-Men and Web-Women
Marvel announces a Peter/Miles team-up series and "Madame Web" peers into our future!
Happy Thanksgiving to all who celebrate! We’ve got a special edition of the Amazing Spider-Talk Substack this week to commemorate the holiday.
Hi, we are Dapper Dan Gvozden and Mischievous Mark Ginocchio, co-hosts of the Amazing Spider-Talk podcast. With each newsletter we hope to give you greater access into our thoughts on the world of Spider-Man!
It has been a huge week in the world of Spider-Man! We started the week off with the announcement of a brand new title, The Spectacular Spider-Men, from the beloved creative talents of Greg Weisman and Humberto Ramos. It was a huge announcement on the back of several other huge comic announcements that look to make 2024 one of the most exciting years to be reading Spider-Man comics. “Gang War”, Ultimate Spider-Man, The Spectacular Spider-Men, and so much more! What a time to be alive.
Then, we finally got the debut trailer for Sony’s new Madame Web movie. We can hardly believe that this thing exists, but now we’ve got incontrovertible proof that we live in a world where Madame Web is the lead character of a new Spider-Man movie, no matter how much the trailer seems to want to hide that connection.
On the Amazing Spider-Talk Podcast we’ve been reviewing the main title, so read on to get our reactions to all the various Spider-Man goodness of the past few weeks. And, to keep up with all things Spidey, stay subscribed to the Substack, why don’t you?
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Alright, let’s get to it. In this edition, we’ll be discussing our thoughts on the announcement of The Spectacular Spider-Men, reviewing all the latest Spidey B-titles, reacting to the Madame Web trailer, and reflecting on our memories of collecting the Thanksgiving-set Amazing Spider-Man #300, with a twist so wild you won’t see it coming!
The Spectacular Spider-Men is Revealed!
This week saw the reveal of the newest title in the Spider-Man comics line: The Spectacular Spider-Men. Helmed by the creative duo of writer Greg Weisman (The Spectacular Spider-Man animated series, Gargoyles) and artist Humberto Ramos (The Amazing Spider-Man), the series will explore the relationship between Peter Parker and Miles Morales, the Marvel Comics Universe’s two Spider-Men. Read along for our reaction to the announcement.
Mark: Hey Dan. Well, you truly showed why you are the clairvoyant one of the Spider-Man podcasting world when you successfully “predicted” that Peter Parker and Miles Morales would be teaming up with a series. Now that the cat is out of the bag, and you’ve been revealed as the Marvel shill on the take that you are, how excited are you that we’re finally going to get a Peter and Miles book in The Spectacular Spider-Men, helmed by Greg Weisman and Humberto Ramos?
Dan: I don’t think it takes any kind of Madame Web-level clairvoyance to desire a team-up book between the Spider-Men in the pages of Marvel Comics (though I’ll happily take the credit). Frankly, the most astounding thing about this announcement is that it isn’t the year 2019. Miles has been a superstar in the comics for a decade and in the past five years he’s had two mega-hit, Academy Award-winning, team-up adventure movies with Peter Parker and been the co-star/star in three bestselling video games. You mean to tell me that in that time Marvel never thought to release an ongoing comic about the hottest comics duo since Batman and Robin?
There are many reasons to suspect that Marvel might have been sitting on finally putting Peter in a full-on mentor role to Miles: it could artificially age him (gasp), Peter has long been a loner-hero, they wanted to give Miles time to define his own space for himself, or even that talent couldn’t be coordinated to give us more meaningful stories between the two. What’s your take on this strange, and now filled, hole in Marvel’s comic lineup?
Mark: As I’ve said numerous times on the podcast, I love Spider-Man in a team-up book. We got a brief run with Spidey teaming up with long-standing, organically-connected supporting cast member Kamala Khan (in the latest Marvel Team-Up title), that honestly didn’t scratch that itch (and became a Ms. Marvel-centric book anyway). If Marvel doesn’t want to team Spider-Man up with some random hero du jour, a standing partnership with Miles Morales just makes the most sense. I agree with you that it just seems like Marvel has left money on the table in not striking while the iron was hot sooner. Do I think it’s because they don’t want to “age” Peter by making him a mentor? I don’t know if I fully submit to that. Marvel seems to pick and choose how it interprets and platforms the idea of Spider-Man’s youth (of all the many emotional reactions I’ve had to the current Zeb Wells’ run, “this Spider-Man feels so youthful” has not been one of them), so for all I know the issue could have come down to not having a trusted creative team to take the reins on such a book given the popularity of the pairing in other media.
With that said, Greg Weisman, from the Spectacular Spider-Man animated series, and Humberto Ramos have been announced as that creative pairing. I love Spectacular (it’s one of the few animated series I’ve watched in its entirety) and Ramos, of course, is one of the best modern artists to tackle the Spidey-verse. What are your thoughts on the creatives and do you have any concerns as to how Weisman will transition to proper comics?
Dan: I suspect that we are in fairly good hands with Greg Weisman at the helm; Ramos’ legacy speaks for itself. Weisman has had a varied history in comics, writing a fair amount of DC Comics over the years (Young Justice, Captain Atom) and even adapted his Gargoyles cartoon series to the comic book format. It’s clear that he knows how to handle young heroes and the interconnected world-building that makes superhero storytelling so exciting. Whether he will be able to capture the unique voice of Miles, currently rewriting itself under Cody Ziglar’s pen, is the biggest question that I have in regards to the scripting element of this title.
Plotting remains the most open question for me. We already know that the two will be fighting at least some version of The Jackal in the opening of this book, but I’m curious if this will feel like a meaningful B-title that reflects the two Spider-Men’s runs, or is just an evergreen, timeless title. Personally, I’d love for it to be the former, so that we can have meaningful interactions that weave their way between a variety of stories. I think about things like Aunt May babysitting baby Billie, or Peter hanging out with Jefferson and strengthening ties with the police, and that gets me excited for the collision of these two characters’ worlds. What I’m saying is, I hope this book has real substance that matters and will be reflected in other books. A relationship like the one between Miles and Peter has been neglected for so long, it is time to do something more than a villian-of-the-week team-up, slugfest that most of these team-up books end up being. What are you hoping for from this title?
Mark: I get what you’re saying and think in a perfect world, these would all be lovely elements to incorporate, but I honestly don’t think it needs to even go that deep to be an effective B-title book. Since I haven’t played any of the modern video games, my point of reference are the two Spider-Verse movies. What has disappointed me about the previous Peter/Miles encounters/interactions in the comics is that the relationship feels very superficial and inorganic. What made the pairing so special in Into the Spider-Verse is that we were given well-developed content that showed that these two characters were truly invested in and care about each other. Beyond mentoring, Miles offers Peter an opportunity to better himself and evolve, while Miles is given a true, if imperfect role model for his own journey. I would hope the new title follows that model, rather than the overly jokey, stilted dynamic that has been featured in other stories.
Dan: You hit the nail on the head. We’ve had so many exciting announcements about the future of the Spider-Man comics line, but I think this is the most exciting one for me if only because it has so much potential to actually give Peter the most possibility for growth. The Spider-line has expanded so much over the years, turning what was once a solo-character book into a team of Spider-people. I really feel like if they can’t nail The Spectacular Spider-Man and make a compelling case for Peter as the mentor figure to Miles, then they will have a hard time justifying his new role amongst Spider-Boy, Cindy Moon, Araña, Madame Web, Spider-Girl, Ben Reilly/Chasm, Kaine, Spider-Gwen, the various symbiote heroes, Rek-Rap, Miguel O’Hara, Jackpot, Spider-Woman… you get my point. This book should be the defining example of how Peter fits into this new role and the pressures on both of these characters to be “Spider-Man”. Time will tell how it succeeds, but March can’t get here fast enough!
Swarm’s B(ee)-Title Reviews
With every new edition of the Amazing Spider-Talk Substack, Dan and Mark will venture to write short reviews of all the various Spider-Man books (and major Marvel releases) that have released since the previous newsletter. Sometimes our arch-villain Swarm might chime in as well. So “bee” prepared!
Superior Spider-Man (vol. 3) #1
Mark: I was notably “down” on the one-shot that came out last month, primarily because I was not a fan of the “lost tales of Superior Spider-Man” structure of the comic. So with the ongoing officially kicking off this week I was admittedly less than enthused about this issue.
Naturally, Superior’s third volume (is that what we’re considering this or is the original Superior a part of ASM and thus not a separate volume? I will never understand Marvel’s numbering) was a pleasant surprise for me. It’s unquestionably a story set in the here and now, and much to my surprise, leans heavily on integrating Dan Slott’s other new ongoing series, Spider-Boy, into the storytelling. I know for those of you out there who have no use for Spider-Boy (*cough*DapperDan*cough*) that’s a bug, not a feature, but from a storytelling perspective, I actually quite like how all of these elements were tied together.
Of course the money maker for this comic in terms of story and my ultimate enjoyment of this arc came on the final pages of the first story, which shows Otto Octavius finally connecting all of the dots that the time he spent masquerading as Superior Spider-Man were one and the same as his time masquerading as Peter Parker. This obviously sets up drama Marvel has been slow, slow, slowly burning for years now … and it’s about damn time.
But to a larger point, what I truly appreciate about this story set up in this comic is that we’re finally seeing some semblance of life or death consequences for Peter Parker related to the period of time where he failed to stop Otto and had his mind and body taken over by a supervillain. In addition to Otto discovering Peter’s identity (again), we get some more fallout from Otto’s time imprisoning Supernova/Estrella Lopez. Again, it’s about damn time we finally get some actual stakes for Peter here following Otto’s poor choices as Spider-Man. Up until this point, the biggest obstacle Peter has had to overcome was running a billion dollar tech company. Oh, the humanity.
So count me as being back on board for a Superior Spider-Man reboot, especially if we’re going to get a Dan Slott who seems fully engaged in writing it and tying various threads and loose ends from all of his previous recent work together.
Dan: Drawing a contrast from Mark, I really enjoyed the nostalgia-fueled Superior Spider-Man Returns while simultaneously dreading lingering in those stories of old in a new ongoing series. But, those fears were mostly misplaced as this “new” series is really just a continuation of writer Dan Slott’s Spider-Man but with a better hook (and grounded concepts that lean into what Bagley is best at) and actually exploring territory that he, for whatever reason, didn’t address in his lengthy run.
As Mark wonderfully stated above, the main appeal here, for me, is seeing Peter Parker have to deal with repercussions from Otto’s time as Spider-Man. Time has definitely dulled the impact of these consequences, not to mention that most of them were retconned into the Superior era, but they are compelling nevertheless. The best of which being the cliffhanger ending of this issue, which promises to finally upgrade Doctor Octopus into the rarified group of villains who actively know Spider-Man’s secret identity.
How that will work, considering that Otto remembers his time as Peter Parker and the Superior Spider-Man, including the lessons that we were told changed his morality and priorities, will likely play out in subsequent issues. I’m not looking forward to potentially rehashing the arc of Superior Spider-Man, but hopefully Slott can mine some more immediate drama out of any conflicts that play out in the aftermath of this, admittedly convenient, discovery by Otto.
As much as I am still not sold on the recent addition of Spider-Boy into both the past and present of Spider-Man comics, the tale told in second-half of this story is a smart way of delivering on the mind-wipe mechanics that are mirrored between the Superior Spider-Man comics and the untold history of Spider-Boy. What makes the story compelling to read is that it shows us what it would have been like to be a Spider-character dealing with the Superior switch-up, before Miles became a part of Peter’s world, and the contrast between the youthful, optimistic personality of Bailey and the machiavellian Superior Spider-Man.
I have a particular soft spot for the work of Nathan Stockman and the humorous, playful pencils that he brings to this back-up story. He’s one of the few artists who captures the youthful energy of Spider-Boy, but I was equally impressed with his depiction of the muscular, rigid, and somewhat alien Superior Spider-Man. The contrast is evident on the page, as if two distinct styles are clashing together, and it adds to the smart scripting by Slott.
Red Goblin #10
Mark: If you asked me a year ago whether or not I would have any deep insights about a Normie Osborn-led Red Goblin series from Marvel (and that said series would run more than the standard five-issue miniseries length to boot), I would have laughed plainly in your face. With that said, I’m not sure exactly how deep I’m going to get about this particular issue since I do feel this series did lose some narrative steam over the past few issues. All the same, when I reached the end and realized this was actually “THE END.” (for now), I had a legitimate feeling of disappointment for what was otherwise the surprise “B-Book” on my pull list over the past 10 months.
What Red Goblin ended up doing so well beyond the sheer work of establishing Normie Osborn as a legitimate, fleshed out character, is work expertly within established continuity as it relates to the Osborn/Allan legacy, with some sprinklings of fun symbiote hijinks to boot.
Frankly, it’s all been there for a creative team for quite some time – Normie is a third generation member of the Marvel Universe’s most famous family of sociopaths. Normie’s grandfather, Norman Sr., is currently addressing his own mental health issues as it relates to his sins being absolved. His father, Harry, is… well… dead (again, probably). Meanwhile, his mother, Liz Allan, is an under-the-radar terrible person of the Marvel Universe, including a recent run of comics that saw her wearing the Carnage symbiote (which we can get into at some point – is there ANYONE left in Peter Parker’s supporting cast who hasn’t had some semblance of “powers?”). Take these elements and mix in the volatilities of a child of privilege entering adolescence AND obtaining a symbiote, and that’s a pretty intriguing hook for a story.
As I alluded to earlier, I do think this story started to lose steam following the Carnage event tie-ins. Still, this was a “much better than it had any right to be” series, and a really well tied-up conclusion that hints at future problems to come, but leaves the toys for a future creative run.
Dan: Maybe it’s a lack of imagination on my part, but my biggest disappointment about this issue of Red Goblin was just how much the “END.” felt like a “To Be Continued…” As much as this book has been a surprisingly good read that has actually attempted to flesh out Normie Osborn as a character, rather than just a kid who plucks the heads of Spider-Man dolls, I had hoped that it would have remained a self-contained, brief experimentation with the character.
Mark laid out the pitch for why this thing works, specifically that a symbiote allows for a sort of outward manifestation of one’s anger (which works well for superhero comics). For that reason, I hoped that this book would have something to say about Normie’s anger at everyone in his family and potentially close the book on that chapter of his life. Removing a symbiote like Rascal, who we found out was fueling Normie’s sadness and anger, could be akin to dealing with those negative thoughts and feelings that we’ve seen from Normie for several decades now. But here, the conflict comes to a clean close with Normie just chilling out and getting a pep-talk from Dylan “Venom” Brock about how he’s doing his best and that there’s really nothing they can do to change anything.
It just reads as a punt downfield out of a fear of potentially losing another symbiote character from the comics, which are already overstuffed with them. The conversation between Dylan and Normie is a thin justification of Normie’s actions with the suggestion that the hard work of actually healing Normie will be in a future comic. I’ll admit, I wanted it now. I have no use for another symbiote character or another of Spider-Man’s historic supporting cast to be powered up. This book took my cynicism for the idea of a Carnage-ified Normie, proved me wrong, and then ultimately renewed my cynicism by the book’s end. Bummer.
Spine-Tingling Spider-Man #2
Mark: Much in the fashion that the latest issue of Superior brought me back on board after a rough start, the second issue of the new Spine-Tingling story has quickly eroded my patience in this concept. Granted, I did warn in my favorable review of the first issue that I didn’t necessarily see a need or even a tonal place for a “scary” Spider-Man book, but I did appreciate how Saladin Ahmed did seem to walk the line between a completely new style of Spider-Man storytelling, with some tried and true Spidey tropes. But, whoa boy, this comic just leans completely and, at times, recklessly into the former, and it’s just not working for me.
Maybe the red line for me was shirtless (and bound) Jonah – but seriously what is this book doing here? A de-powered Peter fighting demonic versions of his supporting cast is so outrageously out of place with this character and his universe that even from a “What If… ?” out of continuity perspective (which there is no indication if that’s even what we’re getting here), I just don’t feel like this is a natural transition for the reader to “just go with it.” Perhaps it’s just a personal pet peeve, but I have very low patience for established IPs, with a historic catalog of characters and themes to suddenly be presented in a fashion that is so intentionally off-brand. If you want to tell a scary story like this, find some other characters, or create new ones, rather than the tried and true, “Slap Spider-Man on the cover/in the book and watch suckers like Mark Ginocchio buy ‘em.”
Dan: I can’t disagree with anything that Mischievous Mark has suggested above. That said, pop in one page of Mysterio pulling the strings here (as the cover of the next issue suggests) and I think we’d be singing a slightly different tune. And that’s the thing, I feel like Spider-Man works in most genres of storytelling, as he bounces between drama and camp quite regularly, but the story needs to give us some kind of meaningful connection back to the norm to bridge the gap. This story doesn’t put in any of the work of making that connection, eschewing most of the things that define a Spider-Man comic. There are no familiar villains, witty dialogue, Spider-powers, etc.
There’s an attempt to bring in the characters of Peter’s world to address those needs, but it is immediately undermined by the conclusion of this issue. In my review for the first issue of this new story, I suggested that the best things these nightmare/dream scenario stories can do is provide a sort of fun-house mirror that tells us something about the main character (take for example the Mister Negative mindscape sequences from the new game). So far, I haven’t found any sort of insight or commentary on the character of Peter, other than that he wants to survive and save his friends/family, and so I’ve found little reason to invest.
The main draw remains the jaw-dropping artwork of Juan Ferreyra, who I honestly wish was on a different title. I’d love to see him get a chance to do a mainline Spider-Man story, but his horror chops are so strong that I could see him doing career-defining work on a character better suited to his particular sensibilities in that genre. I still think there is time for the narrative here to pivot into something more oriented around the established world of Spider-Man, enough to ground this affair in something more suited to the character’s strengths, but it will have to come soon. I can’t imagine many readers wanting to continue to indulge in what so clearly reads as a perfunctory “hall of illusions” for much longer.
This Week in Spider-Man History
60 years ago this week in Spider-Man history, one of Spidey’s most famous rogues, Max Dillon, aka Electro, debuted in Amazing Spider-Man #9 by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko. Dillon is just a small-time crook who gets enormous power (thanks to an accident, natch). Read Mark’s post about Electro and ASM #9 here:
Mark’s Comic Book Meditations
When Mark launched Chasing Amazing in 2010, the blog chronicled his “quest” to collect every issue of Amazing Spider-Man and featured a series of posts that recalled memories and meditations around specific comics he came to own. As part of this newsletter, we’re resurrecting these remembrances with some new wrinkles, and will also occasionally chronicle some other comics Mark has purchased since completing his ASM run in 2014.
Amazing Spider-Man #300 is a lot of things to me: my gateway to superhero comics. My gateway to comic book collecting. One of my all-time favorite comic books, and arguably my wildest comic book “acquisition” story that doesn’t involve a camera crew and Kevin Smith’s childhood friends.
It’s also a Thanksgiving story. Seriously. I just didn’t realize it until years later.
Let’s start with the original tale of my ASM #300. As a 7-year-old, I purchased Amazing Spider-Man #296 and 297 from the spinner rack at my local candy store/newsstand, to officially kickstart what would later become my quest to collect every issue of Amazing Spider-Man. For reasons only my 7-year-old brain can answer, I skipped the start of the Todd McFarlane era in ASM #298 and #299, but was immediately drawn to the double-sized, 25th anniversary issue, ASM #300 when it came out. With only my weekly allowance of a $1 to my name, I had to ask my parents for an extra .50 cents to make this purchase. But boy, oh boy, I’m glad I did. Upon opening the comic and seeing McFarlane’s electric art for the first time, my mind was blown. And then when I read more about this brand new villain Venom — a dark, murderous version of Spider-Man — I became a Spider-Man fan for life.
Fast forward a few years when the 1990s comic book speculator boom was in full swing, and some classmates were talking about Todd McFarlane and that vaunted ASM #300. The comic was routinely atop of Wizard magazine’s (the industry standard bearer for a young teenager just discovering collectible comics) “Hot List.”
“Amazing Spider-Man #300? The Venom issue? I have that,” I told my classmates.
“Dude, that’s worth $100 if you have it.”
“Well, I have it.”
I went home and searched through the repurposed wine box (as in, a box used to carry a case of wine, not an empty box of boxed wine) that I used to hold my comic collection. I passed by those other ASM’s, but #300 wasn’t in there. I then proceeded to tear apart my bedroom and the basement, which doubled as another place where I would sometimes store my “stuff” growing up. No success. I confronted my mom: “Did you throw out Amazing Spider-Man #300?”
My mom: “Mark, what are you even talking about?”
It was gone. And if I ever wanted to own it again, I was going to have to shell out “a hundred dollars” or the like. I was despondent.
There was a monthly comic book show at a local hotel in the town next door to mine, so I would canvass the show floor every month in hopes of finding an affordable copy of ASM #300. I eventually did: it wasn’t $100, but closer to $30. I made the purchase and was reunited with my favorite comic. In the years that followed, it obviously turned out to be one of my best investments ever.
For years, my ASM #300 story ended there. That changed five years ago. That’s when things got weird.
In October 2018, I was in Chicago to run the Chicago Marathon when I got a text from one my cousins.
My father was one of seven children, so I have a lot of cousins. Two of them are the same age as me, and while we shared a lot in common, growing up, we rarely spent time with each other outside of the major holidays, the most major of which was Thanksgiving. The holiday was hosted at my parents house every year since my older brother (the second-eldest grandchild) was born on Thanksgiving week — so the holiday became a combo Thanksgiving/Birthday Party.
In 2018, both my cousin and I were living in Brooklyn, but again, due to life and circumstance, outside of the very, very, occasional beer at a local watering hole, we rarely saw each other. So I was a bit surprised when my cousin reached out with a sense of urgency.
“I need to see you. I have something of yours,” he texted.
I was less than 24 hours away from running 26.2 miles for the third time in my life, so honestly whatever my cousin wanted, it was going to have to wait. I made plans to see him the week after I got back from Chicago, and put it out of my mind over the remainder of the weekend.
When I got back to Brooklyn, my cousin almost immediately reached out to me: “We’re still going to meet up, right?”
Again, I had ZERO idea what could have possibly been so urgent, but yes, I intended to stick to our plans. Usually, for me, the week after a marathon is reserved for celebrations and ample libations, so I was more than happy to meet up for a drink. I honestly could care less about whatever thing my cousin wanted to “return” to me.
The “big night” had arrived, and naturally, I arrived at the bar first. Ordered a drink and grabbed a table and texted my cousin to let him know where to find me. I saw him walking into the bar, and he legit looked like he had seen a ghost. Just pasty white, nervous … in retrospect, he looked ashamed. Again, what happened next is still the furthest thing from my mind.
He started (nervously) vamping about the fact that he was moving apartments in a couple of weeks. He was packing up stuff, and he had piles of collectibles — “junky baseball cards and comics from my childhood” — that his wife was making him sell or donate before the move. He found a pile of comics, and as the words started leaving his mouth, for the very first time, I had a sense of what was coming, before he said the words where I knew EXACTLY what was about to happen.
“There were all these Spider-Man comics from the late 1980s, and they all had the same handwriting in the top left corner…”
That handwriting — the handwritten date stamp from the candy store where I bought all my comics growing up — was the topic of my ASM #297 remembrance on Chasing Amazing several years earlier.
He reached into his bag and started pulling out comics. “One of those comics he’s going to pull out is my lost copy of ASM #300” I thought to myself. And then there it was.
The exact sequence of words that followed is lost from my memory. It was all drowned up by a searing rush of memories and emotions — Was I happy? Angry? Shocked? I don’t even know. I do remember him saying something to the tune of “I stole them from you one Thanksgiving.”
The stealing part of it all did sting. In looking back at my original post about the experience on Chasing Amazing, I was far angrier about it then than I am now. I think now I’m just able to accept it as stupid kid stuff. That’s easy to do when time has passed, and for all intents and purposes, my story with ASM #300 had a happy ending years earlier. Getting this copy back was totally gravy.
So now I own two copies of Amazing Spider-Man #300, and while selling that extra copy of it would probably be a sound use of resources to either buy myself something useful (or buy myself more comics), I just don’t think I can ever bring myself to do it. Having both of these copies in my collection is too emotionally important to me. For one, again, it’s utterly insane to me that something I thought had been relegated to a landfill on Long Island had reappeared in my possession after thirty years. But also, I understand the amount of courage it took my cousin to come forward and admit what he did.
So Happy Thanksgiving true believers. Not sure if there’s a valuable lesson to be learned here beyond: don’t always blame your parents for throwing out something you can’t find.
Dan’s Note: You can listen to the entire story from Mark’s perspective the day after his cousin returned the book in our Patreon-exclusive podcast episode “The Bizarre Return of ASM #300”.
Reactions to the Madame Web Trailer
This week saw the release of the Madame Web trailer, a film whose existence has fueled numerous rumors and teasing from Spider-Man fans. What would a Madame Web film even look like? Now we know and have seen sexy Uncle Ben in action. Below are our reactions, short and to the point. Madame Web will be in theaters on February 14th, 2024, just in time for Valentine’s Day!
Mark’s reaction:
Dan’s reaction:
What’s New for the Amazing Spider-Talk?
Since the previous Amazing Spider-Talk Substack we’ve seen the release of our seventh episode of Season 6 of the podcast. This time its all about the history of Web of Spider-Man, one of the longest-running Spider-Man titles.
You can watch it on YouTube or listen to it wherever you listen to podcasts.
We just recorded episode 8 of the season and will be posting it on Patreon later this week. It’s all about Spider-Man’s attempts to join the Avengers in the mid-80s, to hilarious results. By the end, we attempt to answer the question: “Should Spider-Man be an Avenger?”
We also reviewed the latest issue of Amazing Spider-Man, the second part of a Rek-Rap team-up and a prelude to the upcoming “Gang War”. The full thing is available to watch/listen to on our Patreon, but we posted a preview of the episode’s Rek-Rap Recap on YouTube:
We hope you enjoyed this fifth edition of the Amazing Spider-Talk Substack and that you’ll consider subscribing for our future newsletters.
And, if you haven’t already, please subscribe to our various podcasts, comment below, and consider joining our Patreon:
I was planning to skip the superior spider-man book after being mostly underwhelmed by the one shot but after reading this, I’m tempted to buy it now rather than wait for it to arrive on marvel unlimited.
I enjoyed Red goblin and agree the last few issues were flat, and the ending wasn’t anything special. I just think the writer expected/planned it as an ongoing and then had to wrap it up. So the ending is just him collapsing some ideas and not definitively ending it because it’s his first book.
Doesn’t change your criticisms, but there seems to be reasons it got worse.