Drake Cahill's Comic Reviews

Spider-Man Blue

Believe it or not, Ben Parker as not the first person to say that power/responsibility bit. It was actually the narrator. And he said something more like, "Great power must come with great responsibility."

Mind-blowing, right?

The first time I read Spider-Man Blue, I started out with a vague knowledge of the complicated lives super heroes have. Sure, you see how in Iron Man, Tony has a struggle with Pepper, and his company, and his ego. Steve has to cope with the modern world in Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Bruce has to face the fact that he can't live with Rachel because he would put her in danger.

But here we see something deeper. Spider-Man Blue, a collection of issues from The Amazing Spider-Man, details a love story featuring Peter Parker, aka Spider-Man, and Gwen Stacy, who is "all kinds of amazing" and probably Spider-Man's only true love.

It starts out small. Pete is in college, living with his Aunt May. He, along with Flash, Harry, Gwen, and a few unnamed are kinda like "the gang". No longer is he Peter Parker, bookworm, he is Peter Parker, not such a bad guy. Already Pete and Gwen have taken a liking to each other.

Things get better when Peter moves into a large apartment with Harry, and confusing when Peter "hits the jackpot" and meets Mary Jane Watson, the party animal.

The Pete/Gwen/MJ love triangle is paired with the returns of old villains, such as the Lizard, the Rhino, the Vultures (yep, two of 'em). A perfect mix of Spider-Man action and tragic love stories.

Tragic, especially. It ain't called Blue for nothing. All of the stories are transcribed on a tape recorder in the attic of the adult Peter Parker. It is Valentines Day, the anniversary of the day he and Gwen fell in love.

Peter, in the guise of Spider-Man, had just dropped off a rose on top of the bridge where Gwen Stacy met her tragic and totally undeserved fate. He does this every Valentine's Day.

This year, he sits in his attic, his wife, MJ, is asleep, and he tells the story of him and Gwen.

Sad, right? The recording ends when they fall in love, that Valentine's night.

Beautiful. You have to read it to understand. Highly recommended.

But enough on the tragedy. What gives this comic another star is the fact the writers intertwined an excellent action story in with the romance.

The comic begins with the final battle between the Green Goblin and Spider-Man. Goblin, aka Norman Osborn, knows everything. Spidey's secret identity, everything. If Goblin gets out now, all that Peter loves would be in danger.

Only one of them was getting out of that warehouse alive.

Fortunately, murder wasn't part of the equation. A bump on the head erases all memory of the Green Goblin, and Norman is hospitalized.

But before his defeat, Goblin hired an unknown entity to destroy Spider-Man. The entity brings back several foes from Spidey's past, animal-themed foes. The entity watched from afar, studying the Web-Slinger.

Near the end, we discover the entity is none other than Kraven the Hunter!

We also witness Flash Thompson being saved by Spidey during a battle. Flash, the high school jock, suddenly takes a look at his life and asks, "what have you done with your life?" Then Flash does something that will change his life forever. He joins the army.

Of course, you who are familiar with certain symbiote-enhanced espionage agents know what this means. Agent Venom, anyone?

In short, drama, action, and mystery, all in one. An excellent read for ages 12+. 'Course, younger kids may get a kick out of it, but they may not appreciate the love story behind it all.

Batman '66: Volume 1

That's right, ladies and gents. The classic TV show was made into a comic book. Not the old comics that the show was based on, but new comics based on the show. We see Adam West's Batman, Burt Ward's Robin, Cesar Romero's Joker, Burgess Meredith's Penguin, and more original characters from the show, as well as other characters like Harley Quinn and Red Hood.

It had a decent run, enough to expand the '66 universe. It even had a few crossovers.

In this volume, we see the story of the Red Hood, the story of Penguin and Mr. Freeze creating a nation in Gotham Harbor, another Joker story (of course ), and more.

Great for a rainy day. Highly recommended.

The Amazing Spider-Man: Coming Home

Ho-ho-ho, this comic was truly Amazing. I mean, come on! Straight-up incredible! Let's take a look:

We have Peter Parker, an adult, Spider-Man, saving New York from the usual cast of slime.

Now, this is original Spidey. That John Romita Sr. guy didn't mess around. It may not be as old as Stan Lee and Steve Ditko, but still. Issue #35 and on a few.

Okay, so it opens up with Spider-Man demolishing a building with his powers. Letting off some steam. 'Course, the building was scheduled to be taken down. But this is a great way to open it up. He's stressed, and lettin' it all out. I think it was pretty cool.

Later, Peter walks by his old high school. Memories. But all this nostalgia is spoiled by the status. Broken windows, incompetent and inconsistant teachers, bullies. Peter gets a job as a science teacher. He meets this nerd, who was getting picked on by a bunch of beef logs.

Anyway, that night, he spots the human farts trying to hijack a car. He scares the brick outta them as Spider-Man. Spidey's feeling kinda proud of himself, when this old guy with similar spider-powers appears. Spider-Man chases him, but he gets away, saying he'll be in touch.

Later, there's a school shooting, and Spider-Man conveniently appears to save the day. Tragic thing, the shooter was the poor kid from earlier. Snapped like a twig.

So Peter's out and about when he runs into his mystery-crawler. The guy buys him pizza and explains himself. The guy, Ezekiel Sims, says that in the beginning of time, there were totems, bridges between man and animal with extraordinary abilities. There were also pretenders, who pretended to be totems for different purposes. Then there were predators, beings who fed off of a totem's life source.

Peter and Ezekiel are totems. Their power is pure. Ezekiel explains that the spider that bit Peter was trying to give Peter his powers even before it was irradiated.

Peter also fought pretenders. A lot. Doc Ock, the Scorpion, the Rhino, etc.

And then there is the predator. A Devourer of Totems. He came in a rickety old ship and started stealing the life force of civilians.

You see, the old predators can feast on mortals and pretenders for however long, but they are always compelled to devour pure totems.

Like Spider-Man.

Ezekiel offers Peter a safe place to hide from the predator. The plan is Pete hides for four or five months and the devourer moves on. Ezekiel does this because they are similar.

But Peter doesn't listen and says he prefers to face the devourer head-on.

And so Morlun, the Devourer of Totems, appears and beats the living snot out of Spider-Man. "He hit me harder than anyone ever has. Harder than Thor... even Hulk." Well, he said something along those lines. But dang... once Morlun touched Spidey, he could always find him. Peter managed to get away and find Ezekiel, but he told him it was too late.

Morlun found him again, and again, and again. He moved in an instant, found Peter in uniform and out, in disguises and in plain sight. He basically played with his food.

That's right. Every time Morlun hits Spider-Man, he takes more power. More life. Peter's pure powers are only making him stronger.

We go to the docks. Morlun is fighting Spider-Man, and Ezekiel comes to save the day. He catches Morlun off-guard and gives him a bloody nose. Ezekiel is supposedly smashed, but Spider-Man gets away with the blood sample. With it, he devises a plan to defeat the undefeatable.

The spider gave Peter his powers, but the radiation is what would save him. Peter was able to inject doses of radiation into his blood, making him more and more impure. He was practically glowing.

He fought Morlun, and when the big oaf tried to suck Spider-Man's life force, he got a big helping of toxic radiation. He can't digest it, and goes down. As Peter is deciding whether to finish him off or not, Morlun's servant pumps the devourer full of lead.

And so ends the story, with Peter finding out that Ezekiel isn't dead and Aunt May walking in on Peter dressed as Spider-Man with various injuries.

All in all, this comic details Spider-Man's origin, the reality of his powers, potentially his strongest opponent in the history of ever, one of the coolest allies a hero could have, and the continuing story of our favorite web-slinger.

Combine this wicked story with the classic art, you've go yourself a deal.

I am personally looking forward to the day Sony and MARVEL make a movie featuring Ezekiel and Morlun.

The Uncanny X-Men: Dark Phoenix

As far as I knew, the X-Men were mutants led by Professor X and Wolverine. And... uh, Storm. She's one of them, right?

Now I am wiser. Cyclops. Storm. Wolverine. Colossus. Nightcrawler. Children of the Atom, hated by the world they have sworn to protect: Mutants! Behold the strangest super hero team led by Professor Charles Xavier. Stan Lee presents: The Uncanny X-Men!

Or something like that.

But these guys are awesome! Wolverine, of course. Nightcrawler, German blue guy who can climb walls, teleport, and has a tail!

Colossus, Russion and can turn into metal!

Storm, aka Ororo, African weather goddess!

Cyclops, with those epic laser beam eyes!

And more, like Banshee, who lost his sonic scream in this story. Where have I heard that before? Angel, who I met in MARVEL 1602, retired and wealthy. Beast, an Avenger! Multiple Man and that other guy!

And finally, Jean Grey. Apparently she'd already died and resurrected before. She was known as Ms. Marvel or something, then Phoenix. Her powers grew steadily over time.

All of these heroes have probably been in an X-Men movie at one time or another, although I personally have never seen them. But the era of the comics really got me. These are from the days of Stan Lee, Steve Ditko, and the others. These are the days when the comics were in miniature magazines, barely bigger than a postcard.

I used to own a few of these. One features Spider-Man's origin story, and another had Spider-Man meets the Fantastic Four. Geez, those may have been worth a fortune. I should'a kept them.

Anyway, back to the story. It starts when the X-Men visit some friends on an island in Scotland. They are reunited with Jean, whom they thought perished along with Beast. All's cool, but then Mutant X gets out.

Mutant X is like a parasite. He exists in a host body until he uses up the body's life force, then he dumps it by hopping into another body. Seemingly unstoppable. Physical contact will smash you forever.

It's only weakness? Metal. Metal will smash him.

So our heroes track down Mutant X and put the kaibosh on them. A few things to note, Wolverine, having metal bones, cannot be possessed by Mutant X, and Colossus, in metal form, ultimately defeated him.

Now, because of his injuries and the fact he fell in love with a woman on the island, Banshee left the X-Men, leaving them a team of five plus Jean.

The X-Men return home, and catch word of two new mutants. The Dazzler, a disco chick with light powers, and a teen named Kitten (or something like that) who can phase through walls and obstacles.

But someone else is watching them: the White Queen! She's got tech and thugs meant specifically to bring down the X-Men. She captures a few of them, but eventually defeat them.

Then the X-Men find out that the Queen worked for a high-class group of mutants, one of whom is Jason Wyngarde, aka the Mastermind.

All throught the story so far, Wyngarde has been telepathically corrupting Jean Grey, making her think that he is her true love and that her true destiny is to become the Black Queen. She used her OP telekinetic powers to capture the X-Men. Save Wolverine, who was stuck in the sewers.

Wolverine returned and exacted his ruthless revenge. Cyclops and Black Queen's love shattered Mastermind's hold on Jean. The X-Men kicked tail and took names.

Unfortunately, all was not well with Jean. She got a little dark for a second and smashed Mastermind.

The X-Men started to fly home when Dark Phoenix finally reared her ugly head (not literally, she was quite stunning ). She crashed their ship, kicked their tails, flew into space, ate a star, wiped out a planet, and still had room for dessert.

Jean returned to wipe out the others, and Professor X put the telekinetic kaibosh on her sorry flaming self. Kaibosh, I love the word.

Jean was back to normal, and everyone was good. Then the aliens who lived on the planet Dark Phoenix destroyed abducted everyone. The X-Men, Jean, Prof. X, Angel, and Beast. They were given a deal: defeat the alien's mightiest warriors, and they go free. If they didn't, they'd all perish.

So they fought. In the end, Jean was able to save them all, by dying again.

All in all, this story documents the first and original appearance of one of the most powerful foes ever to haunt the MARVEL Universe, Dark Phoenix.

What really interests me is, again, the fact it is a reprint of the original magazines. I've been trying to find collected editions of the classic Spider-Man comics for about a year now, and this is as close as I could find. Fortunately, I found a similar collected edition entitled "The Night Gwen Stacy Died". The Amazing Spider-Man 2, anyone?

Finally, the X-Men in their original form was truly a sight to behold. I hope to find more editions like this, as well as more X-Men comics, in the future.

Thanks. The history of comics is so vast and glamorous... No wonder some guys devote their entire lives to them.  

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO HO HO HO HOOO! BURN!