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Reviews and commentary by Tony Isabella
"America's Most Beloved Comic-Book Writer & Columnist"
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TONY'S ONLINE TIPS
for Wednesday, May 4, 2005
Deadlines loom menacingly at Casa Isabella. It's a busy week for the Isabella family and also for that entertainment juggernaut known as...me. This combination usually results in a short column consisting of a humorous photograph from the Internet and my witty comments on same. Not today.
I came upon today's main attraction while cleaning out one of my e-mail file folders. It's a pitch for a Spider-Man mini-series or story arc I wrote at the behest of an artist. I don't believe we ever actually submitted it to an editor, for reasons I'll cover about 1500 words from now, but I thought the loyal legions of TOT readers might find it entertaining and/or instructive.
Check it out and then we'll chat about it.
"Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Fan"
Fame is often accompanied by loneliness; infamy even more so. As Peter Parker, Spider-Man, struggles with the recent loss of his wife and the ongoing mistrust, fear, and even hatred of those he risks his life to protect, there appears an outstretched hand of admiration and friendship. At long last, has Spider-Man found his Watson, his Tonto, his Huck Finn? Or does something sinister lurk behind that smile?
BOOK ONE: It begins with Spider-Man in battle with the villain du jour. This is both Peter Parker's duty and release.
As Peter, he's bone-tired of dealing with the heartache of his recent loss and the insensitivity of friends who seem to think the cure for his soul-sickness is to leap into some new relationship and party on.
As Spidey, his web-slinging exploits are less than satisfying. He never knows if the next police officers he encounters will see him as an ally or just another perp. He never knows if the people he helps will thank him or run in terror from him. He doesn't even have anyone he can really talk to about this stuff, not since his MJ was taken from him.
It's a typical night in Spider-Land, but then a guy--kind of fanboy geeky, but not a complete caricature--comes up to Spider-Man after he defeats the villain, and starts telling him how way cool he is. When the fan asks for Spidey's autograph, our boy is almost ready to oblige him...which is when cops of the "just another perp" variety interrupt the moment. Spidey splits.
Off to the Daily Bugle where Peter tries to peddle the photos he took of his battle. Since J. Jonah Jameson is still in his "no more publicity for Spidey" mode (or, if he's not, we can find some other reason for him not to buy *these* photos), it looks like "no sale" for the shots.
Lo and behold, who should be waiting for Peter outside the Bugle building but the fan from the earlier scene. Because of his admiration for Spider-Man, he is also a big fan of our hero's photography. The fan asks if the Bugle will be running any photos of Spider-Man's latest "triumph" and, when he learns it won't, he offers to buy the film directly from Peter. This weirds Peter out a bit; he makes up an excuse to decline the offer. The fan seems disappointed, but understanding. As he watches the guy walk away, Peter is feeling kind of silly about turning him down. It's not as if the guy triggered his spider-sense or anything.
Even so, those concerns surface again when he starts running into the fan again and again...as Spider-Man *and* as Peter Parker. The fan seems harmless, but his requests strike Spidey as just shy of bizarre. Would Spidey give him a souvenir of this or that case? Could Peter take the fan's picture with Spider-Man?
Yet there is still peep none from the old spider-sense and, even when the fan's various requests are refused, he takes it with good grace. There's something about him; he really seems to admire and care about his heroes. It's looking like our hero is starting to warm up to his biggest fan.
Final scene of the first ish. Peter is home alone at his and Randy Robertson's apartment. There is a knock at the door. Peter answers it. It's the fan...and he knows that Peter is the amazing Spider-Man!
BOOK TWO: With the characters established, we'll go lighter on the details for the rest of the springboard. That also gives the editor room to suggest elements he or she would like added to the overall story.
This issue is going to be happy, happy, happy for Spider-Man and his new friend. It really seems the fan has nothing but the best intentions, but, obviously, the first scenes of the issue are going to be tense. After all, the fan just barged into our boy's home and blurted out his greatest secret. Fortunately, no one was in the hall and Randy wasn't home either.
How did the fan deduce this? What he *tells* Peter is that he figured it out based on the weird angles of Parker's photographs. Peter couldn't have taken them unless he was a bat. Once he knew the photographs were the key, he started looking for Peter at the scenes of Spidey's battles. He couldn't find him, but he did see the camera hanging from the webbing.
Here's the turning point in the conversation. The fan knows this is somewhat circumstantial evidence...and starts showing Peter ways to disguise the camera so no one else will spot it...and that he can digitally alter the photos to make those angles look not so impossible...and so forth. He gives Peter a couple digital cameras for that purpose, then, apologizing for the intrusion, gets up to leave. He didn't mean to barge in, but he thought it was important for Peter to cover his tracks better.
With his spider-sense *still* not reacting to the fan, Peter is honestly moved by the guy's decency. He invites him to hang out for a while. They talk. They find common interests. They become friends. This is something new and wonderful for Peter, something he never had with anyone other than Mary Jane.
Think about it. Peter Parker has friends, but they don't know he's Spider-Man. Spider-Man has friends, but they are professional friends. This is the start of a beautiful friendship.
If we do this right--and we will--the readers will be turning back to the cover to make sure this is an actual Spider-Man comic book in their hands. Things can't be possibly be going this well for our woebegone web-slinger.
Here comes the big finish. Spider-Man is in the midst of yet another super-villain battle. The fan is on the scene. The fight gets royally out of hand and, for one shocking moment, it looks as if the fan is toast. Except that he's not dead or even injured. He's glowing with some sort of incredible energy.
Our hero's biggest fan has super-powers of his own!
[NOTE: You've doubtless noticed that we've not named any of the other super-villains in this springboard. We'd be looking for editorial guidance as to who we could use without blowing any other stories that are coming out or in the works.]
BOOK THREE: This is the issue where happy-happy turns scary- scary real fast. The fan is sort of the Internet come to life; he has incredible electrical powers which he can use to learn anything that exists in electronic form, be it on a computer, a data stream, or the electrical centers of the human brain. He can go anywhere. He can block attacks like a human surge protector. He can download energy blasts into anyone who threatens him. He can inflict foes with a bio-electronic virus that virtually shuts them down at his will. That's the reason Peter's spider-sense never reacted to the fan; the fan simply shut it down to that extent.
The fan wasn't bitten by a radioactive modem or anything; this is how he's learned to manifest his mutant energies. And, while he did and does want to be Spidey's pal, that was never all he wanted. He wants to be every bit the hero Spider-Man is.
Happy time is coming to a swift end. Realizing the fan might have been blocking his spider-sense, our hero isn't comfortable with adding this new element to their friendship. He's not sure he can trust the kid to use his powers wisely. Good call.
The kid gets cocky...then careless...and then downright mean in using his powers. He becomes a threat, not just to the various villains they face, but to innocents caught in the crossfire. And he doesn't take it well when Spidey suggests he needs more training and tries to reign him in.
The fan crosses the line, almost killing a super-villain far less powerful than either him or Spider-Man. This has got to stop now, says our hero. Yeah, you're really cramping my style, says the power-crazed fan...
...as he blasts Spidey clear across the city and into the East River. No more mister nice fan.
BOOK FOUR: Okay, Spider-Man is dead, so we really don't need a fourth issue. Sorry about that. Maybe we can finally get around to that Millie the Model relaunch.
We open the fourth book with a battered and dazed Spider-Man saving himself from the East River. This should be very exciting and terrifying because we're gonna write it and draw it so that it is very exciting and terrifying.
Once Spider-Man gets out of the river, he changes his name and moves to Florida to retire. Oh, wait, he's got that "great power, great responsibility" thing to deal with. So he drags his soggy, sorry ass into battle once more.
We've been having great action scenes throughout these issues, but this one is the one we've been building up to. Spidey has to make it up as he goes along, keeping people from getting hurt and keeping himself alive, until he figures out some way of stopping his greatest fan once and for all.
This is where we're going to need some editorial guidance. We need to get Spidey and his fan-turned-foe to some amazingly unreal power source, so our guy can "wipe out his hard drive and memory" and "reboot him" with no knowledge of either who he is and what he can do. Some possibilities would include:
The Negative Zone. Does Reed Richards still have a portal to that wonderful vacation resort?
Osborn Industries. Are they messing with any wacko energies at that place?
The think tank where Peter worked recently.
Whichever we use, Spidey succeeds in turning the fan's powers back on him and achieves the desired result. The fan doesn't know who he is or who Spider-Man is, just that he owes his very life to the costumed wall-crawler. EMS arrives on the scene to treat the fan; they don't know who he is either. The fan asks them who that guy was and they tell him.
The fan doesn't know who he himself is, but, boy, does he wish he could be like Spider-Man. Cue ominous closing music.
We look forward to hearing from you.
******
AFTERWORD
Let me apologize in advance if I get any of the details wrong. As I recall, the artist who would have drawn this story had we sold it came to me with the idea of a stalker figuring out Spider-Man's identity from the odd angles of Peter Parker's photographs of the wall-crawler in action. I'm not 100% positive, but I think I came up with the rest of the story.
While I was working on the story, I sent several e-mails and also a postal letter to whoever was editing the Spider-Man books at the time, inquiring as to how he would prefer we pitch the story to him. He never responded, which is probably the primary reason we never actually submitted the story.
The secondary reason was that this story needed to take place during the period of time when Mary Jane was believed to have died in a plane crash. Within days of writing the above pitch, I began to hear rumblings that Mary Jane was not dead and that she would be returning to the Spider-titles soon.
Reading this pitch for the first time in years, I don't think it fit the grimmer tone of the Spider-Man books even then. I think it's a good story, one which could have excited the readers with its action, suspense, and even emotional content, but I'm not sure it was the right story for Spider-Man at the time we would have pitched it. Perhaps an editor could have suggested ways to make it a better fit, but I didn't see much point in submitting a possibly dated story idea to an editor who hadn't responded to our previous e-mails or letters.
Digression. Please don't take this as a slam against whoever was the editor at the time. I know how much work it takes to get a comic book from the editorial office to the readers. I never had the time to get to everything when I was an editor in the 1970s and the job has gotten more complicated since. I'm just presenting the facts, no malice intended. End of digression and, for that matter, the end of this special edition of TOT.
Thanks for spending a part of your day with me. I'll be back soon with more stuff.
Tony Isabella
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THE "TONY" SCALE
ZERO: Burn your money before buying any comic receiving this rating. It doesn't *necessarily* mean there's absolutely nothing of value here - though it *could* - but whatever value it might possess shrinks into insignificance before its overall awfulness.
ONE: Buy something else. Maybe I found something which wasn't completely dreadful in the item, but not enough for me to recommend it when there are better comics available. I only want what's best for you, my children.
TWO: Basic judgment call. I found some value, but not enough to recommend it. My review should give you enough info to decide if you want to take a chance on it. Are you feeling lucky today, punk? Well, are you?
THREE: This denotes something I find perfectly respectable. There are better books out there, but I wouldn't regret buying this item. Based on my review, you should be able to determine if it's of interest to you. Let the Force guide you.
FOUR: I recommend anything earning this rating. Unless you don't like the genre, subject matter, or past work of the creators, I believe you'll enjoy this item. Isn't it uncanny how I can look right into your soul that way?
FIVE: Anything getting this rating is among the best comicdom has to offer. You should buy/read this, even if the genre/subject matter doesn't appeal to you. It's for your own good. Me, I live for comics and books this good...but not in a pathetic "Comic-Book Guy" sort of way.
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