Greetings my friendly neighbourhood web surfers and internet lurkers alike to another amazing episode of Cosmic-books, In My Opinion. This frozen February I welcome you to bundle up beside the fire, grab some hot coco, sit back and relax as we explore together the spectacular world of the Human-Spider.
First introduced in the 1999 Sam Rami film of the same name. Starring Bruce Campbell, The Human-spider is a tragic tale of heartbreak and sorrow as we are introduced to Larry, the little spider who thought he was a human. Falling madly in love with a lovely actress named Ms. Muffet, he quickly discovers that no one respects the tiny spider. The film explores their brief romance as Ms. Muffet while eating her curds and whey unexpectedly meets Larry only to squish him to death out of terror. The film’s run time was only 1 minute, 30 seconds so it never really gained much box office attention.
Anyway, fiction is filled with many different famous arachnids, most of which are fantastical giant monstrous beasts like Aragog from Harry Potter or Shelob from the Lord of the Rings. There are even famous songs written about our little spider overlords, Ziggy Stardust and the spiders from Mars and Boris the creepy crawly spider come to mind. Spiders are universally considered either the creepiest or most fascinating creatures on the planet depending on who you ask. They haunt our dreams and nightmares, they share our very reality.
Thankfully spiders never really reach the size of those famous fantastical versions we see in the movies, at least as far as we know. While some spiders can indeed grow pretty big, most of our eight legged, eight eyed fuzzy little friends remain fairly small. In fact some species of spider mites are so small they float around on dust particles in the air and we breathe them in all the time. Ironically you very rarely see a fictional version of the arachnid who is of the smaller variety unless of course you want to continue discussing the tragic world of Larry from the epic blockbuster, The Human-Spider.
Yet every now and then an eensy, weensy spider sneaks into the spotlight, even if it’s just for a short appearance here and there. Just one such spider caught the attention of comic book fans with the debut of the Spider-man in the amazing Fantasy #15 back in 1962. Stan Lee and Steve Ditko introduced the world to a little radioactive spider who by no fault of his own bit the unsuspecting student Peter Parker. Now the authorities would have you believe that the irradiated Spider dropped dead immediately or shortly therefore afterwards, it is largely ignored and downplayed that Parker in fact slapped him dead on the spot.
It is abundantly clear no one respects the Spider. This is a sad fact that even Peter Pecker found out the hard way. Over the many years he wore the webheads super suit, he was berated and mocked for simply being affiliated with the dastardly species. Some would indeed call him the Amazing Spider-man many others would call him a menace, a criminal, or worse! Yet through all the negative press Peter Parker endured, infused with Spider DNA he braved the trials and tribulations as only a human-spider could.
The Character of Spider-man has indeed endured over the years and In My Opinion a percentage of the profit should be given to the safety and security of arachnids worldwide.
You may not agree, however one cannot argue with the profits made by the character. Spider-man continues to flood the world with new and exciting adventures. From the pages of those legendary Marvel comic books to the big screen hijinks of the real Sam Rami films, the MCU and other Sony versions, Spider-man is still swinging in the big dollars.
In fact Marvel has recently just announced that Spider-man 4 will soon start production with the largest movie budget ever and Tom Holland is donating all his proceeds to arachnid drug and addiction rehabilitation clinics. There have been many movie versions of Spider-man, live action television versions, Japanese versions, the character has been literally tossed through the multiverse like a salad. Yet even with all these renditions my favourite version still to this day remains the famous 1967 animated classic cartoon.
This brings me to the climax of today’s story, the epicentre of cosmic excitement as it were. Through all this I have been eager to discuss the main event, the latest and in time may indeed prove to be the greatest incarnation of Spider-man yet, Marvel’s, Your Friendly Neighbourhood Spider-man.
If you haven’t already heard, Marvel animation recently released a new cartoon based upon the re-imagined telling of the old Spider-tale. Your Friendly Neighbourhood Spider-man first caught my eye due to its bold artistic style. Making use of thick line work and use of sharp contrasting shadows it certainly stands out. It is clearly animated using 3D graphics but it is cleverly done in the respect that it looks mostly hand drawn. In fact I wasn’t sure the show would make me a believer but it didn’t take long before I was drawn into the artistic style.
It’s actually nicely done and I’ve been experimenting with each episode and I’d swear almost every single frame you pause the animation upon, it looks like it was pulled straight out of a comic book.
The animation aside, the story follows the classic version of Peter Parker through his early days of crime fighting in Queens and New York but with a multiverse twist, I won’t spoil it any further but you can’t get away from the multiverse anymore it seems. This version of Spider-man is rather enduring though and I have to admit I’m eagerly awaiting to see what happens next.
Till next time web-heads.