That's right, spider - philes, SPIDER - MAN MONTH is still in full effect and as we take a stroll down memory lane through all the great artists who have worked on the various spider - books Today we are taking a look at a somewhat decisive era in spider - history because the run by Mark Bagley has as many fervent fans as it has as passionate detractors.
And that is because of the famous - or infamous - CLONE SAGA ( which we will not cover in this post, don't worry ) which for some was the best thing ever to happen to Spider - Man while others think it was the worst.
In my opinion it started as a great idea but then it became too successful for its own good and as management demanded that they kept the story going it became more and more complicated up to the point where they backpaddled on a lot of their ideas and then had to fix it in some way.
Which was not always the best way. As far as I can remember the original idea of the CLONE SAGA was to usher in a new and exciting era in Spider - Man history with the reveal that Ben Reilly was the original Spider - Man and whom the readers believed to be Peter Parker was just a clone.
And Ben Reilly would have become the new Spider - Man and we would have followed his adventures. Okay, I know what you are thinking : what the f - word are you talking about Subzero ? That DID happen. And you are right. They went that way for a while. But for whatever reason - probably a huge backlash from readers who had followed the exploits of Peter Parker for decades and were not too thrilled with the idea that it turned out to be a clone - they changed it back to the old status quo.
Of course none of that matters now because with all the reboots and different multiverses and all new whatnots one doesn't have the slightest idea who is who what is still canon and whatever. In the end the new Ben Reilly Spider - Man was revealed as a clone when he died ( I think ), Peter Parker was revealed to be the original Spider - Man who took up the mantle once again after the death of Ben Reilly and Ben Reilly's costume somehow made it to the MC2 universe where the one and only daughter of Peter Parker - May " Mayday " Parker put it to much better use. I mean, maybe it's just me but I think she looks way better in it.
Now the recap I just did was made just based on my memories since I don't have the time to read the whole run again. Also I may be a little sketchy on the details because this falls into my brothers wheelhouse.
As I already explained in previous posts me and my two brothers always tried not to buy the same books in order to be able to read more comics.
Yes, that's how it was in those days, you swapped or traded comicbooks with your brothers, neighbourhood kids or some kids at school to read more comics. Which was not always a good thing because one time I made the mistake to let a friend of my brother borrow my entire MAD magazine collection and since he was turkish he let all of his brothers read them and they lent it to all of their friends and so on and by the time I asked when he would return them they had already gone through so many hands that it was impossible to know where they all ended up.
But that is all water under the bridge now. The price you pay for letting someone borrow your comicbooks. Live and learn. So when I started to get american comics on a regular basis one of the titles was of course AMAZING SPIDER - MAN which I collected from issue 292 ( I remember it well, it was the second part of a Spider - Slayer story pencilled by Alex Saviuk - one of the unsung heroes of Spider - Man stories - and inked by Vince Coletta ) up until the point where Erik Larsen left the book. I don't remember why but for some reason I was not too thrilled with the arrival of Mark Bagley on AMAZING SPIDER - MAN even though I had enjoyed his art on other Marvel titles like NEW WARRIORS and later THUNDERBOLTS with Kurt Busiek. Anyway, while I was going to quit the title my brother was interested in following the further exploits of everybody's favourite webslinger and I have to give credit where credit is due hung in there.
No pun intended. But he stuck with the title like a true champ through the worst times where I would have already thrown in the towel - at least three times during the Clone Saga - so this post is more for him than for me. Although I am not sure if he is even still reading my blog.
Anyway, Today we are tempting the fates so let's see if we can get four posts slapped with an age restriction in a row. Now I have said that there were highs and lows in Mark Bagley's run on AMAZING SPIDER - MAN and while the Clone Saga was surely one of the lows one of the highs was Mark Bagley's ability to depict the female form especially as time went on. There is a reason why there are so many arbitrary seeming cameo by the Who's Who of stunning spiderbabes and it's no coincidence that the Black Cat had her best costume - which is basically just a giant cleavage from her neck to her deepest possible spot - during Mark Bagley's run.
And there will be a separate post about her in the not too distant future.
But for Today we are focusing on Marvel Comics version of Power Girl : Stunner. Now I am not one hundred percent sure if they really tried to cash in on Power Girl's huge popularity ( Wait, what did you think I was going to say ? or if they were copying another DC Comics character - namely bigbreasted redhead Knockout who appeared in the post Death Of Superman SUPERBOY comics drawn by Tom Grummett about which I have written two posts - or if they just said : hey, let's give Mark Bagley an ultimate sexbomb to draw with big knockers. That's not the question.
The question is more why didn't they do this sooner ? Anyway, I always thought that the aptly named Stunner only appeared in these few issues by Mark Bagley but after doing a little bit of research I can confirm that she did return a few times since she is just to good to be wasted as a one time character. The second female character from Spider - Man's newer rogues gallery that debuted during this run is Delilah and it may seems that I added her as an afterthought to get to the obligatory 23 pictures per post threshold but to tell the truth there are not that many pages with her that I could have added besides what is in this post because she just appears in one issue. Anyway, time to enjoy this double - breasted double rack attack combo and there will be more Mark Bagley Spider - Man posts coming up including the aforementioned Black Cat special.
clones the horror
No comments:
Post a Comment