- Pronouns
- He/him
To quote Peppy Hare, "It's quiet... TOO quiet." Hopefully everyone didn't get abducted by aliens, I promise I didn't call in that much backup!
Well, it's character week, so I'm going to talk about some characters, kind of. Specifically, I'd like to talk about one of my favorite pieces of superhero media, The Spectacular Spider-Man. It could be argued that superheroes are a genre in and of themselves, but I don't think that makes it mutually exclusive. You can have sci-fi superheroes, horror superheroes, and yes, even fantasy superheroes! Spider-Man's had his fair share of incarnations and mythos that go all over the place, but Spectacular provides a relatively grounded take on the friendly neighborhood wall-crawler.
I think anyone even somewhat familiar with Spider-Man knows his origin story by now. He goes to a science lab and gets bit by a radioactive spider which gives him free superpowers, then becomes a superhero. Even Spider-Man has to rely on his own tech though, specifically his web shooters! Those more familiar with the Tobey Maguire incarnation of Spidey and other portrayals influenced by those movies might be surprised to learn that his web shooting usually isn't a natural power granted by the spider bite, and is instead something he built himself.
But you know what? Heroes didn't win the first 'Shroomfest...
Batman aside, Spider-Man has likely the most iconic rogues gallery of any superhero, and they're out in full force in this show. Almost all of Spidey's villains in this show either heavily use technology to combat him and commit their crimes (Doctor Octopus, Vulture, etc.), are the direct result of some lab experiment or accident (Rhino, Electro, etc.), or sometimes both! Even the alleged sorcerer Mysterio turns out to just be really good with special effects. And then there's Venom, the alien parasite who accidentally gets brought back to Earth on a space mission and breaches containment when Spider-Man investigates a break-in at the lab where it's being studied. Incidentally, this leads to one of my favorite episodes of the show where Spider-Man, under the influence of the symbiote, fights the Sinister Six (seen above) for the first time.
What's really cool about this show is that a lot of the villains don't just drop out of the sky to be evil. We get to see a lot of their origin stories, and often pop up in earlier episodes prior to taking on their new alter-egos as the plot continues to build. They're also pretty interconnected - a lot of them are created either intentionally or inadvertently by Oscorp and/or the mafia bosses that control the city. Case in point for both of these, Otto Octavius shows up in the first episode of the show and is a recurring character working under Norman Obsorn. It's not until episode eight that a lab accident turns him into Doc Ock, but of course anyone who knows the lore knows exactly where it's going from the get-go, which is pretty cool. (Have I mentioned I like this show?)
As a matter of fact, I liked these guys so much I based a whole lot of extra art in my Scribble Smorgasboard run around them! So there's some extra fun for those of you into the projects we get up to around here.
(Sadly, the real villain of this show was corporate meddling. It was canceled after only two seasons because of the Disney buyout and ended on a cliffhanger and several unresolved plot threads...)
I could go on about these characters in more detail, but for now, hopefully that gets the ball rolling again!
Well, it's character week, so I'm going to talk about some characters, kind of. Specifically, I'd like to talk about one of my favorite pieces of superhero media, The Spectacular Spider-Man. It could be argued that superheroes are a genre in and of themselves, but I don't think that makes it mutually exclusive. You can have sci-fi superheroes, horror superheroes, and yes, even fantasy superheroes! Spider-Man's had his fair share of incarnations and mythos that go all over the place, but Spectacular provides a relatively grounded take on the friendly neighborhood wall-crawler.
I think anyone even somewhat familiar with Spider-Man knows his origin story by now. He goes to a science lab and gets bit by a radioactive spider which gives him free superpowers, then becomes a superhero. Even Spider-Man has to rely on his own tech though, specifically his web shooters! Those more familiar with the Tobey Maguire incarnation of Spidey and other portrayals influenced by those movies might be surprised to learn that his web shooting usually isn't a natural power granted by the spider bite, and is instead something he built himself.
But you know what? Heroes didn't win the first 'Shroomfest...
Batman aside, Spider-Man has likely the most iconic rogues gallery of any superhero, and they're out in full force in this show. Almost all of Spidey's villains in this show either heavily use technology to combat him and commit their crimes (Doctor Octopus, Vulture, etc.), are the direct result of some lab experiment or accident (Rhino, Electro, etc.), or sometimes both! Even the alleged sorcerer Mysterio turns out to just be really good with special effects. And then there's Venom, the alien parasite who accidentally gets brought back to Earth on a space mission and breaches containment when Spider-Man investigates a break-in at the lab where it's being studied. Incidentally, this leads to one of my favorite episodes of the show where Spider-Man, under the influence of the symbiote, fights the Sinister Six (seen above) for the first time.
What's really cool about this show is that a lot of the villains don't just drop out of the sky to be evil. We get to see a lot of their origin stories, and often pop up in earlier episodes prior to taking on their new alter-egos as the plot continues to build. They're also pretty interconnected - a lot of them are created either intentionally or inadvertently by Oscorp and/or the mafia bosses that control the city. Case in point for both of these, Otto Octavius shows up in the first episode of the show and is a recurring character working under Norman Obsorn. It's not until episode eight that a lab accident turns him into Doc Ock, but of course anyone who knows the lore knows exactly where it's going from the get-go, which is pretty cool. (Have I mentioned I like this show?)
As a matter of fact, I liked these guys so much I based a whole lot of extra art in my Scribble Smorgasboard run around them! So there's some extra fun for those of you into the projects we get up to around here.
(Sadly, the real villain of this show was corporate meddling. It was canceled after only two seasons because of the Disney buyout and ended on a cliffhanger and several unresolved plot threads...)
I could go on about these characters in more detail, but for now, hopefully that gets the ball rolling again!
