I’m so happy to share with you all my baby girl Ava Marie Douglas. She was born today at 12:40 central time. She weighs 6lbs 15.5 ounces and she is 21 inches long. She has a beautiful head of hair, unlike her pops. I love her so much. Mom and baby are doing fine, I have an iv of Mt. Dew in and am recovering. My little girl is only one day old and already a tv star. Click here to see video and an interview with a proud pappa. Also click here to listen to Spider-Man’s daddy  Stan Lee welcome little Ava into the world.

“… These go to 11…”

That should make sense to anyone who has read Maximum Carnage and seen ‘This Is Spinal Tap.’ Heh.

Happy Friday, Crawl Spacers, and welcome back to another installment of Spidey Friday Night Fights.  Sorry I’ve been AWOL for two weeks with this (and I will explain the lateness towards the end of the article) but better late than never!

Today we’re taking a starting the first in a two-part special looking back at the Maximum Carnage Spider-Man event from the summer of 1993.  This was an… interesting time for Spider-Man to say the least.  Especially when you consider that Peter believed his parents, Richard and Mary Parker, were actually alive and that they’d returned to him (they hadn’t).  The event itself started right after Harry Osborn’s death and offered Spider-Fans an eclectic stable of super-characters pouring into the Spider-Titles to kick the crap out of one another.

I am not going to lie to you folks.  This is not one of my fondest memories as a Spider-Fan.  To be sure it’s not the worst Spider-Man story ever told; rather it just doesn’t hold up well today and, honestly, it barely held up well back then, either.  When I explain this storyline to people I often refer to it as a comic book version of a typical 1990′s ‘summer movie,’ complete with hot chicks, explosions and enough violence to choke a yak.

In fact I even made the ‘summer movie’ observation on the Crawl Space Message Boards and went even further saying that Maximum Carnage was the Spider-comics equivalent of ‘Tango & Cash.’ And that’s a very apt analogy.  But Maximum Carnage and ‘Tango & Cash,’ despite being bad, still wind up being fun at different points.  Sometimes for legit “Whoa, that was neat!” moments and sometimes for insane “I had to read that twice because I couldn’t believe how ridiculous it was” moments.

Making matters worse?  This is one of those windows in time where we see how insane the symbiote craze was in the 90′s and the awful ramifications.  Venom had ‘gone plaid’ into inane overexposure and Carnage, despite a fairly cool introduction a year earlier, was quickly being funneled into the same over-played “full throttle extreme” characterization.  I’ve never really liked Venom all that much; same for Carnage, truth be told.  And their representation in this event explains a lot of my dislike.

So strap in and let’s roll the ugliness.

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Here are some of the topics we hit up in the show
*Aunt May Vs Anna Watson: Who wins?
*What character from the cartoon and movies should appear in the Spider-Man comics
*Our favorite moment at our jobs dealing with the public. This one is classic
*What is a comic book completist?
*What we look for in a good Spider-Man story.

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If you missed the other show this month it’s located here

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Once you listen to the show comment here or on this thread on our message board.

I can see why this kid got passed over. I wasn’t that impressed. What do you think?

Spider-Man 2007:
The Road to Hell Part 2

The JMS Years – A Retrospective

For a lead picture, I was originally going to go with the cover to Amazing Spider-Man #471 (June 2001), which was J. Michael Straczynski’s inaugural issue. However, the relentless rudeness, pushiness and sheer chutzpah of the infamous “Bertone Beatle” at the 2010 San Diego Comic Con gave us this picture, which I could not help but use (I think the dude asked everyone with a pulse to hold the Crawlspace sign. The next round of pictures will include the hotel concierge and local vagrants saying they love the Crawlspace).

I’d like to thank everyone for the warm welcome back that I’ve received over the last week. Hearing from all of you, as well as just the improvement in my mood that writing about Spidey sometimes gives me was a welcome relief from reality. Read the rest of this entry »

Marvelous News had a cameraman record the power point presentation from Hasbro. Check out all the news Marvel and Spidey toys coming in 2011.

Activision has just released the store exclusives that will come with the Spider-Man Shattered Dimension game.
Best Buy will get the Negative Zone Spider-Man. I know Zach will shop at K-Mart to get the Scarlet Spider. Also unlockable in the game are Manga Spidey and Spider-Armor.

Much has been made in the recent past of the question, “What is Spider-Man about?” Tom Brevoort famously declared in his Spider-Man Manifesto, which became the bible of Brand new Day, that Spider-Man was not about responsibility, but about youth.

But a related – nay, identical – debate cropped up even before that manifesto hit the web. Should Spider-Man grow and change?

This became mostly a debate between those “pro-marriage” and “anti-marriage.” In one corner, Joe Quesada said fans that want Spider-Man married are selfish and want him to grow old and die with them. In the other, marriage fans said that growth is integral to the character, and forcing Peter back into never-ending single-hood is tantamount to character assassination.

Sadly, because of One More Day, it seems almost all debates about what is or is not good for the character of Spider-Man have become “pro-marriage” vs. “anti-marriage” debates. This does a disservice to some topics, pigeon-holing the issue and branding fans on a side of the debate they may not have thought about past, “I’m with them.”

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Bertone has a few more pics coming in from Comic Con. The latest one is Mary Jane showing her love of the site.

Here are two clips showing Josh Keaton in the Ultimate Spidey level and Dan Gilvezan in the 2099. Keaton voiced Spider-Man in the “Spectacular Spider-Man” cartoon. Gilvezan voiced Spidey in the “Spider-Man & His Amazing Friends” cartoon.

Gang, I’m sorry for the delay in the release of this podcast. I have stopped having the shows hosted at Podomatic and from now on they will be hosted on my regular webhost that houses this website. I have contacted itunes to update the xml feed. It could take awhile to get that changed, however you can still download the mp3 here and listen to it through this player.

The new xml feed of the podcast is located here

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Here are some of the topics we hit up in the show

*Andrew Garfield cast as Peter Parker in Spider-Man 4
*Reviews of Amazing Spider-Man # 633-635
*ASM to be written by Dan Slott and shipping twice a month (This was recorded before it was confirmed at San Diego)
*Real Life Superhero Viper patrolling the streets
*The Hastings chain stores will be selling comics nationwide
*This Month in Spider-History with JR. We tackle July 1972 which saw the release of Amazing Spider-Man #158

*Recommendations
Once you listen to the show comment here or on the message board thread.

Bertone was able to snap some pictures of folks from the various Spider-Man cartoons. First up is Spectacular Spider-Man producer Greg Weisman. He’s been on the podcast several times and such a nice guy.

We also have Sara Ballantine who voiced Mary Jane in the 1990s cartoon. She even recorded a podcast opening that says, “Face it tiger,  you just hit the Crawl Space jackpot.” She agreed to be a guest on a future podcast.

And one of my personal favorites Dan Gilvezan who voiced Spider-Man in the “Spider-Man & His Amazing Friends.” He also was the voice of Bumblebee in the 1980s Transformers cartoon. He too agreed to be on the podcast in the future.Kevin will love this, Dan is wearing a Green Lantern t-shirt.

Bertone was able to track down Amazing Spider-Man writer Dan Slott to hold up the sign. You’ve gotta admit, he was a good sport to do this. I told Bertone to tell  Slott that he could rip it up for the  shot, instead he decided to hold it upside down.
Now gang, no personal attacks in the comment section on this one. You will get warned and then banned just like on the message board.

“… The Good, the Bad and the WTF?”

Well the Spider-Panel’s over at San Diego’s Comic Con.  The news is out but the dust hasn’t settled yet.  So let’s break down what the new details mean.

Potential & speculative spoilers ahead so if that kind of thing chaps you then don’t read on.

The great ‘Brand New Day’ experiment ends in October.  Which comes as a shocker to some who kept arguing that ‘Brand New Day’ ended when they took the ‘Brand New Day’ banner off the covers.  Others, however, have rightly maintained that while the ‘One More Day/Brand New Day’ continuity is still in place the book will continue to be ‘the Brandnewverse’ for all intents and purposes.

So why the need to ‘end’ the ‘Brand New Day’ if ‘Brand New Day’ was so successful?  Clearly because ‘Brand New Day’ wasn’t successful.  In fact anyone who has followed the direct market estimates knows the book has been hemorrhaging readers since BND #1 (ASM #546) back in 2008.  But here’s the catch: so long as Peter and Mary Jane remain unmarried the Brandnewverse is still very much alive and in place.  Telling people it’s “ending” is just a marketing gimmick.

“You know that thing you hated?  It’s going away.  Cause we’re renaming it.  A lot of the stuff you didn’t like will still be there, but it’ll be okay.  You know, cause we renamed it.  So buy it now.”

The ‘Brain Trust’ format of having several writers trying to coherently write one ongoing character in one title failed.  The end result was a confusing mishmash of characters behaving differently from writer to writer and character identity & voice (which as essential in good writing) were lost in the Spider-Man version of musical chairs.  So the news that ASM is moving to just one writer is actually a good thing.  But will Dan Slott be dyanmic enough of a name to bring readers back?  It seems like they probably should’ve gone outside the ‘Brain Trust’ for this.  Someone without any invested ties to the failed Brandnewverse stories and someone with a fresh approach or ideas.

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Bertone had a chance to talk to Stan Lee last night at the San Diego Comic Con. He asked Stan to congradulate me on the birth of my baby girl Ava Marie and he did it. This is the coolest thing. To clarrify we haven’t had the baby yet, but this will be the opening of the August podcast. Stan is sooo cool!
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