My last issue of “friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man,” it’s the Spidey/JJJ confrontation that’s literally years in the making. Whad’ja think?
PAD
My last issue of “friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man,” it’s the Spidey/JJJ confrontation that’s literally years in the making. Whad’ja think?
PAD
• 
Hulk… YJ… and now FNSM.
Peter, you really know how to end a run (when given a half-decent chance by TPTB).
Thanks for a great ride.
I almost walked into a door today, and immediately thought of this F.N. Spider-Man issue.
The StarWolf said, re giving Peter Parker a presidential pardon:
“It isn’t, after all, as though he can pull off a Bruce Banner. Nobody knew who he was for the longest time. They were looking for the Hulk. But now everybody knows who Parker is, so hiding in the population wouldn’t be as easy for him.”
That raises an interesting question. If either the comics’ Bruce Banner or the TV show’s David Banner first appeared today– with the plethora of digital cameras and camera phones, and the existence of the Internet in general and YouTube in particular– how long could either have remained anonymous? Even if no one got a shot of Banner’s face, sooner or later, someone would have filmed the transformation, and then the Gen. Ross (or Jack McGee, as the case may be) would at least know how the Hulk kept under cover most of the time.
As to Spidey (or any masked adventurer), how long until he’d be exposed by an in the right place at the right time camera phone as he’s changing into or out of costume? As discussed in one of the threads about Spider-Man 3, it was incredibly stupid of Spidey to have his mask off when near the scene of the ceremony honoring him, because thousands of people were there, with cameras.
A presidential pardon for Peter Parker sounds good to me, given the point the StarWolf makes above, though I’m not clear what crime he committed to require one. However, I suspect that unless Marvel (and DC and everyone else that publishes superheroes, for that matter) essentially pulls out a magic wand by having its characters use, well… magic or some advanced super science to foul up cameras at just the right time, someone’s going to snap a picture of a costume change.
That’s assuming, of course, they want to keep comics somewhat grounded in the real world. Now, superhero comics aren’t fully in the real world, but real world issues and situations do play a role.
Now I didn’t read Civil War, but I read about it and I read some of the reactions to Peter’s decision to unmask (and all that came afterward). I wonder… if the object, with regard to Peter Parker, was to have his identity become public knowledge, perhaps there was a better way. It might’ve made for a better story– and been more in keeping with Peter’s often bad luck– to have had someone catch him on camera changing costume. He’s exposed to the world in circumstances out of his control. Can he bluff his way out of it, somehow? What steps will other heroes (and villains for that matter) take to ensure they won’t be “outed”?
Or, for that matter, would influential heroes, like the Avengers or the JLA, have forseen the dangers to themselves that camera phones could bring and tried to encourage the government to discourage their development and use?
And if that were the case, would the government have demanded that it, at least, know their identities? Which might’ve led right back to the two factions of Civil War.
Of course, the best solution to keeping your secret identity secret– even in this age of camera phones and YouTube– is:
A) don’t wear a mask.
B) Don’t even hint that you have another identity.
C) Let everyone think you live in the arctic (or antarctic, as the case may be) and commute to work.
D) wear glasses when you’re in your other identity.
and finally,
E) Don’t hang out with the same people in both identities, even if everyone believes you don’t have a secret ID. Glasses as disguise isn’t a fool-proof disquise. Don’t push your luck. Life-like robots that can substitute for you aren’t really that easy to come by.
And the batteries always run down at the most inopportune moments.
Rick
I’m late in my response, but I loved this issue. And that last line had me laughing my butt off.
Others have said it better – but I enjoyed it very much. Thanks for remembering that Spider-Man is supposed to be fun. With ups and downs, sure, but fun!
PAD, speaking as a fan of Spidey for the last 25 years – that was THE best Spider-Man story I’ve read in the last ten years, and one of the best of all time.