Jolt Country

Whew! Mad Mitchell O'Malley, here. I just finished reading a whole shlew of Spider-Man comics. A dash of Web Of Spider-Man, a pinch of Amazing Spider-Man, a cup of chopped Peter Parker: Spider-Man and just a hint of Spider-Man: Blue makes for one irresistibly tasty treat. A "meal", if you would. Yet the whole experience left behind a sort of nagging "empty" feeling. A "hunger" if you please.

Spider-Man, save for the Clone Saga and the initial phase of the reboot, is a rather fine and wholly worthwhile "cuisine." But after spending nearly an hour trying to ferret out a solution to my newfound "hunger," it finally dawned on me that perhaps it would behoove me to simply add more to my "diet." However, when I go "grocery shopping" I head straight for the Spider-Man "aisle." Please help me!!! What other Marvel comics would you suggest I "feast" upon?

Wolverine? Silver Surfer? Iron Man? The Incredible Hulk? Black Panther? Punisher? Cloak & Dagger? Thor? Dr. Strange? Power Pack?

Cripes! Looking back on that "shopping list," I'm not 100% sure if even half of those characters (or groups) have their own books anymore. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance,

-Mad Mitchell "Make Mine Marvel" O'Malley

The Mad Mitchell O'Malley wrote:Whew! Mad Mitchell O'Malley, here. I just finished reading a whole shlew of Spider-Man comics. A dash of Web Of Spider-Man, a pinch of Amazing Spider-Man, a cup of chopped Peter Parker: Spider-Man and just a hint of Spider-Man: Blue makes for one irresistibly tasty treat. A "meal", if you would. Yet the whole experience left behind a sort of nagging "empty" feeling. A "hunger" if you please.

Here's why Spider-Man continues to be validates as a... er, valid form of entertainment as far as I am concerned:

The guy is kicking the CRAP out of guys who by all rights should be able to clean the street with him, and he's doing it all while taunting his opposition at the same time.

I've never bought that comics are supposed to be some sort of "power fantasy" for young kids. I mean, geez, whose father or which bully is Electro supposed to represent? Bah. But for those of us who strive so hard to be "funny," a guy showing some wit while doing what he does bet is pretty fun to read about.

What other Marvel comics would you suggest I "feast" upon?

OK, I'll go through the list, but keep in mind that I am mostly going by what I read on the internet, and what I've "heard."

Wolverine?

I've heard that his book has been written poorly for years now. The net.nerds' opinion is that Wolverine works poorly as a solo character and that he has also been given one lousy writer right after another.

Silver Surfer?

Don't think he's had a book in a long time, maybe 8 or 9 years. Last one I picked up of his was during the "Acts of Vengeance" where he tackled the Impossible Man. Cute enough for a single story, I guess.

Iron Man?

Um... he was "unmasked" recently. He's another guy who has, apparently, had a lousy writer for the longest time but I think he recently got a new one. Dunno.

The Incredible Hulk?

Bruce Jones has been getting accolades for his writing, though I personally didn't dig it much. John Romita Jr is drawing the Hulk these days - I think he's also on Amazing Spider-Man, so if you dig him there you'll dig him here.

Black Panther?

I don't collect this monthly as a rule, but I may start. I have yet to grab a bad issue of it.

Punisher? Cloak & Dagger? Thor? Dr. Strange? Power Pack?

Punisher and Thor have books, but I don't know how they are. I think Cloak and Dagger showed up in Marvel Knights before it was axed... no idea on Power Pack or Dr. Strange.

Cripes! Looking back on that "shopping list," I'm not 100% sure if even half of those characters (or groups) have their own books anymore. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

I get Daredevil and Alias from Marvel each month. They've both been solid for at least a year now. Thunderbolts seems to get pretty good reviews, too. I may start getting the Uncanny X-Men based on the last issue I bought, but I'm otherwise unsure how the rest of the X-books are.

Be sure to keep us informed on what you decide to grab.

I should probably have just mentioned this on one of the computer game forums, but I've been having fun with the Activision Spider-Man game lately (not the one based on the movie but the one before it, I think). It's been teaching me some things about the series, and the gameplay is pretty fun, for the most part (there was a fair amount of falling to my death in the beginning). For some reason, if I change any of the options and the game makes a configuration file, the game won't run properly, forcing me to delete the configuration file and resetting my own gamepad settings each time. All in all, though, I'd say it's worth the $10 I paid for it.

Someone here will probably fiercely disagree with me, though.

I HAVE SPAT UPON ICE CREAM JONSEY AND HIS "SUGGESTIONS"

Yes, its true, scorn me if you must, but I have spat upon Ice Cream Jonsey and his so-called comic book "suggestions." Oh, but please do not get me wrong, it was never done intentionally. I-- well, lets just start at the beginning, shall we?

I had made it a point to stop by my local comic book shop this afternoon with the intent on purchasing a couple non-Spidey books. Bringing with me my list of suggested reading material, I had every intention on finally branching out and "exploring my options," as they say.

For the past year I've been back into the Spider-Man books, I've had a sort of "tunnel vision," honing directly onto the Spider-Man books. I barely even noticed the other books on the shelves. It was as if they were a mere garnish of lemon and kale to accompany my Spider-Man "feast."

Get in. Get the book(s). Get out.

Very professional, very business like -- I'd also learned to ignore the off-putting "Boy, someone sure likes Spider-Man" comments. Now that I've become aware of the dozens of other comics available... well... I frankly feel very lost and wholly alone. Adrift in a vast ocean of super heroes, super villains, wondrous worlds and amazing adventures, with no chance of rescue. Quickly, I scanned the other Marvel books, noticing:

•I have failed to come in on the ground floor of several new books (Morlocks, Elecktra, Muties, Paradise X)
•Reboots a-plenty! Enough to flip one's lid.
•Far too many X-Men related titles it seems (Uncanny X-Men, Ultimate X-Men, X-treme X-men, X-Men Evolution, New X-Men)
•I have no clue as to who/what are the Thunderbolts
Dr. Strange, West Coast Avengers, Silver Surfer, Sub-Mariner, Nova and X-Calibur are gone.
•I am complete and utter failure

I feel quite awkward jumping aboard a new series such as Daredevil, the Avengers or Iron Man. I don't really know all that much about them or their vast histories. The inside jokes and side comments would go right over my head! Plus, while flipping through a recent Avengers issue, I couldn't help but get the strong sense that I'm rather unwelcome -- as if I've walked in on Thor himself pinching a mighty, Asgardian loaf. Mjolnir, indeed! Let's just say that I turned my heels and ran for the door. Ugh. I suck. As do the bands I listen to...


-Mad Mitchell "Make Mine Marvel" O'Malley

The last couple of Avengers books were Kurt Busiek's last. I think he was tying up loose ends from his previous 22 issue run or something.

Alias has a "what happened up to this point" recap page at the beginning. It's also only 12 issues along, so you can't get that lost.

DD is just plain good, but the thing going on these days is that his identity was revealed.

How recently did Daredevil, Iron Man and Captain America have their identities revealed? What exactly happened? How are they taking it? They must feel very very small.

-Mad Mitchell "Make Mine Marvel" O'Malley

I think no more than six months in each case.

Quesada and Jemas have an inane need for as many of their flagship heroes to be "unmasked" as possible -- whether this is due to their belief that 'because the firemen and policemen present during the 9/11 attacks were unmasked, so should our own guys be' or some other retarded reason is completely beyond me.

You already have to suspend a miserable amount of belief just to read the average superhero comic as it stands. One bit of internal consistency was that if "a given vigilante's identity were known, the vigilante's friends, family and associates would be attacked, and the vigilante could be charged with crimes." Daredevil's writer (whom I currently think is the best in the business right now, true) expects us to belief that for 26 days the populace lived with the knowledge of who Daredevil was and ONLY ONE GUY tried to take him out. (Mr. Hyde, FWIW.)

There was a What If? comic from a few years back that had Spider-Man's identity revealed to the world after the Punisher shot him, and the Marvel Comics equivalent of the Mafia put a rocket through Aunt May's home the very same night. The fact that any associates of those three guys are still alive after their real names were revealed shows nothing but idiocy, both of the editors and of the pussies that now apparently make up the average DD, IM and CA rogue's gallery. And frankly, it's hard enough to take the Stilt Man, the Mandarin and Doctor Faustus seriously without knowing that they'd react as bored as an ox on a hill once getting the skinny on the guys who tormented them for so long.

I just thought I'd add an update to my little Spider-Man review. Well, when this game is working, it's a fun game, but I've gotten to the second point in the game where right after a cut scene, there's practically nothing I can do to save Spider-man from falling to his death and all the Activision support can recommend is to use a cheat code to skip to the next level.

I don't know what the chances are of it working like this on your computer, but I guess that's something to watch out for.

This is that game that came out that was Spider-Man: The Movie: The Game or whatever, right? I think I stopped playing that when I learned that there are only four Spidey villains in it or something. Here's a guy with the greatest rogue's gallery of all time... and you get to go up against, what, the GG, the Vulture and the Shocker. Any Spider-Man game that does not have at least two dozen enemies had a fundamental breakdown in the design process, I humbly submit.

Sometime it'd be great to see a Spidey game where he exclusively fought all the third-stringers and frigging clownshoes that Gerry Conway game him and so forth. Like those incetuous "werewolf" brothers (ooooooo-ooooh!!!1) and Tombstone and everybody else. Or one where the villains change based on the difficulty level you selected -- if you chose the "easy" mode you'd get to go up against Humbug or Leapfrog, but if you chose "advanced" you square off against Doc Ock.

No, this game came out a year or so (maybe a couple years) before the one based on the movie. So far, I've fought this Scorpion dude, Rhino, and I'm working on Venom. Doc Oc will definitely be in there, too. And there's been a bunch of cameos from this Black Cat lady and one with Daredevil.

So actually, yeah, I installed this game over at my parents' house because the washing machine at my place is broke. I don't get the 'fall to your death after cutscenes' problem over there, so I'm already farther than I was over at my place. It's funny because in some ways I really like this game but there's enough wrong with it that I can't heartily recommend it to everyone.