geekent’s stuff’n things

Not so wholesome anymore, are ya Landon?
(taken in Virgin Megastore, London, November 2006)

You know, when I was a kid I always wished my lightsabre had a spring activated blade… but apparently it’s lame now.
(taken in the Superstore, Toronto, November 2007)

DROOL

The annual Silver Snail costume gala/Hallowe’en geekout hit on Saturday and, just like last year, it was a good time had by some most all. It was a busy Saturday all-around, with Aden and myself having more than plenty to do before we could get suited up in our regal wear and hit Toronto as only two barely-known comic-book characters could.
My costume is deceptively simple and deceptively complex. The idea for the Phantom Stranger came back in July when Aden and I were shopping around for a wedding dress (she found one, I didn’t, btw) and I saw this huge honkin’ gold medallion at Le Chateau (fancyness for “The House”) and said to Aden “that would be perfect for a Phantom Stranger costume”.
Due to wedding madness, I kinda put the whole costume thing out of mind for a while, with the vague notion of going as Robin, since George (manager of the Snail) thought this toy looked like me, and I thought it would be funny, but, well, yeah, finding tiny green underwear isn’t that easy…

So anyway, I did a mild hunt for Phantom Stranger wear but you know what, finding a (cheap) 70’s blue suit from the thrift stores isn’t easy, also not easy only more so is finding a blue hat, and even more than that finding a blue cape. Some of our time in Thunder Bay, which really was the only down time I’ve had this month, was spent thrift store shopping, where I found the cape medallions ($1), the suit jacket ($4), white turtleneck ($7), the pants ($7) and the gloves ($2). I didn’t buy the medallion when I should have and I visited about 2 dozen other places looking for a replacement, but eventually found a Le Chateau that still had the original (and best) and bought it there ($25). The hat came from Kensington Market for $10, and the coup des gras, the white hairspray which gave the Phantom Stranger phantom dandruff all night cost an outrageous $10 (white hairspray was incredibly hard to come by on Saturday for some reason, so if you need white stuff next year, buy it early). The cape was actually home made, since it had to be. Capes are incredibly hard to find, and so yeah, I spent some time with chalk, scissors, some bristol board (comic book backboards to be specific), thread and a needle and made myself a cape.
The end result, deceptively simple in look (as in, it’s not spandex) but complex to put together:

Of course, I didn’t sell it *completely* with white contact lenses, but I’d say pretty authentic all things considered.
Aden’s costume was the current Mary Marvel iteration from Countdown which she was pretty keen on for two reasons: simplicity and that Mary Marvel is one of the few brown (not black) haired women in comics.

Her costume came together easy as pie. A trip to American Apparel, a few dresses tried on and it was practically over before it started. We had to buy some yellow fabric, and using the lightning bolt cut out of an old, old, old Captain Marvel t-shirt of mine found in Thunder Bay as a stencil, Aden cut out and stitched it to the uniform. She bought herself a new pair of boots, which happened to aide the costume and add a pair of black gloves, voila, it’s complete.
It was a devilishly windy evening, with a biting crispness that chilled instantly any exposed skin. Aden dressed warmly in her new winter jacket, although her knees remained vulnerable. I was dressed in four layers (undershirt, turtleneck, wool suit jacket, cape) so I was having no problems save the white temporary hair powder blowing out. In fact, I heartily enjoyed having a cape flap in the wind. It’s a fantastic sensation, feeling that drag from behind, or having the cloak whip around you in embrace, or flap off to the side like a flag. It’s so fucking cool, I can’t even explain. If I could get away with it, I’d wear cape every day. Jeans, t-shirt, cape. Trousers, button-down, tie, cape. Swimming trunks, flip-flops, cape (this isn’t Sparta). Awesome. Capes need to come back in style and stay there. As it stands, my $4 jacket is now a part of my regular wardrobe, and the rest of it’s going into the costume tickle trunk.
It was, in fact, my flowing cape which brought Aden and I to the attention of the CITY TV reporter trying to get a Hallowe’en festivities puff piece on Saturday. They saw me walking along, cape flapping in the wind and chased us down. Aden directed them around the corner to the Snail party where there’d be even more costumes, and that’s where they interviewed me, having me flap my cloak in front of their camera. It was all very geeky and I’m sure I came off like any old comic con freakshow in my interview, but I can’t find it on-line so, I guess I’ll never know.
The party was a good time as always, plenty of free food and giveaways, lots of gawking at all the other costumes (my favourite was the Friend Record from Size Small and Babs and Liza) and some big-time prizes (3rd place: $100 gift certificate, 2nd place: $300 gift certificate, 1st place $500 gift certificate). I was certain my authentic-looking Phantom Stranger would be worth one of the three… strictly on authenticity and obscurity scales. Alas, no, the prizes went to a good Clockwork Orange costume (although, really?), a rather clunky Killing Joke Barbara Gordon and Joker (points for creativity, I guess), and, okay, I’ll admit, a killer Dr. Strange costume rightly won the big prize, however the fact that Toby won the Snail staff contest last year with a Dr. Strange costume (Kody won this year with his Thor costume) did rankle me a bit. Alas, no dice for this McCracken, so I went home with my cool cape and my grumbles.
Aden and I have already decided, I think, on our costumes for next year:
Power Girl and Iron Fist…a play off of this comic
only subbing the black dude for this chick, our own DC/Marvel crossover: Maybe she’ll modify the outfit to be an amalgam of Power Girl and Power Man’s… that’d be hilarious.

Maybe I do IF more like this if I’m feeling bashful…
…but I’d probably get more points if I did the full -on collar and tattoo business.
So, for my last trick-or-treat… here’s a sideways shot 20 second video of Springfield Villain Montgomery Burns threading the needle.

oh, and more costume photos on Flickr)

While I was cleaning up the basement I found this picture frame holder still sealed in its box. I asked Aden about it, about where she might want it hanged and she said to just pitch it. I laughed but saw she was serious and said “well, at the very least it can go on the yard sale pile”.
I popped open the box and unwrapped its contents and thought aloud “I wonder if this will fit comics”? The click of the lightbulb sent me scurrying to one of the sections of comics scattered throughout the basement and, lo and behold, they fit perfectly. I said to my wife “this would be perfect for beside the bed” where there’s not a lot of room between the bed and the closet door for a side table to hold my stack of unreads.
I grabbed the drill, grabbed some screws and rushed towards the bedroom and yes, it’s awesome. Capacity is about 80 books (20 per “shelf”) but it’s perfect and induces fits of self-satisfied giggles every time I see it. Aden calls this the “best reuse of something useless ever”, and I’m in full agreement. I half joked “where’d you get this? We should fill a wall with them”.


(pictured from top to bottom, most of the books acquired at Toronto Fan Expo this year: The Thing #1 - 10, Captain America: Sentinel Of Liberty #1-4, Ms. Tree Quarterly #1-4, Atari Force #1-20… no pictured but also on the rack Green Arrow 1980’s mini-series #1-4, Phantom Stranger mini #1-4)

Married day 5 now, and all is still happy-go-snappy in this union of ours. Friday was spent gathering our senses and avoiding humidity. A nice relaxing day in general.
People keep asking if we’re taking a honeymoon or why we’re not taking one, and our stock answer to this point has been “San Diego was our preemptive honeymoon”, but I cam up with another answer the other day which is all things funny, sweet and cornball:
“If we take no honeymoon, then the honeymoon is never over”
Eat that potent potable, Trebeck!
Aden and I spent Saturday and Sunday working the Fan Expo at the Snail booth. Aden having to make sure the little one was okay each morning followed me in a few hours later but for me they were long, concrete-floor-pounding days that surprisingly went by rather quickly if not entirely painlessly. I’m definitely doing it again next year, and any other cons they’ll have me at. I think I enjoy being behind the booth more than roaming the floor. It’s like a little party back there, and somewhat serene being able to avoid and evade the flock on the floor. It also allows for some people watching and the observation is that con attendees, in general are pretty regular sorts, with a few highly unfortunate exceptions… the plastic surgery gone wrong leather lady, the +100 lbs Poison Ivy, the stink-trail guys, the hyper-obsessive Transformers fan, and the girls who put it all out there to get attention (and then complain about it).
The costumes, in general, were pretty blah, but I wish I had a camera for the guys dressed as #21 and #24 (the Monarch’s henchmen from The Venture Brothers) and the guy dressed as Deadpool. Solid jobs there. Also on costumes, I figured out what I’m going to be for Halloween this year: The Phantom Stranger. I need white gloves, a dark blue or black suit, a white turtleneck, a blue cape with a big collar, a blue hat, some eye shadow, (maybe) white contacts, and some bling (which I already know where to get).
I picked up loads of comics, most from the 1980’s which makes me happy. I seem to enjoy picking up sets rather than trades or bin diving for single issues. I like reading floppies the best and getting sets allows me to read complete stories while getting the floppy experience (ads and all). The best score, likely the complete run of Atari Force for $15.
The Snail has a lot of great old(er) comics, including a nice collection of old Action, Superman and Adventure comics which feature Bizarro that caught my eye. But for all the wild and strange covers from the 1950s, the absolute most awesome book I saw this weekend was Ghost Rider #16…

GHOST RIDER v. SHARK = AWESOME!
Working the con has given me a healthy chunk of change in trade, so I’m deciding what to do with it… I think, though, that I want that book…
update
As my wife (hehe, it’s weird but cool getting to say that) reminded me, we also got to take home the 7.0 CCB Graded Amazing Spider-Man #1 Saturday night which was really really neat, but also freakishly intense. We stored it in a laptop compartment of one of our bags so it was nice and snug and only took it out once to show Aden’s brother…when the wee one wanted to look at it I kinda flipped and blurted “DON’T TOUCH”… after which I apologized, letting him know that it was worth more money than I was. On the subway ride the next day all sorts of horrible variables ran through my brain of accidents and damages that could happen. Of course it made it back safely and I thought about joking with the bossman that something horrible happened to it along the way, but that kind of shit really isn’t very funny.
Another realization we had is our anniversary is going to fall on or around the Fan Expo every year, so we will, for many years to come, be associating our wedding with free comic store credit as well as agonizing feet and back pain. Hooray for unfortunate timing, heh. At the very least we could use our credit to buy each other stupidly expensive geek gifts…

San Diego Comic Con… or any comic convention for that matter, seems to no longer be of interest to me. As a lapsing “consumer of goods” I don’t really care so much about being “all up on th’ news” or “seeing it first” or “getting it first” or “exclusives” or “meeting (semi-)famous people and having them deface my property with ink”… it’s just not my bag. May have been at one point in time, but I guess priorities have shifted.
San Diego Comic Con is huge… like a foot-ball field sized convention center, packing in about 150,000 people over a 4(ish)-day span. It’s a lot of people in a goodly sized space clamoring for as much attention as they can get and/or give. People in some very respectable homemade costumes dance about the convention floor brushing right past people in some very respectable-but-ill-fitting costumes sidestepping people in some pretty nasty, pathetic or unwashed costumes. There’s regular people, nerds, geeks, trolls, ogres, hags, and a few unclassifiables.
The motley crew that make up the convention goer is comprised of primarily the fan, which is only fitting since conventions (this one, the largest in the world, included) started as merely fans gathering to discuss and share their experiences with comics and characters… then the creators, publishers, stakeholders, and other corporate entities got involved and took over the proceedings, and the whole thing is just a big promotional extravaganza. The fan, at San Diego, is actually more akin to “sheep”, herded in line after line to get to the trough. What’s in the trough is really dependent on the fan… could be an exclusive Hot Wheels Batman t-shirt or the limited edition Yu-Gi-Oh whatever or the Con Exclusive yadda blah blah or a poster signing by Kate Beckinsale or Ed Burns, or the chance to see exclusive footage from whatever new movie/tv show/video game company x is putting out, or it might be getting Neil Adams or Paul Dini to sign your comics… for most its a different feed or feed assortment, but shepherded in and out of lines nonetheless.
Once, I would have been swept up in amongst it all… 5 or 10 years ago, when my geektitude was at its peak I probably would have been chomping at the bit to see Kevin Smith speak live for four hours, or to see exclusive footage from the new Get Smart movie, or to go to the Lost panel or DC Countdown panel or Buffy panel and ask inane questions that I would stew over for minutes, only to realize that I missed the fact that someone had already asked the question or I would forget it just as I was being called. I would have been nervous around creators, my hands clammy and shaking, all Chris Farley like saying “Remember that time you wrote the Flash? That was awesome” and stuff.
Now, it’s kind of, well, not beneath me, because I do still have fannish tendencies, but the whole Convention vibe just seems grotesque in once sense (the whole commercial/marketing aspect) and pathetic, especially in terms of how much stock some people have placed this mass entertainment into their lives.
Aden and I checked out the convention schedule before we left, looking over the panel, looking at the artists and guests, and we decided we weren’t bringing anything to sign and we weren’t going to go to any of the panels. I had thought about the Lost panel, and also one on writing about comics, but decided, almost before arriving in San Diego, that neither were really of all that interest. You see, anything that will be worthy coming out of those panels will be easily accessible on-line in a matter of hours following it… there’s nothing you can learn in a panel that you won’t find out a day or two later with a few clicks of the mouse. Standing in line for 30 minutes to 2 or more hours, not really of interest when you’re in a city that has such beautiful weather and beaches and some interesting attractions as San Diego… why be inside wasting 4 hours of your day when you can waste 20 minutes another day catching up.
I mean, there is the experience of “being there” in a panel but that’s not worth much to me. There’s also the experience of “seeing it first”, when they show upcoming DVD movies like Superman Vs. Doomsday or the pilot episode of Fallen but that’s not really of concern to me either. I’m very much of the “I’ll see it eventually, if I really want to” mode at this stage.
What I did enjoy about the con was more peripheral. I skittered about the publisher’s booths saying hi and trying to make some contacts for Rack Raids in the hopes that we can get some broader publications involved and reviewed, bigger exposure to our growing readership other than the main spandex-clad stuff. While I had a horrible time speaking and I generally hate cold calling, I got into a good groove on Thursday which will hopefully yield positive results. I certainly have some following up to do.
On top of that, I met a few nice people on the way out to the con. Talented illustrators Michael Cho and Steve Manale who were cool people to board a plane with, then deplane with and then reboard another plane with.
The commercial booths, quite frankly, weren’t much different than what you get in Toronto (just more of them). Everybody’s selling the same stuff… everyone’s seem to have gotten the same discounted books from Marvel and are selling them at 50% off, everyone got all the toys I’ve already seen and all the books that are already out and it’s the sort of thing that impresses the con-goers who don’t spend as much time on the internet as I do and don’t have good comic book stores to go to.
I really think conventions are generally meant for smaller-town people who get wide-eyed at celebrity sightings and finding stuff they’ve never seen. If anything, perhaps, conventions aren’t really for me. I enjoy cons most when I’m with people I like. The past few years going to the cons with the old gang were great and being at SDCC with Aden was blissfully enjoyable.
I think maybe if I want to enjoy my cons in the future, I should start a sketchbook… something to give to the artists alley guys and get different artists to draw Space Ghost in their style… that might at least make for a much more rewarding take-away…
It seems to me though that this trip felt more business-like for me though, that I wasn’t there as a fan but as someone, well, not INSIDE the industry, but on the skirts thereof. I think I might be trading in my fanboy hat for a creator’s hat soon, that I won’t be looking at the writers and artists of comics as idols so much as fellow creators, and that even though we may not be equals that I’m putting it out there, contributing instead of just consuming. Eventually.

Aden and I walked into the comics shop on Wednesday and the manager, without saying anything at first, barely acknowledging us, grabs a copy of Previews off the shelf and then, flipping the pages, walks over to us and says to Aden, “How did you get them to make an action figure of your boyfriend?” and he holds up the full-page advertisement for the Robin 13″ Deluxe Collector Figure (vis:

At first I just thought, since Aden is a pretty big teen superhero fan, with Robin and/or Dick Grayson being her favourite, that George was just poking a bit of fun… but then I realized that he actually thought the action figure looks like me.

I dunno. Looks kind of like Peter Gallagher had relations with a Super-marionette and spawned a colour blind gymnast.
Anyone else see a resemblance?

Thanks to w(”Turbo”)Noodle

No commentary necessary.
(Alternatively: T-1, Shark-0)

With Spider-Man 3 raking in $150million in the US and $375million total internationally over the weekend, you can bet there’s more Spider-Man in the works, especially when the studio execs say things like this:

Everybody has every intention of making a fourth, a fifth and a sixth and on and on…

Well, let me tell you, just because Spider-Man 3 cashed in something fierce doesn’t mean you’re going to reap the benefits the next time around. Imagine if Spidey 3 was actually a good movie, and people wanted to go see it again, and again, and again… think of the money to be made from quality. Instead when you have Sam Raimi saying:

…The very nature of that story demands that you either do it [as] two [parts], if you want to spend more time with Venom, which I didn’t think was fair to the audience, to the fans of Spider-Man… I thought about it, I really did. And I kept reading the fans’ e-mails that [producer] Avi [Arad] would send me—’They’d better not just introduce him to tease us!’ … I felt that the fans didn’t want that, from the thousands of e-mails that were sent me.”

Avi said, ‘You’re not giving me what I asked you.’ … He said, ‘They want Venom. Just give them Venom already!’ So I said ‘OK.’ But, obviously, through the very nature of it, he’s only going to be in half an act or one act [at the end of the film]. I’ll just make it as thorough and the best that I can [and] deliver Venom in the most complete way that I understand the fans might want him. That was my desire. I was led there

How stupid is Avi Arad, and Sony? Sam Raimi - their golden boy for this project, the guy who is up in the air about continuing on with the series, the figurehead, whom, if he leaves, will also see Maguire and Dunst pull out - was ready to prepare two films, and you had him condense to one?
And since when do studio execs listen to fans? Fans are stupid. If you tease them with Venom in the third movie, you draw them in big-time for the fourth! The audience may bitch about cliffhanger endings, but they love it… they love the tease. They don’t really want what they think they want… give them what they don’t know they want. *SIGH*
And now the rumour is

…that small piece of alien symbiote becomes CARNAGE. Yes Cletus Kasady is coming to the big screen, one of Spider-Man most horrifying and evil villains. Not only with Parker have to deal with the red lean mean killing machine, but Connors is set to become the long awaited LIZARD! these two villains have all been CONFIRMED for Spider-Man 4. There is talk of the Black Cat making her first appearance, but that’s all but official.

*Le Sigh*
Carnage was, next to the Clone Saga, the worst thing that happened to Spider-Man in the 1990’s. Venom being one of the best. At the same time, there is the possibility that with Carnage, at least, they could do a good Venom movie, but with Carnage as sub. But still… I think the producers shot themselves in the foot with Spidey 3, and so they should return to a more character-focussed movie with Spider-Man 4.

Spider-Man 4 - perspective

With Peter and Mary Jane’s relationship at the end of 3 so troubled, four should begin with them in counseling, with a comedic bent as they try and avoid pointing out that Peter’s role as Spider-Man is causing a rift between them. A heated personal life is good comedic and dramatic fodder.
Enter the Black Cat. Yes, she’s perceived as a total riff off Catwoman (actually, the leather-clad cat-burgling vixen that we know Catwoman to be didn’t become that until Frank Miller did it in the 80’s) but she will serve a specific purpose here. She’s a black cat, and every time she crosses Spider-Man’s path, something goes wrong… either with him, or with MJ, or at school…
…Including one experiment in which Peter is helping his professor, Doc Connors with his regeneration experiment. As Marvel stories are wont to do, the experiment goes wrong in Peter’s hands, and Doc calls the experiment off. However Connors sees the fault and thinks he’s corrected it, ultimately experimenting on himself.
Doc Connors’ family life will have to be explored as the character will have to have relevance to someone more than just Peter when he turns into the Lizard and begins terrorizing the campus. The Doc Connors/Lizard situation should be more of a Jekyll and Hyde situation, which is both complimentary to Peter’s meek/mighty dual identity, and contrasting with logical/primal.
As Doc Connors transforms back and forth between himself and the Lizard, he loses himself… his normal self becoming more primal, his lizard self becoming more logical, if insane. As his twisted mentality progresses, he tries to perfect the solution so that he can be human with regenerative capabilities, but in order to do so, he must have more test subjects, and he begins kidnapping kids from the campus to experiment on. Spider-Man eventually discovers Doc’s secret as he battles more than one Lizard in a big fight sequence.
The meat of the story has to do with Peter having a slight obsession with Black Cat, going out on patrol for the purpose of finding her, at the sake of neglecting Mary Jane or Doc Connors/Lizard or Aunt May or the Bugle. Rooftop rendez-vous start to become more serious, and Peter’s devotion to his role-play as Spider-Man with the sexy, dangerous, thief for a girlfriend (the Black Cat sincerely reforming in the process) causes him to assess what’s actually important to him.
Eventually Peter tells Mary Jane about the affair (in a therapy session) and telling her the full story about the Black Cat in private. He recommits himself to her, and though hesitant, she does want to make it work.
Eventually Doc Connors/Lizard figures that Spider-Man, with his abilities, might be the cure he needs, and he and his Lizard minions set out to capture him. When he doesn’t make a date with her after his solemn swear that he’s going to be there, that the city can take care of itself for an evening, MJ sets out to find the Black Cat, only for her to reiterate that he’s broken it off with her, and that she hasn’t seen him for some time. Genuinely concerned, MJ and the Cat set out to find him, and it’s up to them to rescue him, and invariably for Peter to find the cure for Dr. Connors and the transformed students (brains over braun)
This film is a bit more straightforward, focusing more on Peter’s various relationships, and how he relates to them, and the climax has to do with Peter and Mary Jane’s relationship in jeopardy rather then either of them being in physical harm.
This go-around for Spider-Man should be lighter fare, although more dire in the personal life, not so much in the physical life. Though relationship drama is the focus, it’s a stronger Spider-Man movie for keeping the focus on Peter, but allowing MJ to be the stronger character.
The Black Cat should be attractive, yes, extremely so, but also very, very personable, and people should want Spider-Man to be with her, but they should also want Peter to be with MJ… the audience should be equally torn between two lovers, and in the end understand that Spider-Man is the fantasy and Peter is the man, just as Doc Connors must be transformed back from the Lizard to the man he was.

Onward

Spider-Man 5, if #4 doesn’t completely lose the audience’s faith or entertainment, should take up the storyline of Kraven’s Last Hunt, where the super-powered big-game hunter Kraven stalks Spider-Man and Peter in a Hitchcockian cat-and-mouse game that affects both of his lives. As he’s got a terminal disease, Kraven’s purpose is to have the ultimate game be his downfall, to die in the hunt. The effect this has on Peter physically and emotionally is huge, and inevitably, Kraven succeeds leaving Peter to contemplate his role as “hero”, reflecting upon the deaths of the man who killed Uncle Ben, Norman and Harry Osborne, Otto Octavius, and Eddie Brock… all of who died (apparently) as a result of fighting with him.
It’s in Spider-Man 6 that the city without Spider-man, is under siege by super-villains, the Shocker, Electro, Mysterio, Scorpion etc, and ultimately, this is where Carnage is introduced to draws him back into the game. The contrast between #5 and #6 is Kraven brings the terror to Peter, forcing him to give up. Carnage, on the other had, is just something Peter feels responsible for, and once he’s back in the game he has to start taking down all the super-criminals, Gauntlet-style in the process of trying to figure out the mystery of Carnage.

As I said in my review I thought from the trailer I had the film figured out… Yeah, obviously from the stink-fest it was, the story for Spider-Man 3 was a lot better in my head. Here’s how thought it should play out:

Act 1

Remember J. Jonah Jameson’s son from the second movie? The astronaut? The one that was going to marry Mary Jane? Yeah, him. Well, he brought back a space rock that carried the symbiont on it, and, much like Spider-Man’s origin where Peter got bit by the radioactive spider, Peter could have been taking pictures of the rock for the Bugle when a scuffle between him and Jameson’s son ensued and the alien affixes itself to him. MJ’s publicly humiliated when the media notes the scuffle.
Escaped felon Flint Marko, on the run from the cops, stumbles upon an experiment where his DNA gets mixed up with irradiated sand. Now an incredibly powerful being, Flint starts menacing New York City, on a crime wave for which Spidey becomes increasingly frustrated as he realizes how helpless he seems to be against Marko’s powers. The media is on Spider-Man’s case about how ineffectual he’s been.
Meanwhile, Eddie Brock is the hot new photographer at the Daily Bugle, and similar to Spidey’s frustration with the Sandman, Peter is just as frustrated when Eddie keeps scooping him and currying J.J. Jameson’s favor in the process.
School and Peter’s love life both start to fall apart, as Peter is distracted by his Bugle troubles and his Spidey troubles, and differently distracted by his gorgeous new lab partner (and Brock’s girlfriend) Gwen Stacy, whom he spends a lot of non-Spidey time with, making MJ very jealous (not to mention they have nerd chemistry, which Peter and MJ don’t). All the while, Peter gets edgier, shorter in temper, and although he wants to propose, he’s driving MJ away.
With all the chaos in his life, Peter forgot about Harry, who has now adopted the Green Goblin helm and started targeting him personally. It’s while fighting Harry as the Green Goblin and himself in plainclothes that the symbiont forms the black suit around him and as puzzled as he is, he can feel the power that the suit gives him. He beats Harry down, but Harry escapes badly defeated, swearing his revenge.

Act 2

Peter, pondering his seemingly new power, and a newfound confidence and attitude, arrogantly proposes to Mary Jane. She turns him down, stating they have problems they need to work out, and that Peter’s going through something he’s not addressing. He takes on Sandman again, seemingly killing him, and his photos win out over Brock. Having already humiliated Eddie, he takes Gwen out on date, and Eddie is furious. As they’re about to wrap up their date, Harry strikes again, snatching Gwen. Spider-man goes after them, and in the process he accidentally kills Gwen while trying to save her from falling from a bridge (just like in the comics).
Eddie, distraught, swears revenge. Peter, meanwhile, realizes how bad his life has turned and seeks solace in MJ. Together they get the suit off of him. Brock having tailed Peter to confront him about Gwen discovers Peter’s secret and the symbiont costume, where they form a dangerous union.

Act 3

Peter’s life is much darker, but things start back on the right track, with Spider-Man back in his old costume, doing good deeds, and a reconciliation with MJ beginning.
But, Venom begins to terrorize Peter, first by attacking the Bugle (where Peter is helpless to do anything without exposing himself), and then Aunt May, though that draws MJ and Peter closer together where the engagement does happen. But then Mary Jane is attacked, and in the final stage Harry. Peter deduces the outcome and comes to Harry’s aide, where the final showdown begins. All the while Peter is never sure if the man he’s saving is going to turn against him or not. In the end Harry sacrifices himself for Peter, and Venom is destroyed.
Peter’s world isn’t as bright as it used to be but the sun comes up and Peter and MJ have a wedding to look forward to. A waft of sand blows across the sun.
FIN

The key points:

- The Sandman is just a reoccurring criminal foil for the first act, thinly motivated by greed in comic book fashion. There really isn’t any need to establish a personal connection or make him in any way sympathetic or outright dangerous (leave that to Venom and the Goblin)
- Peter’s world falls apart and it’s the alien that takes advantage of it. While Peter’s anger won’t allow him to remove the costume, Mary Jane’s love can.
- Eddie Brock is much more an established part of Peter’s life, and even his social circle to an extent. Rather than having the Sandman be the new adversary, Eddie gets to be the anti-Peter (and eventually, the anti-Spider-Man)
- Harry’s story picks up where it left off in part 2 and follows through with the “like-father-like-son” aspect and Harry’s dementia
- MJ’s role is as Peter’s girlfriend, and a complication to his life but also his savior in a sense. She doesn’t need to be anything other than that in the film.
- Gwen can play a similar role as she did in the comics but as an effective character point for both Peter and Eddie Brock.
- The beats are: Act 1 - Peter’s multiple lives gets complicated; Act 2 - Peter thinks he finds the answer, but only falls further; Act 3 - Peter redeems himself by facing, essentially, his darker half.
- The focus of the entire movie is Peter/Spider-Man…

I don’t know that that’s entirely true, but I do have an unusual capacity for leaving things hanging, starting things up and never following through to completion, and in general, leaving things unsatisfied. What spawned this thought is the fact that I never completed my four-part tribute to “‘Manos’: The Hands of Fate”
I did get parts one, two and three (although in a server move the photos have gone missing… but I shall repost them at some point), but part four never made it to air.
That reminds me, I haven’t watched “Manos” in a while… I wonder if that youtube link still works… hrm.. nope.
But I did find that someone, apparently, made a stage production out of the Hands of Fate. Awesome! (If anyone was looking for a birthday present for me… ahem…)
How much do I like Manos? So much I made a role-playing game character out of him (and Torgo too!). I’ve made a half doze RPG characters in my few months of gaming, and of all of them, he’s my second favourite (my first is the one based off my old City of Heroes character, Downpour).

The pants

The reason I started thinking about Manos this morning was because I put on my new(ish) cargo pants and realized I hate cargo pants. They fit just fine, but the pockets make my legs look like Torgo’s, and that’s just not cool. And really, who needs 7 to 10 pockets on a pair of pants anyway? Who, I ask of you?

Morning rain

Joany, can I just say how flippin awesome your Ramblin’ Rosemary shampoo is. The tingly sensation it produces around my hairline induces fits of giggles, and the sweet sinus-clearing scent of peppermint is the best way to shock yourself awake in the morning. It’s awesome. Better than “Manos” awesome.
(Joan is the creator of the Faery’s Tub bath products, and they’ve yet to let me down… order some now!)

The only affirmation you will ever need…
“You look… very powerful.
You look like a winner.
You look very important, dynamic, and very unstoppable, and…
you look very powerful.”

meanwhile…

SXSW Grindhouse trailer contest winner… from Halifax
Hobo With A Shotgun