On Sun, 29 Jul 2001, Ronn Blankenship wrote:
>
> No matter how fine he spins it, I have a hard time figuring out where he
> can carry enough web fluid on his person to stretch a web strong enough to
> hold a helicopter between the World Trade Center towers . . .
>
> (Yeah, I know: suspension of disbelief.)
Think of it as poetic license. :-) Personally, I have trouble
understanding how Batman can drive a rocket-car in city traffic without
causing passing vehicles, gas stations, and tanker trucks to
explode--even their tires if not their gas-tanks & engines.
> That was always the problem with Spider-Man (and most other Marvel heroes)
> back in the 60's: while they may not have been psychotic, they were
> certainly brooding much of the time. By comparison, Clark Kent, _et. al._
> (yes, even that era's Bruce Wayne), were well-adjusted and normal . . .
I guess that was Marvel trying to introduce "psychological realism" to the
genre, but I wasn't born when that happened, so I don't know what it
seemed like at the time.
But I've been reading Spidey's adventures in reprints of the original
series from the Sixties, and it seems to me that his "brooding" is of the
entirely normal sort for a teenager who happenes to be a superhero after
school. He worries about money, being left with Aunt May in poverty by
Uncle Ben's death (and her chronic illnesses); he worries about girls; he
worries about being accepted by his classmates, and so on. In other
words, he's normal. By contrast, the "normality" of Batman and Superman
strike me as the contentment of people made untouchable by their wealth
and power respectively. Bruce Wayne has his millions and Superman his
invulnerability (and his Fortress of Solitude--Clark has an apartment just
to keep up appearances, one feels), but only Peter Parker has to worry
about paying the rent.
Also, it seems to me that much of Spider-man intentionally pokes fun at
the DC stalwarts. J Jonah Jameson's cyncial yellow journalism provides a
realistic contrast to Perry White's unimpeachable editorial virtue.
Parker's difficulty going to school, holding a part-time job, and fighting
bad guys is a marked contrast to the ease with which Batty and Supe seem
to juggle two stellar, full-time careers simultaneously. With a
millionaire philanthropist, tycoon, & crime-fighter on the one hand, and a
star reporter & god-like savior of the United States on the other, DC's
superheroes' chief superpower appears to be time management.
Finally, I think the Everyman sense of humor and perspective that marks
Spidey has allowed him to make the transition to the "darker" comics of
today with far more grace than Batman and Superman, who had to fall from a
kind of olympian grace in order to made more human, and who aren't happy
about the transition *at all.* Spiderman, despite his superpowers, was
never up on that authoritarian pedestal, so now he has the emotional
resilience of someone well-equipped to accept that you can't control
everything and sometimes life sucks but you get over it. I just can't
help but like the guy.
Marvin "refusing to talk politics except to poke fun" Long
Austin, Texas
Nuke the straight consumerist wildebeests for Buddha!
