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Spider-Man Clone Saga: Bumblebees and Dick Lamps
51 Plays2 years ago
Corinne goes over the Funeral for an Octopus and tries to understand why it exists.
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Transcript
Introduction and Catching Up
00:00:13
Speaker
Hello, and welcome to Comically Pedantic, where we take a detailed look at the complicated concepts, characters, and history of comic book culture. I'm your host, Eric L. Jason, joining me on this episode, as always, is the wonderful Corinne Levy. Bonjour! I'm French now. Okay, so before we get too invested in this episode, I need to ask what your bright spot is.
00:00:34
Speaker
We haven't recorded in so long and I forgot to ask. Okay. Time has passed since we've last done this. We've had a lot of time pass and a lot of stuff have come up. Things have come up. Things have moved along. What a time to be alive.
Adventures and Agreements
00:00:57
Speaker
I got to go to IKEA for the first time with you and Austin. That was great.
00:01:03
Speaker
What else? I'm moving, but I'm not gonna tell you where. You have a new place. I will be moving. I'm very upset about it because it's much further away.
00:01:18
Speaker
I know we're all sad about it, but it's fun. It's exciting. Our our crew will be friends forever. So I'm not worried about it. Plus, like we did sign on to like a year long project, essentially.
00:01:34
Speaker
So like, not that there's like a written contract that we have to finish this, but just for the sake of like integrity, we have to at least finish this project. We have a handshake agreement. That's enough for me. I don't need to do some weird like a blood ritual. I'm aware that like,
00:01:54
Speaker
Good handshake, we're doing this. So yeah, those are all the big things.
Diving into Spider-Man
00:02:03
Speaker
Oh, I finished part two of Sandman, that big old book. Oh, we're going to have to do another episode for that. I'm so excited. And I just started watching the show very behind everybody else. But I have so many thoughts, but I'm not going to share them right now because we have a different thing to talk about.
00:02:23
Speaker
We got to talk about Spider-Man again, because what else do we ever talk about? Nothing. It's just Spider-Man now. If you were to log into our Instagram for the show, it is like everything that is recommended to the show is a Spider-Man related thing. Yeah. Because that's most of what we're posting about, talking about, you know, so it's like... And then occasionally like a Power Rangers thing.
00:02:52
Speaker
but otherwise is Spider-Man. Power Rangers, Sonic the Hedgehog, Spider-Man, but the majority of what we do is Spider-Man related. So I think that it's picking up and it is listening.
00:03:08
Speaker
It is. Our little FBI agents are also spider fans. And that's okay. I think it's just funny that it's like, we're so committed to doing this. And this is like, after reading it, like, I'm like, Oh, yeah, this is like a fun jaunt. But I don't think I still don't think Spider-Man is going to be like my go to like comic pickup.
00:03:29
Speaker
So I think this is where it gets a little iffy because for me, Spider-Man was always a huge character. I was obsessed with Spider-Man as a kid. And if you were to ask me to give you like what I was super into when it comes to Spider-Man, all of my examples are going to be very old.
00:03:57
Speaker
Right. Almost none of the new stuff. I love Ultimate Spider-Man, but at this point, it's 20 years old. Okay. Then beyond that, the majority of my favorite Spider-Man stuff comes from the 80s or the 60s. And I think that's okay. It's all right to just one era of something. I don't think it makes you any more or less of a fan or anything.
00:04:26
Speaker
I really loved the Tobey Maguire Spider-Man movies and I think that might be it. I think that's it for my Spider-Man experience. I could be wrong. I love to be wrong about these things where I think I don't like something and then I end up loving something. So who knows? We have so many other issues to read. It could turn on me.
00:04:46
Speaker
It could grow on me. I'll share my opinions on the Scarlet Spider once we finish talking about what happened with this week's reading, but I could be swayed. I'm not shutting it down right away, because it's way too soon to do that. Which is interesting, because we're also... I don't remember how many episodes we are into this particular Spider-Man saga, but...
00:05:16
Speaker
Like it's a while into it, but yet it's still very early. Yeah. Like I think this is considered maybe like the sixth reading episode.
Comic Book Dynamics and Recommendations
00:05:30
Speaker
Yeah. That makes sense. Yeah. Cause I, I, I titled them for all my little notes that I make. I titled them, but, uh, yeah, I think we're on number six.
00:05:42
Speaker
And there's still so many more to go. I haven't had to scroll down yet on the sheet that we have. So we had a lot to go over. But you're right, so much has happened. They really pack it in. And I guess that has to do with how they were releasing comics at the time. But they really pack stuff in. So these little mini runs is wild.
00:06:06
Speaker
Oh, wait until we get to the, the next episode. Cause let me tell you, I'm only doing three episode or yet three issues of the, of the comic. And yet it is a full set of notes. It is crazy. Cause nothing stops. It's just, here's the thing. Here's the thing. Here's the thing.
00:06:26
Speaker
This one's a little easier. Today we're going to be talking about the funeral for an octopus. It is a little more of a streamlined story, like you could just kind of read it on its own and be okay with it. There's definitely going to be some parts that if you hadn't read like previous clone saga stuff, you might be like a little confused.
00:06:48
Speaker
but also I think we've been pretty mutually confused at some quality parts and we started from the beginning. So like, I think you gotta decide whether or not that's a fully understanding is that much of a big goal for you or if you just want a real splaty splaty. But yeah, I think we can get right into it if you want. Oh, I know you have to tell, oh my God, no, you have to tell me about a bright spot. I forgot how this podcast worked.
00:07:18
Speaker
I just had a pure panic moment. I was like, wait a minute. I didn't ask Derek how he was doing. Bright spot. I mean, the obvious one for me is I just got a big promotion at work. Yay. So that's very nice and very exciting. It definitely is something that... It's been a long time coming.
00:07:45
Speaker
Yeah, it's one of those things where it was like, oh, you're only going to be in this position for a certain period of time. And then it's like, it comes to taking the next position and there was nothing available near me. There was stuff that was available, but it's like, I am not going over. I actually, I had a meeting with, uh,
00:08:11
Speaker
one of my bosses and they were like, are you okay with moving? And I was like, no.
00:08:16
Speaker
Absolutely not. I guess getting a promotion is a big one. Also, in terms of scale, very different scale, chocolate almonds, they're great. I had some just before I left work earlier, there was like a little jar of chocolate almonds and I was like, oh damn, I love almonds. I'm going to have some of these. I love that. And I had way too many.
00:08:43
Speaker
No, there's no such thing as too many almonds. No such thing. My, oh, now we should do, oh, we should do bright spot and then we should do like top tier treat of the week. Cause there's so many, I love treats so much.
00:09:01
Speaker
They are the best. Austin made a bunch of challah bread, so that's going to be up there too. I love it. I love challah bread. It's a good time. I really wanted a loaf of it. She sent me a photo and I was like, damn, let's go bread. It is very good. Let's get this bread. I wanted it so bad. She braids it really well. Yeah. We actually went over to someone in the synagogue.
00:09:28
Speaker
were part of, we went to their house and they did a little like braiding presentation. It was very fun. Fancy. I love that.
00:09:41
Speaker
Oh, it sounds like you had such a good treat filled time. Oh, yeah. I think my top tier treat is the meatballs from Ikea because I never had them. And Austin would know. But the strawberry shortcake that they had there was banging. It was so good. It was like it didn't have Ikea has no right to have such delicious treats. But here it is.
00:10:04
Speaker
It's insane to me that you can, in the middle of the day, be kind of like, I need to buy a couch. Also, I would like some good food and you can go to one place for both. It's insane. I love it. They had so many things. I took so many photos of things that I wanted and who knows? Maybe I'll be getting some of them things. I'll let you know.
00:10:28
Speaker
Well, I'm glad you had some sweet treats. You know who didn't have any sweet treats? Dr. Octopus, because he's dead. What a great transition. He died. He died last episode. Spoiler alert, if you didn't watch or listen, I don't know what kind of medium this is anymore. If you did not perceive the last episode,
00:10:53
Speaker
Dr. Octopus is dead. Uh, should we go into what happened in this issue? So you have a funeral for an octopus. Uh, is there, I don't know. It's just issue one, right? There's no like name for, Oh, I guess there is. It's called eight arms beyond the grave. Yeah. Um, yes. Eight arms beyond the grave. And then.
00:11:18
Speaker
I pretty much stopped giving the subtitles after that because I was like, this is good enough. I'm a fan of this. I want to keep it the whole way. There's also right before we get into the actual funeral of the late great Dr. Octopus, there is a wretched Spider-Man Unlimited issue that we have to talk about just a little bit. All right.
00:11:45
Speaker
Yeah, so this is Spider-Man Unlimited 8. In the grand scheme of things, just the people who are genuinely wanting to read like the clone saga, this
00:11:58
Speaker
If you wanted to read it, you could, but like, don't bust your ass trying to find it. If you're not that determined, it's fine. This is just kind of the first issue where you see the Scarlet Spider and Spider-Man kind of together, but not really. This is probably the closest proximity that I have read them in, which is cool. And then it kind of continues.
00:12:23
Speaker
You can tell like they're writing them closer and closer together and then maybe they'll collide again. I don't know. Yeah. So Spider-Man Unlimited 8 starts with this terrorist group called Terror Unlimited.
00:12:39
Speaker
which is a bit fitting for the run that it's in. Also, I'm just gonna give a bit of a warning. This issue does talk a lot about terrorism, and it's also very, I think we mentioned it in other episodes, that there's gonna be an issue that's weirdly close to 9-11.
00:13:00
Speaker
So this is the one. I did not know that going in. I'm fine. But it was really kind of intense and just a bit funky. So if you need another reason to maybe skip it.
00:13:16
Speaker
That might be a reason if you're not, you know, ready to read something like that so it kind of starts with This this terrorist group terror unlimited they crash into the World Trade Center like through a window and they enter on one of the floors where there's like a restaurant and they start taking hostages and
00:13:39
Speaker
And this also happens to be where Mary Jane is. She's having like lunch with a friend and she is pregnant at the time. We learned previously that, you know, Spider-Man and Mary Jane are going to have a baby. So she is pregnant at this time. This is all kind of moving forward in the timeline. We're going to cut to a much easier scene now. They burst in.
00:14:06
Speaker
They burst in during like a lunch hour. It just cuts away. And then it's like moving on. It's really bizarre. So now we run into, do you remember like the first issue that I read? And I was like, there's a homeless man, his name's Richard. We're probably never gonna see him again. We see him again, he's back. And Richard is no longer homeless.
00:14:33
Speaker
Oh, good for him. Yeah. We love the success story. I know, right? He runs into Ben Riley. Ben Riley is like staying in a hotel and this also happens to be where Richard now lives. Richard got his job back at Stark Enterprises and he's basically Ben's neighbor and Rich is like,
00:14:54
Speaker
Thanking Ben. He's like, Oh, you really like helped me. Like when I was having a bad time and I'm just so grateful. Cause like, you know, the events that happened after we met, like I ended up being off of the streets and Ben Riley's like, Oh, that's so nice. Like we should get coffee sometime. And Richard's like, that's great, but I gotta go right now. I gotta go do some work with this thing called the South street mission.
00:15:23
Speaker
And Ben's like, all right, bye. Um, and then kind of the scene ends and Ben Riley reads that Dr. Octopus is dead. And though he's never like had a real interaction with Dr. Dacock, sometimes I don't know what to call him. There's so many names.
00:15:46
Speaker
Um, auto octavious, but so he reads this and he's like, I don't personally know this person, but like, I have very strong memories of them, but these memories aren't mine. And he's kind of struggling with like how to deal with this news. Um, so he's like, I'm just going to go like swing on some webs and that's how I'm going to process my feelings. And that's very on brand for Spider-Man.
00:16:16
Speaker
It really is also kind of the way he did it. It was like, almost like, I'm going to use exercise for my mental health. And I was like, wow, good for you, Ben. Ben's doing great. Uh, so he's blowing up some steam swinging around the city. Peter arrives home and he finds a note from MJ saying that like, she's out to dinner. The restaurant is called the skyline, which is in one of the twin towers. Uh,
00:16:46
Speaker
No one quite knows the situation at the towers. So he just sees this note and he's like, oh, everything's fine. I have a free afternoon. I'm going to go like take a shower, take a nap kind of deal. So he goes to take like quick snooze.
00:17:02
Speaker
which is a bit yikes because we, the reader, know what's going on. And you're like, now don't go back to sleep. I do like that the idea is just sort of like, and now our hero takes a nap. Yeah, it's really weird. It just makes me nervous. But so now we're going to go back to the Trade Center and the police are there. They're trying to negotiate with
00:17:32
Speaker
Terror Unlimited. Now, this is a very weird group of terrorists. They're all in this gold tech armor. And what they're doing, it's not to be against the country, what we typically associate terrorists to be with. They just want a bunch of money. So they can be on yachts and weird shit like that.
00:18:03
Speaker
But they're okay. I mean, I guess they're, I needed to preface like what their motive, their motives are just for money so they can be rich and live like rich lifestyles. Um, that's interesting. Yeah. It's kind of weird that they were like, so we're just going to take over the trade center. And so the police are like working with them. They're like, you know, what do you want? And
00:18:32
Speaker
terrorist group was like, we don't just want a shit ton of money. And so like the police agree with like the requests. They're like, all right, we'll give you a bunch of money. Uh, we just have to like department absolutely negotiates with terrorists. Like, I guess we're just going to do that because we can't think of anything else. And they're like, it just might take a minute to get the money.
00:18:59
Speaker
And so then the terrorist groups are like, no, we want it right now. And they fire a missile out of one of the buildings. And they just shoot it at a random location. So it's going somewhere else in the city. Unfortunately, it happens to go and hit where the South Street mission is. Oh, no. Quite frankly, dick move.
00:19:29
Speaker
Well, yeah. Also, damn, Richard has some bad luck. Yeah, so unfortunately Richard dies, which I was really sad about because I was really rooting for him. Damn. And while the Scarlet Spider, Ben Riley, he's swinging around. He witnesses the explosion and he goes to investigate it and he finds Richard dead.
00:19:52
Speaker
And he is just so sad. He's so upset. He's like, this was like my new friend. It was someone that I like one of my first like lives saved before and now they're gone. He's real. And so he's like, I'm going after these people. I'm going to I'm going to fuck him up. So he's going to try and find who did this.
00:20:19
Speaker
Which, fun fact, it's not going to be hard to figure out. I feel like at that point you would just follow the police sirens that seem to be, I mean, if the rocket or the missile or whatever came out of something not that far, like it can't be crazy far. No, it can't. So thankfully he's going to figure it out pretty quickly, like where it came from.
00:20:41
Speaker
But meanwhile, we're going back to the Skyland and the restaurant and we're just kind of witnessing how shitty Terror Unlimited is. They're just like, randomly, just anybody that is an inconvenience to them if it's like, you know, a hostage who has to go to the bathroom or something, or if it's one of their co-
00:21:09
Speaker
people, I've totally forgot the word, it's not a coworker. They're not on the table. They're on the job. They're here to make money just like anybody else. Or like if it's a fellow goon, I'm going to call it that. They're just, yeah. So like, there's like a hostage that gets shot because of like, he had to go to the bathroom. And then someone's like, hey, he just had to go to the bathroom.
00:21:38
Speaker
Why did you do that? Then one of the goons will be like, yeah, why did they do that? And would just shoot the person who shot the other person. They just don't give shit. They're just doing whatever. It's really chaotic. And Mary Jane is just like, damn, they're just gonna do this to anybody that gets slightly in their way. And I'm pregnant.
00:22:03
Speaker
This is dangerous. And I'm like getting stressed for her because I was like, oh, I don't like this. But she looks out the window as she's like sitting down and she sees like the silhouette of like a Spider-Man crawling up one of the other towers. And it's Ben Riley. She doesn't know that. She's like, oh, thank God, my husband's gonna save the day. Well, currently her husband is not saving the day. He's currently waking up. He's taking a nap. He's currently waking up from the nap now. Oh, okay.
00:22:32
Speaker
So he wakes up from the nap and hears on the radio about what's been going on. And he's like, oh shit. And so he instantly is like swinging over. I love that I get to say swinging over because that's a verb you don't get to use often for people's movement. So yeah, he's, he's going over. He saves like a chopper that was about to get blown up.
00:22:59
Speaker
I don't know, like with webbing, it's very vague. They kind of just save everybody with webs. I think that's just a fun thing about Spider-Man. I know that that's like the core thing about him. But when you read these for so long, you really are reminded how convenient the webbing is. It just does whatever. It does anything. There's impact webbing. There's like compact webbing. There's all of the webbing and they have it and they're using it. It's great. Both of the Spider-Man don't know that each of them are there.
00:23:30
Speaker
And it's interesting. It's like a sitcom episode. Kinda. And the interesting thing too is that they go about saving the day in a different way. They both end up approaching different towers. So Spider-Man, because he wants to save his wife, he knows where his wife is, he goes for the tower where the restaurant is and shut those people down.
00:23:57
Speaker
Scarlet Spider noticed that there is a specific detonator that is going to the other tower. So he's like, I'm gonna approach that tower where the detonator is going, because they have more bombs, which is like, again, this is not a great read for people who are particularly affected by the events of 9-11. It's like this weird,
00:24:25
Speaker
It's kind of serious and tense, but it's also like the people that are the bad guys in this issue are just so terrible and also just so weird. It's really bizarre. But so they're solving the situation in two different ways. And now towards the end of the issue, they start to just bring Ken Ellis, the reporter, in.
00:24:53
Speaker
And he's really determined to get a story written about this whole attack to the point where he just sneaks past the police and goes into the building where Spider-Man is and goes up to one of the terrorists and is trying to talk to them to get his story and beat Yurik
00:25:21
Speaker
which is apparently just a classic Ken Ellis thing to do. And it's really annoying. I do love that no matter when you read Spider-Man comics, Ben Urich is like the reporter. Yeah. I think I'm reading the X-Men comics that came out just within the last year, and Ben Urich is a huge part of it, which is so weird to me.
00:25:49
Speaker
Yeah, it's really bizarre. At first, Spider-Man sees Ken and is like, what the hell is he doing? This is the dumbest thing I've ever seen in my life. And then it weirdly works out because Ken just distracts one of these people long enough for Spider-Man to knock him over. And now it's just jumping back and forth between the Scarlet Spider and Spider-Man kicking ass.
00:26:15
Speaker
and being the good guys, doing the right thing, till eventually the day is saved, Mary Jane is fine, the detonator is gone, and everyone's okay, and Ken Ellis gets his story at the end of it. It was just a weird read.
00:26:39
Speaker
I can see that. It was cool if you just look at how characters worked. It was cool to see how Ben Riley's Scarlet Spider and Peter Parker's Spider-Man went at solving problems, the same problem in two different ways.
00:26:56
Speaker
Um, but it just all really like in the, the current day felt weird reading because of like the context that we now have of like nine 11. Yeah. So it was like really weird just seeing a bunch of like weird bronze idiots. Just like the bronze idiots. Cause they would go from being like absolutely ruthless and just like they would kill a random person.
00:27:26
Speaker
whether it's their own or someone else's, to then just be like, oh, I can't wait to be on a yacht with hot babes. And it was, so it was very jarring. It was very weird. I didn't like it. But again, I liked that you could see two characters that are supposed to be each other, but you can see there's like still individuality, which was nice for Ben Riley.
00:27:55
Speaker
But overall, I would have preferred to skip it. So we're going to move on now. I feel like that's sort of the way that Spider-Man Unlimited has sort of set there. Their stakes are so low now, which is so weird because like it kind of is supposed to be a book that
00:28:23
Speaker
fits in between things. But then like they started Spider-Man Unlimited with maximum carnage. So it was like a main part of the series. Yeah. And now it's just kind of like, Oh, and then this thing happened. I don't know. That's weird. I also think, so I, I've mentioned before my favorite Spider-Man Unlimited is Spider-Man. Um, I don't know if it's my favorite, but it's my favorite that I've, that comes to mind right off the top of my head. Spider-Man Unlimited three.
00:28:51
Speaker
because it introduces, there's a character who is working on a obituary for Dr. Octopus. That would have been so cool to remember.
00:29:08
Speaker
That one, yes, it is good. I loved that story. And the idea is this person, like Dr. Octopus is doing a thing, so they are putting an obituary together in the event that he dies because they don't know if he's going to die, right? And that way they're just prepared so it can go out with the next issue.
00:29:31
Speaker
And that's great. And it also would make sense to put here. That should have been this one. Like this is not related to what is about to happen at all. So the obituary would have been cool, especially as like a prelude. But like, and
00:29:57
Speaker
I'm not that much of a history buff. I don't know if something funky was going on in like 1995 at the moment with New York and anything like that, but this was just weird. Like with the World Trade Center? Yeah. I mean, there were ongoing threats. In 1993, there was a bombing at the World Trade Center. Right.
00:30:27
Speaker
Cause I knew there was something before like, yeah, before like, you know, the 9-11 a lot of us think of today. But it was just, it was so weird. I don't know. And then it's like, I don't know. It leaves a really weird taste in my mouth. Some of the art was cool. I'm trying to be positive about it, but overall it was just a really like weird read. It wasn't very like pleasant.
00:30:56
Speaker
We lost Richard. I liked Richard. I, I, I, I just from hearing about Richard from you, I liked Richard. He was just getting kicked down in life and they finally got brought back up and we were all like, Oh yay, good job.
00:31:13
Speaker
And then they're like, and now he dies from like literally the stupidest people ever. So it's weird. It was a weird read. The rest of this is better though. And it's also like all connected to each, like the next three are connected to each other, which is great. Now we get to talk about the actual funeral for an octopus.
00:31:34
Speaker
which is the lovely eight arms beyond the grave. I thankfully took some time in between reading what I read last to getting to this and it's kind of a big mood shift and it made me happy. So it opens up with Spider-Man. He is investigating what's left of Doc Ock's lab and he finds some of like the bird toxin. So he takes it.
00:32:03
Speaker
to study later to kind of figure out what's up with it. Now dressed as Peter Parker, he's gonna go to Doc Ock's funeral because obviously it would be a bit of like a stir if he went as Spider-Man. So he's just kind of gonna pull off his like photographer for the press kind of thing to get into this funeral.
00:32:27
Speaker
And it does work because it is the, the event is just, I call it an event because that's really how it's treated. Uh, there's reporters from Neat Lake TV and newspaper and everyone's there, including Betty Brandt. And it's, it's not a lot of loved ones, as you may imagine, because he was a villain. There's a couple goons, uh, cause goon is the term of the day.
00:32:58
Speaker
The one family member that is there, though, is Elias Hargrove. So that's Doc Ock's cousin. He doesn't show up, obviously, like in previous Clone Saga things, but he has shown up in other issues occasionally, it sounds like. And so Hargrove is the one that gives the eulogy
00:33:24
Speaker
He keeps it pretty like short and sweet and like, you know, he doesn't really shy away from like, yeah, he was like a villain, but like, hey, like it's a, it's a shame that he is dead and I'm sure he's left a lot of an impression on many lives. He keeps it pretty much of a neutral, it's a nooch eulogy.
00:33:47
Speaker
I don't know if you've, I don't actually don't know if we've talked about it, but I don't know if you've ever read Speaker for the Dead. It is one of my favorite books by Orson Scott Card. And it is a sequel to Ender's Game, but it kind of also, it builds off of some of the events that happened, but you can kind of also just read it.
00:34:15
Speaker
on its own and it is so good. And part of the idea, the speaker for the dead is a person who goes to a community after someone has died and they learn sort of the truth about someone good and bad. And they kind of give a eulogy for that person. It's sort of a way, like everyone deserves
00:34:44
Speaker
that regardless of what they did. Yeah. Because you don't know the context to who they are as a person, why they are the way they are. And a lot of people like learn about that person after they died. There's also like a sci-fi plot behind it, but like. Yeah, but the themes there are, I think are really nice. Because I agree. I think when someone says that. I love that. And that reminds me so much of just
00:35:11
Speaker
You know, look, this guy's, he was a dick. He died, but like, we're gonna, we're gonna do this anyway. Yeah. And I think that's, that's fair. And I think it also, maybe, maybe it depends on like what you did in your life, like how, but I think like the average person, like, I, you know,
00:35:37
Speaker
Or maybe we all deserve respect in the end, I don't know. I would say for Dr. Octopus, it's a little different because it's also like, all right, you were very publicly a, you were a supervillain. You know, like there are- Yeah, like you were a supervillain. And I think it's funky, like if the more I think about the scene is like, is for me, like,
00:36:05
Speaker
I just always was like, yeah, it's Doc Ock. He's a bad guy. He's got metal arms. Watch out. I never really conceived the fact that he had a family. So it's kind of crazy to just see his cousin there. Well, and also keep in mind,
00:36:27
Speaker
we were just introduced to like a girlfriend that he has. And you didn't read the obituary issue of Spiderman Unlimited, but that also, that has Dr. Octopus, like you go into, like he had a very abusive childhood and you know, some of that.
00:36:54
Speaker
twists and bubbles up and you get, I mean, it's not an excuse for your actions, but you get like some understanding of why you might approach things a little differently. Yeah, everything affects everything. I think it's so funny that we just got like the deepest
00:37:18
Speaker
existential, like everything is a moral gray area in life. Cause that's like the shit that I love to read. And this is actually a bad guy died. Uh, literature, funny stuff. So yeah, what a time. The eulogy again, very nooch as we've discussed.
00:37:48
Speaker
Dr. Octopus was a complicated man, so he gets a simple yet also complicated eulogy. Ben, as Scarlet Spider, is kind of lurking from afar, because he, as we've discussed, Dr. Octopus is a very gray area of a person, apparently.
00:38:13
Speaker
Ben still doesn't really know how to feel or how to grieve the situation. So we hear a little bit of his thoughts, him just being like, I don't know how to feel about you, man. You were pretty terrible, but it's also like shame that a person died. So.
00:38:28
Speaker
I think maybe I have the most connection of opinion with Ben at the moment. What a time. But so now- We were also, we were introduced to Peter in a bad time in Peter's life. We were.
00:38:44
Speaker
All cards on the table, at least where I have read so far in the Clone Saga, Ben is my favorite Spider-Man so far. Yeah. And I agree. And I think we're going to see a little more as to why, because there's some decisions that Spider-Man makes in the next issue or two that I just don't. I think they're stupid. And you're about to find out why.
00:39:11
Speaker
After the funeral, like a little while after Spider-Man in the suit and all, he returns to the grave at night. I'm going to the grave at night. And he's going to pay his respects to Dr. Octopus. He like, the way it's all like worded, the dialogue, he like really like feels for Dr. Octopus.
00:39:39
Speaker
I know that this man saved his life, but he loves him now. He's so determined to find who's going to kill him or who killed him. He's now essentially had two funerals for this man. I'm trying to put myself in Peter's
00:40:03
Speaker
place because like I can see on one hand kind of being like this person was redeemable. Yeah, I guess so. And like Ben's never had that experience because they don't have the same, I'm sure their memories detach at some point. Well, I think from Ben's perspective, at least one of the last major events that he had with Otto would have been when
00:40:33
Speaker
He accidentally killed Gwen Stacy's dad. So like that checks out for Peter. There's a lot of context behind, you know, someone who is growing and changing and still a villain, but like clearly has a path forward to be a better person. And that's kind of, you know, for me, at least like, you know, Peter,
00:41:03
Speaker
A core thing about him is that he will do what he can to help someone, even if he doesn't believe them, he will eventually, like he will do what he can to try to like give them that opportunity to be a better person. Yeah. And now that I'm thinking about it, I wonder if it's, he's seeing a lot of like him in his low point as
00:41:32
Speaker
and adjacent to like Dr. Octopus. And then seeing Dr. Octopus voluntarily do a good thing is kind of like, and now he feels, you know, kind of like an oh shit moment. I can get my stuff together and like, I'll be fine. But then seeing that person die, be like, wait, but he was getting another shot. Like I'm,
00:42:02
Speaker
I gotta, I need another shot. I don't want to die. I think it's kind of like that too, maybe. Yeah. I mean, he's, he's gone through a lot in the last, however long, you know, in his, his time, uh, we've been reading, you know, uh, and,
00:42:21
Speaker
A lot of that goes into just the context of how you feel in a particular situation. Yeah. If that same event happened, if Doc Ock died now, you know, there's a lot, there's a very different context. He might not respond the same way. That's true. Epiphany's on the podcast. We love it. It's also just me being really judgy towards Spider-Man.
00:42:48
Speaker
No, I, look, I, I, I'll, I'll keep it. I've read a little bit ahead. I will keep a lot of my opinions for when we get to that. Okay. But there are moments where I'm just kind of like, God fucking damn it, Peter. Yeah. Cause I, I think sometimes, uh, what a time my brain just caught on fire for a second.
00:43:12
Speaker
Uh, I think sometimes we see like literary characters as like, why like they're fictional. Why aren't they just like streamline improving? But then we're like, Oh, well, well writers are humans and they're writing the human experience. Epiphany's on the podcast. Uh, okay. Okay. Also just the thing that I forgot to mention earlier.
00:43:38
Speaker
When he's looking through the lab, like in the very beginning of this whole issue, there's a drawing and I will send it to you and we will have it like for people to see. But when he's investigating the lab, he has like a flashlight that like it flashes like the Spider-Man face.
00:44:00
Speaker
As like from his belt, from his belt. Okay. So he's got a crotch light. It's a Dick lamp. It's a Dick lamp. And it was the first thing I saw after watching, after reading.
00:44:16
Speaker
This terrorist issue, it went from sad things to dick lamp and it was a great U-turn. You can't see the belt in the shot because of the way his knee is because he's crawling around, but it's a dick lamp and it made me giggle.
00:44:41
Speaker
So that was one of my pros. You're getting it ahead of time because I just, I couldn't hide it anymore. I realized I didn't mention it in the beginning and I couldn't wait till the end. I had to tell you now, it's funny. I liked it. It was a good time. It made me tea and I approve. Okay. So he's done grieving at night. And then doo doo doo. So now we're going to go.
00:45:12
Speaker
to Dr. Octopus's attorney meets Hargrove. His cousin, right. His cousin. So we've moved on from the grave and Spidey wanting to avenge Dr. Octopus. We are now on the streets of New York with Elias Hargrove and a lawyer. And the lawyer has a package for Elias. He's like, take this. This is the last thing that your cousin wanted you to have.
00:45:42
Speaker
It's like part of the will. So you gotta, it's just like, I have to give it to you because I'm a lawyer. Hargrove like begrudgingly takes it. He's like, I don't want anything to do with like the supervillain stuff anymore. I like, I just want like a clean slate to my life, but it's not over. Sorry, Elias, it's not over.
00:46:08
Speaker
He puts in the tape and according to like this recording, Hargrove is now the owner of all of the Dr. Octopus patents and inventions, like all of his stuff. And this is like, because according to
00:46:30
Speaker
Octavius, Otto, I can never remember his name. There's so many Os. Okay, according to Otto, Ellie's proved himself worthy in this run of like, it's called Lethal Foes of Spider-Man. It will be like a little asterisk in the issue. So that is where we have seen Hargrove before. I don't know if you've read any of that before.
00:46:52
Speaker
I have not read that before. I knew the name, but I think maybe because I've read part of this, I don't think I've ever read Lethal Pose. Okay. So yeah, apparently that's where Hargrove has earned his right to have all of
00:47:10
Speaker
these deadly weapons and patents and things like that. I wish I knew more lawyers so that I could ask them, because I'm very curious about the actual legality of this. Like someone who's like crazy. Like just given a tape, like has the lawyer reviewed the tape? And the person who died and is passing on all this stuff is a known criminal and most of what they've invented
00:47:36
Speaker
has been used for criminal activities. So like, I'm curious about the, how that works. I don't know. I'm not a lawyer. I kind of just like, I just rolled with it because I'm going to be honest. I didn't think anything of it until you said something. And until like a couple pages had been turned, I was like, wait a minute.
00:47:57
Speaker
Something's not adding up here. How did a lawyer get a hold of this VCR? And this VHS, how did they get all these things? Because it was the 90s, that's why. I don't know. So that is the end of that scene. And now we're going to go back to the Scarlet Spider, who runs into the new Vulture.
00:48:19
Speaker
There's a new one. So it's the same vulture. He's just younger. He drained the life force out of people, specifically Spider-Man's robot parents. It's very confusing and became younger somehow. Okay. So they're fighting in streets of New York, but the bird man, he escapes.
00:48:47
Speaker
But before he escapes too far, Scarlet Spider attaches like a little tracker to like one of his wing pieces or something. Yeah, the Spider Tracer. Yeah, a little Spidey Tracer. It's a cute accessory. We're here for it. But so the new Vulture arrives to his destination, which is... is a meeting of the Sinister Six. Oh my god.
00:49:16
Speaker
So many people, it's not all six though, it's just four of them. The sinister four. The fearsome four. The frightful four. The frightful four. I'm a fan of that. Now we have an interlude. We can have music for an interlude.
00:49:38
Speaker
So we are at the warehouse where Dr. Octopus's things are, which Hargrove got a tape about. But this is where I was like, things aren't adding up with the lawyer. There's a character, his name is Reinhold. He works for the government. And he wants to make copies of the Doc Oc Arms.
00:50:05
Speaker
But the person, the scientist that's like managing the warehouse where all these things are, doesn't agree with the command. And then there comes to a point where they're talking and like the scientist is like, but none of this makes any sense, like scientifically how you can recreate the arms and get them to like follow the command of the person wearing them.
00:50:33
Speaker
because of the way that Doc Ock made them and how they connected to them and all this stuff. And then for some reason, the man in the government, Reinhold, compares the situation to bumblebees. Oh. To bumblebees. Because bumblebees aren't supposed to fly.
00:50:53
Speaker
That's exactly what I was going to say. He's like, but they, they don't know that they just, so they just do it. So he's kind of like, just make, make the impossible happen. Make bumblebees is essentially. It doesn't quite work. I mean, like a look, I appreciate the attempt. Yeah. It's like really bizarre. I'm pulling up. There it is. I'm going to quote it because just it fascinated me.
00:51:22
Speaker
Because, so we read, I mean, I can't speak totally for Derek, because Derek might just have a larger physical library than I do. Oliver, please don't eat my root beer float. Thank you. Please hold, I have to move my glass. Oh my, that doesn't drink something you shouldn't.
00:51:43
Speaker
Okay, so I read most of this stuff through Marvel Unlimited. I know Derek has some physical copies of things, but I go through all of Marvel Unlimited. And so it kind of takes you panel by panel, and then sometimes it'll show you the blown up images. But this one just showed me the panel.
00:52:09
Speaker
And it's the two dialogues. So Reinhold is like, maybe you can buy a clue among like the refuse. And the scientist was like, but these, these readouts don't make any sense. And then the government just yells, neither do bumblebees more ready. And it's just so aggressive. He just hates bumblebees. Just fuck them. They don't make sense. I don't like them.
00:52:36
Speaker
Yeah, he's just like, either Bumblebees, that I'm just, that was the end of the page. And I didn't know if he was going to explain it or not. And that gave me so much joy until he then explained it. And I just wish they kept it as is. But then I learned to think about Bumblebees. So what was it that you learned about Bumblebees?
00:53:03
Speaker
I didn't know that they weren't technically supposed to be able to fly, like just anatomically speaking. Because to me, I'm just like, the bees, they fly is fine. That's based on a, like a misconception about like how their wings work, really. Right. It's one of those things that's like, okay, yeah, I get
00:53:29
Speaker
If it's sort of okay. I don't know if you know about the, the, the fighter jet bias, uh, when it comes to like, let's say like world war two, uh, like an airplane comes back, it's covered in holes. Right. So, uh, like people were working engineers and scientists really were working to reinforce the areas of the plane that had bullet holes in it. Right. Because you're like, Hey, that's where they got shot. We need to make sure that like.
00:53:57
Speaker
this part of the plane is extra protected. The problem with that is you are doing this with planes that made it back.
00:54:09
Speaker
which meant that the ones that were shot down had, they were the ones who had weak spots that needed to be reinforced, not the ones that made it back. And it's sort of the same, when you look at like a bumblebee, you think of, oh, this is how this is supposed to work, because that's how things similar to it work. So then this doesn't make sense. No, you're just not looking at it the right way.
00:54:34
Speaker
That's all that is. What a time. But it made me giggle from Bumblebee's The Dick Lamps. This episode made me giggle. Okay. So one of the Spider-Man overhears this whole discussion and it's Spider-Man overhears this whole government discussion and is stressed. Moving on.
00:55:04
Speaker
That's it. The Sinister Six meeting is being hosted by Hargrove. He's on like a big, essentially like Skype call. He is the only one that's not physically there. And he is asking them to retrieve Doc Ock's things, which have been quote unquote confiscated by the government.
00:55:30
Speaker
And then the issue ends with the Scarlet Spider breaking into the meeting. It was like a good sneak attack because the new Vulture had the Spider Tracker on it. The Spider Tracer, yeah. Yeah. So cool. It ends with a bang. So Hargrave's plan is to send what remains of the Sinister Six to steal Dr. Octopus's stuff back from the government? Yes. Okay. Think about it. It's like Oceans 11.
00:56:00
Speaker
With bad guys. Yeah. So you have a hobgoblin. I love the hobgoblin. Yeah. You've got Mysterio. You have Electro. And then you've got Hargreeves. So I guess he's like a fill-in for Doc Ock. Pretty much. They're really only missing like
00:56:27
Speaker
Oh, and you have a new Vulture. He's just such like a bland character that I literally forgot about him. So it's five of them, but really it's like four of the actual Sinister Six. And Ellie's Hargrove is higher to them. It later is like, he's kind of blackmailing them because like Dr. Octopus had all this information about them. That's like, oh, we wouldn't want that to get released.
00:56:57
Speaker
It's yeah, it's really like the four slash five of them, but there's gonna be four of them doing a lot of the physical action who are the actual like super villains, who are gonna be like causing most of the chaos in the next issue, which is part two. So it's gonna open up right where it ended. The Scarlet Spider is beating up these four baddies.
00:57:21
Speaker
to the point that they have to literally blow up their hiding space just to get away from him. Hargrove is obviously safe because he was in this meeting remotely. He was the big guy on the TV screen. Yeah, but he's hoping that nobody, you know, saw his face like Spider-Man because he doesn't want to get affiliated with this, obviously. And
00:57:50
Speaker
now he just knows they're moving on to phase two of the plan to get all of the things back. Meanwhile, the government people have found a way to use the arms, and it has to do with they have to wear this special helmet that they made, and that's how
00:58:10
Speaker
the wearer would get control of the arms. So now not only are you just wearing arms, but you're wearing a helmet and arms and that's how they function. Does that make sense? Okay. Yeah, yeah. I'm just picturing it and in my mind I'm trying to figure out
00:58:26
Speaker
Why? Cause it had to do with like the brain waves. They go into like a lot of like big. Sci-fi kind of buzzwords in order to like describe it, but it has to do with like, Oh, like it's all kind of just like.
00:58:45
Speaker
It's the Star Trek technobabble. Yeah, the knee bone connected to the leg bone connected to the hip bone kind of thing with bigger words in order to describe how your head is connected to your arms. So I get that. And that's an interesting explanation. I think in the ultimate Spider-Man comics, one of the things that
00:59:13
Speaker
they eventually reveal is that Doc Ock was like a low level mutant and he actually had the ability to control metal. But he, it was one of those things that it was just such a, like an overlooked thing that he didn't realize that that's what he was doing. And that was an interesting take on it. I kind of like the idea of it being
00:59:39
Speaker
not him being a mutant though, like just something. The way it's discussed in this, it does not allude to him being a mutant or anything. They're just like, he was such a genius. And he had found a way to like really get the tech to connect to him. But because no other scientist is as smart as him at the time as they had to make a physical accessory apart from the arms to get the arms to work is essentially like,
01:00:09
Speaker
the spark notes of how the arms are now going to be capable of functioning. Right, yeah. Yeah. So at this point, once we are done listening to the TED talk of how arms work, the Sinister Six breaks in. And because Spider-Man had overheard the thing with the arms, he obviously is a bit concerned about somebody taking all of this
01:00:34
Speaker
weaponry and technology. So he's been keeping an eye on the warehouse. He's going to see Sinister Six break in and now Spider-Man is fighting them. Also, just because, you know, again, the Scarlet Spider just had a building blow up on top of him.
01:00:56
Speaker
This is the clone saga, so he's gonna be fine. He's just not in this scene because he's getting out of a pile of plywood or something. So that's fine. Don't worry about Ben. He's fine. But Spider-Man is fighting these four. He's doing a good job, but he needs some help. So this is a thing that I didn't like. He puts on the helmet and the arms in order to fight them.
01:01:26
Speaker
which I understand that you have a lot of respect now for Dr. Octopus and you obviously don't want the weaponry to get in the wrong hands like of super villains. But what are you doing?
01:01:49
Speaker
You didn't want the government making this a thing for people to use. Why are you immediately like, I got to put on the helmet and I get this around my waist? It's very weird. I thought it was a weird decision. And I mean, like it at the moment, it was working for him because like he is starting to win the battle. But during
01:02:15
Speaker
all this fighting electro breaks the helmet. So now he's automatically screwed because now he's stuck in the arms, but has no way of controlling them.
01:02:29
Speaker
which is causing even more chaos. The building is breaking. People are trying to get out. While people are trying to get out, there's a shadowy figure that takes one of the pieces of equipment. It's like a little small tube, almost. And Spider-Man is now just running loose with his four extra arms, not knowing how to use them.
01:02:56
Speaker
And that's pretty much where it's gonna end. The very final scene is while trying, sorry, while trying to flee the scene, Mysterio and Electro, they are cornered by Kane, who just literally comes out of nowhere. So this was a very chaotic read. I really like that it's Kane's MO though.
01:03:22
Speaker
Yeah, it's just showing up whenever, wherever, for whatever reason, is the time. But that's where it ends. I...
01:03:30
Speaker
thought that Scarlet Spider was a good old badass in this situation. There is some imagery where he is just like zooming and kicking four guys's butts at once. And I thought it was really cool. And he's just quippy as he's doing it. And like and he's just doing it because he's like, bad guys need to be stopped. And I'm going to do it. And we're like, hell yeah. Do you think?
01:04:00
Speaker
And then again, the thing I didn't like was Peter Parker, Spider-Man, putting on the arms. As soon as he did it, I was like, this is not going to go well for you. And I'm right. To me, so that that brings to mind a comic book from like the eighties where there is a kid who loves Spider-Man so much and also
01:04:26
Speaker
created his own version of Dr. Octopus's legs and he became Spider-Kid. So he wears a Spider-Man costume and he has Dr. Octopus's arms. And that is fine. That's a fun, I love that issue. It's fun and silly and good. Right. But it also undercuts part of the story that we're doing because they literally were just saying that
01:04:53
Speaker
The only person who could get those to work was Otto because he's a genius. And then it reminds me with Spider-Man putting those on, it reminds me of spider kid who was a kid who created his own version. I love it. I think that, you know, I mean, I'm sure they weren't thinking about it, but well, I'm sorry. How are the kids arms? Did they work out?
01:05:20
Speaker
They worked, they were fine. Uh, I think if they remember correctly, they go a little haywire at some point, but like he's, he is a character in the comics now. Um, as, as an adult, uh, named, oh yeah, I just looked, it named the steel spider and he has, uh, they're different from autos, but he has four mechanical arms. Okay. They're a lot like the, um,
01:05:51
Speaker
the arms that the iron spider costume has, you know, just like big spider legs that come out. Yeah. Just like big pins that don't have like the grippies. Yeah. But in the, uh, in the original, his original appearance, they looked very much like a primitive version, but still a version of Dr. Octopus's arms.
01:06:12
Speaker
I'm sure that's not anything that they were thinking about when they wrote this, but the fact that like, it's a very specific image. And then I think of Peter putting those on. I immediately go back to this kid and I'm like, Hey, wait a minute. This goes counter to something that happened earlier in this issue. Yeah. I want, we might have to compare the writers. Bill Mantlow is the one who wrote. Oh, I love Bill Mantlow. Good job, Bill.
01:06:40
Speaker
He is the one who wrote spider kid. Bill Matlow also was the one who wrote, um, he did a lot of like cloak and dagger, uh, a lot of, I think he's the one who did. ROM space night. Yep. Love it. Damn. I'm a big bill Matlow fan. I didn't even know it. Since we're on the subject, uh, of bill Matlow, I'm going to, to
01:07:08
Speaker
Bring the story down a little bit. So Bill Metlow was hit in a hit and run accident in 1992. Oh no. He is currently still alive, but is pretty much not able to really take care of himself. He suffered severe head trauma. There are places where you can make donations. Um, they go to his brother to help with his care.
01:07:36
Speaker
And I'm just going to read that out. Um, you can send donations to Michael Mantlow at 425 Riverside drive, number 12 East in New York, New York, one zero zero two five. That is horrible to hear. Yeah. So I just, because we brought that up, I didn't want to let that go without at least saying, here's something that maybe we should, uh, uh, keep in mind. Yeah.
01:08:07
Speaker
Moving on to something a little bit more fun. Okay. Well, that was the end of part two. So we're gonna go into part three. Yeah, we're gonna close it off. Nice. All right. And again, it's one of those where it just picks up where it left off. So Spider-Man is still trapped in the arms and they're running wild.
01:08:35
Speaker
And they're just like the arms are attacking anything and everything they are chaotic neutral at the moment and It's a time it gets to the point where like the armed forces are trying to like shoot down the legs and They're pretty upset that spider-man is attached to them and
01:09:00
Speaker
because he does look like he's the one running the show. And eventually, Spider-Man does stop the arms. He destroys them with his webbing, his good convenient webbing. The government is upset with him for destroying the legs and also wearing them. And Spider-Man essentially is like, I don't have time for this. I have to go back to the crime scene because he knows Sinister Sisk.
01:09:29
Speaker
Sinister Six was there. So he just like flees the scene. He doesn't really care that he's getting berated. He's on his way back. But meanwhile,
01:09:43
Speaker
Like I said, Scarlet Spider is fine. He is emerging from the rubble of the Sinister Six hideout, and he did recognize Elias Hargrove from when he was on the big TV screen, and also because he was sitting afar during the funeral and saw the eulogy, so he puts two and two together.
01:10:11
Speaker
And it's like, I gotta go find this man. So he goes off to do that. And now we're gonna cut again back to the original crime scene where Kane has conveniently showed up. And at the end of the last issue, he had cornered Mysterio and Electro. And he's like, I'm gonna mark ya. Argh.
01:10:39
Speaker
That's how he sounds to me now. He's getting sillier and sillier. He's just too convenient.
01:10:48
Speaker
But inconveniently for him, he goes to kill Mysterio first, and he discovers that this is just a robot dupe of Mysterio. And he's like, bah! He gets mad about it. And he throws the robot aside, and he's like, I guess I'll just accept that I'm just killing Electro today. And he goes in for the kill,
01:11:15
Speaker
But as we know, Spider-Man was coming back to the crime scene. So Spider-Man is on his way back and Kane's like, I can't let him see me yet. And so Kane flees before murdering any more people. And so Spider-Man lands. He's like, oh, Electro's here.
01:11:36
Speaker
And there's a, there's a Mysterio robot. This keeps getting weirder and weirder. I just want answers. And that's like pretty much it for that part. But now we're going to go to Elias Hargrove and he has like realized some things about this whole situation. So he bursts into the lawyer's office of
01:12:05
Speaker
Dr. Octopus, actually, no, he did not. He calls the lawyer to come to his apartment. I'm gonna start that over. There was a point where I read this and it looks like he went into the office. But then it's like, someone comes in and he's like, I looked in the phone book and I found Hargrove's apartment address.
01:12:31
Speaker
So like the writers didn't know where this was set. That checks out. I don't know if you want to keep any of that. But I just, I needed somebody to know.
01:12:48
Speaker
So there was some confusion over where this takes place. It's either... So it takes place at Hargrove's apartment, but also... But also a lawyer office? They live in the same place. Because, like, Hargrove is the one that bursts into the scene, and the lawyer's already there. But then in order to explain...
01:13:19
Speaker
I love it when shit does not make sense and it just breaks all like, all right, wait, how does this work? I had to read this issue twice solely because like I was confused by what's about to happen. All right, so I'm going to keep it that Elias Hargrove burst into Doc Ock's lawyer's office.
01:13:44
Speaker
Flash his own apartment. Flash his own apartment. And it's because he realizes like there is the tape that he had been given in the very beginning is a fraud. And it shows a little picture of like what was on the tape. And you see that. So Dr. Arquiposa in the comics, at least of this run, always wear sunglasses. Yeah.
01:14:10
Speaker
And he always looks like he's drooling and constipated. So it's a shot. I think that might just be for this comic. He's in a constant like yelling face, like looks like he's like breaking a sweat, mad. It's a time. But so we see the constipated face, Dr. Octopus. And in the reflection of the sunglasses, like you see a skyline, but the skyline is upside down.
01:14:41
Speaker
So apparently that is like how we learn that plot twist. It's all of Mysterio's fault. So wait, I don't follow. Okay. So I'm going to get into that. Mysterio apparently had like ha holographic himself as Dr. Octopus's lawyer from the beginning, which is what we're learning right now. Like in real time.
01:15:11
Speaker
Okay. We never knew any of this. They decided to make this the plot twist that this was Mysterio's doing all along and Mysterio created this tape with not real Dr. Octopus. And for some reason, because of how like things were reflecting off of these like not real Dr. Octopus sunglasses,
01:15:40
Speaker
is how Elias Hargrove decides that he's being tricked. This seems very convoluted. It is. For real fucking reason. And they can't even decide what the setting is at the moment. So, I, so like, ballsy move to make this your plot twist.
01:16:08
Speaker
Especially it seems like everything was kind of going. Everything was flowing. It was going nice and streamlined. I thought I was going to be reading another thing where it was like the grim hunter kind of situation. And then they just got fucking drunk in this last issue. I don't know what happened. Um, it's a time for sure. So we're learning that like it's been Mysterio all along and it's all because he wanted
01:16:35
Speaker
like this data disk, which is what was in that tube that was stolen. So Mysterio sent out his robot dupe to run away with Electro, while the real Mysterio stole the tube of the data disk. That holds all of Dr. Octopus's information and secrets. All that stuff.
01:17:02
Speaker
Interesting. This is also a weird thing to do where the whole thing is supposed to be like about Dr. Octopus's death and it's actually a Mysterio plot. Yeah. It's kind of a weird idea. I mean, all right, I'll go with it. Sure. But you're kind of making it about someone else. It turned into like, instead of like maybe a thing that is like, oh, Grace is weird to like fund theft mystery.
01:17:32
Speaker
I don't know. Someone really got into the idea of doing a heist movie as a comic. Yeah, with like a man whose head is a goldfish bowl. You have all of the stuff there and it's just kind of like filling in the dots and not really thinking about
01:17:53
Speaker
Why are we telling this story? Like, why is this the story that's a heist? Yeah. Cause it kind of seems like the only thing important about Doc Ock in this set of issues is just that he had a bunch of weapons and stuff and people wanted it now that he was gone. Which like, yeah, I guess that would happen if like, I don't know, like, but
01:18:20
Speaker
I don't know, I didn't think that that would be like the thing. It's an easy read, but this could now be about any supervillain having their stash taken away. I would have enjoyed reading more about like the family that he left behind, how this affects Peter, add some plot around that, you know? Yeah, instead of just repeating like, I'm Peter Parker and I'm going to avenge like Dr. Otto Octavius.
01:18:50
Speaker
I don't know how to feel. The more you think about it, this story doesn't make sense. I mean, like it does in terms of like, there's a series of events. And like A happens and B happens and C happens, but thematically. Like why are you telling it makes no sense. Like how does this really affect the clone saga?
01:19:16
Speaker
does like Dr. Octopus have something about clones on his disc. There's no point where Peter dives more into the bird toxin study. Like, so it's just a bit much like a one shot mystery plot twist thing. It's a bit weird. Yeah. Like if you like remove it from the clone saga, if you're just dealing with Dr. Octopus's death,
01:19:45
Speaker
It doesn't, it's like, it's not focusing on him or the people that are left behind. So that kind of falls apart, keeping it within the clone saga. It has nothing to do with anything other than Dr. Octopus have like his death sort of making the story happen. And then like having both Ben and Peter be involved.
01:20:11
Speaker
but not quite working together. And just kind of using them as like just little action figures. Set pieces. Man, this is a weird story. It's really weird. It's almost over. It really just ends with like Mysterio explains that like the data disk can only be unlocked with like the secret code.
01:20:37
Speaker
which is why he kind of tricks Elias Hargrove the whole time. One, because eventually all of this would be pinned on him, robbing the government of all these specialized weapons that they've apprehended. And two, he's assuming that Elias would know what the code is. But this guy doesn't know the code. He's like, I just wanted to be left alone. I don't know what this is. We didn't talk that much.
01:21:07
Speaker
I don't know what it is. And Mysterio's like, I guess I'll have to kill you then. And that's when Scarlet Spider comes and is like, I found you in your apartment, Elias Hargrove. And it's like, I didn't know we were in an apartment. I thought we were in a lawyer office. And like, so Mysterio and Scarlet Spider fight and Mysterio's whole thing, which I now know is like hallucinations, holographs, trickery kind of thing.
01:21:34
Speaker
Oh wait, have you never, do you not know Mysterio? I like loosely knew of him. I knew he had like the bowl for a head and he used a lot of mist. Hence the name. I knew he was like an illusiony dude, but I guess I'd just never really like seen it happen. So we see how like his fighting style is and basically Scarlet Spider gets him in a corner.
01:22:00
Speaker
And Mysterio's like, well, I'll just self-destruct this data disk because that's what happens when you try to open the disk without the code.
01:22:12
Speaker
It's like an Austin Powers kind of thing. Yeah. So he does that and Scarlet Spider gets Elias out of there. No one knows where Mysterio is now. He's probably going to come back and hopefully explain how he's relevant.
01:22:33
Speaker
And yeah, that's pretty much how it ends. Scarlet Spider's like, all right, Elias, here's your second shot at life. But if you come back to this villain stuff in any way, because now you have no reason to. I'm not going to be so nice next time. And Spider-Man's like, I didn't get any of my questions answered. But boy, do I want to find the guy that killed Dr. Octopus. And that's how it ends.
01:23:03
Speaker
Good on you, Pete. Good on you. So really this whole thing was just Scarlet Spider saving the day again and Spider-Man saving the day, but also like still kind of flat lining as to like what's going on with him. And that's, that's what we got. It was like fun.
01:23:29
Speaker
like the bumblebees and the dick lamp and like Scarlet Spider was very quippy, but, and like it was cool to see like some very colorful villains, but overall just like written as a story for a large event series. I feel like it wasn't really connected. Like Kane showed up for two panels as a convenience, and if this is really the person that they want to be their big baddie,
01:23:59
Speaker
Like, give him more context. And, like, maybe, like, he's the one who should have been the Mysterio stuffing. I don't know. I think, yeah, that is a... I mean, we've already kind of talked about, like, how this doesn't quite fit in with... Yeah, it was just kind of weird.
01:24:26
Speaker
happen around it. I do like weird, fun little stories like this. But I think it's like with the intention of what we're reading it for at the moment. It's kind of like, cause we have all this other context of the previous things that we just read. It's like, where do you fit in? I think also with an ongoing series
01:24:49
Speaker
like Spider-Man and with events like the Clone Saga, even if it is like a thing that's kind of like loosely tied together, like you're telling other stories within the context of like the umbrella of the Clone Saga.
01:25:05
Speaker
Right. Um, so like you're going to have adventures that don't really, like they don't add up to anything. It's just the next, uh, uh, the next episode in this saga. And like that makes some sort of sense, but it also, it feels like we've had a lot of that, a lot of just spinning wheels of like, okay, we've killed off Doc Ock.
01:25:31
Speaker
And now we're going to do a thing that's about the death of Doc Ock, but it's not really. And Ben and Peter are in it and they don't really meet up and then Cain's in it, but he doesn't do anything. What the fuck are you for? What is this here for? Yeah. What is it here for? Absolutely nothing.
01:25:55
Speaker
It yeah, it was just it was fun to read like I read it all in a night. It's a quick like jumpy read if you want that go for it like cuz I like if I didn't have to think about all of the extra context of The Clone Saga for this and I just read that I would be like okay
01:26:20
Speaker
Cool. I like short to the point stories like that. It's just weird where it fits in. Especially because like, you know, I like to jump back and forth in my reading material. I will sometimes read something very in-depth and lengthy and like
01:26:42
Speaker
just overall a lot. And then I go for my little like after-dinnerment of a reading where it's just easy breezy. And I think that's fine. There is like a point for every different kind of story style. But I also with this, I have to take into context that they're trying to do some sort of big transitional event.
01:27:11
Speaker
And I feel like this didn't really even give a little essence of that. Yeah. Yeah. I was going to say more, but like, yeah. Cause like it did, like, I don't know if maybe it just got like Spider-Man a little closer to figuring out that Kane is the one that killed.
01:27:38
Speaker
Dr. Octopus, but they didn't. It ended with Spider-Man just being like, I didn't get any of my, I'm run dry of my answers. I didn't get any answers, but I'll figure it out. It was just weird. Like give him a little bit of progress or maybe make him fall back. Like don't have him stay in the same place though, because I feel like comics are not the place for you to just be stuck in the same rut for multiple issues.
01:28:09
Speaker
You either have to move forward or you have to fail at something. And he just kinda didn't do anything. He was just accessory to chaotic mechanical arms. It was weird. I didn't realize how fired up I would be about this. I thought I was like, oh, this is fun and it's light. And now I'm like, oh my God, this meant nothing.
01:28:37
Speaker
Well, you had your fun romp of an adventure with it and then you started thinking about where it fits into stuff and that's where the frustration comes from. And I think that's also where a lot of people... You can have fun with the clone saga. The idea of the clone saga is fun and silly and great. Yes.
01:29:02
Speaker
The, where it starts falling apart is it is so long. It forces you to start thinking about things pretty deeply and it does not hold up. I'm just wait until next episode. Oh no. Okay. Cause I was, I was going through, I'm like, okay, wait. Okay. Okay.
01:29:29
Speaker
And I'm just like writing stuff down like this happens, then this happens, then this happens, then this happens. We have so many reveals and it is like they were speed running, trying to get so much further in the story. And it's like, you could have sprinkled some of this over the last like dozen issues. Yeah, they probably panicked because they were like, we got nothing done properly in the funeral for an octopus. We got to smoosh it in next time.
01:29:59
Speaker
But then the problem becomes you're, you're putting everything all in at once that it's like, okay, now you're making this really complicated and we really have to sit with this. Well, and that was kind of like with, um, the first one I read with all of the venoms and like everybody wanted to talk to somebody for some different reason. And really only one of them got what they wanted or like,
01:30:29
Speaker
any sort of resolution. Like I still don't know what happened to scream at the end of that. She just disappeared. She just like, she screamed off the face of the earth. She showed up in the islands of adventure, Spider-Man ride. I remember she was part of like the group of villains, which is such a weird thing. Like they pulled this random ass character for that ride.
01:30:59
Speaker
Um, so I don't really have any, any trivia for this particular episode. Uh, but I, you, you brought up Mysterio and his weird ass thing. And I'm, I'm
01:31:16
Speaker
I am going to make a recommendation and it's going to be giving a little bit of the ending out, but I think that's fine. I think that everyone should read Daredevil's Guardian Devil. It was a series that came out in 1998 to 1999. I don't want to give away too much for those that have already read it. They kind of know why I'm bringing it up.
01:31:45
Speaker
I will just give you the, do you know anything about Daredevil? He is blind and fights crime in New York. Perfect. And he was also in one of the parts that you read. Yeah. So this bird, no, during bird poison. During the, yeah. Cause him and the owl are connected.
01:32:12
Speaker
This takes place way after that, after Daredevil is back to just being Matt Murdock and Daredevil and all that good stuff. He is a staunchly Catholic character. And the fun thing about this series of issues, it's about eight issues long, is that he ends up having to take care of a baby that was given to him
01:32:42
Speaker
who they believe is the Antichrist. Oh, that's cool. And it is a weird situation where he is trying to be like, that can't be real, but also I'm super
The Essence of Comic Reading
01:33:01
Speaker
religious. It's a very fun read. Okay. And there's a lot of like weird shit that happens. Highly recommend it. Cool.
01:33:12
Speaker
So I mean that it's really, I didn't have any other trivia for us. This is kind of like a weird one in, in, in our group of things, you know, and we kind of went over the Spider-Man unlimited with the, um,
01:33:27
Speaker
the obituary for Doc Ock, which I'm always just gonna be like, just go read that one. It's so much better. We had preemptive trivia. You just put it in a different part, that's fine. It's such a weird note to end on, isn't it?
01:33:52
Speaker
Yeah. I keep trying to come up with something better. I got nothing. This is such a weird, weird episode. I'm sorry that I presented the weirdest thing that we've ever read. It's also a weird idea that like Marvel felt like they were going, we have to capitalize on the death of this character, but then they, it's not a really, it's not super about that character. Like not at all. His name's kind of just tossed in.
01:34:22
Speaker
I mean, like it is about like his things, like the things he left behind, but not, it's not about the people he left behind really. Maybe it's, maybe it's Elias. Maybe it's like, cause he was the one family member and he just wanted to move on with his life, but other people connected to the deceased.
01:34:47
Speaker
didn't want that and like somehow he still found a way and was given a second chance. Hopefully like Spider-Man is getting a second chance. Kind of like how Scarlet Spider is a second Spider-Man.
01:35:03
Speaker
I appreciate your reach here. It's super nice. I'm trying my best. I don't want to not like it. And I had fun. Like you should read this if you just want like a fun, like kind of mystery, action-y kind of one-on and just try not to think too hard about... Maybe that's the whole thing. Try not to think too hard. You may be the biggest fan in the world.
01:35:32
Speaker
But just try not to think too hard and you'll be fine with this. Think harder about other things, but not this. Be good to yourself and just have fun with it. Sure, it may
Community and Gratitude
01:35:49
Speaker
have been a lawyer's office at once,
01:35:51
Speaker
But fuck it, it can be an apartment too. We don't know, they could have been roommates. And that's what I'm gonna believe. And if you wanna read more about lawyers and departments, you can go to your local comic shop. You can find more information at comicallypotantic.com. I should never be in charge of the outro or the intro. I love that.
01:36:21
Speaker
You can find more information at comicallypedantic.com. You can also follow us on, I almost said on Twitter. We don't have a Twitter anymore. We don't. You can also follow us on Instagram by searching at pedantic cast. New episodes come out most Sundays on iTunes, Stitcher, Google podcast, Spotify, and at comicallypedantic.com. If you have any comments or questions, you can send them in text or audio recording to comicallypedantic at gmail.com. We have been getting some, but none that are like,
01:36:50
Speaker
to be read on air. So I mean, it's very nice to hear from people. That is nice. Yeah. Thanks for listening. I keep forgetting that people listen to that. It is a weird thing to think. Kissed to me, I'm just like, all right, Monday night.
01:37:09
Speaker
Gotta talk to Derek about Spider-Man. And then I forget that anything happens after that. But thanks for listening. I appreciate it. It's very kind of you. If you do send us an email, please indicate if you'd like your name or question right on the air. And don't forget, we still own fuckcomicsgate.com. If you'd like to send a donation to the Games and Online Harassment Hotline, please do so. Also, I read out...
01:37:36
Speaker
Yeah, I read out the address earlier for Bill Mantlow's support. Please, if you have anything to send, even, I think they would be fine. Even if you just sent like a letter, I'm sure they would be happy to have that. We will be back soon with another deep dive into the world of comics, but until then you can find more exciting adventures at your local comic shop.
01:38:13
Speaker
He's such a good boy. You want to record a podcast together? I'm getting distracted. This is a problem. All right. That's what we do. It's okay. I mean, hey, we've only been doing this for 44 minutes. Okay, we need to get back. I feel like this is one of the most chaotic recordings. I literally just...
01:38:39
Speaker
I literally just texted Austin. I'm so sorry. You're fine. Because usually it's just brownie makes some noise and then it's fine. But we went from two totally different tonal shifts from the first issue to now this one. Now my cat's eating shit that he shouldn't be eating. It's a time. Max had to put on sweatpants. It's a time. Okay.