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Spider-Man Clone Saga: The Trial of Peter Parker
45 Plays1 year ago
Peter is put on trial.... I guess?
Strap in, because this one is weird.
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Transcript
Introductions and Banter
00:00:14
Speaker
Hi, and welcome to Comically Pedantic, where we take a detailed look at the complicated concepts and characters and history of comic book culture. I am one of two hosts that normally doesn't do this intro. It's me, Corinne Levy. And I have number two of two hosts is Derek. Yay! I love how often you are surprised whenever the music comes on.
00:00:44
Speaker
Here's the thing. Okay, so it starts off with that big like... The boom, the bass,
Unexpected Intro Music
00:00:50
Speaker
or whatever. The bush. And I don't see when you're going to hit the button. I wish there was a way that we could show each other what we're doing. I mean, you could do like five, four, three, two, one, but I also don't want you to do it because it keeps me on my tootsies.
00:01:08
Speaker
So that's all right. It's funny because on my end, I see pretty much everything, you know? That's because you're the main host. I don't want to see all the other buttons. I want to be surprised. One day it's going to be like a Russian roulette of like, one day we won't play the actual intro. It'll just be like the Spanish Flea song. Have you ever heard that song?
00:01:35
Speaker
Yeah, someone earlier today was actually just talking about it. So we have a dog that comes by at work. And everyone's in love with this dog. It's a big Rottweiler. And he's very cute. So they were saying, whenever he comes by, we need to have a theme song to play. And someone was like, you should play the Spanish.
00:02:05
Speaker
That's my internal theme song. I love it. But would you say that this dog is your bright spot? Or do you have a different bright spot? Segway! What's your bright spot?
Birthday Plans and Music Tastes
00:02:20
Speaker
So I actually was thinking about it before we came here, because I did not want to be blindsided by this question, even though I know it comes every week, and every week I'm always surprised by it.
00:02:33
Speaker
was able to talk to Austin. Her birthday is coming up in about a month. And I was trying to be on top of making sure I have this weird habit of buying things for Austin about a month or two in advance. But because they're always weird and niche things, they come either right on time or late, even though I'm on top of it all the time. So
00:03:01
Speaker
I was trying to come up with something that would be a little bit fun for us to go do. I mean, you know, for Valentine's Day, I got her at the PlayStation 5. So I felt like maybe stepping outside of the realm of buying a gift and instead doing like an event together. Yeah, like going, doing an experience. Right. So I actually found something and I ran it, I know it's like a month early for her birthday, but I wanted to run it by her and make sure it was something that she was comfortable doing.
00:03:30
Speaker
that it fit in with something that she wanted to do and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So I got us tickets to go see one of her favorite bands, Manchester Orchestra and Jimmy E. Royal. I got her the VIP tickets, so it comes, we're gonna get like a vinyl and like a t-shirt and like a poster, like all this extra stuff. And it's in Central Park, which is also, I've never been to a concert in Central Park, so I think that part's gonna be fun too.
00:03:59
Speaker
That's very cool. I've never been to Central Park. Yeah. There's apparently like a stadium. I've never seen it, but there's like a little stadium inside where they do shows. So I'm very excited about it. That's awesome. I'm excited for you. I love concerts. What a time to be alive. Yeah. And I recently started listening to Manchester Orchestra. Like I liked them to an extent.
00:04:27
Speaker
Well, now you have time to get to know what might come up. Yeah. It was sort of the same with the front bottoms. I know you guys went to go see the front bottoms. Yes, we did. I had recently started to really enjoy them, to the point where I was cleaning the house one day and I put on the front bottoms playlist where it wasn't just the front bottoms, it was music like the front bottoms. Yeah, it's the radio.
00:04:54
Speaker
Right. And Austin came home and was like, why are you listening to this? And I was like, I like it too. It's just because here's the thing, like with the front bottoms in particular. Now I like them from the sense of like, when I was towards the end of high school, very beginning of college, I needed the front bottoms.
00:05:17
Speaker
And for those of you who may not know, the Front Bottoms is a band. They're originated in New Jersey, and they are very sad. And they yell a lot. Well, they kind of have like this yelly vocal to them. And they're just angsty and depressed.
00:05:41
Speaker
And there's always a point in your life when you need them and they are there for you. And I have since come out of my depresso hole, my depresso mode, and I listen to them as though looking back fondly in the past and being like, wow, I've grown.
00:06:01
Speaker
And also sometimes you just need to yell a song. And those are ones that are very good to just passionately yell as you're driving on a highway. So I think more often was just concerned for your mental health. You can tell, if I'm not feeling well mentally, my comfort music, what I go back to, it's all heavy metal.
00:06:29
Speaker
Uh, so I, I listened to a lot of that when I'm not in a great mood. I don't think I can listen to like, I, I will find a reason to like any genre. Unfortunately, I physically just cannot listen to heavy metal. It calms me down. I understood, like to some people it makes them anxious and things like that. But for me, it's a very calming thing.
00:06:54
Speaker
It's not even that it makes me anxious. It just actually hits up a nerve in my body that just makes me feel irritable. I get you. I don't enunciate. My happy music is ska. If I'm in a good mood and I'm picking something, it's going to be a lot of ska music.
00:07:21
Speaker
to the point where I get made fun of quite a bit. But besides all of that, what is your right spot?
Weekend Recap and Renaissance Fair Plans
00:07:32
Speaker
Oh, I don't know. See, you get blindsided just as much as I do. I know, because it forces me to look at what I've done. Because I've just been busy.
00:07:45
Speaker
But no, Max is, no, we had a good weekend. Max and I had a good weekend. I took him out to a nice dinner on Monday, because that was his birthday. And I also, we, for his birthday, were doing an event, kind of like you guys. It's a little after his birthday. I got tickets for us and then some friends to go to a Renaissance fair.
00:08:16
Speaker
I have never been Max has never been but the friends that are coming with us have been to one before so it's like just like a good way to like see some people and Do a cool thing. So we're very excited for that Um, but yeah, I don't know. I just had a nice like calming weekend and I was like, it feels nice to just sit down sometimes I
00:08:44
Speaker
I can definitely agree with that.
Book Frustrations and Trilogy Decisions
00:08:46
Speaker
Like, I mean, I, I finished the book that I was, uh, I brought up, I think one of the last episodes that we recorded. I was talking about, like, I was like halfway through a book and it unfortunately had a very, for me, frustrating ending that I did not like to the point where like, it's a, it's a part of a trilogy. And I was like, I'm good here.
00:09:09
Speaker
But the fun part of sitting down and reading and just decompressing while doing that, that I very much enjoyed. As much as I didn't like the ending of the book, I enjoyed every other aspect of reading the book.
00:09:27
Speaker
I get that. I think that's honestly, for a lot of the reading that I had to do for this episode, I felt like that. I'm just going to sit and read. I was like, cool, I'm sitting and reading. It just felt good to do that activity.
00:09:48
Speaker
We'll get into how I felt about the plots and everything. But it is just nice to sit and read sometimes. And I guess that's what this whole podcast is about in the end anyway. This is just me forcing you to be part of my very strange book club. Yeah. And it's only the two of us in it. Yes. So, OK. Well, what do you think if you were to
Spider-Man Clone Saga: Complexity and Identity
00:10:18
Speaker
So if we were going to sum up the clone saga prior to the start of what we are going to be covering today, I'm not even talking about like the plot elements of everything, but if you wanted to like, if there was a through line, do you think, can you pick one out? Because I feel like other than Ben being there and being part of Peter's life,
00:10:47
Speaker
There is nothing. It is all over the place. Do you think that there is like something that you can like grab onto and be like, here's a theme that we're going with or here's anything that is like bringing the plot along other than Ben? Cause Ben Riley has a theme and that is the self identity journey and just like being okay with being Ben. Yeah. Um,
00:11:15
Speaker
Otherwise, like no, because it just feels like everything keeps restarting. Like with Peter, it feels like very much the whole point is like, you know, Mary Jane is going to be having a baby. They're married in this like universe. So it's like everyone talks about how
00:11:36
Speaker
they have a strong marriage and like he needs to be there for her even though he's like having a hard time but that there's never a follow through it's a lot of just like saying and doing and then it just keeps refreshing of like oh like Peter's so great but I wish he were here and then like at the very end he might be like I'm here for a second but then he immediately keeps leaving so it's like that's almost like a wannabe theme but it keeps not
00:12:04
Speaker
I can see that. We have like a weird thing where we have two protagonists and one of them has a very clear character arc to go on. And the other one, it felt like the character arc that they put Peter on at least was to get back to some semblance of normal. Well, I think it was kind of this thing of like,
00:12:33
Speaker
It seems almost like they're giving you like one side that is like actual character progression and the other one that is just strictly monster of the week, but they're doing it at the same time and it's supposed to be like, you would think that should be just one character, but they've split it into two and it just doesn't feel super cohesive. No, that's wow. That is actually, that's a very succinct way of putting it.
00:12:56
Speaker
I was trying to think this morning like what the fuck like what is what are we doing during this saga and that's the only way really to sum it up that I can think of. Yeah and I mean I think the other thing is just like
00:13:12
Speaker
Like the big theme is just like clones. And well, and the thing is, like, I don't know if that I'm starting to wonder if that really can be a theme of its own because I just feel like that. I don't know if it's just because we're reading it in today's time. But to me, the clones theme seems just very much like multiverse theme.
00:13:42
Speaker
Because with a multiverse, you have like the same people, but they're doing different things and it's because they're in different universes. And now we just have the same person multiple times, but they're doing different things because they're clones. And I feel like because we're reading it now, because like the Marvel MCU and like,
00:14:08
Speaker
Now maybe the DCU is just like very multiverse saturated. I am personally feeling tired and I want something different. And I thought that it would, I'm like, I'm hoping that it'll be different because like it's the word is clones, but it's almost like my brain is like, this is just multiverse stuff. I think we have, we have,
00:14:36
Speaker
with you were saying it's not really like a theme and it's more like it's it's a motif we have a pattern yeah that we're going through but there's nothing just to nothing it's not holding the story it's just there well it's kind of just like well it's getting it's
00:14:57
Speaker
It was very comic booky before and because it's a comic book, but now it's feeling very soap opera. And we'll get into that because we like learn a lot this like episode. And it just starts to feel like this is a fucking soap opera. And if I wanted to watch a soap opera, I would watch General Hospital. Okay, so let's start then with this story.
00:15:24
Speaker
Yes. That we're doing for this episode. Yeah. So this is the trial of Peter Parker. That's this whole storyline. And we're going to start with Web of Spider-Man number 126. It's called Opening Statements, also known as part one of the trial of Peter Parker.
00:15:44
Speaker
It's written by Todd D'Zago. The penciler is Roy Burdine. And then we have anchor Randy Eberlin, letterer Susan Crespi. I really like the last name, Crespi. The colorist is Kevin Tinsley. And then the editors are Eric Fine and Danny Fingeroth. They still be chilling here.
00:16:13
Speaker
So this was a pretty quick read. I thought, so like, because I knew that it was gonna be like very trial-based, I thought it was gonna be kind of like a courtroom drama. Kind of like, I guess, I don't know, I've never read Daredevil. But like, I've read a lot of James Patterson, which is crime thrillers. And there's always multiple scenes
00:16:42
Speaker
in a courtroom with the DA and all that stuff. And those scenes, I don't usually look forward to them, but then I'm always really interested because they have these really great speeches from the lawyers or they have these really interesting
00:17:03
Speaker
witness like cross witnessing like or like something like you know Dramatic happens in the courthouse or like whatever So like I've had my fair share of trial scenes in my reading days. So But this kind of shocked me like a little bit it was just like it was a lot quicker of a read Then I thought it would be just kind of overall
00:17:30
Speaker
So here we go. Web of Spider-Man number 126. It starts off like it's a normal Spider-Man comic. It just opens with Spider-Man and Kane fighting because Spider-Man wants to beat a confession out of Kane. And we all know that that is because Kane has framed Ben Riley for murder, but it's
00:17:55
Speaker
Not Ben who got caught, it's Peter because Ben has never really been on the grid. We all know this already. I just feel I have to repeat myself because the comic repeats itself. Well, I have a question here. Is there an explanation of how Peter found Cain? No. He just found him. He was looking for him.
00:18:21
Speaker
I mean, I'm happy with that. Like that, that's, that's totally fine. We can start in media res with that. I was just curious, uh, because there's a lot of stuff within these comics where, uh, it would they go to like weird details to explain some stuff and then don't explain other things. And I'm kind of curious as to what is explained and what's not.
00:18:43
Speaker
This was more of a coincidence, run-in, great opportunity kind of thing. But Spider-Man was looking for him because... Here's the other thing.
Trial of Peter Parker: Dramatic Shortcomings
00:18:55
Speaker
I think generally the writers want us to feel like Spider-Man supports Ben.
00:19:03
Speaker
and is there for Ben and really appreciates what Ben does, but he still makes weird comments like, Ben's messed up my life, but it's like he offered to trade places with you in prison. And also, he found a doctor for your wife. Chill out. So that's kind of a thing that still happens, but he is actively trying to get
00:19:31
Speaker
been out of this situation because he knows now that he's like an innocent man. That is like a theme that happens a lot in the storyline. Okay. So now we're going to go to the courthouse. We're going to the courthouse and it's pretty much just like the district attorney gives his opening statement
00:19:55
Speaker
for the trial of Peter Parker, it is kind of just like the most blanketed opening statement that a district attorney could ever make. It's not super like flourishy or like, you know, super gripping. It's kind of just like the bare minimum
00:20:20
Speaker
of an opening statement or an opening argument. So I went through that pretty fast. And then it just goes back to Spider-Man and Kane fighting. Kane, as they're fighting, is progressively becoming a little more unhinged. He's monologuing a lot. He's very clearly, at this point, he doesn't want to kill Spider-Man, but he's very upset with the fact that
00:20:50
Speaker
Spider-Man is trying to help Ben Riley and obviously like he doesn't want to confess to like his murders and stuff It's also very apparent that like Kane does know I don't know if it was ever explicitly said before but like I guess Kane does know that like Ben Riley switched places with Peter Okay, yeah, that's actually interesting. I don't know if that's
00:21:16
Speaker
I don't remember the point because I read the part where like Ben switches for him. Yeah. But I don't remember a point at the end of that scene being like Kane lurks in the shadows and maybe it's because I read it a while ago and I don't remember it. So it's like, are we just supposed to assume that? I don't know. That's one thing I maybe would have. I don't know, but I also could just be misremembering. Who's to say?
00:21:44
Speaker
But he does know. So that's just a thing that will be important. So now we're going to go back to the outside of the courthouse now. Detective Raven and Stunner, they are basically doing a stakeout because they're waiting for Kane. It's kind of one of those things where it's like, oh, of course the murderer is going to go to the funeral of the person they killed. It's kind of like Kane would, of course, show up at the courthouse because he wants to see, you know, Parker get caught, whatever.
00:22:14
Speaker
But they hear from a police monitor that there is a fight between Spider-Man and this incredibly empowered person or whatever, and they're like, that's probably Kane, we should go. So then they go.
00:22:29
Speaker
Um, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo. My brain caught on fire. Okay. Um, we very briefly hear the defense's opening statement. Again, it's the most blanketed defense statement. It's just like, be a good jury. And it's like, okay. I'm betting, I'm betting the writers for this. Just they, as much as like they were setting up a trial, I don't think they really cared about the trial.
00:22:58
Speaker
Well, and I think it's also like just the way you can clearly tell that they don't have a whole lot making these murders interesting. Right. Because the whole point of like a lot of trial scenes is you learn about, you know, the context of the murders and like all of this stuff. But it was like, OK, a bunch of super like supervillains got murdered and they have a weird thing on their face.
00:23:27
Speaker
Let's blame this guy. It's like, I feel like the trial just made it very apparent that like these murders are kind of boring. And like, it feels weird to be like murder is boring, but I have read a lot of crime thrillers and there are some very like, you know, gripping crimes. Well, and I feel like there's a way to write this, even if it's like a boring crime to have the trial of it interesting.
00:23:57
Speaker
Yeah, and it just it just felt very generic and that's Fine, I guess We're going back to the fight with spider-man He looks like he's like down on the ground But he's picking himself back up because he's like I got so much respect for Ben. I gotta do it for Ben um eventually the fight like leads to outside of where they were and this
00:24:23
Speaker
now has, like, Stunner come into, like, you know, the intersect. So she meets up with them, and she is, like, totally ready to just, like, annihilate Cain. Because if you don't remember, Stunner is Dr. Octopus's now widow, I guess. And so she's very grief-stricken. She wants revenge. So she wants to punch Cain's face in with her very strong fists.
00:24:53
Speaker
But she doesn't even get the opportunity to see Cain because suddenly, freaking Judas Traveler just shows up. Oh, everyone's favorite. And he's like, I need you, Cain, and I need you, Spider-Man. And he just freaking grabs them and teleports away, and just leaving Stunner behind in this alley. And I was like, wow, that's super...
00:25:19
Speaker
I was honestly like when I was reading it because I didn't know what was to come obviously I was really mad because I was like dang they have this strong female character I wanted to see her fight this like strong man and I wanted it to be like the Lord of the Rings thing where it's like no man can kill me and then a woman kills him and it's like yeah
00:25:46
Speaker
but they just poofed away. And I was like, dang, you should be doing more with this other character. But they didn't do it in this issue. I'm just genuinely getting tired of Deus Ex Traveler. The guy can do whatever and shows up and sets off. He either fixes a plot point or creates a plot point every time he shows up. Yeah, he's just getting tiring.
00:26:11
Speaker
So that's like the end of that scene and then pretty much just like that's kind of the end of the issue it like there's like one little part where like
00:26:23
Speaker
Um, so Mr. Locker is the defense attorney and there's just a little moment where it's like, you know, he gave this apparently really good defense attorney speech like for his opening statement. But then like when he's on the bench with like who he thinks is Peter Parker, they have this moment where it's like, Oh, clearly this is just like a lawyer being a lawyer. Like he doesn't actually care about his client. He's just,
00:26:52
Speaker
doing whatever. And so you think like, oh, maybe that'll be like a thing. Maybe that'll be like, you know, an interesting plot device. So there's like a little bit of hope. And then spoiler alert, they do nothing with that. And it's kind of lame. And then it just ends with like Mary Jane being called as like the first witness. And Spider-Man Kane and Judas have teleported somewhere. That's pretty much it. Interesting.
00:27:21
Speaker
I guess I probably should have stated this earlier. I have not read this story before. So I have no idea what's happening either. This is the first time where I may have read parts of some of your previous story. I've never read this one. So, I mean, it's an interesting way to set things up. This is sort of, I mean, this is definitely like act one.
00:27:49
Speaker
Yeah, I definitely like I I definitely continued immediately to the next issue. So I was like, I want to know what's going on. Like, am I going to learn where these people teleported or is it going to be just trial stuff? Like, what is it going to be? So, right. Like, even though I was kind of annoyed with Judas Traveler showing up, like they did make for like a good cliffhanger. Um, especially having like Mary Jane be like the first witness.
00:28:17
Speaker
So, but then there were other parts where I was like, ah, they just like totally dropped what could have been a cool fight scene. But otherwise, like, I don't know, overall, like I was, I was content. It was a fast read, I was fine. So that's, that's cool. It's gonna pick up immediately where this one left off pretty much in Amazing Spider-Man number 403.
00:28:47
Speaker
is called Savage Judgment, Trial of Peter Parker Part Two. The writer is J.M. DeMatias. The penciller is Mark Badley. The anchors are Larry Molstead and Sam DeLaRosa. The letter is Bill Oakley. Colorist is Bob Sharon. And the editor is Danny Fingeroth.
00:29:13
Speaker
What a time. So again, it's just gonna pick up pretty much where Judas, Spider-Man and Kane teleported to. Wait, actually, before you go any further, I just wanted to point something out, because it's something that I hadn't really thought of before. This is Amazing Spider-Man 403, which means that it has only been three issues in Amazing Spider-Man since Aunt May died.
00:29:44
Speaker
And think of how much we have covered something. Imagine if somebody was exclusively reading Amazing Spider-Man. Right. That is insane. Holy cow. Marvel went bankrupt not too long after this.
Spider-Man's Villain Trial Analysis
00:30:03
Speaker
And I can see why. Well, you're definitely going to see why.
00:30:10
Speaker
or I think, you know, what started snowballing that. Because I, what a time. That's all I can say. I can't even finish the sentence. I can only say, what a time.
00:30:27
Speaker
But it pretty much picks up right where Spider-Man Kane and Judas have teleported to, which is the sub-basement of Ravencroft, where now Spider-Man is standing on his own trial for his life. So Judas Traveler essentially, I'm gonna set the whole scene, Judas Traveler has set up
00:30:52
Speaker
courtroom scene where the prosecutor is carnage. You've got a jury of shriek and all of these Ravencroft
00:31:10
Speaker
like patients, they're all super villains. You've got a couple doctors like held against their will because they have to be there, like Dr. Kafka. And then the defense attorney for Spider-Man is Kane. Oh my God. So this is just a nightmare. Spider-Man has- This is another one of
00:31:37
Speaker
Judas's plans that to me make no sense. This just felt really annoying. Honestly, it is an interesting concept to be trapped with a bunch of villains. I like having a bunch of villains in a fun special thing. I don't mind it. There's definitely times where I can tell that I feel like I either really... Okay, hold on. I need to gather my thoughts because my brain's on fire from this.
00:32:08
Speaker
I either love or hate massive amounts of villains in one issue or storyline. There. It's gotta be done well. I think like the long Halloween run did a really cool- That's the first thing I thought of.
00:32:30
Speaker
I feel like people are slowly going to get really tired of me bringing up the long Halloween. But like, look, I haven't read nearly. It's done really well. I just really like it. It's really good. And it's one of the you know, I haven't read an encyclopedia amount of comic books, but like, I'm glad that I read that one because it's a nice one to reference. But I thought the way that they like they had a lot of villains.
00:32:57
Speaker
but it was done in a very well-paced, tasteful way. I really liked that. I also think the long Halloween does it in a way where it also, it is fleshing out the story in a particular way. You're not only introducing these villains, and usually around- But it's like as the holiday changes, the villain changes, and that's very dynamic and cool. Well, there's that, but there's also, there's a subtextual part of it where
00:33:28
Speaker
The Long Halloween is essentially supposed to be very close to Batman's first year, right? So if you read Batman Year One, that is Batman dealing with mob bosses. And then the Long Halloween is sort of like, we're expanding on that and you're seeing this rogues gallery of villains come in.
00:33:53
Speaker
And it's sort of like the evolution of I'm having to deal with this craziness. So that makes sense. Spider-Man being forced to be put on trial and it being just like these weird, like Spider-Man being put on trial and it being the sinister six. Okay.
00:34:15
Speaker
I can kind of buy that. The concept is great. Like, I would like something like that. And it's kind of like the whole point of the trial is basically just asking the question, like. Is Spider-Man's like just sheer existence? The whole reason these like supervillains like become supervillains. The Batman question is like, does Batman make the Joker?
00:34:42
Speaker
Yeah, except it's just with all of the villains. And I'm like, oh, that's a good question. I think that could be a cool, interesting thing to explore. So I was really excited to get into it, all that stuff.
00:35:00
Speaker
And it just kind of goes back real quick like as they set up this whole concept to just like a very brief interview with Mary Jane at the witness stand. It obviously like doesn't help a ton because she cannot share the alibi that like he's Spider-Man. And that's pretty much like all that happens. It's like she doesn't say a ton because she can't.
00:35:22
Speaker
And it's like, where was your husband on the night of these murders? And she's like, I don't know. And then it's like suspicious. He's a murderer. And it's like, it's just a very lame courtroom. So then pretty much like the rest of the comic issue is back at Ravencroft with this other trial situation.
00:35:49
Speaker
And as I said before, Carnage himself is the prosecutor. He uses himself as like the first witness and the first argument that like Spider-Man is the reason that like
00:36:08
Speaker
they exist. And okay. Wait, I'm actually curious. Well, I thought this was a bad first argument. Okay. Because here's the thing. I know that before he was carnage, he was a serial killer. True. So like, no, like that immediately like does not work for this argument. But he I guess the ability to get out of prison and kill more people you could put on
00:36:39
Speaker
Yes, because the symbiote thing and that is like the first thing that he brings up is like if spider-man hadn't like introduced him to like the symbiote indirectly like then He wouldn't be carnage but you also just said indirectly so I guess that's It's indirectly and it's also Like venom already felt guilty about creating carnage and
00:37:06
Speaker
Yeah. Venom has taken responsibility for that. And that was literally the first thing that I read in this whole thing. And I remember it because I really liked Venom. But it's also like, my guy, you were a serial killer.
00:37:24
Speaker
So you were technically a bad guy in this universe before you even got touch of superpowers, which is the defense's argument. And so then they get into a fist fight because Cain made a good argument back being like, hey, you were a serial killer. This doesn't work. And then the fight gets broken up by Judas because he's like, I'm strong and it's dumb.
00:37:54
Speaker
There's another person that gets called to the stand, Malcolm McBride, who I guess, yeah, okay, so he was carrying. He's like a zombie, kind of. Yeah, he was cured at this point. They were like, oh no, it sucks that he's going on stand because he's just starting to get better, but his brain is so like,
Cain's Backstory and Motivations
00:38:21
Speaker
malleable right now, essentially. And yeah, so that whole argument doesn't go well for Spider-Man. And then, essentially, Judas is like, cool, we have enough. Like, Juri, do you think he's guilty? And all of Juri is bad guys. And they're like, yeah, he's guilty. And- Wait, that was it? That's it. And then Kane is like, wait a minute.
00:38:47
Speaker
You can't do that because you need the defense's argument. And Judas is like, nope, just execute Spider-Man. And so all the bad guys go after Spider-Man, who again, I don't think I said it before, but he's kind of paralyzed under magic right now because Judas is Judas.
00:39:07
Speaker
And Kane essentially jumps in front of Spider-Man before he's attacked by any of these bad guys. And he basically is fighting them off, being like, I would sacrifice myself a thousand times over before you kill Spider-Man. And at that point, after Kane gets hit quite a bit,
00:39:28
Speaker
Uh, Judas poofs everybody back into their cell magically and is like, all right, my time here is, is done. Like, you know, this proved something about what kind of person you are. Spider-Man. So it was, this was about Spider-Man. The only thing that I can think that was proved was that Kane is not as shitty of a character. Well, maybe.
00:39:54
Speaker
Well, the whole thing that Judas is like, oh, well, this proves like, you know, what kind of like good natured person you are, Spider-Man, because if a bad guy like Kane would like, you know, risk his life for you, clearly there's something good about you. And like you saving me from this weird vortex thing like has me. No, I'm sorry. That's fucking dumb. It was super dumb. I was really annoyed like reading the end of this. And so like,
00:40:21
Speaker
Kane is super weak because he just fought a bunch of bad guys that then magically got poofed away. Spider-Man is super confused because he's like, what the hell just happened? And then Judas Traveler just poofs them back onto the street that they were on in the last issue.
00:40:41
Speaker
And then also because for this weird trial scenario that he created, he had given Carnage extra insight as to who Spider-Man is, so he poofs all that away. So it's almost like none of this ever happened. It almost was a weird fever dream, except it happened and it's just poofed away with magic instead of a coma. It was super dumb. I was super mad.
00:41:09
Speaker
Like, if it actually went somewhere, I would be like, cool, but we just, it was a whole freaking circle and I didn't like that. But the good news, my little treat at the end was Stunner is still on that street. Still just hanging out.
00:41:29
Speaker
So she's like, great, Cain's back. I'm going to punch him now. But Spider-Man, having just seen the fact that this man was willing to sacrifice himself a thousand times over, is like, no, don't punch him. And then that's like how it ends. I don't know how to feel fully about that.
00:41:51
Speaker
whole issue because it's like I found the concept to be really cool and interesting and I thought it was a good question. But I feel like they just executed it with like the shittiest examples for that debate. And then they poofed it all away. Right. See a competent. Right. I'm not saying J.M. Demetrius is not a competent writer. Because I liked other stuff that he's done. Right.
00:42:17
Speaker
I genuinely like him. I think that a competent writer with a good editor, I think we're missing a couple of parts here. I also just feel like these people have never actively watched like a court drama or... Well, here's how you get drama out of this situation. All right, you can have the villains be part of this trial. That's totally fine. Having a villain
00:42:44
Speaker
be the defense of Spider-Man. Also, great idea. Maybe having a good guy lead the prosecution would also be interesting. Yeah, or like don't paralyze and like mute your Spider-Man character. Well, that too. Have the people that you're bringing in, have the witnesses that are on the stand, have them be people
00:43:12
Speaker
who are good guys that are forced to come to terms with sometimes Spider-Man does the bad thing. Yeah. That is an interesting way of running this trial. Instead of just having bad guys get up and say, hey, I don't like him, here's why. Who gives a shit? And it was only two bad guys. Right. I feel like this could have been what
00:43:40
Speaker
is juxtaposition with the actual trial going on. Yes. And then you get two different interesting arguments going on. But that's not the direction that they are going. And I guess that's the direction that they went, because this all happened in freaking 1994 or whatever.
00:44:09
Speaker
On we go to Spider-Man number 60 is called The Face of Cain. So by this title, I'm like, ooh, we're getting somewhere. And maybe we will, I don't know.
00:44:27
Speaker
Perhaps. Perhaps we'll see a face. Some context. Would love some context. Let's see if I got what I wanted. The writer is Howard Mackey. The penciler is Tom Lyle. Anchors are Scott Hanna and Joseph Rubenstein. Also a very great last name. I love a Reuben. Letters are Richard Starking's and I also saw that like comic craft was credited
00:44:57
Speaker
So, ComiCraft is Richard Starking's company. It's one of those weird things where it's usually accredited to both of them. ComiCraft is still around, by the way. Also, great company. You can get a lot of cool tips from them, you can get a lot of cool fonts from them. They do a really good job.
00:45:19
Speaker
I just didn't know what that was. But shout out to Klamikraft. The colorist is Kevin Tinsley and then the editor is Denny Fingeroth. Again, picking up immediately where we left off. That is one thing that I like about this storyline is it just keeps streamlining in chronological order of events. That's good. Easy to read. This is a good, quick,
00:45:49
Speaker
storyline to read. So Stunner has pinned a very weak and almost unconscious Cain up against a wall and she is ready to smash his face in with her fists. He is very weak obviously because Judas just used him like little marionette and Spider-Man is trying to stop her
00:46:13
Speaker
because he still needs Cain alive to save Riley from prison. Also, Spider-Man is just never like, yeah, kill them, that's fine. But because obviously one person wants someone to die and the other person doesn't, it turns into a very odd,
00:46:34
Speaker
three-way fight with Spider-Man trying to stop two bad guys from killing each other. And the fight ends with Stunner. She, like, knocks over the support column of a building. And then there's all this rubble everywhere. Spider-Man goes to collect her from the rubble, but she just, like, vanishes into the mist, which is, like, a very bizarre thing. I don't know if that's supposed to allude to the fact that it was actually Mysterio, but it also didn't really look like Mysterio mist.
00:47:02
Speaker
Well, so if you remember when she was first introduced, there was a point where she was talking to Dr. Octopus and she was like, I have to go. And he asks her not to. And then she's just gone. Like there's no mist or anything. She's just disappeared. That happened before in like a really brief thing. And it almost just felt like it was incorrect because it was like, or maybe I just thought she was on a different street than she actually was. So she just vanishes sometimes.
00:47:32
Speaker
Right, which we will eventually find out why. Okay, I mean like it would be cool to get to find out. This is one of those things where they're setting up, it's sort of like with Cain, we're going to do some weird stuff and you're going to wonder why and the whole point of you continuing to read further is to see if you can finally get an answer as to why. They are hinting at something, but they haven't told you anything.
00:48:03
Speaker
They're also hinting kind of badly. Yeah, it's just kind of like, oh, that's a weird thing anyway. Because there's just too much otherwise plot happening. Too much plot otherwise happening. I don't know what words are, apparently. What is the time?
00:48:24
Speaker
He tries to find stunner, she vanishes into mist. So then instead of wondering too much about that, Spider-Man really quickly catches up with Kane who is trying to run away because he doesn't want to confess. Spider-Man tries one more time to persuade Kane to just
00:48:48
Speaker
go peacefully. And when Kane refuses, Spider-Man's surprise punches him out cold. So that kind of fixes it. Cool. And then he just, he wraps him up in a web and then swings away with him. Cool. Good stuff.
00:49:08
Speaker
Now we're at the courthouse and the prosecutor is making yet another argument, but suddenly, you know, this whole scene is interrupted by a loud noise that is just outside, which we find out it is Spider-Man with Kane. Kane is now awake, he breaks free from the webs, he's fighting off Spider-Man because he doesn't want to go in the courtroom and Spider-Man is like, you gotta tell the truth.
00:49:33
Speaker
Um, and essentially Kane is like, you can't handle the truth in this, like, it is a time. Um, so they keep fighting and fighting and like Kane is monologuing about how he's, everything he has done has always been for Peter. And like Peter just doesn't understand and or like Spider-Man just doesn't understand, but he's pretty much just calling him Peter at this point. Um,
00:50:02
Speaker
Because it's still just the two of them. There's no real audience members of this fight yet. It's still outside the courtroom. And Spider-Man kind of is like, what do you mean? You literally have murdered people. You are a supervillain. And Kane is offended by this because he's like, how do you not understand? Blah, blah, blah.
00:50:30
Speaker
So then finally, like Kane stops fighting and he's like, I'm not going to do this. I'm not going to help Ben Riley. He doesn't deserve help. Like he should be like, you know, sent to the electric chair and all this stuff. And it's all to reveal Kane taking off his mask and he is the first Peter Parker clone.
00:50:59
Speaker
Context. Beep, beep. So basically what has happened is that Kane, you know, he's got the long hair and he takes off the mask and it's pretty much like a Peter Parker face, but half of it is like very veiny and like kind of like, you know, a little deformed. So they say he kind of just looks like the Phantom of the Opera version of Peter Parker. Does that make sense?
00:51:28
Speaker
Oh yeah, absolutely. I have Austin as a fiance. Anytime you want to make a reference to Phantom of the Opera, I'm probably going to get where you're going with it. Hell yeah. I love Phantom of the Opera. She will drive down the road with the Phantom of the Opera soundtrack playing. Yeah.
00:51:48
Speaker
as everyone should. But yeah, so he's got Phantom of the Opera face. It's fine. Basically, he says that, like, Warren tried to, or, like, the jackal tried to kill him when it didn't, when the experiment didn't work out, but Cain got away. And because he's, like, the first trial run, some of his powers changed.
00:52:19
Speaker
which somehow made him really souped up and stronger. And the reason he originally wanted to frame Ben Riley for these murders of these villains is so that Peter's life wouldn't be intruded on again. Because he sees Ben Riley as this obstacle. What a good fucking job. Yeah, I know.
00:52:48
Speaker
My guy. You didn't do this well at all. Also, if you're like, OK, if that's like really what you wanted to do. And I guess it's like he wanted to get rid of the supervillains because they're in. They're in the way of like Peter having. You know, like a wife. You know, because he's constantly like leaving to go fight them or whatever. And. But like, why didn't you also just kill Ben Riley?
00:53:18
Speaker
I guess maybe he couldn't. I don't know. I don't know. But it's like, wouldn't you understand that it's like, as far as I know, like, I know that Ben Riley, like, has an apartment, but like, he's not really, like, on the grid, like... That's the other thing. This, this, I mean, I guess... Because if he was, like, his fingerprints also would have come up in the whole search. That's what, what I'm thinking of here is... So clearly he has no, like, record or ID, like, he's not in the books. The only person that would be in the books
00:53:49
Speaker
of anything official would be Peter Parker. Right. This whole thing falls apart. If you think about it a second too long, the whole thing falls apart. You have to take it specifically from face value like 10 feet away from you. I can kind of understand this being the early 90s or mid 90s, I guess at this point, where maybe the
00:54:11
Speaker
The police departments aren't necessarily working together. It's not a national database. That kind of worked out a little bit. But then you still have to get this guy who looks like Peter Parker arrested, put in prison, and hope no one ever notices anything weird about any of it. It's a dumb thing. Just fucking kill him. Grab a sniper rifle or something. This is why I'm saying it's starting to enter, reason number one why it's starting to enter the soap opera.
00:54:41
Speaker
vibes. Well, this is the I have an evil twin. Yeah. This whole thing. Look, I love a good soap opera. It's one of the reasons I like the X-Men. But like, yeah, there's got to be done in a particular way. I can still watch a soap opera and be into what's going on and think it works. And then it
00:55:08
Speaker
and actually enjoy the plot, you know? Yeah. It's the time. So, yeah. Spider-Man here is like this whole confession and everything. He sees the face and like, you know, he understands that like he is the first clone and like that's a lot to go through. But he's still on the firm belief that like an innocent man should not be charged with somebody else's crimes.
00:55:37
Speaker
And he kind of is, so he's kind of just like, well, you know, knowing that Ben Riley is a clone also, like there's some, you know, shouldn't there be some like kinship to that? Wouldn't you want to help? Like, you know, because this is like, you know, a whole group now. This is a whole community. Wouldn't you?
00:56:05
Speaker
want to do right by this person that you are actually super connected to. And Kane is like, no. Because Ben Riley is always in Peter Parker's way. And this eventually leads to Spider-Man being like, well, if you're not going to confess that you did it, I'm going to tell everybody that
00:56:35
Speaker
you know, Spider-Man is Peter Parker. And that therefore gives Peter Parker an alibi. And him being there is the evidence, you know, and then they go into the whole cloning thing and, and that'll be it. And Kane understands that like, if he does that, then like a lot of Peter Parker's life is then just like,
00:57:04
Speaker
really messed up because now he's publicly known as a superhero. So Spider-Man enters the courtroom finally and he's like, I've got a confession to make. This man obviously didn't do it because, and he's about to take off his mask and show a bunch of people that he's Peter Parker, but then Kane bursts through and he's like, no, I did it, I'm the murderer.
00:57:32
Speaker
Because he just really doesn't want like Peter Parker's life to get messed up. He really just wants Ben Riley gone. So he confesses to the murder. He leaves like, you know, like evidence because he puts his he leaves like the Mark of Cain on like.
00:57:51
Speaker
table. So I guess they can look at the fingerprints off the table and be like, Oh my gosh, they're a match. Yeah. Um, and then right as like the police are about to take him into custody, Kane makes a leap for like Ben Riley one more time. Oh my God. He's like, I'll just, I'll just kill you now. It's like, Oh wow. If only you had thought of that for yourself so long ago. Um, and that's pretty much how that issue ends.
00:58:21
Speaker
And guess what? We're going to pick up immediately where it ended in Spectacular Spider-Man number 226. Wow, wow, wow. We're almost done. This is part 404. The writer is Tom DeFalco. And the penciller is Sal Buscema. Buscema. I think it's Buscema. Sorry, I said it wrong the first time. Anchor is Bill
00:58:48
Speaker
Sinkiewicz? Sinkiewicz. Sinkiewicz. Fuck. Keep doing that. Let me start over. The anchor is Bill Sinkiewicz. The letterer is Clem Robbins. Colorist is John Colise. And the editors are Eric Fine and Danny Fingerock. All right. Here we go. This is the final part of the trial of Peter Parker.
00:59:15
Speaker
A fight breaks out in the courtroom. Kane makes a jump for Ben Riley, who is publicly right now known as Peter Parker. He basically like, he makes sure he says the right thing so the crowd thinks he's attacking Peter Parker, but Kane knows that he's like attacking Ben Riley. He does not manage to get a hand on Ben Riley, who is still, he plays the Peter Parker role literally up until like him and Mary Jane walk through.
00:59:43
Speaker
the doors of her home. I'm just saying that now so I don't have to repeat it. He's playing the Peter Parker role. He did not put on the Scarlet Spider suit whatsoever. He is playing it cool for the sake of Mary Jane's family. Kane never lays like a punch on Peter Parker slash Ben Riley. Ben Riley.
01:00:05
Speaker
Yeah, Ben Riley incognito as Peter Parker. Just, you know, cause Spider-Man fights Moth a little bit and then Detective Raven eventually like steps in and like officially there's an arrest and just like Kane gives up. And which honestly, I was glad that like Detective Raven was able to make the arrest like properly because it gives him some like character satisfaction. So I was happy with that. Yeah, that's cool.
01:00:35
Speaker
Yeah, apparently Ken Ellis was at the courtroom, so he reports to the Daily Bugle that Peter Parker is innocent and they all celebrate. Great stuff.
01:00:47
Speaker
we have a quick scene at the jackals lab where there is p3po and the jackal and p3po sees the news that parker is free and he is like you know very angry about this because he hates peter and he hates ben riley and the jackal he's like ah don't worry about it
01:01:08
Speaker
because he is currently working on his carrion virus, that's how it's pronounced, carrion. Yeah. Okay, so he's like updating the carrion virus and we're like, oh spooky, I guess. Cain, he is properly interrogated and he confesses to multiple murders, including the murder of Raven's partner,
01:01:36
Speaker
So, again, you know, he didn't show up like a whole he didn't show up as much as I thought he would in this like story, but I'm glad still that that character got. I'm genuinely liking how this is wrapping up. Yeah, I think it's it's doing kind of a season finale typical wrap up. And that's how it felt like it was reading. And I was happy with that.
01:02:03
Speaker
I really did like Detective Raven. I just wish that there was more of him as like an interesting standpoint, because I feel like it would have made the whole- If he had like more of a character instead of- Instead of just quick, weird cameo scenes, you know? No, I get you. Because like I did, when he was introduced,
01:02:29
Speaker
I did care about the fact that his partner was gone and that he had a chance to solve the murder, but then he was gone for so long up until pretty much like Amazing Spider-Man 400. And then I was like, oh, he's back. Like, okay. So I just wish there was more of him, but I'm very happy that he got his ending. Yeah. Check this out. No, I'm enjoying this so far.
01:02:57
Speaker
Yeah, so Cain, he is getting wheeled away to Rikers Island, and he does have another vision while he's in chains of Mary Jane's death. It's coming up. I was actually just thinking about that, and I was like, I wonder what we're gonna do with that. Okay. Yeah. So Ben and Mary Jane have made it to the Parker House.
01:03:26
Speaker
They had to, to walk home or they had to drive home or walk home together because like the media is following them around being like, he's free. Peter Parker's free. And then finally when they get inside, they're like kind of like, wow, I can't believe we had to like do that all the way home. Like that's so crazy. But they meet Peter at the house.
01:03:51
Speaker
which is great, so now it's the three of them. The house phone rings, and it is Dr. Trainer.
Clone Status Revelation and Identity Clash
01:03:59
Speaker
And he calls to just be like, I have news about more test results. So now the three of them arrive at his lab. Now, this is the first time that Peter is meeting Dr. Trainer. Right. He's very aware that it is his first time meeting him.
01:04:21
Speaker
It was kind of mentioned before from Mary Jane's perspective a couple issues ago, like when she was first getting tests done that he's kind of a very like cold man. Yeah. Just very like, I'm a scientist. Um, and Peter doesn't feel really comfortable around him.
01:04:42
Speaker
He feels kind of weird. He feels kind of weird that it's just like some guy that Ben Riley is friends with, because apparently we're back to being skeptical about Ben Riley, which was starting to feel weird for me when that thought bubble came up. But Dr. Trainor starts off by saying, the baby is healthy. So we're like, yay, the baby's healthy.
01:05:09
Speaker
But it's also, why would you bring people to your lab if you just wanted to say, like, your baby's healthy? That seems weird. That's because he has more to say. The doctor says that he has found a genetic drift. He doesn't say exactly what a genetic drift is. He just says that there is one. Well, a genetic drift is an actual thing. So I'm curious to hear, yes.
01:05:37
Speaker
Well, I'll continue while you find out what that means. But the doctor believes that this genetic drift could possibly be because the father is a clone. And Peter gets upset by this. He is like, we have already decided.
01:05:59
Speaker
Like we have already settled this. Like Ben Riley is the clone. I am real. Everything is fine. Like this is just another kind of like jackal adjacent like trick. Like it's just people trying to mess with me again. And the trainer is like, well, why don't you, the two of you take a bunch of tests, like blood tests and stuff.
01:06:24
Speaker
together and see what comes out. And Parker is like, I don't want to do this. I want to leave. But Mary Jane grabs him and is like, no, just do it. Do it for me. Do it for our baby. Do it for yourself to just get to the bottom of it. And he's like, fine. So they have a little test montage. And it comes back.
01:06:52
Speaker
that the test results are exactly the same. But for some reason, it is then written in dialogue that Ben Riley is like, the tests are exactly the same. Like, I'm so very, very sorry, but this means that I am like the real Peter Parker. Okay.
01:07:21
Speaker
That doesn't make sense. If they were exactly the same, then I feel like that would mean that they're both clones. No? I mean, all of this kind of doesn't make sense, because wouldn't they be genetically the same regardless? I don't like. Also, so a genetic drift is in context of
01:07:51
Speaker
Well, I guess it's like more of a population thing. So it's when you have like alleles that mutate over time and they go in one direction and it sort of overtakes a generation of these, of a population. So it continues evolution, it's form of mutation, right?
01:08:16
Speaker
Um, there's also like a genetic shift where it's just sort of like how genes are read. Um, like something will be read a little, uh, differently by, uh, like on the chromosome or something. Right. And it just kind of moves it down. And sometimes it doesn't really add to anything or take anything away. And sometimes it really messes up the DNA. Um,
01:08:43
Speaker
So that doesn't really make sense in this context, but okay, whatever. We're going to pseudoscience. That's fine. Yeah. And I mean, like the pseudoscience is not what bothers me. Like, sure. If you need to explain away the father being a clone, that's fine. Um, the test results are what bother me because they confused the shit out of me now. Like you're going to tell me they're exactly the same, but now you're going to tell me that Ben Riley is the real Peter Parker. Yeah.
01:09:14
Speaker
Now, my brain hurt from hearing this, but guess what? Our Peter Parker's brain really hurt from hearing this far more than mine ever could. And he snaps. And he is like, you are straight up fucking with me. You're just being another like,
01:09:34
Speaker
you know, another Judas, another Cain, another Jackal. And he's like, I've had enough of this. I'm tired. He literally says I'm tired of being everyone's Patsy. And I thought that was really funny. Um, and he like, he jumps at Ben Riley. Right. Yeah. Okay.
01:09:54
Speaker
I mean, like, I'm not that surprised. No, I'm not that surprised either, because honestly, like, this man has been through a lot. Like, I know he isn't always the best husband, but he has been through a lot and, like, I would want to punch someone too. I want you to guess, though, what do you think, based on what we have learned about Ben Riley and how he has, like, behaved, how do you think he reacts to that?
01:10:23
Speaker
So if I were to write this and just based off the character that I know of it, the way that I would write it is that he would refuse to believe it. In the past, this has been a thing that has come up and he has said, no, I've already lived this way. I am this other person. I've come to terms with this. It doesn't matter. You know what I mean? Whatever this thing says.
01:10:53
Speaker
Yeah, and like maybe when Peter like jumps at him, it's more of like specifically being defense. Oh, yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So that's not what happens. Instead, and this is like, this is what really like made me like unhappy with like the story.
01:11:18
Speaker
Yeah, because I was enjoying this so far. I mean, we had that weird middle piece. But we literally lose all of that growth. Yeah. He's now suddenly fighting hard back at
01:11:35
Speaker
I'm still gonna call him Peter Parker because that's just what we've called him the entire time. Ben has been living as Ben. And Ben Riley has been living as friggin Ben Riley. But now he's going with the whole like, oh my God, you took five years of my life. Like now I want it. And they are straight up punching each other in this laboratory.
01:12:02
Speaker
And now Mary Jane is like, oh my God, I'm pregnant with a clone baby. And she sees these two fighting and Dr. Trainor is like, don't go in there. Don't get close to them. And she's like, no, I have to break this fight up. And she tries to break the fight up. She goes to Peter, who we have perceived as her Peter Parker this whole time.
01:12:28
Speaker
But because he is just in blind fury and throwing punches, he accidentally hits her and then he stops and he's like, oh my God, what have I done? And out of just like shock and shame and like fear and all these things, he just like straight up runs away because he's like, oh my God, I just hit my wife.
01:12:49
Speaker
And she's like, oh my God, please come back. Yeah, quit running away from me, please. It's insane. And then it ends, the whole thing ends with the jackal saying, everything is going to plan. And you think like, oh my God, he's talking about like this whole thing. But then he holds up like a vial of like his virus and he's like,
01:13:16
Speaker
soon, like, you know, clones are going to be taken over the whole globe. And that's like how it ends. And I'm like this. I'm I was. That is such a silly this. You know what? That is on par with. I don't know if you saw The Amazing Spider-Man with. Oh, what is his name? I'm going to forget his name now. Andrew Garfield. Yeah. The one with the lizard. Did you see that one?
01:13:43
Speaker
Uh, I saw the first movie, I think. Yeah. That's the one with the lizard. I don't know if you remember the lizard's big plan in that movie, but essentially it is, I'm going to create this big laser that is somehow that shoots up into the sky and it's somehow going to turn everyone in New York into lizards. And that's kind of fun though. That, but that is way more fun than like,
01:14:12
Speaker
something about I'm gonna turn everyone into clones. Who gives a shit? They're acting like clones are a different species. Who cares if you're a clone or not? You were a person, yeah, you lived up to a certain point. Your brain is convinced you lived up to a certain point as someone else. But you are a living creature still that is maybe not under the law.
01:14:42
Speaker
But you're still a living person that can be treated like a living person. Yeah. I don't get this. I don't understand. I don't care. I am mostly just disappointed in what they just did to Ben Riley. Oh. Well.
01:15:07
Speaker
I don't want to say too much, but yes. I'm sure my opinion will change. I have no idea. I'm bummed. I feel like that was such a shitty turn.
01:15:21
Speaker
Like, because like, yes, he has spent like a lot of time with like Mary Jane in recent until he switched and literally went to prison. Yeah. But I felt like the way they were writing it was like they were just making a nice friendship. And it was like, oh, maybe like after this, Ben Riley will be able to be his own individual. But maybe he won't have to like totally avoid his like
01:15:51
Speaker
you know, his Peter Parker friends. Yeah, maybe they can be friends. Maybe they can work together. And then you have these cool, like, you know, duo, buddy, cop comic kind of thing. Like, I don't know. Maybe like, you know, whatever happened to him really liking Betty Brand? The lady that that lived next to him. Yeah. What what happened to them? Why does it have to be like everybody
01:16:21
Speaker
thinking that they just want to sleep with a pregnant Mary Jane. Because it wasn't written that he was falling in love with her or anything. I think there was one comment made in his inner thoughts where he was like, oh, wow, Peter's got a really good thing going for him. I would like something like that. But it was never like, I want specifically that.
01:16:51
Speaker
It's just, it's annoying. I was annoyed. Overall though, quick read, interesting concepts. I think if you're going to title something the trial of Peter Parker, I would have wanted more dynamic and like interesting courtroom scenes. There's a way to do that. I have read it plenty of times and like,
01:17:21
Speaker
I don't know, like they don't, like they're always talking about how like the evidence is so gruesome and these murders are so grisly and like terrible and all this stuff. And it's like, well, why don't you talk about that? Like a little more. I understand that like this is like, you know, an all ages like comic maybe, but it's like, you can still get into more details of the crime and like finding it out without,
01:17:48
Speaker
Like, do you know what I'm saying? Like, it was just so like, it was such blanket statements and it really made the scenes boring. I genuinely thought when you started with Spider-Man being put on trial that the title of like the trial of Peter Parker was going to end up being more about Spider-Man being put on trial
01:18:13
Speaker
and have that be sort of like a fun little thing. But that was such a quick moment that they got rid of. Like literally it was just a circle. And it just ended up where it started. And so like, I don't know, I felt like reading it, I would get hyped up and then I would get let down and it just kind of kept happening. Yeah. Well, I have some trivia if you want.
01:18:39
Speaker
Okay. Okay. So if I'm going to be quoting again from life of Riley, I took some stuff from there that I thought was the more relevant stuff. And a lot of these are all quotes from editor Glenn Greenberg. So
Cain's Powers and Editorial Challenges
01:19:00
Speaker
That's more of what I'm gonna be reading. There's other stuff that was there that I think you and I can talk about at another time, but this is what's gonna be the most relevant to what you just read. So this is, again, a quote from editor Glenn Greenberg. If memory serves, it was Howard Mackey who first came up with the idea of Cain, but it was JMD Matias who really fleshed out and developed the character.
01:19:23
Speaker
Demetius had a real fondness for Cain and it showed. Whoever Cain appeared, sorry, whenever Cain appeared in a Demetius story, there was a depth in three-dimensional quality to him that was just not there in other writers' stories. And I don't agree. I think J.M. Demetius may have done some more interesting stuff with Cain, but I never felt like Cain was a three-dimensional character at all.
01:19:52
Speaker
Just felt like he was perpetually owling. Yeah, there was just that. But Greenberg continued. Oh, go ahead. Also, the writer for the face of Cain, where we get literally the most context and like the most information and the biggest plot shift about Cain, the writer is Howard Mackey.
01:20:19
Speaker
Well, I mean, I think for Greenberg, he's talking about leading up to this. JMD Matthias did more, but I feel like Kane didn't do a lot in any of the rest of what we read. So regardless, there's no three-dimensional character there until you get more information about him. Yeah, like, I don't know.
01:20:45
Speaker
I'm so under like I had a feeling from the beginning that like he was a clone. Yeah. And like also, OK, so Kane has like the all blue, veiny costume, whatever. Yes. I thought that was just his face and his body, but that's a mask.
01:21:07
Speaker
If you go back and this was a thing that I had some questions about, because if you go back, there are some scenes where it's clearly shown to be a mask and there are some scenes where like he can open his mouth and you see his teeth. And that's where like earlier episodes, I was like, I don't understand this. Well, I always just thought like that his
01:21:34
Speaker
face was kind of Dementor style where it was just like, featureless because of like, you know, the, the science experiment gone horribly wrong. And so now he just has no face at all, like Slenderman or whatever. Yeah. Like I had no inkling that this was a mask. I was like,
01:21:56
Speaker
his hair just growing out of his blue head, like that's all. That's genuinely all I thought. And that he just ran around like Venom style as like a goopy, veiny man who just happened to put a purple cape on for flair. I don't know. Well, I have some information there because Greenberg continues and saying, and here's a few things you probably didn't know about Cain.
01:22:24
Speaker
First, that weird costume of his was actually a life support outfit that stabilized the debilitating effects of the cellular degeneration. Cain lived in constant pain and that would only get worse as time went on, but the outfit slowed down the degeneration and prolonged his life, which is interesting. We wouldn't have known that unless you literally like
01:22:51
Speaker
Unless we literally read that quote though. He goes on, second, all of Cain's powers were enhanced versions of Peter's powers. It was well established in the stories that Cain was physically stronger than Peter and he was clearly much taller and more massive. But the infamous mark of Cain burned that he left on faces of his victims was just a greatly enhanced version of the stick to walls ability
01:23:15
Speaker
that Peter possesses in his hands and feet. And the future visions that Cain experienced from time to time, including the relentless visions of Mary Jane's death, were simply a much stronger version of Peter's spider sense. So that's interesting too. But he continues on, ironically enough, as Mark Bernardo, even to this day, has never failed to point out, none of the spider writers ever managed to work any of this information into the actual stories.
01:23:45
Speaker
No, none of them did. And honestly, like if you had worked some kind of like, you don't even know what the Mark of Cain really is because you could say it's a burn, but it doesn't look like a burn. It looks like an acid. It looks like just like you could have told me that like the Mark of Cain is like him putting his hand on you and then a bunch of like bugs.
01:24:12
Speaker
or parasites are inserted inside of you and then they just, like, do some shit. Right. Like, you could have told me that and I would have been like, yeah. Checked out. But, like, imagine if you knew what those wounds were. How much more interesting and more terrifying the murders would have been. Yes. There would have been such a better, like, thriller horror effect if we knew.
01:24:40
Speaker
what that was, all the way from the beginning of when you meet Detective Raven. Instead of just being like, my partner was murdered, you could be like, my partner was murdered, but it wasn't an ordinary, wasn't just a stab wound. Their face was burned, and they died. Their face was incinerated, or it was just something. I'm so mad.
01:25:08
Speaker
Greenberg continues with Spectacular Spider-Man 226 was, of course, the most pivotal issue of all, and in more ways than one. Yes, it was the issue where Peter found out that he was the clone of Ben, or the clone, and Ben was the original, but it was also the issue where Bob Budiansky faced his first real challenge as editor-in-chief of the Spider-Man books. The thing you have to remember when Bob took over is that the clone saga did not originate under him. He inherited it when he took over as Spider-Man EIC.
01:25:38
Speaker
And I don't think he ever felt comfortable with the idea of revealing that the Spider-Man we all knew and loved for the previous 20 years had been a clone. But he took over the books so late in the game and the storyline had been so firmly laid out that I don't think he felt that he could just make the writers suddenly switch gears and abandon the plans that he had been following so long. The way I see it, Bob was torn between what he felt in his gut was right for the books and his desire not to mess too much with creative staff who had been there for long before him.
01:26:07
Speaker
Did Bob know in advance that what was going to happen in Spectacular 226? Absolutely. He undoubtedly read the plot when it first came in, and I know for sure that he read the issue once it was completed, and that he signed off on it before it shipped. So he approved it, he signed off on it, he let the story run as it was originally written, and as I recall, he immediately regretted it. I remember that he had second thoughts about it right after the issue left House. He began pondering ways in which the story could be undone, without it looking like a total cop-out.
01:26:37
Speaker
Of course, at that point in the game, it would be utterly impossible. The time to undo the story was before it left house. Not after it saw print and the readers essentially had the rug yanked out from under them once already. From that point on, after Tom DeFalco had so dramatically and pretty damn definitively established who was the original and who was the clone, any backtracking would be seen by Marvel as copping out. Marvel buckling under pressure from its readers
01:27:07
Speaker
Marvel not having the guts to stand behind its own stories, which is true. There is no way out of this thing that you wrote without having something that you wrote in the very beginning as a thing that you can point to and be like, look, we planned this.
Controversial Scenes and Creative Decisions
01:27:25
Speaker
The only other thing that I'm going to comment on from here is Greenberg continues on about Peter hitting Mary Jane.
01:27:36
Speaker
We got some heat over this and some bad publicity, but come on. It's not like Peter Parker was suddenly being presented as a wife beater. Consider the circumstances. Peter was in a rage. His whole world had been turned upside down and he was in the middle of a brutal fight with the man he believed had just robbed him of his life. Mary Jane was warned by a sewer trainer not to go near them.
01:27:57
Speaker
that Peter and Ben were both out of control, but she ignored Seward and tried to get in the middle of them and stop the fight. She's clearly shown grabbing Peter's arm, and in the next panel, Peter is shown flinging that arm outward to shove her away from him so that he can continue the fight. That's how I always interpreted the scene. Peter was so angry, so on the edge, that he wasn't fully aware of what he was doing. Had he been the slightest bit rational at that moment, he surely would have taken into account the fact that he had super strength
01:28:25
Speaker
and that he couldn't just shove a normal human being away like that. I honestly like, I mean, I agree because it's like the buildup of that scene is like he very clearly like is uncomfortable. He doesn't want to be there. He doesn't feel safe. He, he feels like he's about to be like, you know, just turned upside down again.
01:28:52
Speaker
And then it does happen. And he's like, I knew it. These people are just trying to put me in a corner. They're trying to like mess with my life. They're trying to hurt me. And so like he's gone in full offense mode. And, you know, she is pregnant and she's she's a tiny lady like, you know,
01:29:12
Speaker
Like I've accidentally like, you know, booped a person before. And obviously I'm not Spider-Man and I've never been in a fist fight before, but like, you know, it's definitely like he did not like straight up like uppercut her or anything. Like he, you know. And the reaction afterward, I think of being like, oh my God, I can't believe I did that is,
01:29:39
Speaker
That's an appropriate reaction. It ends the fight because he's just so upset with himself that he has now hurt his wife because of this whole situation. And it's funny because almost this exact situation happened with Hank Pym in the Avengers comics. And Hank Pym is consistently called out as being someone who hit his wife.
01:30:08
Speaker
And it's like, okay, I guess, but he didn't go home every night and start hitting her for no reason. It was like in the middle of the fight. It was pretty much the exact same situation. Is Hank Mr. Fantastic? No, Hank is the original Ant Man. Oh.
01:30:29
Speaker
So if you've watched the Ant-Man movies. I have not. He's the old guy that's there. Oh, he's Michael Douglas? Yeah, he's Michael Douglas. But this is like when he was younger and he was on the Avengers, that was like the thing. There are a lot of issues with that particular scene, but it's just funny that he's consistently seen as this horrible person.
01:30:57
Speaker
If you read it, it's very similar to this. There's a lot going on in that scene. Yeah, there's a lot happening. I mean, I obviously don't support the fact that these guys fucked around and now this pregnant woman got physically injured. I think that's really shitty. But it wasn't Peter's intent.
01:31:22
Speaker
No, it was not Peter's intent to hurt his wife. He did hurt his wife and he should feel sorry for hurting his wife, but he is not a, like, domestic abuser. Like, I don't think. But yeah, no, I feel really bad for Mary Jane. I'm very worried about her, though, still, just because it's like that is a lot. Because she also just learned that, like, there's something up with her baby and
01:31:53
Speaker
we are learning new information about the father and her husband. So like, it's a time. And I feel bad for all of the people, primarily her and Peter Parker. And I'm just disappointed in the Ben Riley reaction that they wrote out. I just like, I don't know, the whole thing is like real wild.
01:32:20
Speaker
But it's also just like, it is a shame that it's like they didn't change it before they released it. Oh, yeah. There's actually one last thing that I think is kind of, it's kind of like a funny side effect of that. So Greenberg continues saying, again, Bob Budiansky signed off on this issue. It's not like he didn't see the artwork before it was printed. But when Marvel took some heat after the issue came out, Bob's reaction was to get very conservative and skittish about showing
01:32:50
Speaker
anything that could possibly be perceived as violence towards women, or even showing women in any sort of jeopardy. This completely screwed up a cover for Venom that Tom Brevoort and I had commissioned by artist Kyle Hotz. The cover was for a storyline in which Venom is reunited with his ex-wife, Anne Wang. The illustration depicted Venom looming over Anne with his long tongue wrapped around her. It was romantic in a twisted sort of way, but after Spectacular Spider-Man 2-26 came out, Bob
01:33:20
Speaker
who had previously approved the cover, now asked for so many revisions on it, after Kyle had finished it and turned it in, that we ended up not even using it at all. So I think that's pretty interesting. It had reverberating effects on how the rest of Marvel was handling stuff, or at least under the Spider-Man title, Umbrella. Hmm.
01:33:47
Speaker
It's just a weird little thing that this eventually ended up changing another story, or at least the cover to a story, because they were like, oh, we fucked up.
Respectful Storytelling and Female Characters
01:34:00
Speaker
And that's another course correction that Marvel was having to make, while at the same time thinking in their heads, how do we reverse this Ben Riley thing? I do think, though,
01:34:13
Speaker
Obviously, it's important to just write good stories. Make sure your plots make sense. But I do like, to an extent, how this issue has made them think about maybe we should reconsider how the situations we're drawing women in.
01:34:37
Speaker
and things like that. That, I think, is a good thing that has come out of it. Because, sure, maybe this isn't the most extreme... I think this is a very complicated scene with violence of women in it. But, you know, I'm glad that it... Having it be a moment of introspection, at least, there's the silver lining there.
01:35:07
Speaker
Yeah, because I mean, like, I mean, you've you've had your whole episode about like fridging and like, you know, women have been depicted in some really shitty scenarios for the sake of a man's plot. And I think in a way, like. You know, I don't know what's going to come of like this whole situation, but like it does very clearly seem that like. Yeah, he hit her and now he's like.
01:35:36
Speaker
He's going in a direction with it because a woman got hurt. I don't know how much that would really count into that category, but it really took his wife to get hit to realize that this situation is crazy.
01:35:56
Speaker
I mean, I guess that could be considered part of it would be a minor thing. Like I think it would be a minor thing. Yeah. Um, but like, because again, just with the context of it, it is like.
01:36:09
Speaker
It is a flinging in the middle of a thing and someone got hit in the crossfire of it. So it's like, you know, like, again, he didn't straight up just like upper cut her or like, you know, front hook. Like it wasn't anything, you know, specifically directed at her. It was an accident. It was an accidental yet violent act.
01:36:36
Speaker
But yeah, I can see why it's a complicated thing that would have probably made people feel uncomfortable, especially just because we see Mary Jane in this as such a good and wholesome character.
01:36:53
Speaker
And someone who just wants the best and she's been trying so hard to get the best for her family and her family literally just hit her. Yeah, I would probably have been an upset fan that my character got hit in that way. That really sucks. I don't know if I would write letters just because of who I am as a comic reader. I just don't.
01:37:19
Speaker
I don't give a lot of feedback too much, I guess, except for if it's the clone saga because that's what we have to do. But no, in the end, there's such a long winded way of saying I do appreciate that they are actively trying to think about, you know, how are women doing? Right.
01:37:45
Speaker
Well, we will be back next time with Spider-Man's lost years.
Podcast Information and Future Episodes
01:37:55
Speaker
So hopefully we get a little bit more context about some of the stuff that happened here, some of the information that came up. I'm hoping anyway. At least that's the plan for next week. Unless we decide to do something like real quick, that's where we're gonna go.
01:38:11
Speaker
You can find more information at comicallypedantic.com. You can also follow us on Instagram by searching at pedanticast. 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. Please indicate if you'd like your name or question right on the air. Don't forget, we are, we were just guesting on Superhero Cinephiles so that episode's out right now. If you want to hear our thoughts on Power Rangers from
01:38:40
Speaker
2017, I believe. 2017. Yeah. We also still own flukcomicsgate.com if you'd like to send a donation to the Games and Online Harassment Hotline. We will be back soon with another deep dive into the world of comics, but until then, we can find more exciting adventures at your local comic shop.