The Amazing Spider-Man 2

Much like Spider-Man 3, the movie that killed Sam Raimi's Spider-Man series, The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is overstuffed with characters and storylines. And even though there are three villains in the movie, none of them get a whole lot of screen time. The Rhino bookends the film, Electro gets sidelined for a good chunk of the movie and Harry Osborn doesn't even become the Green Goblin until the last forty minutes of the movie. Just like the first Amazing Spider-Man film, the sequel invests more time into the backstory of Peter's parents. Which, ultimately, has very little impact on the plot. There are some well acted dramatic scenes in the movie, which is to be expected given the high caliber of the cast. The movie's biggest flaw might be that there's just not enough action and excitement. The ratio of tears shed to punches thrown might be 1:1 and that's just not a good formula for a Spider-Man movie.

Rating: 61%

(Image from Wikipedia)

The Amazing Spider-Man

The least interesting part of any super hero film is the origin story. It's even less interesting in a reboot. The Amazing Spider-Man spends almost an hour, nearly half of the film, on Spider-Man's origin story. The movie also spends a lot of time on plot threads that don't really go anywhere, like the mysterious death of Peter's parents or the search for the man who shot Uncle Ben. It's hard to tell if the movie is setting things up for the sequel or if it's just working from a bad script. Also, the casting in The Amazing Spider-Man doesn't really work for me. No one delivers a bad performance but none of the actors feel particularly suited for their roles. Andrew Garfield's Peter Parker feels a little too cocky for my taste. That said, I think Garfield's performance in Spider-Man: No Way Home did a lot to redeem his version of the character. At the end of the day, The Amazing Spider-Man isn't a bad film, it's just underwhelming and forgettable. Not exactly a great launching pad for the reboot of a high profile character.

Rating: 62%

(Image from Wikipedia)

Comic Three-In-One

Amazing Spider-man: Unintended Consequences

Spider-man is so squeaky-clean he's basically the Mickey Mouse of superheroes, except that everybody he knows or cares about dies terribly because of him.

RATING: 70%





New X-Men Vol. 6: Planet X

In one of the greatest X-men storylines of all time, Xorn turns out to be Magneto, takes over Xavier's school, incapacitates the X-men, conquers New York, kills Jean Grey, and gets decapitated. Don't worry, these aren't spoilers; every one of these actions was retconned out of existence 5 issues later.

RATING: 75%



Squadron Supreme: Power To The People

NO.

RATING: 1%

Comic Three-In-One

New X-Men Vol. 5: Assault On Weapon Plus

Cyclops and Wolverine mount an offensive against The World, a secret location where time is accelerated so that generations of genetically enhanced humans are born each minute. Also, there are flying cyborg whale cops GRANT MORRISON!

RATING: 71%

The Punisher: Girls In White Dresses

Yeah, justice is done in horrible violent fashion, but my heart just isn't in it after Garth Ennis left the book. Dropped!

RATING: 58%

Ultimate Spider-man Vol. 12: Carnage

I just don't understand why a week after Peter Parker's friend and surrogate sister is murdered he has to serve detention. Somebody needs to find a new guidance counselor for Midtown High.

RATING: 73%

The Amazing Spider-man: The Life & Death Of Spiders

One More Day seems even worse looking back, because JMS worked very hard to get Peter and MJ back together throughout his run just to have Joe Quesada be a huge dick and make him magic them apart again.

RATING: 67%

Secret War

The story is some incomprehensible nonsense about all the tech bad guys in the Marvel Universe working for some super terrorist, so Nick Fury sacrifices... you know what? It's got some pretty painted pictures and that's about it.

RATING: 35%

Comic Three-In-One

The Incredible Hulk Vol. 3: Transfer Of Power

Bruce Banner gets framed for murder, but don't worry the victim turns out to be a zombie double agent so she wasn't really dead dead after all.

RATING: 13%




Amazing Spider-man: Until The Stars Turn Cold

Successful Spider-man formula: Fight joke fight, cry fight cry, joke fight serious talk.

RATING: 81%




New X-men Vol. 3: New Worlds

Introducing Fantomex, the mutant whose power is for a flying saucer to emerge from his mouth to fly him around. Thanks again, Grant Morrison!

RATING: 62%

Comic Three-In-One

Amazing Spider-man: Revelations

Aunt May finds out about Peter Parker's secret identity, and also terrorists fly airplanes into the World Trade Center killing thousands.

RATING: 72%




New X-Men Vol. 2: Imperial

Professor X's twin sister is born as a cloud of psychic ability and then grows up to be a mean old lady who takes over a space empire. I'll take six of whatever Grant Morrison's having.

RATING: 79%


X-Force Vol. 2: The Final Chapter

Obviously not as surprising as the first volume, this one is still pretty good and funny as it follows the most conceited team in comicdom, and that includes a team that calls itself "The Fantastic Four."

RATING: 69%

Spider-man: Web Of Shadows

This game features the whiniest Spider-man in history, and since we're already talking about Spider-man that's a serious achievement. The plot is some Venom symbiotes take over the city and you've gotta stop them or join them, your call. It's a lot of fun to websling around and beat up people or cars, but it's only about a 10 hour game start to finish. Also, no Chrysler Building, so points off for execution.

RATING: 62%

Amazing Spider-man: Coming Home

This volume marks the beginning of J. Michael Straczynski's run on ASM, and unlike Hulk two posts down, this actually does hold up over time. JMS manages to add gravity and mystery to Spider-man's origin by introducing an old dude, Ezekiel, who has the same powers as Spider-man and knows his identity. Meanwhile, some crazy vampire guy wants to eat Spider-man, John Romita Jr.'s art is flawless, and Aunt May learns Peter Parker is Spider-man. Yeah, this was pretty much all retconned out by a magic spell last year, but it's still funnybook storytelling at its best.

RATING: 82%

Comic Three-In-One

Ultimate Spider-man Vol. 9: Ultimate Six

Hey, here's a great idea for a story where the Ultimates and Spider-man team up to fight a bunch of bad guys: make it seven issues long and don't have any fighting until issue six!

RATING: 31%




Batman: No Man's Land Vol. 4

Continuing the story of Gotham being totally fucked, this one isn't too interesting apart from a classic confrontation between Jim Gordon and Batman.

RATING: 59%




Fantastic Four: Flesh & Stone

Turns out Jeph Loeb actually did jump the shark before Ultimates 3, who knew?

RATING: 45%

Ultimate X-men Vol. 7: Blockbuster

At this point, Mark Millar left the book, Brian Michael Bendis took over, and the whole thing began a 60 issue spiral into being a complete directionless mess. Oh well, at least Bendis is capable of writing Ultimate Spider-man in a hilarious manner, and he guest stars here as some group is after Wolverine for some reason, who cares.

RATING: 65%

Ultimate Spider-man Vol. 8: Cats & Kings

This is where I started buying Ultimate Spider-man in single issues, so I only have the second half of the story. Honestly, though I don't think it matters. It's still good, but it's the same formula: Spider-man meets new bad guys and fights them, Peter Parker has trouble at home. Here, he meets up with Black Cat and Elektra and thinks they're both hot (newsflash).

RATING: 75%

Comic Three-In-One

Punisher: Man Of Stone

This is probably as good as Punisher stories get: the Punisher is lured to Afghanistan to battle a crazy Russian general, while the side characters, his "friends," philosophize about the nature of somebody who murders to atone for his family's ancient deaths, and also people getting shot in the face nonstop.

RATING: 91%

Ulimate Spider-man Vol. 7: Irresponsible

A crazy exchange student named Geldoff is blowing up cars to get chicks, and also Spidey gets yelled at by his aunt after Mary Jane tells him she loves him. It's a strong book but you're probably tired of me saying so.

RATING: 80%


Sandman Vol. 4: Season Of Mists

I hate to shortchange one of my favorite graphic novels of all time in this comic three in one, but what more can I say than Neil Gaiman has created in this volume the greatest fantasy story ever put to graphic form. When Dream goes to Hell to confront Lucifer, Lucifer just decides to give Dream the key to Hell and sets all its denizens free. Of course this is a real pickle and all kinds of gods from various pantheons decide to make their cases to Dream as to why he should give them Hell. Also, there's a great story in the middle of it all about how Earth deals with all of the damned being released back into the realm of the living. This is probably the best place to start with Sandman, so buy it or borrow it, take your pick.

RATING: 97%

Comic Three-In-One

Punisher Vol. 6: Barracuda

The Punisher kills a bunch of sleazy investment bankers. Satisfying, sure, but who's next, jaywalkers?

RATING: 67%



Ultimate Spider-man Vol. 6: Venom

Peter Parker's childhood friend turns into Venom and almost dies by Spider-man's hand. Lesson: Don't be Spider-man's friend.

RATING: 85%



Powers Vol. 2: Roleplay

A bunch of loser nerds learn about the dangers of cosplay (hint: the danger is death) in one of the best crime books being written.

RATING: 88%

Comic Three-In-One

Darkhawk: Heart Of The Hawk

The "best" Darkhawk story, involves DH fighting as many Spider-man villains as possible in six issues, and also he gets his amulet ripped out.

RATING: 62%



What If... Why Not?

This collection of What If... comics from 2004 forgets that the only reason people read What If... is to see lots of heroes die, not to discover how different their lives would have been if only they ate the cheese sandwich instead of the egg salad.

RATING: 18%


Ultimate Spider-man Vol. 5: Public Scrutiny

Total bummer when a crook dresses up as Spider-man and goes on a crime spree, and then he gets, like, dumped by Mary Jane, which is major lamesville, dude.

RATING: 89%

Comic Three-In-One

Here's three quickie comic reviews condensed into one in case you don't care:

Star Trek: Year Four

Star Trek: Year Bore

RATING: 41%



Ultimate Spider-man Vol. 4: Legacy

More of the same, which isn't a bad thing.

RATING: 85%



Batman: Anarky

Imagine if that kid you went to middle school with who just found out about the concept of anarchy was a superhero.

RATING: 36%

Amazing Spider-Man: Round Robin: The Sidekick's Revenge

Spider-man! Punisher! Darkhawk! Moon Knight! Nova! Night Thrasher! Early 90s! Garbage!

RATING: 17%

Ultimate Spider-man Vol. 3: Double Trouble

I just don't think it can be said enough times how consistently fun this series is. Bendis is terrific at capturing all the awkwardness and drama that is high school life while still managing to inject great superhero antics in as well. Peter Parker just feels like your average dorky kid, albeit with the proportionate strength and abilities of a spider. To think that this series has been going so strong for 129 issues now is amazing. And for the first hundred or so, Mark Bagley's blend of cartooniness and detail matched the writing style exactly. Perhaps part of the reason this book has seemed so effortless is that Bendis doesn't exactly have to create characters, but instead works from the groundwork laid by Stan Lee. This particular volume centers around Doc Ock trying to get revenge on some billionaire biological research dude while also Kraven the Hunter, an Australian reality TV host, decides to come to New York and hunt Spider-man for ratings. And scene.

RATING: 89%

Spider-Man 2

#43 on Glenn's Top 100 Movie List

I still think this is probably the best superhero movie of all time. X-Men 2 is marred by the fact that X-Men 3 sucks so bad. Batman Begins is marred by the fact that the fight scenes are tough to follow. Superman is marred by the fact that Superman flies around the world backwards to make time move (it's still on the list, don't worry). This one has practically zero problems. Except I still wish Spidey used more one liners. Then again, he does in Spider-Man 3 and that movie was terrible, too. I would like to add that the video game from this movie is amazing. Ha ha, get it, amazing like the Amazing Spider-Man? The comic? Eh? I know that was bad.

RATING: 91%

PS - I would like to add that I reviewed this movie before I saw the Dark Knight, which supplants it in the category of best superhero movie ever made.