The Mezzanine

Because I'm in America, I have access to some films I can't watch elsewhere. In particular: Spider-Man – No Way Home.

It is spectacular. And makes me much happier about Tom Holland's movies.

I like Tom Holland. I don't like the other two movies that much, because they're missing what makes Peter Parker who he is, and they're doing Aunt May wrong. BUT this last movie has fixed all that! It makes it clear that (a) this is one Spider-Man within a whole multiverse of others; and (b) this is Spider-Man before half of his origin story has happened.

( slight spoiler below )

It turned Tobey's Peter into a wise mentor, gave Andrew's Peter closure, and turned Tom's Peter into the Spider-Man I'd been wanting all along.

Now I just need to go home and buy the DVD, so I can watch it again.

A friend gave me a copy of the first 11 issues of the Spider-Man comics. They were rather fascinating.

Weird facts:

- The whole origin story (spider bite, death of Uncle Ben, etc) happens very fast. He literally gets bitten, immediately gets superpowers, and then ("a few minutes later") starts his wrestling career.

- He doesn't actually start doing much superheroing for a surprisingly long time. In the first few stories, he (1) mourns Uncle Ben and captures his killer; (2) rescues an astronaut (okay, this is legit superheroics); (3) fights the Fantastic Four; (4) gets accused of theft and proves his innocence; (5) sells pictures of the Vulture (and takes him down purely for the cool photos); (6) saves the world from an alien invasion. It's only post-alien invasion that he starts actually thinking of maybe saving people. Mostly, he's in it for the photo money.

- The writers haven't particularly figured out how his powers work – but one thing they're pretty sure of is that his main gimmick is crafting weird objects out of webbing. In just these issues, he makes a web-parachute, a web-column, a web-ball filled with web-fluid (?????), a web-shield, web-swamp shoes, a (flying) web-bat, web-wings, a web-heart to woo Sue Storm, and a giant spider made out of webbing on a wooden frame.

- He also totally trolls J. Jonah Jameson by using web fluid to stick his pants to his chair. Jameson spends the next scene walking around in his boxers.

- There is a Spidey Signal! It looks vaguely Bat-signal-esque, but projects from Spider-Man's belt. So, if you were looking at the Spidey Signal and turned around, you'd see Peter Parker standing there wearing a stupid belt and posing.

- He has a full-on romance with Betty Brant. I knew she was a love interest, but I didn't realise how totally into each other the two of them were.

- The second story totally forgets his name and calls him "Peter Palmer".

The thing that most annoyed me in the whole of Endgame:

Five years after the Snap, and someone at Captain America's support group talks about missing professional sports.

...seriously?

You're telling me that, three weeks after the world's population was reduced by 50%, they wouldn't have rescheduled games around the reduced number of players, to keep professional sports going no matter what?

Five years later – FIVE YEARS – and there are still no professional sports going?




Not. A. Chance.

In the best traditions of fandom, I made up my mind about Spider-Man: Homecoming long before watching it. Through cunning use of YouTube reviews, written reviews, and random comments on Reddit, I figured out the plot and what everyone else thought, and I decided that it definitely sucked (but not as much as the Amazing Spider-Man movies… which I also haven't seen).

Point 1: it's in the MCU, which I have many issues with.
Point 2: it has Tony Stark supplying Peter with super-advanced suits, which is kind of missing the point of Spiderman.

I have now, belatedly, seen the actual movie. And I agree with my totally biased opinions! But I have a few more thoughts.

You see, the problem with this movie is that it should star Miles Morales. In other words, they're aiming for Into The Spider-Verse and missing.


( let me explain )

Questions? Comments?

These are the Marvel superhero movies, with the ones I've seen in bold:
( list of movies )

Why did I start watching them?
- Superheroes are fun!

- Superpowers can make for really interesting action scenes (rather than the kicking and shooting that's all that's available in most action scenes, Lara Croft on a bungee notwithstanding).

- I love somewhat angsty, finding-your-identity stories.

- I love somewhat angsty, looking-for-redemption stories.

- I love silly costumes and silly names.


Why did I stop watching them?
- There started to be too many plotlines per movie. (For instance: Spiderman 3 and X-Men 3.)

- There stopped being silly costumes and silly names. What is the point of having superheroes if they don't embrace the silly?

- The movies started prioritising as follows:
(1) snark
(2) action scenes
(3) plot
(See: Avengers, which had an immense focus on Tony Stark snarking at Captain America, action scenes that were entertaining enough, but a bit forgettable, and a plotline that... vaguely held together.)

I want to see:
(1) plot
(2) action scenes
(3) snark
(X-Men, for instance. Which had two snarky lines - that were awesome - and some really interesting plot and action. Or Spiderman 2, which had incredible action scenes, and a plot that totally held together.)


And the main reason:
There is just too much continuity between movies. To understand Avengers, I had to have seen at least four previous movies (not a problem, because I had). To understand the following movies, I had to keep seeing all the following movies. They all build on each other! Which is really annoying, because the movies have a totally different feel from each other.

I decided early on that I wasn't so interested in the Thor movies - and yet, they still form part of the overall plot that I'm supposed to be familiar with.

It's much more frustrating than with a television show. Sure, watching all of Buffy is essential to properly understanding later episodes of Buffy - but this is more like having to watch Buffy, Angel, Firefly, and Dollhouse in order to understand later episodes of Buffy. That's too much to ask.



It may be just me. But the Marvel movies have lost at least one viewer - which is a real shame.