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 Episode 30: State of Emergency Armageddon is seemingly upon us. Hordes of escaped prisoners are taking over NYC and wrecking everything they can find. A private military on Mayor Osborn's payroll is doing whatever they feel like, except for actually catching criminals (they do, however, hunt Spider-Man relentlessly and have even deployed EDIT: Episode 30 BONUS: Two Missed Calls (I accidentally skipped a couple of fairly important phone calls in the episode proper, so I put them in this bonus video instead) DMorbid fucked around with this message at 01:27 on Jul 19, 2019 |
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Jul 18, 2019 21:12
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One thing I really liked about this part of the game was the different reactions of cops that watch you take on the escaped prisoners. Some cheer Spidey on and tell him he’s awesome upon victory. Others will call him out for reckless endangerment of civilians and muse how Jameson is right. It really adds to the game’s realism. This happens with the hostage tour bus prisoner crimes if anyone is curious. Also, two things Doc didn’t show off now that I’ve watched the video- 1. You can choose which precinct to take on first for this mission- east or west side. A call from Yuri en route that Doc skipped mentions this and the dangers at each. East side has Electro, who sounds more dangerous and is probably who most would go for first. West is Rhino, but that precinct is actually the harder one, I think, because of the jet pack goons. You get the fire in Harlem mission/cutscene after you complete both. 2. The most annoying Sable enemy for me was the APC turrets. Web throwing them as an object is the only way to disable them. And as Doc points out with the sniper towers, web throwing a specific target is difficult in a firefight. At least the game prioritizes grenades! Or so it seems to me whenever I throw one back anyway. achtungnight fucked around with this message at 00:47 on Jul 19, 2019 |
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Jul 18, 2019 22:49
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achtungnight posted:1. You can choose which precinct to take on first for this mission- east or west side. A call from Yuri en route that Doc skipped mentions this and the dangers at each. Also, I went for Electro's quest marker first because it was the closest.  I don't think I was even trying to go to it at that moment because I was just kinda stopping random crimes, but the cutscene activates when you get even remotely close to the location so I ended up doing the Electro portion of the mission first. The game also crashed to the PS4 dashboard immediately after the cutscene, but thankfully nothing was corrupted and I was able to just reload the checkpoint when I booted up the game again.edit: Right, looks like I also missed a call from Aunt May right after the one from Yuri.  I've put those in a quick bonus video right here.
DMorbid fucked around with this message at 01:20 on Jul 19, 2019 |
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Jul 19, 2019 01:01
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 Episode 31: Light Up The Sky The motivations and plans of the Sinister Six are revealed, but the villains have laid a nefarious trap for the wallcrawler. How will Spider-Man withstand the combined might of two deadly foes? 1440p version is still processing so check back for that in a bit.
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Jul 19, 2019 23:54
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[sigh] Doc Ock isn't smart enough to follow the Evil Overlord List. "If I have an army of evil, I will use it. My soldiers will not attack the Hero one or two at a time. We will overwhelm the Hero with dogpile tactics, multiple superpowered or otherwise strong opponents, and well-coordinated group assaults. If anything, we will always attack en masse so that the Hero's attention will have to be divided constantly and thus keep the numbers advantage." Clearly sending only Vulture & Electro after Spidey violates this. We had trouble taking on all of the Six at once. Ock got overconfident and sent only a couple at us. Either that or he wants us to take them down because he knows he promised them rewards he can't deliver. Hmm. Other than this, I enjoyed exploring Ock's hideout and the following dual Boss Battle. Especially the one-liners.
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Jul 20, 2019 00:52
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Octavius was probably certain his bomb trap would take care of Spider-Man if he came snooping around (if not, Ock would've probably been happy to leave Spider-Man to his own devices) and specifically set it up so that only someone trying to stop the Sinister Six would trigger it, so he just left Vulture to watch the hideout while the rest of the crew was out doing more important things. Then when the trap failed, Vulture took Spider-Man to Electro because he knew he couldn't match Spider-Man on his own. Since the video in the Icarus box clearly wasn't prerecorded, I also like to imagine Octavius sitting in front of his laptop with Skype open, thinking "Holy poo poo, just find the stupid box already! What's he doing in there, listening to all of the audio logs and looking at every object in the room? Who the hell does that?" I presume Vulture informed him of Spider-Man arriving at the hideout, although it would be funnier if he'd just been sitting there all day just in case Spider-Man happens to trigger the trap. DMorbid fucked around with this message at 14:19 on Jul 20, 2019 |
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Jul 20, 2019 12:35
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Given that the game has so far portrayed Dr. Octavius as a highly intelligent person with very good reasons for loathing Norman Osborn and severe impulse control issues that he knew would be exacerbated by the tentacle interface, it's also far from unthinkable that his original plan included 'allow Spider-Man to defeat supervillains and restore order once Osborn's corruption and incompetence have been exposed' as one of its final steps. He certainly seemed to approve of Peter helping him earlier. Of course, regardless of whether that's true or not, it's also very likely that he'll come out of the whole affair with a newfound dislike of spiders.
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Jul 20, 2019 23:26
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Considering he hoped Spider-Man would be his ally at some point... I get the feeling that despite his high intelligence Doc Ock doesn’t exactly think everything through as much as he should.
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Jul 21, 2019 00:10
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achtungnight posted:Considering he hoped Spider-Man would be his ally at some point... I get the feeling that despite his high intelligence Doc Ock doesn’t exactly think everything through as much as he should. Just because you're a genius at one thing doesn't mean it transfers over to other poo poo.
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Jul 21, 2019 00:26
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Nalesh posted:Just because you're a genius at one thing doesn't mean it transfers over to other poo poo. Except in the mind of many who believe they are genius, correct or not, it does. Pride blinds and power corrupts.
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Jul 21, 2019 00:31
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I was not expecting the Rocky joke. I was really not expecting Electro to actually respond in kind.
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Jul 21, 2019 01:47
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Spidey's glee at Electro responding to his joke is one of my favorite bits.
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Jul 21, 2019 21:04
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DanielCross posted:Spidey's glee at Electro responding to his joke is one of my favorite bits. What was that about? It's me I'm Vulture. 
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Jul 21, 2019 22:25
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In the movie series Rocky / Creed, the hero Rocky's love interest is named Adrienne. "Hey Adrienne, it's me, Rocky!" he shouts at a few key moments. Vulture's first name is Adrian, so... I trust you get it now. As for the follow up joke, in Rocky 4 and Creed 2, the main antagonist is a big Russian boxer played by Dolph Lundgren. He tells Rocky "I must break you!" Get that now too? I had to have a Gamespot article point it out the first time myself (not too into sports movies), so I feel your pain.
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Jul 21, 2019 22:45
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achtungnight posted:In the movie series Rocky / Creed, the hero Rocky's love interest is named Adrienne. "Hey Adrienne, it's me, Rocky!" he shouts at a few key moments. Vulture's first name is Adrian, so... I trust you get it now.  quote:I had to have a Gamespot article point it out the first time myself (not too into sports movies), so I feel your pain. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MwPb7g_BlXQ
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Jul 21, 2019 23:07
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fractalairduct posted:Does Scorpion have immunity to Spider-Sense? He seemed to get the better of Spidey a couple of times there. To be fair, it's a 5 v 1 in cramped quarters. cant cook creole bream posted:What was that about? It's me I'm Vulture. Spidey and Electro are just shouting Rocky references at each other, with Spidey's first joke being a crack about Vulture's real name being the same as Rocky's girlfriend. Blueberry Pancakes fucked around with this message at 15:24 on Jul 22, 2019 |
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Jul 22, 2019 15:22
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Blueberry Pancakes posted:To be fair, it's a 5 v 1 in cramped quarters. Ah, Spectacular Spider-Man, you were too good for this world. Quick life hack for PS4 havers: There's a free kids' TV app (at least in the UK/EU) called Pop, which actually has Spectacular Spider-Man on it for anyone who wants to check it out for themselves. Also it has the MTV series starring Neil Patrick Harris, which seems a little out there (and maybe a little too mature for Pop's target audience) but still interesting.
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Jul 28, 2019 19:51
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 Episode 32: Running Through My Veins Following the defeat of Electro and Vulture, Spider-Man is hunting down the Scorpion in an effort to stop him from feeding a lethal dose of poison into the city's water reserves. However, it's in fact the wallcrawler who is the one being hunted! Can Spidey survive the Scorpion's sting? DMorbid fucked around with this message at 11:43 on Jul 29, 2019 |
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Jul 29, 2019 11:29
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Oh goody, another "hero gets poisoned and experienced a mind screw hallucination section while the bad guy - or is it just a hallucination of the hero's own mind?! - monologues, with a boss fight - or is it just another hallucination?! - at the end" section. These haven't been original or clever for years now.
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Jul 29, 2019 15:09
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Yeah, that whole section feels a bit "It sure was cool when Arkham Asylum did this ten years ago, and it'll be even cooler when we do it!" I do like the visuals, and webslinging your way through all those giant Scorpion tails is pretty fun, but it's pretty clear this section is in the game only because people liked the Scarecrow segments in the Batman games, and it might as well have been cut out without any impact on the overall story. Also, if you're going to put a sequence with a bunch of weird hallucinations in your Spider-Man game, why not use Mysterio instead of turning Scorpion into the Scarecrow?
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Jul 29, 2019 18:51
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Doc M posted:Yeah, that whole section feels a bit "It sure was cool when Arkham Asylum did this ten years ago, and it'll be even cooler when we do it!" I mean, they already did a hallucination sequence earlier with Mr. Negative. Maybe they decided to rehearse a few times before the main event. 
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Jul 29, 2019 20:09
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I'll get to recording commentary for the next update (in which we tackle the remaining Sable outposts and prisoner camps, and listen to JJJ a whole lot) soon enough, but right now I thought I'd do something a bit different and actually talk about Spider-Man comics. Namely, I decided to revisit one particular Spider-Man run that doesn't get a lot of appreciation these days because it happened in the middle of the Clone Saga and had the wrong Spider-Man — Sensational Spider-Man #0-6 by Dan Jurgens and Klaus Janson. Doc M Talks About Spider-Man Comics: Sensational Spider-Man by Dan Jurgens & Klaus Janson  When Dan Jurgens joined Marvel, the company's editorial staff was ecstatic — at DC, this guy killed Superman (to be precise, the idea to kill Superman came from DC’s Jerry Ordway, but Jurgens was the lead writer on 1992-93’s The Death of Superman arc and created Doomsday, the alien monster Superman fought to the death), what could he possibly have in store for the wallcrawler? There was just one problem. Well, many problems, really, as Marvel was in turmoil behind the scenes. The big one, however, was the ongoing Spider-Man storyline at this time. That’s right, when Dan Jurgens started his run on Spider-Man, the infamous Clone Saga was in full swing and showed no signs of ending anytime soon. For those of you who are mercifully unaware of this debacle, I’ll try to summarize the Clone Saga as concisely as I can. A bit of a tall order considering the whole shebang lasted two years and 150+ issues of various Spider-Man books. Here’s the extremely abridged version of the events up until the point Jurgens’ run on Sensational Spider-Man begins: - In 1974, a villain named the Jackal creates a Spider-Man clone, who is presumed dead following the storyline and Peter Parker carries on as Spider-Man as usual. - In 1994, the clone comes back to New York and now calls himself Ben Reilly (after Spider-Man’s Uncle Ben and Aunt May, the latter of whom’s maiden name was Reilly). In the comic timeline, this gap was five years instead of twenty. - Peter and Ben meet again, briefly fight each other, and eventually become best buds. Ben takes up the superhero gig once more and becomes the Scarlet Spider. Aunt May dies. - Jackal returns and does a bunch of stupid crap nobody cares about while hinting Ben might actually be the real Peter Parker, then dies. - Ben is revealed as the real Peter Parker and becomes Spider-Man. The clone Peter moves to Portland with his wife Mary Jane, who is pregnant with their child. I assure you I had to omit a LOT of dumb nonsense and terrible side characters to keep this summary as brief as it was. Mind, it wasn’t all bad, and especially J.M. DeMatteis was still able to do excellent work on the writing front early on (Amazing Spider-Man #400, a mostly standalone story featuring the death of Aunt May is one of my favorite Spider-Man books of all time, even though that brilliant and emotional story was ruined by a horrendously idiotic retcon a couple of years down the line). Had the Saga only lasted six months as per the original plan, it would not be nearly as maligned as it is. Unfortunately, that is not what happened. The core idea behind the whole event was this: Marvel’s editorial staff always hated the idea of Spider-Man being married, and wanted to return to the supposed glory days before Peter and MJ tied the knot (a divorce was out of the cards, because it would’ve just added more baggage and made Peter seem old). Not only that, but the Spider-Man books had gotten overly grim and serious in recent years, and Marvel wanted to go back to the more light-hearted stories of decades past. So, they thought, wouldn’t it be great if we brought back the clone, and then reveal he’s actually the real Spider-Man? Spider-Man would be cool and hip and single and fun again! Better yet, the grim, humorless, married spider-jerk from the newer comics would’ve actually been the clone all along! And if the readers riot, we can just walk it back and restore Peter as the real Spider-Man again. Brilliant! Of course, later on Marvel finally got their wish when Peter and MJ sold their marriage to Satan, but that’s a whole other bit of idiocy. All of this finally brings us back to Sensational Spider-Man by Dan Jurgens (story/pencils) and Klaus Janson (inks). The debut issue of Sensational (issue #0) would be the big debut of Ben Reilly as the one true Spider-Man. He’d still keep his identity as Ben Reilly and dye his hair blond to distinguish himself from Peter, because there was no way Ben would be able to just become Peter Parker again after so many years. This also necessitated the creation of a completely new supporting cast. The problem with all this was the fact Dan Jurgens utterly detested Ben Reilly. Still does, in fact, as he has lambasted the character in interviews for years. In his opinion, Spider-Man is Peter Parker (preferably an unmarried Peter Parker who is constantly down on his luck… which to many people is kind of this ideal of Spider-Man, but never really existed) and that’s it. He did not want to write about clones, and kept lobbying for Peter Parker to be brought back as Spider-Man as quickly as possible. This kept getting delayed further and further, even when Jurgens gave an ultimatum that he’d quit if this clone nonsense wasn’t wrapped up soon. When the return of Peter Parker was delayed one last time in order to avoid clashing with the Onslaught crossover event, Jurgens made good on his ultimatum and walked away after only seven issues of Sensational Spider-Man. Here’s the kicker, though — despite everything, Ben Reilly Spider-Man as written by Dan Jurgens is pretty drat great. Maybe it’s not the “real” Spider-Man, and I don’t blame you if you find that fact a dealbreaker (many people did exactly that), but Jurgens’ all too brief run on Sensational was and still is miles ahead of anything the other core Spider-Man writers were doing at the time. One of the big ongoing stories around this time was "The Great Game" which involved a bunch of Z-list heroes and villains fighting each other while being sponsored by rich assholes who would make a shitton of money if their guy won, and it just kept going on and on despite absolutely no one on Earth giving a single solitary poo poo about it (including Jurgens, who ignored it almost completely). The only writer who handled Ben Reilly as well as Jurgens and was able to get inside the character’s head as effectively was J.M. DeMatteis, but he had left before Ben became Spider-Man. Unfortunately, Marvel in the 90s did not allow just one writer to handle a character. During Jurgens’ tenure at Marvel, there were four separate Spider-Man books coming out each month (Amazing Spider-Man, Spectacular Spider-Man, Spider-Man, Sensational Spider-Man), each with their own writers and artists. Not only was this a nightmare to follow from a reader standpoint since you had to buy four books each month to keep up with the story, it also inevitably meant the writers’ creative vision for Spider-Man the character would be compromised because everything had to stick to the big (and generally terrible) overarching storylines their bosses had forced on them. The writers just had to try to make all these stories fit together more or less consistently. It would’ve been fascinating to see how Jurgens would’ve handled Spider-Man if he had been the sole writer responsible for the character or if Sensational Spider-Man had at least been a standalone book, but this simply wasn’t in the cards at the time.  That’s a lot of books. While I wasn’t always a fan of how the monthly Spider-Man anthology book we got in Finland often had to cut out stuff to make multiple books fit within 60 or so pages, at least it was just one single book each month instead of… this. They did always mention that the storyline would continue in e.g. Amazing Spider-Man #408 so you at least knew which book was next in the chronology, but if you want to read this stuff on Marvel Unlimited nowadays you need to have a whole bunch of tabs open! When it comes to the actual Spider-Man action in Sensational Spider-Man, it’s generally solid. Dan Jurgens draws eye-catching action scenes, and his Spider-Man usually looks excellent. The anatomy is questionable in some panels (Spider-Man’s feet occasionally look odd, and at one point in Sensational #0 we even get to see a rare male boobs-and-butt pose), but considering the standards of the mid-90s the art could be a hell of a lot worse. All the characters have human proportions, and the art in general has a grounded and realistic feel that fits Spider-Man very well. Jurgens's stories tended to stick to street-level superheroics and Ben Reilly's personal life for the most part, which I still enjoy a lot more than most Spider-Man stuff from this era. I also like how quippy Ben is in these stories, because Peter got pretty grim in the 90s. Although the artwork and writing in these issues was solid, one unfortunate byproduct of the overarching storylines at the time was the fact Jurgens couldn’t make much use of the classic Spider-Man villains. Mysterio appears in Sensational #0 and #1, but has been redesigned for the 90s (by John Romita, Jr.) and doesn’t look anything like himself. Rhino shows up in a couple of panels in a later issue (fighting Kaine, whom Jurgens couldn’t give less of a poo poo about, doubly so since both are involved in the stupid Great Game), but that’s about it unless you want to count the Molten Man (loving Molten Man, are you serious) as a classic villain. It’s the 90s, man! Those old villains aren’t cool anymore!  Despite all the compromises and lack of creative freedom, Jurgens was at least able to tell one particular Spider-Man story he’d always wanted to do, and this story still works very well even if you skip all of the other books that came out during this time. This is the story of a young photographer named Jessica Carradine, who has a special interest in Spider-Man.  Jessica makes her debut in Sensational Spider-Man #0, snapping a photo of the webhead in his brand new costume. In the following issue, she meets Ben Reilly who is now working as a barista at the Daily Grind coffee shop she frequents, and the two hit it off and eventually start dating. However, it quickly becomes evident her interest in Spider-Man might not be entirely healthy, as Ben discovers the walls of her apartment are plastered with photos of Spider-Man and soon finds out she blames the wallcrawler for the murder of her father. Obviously, this is sort of odd because Spider-Man doesn’t murder people, so Ben investigates further and discovers Jessica’s dad was none other than the burglar who killed Uncle Ben! (The burglar was never named in the comics, but I appreciated the fact his surname in the Spider-Man 3 film was Carradine. That movie might have been a travesty for the most part, but at least someone did their homework) According to the version of the events Jessica’s father told her, he had accidentally gone into the wrong house and Uncle Ben mistook him for a burglar, pulling a gun on him. Supposedly, there was a struggle and the gun went off, causing Uncle Ben’s death by accident. Then, according to the story, Spider-Man lied and told the cops the gun belonged to Jessica's father and he murdered Uncle Ben, thus framing her father and sending him to prison for a crime he didn't commit. Of course, everyone knows this version of the story is utter bullshit, especially if they’ve read Amazing Spider-Man #200. In that classic issue (whose events are recapped by Peter during this story to fill Ben in on what actually happened, since Peter was Spider-Man at that time), Spider-Man encounters the killer again, and the guy is an unrepentant dickhead who openly gloats about killing Uncle Ben and threatens to kill Peter (and May, if he needs to) as well.  At the end of ASM 200, the killer is so horrified of what he imagines Spider-Man might do to him that he suffers a heart attack and dies. Spider-Man explicitly tells him he’s only going to send him back to prison, but the killer is convinced Spider-Man wants his head and basically scares himself to death. Jessica believes the heart attack was just a cover-up and insists Spider-Man strangled her father to death, and nothing will convince her otherwise. Then, things get worse. One night, Ben and Jessica go out on a date, but Ben has to go off and become Spider-Man. Spider-Man does his thing and goes back to a nearby alley to change back to Ben Reilly, but doesn’t realize Jessica has followed him. Jessica takes a photo just as he unmasks, and realizes Ben is Spider-Man. Ben finally spots Jessica and tries to talk to her, but it’s no use as she tearfully screams at him to get out of her life. Soon, Jessica starts having second thoughts, because she has always imagined Spider-Man as a murderous monster (Spidey’s brief stint as the grotesque Spider-Carnage recently didn’t help matters, even though he didn’t actually kill anyone while the symbiote was attached to him) but Ben Reilly seems like a good person. Maybe her father didn’t tell her the whole truth about the Ben Parker incident, and maybe she’s also been wrong about Spider-Man killing him?  Unfortunately, all of this coincides with a dreadful time in Ben’s life, as he’s accused of burning down the Daily Grind. Someone also breaks into his apartment, steals everything and writes “WE KNOW WHO YOU ARE” on the wall. Finally, Peter Parker (who is back in NYC but has temporarily lost his powers) is attacked by goons who know Spider-Man’s identity. As far as Ben knows, only one person aside from Peter and MJ is aware of him being Spider-Man, so he goes to Jessica’s apartment as Spider-Man and yells at her for ruining his life. Naturally, she has no idea what he’s talking about because she doesn’t exactly hang out with a bunch of superpowered thugs (the Hobgoblin is eventually revealed as the culprit behind the attacks as well as the Daily Grind arson, and Ben's name is cleared), and is visibly shocked and horrified by the accusations. Around this time, Jessica considers sending the unmasked photos of Spider-Man to J. Jonah Jameson, but decides against it because she still has doubts. (In a story by another writer, Ben and Jessica almost reconcile but Ben screws up by mentioning the photos and Jessica assumes he’s just being nice to get her to keep his secret, so she tells him to scram) Sensational Spider-Man #6 was Dan Jurgens’ final issue, and since Jessica was his creation it was only fair he got the opportunity to conclude her storyline before leaving Marvel. Some of the artwork in this issue is not quite up to Jurgens’ usual standards, either because of tight deadlines or because he knew he was on the way out and phoned it in to some degree, but most of it still looks good and the story absolutely holds up.  After visiting her father’s grave, Jessica walks around the city still trying to figure out what to do with the pictures. She just about manages to convince herself that she doesn’t want to destroy Spider-Man because she loves Ben, but then she sees Ben at a fancy restaurant with Desiree Winthrop. Desiree is another Daily Grind regular, a rich girl who is clearly interested in Ben, and Jessica considers her a rival even though Ben isn’t actually interested in Desiree and was only having lunch with her to get out of the rain. In any case, Jessica is instantly consumed by jealousy and finally decides to mail the Spider-Man pictures to the Daily Bugle. Now, all she has to do is find a mailbox, but before she can locate one she sees Spider-Man rush towards a burning building a few blocks away. Jessica follows Spider-Man and witnesses a truly heroic display as Spider-Man rescues all of the people stuck in the burning restaurant on the building’s top floor without a moment’s hesitation or concern for his own life. Just when Spider-Man thinks he’s done, it turns out two children are still stuck in the restaurant and may yet be alive, so he heads right back in despite the firefighters warning him that this is a suicide mission even if the kids still live. Spider-Man does not care and makes his way back into the blaze, and manages to find the children just as the top of the building explodes. The onlookers are horrified because nobody could’ve possibly survived that, and Jessica is now deeply regretting the fact she didn’t listen to Ben. Miraculously, Spider-Man and the children emerge from the fiery wreckage almost unscathed, having gotten out in the nick of time.  Everyone present hails Spider-Man as a true hero, which seemingly flips a switch in Jessica’s head and she begins to think of him as a hero for the first time in her life. Jessica hands Spider-Man the envelope containing the pictures and tells him she was wrong about him all along, disappearing into the crowd as the media swarms Spider-Man with their questions. The last two pages of Sensational #6 show Jessica at the gravesite of Uncle Ben and Aunt May. She apologizes for all the pain and suffering her father caused the Parker family, and for believing her father’s lies for so long. After leaving flowers on Uncle Ben’s grave, Jessica walks away to parts unknown to start her life again. There are a couple of details in this scene I found interesting — for starters, this issue is the first and only time Jessica does not wear predominantly black clothing. It’s something that completely escaped me when I read this as a kid in the 90s, but her wardrobe change here is obviously supposed to be thematic, especially the bright white dress she wears in the final scene as she’s accepted the truth and is ready to start over. The final splash page is also a callback to the last page of Sensational Spider-Man #0, as you can see here:   Pretty cool! As a professional nitpicker, I do have to point out how the small hill in the background has disappeared and the layout of the headstone engravings has changed (I’m sure I’d have been awarded a 100% genuine Marvel Comics No-Prize if I had written in about this in 1996… and lived in the US so I could’ve actually read this story in 1996 instead of early 1998, when it was published in Finland), but that’s still a very nice way for Jurgens to sign off. I’ve mostly been a proponent of Spider-Man and MJ being married, but Jessica’s storyline simply couldn’t be told as effectively with a married Spider-Man. “The daughter of Uncle Ben’s killer, who hates Spider-Man because her dad lied to her” is already a great concept for a character, but the romance aspect really elevates the story to the next level and it wouldn’t work nearly as well if Spider-Man was married to MJ. Sure, you could have Jessica fall in love with Peter Parker, but he would not be able to reciprocate because he’d look like an rear end in a top hat for cheating on MJ. With Ben Reilly, everything just clicks perfectly and them having an actual relationship adds a lot to the drama. Sure, it’s a bit of a soap opera plot, but that sort of stuff was always the best part of Spider-Man even during the original Stan Lee & Steve Ditko era! While especially the latter parts of the Clone Saga are pretty dire, I always liked Ben Reilly and this storyline is one of the big reasons why. I understand why people were sick of the clone bullshit and just wanted Peter to come back, but Ben Reilly as Spider-Man was a lot of fun (especially in Jurgens' stories) and it's one of those things that would be interesting to see as an alternate continuity or something like that. Marvel eventually brought Ben back from the dead and made him Scarlet Spider again, but this version of Ben is a giant rear end in a top hat and not even remotely the same character so who cares. It would've been interesting to see what else Jurgens could've done with Spider-Man had he stuck around, but sadly that didn't happen and he hasn't worked on Spider-Man since, although he did write Captain America and Thor for a while. I'm sure he'd have tried to undo the marriage at some point, but he probably would've also written some really good Spider-Man stories. Oh well. DMorbid fucked around with this message at 18:48 on Aug 3, 2019 |
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Aug 2, 2019 21:33
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Thanks for the comicsposting! Maybe you should share it over in BSS, too. Jurgens' Sensational run is on Marvl Unlimited, if anyone wants to check it out.
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Aug 2, 2019 21:48
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Back in the day, did they ever try to get Charles Schultz to write Spider-Man? Because Marvel's editors sure as hell seem to have this idea that Spidey should be their equivalent of Charlie Brown.
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Aug 2, 2019 22:01
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Storylines being spread across multiple separate titles, sometimes ones about completely unrelated characters during crossover events, is what drove me away from regularly reading superhero comics. Ugh. A nightmare to follow and not infrequently not actually collected together in trades (or by pirates) for whatever reason.
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Aug 3, 2019 02:01
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malkav11 posted:Storylines being spread across multiple separate titles, sometimes ones about completely unrelated characters during crossover events, is what drove me away from regularly reading superhero comics. Ugh. A nightmare to follow and not infrequently not actually collected together in trades (or by pirates) for whatever reason. I first actively tried to collect comics for Maximum Carnage. No particular reason, I liked Spidey and it's what was going on when I thought of making the attempt. Unfortunately the spread of story across many comics arcs made it confusing to keep track, and my "local" comics store being 30 miles away in Santa Fe (I think; we may have gone all the way to Albuquerque, I'm getting comics and miniatures shops confused) meant I couldn't just swing by every week to see what was in. It just fell apart, though I enjoyed what I had. Foolishly I tried again for Death and Return of Superman. I think I got the intro issues for each character, and then next time I could get in the issue was Cyborg Superman's destruction, I missed the entire turn and reveal of everyone's stories and all that stuff.
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Aug 3, 2019 02:37
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malkav11 posted:Storylines being spread across multiple separate titles, sometimes ones about completely unrelated characters during crossover events, is what drove me away from regularly reading superhero comics. Ugh. A nightmare to follow and not infrequently not actually collected together in trades (or by pirates) for whatever reason.
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Aug 3, 2019 21:05
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 Episode 33: A Friendlier Neighborhood All these Sable outposts and prisoner camps are a real eyesore, so today we're smashing them up good and proper! (That, then, leaves just the hundreds of mercenaries and escaped convicts running around the streets and shooting at everything that looks vaguely spider-shaped...) If you're a fan of Just the Facts with J. Jonah Jameson, this is the episode for you because I'm pretty sure he talks more in this video than I do. This is chronologically the last side content episode of the LP. From next episode onward, it'll be a straight run to the end. I want to say there are four more story mission videos, and once we're finished with the story I'll post the rest of the side mission stuff I recorded earlier. After that, we'll dive into the DLC.
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Aug 5, 2019 23:16
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 Episode 34: The Rhino and the Scorpion That title is pretty self-explanatory. That being said, Spider-Man is not the only one who has to deal with Rhino today, and the big man is a lot more intimidating when you don't have spider-powers...
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Aug 6, 2019 19:36
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Congrats on reaching this milestone. I know it's been a long road, and the rest of the game will still take a while. Can't say I'm looking forward to the DLC much, I enjoyed the main story parts but that was about it. The combat in this game can get repetitive unfortunately and the side content was bleah when it wasn't painful. More details when we get there.  I quite enjoyed that "milady" crack from Spidey on busting up the south prisoner camp.  I also have to say that despite the Vulture & Electro fight getting lots of critical acclaim when the game came out, I enjoyed the Rhino & Scorpion fight more. Probably because the villains got more development and you could use one against the other. The Miles vs. Rhino level was also pretty fun, really had the feel of a survival horror sequence first time I played it. Second time not so much, but so it goes. Wish they called the Stealth Suit Spider-Man "Night Monkey" like they do in the Far From Home film.
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Aug 6, 2019 22:27
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achtungnight posted:Wish they called the Stealth Suit Spider-Man "Night Monkey" like they do in the Far From Home film. That is a good name for the suit, though.I'm terrible at keeping up with new movies and only really watch stuff when it comes out on digital download or preferably Netflix. The only recent Marvel films I've seen are Homecoming and Into the Spider-Verse, I haven't bothered with any of the Avengers stuff or any of the million other MCU films that have come out in the last few years because I just haven't cared enough. I wonder what my younger self in 1998 (a big Marvel fan who would routinely get mocked for liking comic books, which to be fair might not have been that unreasonable in the 90s) would say if I went back in time and told him that in 20 years, everyone will be raving about all the blockbuster Marvel films but you won't even bother to watch most of them.
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Aug 6, 2019 23:24
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Apologies for the inadvertent spoilage. So many people see a movie, you assume things. Seriously, the movies are good, check them out when you can. Especially since Disney is doing an exclusive deal with streaming them in the future where you have to subscribe to their streaming channel and Netflix won't have them, grumble grumble. Watch the How It Should Have Ended bits for the Marvel films on YouTube also, they're funny as heck.
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Aug 6, 2019 23:28
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Oh wow, those quips. I love them. Are there different quips for different enemies, or bosses? And if so, any chance you could show them off?
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Aug 7, 2019 21:12
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inflatablefish posted:Are there different quips for different enemies, or bosses? And if so, any chance you could show them off? But first...  Episode 35: Answers MJ explores Norman Osborn's penthouse in search of information about the Devil's Breath cure, and ends up discovering a lot more than she anticipated... I rendered this episode at 4K so you get to see all the little details (which also means the file is gigantic and the processing time on Youtube was longer than the entirety of Infinity War). And just as a heads up for those of you who don't care for actual spiders, the latter half of this video prominently features some creepy-looking ones on a couple of occasions.
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Aug 7, 2019 22:16
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Ah, my favorite sneaking level! It's the last one and we can actually knock out enemies. And we can do it with our own resources too. The Spidey knock outs in Grand Central were not something I could trigger every time I wanted, whereas with the taser you just have to get in the right position. I actually lingered at the end just to knock out everyone I could. Also, there are many interesting plot developments with the hints of things to come in the sequel I presume they're working on and MJ's dive off the building. Wonder if Lois and Clark ever pulled off that trick.
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Aug 7, 2019 23:40
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 Episode 36: Vanquish the Demon Martin Li must be saved from himself before his Mr. Negative side hurts any more people. He must remember the good man we know is somewhere in there, and shut out Mr. Negative once and for all. Mr. Negative, however, will not go quietly. While all of this is going on, Dr. Octopus is lurking in the shadows as well, looking to exact his vengeance on Norman Osborn. In addition, the little spider friend we accidentally picked up from Norman's creepy lab is still running around at F.E.A.S.T... DMorbid fucked around with this message at 22:28 on Aug 8, 2019 |
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Aug 8, 2019 20:36
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It's a good thing that they could do surgery to put Spidey's ribcage and organs back together without needing to cut through the suit.
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Aug 9, 2019 00:55
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Okay game, when's the boss fight with Silver Sable? You're running out of time unless she's going to be a joke boss who drops in two hits.
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Aug 9, 2019 00:57
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Silver Sable's involvement in the main game ends here aside from a brief phone call at the start of the next video, but we'll see plenty of her in one of the DLC episodes. Now, I know I've been complaining about the DLC a lot, but there's still good and fun stuff there and the only episode I genuinely consider bad is the second one (which is not the one with Sable in it).
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Aug 9, 2019 01:13
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| # ? Jun 2, 2024 07:25 |
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Oh, darn, we could've had Spider-MJ.
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Aug 9, 2019 22:33
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