Screw It, We're Just Gonna Talk About Spider-Man
Summary: THWIP! Swing on by to hear a discussion of each of the 41 Spider-Man comic issues done by the original creative team of Stan Lee and Steve Ditko! We get into: Stan's terrible puns! Steve's angsty inks! The compelling villains (Doctor Octopus)! And the sometimes very dumb villains (Fancy Dan)! And anything that made these issues the BIG BANG of modern super-hero comics! Your co-hosts, UCB performers Will Hines and Kevin Hines, have no official qualifications except for a life-long love of Spider-Man in general and these issues in particular! 'NUFF SAID!
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Podcasts:
A special episode! After swearing they would never play the PS4 Spider-Man game, both Kevin and Will bought PS4 systems and games and got completely obsessed with it! They loved every bit of it, and in this episode get into why! The characters, the mechanics, the rendering of Manhattan, the surprises in the story!
We re-activate this podcast to discuss the awesome new movie: “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse” Your co-hosts Kevin and Will LOVED it, but of course we also have enough thoughts that we talk for over an hour about. Which version of Miles Morales do we get? What do we think of our two different Peter Parkers? How about the crazily good and varied art styles? Isn’t it so funny and also moving? Holy crap we loved it!
Stan Lee, the co-creator of Spider-Man, as well as the architect of the Marvel Universe, passed away this weekend. Kevin and Will give a eulogy. They talk about Stan’s personality, his salesmanship, his focus on the reader, his love of words, his respect for good stories. They get into a bit of the darker stuff too -- issues of giving credit, bad business deals, and the poorly written female characters. But overall, we loved and revered Stan, and we miss him already.
This is the end of Season One of the podcast! Thanks to everyone who listened! We go over what we learned, and then read a whole bunch of emails we got in the last few weeks! Thank you all from your hosts Kevin and Will Hines!
A look at what the Spidey-world looks like without Steve Ditko: your co-hosts Kevin and Will look at the first two issues with a new artist/co-plotter. And what it looks like: people are friendlier, backgrounds are filled in, everyone’s hunkier.. And Stan Lee gives a crap about his dialogue again!
Spider-Man’s original artist and co-writer Steve Ditko departs the series not with a bang but with a whimper. “Just A Guy Named Joe” has a pretty good start (in the opinion of your podcast co-hosts, at least) but falls apart. Maybe editor/scripter Stan Lee was ready to move on, maybe Steve Ditko didn’t bother thinking it through!
In his second to last issue, artist Steve Ditko turns in a good story! There’s subplots and great drawing and two weird-looking robots and the introduction of one of the greatest villains in the Spider-verse -- Norman Osborn! Corrupt businessman, terrible father and murderer! A not-great dude, but he makes for yes-great stories!
He got his powers from a meteor. He’s obsessed with meteors. This is the story of…. THE LOOTER! (?) Continuing this run of “guy who punches hard” villains, it’s clear that artist Steve Ditko is mentally checked out. But seeing a great artist phone it in is still interesting, IF You are insane fans like Kevin and Will! YOU CAN’T MISS THIS ONE (you could).
In what Will deems the “worst issue so far of the Ditko run” we see the Molten Man return and Stan Lee turn in his strangest bunch of dialogue yet! BUT the issue does venture into “so bad it’s really weird” territory so CHECK IT OUT!
Kraven is back to hunt the ultimate prey: Spider-Man! Betty Brant has a trippy Spidey-themed dream! And Gwen Stacy is falling for Peter! All great stuff! So… why is this issue kinda… eh?
Once again, Kevin and Will talk about some of their favorite non-Ditko stories! This episode, we go into the 1982 classic “Nothing Can Stop The Juggernaut” and the 2008 modern classic “Unscheduled Stop!” Plus a longish discussion about the lack of female creators who have been given the helm of Spidey stories (more stuff like Sara Pichelli drawing Miles Morales, please!)
“The Final Chapter” -- part 3 of the stunning Master Planner trilogy and co-hosts Kevin and Will are so excited they don’t quite know what to do with themselves. They read the first five pages out loud, then gush, then gush some more! They make the very fair declaration that if you don’t’ like this story more than any other story in any medium then you have a problem!
Part 2 of the artist Steve Ditko’s climactic Spider-Man triology - “Man on a Rampage.” All the setup of last issue comes bursting forth in an issue-long explosion of anger and fighting from Spidey! The previous 31 issues are in a way ALL part of a build-up to this story! Kevin and Will, as usual, get into it TOO MUCH!
This is it: One of the best stories in the history of Marvel Comics -- maybe ALL comics. It’s a three part story we call “The Master Planner Saga” and it starts here with issue 31 - “If This Be My Destiny.” We get fully into it: what made this trilogy so moving as a story, how it was right before writer/illustrator Steve Ditko left Marvel comics and started to fully enter obscurity and how writer/editor Stan Lee still nails it despite being almost totally left out by his collaborator.
A decent issue with a huge continuity error: the gang of uniformed thieves that show up periodically are ACTUALLY a foreshadowing of next issue! DO YOU FIND THIS FASCINATING? Co hosts Will and Kevin do! Plus: Ned Leeds PROPOSES to Betty Brant!
