What If: There Was A Spider-man 4?

       Like the popular mini-series created by DC and Marvel, I have decided to apply the “What If?” story to some of my articles. Certain subjects such as: what if this movie was successful or this cartoon series expanded to others or if a comic series didn’t get enough credit. For my opening “What If?” article, I have decided to ask the question: what if there was a Spiderman 4?

        Most of you have a pretty easy answer to this question, “it would suck just like Spiderman 3”, or “I guess it would be alright, but not as good as other superhero movies today”. And I completely agree, which is why I’m about to do some history altering. Imagine that Spiderman 3 was a success, that the film didn’t have a lot of redundant scenes, that it didn’t focus so much on the Sandman’s personal problems, that it expanded a little more on the Venom story, and most importantly, that we didn’t see Peter Parker’s “unique” dance skills (it was weird, just weird). So, at this point in my alternate reality, Sam Raimi and the crew are working on a successful sequel to Spiderman 3. The cast has returned and their characters are given a chance to become examined further. In terms of villains, there was much speculation in the early production of this film (this is real by the way) that the Vulture would act as the main adversary for old Web-head, along with a side-story involving Ben Reilly and the Scarlet Spider. The idea was great, introduce a simple villain like the Vulture and don’t go too deep into his origins and personal life, but focus on the main plot involving Spidey and his clone. Jake Gyllenhaal was considered to play Ben Reilly due to the fact that he looks a little like Tobey Maguire and that the two just played brothers in the movie Brothers. This would be bringing back the tale from the comics called The Clone Saga, which involved the investigation as to whether Ben Reilly was the clone of Peter, or if Peter was in fact the clone.

Wallpaper Of The Week: A Trio Of Spidey Pics

       With The Amazing Spider-man film just over a month away, I've scoured the internet and have compiled my three favorite wallpapers released so far. click on them, save them, use them as your desktop pic, whatever... enjoy!

Wallpaper Of The Week: Ironman In The Avengers

Ironman fending off an alien invasion, wearing his newest suit of armor in the billion dollar film, The Avengers! Enjoy!

Marvel Series That Ended Too Soon

     It happens all the time, whether it was receiving bad reviews or because the company was being purchased by someone else, some good TV shows just get cancelled and there is nothing that die hard fans can do about it. Three series come to mind, Marvel series to be exact that ended too soon. Each one could have easily pulled off two more marvelous seasons but for whatever the reason, each show ended too soon. Spiderman: Unlimited, Wolverine And The X-Men and The Spectacular Spiderman. I didn’t think much about these series’ abrupt endings until I began watching the new Ultimate Spiderman series and it got me thinking. I’m a fan of the Ultimate series, its been pretty good so far, but I cant help but thinking that, a) This series only exists due to the Spectacular’s cancellation and b) is it too soon for yet another Spidey cartoon?

     In 1999, legendary cartoon shows of the 90’s were coming to an end and most of us thought we wouldn’t see another good superhero cartoon for at least another couple years. Then the WB released an icon in Batman Beyond, set in the same universe as the renowned Batman: The Animated Series, but 50 years in the future. The series was a huge success right from the start and the boys at DC loved it. Marvel began to take notice, although their successful series of the decade like The X-Men, Ironman and Spiderman had ended, Marvel still wanted to compete. So they took their most successful character (old Web-Head) and revamped him the way that DC revamped Batman, creating Spiderman: Unlimited. Taking place some time after the previous Spiderman series finale, it appears that Peter has found the long lost Mary Jane and is living happily with her, until he need to travel to an alternate Earth in order to save John Jameson, the astronaut. Along with a new, high-tech suit, Spiderman encounters alternate versions of The Vulture, Green Goblin and Kraven, not to mention his own versions of Venom and Carnage who followed Jameson to this other world for their own devilish reasons. The premise of the first season was to help Jameson and the rebels take down the High Evolutionary and his band of genetically altered animals so that he and John could return back to their own world, but in the season finale, while stopping the High Evolutionary, Venom and Carnage unleash the Synoptic, a large monster-like symbiote that begins its attack on the city, and then, Boom! Cancelled! Well, it didn’t quite happen that fast. The network is was running on wanted the air time for shows with better ratings so they eventually decided to cut the series from their network. The series only lasted 13 episodes and never made it to a second season. The plot of the next season would have involved the rebels working together with the Beastials to destroy the symbiotes. In my opinion, that would have made damn good television.

Avengers Assembled! Now What?

      I am very proud to say that The Avengers lived up to its name. The characters, the confrontations, the climaxes, all spectacular and exceeding previous expectations. Originally, before viewing the film, my biggest concern was the combination of so many big names. Four out of the six main heroes had their own movie titles, so creating a story that involves them, a large cast of supporting characters and, to top it all off, a villain, I feared the movie would feel too rushed and would cheat some characters out of their deserved spotlight. But director Joss Whedon did it correctly and each hero had their fair share of amazing moments. Now that The Avengers is being called “one of the greatest superhero films of all time” and “the best Marvel movie of all time” and being a film that has just shattered box office records, where do earth’s mightiest heroes go from here?

      This is where, if you haven’t seen the movie, you should probably stop reading (then again, about 500 million people or more have seen the film by now so odds are, you’re probably good to keep reading). But some spoilers do follow.