Daredevil and Spider-Man
May. 26th, 2009 01:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lydamorehouse... should be lovers, no wait, actually, I was planning to do a review of some older graphic novels and single issues of those titles I picked up over the weekend.
Before leaving for LaCrosse, my family and I stopped in at the HalfPrice Books in Highland Park (Saint Paul) for vacation books. Mason discovered a couple of cool new sticker activity books, including one with the rather evocative title: "Sticky History of the World." Shawn found a couple of good mysteries, and I browsed the graphic novel selection and saw that they had a DAREDEVIL by Ed Brubaker (who I'd pretty much read doing any title, this one is Volume One: "Hell to Pay") and one of J. Michael Straczynski's AMAZING SPIDER-MAN (Volume 2: "Revelations.")
I'm not normally a Daredevil fan, and it's not just because of Ben Affleck (who I didn't think did THAT bad of a job, but people love to hate that guy for some reason). Daredevil is one of those Marvel characters I always found kind of, well, square. Kind of like Captain America, who I never much cared for until I was over forty, and could appreciate his gravitas, I guess. Brubaker does a good job of making me give a flying monkey's butt about old Matt Murdock, though. In "Hell to Pay" Matt's secret identity has been revealed and he's dealing with various fall out (this is pre-"Civil War.") Apparently, Murdock has a wife (I had no idea) and one entire issue is kind of a soap opera about the heartache of being the lover of a superhero (which kind of turns out to be a theme in the Spider-Man issues as well, but I'll get to that.) Despite my snarky description, I kind of dug that because it plays with my own sensiblities around what if all this stuff were real, and there really were costumed super heroes bounding around our neighborhoos (although really only in New York City, but whatever.)
Spider-Man "Revelations" starts with the superhero reaction to 9-11 and then Aunt May finally figures out that Peter Parker is Spider-Man when she discovers him passed out on his bed, bleeding and broken, still clutching a ruined Spider-Man costume. Both arcs were fairly awesome. I thought I'd be annoyed by the 9-11 tribute, but I actually kind of got a bit choked up at the sight of Captain America in the ruins of the World Trade Center. It was another one of those "it totally could have happened like this" moments. The bit with Aunt May's discovery is both really profound and quite funny, my favorite moment is this: they've just had this tearful hug, and Aunt May starts laughing. When Peter asks her what's up, she replies, "Well, ever since you were a teenager I knew you were hiding SOMETHING. On top of that you were quiet and sensitive, you didn't like sports, you were awkward around girls, and... to tell the truth, Peter, for a while I thought maybe you were gay." She goes on to say she made peace with that, and so discovering: "...I knew something was in the closet. Could've been chiffon. Who knew it was a costume?" wasn't much of a stretch.
What I like about "Revelations" is that Stracynski doesn't pull any punches. Aunt May takes it pretty well, but isn't entirely accepting of Peter's other life. She reacts a lot like any mom might, I think. She hates the idea of him putting himself in harm's way, and yet she also hates that he lets the Daily Bugle smear his public image as Spider-Man. It's nicely complicated.
Then, in LaCrosse, Shawn and I stopped by a new used bookstore on the North Side, and they had a rack of single-issue comicbooks (mostly overpriced, but...) I still couldn't resist picking up Brian Michael Bendis' DAREDEVIL (34/414 and 40/420), then I picked up a couple of early Hellblazers I didn't think I had (the only DC title I collected regularly,) and #31 of Vertigo's LUCIFER (Mike Carey), which I was underwhelmed by, despite my love of Satan as a literary character. Maybe I'll have to look for earlier issues so I can get a better handle of what's going on in Hell, as it were. I did like Carey uses the geography of Hell that Dante sort of maps out, as there's a great scene of envoys riding across the plains of North Hell.
But, I decided I like Bendis' early work. I'm going to put him on my "if I see his name on a collection or title, I'll pick it up" list for used bookstores. (I'd go broke picking up his current titles, I think.)
All right, enough of that. I should go work.
Before leaving for LaCrosse, my family and I stopped in at the HalfPrice Books in Highland Park (Saint Paul) for vacation books. Mason discovered a couple of cool new sticker activity books, including one with the rather evocative title: "Sticky History of the World." Shawn found a couple of good mysteries, and I browsed the graphic novel selection and saw that they had a DAREDEVIL by Ed Brubaker (who I'd pretty much read doing any title, this one is Volume One: "Hell to Pay") and one of J. Michael Straczynski's AMAZING SPIDER-MAN (Volume 2: "Revelations.")
I'm not normally a Daredevil fan, and it's not just because of Ben Affleck (who I didn't think did THAT bad of a job, but people love to hate that guy for some reason). Daredevil is one of those Marvel characters I always found kind of, well, square. Kind of like Captain America, who I never much cared for until I was over forty, and could appreciate his gravitas, I guess. Brubaker does a good job of making me give a flying monkey's butt about old Matt Murdock, though. In "Hell to Pay" Matt's secret identity has been revealed and he's dealing with various fall out (this is pre-"Civil War.") Apparently, Murdock has a wife (I had no idea) and one entire issue is kind of a soap opera about the heartache of being the lover of a superhero (which kind of turns out to be a theme in the Spider-Man issues as well, but I'll get to that.) Despite my snarky description, I kind of dug that because it plays with my own sensiblities around what if all this stuff were real, and there really were costumed super heroes bounding around our neighborhoos (although really only in New York City, but whatever.)
Spider-Man "Revelations" starts with the superhero reaction to 9-11 and then Aunt May finally figures out that Peter Parker is Spider-Man when she discovers him passed out on his bed, bleeding and broken, still clutching a ruined Spider-Man costume. Both arcs were fairly awesome. I thought I'd be annoyed by the 9-11 tribute, but I actually kind of got a bit choked up at the sight of Captain America in the ruins of the World Trade Center. It was another one of those "it totally could have happened like this" moments. The bit with Aunt May's discovery is both really profound and quite funny, my favorite moment is this: they've just had this tearful hug, and Aunt May starts laughing. When Peter asks her what's up, she replies, "Well, ever since you were a teenager I knew you were hiding SOMETHING. On top of that you were quiet and sensitive, you didn't like sports, you were awkward around girls, and... to tell the truth, Peter, for a while I thought maybe you were gay." She goes on to say she made peace with that, and so discovering: "...I knew something was in the closet. Could've been chiffon. Who knew it was a costume?" wasn't much of a stretch.
What I like about "Revelations" is that Stracynski doesn't pull any punches. Aunt May takes it pretty well, but isn't entirely accepting of Peter's other life. She reacts a lot like any mom might, I think. She hates the idea of him putting himself in harm's way, and yet she also hates that he lets the Daily Bugle smear his public image as Spider-Man. It's nicely complicated.
Then, in LaCrosse, Shawn and I stopped by a new used bookstore on the North Side, and they had a rack of single-issue comicbooks (mostly overpriced, but...) I still couldn't resist picking up Brian Michael Bendis' DAREDEVIL (34/414 and 40/420), then I picked up a couple of early Hellblazers I didn't think I had (the only DC title I collected regularly,) and #31 of Vertigo's LUCIFER (Mike Carey), which I was underwhelmed by, despite my love of Satan as a literary character. Maybe I'll have to look for earlier issues so I can get a better handle of what's going on in Hell, as it were. I did like Carey uses the geography of Hell that Dante sort of maps out, as there's a great scene of envoys riding across the plains of North Hell.
But, I decided I like Bendis' early work. I'm going to put him on my "if I see his name on a collection or title, I'll pick it up" list for used bookstores. (I'd go broke picking up his current titles, I think.)
All right, enough of that. I should go work.