Spiderman Joins The MCU! | My 20+ Year History With The Webslinger

My earliest memory of the most successful Marvel character in history is surprisingly not the comic books from which Spiderman came from. I was going through my old collection (of over 175 issues) and noticed the earliest issue was from January 1997 (and what a horrifying cover it is too!). I did some digging; turns out my earliest memory of Spiderman is the 1994 animated series that used to air on Live & Kicking. Ah, memories - and speaking of memory, mine is better than I thought! I would've been 3 or 4 years old at the time Spiderman began airing. I remember also for my 5th birthday in Wales being given a Spiderman VHS tape (remember those?!) as a present which featured the debut of Venom. No wonder he's still one of my favourite villains to this day!

 The 1994 Spiderman cartoon was amazing.

 

The Spiderman cartoon was a pretty damn faithful adaption of the comics, and included all the popular characters from Spidey's illustrious rouge gallery - Green Goblin, Doctor Octopus, Hobgoblin, Venom, Scorpion, Mysterio, Kingpin, heck even Carnage appears in a couple of episodes to raise hell. The series was super popular with not only many but fans all over the world, and was a huge hit. Unfortunately, the series was eventually cancelled due to budget cuts, but I'll always cherish the memories of getting up early on a Saturday morning to catch Spiderman kicking butt and taking names.

Naturally, my interest in the hero grew and seemed to coincide with the release of Astonishing Spiderman in the UK, a comic that reprinted stories from the U.S. We were around a couple of years behind storyline wise, but 5/6 year old me didn't know about that, nor would I have cared if I did. All I cared about what that each month the postman delivered Spiderman to my door. It became something to look forward to each month, and my interest in the webslinger exploded. I started to draw my own Spiderman cartoons, I wrote my own Spiderman stories, I couldn't get enough. I played my Spiderman: Maximum Carnage game on Super Nintendo every day trying to beat that bad boy (sidenote: I only finished that game in 6th Form, ten years after I first played it). In retrospective, the stories that were being printed when I was a kid were very hit and miss, obviously that's me looking at things objectively with a more knowledgeable head on my shoulders, but back then? Every story was the best story ever man, and each month was a new adventure.

 My favourite cover of Astonishing Spiderman, Issue 57.

My love for Spiderman didn't diminish as I reached my teens, in fact the opposite happened - with the release of the Spiderman Trilogy of movies (1 is great, 2 is excellent, 3 is passable), Spidey's popularity with the general public exploded. However, with the third film marred with creative differences and receiving mixed reviews, the future of the franchise was soon in doubt. Just as the Spiderman movies seemed all but finished, a brand new crop of superhero films arrived to take their place; and thus, the Marvel Cinematic Universe was born.

Me and my Dad both went to see Iron Man expecting it to be a decent movie and that was it. Needless to say, the movie blew us away as well as many others, and before you knew it, superhero movies were back in the saddle with a vengeance. Iron Man, Thor, Captain America, Hulk, The Avengers, all these films told great stories and tied into this entire alive and sprawling world. Just fantastic storytelling and a grand vision from those at Marvel.

Amazing Spiderman continues to divide fans.

Meanwhile Sony, who retained the legal rights to Spiderman movies, rebooted the franchise, and presented The Amazing Spiderman to us, followed by a sequel The Amazing Spiderman 2. Views on these films have been mixed - most agree the first is a fun superhero movie, which doesn't break new ground but is a highly enjoyable watch. The divide comes from the second movie, ASM2. When I first saw this movie, I came out of the cinema loving it. I loved the pacing, the villains, the storytelling, the music, the ending, the potential future, all of it. Looking back without my blind love for Spiderman swaying my judgement, it is a flawed movie. I still think Dane DeHaan was an excellent Harry Osborn, and the dynamic between Peter Parker and Gwen Stacy was off the charts. Also, the ending is still just as gut-wrenching as it was the first time; as a die-hard fan, I kinda' knew it was coming, but it didn't lessen the impact any. It was one of the best and most believable scenes I've seen, not just in a superhero movie, but any movie ever.

Unfortunately for Sony (and ultimately Andrew Garfield), Amazing Spiderman 2 didn't perform all that great at the box office. Meanwhile, Marvel has continued to flourish with the release of Iron Man 2 and 3, Thor: Dark World, Captain America: Winter Soldier and the excellent Guardians of the Galaxy (my favourite film of 2014!). They announced an Avengers sequel, Age of Ultron, for release in May, followed shortly afterwards by Ant Man. Going forward, the studio has announced plans until 2019, which shows that they are on the ball and ready to dominate the box office for years to come.

Welcome home Spiderman!

There were loads of rumors late last year that Sony and Marvel were in talks, and earlier this week it was confirmed that Spiderman would be joining the Marvel Cinematic Universe! Sony and Marvel reached an agreement which would see Spiderman debut in the next Captain America solo movie, Civil War, alongside not only Cap but also Iron Man. Marvel would then help out with yet ANOTHER Spiderman reboot movie (nobody needs to see Uncle Ben die again, okay?) distributed and produced by Sony for release in 2017, and pending how those two events go, there's potential for future Spiderman appearances in more Marvel films (Avengers: Infinity War anyone?). This is the biggest news for Marvel movie fans ever, and its importance can't be highlighted enough - this is a huge game-changer.

I'm not going to go into who should play Spiderman because I loved Andrew Garfield, and I've loved all the cast of the MCU films so I trust both Sony and Marvel with casting choices. One thing I do want to see however is J.K Simmons back as J.Jonah Jamison. He was fantastic in the role, heck he was so good, Sony didn't even use the character in the ASM films because they didn't want to recast. If they are going to use JJJ, bring back Simmons. Please!

As for the topic of the Spiderman movie to be released in 2017, I don't want or need an origin story. Have the character already well established as Spiderman, and Peter already with Mary Jane. As for ideas for the storyline/villain? I have two in mind.

The Death of Jean Dewolff saga featuring Daredevil.

The first is my one of my personal favourite storylines ever, The Death of Jean Dewolff saga. It is widely regarded as one of the darkest and best storylines in Spiderman history. It also features Daredevil, who's MCU-related series is about to begin on Netflix. Based on the popularity/success of the Daredevil series, this is a route they could go down with for sure. It's gritty, frighteningly realistic and could be to the Spiderman movie franchise what The Dark Knight trilogy was to Batman.

Kraven's Last Hunt is a bona-fide classic.

The other storyline that I thought could be a shot in the arm that the Spiderman movie franchise needs is Kraven's Last Hunt, featuring Kraven The Hunter. It would make our hero vulnerable, and as a result, more relate-able as a result. The story being kept to faithfully may mean it's a tad too dark for children to go see, but that isn't to say that Sony/Marvel can't adapt it where they see fit. This, much like The Death of Jean Dewolff, is regarded as a classic story and an all-time best. For me personally, it is the best Spiderman storyline I've had the pleasure of reading.

Whatever the future holds, it's an exciting time to be a Marvel fan, and perhaps more importantly, a Spiderman fan. I've been one for 20+ years now, and I'm proud to say, I'll continue to be for a long time to come. Thank you Marvel and Sony for putting aside egos and money for the sake of us comic book fans.

Now if only we can get Fox to do the same thing...

As always, thanks for reading!

Will