We're doing great on views so far this month! Already near 100 in less than 24 hours! Now to answer some posts (and thank you all so much for chiming in!).
Shadow116 wrote:All in all... 5 Black Spider masks out of 5.
Lockdown wrote:Kevin, you magnificiant bastard! I solute you. Great work. you had my jaw hit the ground on that one.
SpideySteUK wrote:5 out of 5 perfect and throughly enjoyable.
Hot damn, thanks guys! I was worried about the reception of this issue, so seeing those as the first three posts really made me feel good.
insaneJonny wrote:Page 3-As messed up as it is, I approve of Grey Goblin permanently being Grey Goblin.
Ha, awesome! I thought it would be very interesting for somebody to have the goblin mask as their only face, especially one who's having mixed feelings now about what side he's on.
Page 10- Too lazy to check my issue of 514 but should that not be "they both were" in the last panel for Normans dialogue
Damn I'm glad you're here to catch the errors that spell check and a personal read through don't! "Bother" doesn't even make any freakin' sense...edited!
Page 16- Part of me thinks that stuff happened too quickly, in the space of 3 panels Harry found Gabe and Spidey just happened to find them both, maybe black spider tipped them both as to where the body was? Something just doesn't sit quite right with me here.
Yeah I can definitely see how it looked that way. As Harry goes I was hoping it would be fairly obvious that some time had passed before Harry found him, since the Black Spider and his friend were nowhere around. For Spidey, I figure we've all just seen enough scenes of him swinging through the city, seeing something going down, and going in that I didn't even need to write the scene, you guys could fill it in for yourselves. Those type of scenes are pretty old by now.
Also, something that was unclear in the panels, panel 4 makes the point that Goblin King and Spider-man were landing, presumably from being punched off the glider,
Well we know that the Goblin King "walked" up to Gabe, and the panel before it says that Spidey tackled him while flying through the air, so they're landing from the tackle.
Interesting, does Gabe feel guilty and is taking responsibility for the actions of the faceless man? Did he learn humility in his memory restored? Or he is just that insanely angry at Black Spider?
Well we've never seen a Gabe that knows the truth about his parentage and who killed his mother when he's sane. As soon as he found all this out, he took the goblin formula and went bat%*&^ crazy. So for the first time we're seeing how he looks at things with a little distance from the reveal
and with his sanity. That and his time as the Faceless Man when he started to question what kind of a person he wanted to be is still in play even though he got his memories back, it didn't just reset him. I'll be going a lot more into how all that affects his character, but needless to say this is a different Grey Goblin than we've seen before.
Page 18- "Spidey is Screaming" "Spidey is confused"...I'm curious how you'd imagine the artist to convey these that short of having Spidey shrug in costume?
Lots of artists (or really, all of them) show emotion on Spidey's mask even though it wouldn't happen in real life. I'm just giving direction for that (especially in the shape of the eyes).
Page 20- Er, what is "Irish features" besides an overfondness for drinking?
All nationalities have defining features, it's just a direction for the artist to know what kind of a face to draw. If I was really writing for an artist I would have noted a family resemblance to Peter Parker, but I didn't want to blow the reveal for you guys right there in the panel description.
Hilarious thing is, there was a massive clue there all along, brother spider anyone? I suppose that was your way of giving us a chance in hell of guessing who it was right Kev?
Heh, yep. I pretty much came right out and said it last issue but it was almost impossible for anyone to call that.
Like you can't introduce Peter's ******* brother and kill him off anytime soon can you? Well considering the body count so far with CS who knows?
Bwahahaha!
Sorry for the essay of a review, just talking comics makes the hangover more bearable.
Dude, I pretty much live on reviews for the couple of days after an issue goes up. The longer and more in depth the better!
BtmxComedy wrote:-CARLIE!!! CARLIE!!! CARLIE!!! OK I've calmed down.
I really love that you love her so much now
I would comment on what the heck Harry Osborn said in the first two panels of the issue but I don't know what to think. Is Harry is/pretending to be an Agent and getting Interpol on Gray's trail? I'm confused about what is going on with that.
Well the important thing to realize is that we cut away from that scene when the important part was over, not when the call was over. He was letting Sarah know where Gabe was. Perhaps he just wants her there...
What the heck is going on between the Gray Goblin and his sister? I need to re-read Sins Remembered, I don't recall that sort of relationship between them at all.
Oh hell, don't do that to yourself, it's not worth it! Terrible, terrible story and the fact that
I reread it is enough torture for the whole world. And you don't need it. The only two panels that took place during that story were when Gabe and Sarah were sitting on the bed in the spare room together (not because anything like Ultimate Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver was going on, just because in that storyline she had him chained to a bed in a small room and he wasn't wearing a shirt, that's all). The panels where she's part of Interpol and he attacks and whatnot are things I made up that take place after that story.
-The cover makes no sense to me. I knew who the Faceless man was last issue. I found out who the Black Spider is this issue. I guess revealed is taken to mean "finding out the origin of" and if that's the case, it makes sense now. However I was thrown off and confused and in addition if this comic was going on the marketplace...selling it on the Black Spider would probably have done it better than selling it on the Faceless man.
Well Scott came up with the cover not me, but I think it's good to have it about Gabe because he's what most of the issue is about. If you make the cover all about the reveal of the Black Spider, it's pretty cheap when you "open up" the issue and 9/10 of it is about Gabe.
-Next point...WHAT THE FREAKING HELL IS WRONG WITH KEVIN. THAT IS THE BLACK SPIDER'S IDENTITY?! REALLY?! (Gets out pitchfork)
So so so so many bad vibes about this. That was really out of left field and unnecessary. My experience with badly plotted shock storylines that murder any semblance of good internally consistent meaningful storytelling...such as this appears on the surface of leading to... has trained me to wrap myself in a protective bubble of conservatism and cynicism and I will not emerge from it without coxing from a surprisingly and shockingly good story. I don't know if its coming...I want to give the benefit of the doubt...
Hey man, I totally understand feeling that way. In fact, I entirely expected it. It's unfortunate I'm doing this in fan fiction and not in a real comic because that makes it look all the more "fan fictiony." But I assure you this is something I've had fully thought out for years and always intended to do if I ever got the creative reins of the comic (though I more recently realized I'd never be allowed to even if I ever get to that point). Things like long lost brothers are certainly usually cheesy as all hell and I knew that stigma was going to come with this. But quite honestly when the story first came to me it made so much sense I was surprised no one had done it before. Part 4 will be devoted entirely to filling in his backstory, so all I ask is that you give that a read before deciding if this is just a bad fan fiction move. I think you'll like it and come to realize, as I did, that this makes all the sense in the world.
ditko_loves_green77 wrote:Believe it or not, I have reveal fatigue.
I get that. Identities was kind of what this story was always about, though. I originally titled it "Face of the Enemy" because it was so much about that. But it's really just a part of this story, that kind of thing isn't going to be all the time. The so-called "black clad man" in this issue is very minor to this arc and who he is will be revealed in part 6, but that's the last mystery character I have planned for awhile, and like I said he's pretty much tangential to this story. I just needed him there briefly and I didn't want to have him just drop in. The "reveal" in part 6 is more of a small tease for a big story in 2010.
Now for the reveal. It's very sudden and I'm going to have to read the back issues to find any clues.
The suddenness is very intentional. The Black Spider planned it this way to knock Peter on his ass, and the way I did it was to basically give the reader the same feeling. Seems like it worked...
As for clues, there just weren't a lot I could give on this that would lead you anywhere and not blow it. So really the only two I gave were his "brother spider" line and the fact that he's African.
Bevie wrote:Does Gabe have healing power now like Wolvie?
Well the goblin formula does give healing abilities, and as you saw quoted in this issue (originally in Amazing #514) Norman told Gabe that he'd be more powerful than he ever was at the height of his abilities. We never got any definition on how good Gabe's healing was exactly, but I think it would be pretty damn good. Not quite Wolverine level, but still fairly rapid. Definitely better than someone like Spider-Man, who heals faster than normal people but not incredibly fast.
Geez! You know, I can't remember when Gabriel was ever nice to Peter before. I suppose it could have been, but I guess I must have submerged the memory as I was never enamoured of the twins previously.
No, as I said above we've never seen Gabe like this before. First he was furiously bitter at Peter because he thought he was their deadbeat Dad and that he'd killed their mother, and then after that he was totally insane. His character is going through a lot of changes right now, and I don't think even he knows where he's going to land. Right now all he knows is that he wants to kill the Black Spider, and he regrets the things he did for him.
I miss Kaine.
I'd keep reading Crawl Space, personally. For whatever that's worth
And where did the red hair come from? LOL
Their mother, Mary
Fitzpatrick by birth, had redish hair at least in some art. Coming from Irish heritage, I thought him getting the red hair gene would be a good feature to set him apart from Peter.
Have to say, can't wait for the next issue. You put my head in a spin.
Excellent! I would certainly hate to let
you down, and I'm glad you liked this issue even though it threw you for a loop at the end.
bdog wrote:1) great twist at the end...
Somebody liked it! Somebody liked it!
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3) Any spoilers for next issue?
The coolest thing I can tell you about it was already in the "Next Month" box - it's titled "Richard and Mary Parker: Agents of SHIELD." Such an awesome, rarely used time in history. The issue'll be mostly in flashback, so you'll get to see me dance around the original material written by Stan quite a bit. A couple of those 100+ comics I bought for Crawl Space research were Amazing Spider-Man Annual #5, Untold Tales # -1, and Amazing Spider-Man #366-367, so rest assured I've put in my research for this task.
4) Oh I actually really like the dialogue great job...
Thanks man, I appreciate that! I can see where some would see it as choppy, though, because the flashback sequence would come across a lot better with a great artist framing all the transitions than it does in a script.
aspman wrote:Kev!
You hit another one out of the ball park! I did not see that coming! Why Marvel isn't paying you, I do not know, you should be writing Amazing Spider-man. Love the story and keep the surprises coming. Been reading Spidey since 1973.
Aspman
Thanks aspman! It really does feel damn good to be able to offer continued Spidey entertainment for somebody that's been reading for 35 years. Makes
my head spin. Thanks for saying that!
by Kevin Cushing » Sat Feb 07, 2009 11:00 pm 
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