Podcast # 450-Homecoming Trailer Thoughts, Venom Event, Ben Reilly Ongoing, Ramos and Red States

13 Comments

1. “And while I hate to bring politics onto a Spider-Man site…”

   It’s fine so long as everyone stays frosty and avoids all the labeling that went down last time. If anyone starts thinking “Boy, I really need to accuse someone of being Literal Hitler in this podcast discussion thread” then you’ve seriously gone off on the wrong track.

   We’re not CBR. Everyone here can (and should) disagree respectfully.

   We now return you to the arts!

2. @hornacek – Great points as well.

3. And while I hate to bring politics onto a Spider-Man site (I was cringing during most of that section of this episode), I have to say that people like Ramos are completely justified in being afraid for themselves, their friends and family, considering how Trump demonized minorities during the campaign, and the hateful things that were said by his supporters at the rallies. After the election one of The Daily Show’s correspondents (a Muslim) said about Trump voters: “You may not personally be a racist, sexist xenophobe, but that comes with the package … so if you take that deal, what you’re telling me is, ‘Hey man, I don’t hate you. I just don’t care about you.'”

   I’d love to curl up the couch for the next 4 years, eating pop(Os)corn and laughing at the dumpster fire that will be the Trump administration. Unfortunately everything the U.S. does affects the rest of the world. Dark Reign indeed.

4. @Sano – Well said. I’m sure Ramos is aware that his decision alone will probably not change anything, and I’m guessing that he’s financially secure enough that he can afford any loss of income this decision costs him. But saying that doing something like this doesn’t help anyone and only hurts him and his fans is a bit of a defeatist attitude. If everyone thought like that, there would never be any social changes because everyone would say “It won’t make a difference so why bother?”

   For example, If citizens didn’t speak up about the North Carolina bathroom bill, who knows if organizations like PayPal or the NCAA would pull out of the state to protest it? NC has already lost anywhere from $86 to $500 million because of this law. Making a stand *can* make a difference. Eventually lawmakers there will remember how they love money more than their personal morals.

5. Great podcast.

   With regards to Humberto Ramos, a lot of us get that there are people that voted for Trump because they wanted to change the direction this country was going. Hilary was not offering that change. Bernie was, but he of course didn’t win against Hilary.

   What you have to understand that there is a portion, again not all but a portion of Trump supporters who wish to commit physical and even lethal harm to people of other ethnicities and other sexual orientations. While I don’t think there is anyone here that is among those people, they are out there. It’s not really a secret that the KKK supports Donald Trump.

   While I agree that Humberto Ramos is approaching this situation in an illogical way, at least try to put yourself in his shoes and see where he is coming from.

   An absurd example, but try to imagine that Louis Farakhan became the President of the United States. I doubt every single person who wasn’t African American would act calmly and rationally.

6. Great show, guys!

   I’m curious as to why Mr. Ramos limited his ban on red states to four years. I’m personally hoping we can keep him triggered for at least eight! 😛 We have nothing against Mexicans, we just need to secure our border and ensure that people are coming in legally, like I’m sure Mr. Ramos did.

   I’ve so little interest in Homecoming at the moment (I grew up with a mature, grown-up Spider-Man in the ’90s cartoon and am tired of everyone only focusing on his high school years) that I didn’t watch the trailer. I did, however, run across some images of Ganke, and I knew it was Ganke right away, even if Marvel won’t admit it.

   I’d much rather Marvel stick to a more classic representation of the Spider-Man mythos, and I never understand why directors, etc., always seem to feel the need to change things unnecessarily. It has to be hubris. If you want Ganke in a movie, put him in a Miles Morales movie down the line. I like Ganke as a character, even if I don’t understand what distinguishes Miles from a younger Peter, genetics aside. Nonetheless, I don’t dislike Miles either.

   I was going to correct, based on my high-school Spanish knowledge, that Ganke must certainly be pronounced “gahn-kay”, but apparently Bendis says it’s “gain-key”. I disagree, as the ‘a’ on its own rarely makes the ‘ai’ or ‘ay’ sound on its own in non-English languages but instead makes the “ah” sound. Likewise, the letter ‘e’ makes the “ay” sound. Mayhaps someone more fluid in Spain-ish can collect me. 😛 Maybe Mr. Ramos himself can weigh in! I see the Crawlspace as more of a red, blue, black, and white state, personally. No yellow, thank you. And no white on the spider.

   I don’t know much about Ben Reily, but if he does come back, I hope he gets a better suit than the old one with the jacket.

   I’m also really tired of Marvel mindlessly pairing characters up. Unless the kiss between Miles and Gwen is just on a cover, in which case the law of misleading comic covers would ensure it never actually happens in the story, I really prefer my heroes more romantically stable as opposed to kissing and/or asterisking anything that walks int he door. Maybe that’s why I don’t read Iron Man.

7. The only pay we get is lost hours of sleep! Heh!

8. “OK! George, I’ll adjust my views to the right views the next time I apply as a reviewer (jk! Maybe.)”

   Not really sure what you mean by that but… okay?”

   I’m just pulling your leg. Like there even is just one “right” opinion at CS (because there is so much real diversity of opinion — which is one point I’ve used to defend CS elsewhere).

   But I know the CS reviewer jobs pay so well, I’ll say anything! Anything! 🙂

9. “OK! George, I’ll adjust my views to the right views the next time I apply as a reviewer (jk! Maybe.)”

   Not really sure what you mean by that but… okay?

   “But if Peter doesn’t end up with the real MJ, I’m not interested. I don’t feel any nostalgia for John Hughes stuff — I was already too old for Hughes’ stuff when they first came out. In fact, I am pretty sure I have never watched a John Hughes movie. And my high school experience was depressing, for reasons. So “Peter has romance drama with girls at high school” leaves me uninterested as can be. Not to say it can’t be done well. But -that’s- the part of the trailer that throws cold water on me. That part of it, plus Ganke, comes off like a Nickelodeon series.”

   John Hughes movies have their place, though not all of them were about youth. Planes, Trains and Automobiles as well as uncle Buck are two obvious examples. But I’m dubious when Marvel says they want to make Spider-Man like a John Hughes film. I don’t think Marvel really understands what makes good John Hughes movies or what it is that made them uniquely Hughesian. It’s like me saying “I love Elvis so I am going to write a song and Elvis the shit out of it,” which is silly for me to say because only Elvis could do that and Elvis is dead. Same as Hughes, sadly.

   “I’m assuming Zendaya is MJ, just like we all assumed Cumberbatch was Khan.”

   Could be. Zendaya didn’t flat out deny that she’s playing Mary Jane. In fact, when you examine her specific phrasing it almost seemed like she was trying to say “I am not playing Mary Jane” without actually saying “I am not playing Mary Jane.”

   http://www.spidermancrawlspace.com/2016/11/13/tom-holland-and-zendaya-talk-spider-man-homecoming/

10. OK! George, I’ll adjust my views to the right views the next time I apply as a reviewer (jk! Maybe.)

    If anything turned me off, it was my absolute disinterest in the youth-romance angle. I understand why they’ve gone with teen Spidey — it isn’t just for demographically targeted marketing, but they want to squeeze many movies out of Tom Holland before he physically morphs into Andrew Garfield age territory.

    But if Peter doesn’t end up with the real MJ, I’m not interested. I don’t feel any nostalgia for John Hughes stuff — I was already too old for Hughes’ stuff when they first came out. In fact, I am pretty sure I have never watched a John Hughes movie. And my high school experience was depressing, for reasons. So “Peter has romance drama with girls at high school” leaves me uninterested as can be. Not to say it can’t be done well. But -that’s- the part of the trailer that throws cold water on me. That part of it, plus Ganke, comes off like a Nickelodeon series.

    I’m assuming Zendaya is MJ, just like we all assumed Cumberbatch was Khan.

11. “No matter how intelligent Peter is, he just wouldn’t have the financial resources to build the sort of stuff that the comics absurdly had him able to build. Stark’s involvement solves that problem.”

    And yet when Stark found him in Cap 3 he’d already by and large had that stuff, all through his own resourcefulness. That being said, he damn sure doesn’t need Iron Man making all his stuff better; the character is more than capable of doing it himself and *should* be doing it himself.

12. “Also, I personally don’t have as high an opinion of the Ditko era as George.”

    I don’t really have that high an opinion of the Ditko era – but I know Brad does. So when I brought up the Ditko Era to Brad on this episode it was show how his current take on Ganke (sp?)/Ned (“Peter has to have a friend”) is in direct contrast to (and does not mesh with) the Ditko Era he reveres.

    It ties back to my overall point, which is that right now there is a lot of rationalizing and making excuses for this film going down to gloss over things that shouldn’t be elements in Spider-Man stories.

    I myself much prefer the Romita Era to the Ditko Era. No question. I talk about this *a lot* on the Friday Night Fight episodes.

13. Thoughts about the trailer: the reasons I side more with Brad over George is that:

    The Marvel movies are not the Marvel Universe, but some sort of MU/Ultimate U amalgam, so I’m not surprised that they deviate. Feige and the MCU will be judged on the wisdom of their chosen deviations.

    Brad is right, from the MCU in-universe POV, Stark is already a one-man global peace-keeper, and he is expected to enforce the Accords, so Stark seeking Peter out is consistent with that plot element. There are more Spider-Man movies coming, so I expect Peter to rebel. CIVIL WAR had adult Peter start off on Stark’s side and then rebel, so I expect something like that to happen.

    No matter how intelligent Peter is, he just wouldn’t have the financial resources to build the sort of stuff that the comics absurdly had him able to build. Stark’s involvement solves that problem.

    Also, I personally don’t have as high an opinion of the Ditko era as George. I think Romita Sr did right to jettison certain features of Ditko’s version of Peter. So the deviations from Ditko don’t perturb me in the least. I’m going to be much more annoyed if they try to gloss over MJ in the name of One More Day The Certifiably Worst Spider-Man Story Ever Written.