The Amazing Spider-Man Trailer – Can It Hurry Up And Be July Now?

You know, I was perfectly fine with the Sam Raimi incarnations of Spider-Man. No, they weren’t perfect. Tobey Maguire was a passable nerd and Kirsten Dunst had a really punchable face, but Alfred Molina was a surprisingly touching Doc Ock. Willem Dafoe chewed a lot of scenery as Norman Osborn – but, shitty armored costume aside, that’s what Stormin’ Norman does, right? I mean, have you read The New Avengers, lately? Oh, Norman…

Anyway.

It was a nice couple of flicks. Thank god, they didn’t make a third one^*.

But, Sony decided to reboot the franchise. Tobey Maguire couldn’t stay a teenager forever and Kirsten Dunst was widely reported as feeling like her story was “done” after her last Spider-Man movie. Even if Durst might have been open to “considering” more Spidey, no one wants a lukewarm Mary Jane. Not even Harry Osborn at his loneliest – that’s what drugs are for!

So, with the trailer finally released, how does the new reboot look?

Check it out after the jump!

Hauntingly Familiar: Batwing #6 Review

Batwing has been one of the weirder and more interesting books of the New 52. It leverages Grant Morrison’s Batman Incorporated concept – Bruce Wayne finances local Batman franchises around the world, possibly because Batman believes that Starbucks are a superstitious, cowardly lot – and uses it to answer a question that only a few comics have tried to address: if there are superheroes, why don’t they go after real scumbags in places that make Gotham City look like Metropolis after a massive federal grant to finance free beer for the sad?

In a nutshell, Batwing puts a version of Batman in the Congo, smack in the middle of one of those hellholes that have been at civil war for so long they call it Tuesday. Batwing didn’t lose his parents to a killer, he lost them to AIDS and was drafted by one of those tinpot shitsplat warlords who whip up armies of children because children haven’t learned to say “no,” or, “that’s wrong”, or “tinpot shitsplat dictator.” Or at least that haven’t learned to say that last one with the level of derision it deserves.

So instead of a Batman moved to fight crime based on seeing a murder during his childhood, we have one who is moved to fight crime after being a murderer during his childhood. And he’s doing it in a country so loaded with corruption and casual daily horrible crime that it really feels like it needs a Batman. Which is a cool concept, and it generally works… but for a book that packs an extra punch by being based in a truly horrible place in real life, it doesn’t meet the level of realism I’ve come to expect from a Batman comic… which sounds stupid, but bear with me.