Now, the Scarlet Spider ID has been used previously since the clone saga, turning up in Avengers: The Initiative where an elite unit of 3 Scarlet Spiders were discovered to be a secret part of the Initiative (and appropriately enough, clones of another character), as well as in the MC2 universe.  However this is the first time the identity is making a big return to the main Spider-Man franchise itself since the Clone Saga wrapped up (to the best of my knowledge).

This time, in a bizarre twist of fate, its Kaine that’s under the mask.  Having been cured of his degeneration (and subsequent mutations) during the events of Spider Island, he’s relocating and finding himself with his first honest chance at a normal life since he was first created.   However, while he may not possess Peter’s memories, the spirit of Peter Parker looms large in his life, and its not long before he finds himself donning a costume of his own.

I must admit, despite the fact that I’d really love to see Ben Reilly back (it’ll never happen), I really like the idea of Kaine taking over the role.   And the setup actually harks back to the old “Lost Years” era of Ben Reilly, which was such a big hit at the time.   Like Ben at that time, Kaine finds himself on the road, and struggling with who he is.  Both are clones, and both live in the shadow of Peter Parker.   But while Ben was on the road purely to escape Peter and avoid Peter’s life, Kaine is genuinely on the run since he was previously arrested for various murders he committed both before and during the Clone Saga.

Its a setup that seems to be borrowing heavily from what made Ben successful as a character, so I’ve got high hopes for the series.  The fact that it seems to be specifically targetting that “Lost Years” vibe really appeals to me, as does the idea of Kaine trying to figure out who he is.  He’s definitely been played as a more sympathetic character since his origins as a clone were revealed, despite his murderous tendancies during the years he tormented Ben, so it’ll be interesting to see how they address that side of the character.  With the degeneration gone though, its a real fresh start for the character.

The only thing I have to say against the series so far, is that I’m not a big fan of the new costume.  I do really like the black mask with red eyes, but I’m on keen on the fingers being a different colour to the rest of the gloves, and I do kind’ve miss the hoodie Ben wore (a nice nod to it in the Point One book though, pity they didn’t keep that look).  However its not nearly enough to kill my excitement for the book.

Roll on issue 1.  Can’t wait

However, for me, without a doubt Spider Island has been the event of the year.  Heck, to be honest I found it the most enjoyable comics event I’ve read since the Sinestro Corps War.  For me it was pretty much perfect.  And as someone who fell out of love with the main Spider-Man books years ago, it really felt brilliant to be picking them up again and enjoying them that much.  So be warned, what follows is a bit gushing.

Ok, I’ll admit, as someone who got into regularly collecting comics during the Clone Saga, in many ways Spider Island felt like a love letter to fans like me who got into Spider-Man during that time.  Ever since the Clone Saga ended, and Marvel adopted its “lalala we’re pretending it never happened” policy, it had always felt like they were ignoring the good elements of that story.  Throwing the baby out with the bath water.   And as I’ve talked about before on this blog, over the last few years, its been a joy to see that policy slowly be reversed.

And its affects were no more apparent than in Spider Island, with the Jackal returning to orchestrate events, infecting the inhabitants of Manhattan with a virus that gives them all spider-powers.  Throw into the mix Kaine, recently further mutated by the events of the Grim Hunt and the Jackal into a spider monster called Tarantula, and there’s a lot to appeal to those fans of the clone saga.   Especially in the final issues, when Kaine is finally cured and joins the fight by borrowing Peter’s stealth suit (before leaving town to head towards his own new series, as the new Scarlet Spider).

But despite all this, this story wasn’t about Dan Slott showing some love to the Clone Saga.  Not at all.  This was about him celebrating the character and his history.   All of Spider-Man’s friends turn up to help contain the situation in Manhattan, as criminals are also gaining powers, and later, as the population start mutating into monsters.  Peter’s scientific mind is at the fore-front of the story as his new job at Horizon Labs finds him in the middle of trying to find solutions to the plague (and infact, Peter eventually saves the day without throwing a single punch).  Its about Peter being free to use his powers publicly without fear of recriminations.  To let him be himself without hiding behind a mask (although, in true Spider-Man style, it does eventually backfire on him).  More recent stories play heavily into things as well, when the main villain who the Jackal is working for is revealed as the Spider Queen, and of course, it wouldn’t be a Spider-Man story if the old Parker luck wasn’t around to kick Peter just as things are going great.

And as a fan who was never impressed by the One More Day thing (to be honest, its something that I suspect will be more successful over at DC, due to it being a line-wide reboot, rather than the more specific changes Marvel brought on Spider-Man – also the reasoning works better without damaging any of the characters in the same way), seeing Mary Jane get a big role was a thrill as well.  Initially stuck on the side lines as everyone around her gets powers, the issue where her own powers finally kick in was a lot of fun.  While they may still be split up,seeing the two characters working together in the story, and drawing on that past relationship strikes me as exactly how things should be handled.  Despite not being a fan of the break up, and having previously tried an failed to get into the Spider-books post One More Day, their relationship here really worked for me.

Of course, being a cross over, the other Spider-characters all have their own part to play in the story.  I must admit, I was a bit light on picking up the other tie ins to this story line.  I haven’t much interest in the current Spider-girl, or the Cloak and Dagger stuff, but I did like Julia Carpenter as the new Madame Web in the story itself.  However one book I have been picking up was Rick Remender’s Venom series which has been excellent.   Thrown into the middle of the Spider Island events.  Remender still managed to stay focused on the character arcs he’s been telling, especially in terms of Flash and Betty’s relationship.  I’ve been greatly enjoying this new take on Venom, and thought the big role he ended up playing in Spider Island was great.   Likewise Eddie Brock became an important part of the story and events in Spider Island make me wonder what they’re planning next for the character.

So, as I said, pretty gushing.  But then, I did really love the storyline.  Unlike many of the longer stories I’ve read over the past few years, it kept up the pace throughout, with no real filler jumping out at me.   The love to the history of Spider-Man felt great, with Jameson, Spider slayers, and the Clone Saga all playing their part, and there’s loads of interesting setup in place, while still feeling like the last issue was more concerned about wrapping up the storyline (a particular complaint I’ve had with DC events).  Dan Slott’s always been a writer whose work I’ve enjoyed, but reading this has made me keen to not just keep collecting Amazing Spider-Man, but also to go back and grab the issues of his run I’ve missed.  Great stuff.

Click here to view the embedded video.

I think amongst other things, its the fact that they’ve made it a World War 2 film.  This helps it stand out amongst all the modern world-set superhero films we’ve had over the last several years.  Its also got a good cast with Chris Evans in his second Marvel superhero role and Hugo Weaving who’s always reliable as a villain.

While the Merry Marvel Marketing Machine will doubtless now shift to Thor in a big way (and I assume the reason for this trailer coming out is that it’ll be attached to Thor), Captain America is the film I think could do the better business.

I must admit, from the extended preview that appeared earlier, I wasn’t too sure about this film, but the teaser trailer’s got me much more excited.

There’s certainly no arguing with the quality of the talent working on the film (still can’t quite believe Kenneth Branagh’s directed it), and the trailer looks pretty action packed. I’ve always believed that Thor as a character would be a bit of a hard sell to the general movie audiences, but this is looking like fun.

I do love a good Spider-Man game.  For my money, the best one money could buy was the Spider-Man game on the PS1, however subsequent games brought in some fun innovations.  Spider-Man 2 on the PS2 had the rendered version of Manhatten, and the reworked web slinging mechanics, which was great fun just web swinging around, although the missions themselves didn’t work too well, often distracting from the web swinging fun.

With this latest game, the developers decided to take a step backwards with the gameplay style.  Out goes the free-roaming Manhatten, and back in comes a more traditional level structure.  And I have to say, I think the game is all the better for it, as it allows them to build up a stronger narrative that the free-roaming makes trickier to do.

However, they’ve also introduced something else that I don’t think any other Spider-Man game so far has done.  Rather than focus exclusively on the traditional Peter Parker Spider-Man, the developers decided to embrace the Marvel Universes in all their shapes and forms, and have set the game across 4 distinct universes in the form of Amazing, Ultimate, Noir and, much to my delight, 2099.  Its another reason for abandoning the free roaming aspect, as coming up with four distinctive cities would’ve been a huge undertaking and possibly not worked as well, with the players having to get acquainted with all four, rather than learning every nook and cranny of the previous digital Manhattens.

There’s a lot of love gone into developing these different Spider-Men.  For a start, just that the game brought them all in was terrific, but then they brought in some great voice acting talent as well, as various Spider-Man voice actors from previous cartoons all get to play each of the distinct Spider-Men.  Neil Patrick Harris (who voiced the character in the 2003 MTV cartoon) takes on the main Amazing Spider-Man, Josh Keaton (who voiced the 2008 Spectacular Spider-Man) providing the voice of Ultimate Spider-Man, Christopher Daniel Barnes (from the brilliant 1994 animated series) voicing Spider-Man Noir, and the one I got a real kick out of was hearing Dan Gilvezan voice Spider-Man 2099.  A voice very familiar from my youth, as he voiced Spider-Man in  Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends.  Just brilliant!

The script as well is full of nice nods, with Spider-Man 2099 in particular quickly building up his world by mentioning Alchemax and the Public Eye being some of the first baddies you need to beat.  As Madame Web augments each of the Spider-Mens powers (explaining the game’s implementation of Spider Sense), you’ve also got Noir mentioning that she’s upgraded his web slinging and wall crawling powers (I’ve only read issues 1 and 2 of that series, so I have to assume they were traditional powers that this incarnation lacked).

So far, I’ve completed the tutorial levels, and the Kraven and Hobgoblin 2099 levels, so I’m not that far into it, but my first impressions are overwhelmingly positive.  As well as the above, you’re automatically invited into the game by a great voiceover from Stan Lee.  Something that’s been omitted from the last few Spidey games I’ve played, and was really welcome to hear.  From the tutorials, most of the Spider-Men are pretty similar, however as you go on, you unlock additional powers and bonuses that’ll start to to set them apart more, building on their unique backgrounds For example, Spider-Man 2099 gets accelerated vision powers, while Ultimate Spider-Man gets strength bonuses from the symbiote suit he’s wearing (to differentiate him from Amazing Spider-Man and explained in the plot as being Madame Web’s doing).

Totally different though, is Spider-Man Noir.  Weaker than his counterparts, this Spider-Man is much more stealth oriented.  To a large extent, its in these sections that the impact of Batman: Arkham Asylum is felt, as the designers have clearly borrowed from its gameplay.  You’re invited to stick to the shadows, zipping from vantage point to vantage point with your webbing, silently taking out enemies using stealth attacks in much the same way as Batman.

The main difference though is Spider-Man Noir is a lot less tough than his caped counterpart, so if you get into a fight with even one enemy goon, odds are you’re taking a kicking unless you can get out of there.  Batman was more forgiving in this regard in that you could tend to fight your way out of smaller groups (as long as they didn’t have guns).  I could see this having the potential to get a bit frustrating depending on how these levels are laid out later in the game, but at least in the initial tutorials its fun, and helps add some variety to the game.

There’s also thought been given to replayability.  The game includes what it calls, the Web of Destiny, which effectively charts the various challenges available in the game throughout the various levels.  Completing challenges unlocks the next set of challenges, but also gains you points and opens up new sets of unlocks you can purchase to add new abilities to the Spider-Men, boost their stats, or provide them with a range of different costumes.

Its not all roses in the game.  There’s a familiar bugbear with these games which again raises its head which is the in-game camera.  The viewpoint for the game is the traditional third person, however as you start quickly web swinging around and changing direction, the camera can get confused which can sometimes get you a bit stuck until you can find a ledge to rest on and get your bearings.  For me though, the great, solid fun that the game has been so far outweighs this.

So overall, so far I’m really enjoying the game.  The audio is top notch and has loads of recognisable voices, the graphics are great, and the different dimensions have their own identities and keep things interesting.  From what I’ve seen I’d really recommend the game.

Admittedly, its coming up for 3 years later, but I blame OMD for me not getting around to subscribing until now

Anyway, following SDCC Marvel had a special offer on the subscription, so I decided to go for it.

What a brilliant service.  Ok, yes it needs an annual subscription, so you’re only borrowing the comics, and yes, you need an active internet connection to view them.  But once you’ve accepted those limitations, its a brilliant archive.

For the meagre sum of $60 a year (currently around £40) you get access to what I have to say is a fairly extensive archive of Marvel comics.  There are hundreds of series whose complete runs are available, and for me the best thing is that its not just older stuff, but also more recent comics as well.  I loved being able to read the new (and sadly final) issues of Spider-Girl on the day they came out, and I’m currently enjoying going back and catching up with the Iron Man issues I’ve missed over the last few years, starting with the much-hyped Extremis.  Also on my radar are reading Annihilation (Pie Man 70′s been telling me how great it was for years)  going back and re-reading Agent X (Gail Simone’s Deadpool spin-off) and reading through the many issues of Spider-Girl I missed when my comic shop stopped getting it in regularly (or weren’t ordering enough copies, one of the two).

If you’re into Marvel comics at all and haven’t been collecting them for a while, then to my mind, its well worth the money.  The flash interface to the books works well, zooming into each panel, and the fact Marvel are keeping it pretty up to date with new comics being added all the time is excellent.

For me there’s no question as to whether or not I’ll be re-subscribing at the end of the year.

http://marvel.com/digitalcomics/ Definitely recommended

So I really hope this game brings a similar great feeling of having captured what it would be like to be Spider-Man, to the next generation consoles.   And its got different costumes in it which catches my attention straight away.  Especially the unexpected appearance of Spider-Man 2099.   I’ve seen that the Scarlet Spider can be unlocked too.

Can’t wait for the first reviews and demos to appear.  The game’s got a lot to live up to, especially with the recent Wolverine and Batman games being great fun.

Click here to view the embedded video.

I’ve been meaning to blog about the current Iron Man storyline since #25, however a couple of things immediately jump out at me.

Firstly, its nice to see the issue of Pepper being Rescue being addressed.  To be honest, I really enjoyed her stint as an armoured hero during World’s Most Wanted, and her pain when she found out that she had to lose it all to save Tony was a great emotional moment from Matt Fraction.

That said, now Tony’s back, it really makes sense that she’d petition him for a new suit.  Tony’s arguments that he needs her running the company come across as a bit thin (he ran Stark Industries while moonlighting as Iron Man for years), so it’ll be interesting to see how this develops.

Another interesting thing is Tony’s assertion that he’s never made a suit to be primarily a weapon.  Granted Pepper immediately calls him on it with the Hulk Buster, but you just have to look at the cover of the book to see how much Tony’s kidding himself here.

Its also interesting though, as it once again seems like a bit of retconning (or at least, the character kidding himself).  Iron Man #25 for example had Tony playing up repulsor technology as this brilliant keystone power source, as well as telling Thor he’d never built his company up from scratch, and the big show of ditching the military contracts.

All these things work within the context of the story of course, but they also share the fact that they ignore past history.  Tony’s rebuilt his company from scratch several times over the course of the series, be it Stark Enterprises, Stark Solutions or now Stark Resilient (gotta admit, its not the best name he’s come up with either).  Repulsor tech was never that big a deal, and Tony cutting military contracts was a big thing from the get-go after getting caught by that landmine.

These things also have another thing in common.  They’re all big parts of the current movie series.  So its clear that the tail’s wagging the dog to an extent, and that in order to make the comics accessible for the audience who’ve found the character via the movies that these aspects are being brought in.   For the most part, I can happily live with it, and as I say, within the context of these books its well written and works.  But it’d still be nice if it died down a bit now this new direction was in place, and Tony claiming he’s never built the suit as a weapon is straight from the movies and blatant rubbish.   At least, as I say, Tony’s called on it, which does feel a bit like Matt Fraction throwing a bone to the longer-term fans who’re having to ignore continuity a bit for the sake of the movies.  And for that, I’m glad

And talking of War Machine, I notice aspects of the movie design have crept into his new armour.  No surprise though, and as a fan of the character, its just nice to see him having a recurring role in the books again lately.

Of course, its not like any of this is new.  Spider-Man gaining organic web shooters for example?  And it does make sense to capitalise on the movies in this way.  I can’t complain about that really, but its more just the way its presented with all this movie-based stuff suddenly appearing.

I will say though, fanboy continuity niggles aside, I’ve been very much enjoying this current storyline.  After all the Dark Reign stuff, Matt Fraction is once again showing his solid grasp of Tony’s character, and while its not original, its still always fun to see Tony flexing his mental muscles to rebuild his company.  The inclusion of the Hammer sisters has been interesting so far and yes, while its another way of referencing the movies, Justin Hammer was always a good nemesis for Tony, so its nice to see his daughters being established to give Tony a corporate enemy.  Something he’s not had as often as he maybe should have over the years.

One final niggle however.  I wonder when we’re going to get the new armour properly showcased?  I miss the days when the new suit would show off all its capabilities against Iron Monger or Firepower.  So far we haven’t really seen much of what this suit can do at all.

Line of the trailer is either “Oops” or “Agreed”.  Probably the later

This film can’t come soon enough

Click here to view the embedded video.

The Heroic Age Magazine #1 cover presents an interesting line up.  Some are obvious.  We’ve got Black Widow (currently appearing all over the Marvel Universe for several months – she must have gotten Wolverine’s agent – and will no doubt enjoy a big push come the release of Iron Man 2), Spider-Man, Thor and of course, Tony in his new Iron Man armour.

But most interesting in the lineup (and seen in the Avengers posters the other week) is Captain America, who appears to still be Bucky.  With Steve’s return and headlining Seige it seemed obvious that this was Steve back as Cap, with Bucky hopefully finding a new costumed identity of some description.   Instead its looking like Bucky will be staying on for a bit (hopefully not as a misdirect, only to get killed in issue 1 spurring Steve donning the costume again).

I for one am very happy if Bucky is staying on as Cap for a while longer.  He’s been generally well accepted in the role, helped enormously by the strength of Ed Brubaker’s writing in first re-establishing his character and making him interesting, and then slowly bringing him into the role, showing his own unease at taking on Steve’s legacy.  When Cap Reborn was announced, I felt that there was still life yet in Bucky as Captain America, so this is a welcome move.   I wonder if it means that there’s other plans in place for Steve.  I imagine, for example, that they’ll be needing someone to helm the HAMMER replacement once Norman’s booted out.

However, even more excitingly for me, as an Iron Man fan, is the solicitation for Rescue.  A new series starring Pepper Potts, back in her armour once again.  Pepper’s storyline has been incredibly strong under Matt Fraction’s writing during World’s Most Wanted and Stark Dissassembled, and you really felt for her when it was revealled that Tony’s revival would not only rip away her repulsor generator, but also involved ripping apart her Rescue armour.   Seeing Pepper enjoy the chance to finally be a superhero herself, after supporting Tony for so long was a great side-plot by Fraction so, much like Bucky as Cap, I’m really happy to see Marvel giving Rescue some more room to be explored.   Who’d have thought I’d be excited at the thought of a Pepper Potts series?

Finally, in amongst the various Deadpool solicitations (I love the character, but I know I’m not alone in fearing Marvel are pushing this one too far), I notice he’s got a team-up with Captain Britain.  I’m not sure if Captain Britain’s appeared since the Paul Cornell series was axed, but it’ll be interesting to see if any of MI-13 turn up or are referenced.  I hope so, as I’d hate to see Marvel throw away that team.