Options
Episode 1294 - Spotlight on Spider-Man in the Chromium Age (90s)
Pants
Posts: 567
Our 50th Anniversary spotlight on Spider-Man continues as we look at his 'Chromium Age' - the 1990's. Chris from Wild Pig Comics joins us again as does Dan Cangilla who is a big fan of this era. We discuss Carnage, the return of Peter's parents, Peter and Mary Jane's baby, the 'deaths' during this era, Spider-Girl, the Clone Saga and more. (1:21:51)
Listen here.
Listen here.
Comments
Listening now. I stopped reading Spidey around the time of the 90's clone saga.
Why not "The Cubic Zirconium Age"?
That'd work, but there's too much danger that there'd be typos to make it "The Valiant Age." Then suddenly it's an ad for XO Manowar.
The 2003 series is also up there, but the animation is so horrible, I have a tough time watching it: even though the voice cast had some very surprising names. Neal Patrick Harris played Spidey in that one, and also in it was Lisa Loeb (?), Keith Carradine, and a ton of guest stars like Michael Dorn, Keith David, Michael Clarke Duncan, Gina Gershon, Clancy Brown and others.
And I have to second(or third or fourth or whateverth) the love for Untold Tales of Spider-Man. Best Spidey spin-off book by far, no question, and the issue where we see MJ for the first time is one of my most favorite comic book stories ever.
http://www.newsarama.com/film/jamie-foxx-in-talks-spider-man-sequel-villain.html
And lest ye think I was just being a jerk about it, I and the entire staff, including the owner, discouraged our customers from buying books just for the cover or buying multiple copies of books. It rarely stopped anyone though.
“...I was working with a terrific writer, J.M. DeMatteis. ... He is one of the most talented writers I have ever had the pleasure to work with. I had a conversation with him on the phone about this story, and what he was trying to get across. He wanted it to be very, very powerful.
“...When I got to the last two pages, I got so involved in the moment. ... I got so emotional drawing those two pages. I can’t recall that ever happening before or since. I must have just poured all of that emotion into those two pages.
“I look at them now, and I hate the drawings that I did. I don’t care for the figures that much, and some of the shots.... However, when Marc saw the two pages, he was very moved by them, and he thought they were so well done he said, ‘These don’t even need any dialogue.’ That was the most emotional moment I have ever had with a comic book. I almost brought myself to tears drawing this thing...”
I freed myself that day, ladies and gentlemen. I celebrated TWO Independence Days in 1995!
\:D/
Like Shane, I bought the What If issue in which she debuted right off the rack. As I recall, the idea sounded interesting and it was a slow week. Now that I think about it, I didn't even buy it the week it came out, but a few weeks later as it made its way from the New Releases onto the regular rack. Didn't sell it, but I did trade it to a dealer for the last issue of the Marvel G.I. Joe series, so I was pretty happy with how that turned out (especially since I did sell that one for some nice coin a few years later). $-)
I hope the 2000's have plenty of Ultimate talk, fingers crossed.
Oh, and I second the inclusion of Chris as a regular on the show. Great commentary.
The writing took turns I didn't care for either, especially with the addition of J M DeMatteis as a regular writer. I know some of the folks on the podcast thought he was brilliant, but I had never, ever, liked DeMatteis' writing, except for his stint on Justice League with Keith Giffen, and the things he was being praised for were largely the things I didn't like about his writing, especially and primarily his psychological and spiritual hooks which never did anything to hook me; his treatments of such always wound up sounding like psychobabble. There is probably only one other writer I can think of who I dislike more than him, and another who comes pretty close.
The only thing that kept me on as a reader during the early 90's was Sal Buscema's work on Spectacular Spider-Man, where they finally let him ink his own work.
Maximum Carnage and the onset of the Clone Saga were the final straws for me, and I took the Onslaught event as a sign it was time to write off Marvel more or less for good and I stopped buying most of them for the next several years, so I missed any and all of the good stuff that seems to have cropped up in the Spider-books during the rest of the decade, until the arrival of JMS in the 2000's.