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Episode 1294 - Spotlight on Spider-Man in the Chromium Age (90s)

PantsPants Posts: 567
edited November 2012 in CGS Episodes & Spin-Offs
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)

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Comments

  • GregGreg Posts: 1,946
    Oh, the 90's are the chromium age, and all this time I've been calling it the dark age.

    Listening now. I stopped reading Spidey around the time of the 90's clone saga.
  • They changed the 1990s designation to "Chromium Age"?

    Why not "The Cubic Zirconium Age"?
  • I would have gone with the "Holographic Foil Age" myself.
  • I would have gone with the "Holographic Foil Age" myself.

    "The Variant Age"

  • I'd listen to this episode, but it comes in a sealed poly bag and I want to keep it mint...

    You'll never get your kids through college with it, son...:)
  • I would have gone with the "Holographic Foil Age" myself.

    "The Variant 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.
  • greyman24 said:

    I would have gone with the "Holographic Foil Age" myself.

    "The Variant 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.
    10 silver dollars, please. For brilliance. :)
  • As far as the 90's "Spider-Man: The Animated Series" it's actually up on Netflix. My kids regularly watch that and Amazing Friends streaming to the TV.

    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.
  • GregGreg Posts: 1,946
    I liked having the 90's animated Spider-Man series, but the animation styles used in the 90's made it very hard for me to watch any of it. My son loves the 90's Spidey cartoon, it put him on a huge symbiote kick and got him reading stuff from the first appearance of Venom up to the current series and everything Venom and Carnage related inbetween.
  • The 90's Spiderman cartoon along with The Batman animated series and the Xmen cartoon got me into comics.
  • JDickJDick Posts: 206
    greyman24 said:

    As far as the 90's "Spider-Man: The Animated Series" it's actually up on Netflix. My kids regularly watch that and Amazing Friends streaming to the TV.

    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.

    Was that the CGI one that was run on MTV? I think Bendis might have had something to do with it.
  • LibraryBoyLibraryBoy Posts: 1,803
    One era of Amazing Spider-Man I really enjoyed at the time was just after Revelations but a little ways before the Mackie/Byrne relaunch. They brought the Rose back as a recurring villain, Doctor Octopus was resurrected after getting killed by Kaine, and most interesting of all, Spidey became friends with X-Man, Nate Grey, who at that point was living in Central Park. He had found out Peter's identity through telepathic means, which meant Spidey had a friend who could relate to both halves of his life, which was a rarity at the time.

    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.
  • Is it just me or is the show intro song sounding really degraded/lossy? Just an aside.
  • They changed the 1990s designation to "Chromium Age"?

    Why not "The Cubic Zirconium Age"?

    I worked in a comic shop from 1990–95. Back then, and ever since, I called it The Shiny Age because people would flock to the fancy covers like magpies. My cawing like a crow became an inside joke at the shop.

    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.
  • Oh, and for anyone interested in Spectacular Spider-Man #200, here's a bit of what Sal had to say about it in the book I co-edited with Jim Amash about Sal:

    “...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've downloaded the podcast, and just need a clear spot in my own schedule to sit and listen to it. The one thing I remember most about this period was that this was when I stopped reading Spider-Man. The mega-mess of Maximum Carnage, easily the worst Spider-Man story I'd ever read to that point, combined with the entire clone thing, killed all of my interest in the series -- and I'd been a big fan of Spider-Man up until then. I'd pick up sporadic issues over the next few years, usually crossover issues, but I pretty much passed all of the Spider-books by until the next decade when JMS came on board as writer and made the book worth reading again.
  • CaptShazamCaptShazam Posts: 1,178
    I thought it was "when most fans stopped reading comics and the industry almost died" age
  • LibraryBoyLibraryBoy Posts: 1,803
    Just remembered something about Amazing Spider-Man #400 that I haven't thought about in YEARS - when I went to buy it off the rack that week, I saw the regular cover and the enhanced one, and that's the first time I can remember saying to myself since all that multiple cover malarkey had started "You know, I think I'm good with just buying the regular cover."

    I freed myself that day, ladies and gentlemen. I celebrated TWO Independence Days in 1995!

    \:D/
  • LibraryBoyLibraryBoy Posts: 1,803
    And now you've got me wanting to go back and give Spider-Girl another shot! I always liked the idea of the book, but the second person narration DeFalco used (You're May 'Mayday' Parker. You're the daughter of the original Spider-Man. You sure like to talk to yourself a lot. Etc.) bugged the hell out of me. Maybe I can look past that and into the story more now. I was certainly always curious, and I loved the issue that the guy who wrote The Waiting Place wrote (#51, maybe? Don't remember the issue number, but May fights a girl patterning herself after Electro), so maybe I can accept it more now if I try.

    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). $-)
  • The Die-Cut Variant Holofoil 501 Jeans Age
  • John_SteedJohn_Steed Posts: 2,087
    edited November 2012
    I missed that period due to not reading any DC or Marvel or superhero stuff in general - it was just natural to read all the awesome European and indie stuff.
  • KrescanKrescan Posts: 623
    another great Spidey episode. Does Chris have any other characters he knows almost everything about? I like him on the show.

    I hope the 2000's have plenty of Ultimate talk, fingers crossed.
  • bamfbamfbamfbamf Posts: 718
    I LOVE listening to Chris from Wildpig!!!
  • Mr_CosmicMr_Cosmic Posts: 3,200
    I'd read comics off and on as a kid, but McFarlane's Spider-Man and Eric Larson on ASM got me into comics hardcore.
  • greyman24greyman24 Posts: 50
    edited November 2012
    I remember that a lot of story in the 90's (and McFarlane's Spider-man did have examples of this) was eschewed in place of flashy artwork. I remember honestly having a conversation with someone at the time, where he was confused as to why someone would buy a book because of its story. "But...you can't tell if it's a good story just by looking at it," he said.

    Oh, and I second the inclusion of Chris as a regular on the show. Great commentary.
  • I started reading comics around this time, The Clone Saga and Zero Hour were my initial storylines.
  • luke52luke52 Posts: 1,392
    I've not read a lot of spider-man. Just a few issues and trades here and there. But I really love chris's enthusiasm for spidey. I'd like to get a couple of the old essentials simply because of this. Looking forward to the next in the series.
  • What I remember was that I was already becoming disenchanted with Spider-Man as the 90's rolled in. Two of the biggest reasons were Todd McFarlane and Eric Larson. I consider McFarlane to be a very clunky storyteller to begin with, and I really didn't like his approach to Spidey for the most part, especially those webs which looked more like cables than the delicate-looking threads that Ditko used to draw. I was much more impressed with Spidey hanging from a web-thread than I ever was with him swinging from those suspension-bridge-cables McFarlane had him swinging on. Larson's work was far too exaggerated for me to ever take seriously; as a cartoonist myself, I hate to use the word as an epithet, but I thought his work was too cartoony for a serious super-hero book.

    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.
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