So, I saw Spider-Man 2 today...

[Grant]

I've mentioned before that I work part-time at a local oldies/classic rock radio station and one of the perks is the many free passes and tickets that get handed to you. One of those was an invitation to see a press screening of Spider-Man 2 in place of my boss.

Actually, I had to go through some trouble since I am not, in fact, my boss. I was pulled aside before the show started by the guy in charge and his old man security guard assistant. They asked all these questions about who I was with and why my boss couldn't go and if I'll go on the air and give secrets of the movie away. Not to mention it took at least a few minutes for him just to get my name right. "So, you're Graham? oh, I see. So, did you say your name is Grunt then?" Jeez.

Besides that uncomfortable encounter, it was also kind of strange just sitting by myself around all these press type people. Most of them had their notepads and pens with little lights on the top of them, and here I'm just a kid enjoying the movie.

Well anyway, I don't know how many of you liked the first one, but this one is easily five times better. It's rare that a sequel is better than the original, but the key in this is that it doesn't really feel like a sequel; it's more of a continuation of the first one. While that could potentially be boring and feel rehashed, it works here because the characters are developed already and now they can just play.

As in the original, Raimi gets it right by sticking true to the feel of the source material. When you're watching, you feel like this is Spider-Man and not Sam Raimi's Spider-Man.

I feel hesitant to reveal any spoilers (though I'll happily PM them if requested), but I have to mention that one of the funniest parts of the flick involes a cameo from that guy from VH1's "I Love the [decade]" series and Queer as Folk, (I think his name is) Hal Sparks. It's just great.

Anyway, I thought it was great and I definitely recommend it to all y'all. Check it out, bitches.

[Light Speed]

Check it out, bitches.

Well when you put it like that, I guess I have too.

[Popcorn]

But does Mary-Jane get naked?

[Zeta]

I'm betting that 3 is Carnage or Venom. It's gotta feature the Symbiotes in some way. Because we've gone through most of Spider-man's big time villains already.

Who else is left? Mysterio? Give me a break. He's an actor with a special effects kit. Hydroman. Don't make me laugh. The Vulture? Yeah, seeing someone beat up an old man isn't that inspiring. Supershocker, the Rhino et all? Petty crooks.

The Lizard? Maybe. But it'd feel too much like a Green Goblin rehash.

Besides. You always have to go for the evil twin take for the third movie.

[Esrever]

Venom is a very "third movie" kind of villain, so I wouldn't be surprised if they go there next. I kind of hope they don't, though... the introduction of aliens into the Spiderman series always felt inappropriately science-fictiony to me. I suppose they could come up with a man-made Venom.

I'm really looking forward to the Spiderman 2 movie. And interestingly, I'm also really looking forward to the game, which is unusual considering it is a liscenced title. It just sounds really, really cool.

[Team Mecha]

No, it's most likely to be Green Gib...Goblin 2. #3 is Sam Raimi's last Spidy movie & there might not even be a 4th anyway so the 3rd one may be treated as a conclusion to a trilogy & the best way to do that is with "Son of Green Goblin".

[Segaholic2]

Ew, gross. I really don't want to see Hobgoblin. If Venom isn't the main villain of Spider-Man 3, I am going to be <I>ultra-pissed</I>.

[Protodude]

Ew, gross. I really don't want to see Hobgoblin. If Venom isn't the main villain of Spider-Man 3, I am going to be <I>ultra-pissed</I>.

ditto

[Crazy Penguin]

Ew, gross. I really don't want to see Hobgoblin.

Harry Osborn took on the Green Goblin identity. Hobgoblin (the REAL Hobgoblin) is Roderick Kingsley.

I'd love to see Harry as the Green Goblin in another sequel, but then people would whine and bitch about a villain being "reused", rather than look at the actual story.

Electro, Mysterio and Vulture are cool villains. I can definitely see them going with Electro seeing as he has an over the top flashy super power. Sandman would also make for some nice special effects too.

Venom is overrated. His comic book original would have to be reworked a lot for a movie.

The comic book Venom doesn't make a shit bit of sense.

Okay, so Spider-Man gets his alien costume, finds out it's alive, the Fantastic Four unattach it, months later it escapes and bonds with Peter again, Peter goes to the bell tower because he'd rather risk his own life than share his body with the symbiote, Peter falls unconscious, and then the symbiote unattaches itself, moves Peter to safety and supposedly dies from the intense sound. The symbiote wasn't an evil bastard, it had come to care about Peter.

Then later, Venom comes out of fucking nowhere! We don't know who the new host is, but he sure does hate Spider-Man!

Then the host is revealed to be Eddie Brock. Eddie Brock was a new character, never introduced before. Just out of fucking nowhere, VENOM!

So Eddie explains his origin to Peter.

Eddie Brock was a reporter for the Daily Globe. He was getting a lot of great stories out of a man who claimed to be the notorious serial killer, Sin Eater, the deal was that he'd tell Eddie his stories for the paper as long as Eddie kept his identity to himself.

Then, after police pressure, Eddie reveals his source as the Sin Eater. It was his masterpiece story.

Then Spider-Man and Daredevil defeat the Sin Eater and he is arrested. Turns out that the guy Eddie Brock was interviewing was a fraud. The Daily Globe became a laughing stock, and Eddie Brock was fired, his career ruined.

Eddie is all pissed off and starts working out, hating Spider-Man for ruining his career. For some reason he doesn't hate Daredevil, even though he had just as much part in the Sin Eater's capture as Spider-Man did.

Then he becomes all whiney and depressed, but won't kill himself because he was raised Catholic and that would be a sin (but keeping the identity of someone he believed to be a secret killer secret for a long time just so he could cash in is not a sin, apparently).

Then the symbiote (who isn't actually dead for some reason) attaches itself to Eddie. Together they would get revenge and kill Spider-Man! Yeah, forget that the symbiote went out of its way to save Spider-Man's life, it wants to kill him now.

And Venom's EVEN STRONGER THAN SPIDER-MAN! When the symbiote was attached to Spider-Man it didn't increase his strength whatsoever, but now that it's attached to someone significantly weaker he becomes somehow signifcantly stronger than Spider-Man ever has been.

And throughout all of his hunting to kill Spider-Man, Venom talks of how he loves innocents and how Spider-Man (but not Daredevil) stole his innocence(!).

So keeping a supposed serial killer's identity secret to make money is an okay, a totally innocent thing to do. But help put a serial killer in jail and you're an evil bastard! Umm, unless your name is Daredevil, then no hard feelings.

And Venom happily kills anyone who "gets in their way of killing Spider-Man", even if they are "innocent", because it's "necessary". Venom killed a cop and a security guard amongst many others, none of whom could've gotten in Venom's way at all. All he need do is tie them up, or hell, let them shoot or run away, what the hell good is that going to do anyway? But no, killing them is absolutely necessary. But Venom still loves innocent people, and Spider-Man is still the evil one.

Then Spider-Man saves Eddie Brock's ex-wife, and Venom comes to the conclusion that maybe Spider-Man tries to protect people after all (y'know, kinda like when he stopped the Sin Eater).

Then Venom becomes an anti-hero in a long string of mini-series. Then they end as his popularity dwindles, and he decides to hate Spider-Man again for some reason.

Wow, what a fucking brilliant character, I sure do hope they put Venom in a movie.

[Delphine]

Well, CP already said it, so I'll just give a "damn straight" and be on my way.

[Grant]

Besides seeing the movie setting it up for it to happen, I also read in USA Today that the third film will feature Green Goblin II, plus Lizard and one other villain (not Venom).

[Zeta]

Watch the cartoon version of Venom's origin. It makes a hell of a lot more sense because they had Eddie Brock in the series all along hating both Peter Parker and Spiderman.

And when Spiderman was wearing the Symbiote costume, it did increase his strength and powers and in addtion made him dangerously aggressive. So when crazy murderous alien fuses with crazy resentful guy who wants Peter Parker and Spiderman and you have an interestingly dangerous package.

In fact, the way the Venom storyline was handled in the comics compared to the TV show is a perfect example of what's wrong with American comics. They pull storylines out of their ass because the story only has a beginning and no end. So they keep on throwing in random subplots to extend the storyline even longer, and it devalues the characters and situations.

So characters and plots are forced rather than allowing to develop naturally - because characters have to stay static.

Of course - that's not to say that there isn't some anime that follows these mistakes to *glares at DBZ*. But it's rare-ish to have a story drag on for so long in Japanese media, while in the US it's unusual for a story to have closure. More often they're just extended till no one cares about them anymore and then just dropped.

[Crazy Penguin]

In fact, the way the Venom storyline was handled in the comics compared to the TV show is a perfect example of what's wrong with American comics. They pull storylines out of their ass because the story only has a beginning and no end. So they keep on throwing in random subplots to extend the storyline even longer, and it devalues the characters and situations.

So characters and plots are forced rather than allowing to develop naturally - because characters have to stay static.

It was bad writing and bad editorial decisions. It's fully possible to have good long-running company owned comics, check out Brian Michael Bendis' still ongoing run on Daredevil for example.

There're more crap comics than there are good, but the same can be said of just about everything.

[Segaholic2]

Harry Osborn took on the Green Goblin identity. Hobgoblin (the REAL Hobgoblin) is Roderick Kingsley.

My lesson for the day is to not talk too much about stuff I don't know too well. Never really followed Spider-Man.

I still think watching Spider-Man vs. Venom would be a lot more entertaining than Spider-Man vs. Green Goblin, rematch.

[Light Speed]

By the commercials it looks like they are going to wrap up the Harry/Spiderman conflict in this episode.

[Grant]

They don't.

[Pepperidge]

From the reviews I've heard, the second one seems to lead into a conclusion in the third one. However, I think the Harry conflict can be easily capped without resorting to rehashing the Green Gib... Goblin (I seriously almost typed that). Or at the very least, place very little focus on him.

With that in mind, Venom may not work in the third film, but I would like to see him eventually. But yeah, the Venom story was handled a LOT better in the animated series than in the comics. In fact, I'd say that was the cartoon's high point; after Spidey wasn't allowed to punch anymore, the magic powers and alternate dimensions became a little too much.

I know that there are SOME good comics, but the fact that Spider-Man didn't end thirty years ago completely discredits its integrity as a story, IMO. Not to mention that the American mainstream comic market isn't designed to allow stories closure in the first place.

[BlazeHedgehog]

Of course - that's not to say that there isn't some anime that follows these mistakes to *glares at DBZ*.

This is the part where I say DBZ was supposed to end at the Frieza Saga but Toei pressured Toriyama into going on with the storyline.

When you look at the natrual progression of the DBZ storyline, indeed, it seemed like everything would come to a head at the Frieza Saga. Frieza was the final villan, the baddest of the bad. Frieza was the destructor of Goku's home planet, the (somewhat) enslaver of his people. Frieza was responsible for Goku's (real) father's death. By turning in to the one and only Legendary Super Saiyan, Goku also fufilled a prophecy. And, indeed, the "five minutes = 10 episodes" plot seems a lot more tolerable and a lot more suspensful if you consider that's where it was to end. All the last minute comebacks, the exposition, it all would've made for a pretty epic ending.

Anyway, truth be told, I never read Venom's comic origins. Indeed, I learned of Venom via the Spiderman cartoon - and it's based on that as to why I think Venom is so freakin' cool (from there I went on to stuff like the Maximum Carnage videogame, which only boosted my thoughts of how cool Venom was +100). I never even knew the comic book origin for Venom was so lame, in comparison, otherwise I'd probably be just as "meh" as you are, CP.

[Esrever]

Maybe we'll see a goblinized Harry leading a team of bad guys. That'd be a way to have a new goblin without it seeming like they're just reusing old villains.

[Crazy Penguin]

I know that there are SOME good comics, but the fact that Spider-Man didn't end thirty years ago completely discredits its integrity as a story, IMO.

Spider-Man isn't really a story so much as a string of stories. It has as much integrity as a series of stories as Mario has a series of video games.

[Zeta]

Who knows? They could always throw us all for a loop and turn Harry into Venom. Heh.

But yeah, Spiderman's actually at his most entertaining when he's fighting villains from another series. Like Dr. Doom (Fantastic Four) or Kingpin (Daredevil). In fact, I can't think of a single Marvel villain that Spiderman hasn't fought. Didn't he even take on Galacticus at one point?

On a somewhat related note, in Marvel vs Capcon, my favorite team was Megaman and Spiderman. But when are the makers of Super Smash Bros and DC comics going to get together so that we can have SNK vs Marvel vs Capcon vs Nintendo vs DC Smash Bros Intergalactic Tournament? I want to see Terry, Spidey, Megaman, Pikachu, and Wonder Woman in an all-out brawl!

[Kishi]

Who would win in a fight--Bruce Campbell or the Kool-Aid Man?

I will not rest until a video game is made to settle this dispute. There must be a resolution!

[plasticwingsband]

Bruce Capbell would win. Speaking of Bruce Campbell, did anyone else see "Bubba Ho-Tep"? It was awesome.

[Crazy Penguin]

Who knows? They could always throw us all for a loop and turn Harry into Venom. Heh.

But yeah, Spiderman's actually at his most entertaining when he's fighting villains from another series. Like Dr. Doom (Fantastic Four) or Kingpin (Daredevil).

The Kingpin is a Spider-Man villain. He was introduced in The Amazing Spider-Man #50.

He wasn't really associated with Daredevil until Frank Miller came along.

[Zeta]

It depends. Is the Kool-Aid Man full of regular Kool-Aid or Jonestown Kool-Aid?