SPIDER-MAN: BRAND NEW DAY PT 1

[00:00:28] Hello, welcome back to Comics Are My Happy Place with me Colin and my friend Nick. How's it going Nick? Very well if a bit hot. How are you? A little hot, a little under the weather. I've got something Nick and I had some friends round for drinks and it just suddenly my tooth started hurting. Oh no. So I thought it was my tooth and then dentists all that thing. I haven't done that but it's now the weekend.

[00:00:53] I think I've just been drinking a lot and my immune system's battered because now I'm thinking glands and I'm also thinking ear infection. But basically just half of my face is hurting and we're going to go on holiday soon. So yeah, lovely. Me in the house, the family have gone away for a couple of days. It's me in the house. I could do whatever I want and all I'm doing is lying down feeling hot and ill. Yeah, textbook. That is a textbook getting the house to yourself weekend.

[00:01:22] I was thinking about playing Golden Axe in a bit on the Mega Drive. Lying down with your face on a bucket of ice. But enough about me and my bucket of ice. Comic books, that's what we love, isn't it Nick? Oh yes, like the title says. We've both been to see the new Spider-Man films, Spider-Man Brand New Day, which we're going to talk about. We're going to give our honest review. Shall we do like spoiler free and then with spoilers or avec du spoiler?

[00:01:50] Yeah, let's do spoiler free, but then let's do spoilers because I want to talk about the film in detail. And then we're going to talk a little bit about some Spider-Man comics that we read. We've read some of the most classic, a selection of five or possibly four, which are on the list. You can look at and read along with us and then you can go, yes, you're right, Colin and Nick, or no, you're wrong. They're four classics. So, you know, they're all pretty good ones.

[00:02:16] Most of them from the original era. Then noticeably I jumped about 30 years and then did one from the early 2000s. Which I think might come up in our discussion of this movie. Maybe. And why, little spoiler, you liked it and I didn't like it. Possibly. Did you like it, Nick? I did like it. I really enjoyed it. You did like it. Yeah. I don't think I liked it and I really wanted to.

[00:02:45] Once again, I took those pesky kids. I keep taking them to see Marvel movies and they keep being disappointing. They keep saying, is it finished yet? And stuff like that. It was definitely Spider-Long, I'll tell you that. Oh my goodness. It went on. That joke didn't really work. So what a comedian I do said about the film King Kong, it was King Long. That is good. That does work. Spider-Long doesn't work as a gag. It's not even a gag.

[00:03:14] Spider-Man, oh man, it was a long film. You can say that if you want. Yeah. You could say that if you want. It's not as catchy. It's not as catchy. I keep annoying my daughter when we went to Pride saying, LGBTQ, I like it. I think you could get that on a t-shirt. We had a lot of fun and Pride, but I was definitely just couldn't help being a really annoying dad and just trying to show her cool. And with it, I am.

[00:03:41] But you are legally obliged to be an annoying dad. That is dad's role. I guess so. That is dad's role. And to spend a lot of money on the man with the trolley selling rainbow flags at eight pounds a pop. Oh yeah, of course. Yeah, yeah. Annoying and also wallet. Those are your two main functions, I think. And an excursion. And getting slightly embarrassingly emotional. Oh yeah. We went to the Pride Parade. Me and my wife both get very teary when they go past saying, you know, love is love and we're all equal and all this stuff.

[00:04:11] And it's like, yeah, come on. But then there's like the Liddle bus that goes past. And it's like, you know, this whole thing about companies co-opting Pride. Yeah. And it's like, Liddle? Really? Is that, I don't know. Is that that cool? Yeah. And the DJ going, hey guys, it's me from Liddle. Everyone get down to Liddle. Liddle, we've got great savings. Pride, yeah? Come on, it's Liddle.

[00:04:37] Just like Liddle itself is, I don't sound like a terrible snob here, but just literally the colors and the look and everything is so boring and sort of corporate. And the opposite of, you know, all the lovely people dancing around in their sort of golden sequin outfits and stuff. And then we see Liddle, which just looks like a big Liddle bag on wheels with people dancing. Hey, it's Liddle! Liddle! Everyone, come on! We all love Liddle! It's not the vibe, is it really?

[00:05:07] Love and tolerance brought to you by the Middle Isle of Liddle. It was a little bit. I mean, yeah, I guess they've got to get money for those buses from somewhere. But I mean, it is just a bus with loads of people dancing to music on, which is wonderful. Yeah. And actually felt not unlike the Spider-Man parade in Spider-Man 1, where Macy Gray appears in the sand and rainy one.

[00:05:33] And the Green Goblin turns all those people into skeletons, which is still shocking after all these years. Yeah. I've just realized that Macy Gray, I think, really dates that film now. Yeah. Oh, I don't know. I think Macy Gray is forever, surely. Probably. I always liked that one, that went, sweet, sweet, baby. Yeah. Life is crazy. But I can just imagine someone asking, mummy, daddy, what is a Macy Gray? What is a Macy Gray? It's an old form of quarantine from back in the day.

[00:06:03] I'll give you a Macy Gray for it. But yeah, the little bus is still making me laugh. It was just, he just like kept having to go, it's little. Come on guys, it's us, it's little. You love, you love little. Pride, you know, and little. I really wanted to somehow say the line from the film Pulp Fiction that Marcellus Wallace says, which is, that's pride. Fuck him with you. But I couldn't work out how to put it in relation to pride.

[00:06:33] Yeah. I was going to put a message on our street group saying, oh, if the music's keeping you up, that's pride fucking with you. But then I knew I would have to explain what I meant. Anyway, comics. So we do a big list of Marvel Comics characters, which we started over two years ago. In fact, you weren't even there, Nick, when we started. I was not. You have slowly bonded with me like the Venom symbiote.

[00:07:02] But we did a big list. Spider-Man, obviously, we haven't touched. We've barely touched. No. Currently at number one is Nightcrawler. Will Spider-Man knock him off the top spot? We assume so. But let's discuss. Nightcrawler, not unlike Spider-Man, in fact. He even went through a stage of being the amazing Nightcrawler or something where he was, or Spider-Crawler or some shit. Was it the radioactive Spider-Man he was briefly at the end of the Krakoan era?

[00:07:31] That's the one. That's the one. But it was that guy, Cy Spiria. Is that his name? A lot of people like. Yes. But I can't cope with his writing. Oh, really? I quite like some of his stuff. A lot of people love him. Hit and miss for me. It bothers me, Nick. I can't. It feels like trying to be clever, but quite dull. Yeah. I mean, he's another 2000 AD alumni. Okay. God, he could be round here. I should watch what I bloody say. He could well be. He could be anywhere.

[00:08:00] I think he might live near me, in fact. I don't know what that. Let's put a pin in that. But first, we like to talk about other comics we've been reading. Let's not spend too long on that. But, because we've got a lot of Spider-Man to talk about. But other comics I have been reading, Nick. I have been reading the Poison Ivy series, which has been going for a long time, apparently. Oh, yeah. I didn't realize. And it's great. It's really good. I've only read the first few issues.

[00:08:28] It's talking about something which terrifies me anyway, which is climate breakdown. Terrifies a lot of us. Poison Ivy. There's some backstory stuff where she had all the powers. She became like the swamp thing. She became Queen Ivy or something. And then she lost all the powers. She's angry at Holly Quinn because Holly Quinn saved her life, but took away her powers. So she's now sort of... It's a bit like when they depower Magneto or something and they go on the road. Yeah. It's one of those, isn't it?

[00:08:57] So she's sort of like got just enough powers to like kill someone by making mushrooms appear in them. Yeah. That's it. A lot of it is just her going from place to place, turning people into fungus. Pretty much in those early issues. Yeah. And talking a lot about how it's like... It's okay. It doesn't hurt them. They actually feel a state of real bliss as they turn into mushrooms. Yeah. But it's great. It's kind of really gross, but like satisfying. Yeah.

[00:09:27] It channels a lot of the swamp thing vibes. Yes. I think. But with a definite sort of LGBTQ, queer, poly feel to it as well. I like it. Poison Ivy, come on. It's little. Let's do this. It's pride. Yeah. She's great. And I like that she's killing herself, I think, slowly or has decided to just let herself turn into a mushroom or some shit. Yeah.

[00:09:57] There's a lot of stuff around the rot, which is the sort of fungal equivalent to the green and the red. I was hoping it wouldn't go into that because I read a lot of that in Animal Man. I got a bit like, oh, this now feels silly. It's not as heavy as that, but it does touch on that a little bit. But I like her nihilistic attitude where she's just kind of, she's given up caring. Yeah. And she's not trying to save the planet or anything. She just wants to kill loads of humans.

[00:10:31] Yeah. But in a kind way.

[00:11:17] I really care. It's weird. It's weird. It's a good series. I really like it. I'm reasonably up to date. I think I'm about four or five issues behind. It hasn't gone to like 60 issues or something.

[00:11:45] So there must be a pretty big audience for it. About 50 issues, I think, at the moment. So it's very rare. Any Batman villain has. Yeah. I guess Catwoman actually is the only one, isn't it? Catwoman was the only one that's managed to sustain an ongoing series for like a long while. She's up to about issue 90 again now on the latest run. So, yeah, I guess Poison Ivy initially was just Batman. Another Batman's sexy lady who sort of is in love with him, but also trying to kill him.

[00:12:12] So it's great that she's just completely moved away from all that and she's gay and in love with Harley Quinn. And there's no kind of like, oh, sexy, seductress Batman type thing. No. She's another one that I think was reinvented by the animated series as well. I think her and Mr. Freeze benefited from what the animated series did with them because that then fed back into the comics in terms of sort of making them more interesting. Have you seen the Harley Quinn animated series?

[00:12:42] I've watched the first couple of series. It's all right. I don't love it, I would say. Well, I started watching it with my daughter. And again, I said like, because she was watching this thing called Has Been a Hotel. And I was like, I think this is too old for you. Let's turn it off. And I was like, let's watch Harley Quinn. Apparently it's great. And oh my God, it's effing and jeffing all over the shop. And a lot of violence is really brutal and horrible. I kind of loved it. I've only seen the first episode, but I like the Poison Ivy.

[00:13:08] She's there from the beginning as her like, she's the straight man to Harley Quinn basically. Or straight woman. Yeah. I thought it was a bit, I just found it a bit too over the top at times, but it's that sort of show. That's definitely the vibe and the style. It's a bit of that Deadpool where they're just saying FFF. A little bit. In every sentence. And it's like losers just becomes irritating after a bit. Yeah.

[00:13:32] But there's some fun stuff in there and they do some interesting things with what they do with kind of the Joker and Commissioner Gordon and Batman and some of the side characters. They do some weird stuff with them. Yeah. Gordon's like an absolute alcoholic, isn't he? Yeah. Just like got the shakes all the time and drinking whiskey and like crying. It's really funny. That is good. Batman seems basically the same though. Does he like? Yeah. Ish.

[00:13:57] They don't do, I guess, too much with Batman, but they have some fun with like, I think Nightwings played by the guy who played Guillermo in What We Do in the Shadows. And he's quite fun. Oh, okay. Great. That's fun. Well, I look forward to it. Nick, have you been reading any other fun comics other than the ones we had to read for this?

[00:14:17] Yes, I started reading the Ghost Machine universe stuff in Image, which is the Geoff Johns, Gary Frank and Brian Hitch created titles that are sort of interlinked. There's three main ones that I read at the moment. There's one called Geiger about a radioactive man in a post-apocalyptic America. One called Jumkyard Joe about a GI robot type character back in the Vietnam War.

[00:14:48] And one called Redcoat about an immortal British soldier from the American War of Independence. But they're all linked together in the same universe, ultimately, even though they're in different time zones. What's the Ghost Machine universe then? So it's just a creator imprint within Image. So I guess it's just a group. There are a couple of other titles under Ghost Machine that don't link into this specific universe. I think this is called the unnamed universe. Right. After the unnamed war that happens.

[00:15:17] Just can't be bothered to think of a name for it. Yeah. But I'm quite enjoying it. They're just quite fun comics. They're not trying to be anything particularly, you know, they're not. They're just trying to be fun, enjoyable comics. Not in a sort of silly or frivolous way. There's some fairly, you know, gross, violent, serious moments in there. But they're just trying to have a bit of fun with the universe and sort of take some fairly silly concepts and make something out of them.

[00:15:47] So Geoff Johns is writing it all, is he? Yes, he writes all of them. And I know he gets a bit of a stick for some of his stuff. But I guess when he's released from having to sort of tie into the main DC universe and stuff like that, it's quite fun watching him just do his own thing. Yeah, Geoff Johns I've kind of always enjoyed. I've always felt like he never quite gets to a place of being great. No, but he's enjoyable. Yeah. He just writes really readable, fun comics. It feels very ideas.

[00:16:16] I imagine when you're like him, I get the feeling just from, you know, he was involved in the cinematic world and stuff in DC. And I feel like he was one of those creators where it's all about how can I get from this to films and TV. Yeah. I think he loves comics as well. I'm not saying he doesn't, but it all feels very concept franchise-y. Do you know what I mean? But I'd be interested to read this for that reason. Because I feel like every now and again, he would write something really good, like some of the Green Lantern stuff.

[00:16:46] His Flash run is really good. The Avengers one is actually really good. The Avengers with Red Skull in it. Do you remember those ones? It was before Bendis took over. Oh, okay. Yeah, I wouldn't have read those. Yeah. And the Justice Society stuff I used to love. Yes. Even though it was all very continuity and kind of dull in a way, but that made it quite fun. And that it was just, he knew every character and who their dad was and all that stuff, you know. I think it's similar to like Mark Waid.

[00:17:13] His enthusiasm for those things comes across. And that's what makes it enjoyable to read because he clearly loves those characters and writing for them. And I think that makes it more fun to read when it's something that you get since he's invested in them. But I really liked what he did with the rogues in his run of The Flash. He made them sort of front and centre again. Yeah. After them being sidelined for a while. Yeah. I think all the TV series interpretations of the characters all come from him, don't they? Yeah.

[00:17:41] Because those characters are all very paper thin and 1950s or 1960s kind of Captain Cold, Mirror Master. They are just their names, aren't they? Yeah, exactly. He gave them all history and backstory. Yeah, his version of like Captain Cold and Heat Wave and the top and those kind of ones were much more fleshed out than previous ones. Although I have to say Mirror Master, probably Grant Morrison's responsible for the better version of him. Oh yeah, the crazy Scottish version. Yeah. Yeah, he's good fun.

[00:18:11] That sounds fun. I will read those. The Ghost Machine Universe. Has he fully gone over to Image now, Len? Has he sort of stopped doing... I assume so, yeah. I don't know if I've seen him doing much DC stuff recently. You know, I think Bendis has started doing Image stuff, hasn't he? He's always done creator-owned stuff as well as doing kind of stuff for Marvel or DC. Feels a bit like Bendis and Geoff Johns have both like became huge and across everything. And then when they crash out, it's like you just don't want to read anything by them within the main worlds.

[00:18:41] Do you know what I mean? Like any Bendis book now, you're like, oh, really? Yeah, a little bit. There's just so much of them for like an eight-year period or maybe 10-year period. Yeah, I think that's what it is. It's volume. There was so much by the two of them that you reach a point where you just feel in like those main superhero universes that you just feel a bit saturated by it. I'm kind of glad they're both doing stuff. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I'm enjoying it. That Ghost Machine stuff, it feels maybe like he is pitching it towards being something cinematic.

[00:19:07] But I don't think that's a bad thing sometimes to have a bit of cinematic style comics. They're quite good fun. Mark Miller was the real forer of that, wasn't he? Where everything was like, if this was a movie, it'd be like this. Bang, bang, boom, little. It's not as widescreen as that, but it definitely feels like these are concepts that, you know, he's probably got in the back of his mind. Oh, this could be a TV series or a movie somewhere down the line. God, I wish I was good at concepts. I'm always like, as in, that's the way, isn't it?

[00:19:34] I've got some friends who are writers and the ones who do really well are the ones who just have big concepts because they just sell. Yeah, it's got to be ideas. I was thinking that about Grant Morrison, some of the ideas. I was listening to a podcast talking about the new X-Men run, which made me want to reread it all. And I was just thinking how good or bad, and often they go down avenues with the writing. We've talked about this before, where you just lose as you're completely. You've got no idea what's going on.

[00:20:02] And it's just mad or nonsensical, but there's still massive swings and big ideas. And like, actually, that's all that matters in terms of content nowadays, isn't it? Because there's so much content that anyone could do. Yeah. Because there's so much of it just churning out. Whereas someone who just has a big idea is almost worth more than all the writing put together and all the kind of craftsmanship. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:20:30] And I think people like Morrison and Hickman are 15 ideas at once guys. They're always throwing tons of things at you in a way that's almost a struggle to keep up with. It's been a lot of fun being in their brain. Yeah. Seeing around. I never quite mastered writing to the point where it was like, I mean, I guess sometimes I was doing my shows. I'd like go off and it would be in my head all the time.

[00:20:57] So I'd always be thinking about something and, you know, notebooking and blah, blah, blah. But then as I've got older, it's just like a thing over there that I go over and do every now and again. You know, whereas I think I know seeing Grant Morrison, like his notebook's just full of all Batman drawings and shit like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's really childish. All of this is. Spider-Man. Let's talk Spider-Man. So we both saw the latest film, Spider-Man, Brand New Day.

[00:21:24] It is Tom Holland's fourth film as Spider-Man. Plus he's been in Avengers and so on. He's kind of come of age. He's a mature Spider-Man, a mature man. Yeah. Although he sort of always feels like a boy man, doesn't he? A bit like Leonardo DiCaprio. I feel like he'll always have that. But he in this, we've got the Hulk appears. We've got the Punisher appears. We've got various villains.

[00:21:51] We talked about them a lot in one of our previous episodes before the movie came out. Almost all of whom appear for a fraction of a second. Yeah. All in all, what did you think? Let's start with that. What was your take on it? Now, I really enjoyed it because I felt this was the closest that the MCU Spider-Man has come to doing comic book Spider-Man.

[00:22:16] Particularly like the opening 10, 15 minutes where it's just him out and about being Spider-Man fighting a load of different villains. Like you said, some of whom only appear on screen for like a couple of seconds at best. But I think crucially for me, they're not just a man in a sort of suit who has the name of the villain. They look like the comic book villain. So, and I know we said we'd go spoiler free.

[00:22:45] I don't think this is giving any spoilers to tell you things in the first couple of minutes of the film. But in the first couple of minutes, he fights Scorpion. He fights Tombstone. He fights Boomerang. He fights Tarantula. And a sort of cyborg man that I didn't recognize. Apparently his name is Ramrod. Ramrod? Isn't he from He-Man? That's Ram Man. Oh, Ram Man. Okay. Yeah, yeah. But there was a Ramrod in Mr. Sinister's Nasty Boys, I believe. Okay. Oh, yeah. Not that Ramrod.

[00:23:15] It's a different Ramrod who has like a head that's metal. I thought it was Rhino for a second, but it's Ramrod. Yeah. But they all kind of look pretty much like sort of comic book versions of themselves. And I quite liked that for a change that it felt like they were leaning into the comic book. You know, Hulk's Hulk in it. He hulks out. It just felt like a comic book film. More so than some of the MCU ones have previously in the last few years.

[00:23:43] So do you mean the look of it or the feel of it or the action? The look of it, the feel of it. I mean, the other thing I was worried about was looking at the trailers. It felt like it was going to be overstuffed with all these things in it. And very cleverly, they showed you, you know, a lot of clips from the first few minutes of the film where there are a load of different villains, but they're not the focus of the film. There is a main villain. I'll keep that spoiler free for now. But there's a main villain. There's a thread about Peter Parker changing and him trying to deal with that.

[00:24:13] And I felt that the other characters, Black Widow, Hulk, Punisher, fed into that storyline without them being sort of cameos for the sake of cameos. There were reasons why he went to each of those characters for the sake of the story. And that made sense. And I enjoyed that for once rather than, oh, look, here's another MCU character. It was like he's going to this one for information. He's going to this one for help. It sort of made sense why they were in it. They, right.

[00:24:43] They made a plot point rather than just cameos. Yeah. There was a reason for them to appear. Yeah. To me, I didn't feel what you felt about it. You had a good time. You did get given some free socks and a badge on the way in, which I think might have colored your interpretation. Whereas I took my son and his friend, both of whom were going quite mad throughout it. And they would occasionally get really into it. And then, but it was really like, shh, no talking. We're not allowed to talk. Remember when the film's on? There was a lot of that.

[00:25:10] And my son's friend kept saying, how much longer is this movie going on for? In that slightly gamut way, which is very funny. It's, I felt it did go on forever. I got to be honest. So my two big thoughts, right. I'm just going to say it. I didn't like it. I wanted to like it. I really wanted my son and his friend to like it as well. But I just thought, oh, it's whatever.

[00:25:37] It's going to be fun because it's got all these elements, blah, blah, blah. I felt those bits you say, like where they recreated. So they recreated the cover of Amazing Fantasy 15. Yeah. First ever appearance. They recreated various covers with Boomerang and Tarantula, as you say. But I thought they all looked horrible. I thought they looked comic accurate, but kind of like a hologram in a museum or something. You know when something's like really shiny and slow-mo and sort of like, you're doing

[00:26:06] that bit from that thing. But you're like, so? Like, because it just, it didn't do anything for me. I felt Spider-Man was really moody and depressing. And his whole thing with MJ and Ned was really tedious. I thought they were all good. I think that everyone in it's good. Yeah. Apart from one particular person, I think you could probably guess who annoyed me the most.

[00:26:35] But anyway, they're just carrying on this thing of like, you don't remember who I am, do you? And it was, I'm so over it. I was hoping they just fixed that in the first few minutes. Because the beat of it was played out. And then it just keeps going. He's like a really, the whole workaholic Spider-Man thing. Without spoilering it, I think the whole thing with, that they took from the comic series,

[00:27:03] The Other, which I don't think I really read, where he starts getting organic webs and all that. Weirdly, he literally says, oh, Peter 2 has these. He's, as in the Tobey Maguire character who he's met. Tobey Maguire Spider-Man who he met in the last one. And so that kind of goes, yeah, so who cares? Yeah. And then it was like, he's kind of going a bit like Venom, but not really. Like, that whole plot line didn't do anything. It didn't go anywhere.

[00:27:31] I feel like I'm just being really harsh now. I thought the Hulk was really pointless in it. And like loads of stuff we've just seen before. And I don't think there really was a main villain. Or like at least not one that was a big villain. But that's for the spoiler bit. But the stuff we're going to talk about, spoilers, I did like that element. As in the secret character, the Sadie Sink stuff, which probably everyone knows what it is.

[00:27:55] But my two takes that I came away from, I also kind of weirdly felt like Tom Holland. I hate to say this, but I feel like I'm ready for a new Spider-Man. I feel bad saying that. But I was just like, I don't know. It surprised me. I'm kind of bored of him. Did you always start with like a video of him going, hey guys, thanks for coming to see the movie. I just wanted to let you know. I was like, why have they done that? Yeah. Just say like we put loads of emotion and heart into it. We really hope you enjoy it.

[00:28:24] I thought it was going to be like, you know, we're sponsored by this. Or we used a new surround sound thing or something like that. But it was just literally saying, I'm Spider-Man. Yeah. And I hope you like the movie. Was that in case people didn't think it was very good? It was like to kind of endear them. It was really weird. I'm baffled by that. I have no idea what the point of that was. It was a really weird thing to put.

[00:28:50] Also, one of the trailers, slight tangent but similar, one of the trailers beforehand had loads of clips of the filmmakers telling you how brilliant it was and how they were reinventing animation. Right. And all this kind of stuff in the trailer. And it just made me not want to see the film. I was like, you've really gone in the wrong direction with this as an attempt to mark it by having the filmmakers say, oh, and we've just, we've come up, we're so good at this. And this is such an incredible thing.

[00:29:19] And it's such an amazing vision. And it reinvents the world of animation. I was like, it doesn't. It's just another CGI animated film. It must be a PR thing, right? It must be like the PR think they need to. Hype it up. Hype it up. Yeah. And connect also to things like YouTube and all that, which even though I could be wrong, but I've heard from a lot of things that all social media stuff is like on a downward trend now. Like people are actually getting a bit bored of it, which I think is wonderful.

[00:29:48] But they definitely did that in the him swinging around the city stuff. Because as that was happening, I was like, oh, we've seen this so much from the other things. Why are we just having a woohoo and all that? But then you see him like hit a building and run a bit. And it kind of almost goes into like, you know, those guys who climb on top of Empire State building. Parkour. It goes like that, doesn't it?

[00:30:12] And like the camera change, which I thought was kind of innovative and interesting, but also kind of turned me off because it made it feel like I was watching YouTube a little bit. I don't know. Only for like seconds. I thought I liked in this one was I know you said he's quite moody and he is for fair chunks of the film. But I thought in this one there was more of him like enjoying being Spider-Man at times than we've seen actually doing a bit of like wisecracking and making jokes and stuff, which he hasn't really done in many of the other films.

[00:30:40] And that felt more like kind of comics Spidey, that he's kind of masking his moodiness when he's out and about a Spider-Man by cracking jokes and doing the Spider-Man thing. I mean, those initial Sam Raimi things did that so well, I think. Yeah. It was so funny. The initial Sam Raimi films. And got across the geekiness and the childlikeness of him. I guess this was somewhere in between that and the Andrew Garfield ones in tone. Yeah, I never watched.

[00:31:09] I only watched the first Andrew Garfield one. I didn't watch the second one. Oh, it's really, really boring. It's really like dour. The problem with the Andrew Garfield one, I feel bad for him, is it was so close to the Sam Raimi ones that I just felt, why have you done this? I don't need another Spider-Man. I don't need you to do it again. I quite enjoyed it when you did it a couple of years ago. I don't need it again this quickly. So I guess Tom Holland.

[00:31:34] Yeah, I think the problem is the shadow of the Sam Raimi Spider-Man films across any Spider-Man is always going to be a difficulty because those Sam Raimi ones are comic booky and fun and bright. They have the vibe of Lee and Kirby Spider-Man. Yes, they do. Whereas, well, well, well, that's the three. I have three thoughts.

[00:31:58] One is I felt a little bit like this is like if you're not that good at cooking like me and you're trying to make a curry or something like that and you start cooking it and then you taste it and you go, oh, it doesn't really taste of anything. So you keep putting in more flavors. Do you know what I mean? Like maybe this random stuff I put in here or what about this? And then in the end, it either tastes like just bland because it's all like canceled itself out or it tastes like too hot and horrible and spicy.

[00:32:26] Which is what I put the Punisher in that character. I found the Punisher unbearable. I know I've really gone back and forth on John Berthel as the Punisher. And I kind of get what he's doing, I think. But I find Cuddly Punisher is so weird and confusing. He's like the best Punisher. But he's also like kind of a bit of a klutz. Like he's the reason things go wrong at the end and stuff.

[00:32:54] And he's always a bit slapstickly bad at being the Punisher. Yeah. I don't think they ever call him the Punisher. And it's like, are you shooting people or are you? Anyway, let's talk about that boy spoiler. The other thing I thought was it was a lot like kind of the 90s. It felt like if it was a comic story, it would have been written by like someone like Todd Disargo. Is that his name? Or one of those. Do you know what I mean?

[00:33:19] Like one of those just kind of in the 90s where there's just loads of issues and they're all pointless and they don't go anywhere. And it's just stuff and everyone appears in it. And it also made me think a bit of the Marvel team ups. Some of which are really good fun as in the Marvel team or comics, which is Spider-Man and Mockingbird or Spider-Man and Hulk or Spider-Man or whatever. Or Punisher. And it felt a bit like that in that those stories are very kind of pointless.

[00:33:47] And it's just them getting together. It's sort of enjoyable to see them get together. But ultimately the whole thing is kind of forgettable. Forgettable. Nothingy. So that's my three hot takes on Spider-Man Brand New Day. Right. Spoilers. So if you haven't watched the film, don't listen to this next bit. Skip ahead or go and watch the film. So spoilers. Jean Grey. Yeah. It is her. But the problem was everyone knew it was her.

[00:34:15] The worst kept secret because to be honest, yeah, I'd seen it on many. And they'd even started doing promo things of her saying, oh, who am I playing? Well, you'll have to watch the film and find out. Couldn't possibly tell you. People asking her, is it Jean Grey? And her going, well, who knows? It's like, it is clearly. It's clearly Jean Grey. Yeah. There was a point where people were like saying maybe it's Rachel Summers as a kind of weird twist. But I mean, that would be very confusing to most cinema guys, wouldn't it?

[00:34:41] But when they finally said it, I kind of like the reveal where Spider-Man just goes, oh, we've got a name, by the way. It's Jean Elaine Grey. Didn't know her name was Elaine. I thought I'd say that. She's great. I think Sadie sings fantastic. She's very good. And I think that's a really good take on Jean. Yeah. I really like that they're obviously going to do the X-Men as teenagers as they always were properly. Presumably Wolverine when he shows up won't be, but the others, maybe Storm won't be. I don't know. Maybe it was more like, was it X-Men Evolution?

[00:35:11] Yeah. But kind of slightly bothered me that X-Men are kind of being revealed in Spider-Man. So yeah, that was actually probably the thing I liked least about it is that the person that you're set up to believe is the villain of the film. It turns out to be Jean Grey. So obviously she's not the villain. And there's a, you know, there's a reason why she's behaving the way she is.

[00:35:35] And there's a, there's a real villain to the piece who were unsurprising given how nice and friendly and chummy the governmental department of damage control was with Spider-Man at the start of the film. I was like, well, they're clearly the bad guys because they're so happy and accepting of him. They're not going to be. Yeah. And they've turned the hand into his own security guard. Big red flag. But I thought that was quite a good red flag. I thought just so many concepts were wasted.

[00:36:03] I think that actor, Travis Trammell, is it? Trammell Tillman. Trammell Tillman. Yes. That they just made him a kind of sort of baddie government guy, but doesn't even have like a big, like, don't you realize these mutants are going to take over the planet if we don't stop them now? It's humanity versus mutants. They're going to replace us, blah, blah, blah.

[00:36:30] He just kind of, he's like the best actor in the world at the minute, possibly, or one of them. And he was totally wasted. The fact that he wasn't the jackal or something, or at least had something going on. And I thought, there was a girl who I think was maybe Gwen Stacy briefly. Did you spot that? I couldn't work out if she was meant to be or not. So there's a girl in Peter's apartment building that he keeps running into. At one point, he accidentally steals her laundry to wear. Oh, is that the same girl? Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

[00:37:00] That was quite a funny bit, to be fair. That was quite funny. There was loads of like, to me, it got like to a point of almost like taste was a bit off. Like even, this is a ridiculous criticism. But the costume does look grave. The first time really does look like what it would look like if it was comics accurate. Doesn't have all that annoying Nike type raised bits and all that. Even the Sam Raimi thing they did for some reason. You know, all that kind of stuff. Sportswear shit.

[00:37:31] But, I mean, this is a real, I can't believe I'm making this point. It's really stupid. His bum. To be fair, I wasn't expecting you to start the sentence with that. But Spider-Man's bum was just on display quite a lot within his costume. And I'm not, I now sound like one of my old characters that I used to do that used to like get insanely furious at like seeing bottoms on television and would like smash the screen and stuff. But it was, I mean, as my character said, there's nothing wrong with the bottom. It was perfectly formed.

[00:38:01] And it really was a fantastic bum. But it was like he's gone from being kind of live swimmery to being buff Spider-Man. And there was just loads of shots where you just really see his bum. And it was really like, all right. Do you know what I mean? It was just a bit like, oh, this is my problem, isn't it? Not Spider-Man's. But it was like, as in, it was just a bit like, almost like, you know, you see an old Schwarzenegger film and it was a bit like, ooh.

[00:38:32] All right. All right, mate. You know, it's, it feels like they're doing that. And it's like, just felt very unnecessary and just like very visual. I mean, that's it. I know loads of like glamorous, gorgeous women, like are basically reduced to like bums. Yeah. A lot of the time. So, and why shouldn't men be and all that? But it just felt, it just felt like a bit tasteless. I guess almost like a bit like the 90s comics that we laugh about.

[00:38:58] Like ridiculously muscular and overly kind of, do you know what I mean? A bit like steroidy. Yeah. I, it just took me a while. It just didn't feel, I weirdly, because the first three movies and his Avengers appearance, I'm like, oh my God, Tom Holland is the ultimate. I mean, he's like ultimate Spider-Man as in the comics, but he's like the perfect Spider-Man.

[00:39:21] He's a kid, but also got this adultness to him and this sadness and this kind of, but also like a kind of need to impress and, and a sort of genius super brain going fast and patter. And, and then suddenly I was like, oh, I don't, he doesn't look like, I don't know. He just didn't feel like Spider-Man anymore. Maybe that's why they did that little video of him going, I am still Spider-Man. I just got a really good bum now. And I want to get it in as many shots as possible.

[00:39:49] I don't know if, did you not, did you not, was it just me? I didn't. I honestly didn't notice the bottom. I honestly didn't notice his bum that much. I'm just imagining now like the headline for your review would be like, Spider-Man, brand new day, too much bums. Bomb new day. It was just, it was, I felt it was very front and center, Nick. I did not appreciate it. No, thank you. I spoke to the cinema commissioner.

[00:40:18] No bums for me, please. I had a word with the ushers. I said, I was not impressed. There's too much bottom in this movie. I, I, but like, I felt the same about those appearances of boomerang and tarantula and stuff. I mean, we didn't see their bums, but they, I don't know. It just felt a bit like glam and over. What's a wise punisher living in a ship. What the fuck? And what is he like? Yeah, I didn't get that.

[00:40:45] Why is he like walking around as the punisher and no one's like arresting him or anything? He just walks into the hospital. Get out of my way. And, and, and the thing where he makes the sort of noise, you know, that noisy punisher. And then he's doing it at the end when he's pretending to be Spider-Man to the crowds, which was kind of funny. But I'm like, what's the joke here?

[00:41:09] Is he like suggesting he's really mentally ill, which the punisher is mentally ill, but it's like not in that way. I don't think. Not in a kind of compelled to make weird noises way. I sort of, I get, I get why they were using the punisher and having that kind of character in it, but it just, it does feel like a weird fit. It feels like a weird fit for Spider-Man. Yeah. Well, Daredevil would have worked right.

[00:41:39] If it was Daredevil, that is that character. He is like Spider-Man's big brother. Yeah. Kind of tells him off and gives him advice and is kind of, for some reason has always felt like more seasoned, even though Spider-Man's been around longer and done more. But whereas Punisher is a maniac who kills, who's got like, has killed hundreds of people. Yeah. And him and Spider-Man having a sort of jokey bantery relationship feels very odd. I didn't, I didn't like that. That is, that was strange.

[00:42:09] And they sort of did it, but didn't do it. And it was kind of like, oh, Frank. And the way MJ was just immediately like, yeah, he's a good guy. Yeah. I can tell he's a good guy. It's like, okay, I'm just going to leave you here with this guy who lives in a ship and makes weird, is compelled to make weird shouty animal noises and has a lot of guns and sort of constantly suggests he might kill you. Yeah. And the entire area is covered in landmines. So don't go outside. But you're safe. Don't worry.

[00:42:38] Just, do you know what I mean? That's what I mean about the taste thing. Like weird choices. I get that. There's choices where it wouldn't take that long to go, hang on, is this right? Is this a weird choice? Why have we done this? I know they're friends. They went, they like auditioned together in the early days and stuff. Right. And they're like proper close buddies, which is kind of sweet. And I think that's why they've done this. Because they've got like actual friendship.

[00:43:08] So they were like, well, that would translate onto screen. Which is a sweet idea. But I don't think, I don't know if it did either. They're mismatched characters. Yeah. All very weird, mate. But I get the reason for Hulk being in it, given that he's a professor and he's worked on his own inhibitor. And it tied into Peter trying to create inhibitors. And, you know, Hulk's obviously about suppressing something monstrous inside him. And Peter's worried that's what he's got. And I think that worked to have him as part of it. What was the payoff of him having the spider?

[00:43:37] I did not like that thing. I thought I'd like a readout of like how, like two columns, one blue and one red. One says man and one says arachnid. Yeah. Like whichever one's higher means he's becoming more spidery. Spidery. Yeah. But he just gets black eyes and then like gets angrier. Apparently at one point they did consider going full man spider with it.

[00:44:04] But they decided that would be too scary for the younger audience. Right. But what was the point of that plot thread? Well, because at the end he at the end he kind of accepts that the spider power within him is something that he can use and work with and actually enables him to be able to break through and get through to Gene by him accepting it and not inhibiting himself.

[00:44:29] That's the point that Hulk tries to make earlier on is actually how do you know what's good and bad in these genes that you're trying to target and inhibit? You can't make that decision about nature, about things that are potentially changing you for a good reason. Yeah, I get that. But what how does that relate to actual Spider-Man? Because he's not keeping those powers, is he? Or is it does that mean he's like I assume he has.

[00:44:55] He's accepting, but that's almost like say werewolf by night where he accepts the wolf within and becomes and then can just turn into a werewolf whenever. But he's still just this he's already been Spider-Man for ages. There's not a thing to just having black eyes and being a bit stronger. What? It's like it's not. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. I don't get what he's accepting. I don't know. I felt like it made sense when I watched it. But yeah, now that you're sort of saying that maybe. I don't like to. I don't like if someone's enjoyed a movie.

[00:45:25] This is why I don't like criticism. I also know how fucking hard it is to write anything or act as anything. And I'd hate someone to do this about anything I do. Why don't I be interested to be fair? It's equally valid for you not to enjoy it as it is for me to enjoy it. And yeah, this hasn't I still enjoyed it. It hasn't stopped me enjoying it. I still enjoyed it. And it's a shame you didn't. I mean, related to this, obviously, a couple of weeks ago, we talked about Supergirl, which I still haven't seen.

[00:45:55] I did watch it. Give me the rough. I don't think we're going to do a full on review, are we? Because by the time we do, it will have been out for two years. I think I've had the same reaction to Supergirl that you've had to the Spider-Man film in that I wanted to like it. I wanted to like it more than I actually did. And it just wasn't that fun. When you compare it to the recent Superman one, I loved the Superman one. That was good fun. There was lots of elements in there. It threw a lot in there, but it all kind of sort of worked.

[00:46:23] The Supergirl one is just feels quite dour. And there's fun bits in there, but not enough. And also, I have no idea why Lobo was in that film at all. Right. Is he annoying? It just feels pointless. It just feels absolutely no reason for him to be there at any point in that film. I didn't understand why he was in it at all. Really superfluous. But yeah, it's a shame. She's great. She's really good.

[00:46:51] She's a great Supergirl, and I still like her Supergirl. But the film, I think by trying to be, we kind of talked about this in another episode as well, by trying to be too close an adaptation of the Woman of Tomorrow comic in some respects, it leaves a lot out. But it's pretty much sort of following that story. It doesn't really work. Also, they have changed the ending of the comic in the film, and I'm not sure how I feel about that. But yeah. So I don't know.

[00:47:21] I wanted to like it more than I did. I feel like James Gunn is very good at adapting, but not adapting too much. Yeah. And maybe just kind of hoped people he picked would also be able to do that. Yeah. I'm sure. I say he just hoped. I'm sure he was thought about it a lot. But it's like he can do it. But I don't think many other people can. What's it? The Russo brothers, I think, can. The Avengers.

[00:47:47] They're very good at like taking the Infinity Gauntlet and turning in something completely different, for example. Yeah. Ah, it's a shame. It falls foul of trying to be, in some respects, too close an adaptation. It's not beat for beat the same as the comic, but I think it tries to follow it a bit too much, and it would have been better if it did its own thing more. This is a bad thing to say on a podcast where we talk about comic books and want people to get in touch with us and support us and all that stuff.

[00:48:15] But seeing the Spider-Man film did make me go, maybe I have got superhero fatigue. Maybe it is real. It did make me go, what is the point of this? How many more years and hours of my life, which is finite? I still haven't learned to play guitar or keyboard, which I always wanted to do. I don't know. I mean, I go through phases like that. I've gone through phases of falling behind in superhero comics because I just reach a point of thinking,

[00:48:45] I feel like I've read a lot of these stories and they're just coming around again, which I think you get to when you've been with any continuous thing where you keep reading it over years. But I still come back to them. And actually, weirdly, doing this podcast has made me enjoy reading them more consistently than I have for a long time. Yeah. What I've loved most about doing this podcast is the obscure ones that you don't think to read.

[00:49:12] And the bizarre origins of things and stuff like that has been really good fun. And leaping around, because I'm normally very much, I struggle to just leap in and start somewhere in the middle. I have to read from the start on everything, which with comics is like an insane thing to do because there's thousands of them. But I really struggle to just leap in otherwise. So this has made me go and read stuff that I probably just wouldn't have read because I wouldn't have got around to it

[00:49:40] because I wouldn't have read it all from the start. Yeah. Yeah. No, it's because it forces us to jump around and buy the character. It's fun. It's fun. Hello, lovely listeners. That concludes part one of our two-part Spider-Man brand new day special. Come back next time where we'll be taking a look at Peter Parker himself, the main man, and putting him in the list. Where will he go? Will he be lower than Hank Pym?

[00:50:09] There's only one way to find out. Come back next time. So for now, it's a web-slinging, cliffhanging shaflang from me. And we'll see you again next week. Cheerio. Comics are my happy place. Thank you for listening to Comics Are My Happy Place. If you have enjoyed this podcast, there are many ways you can support us. You can follow us on Instagram at comicsaremyhappyplace. You can drop us an email at comicsaremyhappyplace at gmail.com.

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[00:51:34] This podcast is part of Podomity, the UK's podcast comedy network. Why not laugh at what else we've got? Visit podomity.com.