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Our
episode begins at a familiar Brownstone;
the home of May Parker, May's nephew, Peter
Parker, and two fellow ESU college
students, Bobby Drake, and Angelica Jones.
Unknown
to Aunt May and the rest of the world, her
tenants are bona fide superheroes. Peter
is really Spider-Man (rumor
has it he's pretty amazing -- if not
spectacular),
Bobby is the snow-balling mutant Iceman,
and Angelica is the fire-wielding
Firestar. Together,
whenever trouble of a super-villain
variety pops up, they tug on an old
football trophy that transforms their flat
into their super-secret-headquarters. Then they costume
up, power up, and take care of business.
But
today's a slow day, criminally speaking,
so Angelica (voiced by Kathy Garver)
is busy hitting the books, when she is
bombarded with snowflakes. It's Bobby (voiced
by Frank Welker), reminding her that
today is the day of the big X-Men reunion.
They both transform into their alter egos,
and sneak out the escape hatch that dumps
them into the backyard by the birdbath --
and you'd think Aunt May, or her neighbors,
would notice Iceman's ice bridges
consistently showing up in her yard -- and
the two head toward Westchester and the
X-Mansion.
After
foiling a bank robbery, Spider-Man (voiced
perfectly by Dan Gilvezen) spots
his friends and catches up to them. But
the reunion is for members only, so Spidey
peels off and stays behind. But the
building he lands on starts to crumble
underneath him. It's under attack by the
brutish Juggernaut (voiced
unmistakably by William Marshall.)
The giant chases Spider-Man onto a
construction site, and we get the villain's
background and origin:
The
Juggernaut is the brother and sworn enemy
of Charles Xavier; the founder of the
X-Men. When he found the fabled Ruby of Cytorak,
it bestowed upon him the indestructible
power of the Juggernaut, and he vowed to use it
to kill his brother. Spider-Man knows he has to
get away and warn the X-Men, but the giant
demolishes an entire building, burying the
wall crawler in the rubble. Unchallenged,
the Juggernaut rages on.
Iceman
and Firestar reach the mansion and are
reunited with Professor X, the Angel, and
Cyclops, and are introduced to the newest
members, Storm and Wolverine (who
inexplicably has a Australian accent when
the little psychopath is s'posed to be a
Canucklehead.) The
reunion commences, and Storm asks Firestar
what it was like growing up with her
special powers and we finally get the
origin of the maiden of fire:
Angelica
Jones grew up very poor in a single parent
home. She was constantly harassed by the
posh kids, especially a girl named Bonnie.
When Angelica's powers started to
mysteriously manifest themselves, it
usually resulted in disaster (melting
toys, snowmen, and setting off fire
sprinklers),
earning her the nickname Miss Angelica
Jinx. She
started to hone and control her
powers, and eventually discovered that she
could fly. This culminates when she dons a
disguise and saves her father from a fall,
during a construction accident, and
realizes that she can use her powers to do
good and help people.
Time
has done nothing to dampen Bonnie's
irrational hatred of Angelica. Conspiring with her boyfriend to steal the
high school football trophy, and frame
Angelica for it, they pull the caper off.
All the planted evidence points to Angelica, so
she is suspended from school. Having
a pretty good idea who really stole the
trophy, Angelica uses her new powers and
secretly follows Bonnie; uncovering her
plans to plant the trophy in Angelica's
locker, during the big football game, and
then lead the school superintendent right
to it. Angelica works fast and whips up a
costume to match her powers. The big game
starts, and Bonnie leads the cheerleaders
on the sidelines. Firestar swoops in, snatches her up, and then forces a
confession out of her. The superintendent
won't believe her, thinking the confession
coerced. Firestar flies off and grabs the
boyfriend, just as he's breaking into her
locker. The boyfriend confesses and blames
Bonnie; Firestar returns the trophy
and flies off. Angelica is exonerated.
Later,
Firestar returns to the empty stadium,
unsure what to do next. Someone yells at
her, warning not to move. She mistakes it
for an attack and blasts the Iceman off
his ice bridge. The Angel calms her down,
announcing they're the good guys, and
Cyclops gives her the X-Men sales pitch.
She happily agrees to join and helps them
battle the likes of the Sentinels and
Magneto.
That
about brings us up to date, when the
reminiscing is crudely interrupted by the
Juggernaut's surprise attack. Cyclops
blasts him back outside with his
eye-beams, buying the X-Men
time to form several lines of defense.
Storm attacks first, but her lightning has
no effect. Wolverine is easily shrugged
off and gets his claws stuck in a brick
wall. Iceman constructs an ice-wall and Cyclops
blasts a pit behind it. Juggernaut breaks
through the ice and falls in the hole --
but that won't stop him for long. Firestar
is the last line of defense, but even her
flames can't stop the Juggernaut. He
closes in for the kill, when a familiar
webbing snatches Professor X out of harms
way.
The
X-Men regroup, and Professor X tells
Spider-Man to follow his mental commands
-- he has the best chance to remove
Juggernaut's helmet, the source of his
power. The attack commences, and Iceman
freezes the giant in a block of ice.
Spidey strains and manages to yank the
helmet off. Without it, the Juggernaut is
vulnerable to Professor X's mental attacks
and gets his brain scrambled, and then
finally falls silent.
After
things calm down, the party starts up
again. A toast is made to the Juggernaut,
for making it one of the most memorable
reunions in a long time.
The
End
Spider-Man
made his first on screen appearance in 1969
in a cartoon with a
hideously infectious theme song. (Spider-Man!
Spider-Man! Does whatever a spider can...)
In my long and lustrous career of total
dorkdom, I've only managed to see one
episode of this cartoon, but still can't
get that song out of my head -- luckily
it's The Ramone's cover that's currently
stuck on repeat in my cerebral jukebox.
If
you grew up in the '70s, like myself, you
also probably remember Spidey's exploits
on The
Electric Company,
with it's equally obnoxious theme song. (Spider-Man!
Where are you coming from? Spider-Man!
Nobody knows who you
aaaaarrrrrrreeeeeggghhh!) Man
those were great. Narrated by Company
alum, Morgan "Easy Reader"
Freeman, the action on the TV was always kept
framed in a comic book panel. Spidey never
talked, but his words and thoughts appeared
in word balloon form -- just like in the
comics -- and we learned to read by
interpreting what Spidey had to say. I
recall several episodes, including one
where the Abominable Snowman was stealing
snow cones, and sat on them, to keep cold.
There was also an evil pirate, who could
make good people do bad things by putting
the hypno-whammy on them with the bad-eye
under his eye-patch. His downfall comes
when he puts the whammy on a peacenik, and
gets socked in the evil-eye by the former
pacifist. But the one I remember most
clearly, was Spidey's only defeat at the
hands of the Can-Crusher and his mallet of
doom. The Can-Crusher was a little too
psychotic for my mind to get around at the
time, and he scared the heck out of me. And
I'm sure he's still out there, somewhere,
looking for his lost frog.
With
the surprising success of the live-action,
prime-time version of The
Incredible Hulk
-- starring Bill Bixby and Lou Ferrigno as
his big and green and cranky alter-ego -- The
Amazing Spider-Man
hit the tube in 1978, but barely lasted two
seasons. The
show starred Nicholas Hammond as Peter
Parker and your friendly neighborhood
costumed wall crawler -- who
barely made a costumed appearance in most
episodes, if memory serves. The
stories were fairly engaging, but
completely fell apart during the superhero
action sequences. We all remember the
nylon rope web-shooters. And the film
switching to negative whenever his
spider-sense would go off. And what the
heck was that Spider-Utility belt all about?
My favorite sequences, though, were when
the stuntmen were allegedly crawling up
the side of a building. Well, he was on a
tether being hauled up, and all the while,
he flailed his arms and legs, simulating a
man chicken-walking up the side of the
building. But sometimes simple physics
would take over, and pull him away from the
building' surface, but he still went up, arms and
legs still flailing, continuing to defy
gravity. *sigh*
Spider-Man,
as a character, had an influence everywhere.
At the start of the '80s, Toei productions
made their own version -- Supaidaaman,
over in Japan. Here, Spidey drove a race car, and
piloted a giant robot, to fight giant
monsters, and defended the world from the
Iron Cross Group. This
would serve as a template for the later Sentai
productions, known better here in the
states as The
Power Rangers.
For more information on Supaidaaman
go
here.
The
dawn of the '80s also brought us Spider-Man
and his Amazing Friends
-- a wonderful cartoon series that quickly
became a Saturday morning staple at the
young Beerman's house (along
with
Flash
Gordon and
The
Drac Pack.)
It featured Spidey, and borrowed Iceman
from the pages of the X-Men,
and Firestar -- a brand new character.
What
I truly enjoyed about the cartoon was that
it totally immersed itself in the Marvel
Universe, with tons of cameos and guest
appearances: Captain America, Thor and the
Hulk all managed to pop up. It also ran
the gambit with the rogues gallery as they
fought everyone from The Kingpin to Dr.
Doom. They also got caught up in the
videogame boom and were obsessed with a
new character called Video Man; a Space
Invader with legs. Only in the '80s.
The
cartoon was on for three full seasons, but there
were only around twenty total episodes.
The characters and there camaraderie was a
big hit, and it still pops up in
syndication once in a while. (With
the upcoming movie release, I'm positive it
will crop up somewhere to cash in.) It
proved such a hit with fans that Firestar was
introduced into the comics continuity.
First as a recruit of the White Queen, for
her own cadre of mutants known as The
Hellions, she eventually became a member of
The
New Warriors,
that in turn landed her spot on The
Avengers
roster with her boyfriend, Justice. For
more information on SM&HAFs,
check out this kick ass Tribute
Site.
Spidey
returned to animated adventures in '95, on
Fox. I recall catching a few episodes, and
enjoying them, but I was starting to see a
disturbing trend. Instead of the show
taking continuity from the comics, the
cartoon's continuity was starting to show
up in the comics. Characters long thought
dead were inexplicably back again. The
same thing was happening with the X-Men
cartoon, so after twenty years of loyalty,
I dumped the mutant titles cold turkey. I'd
been reading Spider-Man
under his various titles for almost twenty
years. The first issue I bought had a
mummy (that
turned out to be the Man-Wolf)
assaulting Spidey and J. Jonah Jameson. I
stuck around, off and on, through the
Maximum Carnage storyline, and then walked away
in shame when the whole clone and Scarlet
Spider fiasco started. This kind of
bastardization used to have me frothing at
the mouth, but I've become older and wiser.
I still have my old heroes in boxes, over
in the corner, ready for me to read and
reread any time I want. Let the kids have
their own versions, I've already had mine.
Man, I really feel old saying that, but I
do feel a lot better after doing so. (And
dare I say The
Ultimates
line is kind of cool.)
I
can remember talk as far back as 1989 --
around the same time that Burton's Batman
hit the theaters, that a big screen version
of Spider-Man
was in the works. Jim Cameron, just off
his hit Aliens,
was rumored to be attached to it. But two
different groups claimed to have the movie
rights to the wall-crawler, and it spent
the next ten years in litigation
purgatory. But that's all over now. I hold
out high hopes for the film and was intrigued
when I heard Sam Raimi was set to direct
it. Hopefully, he can overcompensate for
studio influence and stupidity. I called a
personal moratorium on all previews and info concerning
the Spider-Man
movie, and Jedi
Without a Cause,
but the more I try to avoid it, the more I
see. And what I've seen so far, *gulp*
looks really damn good.
The
only problem is should I take that as a
good sign? Or a bad sign? In this screwed
up world of Hollywood Lacklusters,
incomprehensible scripts, and
over-saturated special-effect orgies, only
time will tell. And I know we won't have
any cameos, or guest stars, but I'd settle
for a
Daily Bugle headline stating something
along the lines of "The Avengers rout
Masters of Evil."
A
guy can dream.
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