Reid About It

I saw "Spider-Man 3" on Monday. Spoiler space below, while I rant about other things. Bear in mind here I grew up (and still am) a comic book geek, and I firmly believe everythiung I needed to learn in my life, I learned from my dad and Spider-Man.


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In SM3, I thought Bryce Dallas Howard was very good as Gwen Stacy, and very hot. Since she hasn't been hot in any of her other movies, this leads me to wonder if I have a thing for Gwen Stacy, and not Howard. That may be the height of comic book geekery, eh?


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They did such a poor job of explaining the Venom character, I began to wonder if his origin was classified under the Patriot Act.


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At one point, Peter Parker starts acting like a bad guy, wearing his hair down over his eyes and dressing in black. Rather than marking a big character change for Parker, it just made me wonder what Jared Leto's been doing lately.


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There was a trailer for "Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer" on the movie, and I felt a rush of excitement and awe at the thought of finally seeing that story on the big screen. Then I realized that was the same way I felt before the first FF movie came out, which was so bad it made me feel dirty for having wasted time I could have spent flossing my toes, or some other more-worthy endeavor.

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Okay, now my big beef.

They've retroactively changed Spider-Man's origin, in the interest of making a villain more interesting. One of the biggest parts of Spider-Man's origin is the burglar. Quick summary: Spidey gets his powers, and is on his way to being a TV star when a burglar runs past him and Spidey doesn't stop him. Later on, the burglar kills his Uncle Ben, thus teaching Peter Parker the lesson "with great power comes great responsibility."

Now in the third movie, it's revealed the Sandman (Flint Marko) was working with the original burglar and Marko's the guy who killed Peter Parker's Uncle Ben, and Spidey comes after him in revenge. Come to find out later, Sandman admits he killed Ben, but it was only an accident while he was trying to get money to treat his daughter, who was ill with one of those ultra-sad movie diseases that only affects pretty little girls with quasi-criminal fathers.

At the end of the movie, Spider-Man forgives Sandman, who turns to sand and blows away on the winds of forgiveness. Over the course of the previous two cinematic hours, Sandman probably crippled fifty cops and destroyed millions of dollars of the city, but what the heck! Let him blow away in the name of a good brainless ending, that's not even my point.

So let's sum up. Once upon a time, Spider-Man didn't help out, and it cost him the life of his surrogate father. Because of that, he becomes a super-hero. Except now, Uncle Ben wasn't killed by the guy he let pass. Ben would have been murdered, no matter what Parker did to the burglar.

Heroes are supposed to be born from adversity. Superman's an orphan whose entire planet died. Batman's parents were murdered before his eyes. Captain America and Iron Man were both created from murder. The X-Men are freaks.

With great power comes great responsibility? Nope. With great power comes the inability to save the ones you love. This way, the death of Spider-Man's most-loved relative could have happened through a gardening accident, or a vicious paper-cut, and it wouldn't have made any difference.