The Legend-Slayer Cometh-Again-Crushing The Press Agents Hype Of The Myth Of Teenage Mutant-Marvel Comic’s “Spider Man” (2012) A Film Review

DVD Review

By Will Bradley

You never know in the fake news legend-slaying racket when some ordinary citizen gets the royal treatment, and everything comes up roses. You also never know when fake news legends are going to rear their ugly heads as now when I have to dissect, maybe deflate, no, matter untangle, is a better word, the legend of a teenage mutant named Spider Man. I have been off helping fellow journalist Sarah Lemoyne do a wide-ranging series on B- film noirs from the 1940s and 1950s (remember the queen of the Bs Gloria Grahame and you will get an idea about what B-films were all about) which should begin publication later this year.

Since after demolishing the fake news Legend of “The Shadow,” aka Lamont Cranston, a New York playboy who while idling the daylight hours waiting for nightfall so he could hit the nightclub circuit hired for big money John Kerr who used to work for the Times but who left the business to make a ton of money hyping whoever wanted to be hyped like Cranston I had some time my hands I agreed to help Sarah doing the research and watching the movies. Then out of nowhere Greg Green who runs the show here, is the site manager, asked me to check out the strange legend and stranger doings of one Jack Reacher. No sooner had I done so then this punk kid from New York, a mere teenager reared his ugly head and wanted everybody to bow down to his prowess.

As I have mentioned before, with the seeming exception of real hero Reacher who shuns publicity, likes life “off the grid,” all these fakes get by through hiring well-paid press agents, publicity people, flak-catchers. I am not sure where the kid got the money, maybe a trust fund left by his deceased parents, by the way when not in costume his name is Peter Parker, hired Stanley Klee, yes, Stan the famous press agent who worked miracles if you like for all kinds of ordinary citizens who wanted to bask in the glow of a group of vigilantes called the Avengers, a grouping funded by a guy named Tony Stark. When I heard that name Stark as I had with Reacher initially until I found out he was the real deal I immediately became fearful that this was another “deep state” operation where anybody who question anybody about anything was doomed to the ash heap. The jury is still out on that proposition but I press on.     

Like I said in the old days legends were created usually out of whole cloth by those well-paid press agents who beat the drums for whoever was paying the tab (and expenses too). But at least they were adults, could sign a contract, had left puberty way behind. This kid, egged on by the cynical Stark who seems to be behind almost every alleged “save” of the world, couldn’t wait until he grew up, needed to show his metal early on. Here is a kid who unlike say Superman who at least changed in a telephone booth or in a men’s restroom changed into his uniform in some dumpster-filled back alley. Jesus. 

I will let my ire at even having to do this silly piece about what really were glorified high school hijinks and give you the lowdown, give you the straight stuff. I will say I had a problem though getting the story straight since Parker either changed press agents or somebody was working a scam and pretending to be Spider-Man but the story I got was that after his parents died he went crazy (after the usual period of sorrow to show he was human, a little) and tried to figure who killed his scientist father and mother. 

The old man had been trying to solve the riddle of the universe along with another scientist who used the name Connor, a one-armed bandit who craved working with two arms. They had worked for a Big Pharma operation interested in regeneration of limbs. Peter claimed to have documentation left by his father which would solve that little riddle.       

After some serious experimentation the formula actually worked, for a minute, on Connor whose missing limb came back. Too hasty though way too hasty since they had been rushed by a weirdo supervisor into production without enough testing. Connor turned into Lizard Man and this is where the legend stuff starts at least this is as far back as I can go to get the story straight. Weirdo Connor goes crazy and Peter Parker apparently finding some back alley as a dressing room becomes the knight-savior who saves Gotham once again. (By the way hasn’t Gotham been saved about seventeen time from everything from dinosaurs to weird aliens, the outer space kind okay the others are okay for our purposes. Doesn’t a place like Toledo or Peoria need of some protection). Lizard Man wants to change evolution and make humanity a lizard swamp. Naturally with the help of a young woman he, Peter, is interested in they create an antidote and everybody including Connor gets well courtesy of Big Pharma.

Baloney, pure fable, which even a guy like Stan should have known would not fly. Jesus, being saved from a lizards’ swamp by a teenage mutant looking to make the “bigs.” Are you kidding. I hope the kid didn’t pay too much to his press agent for this noise.