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1. Deck the Malls! by Mackenzie Cadenhead & Sean Ryan - The full title of this one is An Early Chapter Book: Marvel Superhero Adventures, Deck The Malls and the cover has Venom menacing Spiderman while Spider Gwen swings around in the background. I made this one into my first review for my youtube channel and even though it's public, I'm not linking to it. Find it on your own (the name of the channel is Cannibal Teddy - and I might actually try making some book trailers - because it's 2007 and that's a thing).
Go on look at the video -
Subscribe to my crap - not because I'm doing anything particularly earth shattering (unless you want multiple views of the same Washington Heights apartment and sidewalks) but because when I load up those videos I get Ted Talks after them, and I really don't want that to be the youtube algorithm for my videos.
And I promise that if I keep doing them, I will be posting stuff that you actually want to see by at least August. I bought a microphone and camera (cheapest I could find - man, those youtube instructional videos really don't understand the meaning of "most affordable" when they are recommending $500 equipment) and downloaded Movie Maker.
So yeah, if you find my review of the book on youtube, expect a lot of pauses and mumbling. Just really need to work on the editing of that thing - and the actual speaking. Also maybe I should have written down my thoughts first. It really sucks.
And I titled one youtube clip "Not Masturbating" mostly because I tried shaking the phone. That has gotten the most views.
Anyhow, this book takes place in an alternate universe where Gwen Stacy became Spider Gwen and Peter Parker became Spiderman and they are both 10 or 11 years old. Or maybe 12. And they are friends - who haven't killed each other. This is really part that I find compelling because in the Marvel universe - whichever one you are in - either Gwen kills Peter or Peter fails to stop Green Goblin from killing Gwen.
Mostly I find this fascinating in the fact that I vaguely remember reading books like this one when I was a kid. Something about Aquaman and his family - only to later learn that the son was dead. I think there was another one that re-told Captain America and Falcon beating up on Zemo who was Red Skull's son. Or anther son of Red Skull. Either way, that one was pretty morose.
So they have been making comic book stories for kids for years and for comic books that are considered juvenile, it's interesting to know that many of the parts of comic books that teenagers can handle are kept out of the kid versions (of course, comic books are not for children and fuck Bill Maher - and if you ever find the video, this is where I start stumbling over my words the most because I realized that I didn't actually have a decision concerning how I wanted to approach that issue and so it flubbed into a "hey comic books but for kids - that's kind of weird, right?")
So the plot is pretty standard. Peter Parker and Gwen Stacy are in the mall. Venom causes problems. Gwen Stacy gets in with her band and plays the drum and that's it for Venom. The differences from canon are what make it interesting. Not only are Peter and Gwen younger and both alive but Peter is a materialistic little cretin who makes his Aunt May wait in line for a Stark company playstation. The police officers are called Officer Ditko and Officer Stanley. This is how these things go.
It's cute.
2. Spiderman/Deadpool: Serious Business by Joshua Corin and Will Robsin - I loved the art in this one. I like Deadpool as a character. Making Spiderman the straight man to Deadpool's antics was great fun and yet, I'm holding the book in front of me and there's not much I can remember without referring to the actual text of the book. Years from now when I'm reading this review, I will wonder if I ever did read anything in the Spiderman/Deadpool genre.
The artwork is amazing. I'm going to say that again. The artwork is amazing. The stories are low stakes and not compelling. In the first story, they add Slapstick because if Deadpool is hilarious, Deadpool and Mayhem are even more funny. Only the ultimate joke of the story and the reason why everyone is running around is because a widow is seeking information about her husband who faked his death. That's really the whole thing. The not-dead husband is a scary mobster but he is so afraid of his wife that he fakes his death to get away from her.
That story ends with Deadpool shooting Slapstick and chopping off his head. Spiderman and Deadpool do a bit where Spiderman is the stern father figure and Deadpool is a misbehaving brat and then the next story is Madripoor where Wolverine shows up but he's a robot because this was written when Wolverine was still dead and then it's up to Arcade.
I just read a Gwenpool with Arcade and Deadpool was also in that one. The over-exposure to Arcade has made me realize why this character never clicked for me. He should have been great. He should have been one of the best but there are no stakes. He always puts the heroes in the murder maze and they always escape. He doesn't seem to be killing civilians, just failing to kill superheroes. Once you stick the X-Men or Spiderman in the Arcade murder maze, you know that nothing is going to change.
Granted, that's all villains. Rarely do the villains actually get to kill the main characters or their friends. Only Arcade is more obvious about it because he always brings up the possibility that he's going to kill someone. That's his entire thing is to murder people in a whacky maze.
Only instead of the Joker, he's a bargain basement version of the Riddler and even his tricks don't work.
Go on look at the video -
Subscribe to my crap - not because I'm doing anything particularly earth shattering (unless you want multiple views of the same Washington Heights apartment and sidewalks) but because when I load up those videos I get Ted Talks after them, and I really don't want that to be the youtube algorithm for my videos.
And I promise that if I keep doing them, I will be posting stuff that you actually want to see by at least August. I bought a microphone and camera (cheapest I could find - man, those youtube instructional videos really don't understand the meaning of "most affordable" when they are recommending $500 equipment) and downloaded Movie Maker.
So yeah, if you find my review of the book on youtube, expect a lot of pauses and mumbling. Just really need to work on the editing of that thing - and the actual speaking. Also maybe I should have written down my thoughts first. It really sucks.
And I titled one youtube clip "Not Masturbating" mostly because I tried shaking the phone. That has gotten the most views.
Anyhow, this book takes place in an alternate universe where Gwen Stacy became Spider Gwen and Peter Parker became Spiderman and they are both 10 or 11 years old. Or maybe 12. And they are friends - who haven't killed each other. This is really part that I find compelling because in the Marvel universe - whichever one you are in - either Gwen kills Peter or Peter fails to stop Green Goblin from killing Gwen.
Mostly I find this fascinating in the fact that I vaguely remember reading books like this one when I was a kid. Something about Aquaman and his family - only to later learn that the son was dead. I think there was another one that re-told Captain America and Falcon beating up on Zemo who was Red Skull's son. Or anther son of Red Skull. Either way, that one was pretty morose.
So they have been making comic book stories for kids for years and for comic books that are considered juvenile, it's interesting to know that many of the parts of comic books that teenagers can handle are kept out of the kid versions (of course, comic books are not for children and fuck Bill Maher - and if you ever find the video, this is where I start stumbling over my words the most because I realized that I didn't actually have a decision concerning how I wanted to approach that issue and so it flubbed into a "hey comic books but for kids - that's kind of weird, right?")
So the plot is pretty standard. Peter Parker and Gwen Stacy are in the mall. Venom causes problems. Gwen Stacy gets in with her band and plays the drum and that's it for Venom. The differences from canon are what make it interesting. Not only are Peter and Gwen younger and both alive but Peter is a materialistic little cretin who makes his Aunt May wait in line for a Stark company playstation. The police officers are called Officer Ditko and Officer Stanley. This is how these things go.
It's cute.
2. Spiderman/Deadpool: Serious Business by Joshua Corin and Will Robsin - I loved the art in this one. I like Deadpool as a character. Making Spiderman the straight man to Deadpool's antics was great fun and yet, I'm holding the book in front of me and there's not much I can remember without referring to the actual text of the book. Years from now when I'm reading this review, I will wonder if I ever did read anything in the Spiderman/Deadpool genre.
The artwork is amazing. I'm going to say that again. The artwork is amazing. The stories are low stakes and not compelling. In the first story, they add Slapstick because if Deadpool is hilarious, Deadpool and Mayhem are even more funny. Only the ultimate joke of the story and the reason why everyone is running around is because a widow is seeking information about her husband who faked his death. That's really the whole thing. The not-dead husband is a scary mobster but he is so afraid of his wife that he fakes his death to get away from her.
That story ends with Deadpool shooting Slapstick and chopping off his head. Spiderman and Deadpool do a bit where Spiderman is the stern father figure and Deadpool is a misbehaving brat and then the next story is Madripoor where Wolverine shows up but he's a robot because this was written when Wolverine was still dead and then it's up to Arcade.
I just read a Gwenpool with Arcade and Deadpool was also in that one. The over-exposure to Arcade has made me realize why this character never clicked for me. He should have been great. He should have been one of the best but there are no stakes. He always puts the heroes in the murder maze and they always escape. He doesn't seem to be killing civilians, just failing to kill superheroes. Once you stick the X-Men or Spiderman in the Arcade murder maze, you know that nothing is going to change.
Granted, that's all villains. Rarely do the villains actually get to kill the main characters or their friends. Only Arcade is more obvious about it because he always brings up the possibility that he's going to kill someone. That's his entire thing is to murder people in a whacky maze.
Only instead of the Joker, he's a bargain basement version of the Riddler and even his tricks don't work.
