Live Action
For any comic book fan live action has always been either feast or famine. Of all the characters who have gotten a Live Action version the most popular seems to be Superman, the Man of Steel has had 8 live action incarnations. From Movies to Broadway Plays and TV shows, Superman is to date the most successful Comic Book Character to be translated into Live action. Now to be fair I am not just talking about money made off of said property I also mean the dutiful translation of the character and his villains, If I was just talking about money Superman would still be up there but especially including recent box office success the list would probably be:Batman, Spider-man, Iron Man, Superman and The Incredible Hulk(mainly because of his long running TV series and made for TV movies). The problem with most live action attempts is that the medium of Comic book and cartoon allows you to create a world where physics don't matter, you can create whatever look you want and since it isn't "real" you tend to get a break on the look of things. With live action if it doesn't look right people will be disappointed.
The 1970's
Peter Parker got a live action TV show in 1978 called the Amazing Spider-man starring Nicholas Hammond
Okay, as a 4 year old at the time this show came out I would like to say as BAD as it looks now hey everybody looked like that back then. Those extra shiny costumes, the cheesy special effects, the bad wire work there was no cgi back then it was all rotoscoping, stop motion camera work, and picture flipping. As a little kid just happy to see Spider-man on my TV screen I ignored the fact that the webbing came out as a Nylon string or else a premade net, I also ignored that I guess Mr. Hammond had never done any rock climbing because it always looking like he had just bent over and dog walked up the sides of buildings. Nick Hammond had the look of peter parker though, yeah yeah those weird eye screens were always kind of silly but I guess back then it was the only way they were able to let him see. It ran for about 2 years and while today's standards relegate it to the campy-ness of the original Batman live action TV show or maybe a step below the Incredible Hulk TV show for believability. The Transformation from Bill Bixby to Lou Ferrigno worked because of the difference in stature of the two men even if since then live action hulks tend to be CGI and stay away from purple pants hood.
Supaidā-man
Now something I did not know as a kid was that there was also a Japanese Spider-man made by Toei Company, and I guess there is an unwritten rule in Japanese action shows that there must always be a robot of some sort, don't believe me here it is
Aaaah those crazy 1970's I tell ya, also some call this show Supaidā-man since that seemed to be how the Japanese pronounced the wall crawlers name. I mean for the most part the costume was SIMILAR to his american counterpart, the spider legs were a little skinnier, the obvious asian eyes on the mask, and the single web shooter/robot summoning device(what, you see the intro leave me alone) seem to be the only main stand out features. I'm not going to mention the spider bike only because well they've been selling accessories for characters for years that don't make any sense. As far as the toy biz was concerned everybody loved Batman, there was a bat everything so everybody got the Batman treatment when it came to "extras". I remember Spidey having a hide out(Peter was broke, his hide out was his bedroom at his aunts house, and the school lab) a Spidey-mobile, Spidey-bike the whole nine. After the 1970's Spider-man may have made plenty of mall appearances, but other than a few TV commercials hear and there with actors in OBVIOUS costumes not much live action spidey
and here's the visa one
I will save us all from having to rewatch the atari 2600 one, man where video games started and all that bad commercial acting "is this too much action for even Spider-man" but hey if we didn't start there we wouldn't get here.
The Movies
After serious leaps in Special Effects technology and a few other Marvel movies gracing the silver screen your friendly neighborhood Spider-man finally got his chance, Tobey Maguire got the lead role through 3 films and made a lot of money. Spider-man was released in 2002 and was an introduction for the character for new fans and a decent recollection of the wall crawlers origin for long time fans
Web shooters or lack there of aside this was a great recreation of Spider-man in the live action realm. You had a great updating of how Peter Parker becomes Spider-man using the genetically engineered spiders which was the huge buzz word of the day as nuclear power was in the 1960's, you had Crusher Hogan and the wrestling scene, you had uncle Ben and the speech. And the passing on of the "with great power comes great responsibility" was given it's proper majesty, that short yet powerful phrase it what drives Peter Parker. It is what keeps him constantly going forward and doing his best, hell more than his best issue after issue, when others may have given up because of those words Spider-man will continue to get up and keep on going because "With great power comes great responsibility". While the costume looks a little beyond the abilities of a science nerd in it's overall look it is true enough to the age old costume that it's not distracting.
Now yes Mary Jane being in high school with him was something Sam Raimi did, as well as Gobby being his first villain but it was Spider-man, I must give Raimi props on casting J. K. Simmons as J. Jonah Jameson
the Cartoon jameson(from the 1970's cartoon)
and here is Simmons in the live action movies
Granted in the cartoon his mustache was a little more "Hitleresque" Simmons brought Jameson to life in a way that others had missed before. His rage towards everything wall crawler must always be at a fever pitch, Simmons always brought that to life, he ran the paper with an iron fist, along his ideals, and while there were a few moments of regret he never let it stop him long. Jameson was always as determined as Spider-man which is what made him one of Spider-mans most endearing characters you may not have liked how he portrayed Spider-man but he gave just as much effort going after King pin, Silvermane, or any other hiding in the shadows criminal syndicate leader.
Spider-man 2 hit theaters in 2004. I have never held my disdain back for how they updated the green goblins costume, I thought it sucked, too shiny and the changes really didn't add anything to the character. The villain for the 2nd film was Dr. Otto Octavious or Doc Ock as he is usually referred too:
In the second movie Peter's life appears to be falling apart the requirements of being Spider-man is causing the rest of his life to suffer. He is losing touch with Mary Jane, his school work is fading, because of his belief that the web head killed his father Harry Osbourne is constantly on Peter's case to give the wall crawler to him. I personally preferred Doc Ocks look in this one because it mostly left him alone, no it wasn't a green jumpsuit but it was a look that made sense in the real world. Some dark glasses, a trench coat and the 4 mechanical arms to give him a total of 8. Yes Octavious was a brilliant scientist and appeared to share a lot in common with Peter, as had been done in the comics he even appeared to want to be a mentor to Peter because of the potential he saw and Peters obvious gift for science. As with Spidey, Octavious gained his abilities through a scientific accident which fused his 4 mechanical arms to his spinal column and allowed him complete control of them though they seemed to cloud his judgement.
Also as if acknowledging fan complaints Raimi cause Peter to start having problems with his spider powers(due to the unlimited webbing some of the moments that had been made in the comic book panels was lost, Spidey never had to pay attention to how much webbing he had left) and he painted it as Parker having to make a choice to accept or ignore his gift to be Spider-man. In the first movie he just was, almost going through the motions because for the most part, other than Gobby, Spidey wasn't facing that hard of a job keeping random street thugs in line. Now he had to accept and choose was he going to work harder to get his life together and be Spider-man or was he gonna let Spider-man die and just live his life as a normal man.
Spidey 3 was release in 2007 and introduced a few new characters to the fold New Goblin(Harry Osbourne, I guess they just couldn't call him the Green Goblin because you know that would be too much like right), The Sandman, and Venom(which I will rant about later in a different post)
While not meant to be the finale this was the last Spider-man movie for this cast as Sony Pictures would decide to reboot the franchise with a new director and lead actor for a 2012 release. Harry's deep obsession for what he thinks was the murder of his Father Norman Osbourne the first Green Goblin at the hands of Peter Parker/Spider-man would lead him to use the goblin formula on himself to become stronger. Flint Marko would become the Sandman while running from police and would attempt to continue his ways as a petty criminal with his new found abilities to control his particulate like consistency and become either as hard as granite or as loose as dust.
The last enemy Venom was a new fan favorite from a story line released in 1988 after Spider-man rejected his symbiotic costume acquired during a mission in the story arc Secret Wars(issue #8). I have nothing against Topher Grace Personally but since Eddie Brock is always seen as a bigger stronger person(and thus his Venom hulking over Spider-man and appearing massive in comparison to Spidey's gymnast physique) finding another Tobey Maguire to play the part of Brock has always annoyed me. While I enjoyed the twists and turns of this movie quite a few parts of the outcome annoyed the hell out of me, but it did make boat loads of money. As with Spider-man in any other medium with the Special Effects done right nobody could deny their love for everyones favorite wall crawler. The fact that Spidey had 3 villains to contend with in this movie is not unlike his Comic Book or Cartoon incarnations as little old Web head has had to fight the Sinister 6, multiple Venom Symbiotes, Team ups of Sandman and Rhino et al. While I appreciated the definite contrast between calm, patient and considerate Peter Parker vs the brash, offensive, and bullying Venom Parker I will always feel this part of the story was rushed. I think Venom Deserved a movie of his own but that's just me.
The Reboot
On July 3, 2012 Sony Pictures Columbia studios will release "The Amazing Spider-man":
This is their first in the new series of Spider-man movies, it stars Andrew Garfield and is directed by Marc Webb. It looks like this Spider-man movie is going to go closer along with the comic books, Peter being a high school student, Gwen Stacey being his first girlfriend, and even the Lizard being the first villain. This is the first non comic Spidey offering to hint at Parkers parents in the beginning, they have been the subject of a lot of speculation from being government scientists, to government spies, to unfortunate victims of a plane crash. In the comic books Marvel has addressed and then re-addressed this issue many times(Marvel likes to re-tell stories sometimes and claim that you were either brain wiped or had an implanted memory to explain things if the original story is agreed to need changing ala Wolverine) and even in the Ultimate series made it so that Peter and Eddie's parents died in the crash together. Peter's first webbing formula coming from his Dads notes on some new adhesive he was trying to work out. Supposedly J Jonah will not be making an appearance in this movie, Parker going through the high school experience for now and not needing a lot of money just yet(even though last time I checked web fluid was pretty expensive, Spidey complaining about said costs often). I hope that this movie does well as did the others, I enjoy seeing Spidey on the big screen and can only hope that this version takes the best from the comics and the Raimi series and expands upon them for a new audience.
For the most part I believe this is the end of my discussions on Spidey as far as reboots are concerned, now as we get closer to the new movie I may revisit particular parts I touched on the costume and the webshooters in this one, I may go into the villains, special effects and other parts later. If I get the bug to write more on the subject I will. I hope you enjoyed my thoughts on Spider-man and his many incarnations feel free to agree, disagree, add your own thoughts or even enjoy the trailers/intro's posted.
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