To the Editor (01-Apr-2004)

 In: Letters > Editor > 2004
 Posted: 2004
 Staff: The Editor (E-Mail)
From Cary

Could Betty Brant-Leeds have learned sharpshooting and martial arts from her secret agent uncle, Lance Brant? That's assuming, of course, that her father was Robert "Bobby" Brant, the "Speed Racer" of the (pre-FF) Marvel Universe.

Hey, that's a nice angle. But given what we know of Betty's background, that's very unlikely. Her mother struggled to keep the two of them by working at the Daily Bugle. Nope, I suspect that Betty gets her finely-honed body and awesome combat skills the way we all do - from those "Tai Chi" videos you can buy off the shopping channel.

From Peter Parker

How old is Peter, M.J., Aunt May, Uncle Ben, Harry, Norman, Doc Ock, Molten Man, Mysterio, and the vulture?

Hmm... let's see. Add one, carry the six... that comes to a grand total of four-hundred and fifty-two!

From Jamie

i like spiderman.

yay

From Nobody

Please Keep the reviews coming!! I am unnatraully obbsessed witht this site, please don't stop!

SpiderFan.Org, catering for the obsessive, the unbalanced, and the needy in all of us!

From Gnalish

Hey Spiderfan.org! I'm a regular reader of your site and I was wondering what you thought of 1602's lack of Spiderman so far? They keep teasing us by having Parquagh play with spiders, but he has yet to even come close to being bitten, and the last book approaches! What gives? Any comments from you guys?

Well, I guess strictly speaking, nobody promised us a Spider-Man. Yep, I'd love to see Parquagh kick out and do the super-power thingey, but on the other hand I have to say it's quite creative of Gaiman to go the way he did. To be honest, as long as there's a good tale to read (and there is), then I can handle not seeing our number one man in the webs.

From Westie

I vaguely remember one character from Spider-Man, but I forgot his codename. Can you help me?

The suspect is a mercenary of some sort. He wears mustache and green costume with gold helmet and gold jets on his ankles (and wrists maybe?). AFAIR the comic where he appears ends with image of Spidey flying on his back (I don't remember the story, they were probably fighting at first and then cooperated... Other loose comic frames I remember presented a meeting of industrialists/ambassadors/crimelords where our mystery guy appeared... And burnt a hole in the carpet).

I thought it's Solo, but I checked Solo here and that's not the man.

Hmm... nope, there's not much CHANCE of me remembering a guy like that!

From Westie

Chameleon's surname ("Smerdyakov") is really funny in Polish (probably Russian too). It can be easily translated as "Stinkerov", as "smierdziec" means "to stink" in Polish, and Russian "smerdyet'" is pronounced VERY similarly.

Hah! Maybe it was a nickname chosen for him by that nice Kraven guy!

From Anonymous

i have got the spiderman #1 foil cover 1995 comic in good condition and it says it is a collectors item on the front.

I guess you can't go around believing everything you read these days, huh?

From Tom

I saw in the most recent PPP that you said that you can't play the imported American DVD of the new Spider-Fan series-well,you're in luck,because it's just come out over here in England,which has the same Region "number" as you guys (Region 2,I think)

Nope, we're region 4 in Australia/NZ. But oh, those sweet memories of "Rip-Off Britain". You guys pay more for DVDs than anybody else in the world, AFAIK - except the poor buggers in Dubai!

From Colin

I live in Australia and I was a little worried reading the news about "Spidey Animated DVD a No-Zone!" in PPP Vol 10, Issue #2, as I had already ordered the DVD from the states and it was on its way. However, when I received it I didn't have any problems viewing it at all. I have a region 4 Samsung DVD player multi-zoned through codes via the remote and a PAL TV. I thought I should let you know so that others won't be deterred from importing it since it's well worth watching.

Aha... so maybe my two multi-zone players just need upgrading. Samsung, ya say. I'll remember that name next time I'm out shopping for a player. Thanks for the tip.

From Mala

Is Marvel ever going to talk about little May Parker, or is she just lost in time forever? Why didn't they continue the story about May and the kidnapping? Did they regret turning Peter into a "family man"? I mean, they already tried to kill off MJ, so maybe they didn't want the kid around in the long run :-/

Well, you hit the nail on the head there. Yes, I think Marvel did regret turning Peter into a family man. Entertainment is all about creating and satisfying tension... that normally boils down into (a) conflict, and/or (b) mystery, and/or (c) secks.

It's pretty easy to create (a) and (b)... but once they married off Petey to MJ and gave them a kid, it was a bit hard to get (c) into the plot. Rather than hurt their poor little heads and think about solutions, the Marvel editors of the time decided to just backtrack and pretend it never really happened.

So, will we see May Jr. again some time soon? Unlikely. Though I wouldn't count on her being gone forever. Nobody really dies in comics!

From Ken G. Polcari

I have e-mailed you in the past about this. When are you going to include all of the cover artist information at least on the core spidey comic books. This would be extremely valuable information everyone would want to use.

That's a good question, Ken. There are some sites around that have cover info... The Grand Comic Book Database and Unofficial Handbook of Marvel Comics Creators are the two that spring to mind. However, both of these are rather patchy, and much of the information is dubious at best.

Now, the other interesting point is that Marvel is just about to release their new Amazing Spider-Man Covers #1-#500 hardback book. By co-indincidence, I actually did the research on the cover credits for this book. That actually creates two problems.

Firstly, having been contracted by Marvel to do that work, I can hardly go and publish the same info for free on my fan website. Secondly, I know now what a miserable job it is to gather that info!

You wouldn't know it to read most of the letters to this site, but actually we aren't backed by a philanthropic millionare at SpiderFan, and we aren't assisted by a ring of "research fairies". Any info we put on the site has to be researched and written by people in their spare time. So in fact, any question that starts with "When will your site have new info on..." can normally be answered with "We're ready to host it as soon as you create it and email it to us!"

 In: Letters > Editor > 2004
 Posted: 2004
 Staff: The Editor (E-Mail)