Let’s take a look at something just a little bit offbeat.
It’s the early 2000s, Marvel is becoming successful in its
attempt to transform from a comic book publisher to an intellectual property
licensing firm. They’ve managed to
license characters for successful films like Blade, X-Men and Spider-Man as
well as other less popular films.
Bankruptcy is behind them and the Marvel Cinematic Universe is still a
little ways ahead.
And somewhere along the way, they started publishing
miniseries that combine their popular characters with folklore, children’s
literature and fairy tales. You may
recall I did an earlier post on X-Men
Fairy Tales. Well, this one is about
the follow-up Spider-Man Fairy Tales.
This a four-issue miniseries written by C.B. Cebulski, a
writer who is now the editor-in-chief of Marvel Comics. . .
And who is also apparently in trouble with fans for culturally appropriating a pseudonym that made him sound Japanese (geez, this little
miniseries is getting more scandalous by the minute).
Anyway, as I’ve said about anthology minis like this one,
they work best as artist showcases. Luckily, that’s what this one is. Each issue is drawn by a different artist
with a unique visual style. The first
issue, a “Little Red Riding Hood” riff, is drawn by Ricardo Tercio. The second issue, an Anansi tale, is
illustrated by Niko Henrichon. The third
issue is a Japanese-inspired tale of samurai and yokai drawn by Kei Kobayashi
(pretty sure he’s actually Japanese).
The last issue is a “Cinderella” tale penciled by Nick Dragotta and
inked by Mike Allred.
One thing you may be noting here is how the choice of tales
this time around is a little bit more by the books. Or, it half is. The Anansi tale and the Japanese tale are
more obscure and different while the other two are the most popular, cliché,
overdone tales in all of Western culture.
I’m pretty sure the folks at Marvel wanted to play more on familiarity,
so they did.
But let’s just jump right in. I will give the same disclaimer I gave when I
did this with X-Men Fairy Tales: I’ve
been reading superhero comics for a long time.
There’s a chance I may reference something from the comics that you
don’t know without an explanatory link.
If I do, then I’m sorry.
Issue 1: This
first issue is our “Little Red Riding Hood” riff of the evening. It features a young woman named Mary Jane who
is engaged to a woodcutter named Peter.
The woodcutters in this specific village are not just those who cut down
trees for firewood and lumber, but also the town’s chosen protectors. Mary Jane is feeling a bit uneasy about her
upcoming nuptials as she doesn’t want to be taken care of by Peter so much as be his equal. Mary Jane decides to mull it all over as she
takes a basket of goodies to Peter’s Aunt May through the dark and dangerous
woods. Of course, she meets a wolf along
the way (one that’s supposed to be based on Kraven the Hunter if I recall an
early interview about the project correctly).
Though, she does more to outwit it than Little Red usually does. There are other little Spider-Man Easter
eggs. J. Jonah Jameson is the boss
woodcutter. Betty Brant is one of the
townsfolk. They even say something about
the woods being where Mary Jane’s friend Gwen Stacy disappeared. One nice little bit is that there is no
actual Spider-Man in the story. The
“Spider-Man” is actually a legendary protector that’s supposed to live in the
woods but who few have seen. He’s
essentially a fairy tale within a fairy tale.
It’s essentially Little Red Riding Hood turned into a modern
relationship story based around the love story of Peter Parker and Mary Jane
Watson. And while that’s fine,
especially for 2007, it kind of hurts a little in 2018. You see, they used a magical plot device to
split up Peter and MJ a few years ago because they thought a married Spider-Man
wasn’t relatable enough to kids (it’s okay.
I get it. It just still bothers
me). So yeah, it’s passable. It works.
Or more accurately, they make it work.
On a geekier note, I kind of think Man-Wolf would have been a better
choice for the Big, Bad Wolf over Kraven, both because he’s an actual
wolf-inspired character and because he’s Jameson’s son.
Issue 2: Here we
have Spider-Man as an Anansi story. It
starts with Anansi, sporting a familiar red and blue color scheme bored with
his life. So, he climbs into the heavens
to seek advice from his father but instead finds his uncle Nebasti (Uncle
Ben). He tells Nebasti that he wants to
seek the power of the Great Beasts.
Nebasti warns him of the responsibility that comes with that power. After some more talk, Nebasti tells Anansi
that he must travel to the end of the world and find the spider-orchid. Then he gives him a calabash and sends him on
his way. Anansi sets out on his journey
and along the way he encounters spirits of the wind, water, earth and fire that
try to stop him. The wind he traps in
his calabash. The water he soaks up into
his clothes, but then lets go so it can continue to nourish the land. The earth (which is mostly made up of sand)
he sucks up into a reed and traps. The
fire he just talks to. Now, I want to
say these characters are supposed to coincide with Whirlwind, Hydro-Man,
Sandman and Firebrand respectively.
However, only Hydro-Man and Sandman are usually associated with
Spider-Man. So, I don’t know. Anyway, they all agree to travel with him up
until the end when he meets Fire. Then,
Anansi decides he’s had enough of companionship and goes on alone. Anyway, Anansi gets to the valley of the
spider-orchid, but ends up being opposed by a living swarm of bees who I’m
absolutely sure is supposed to call back to the super-villain Swarm. Anyway, the four elements come back and help
Anansi fight off the bees. Then, with
his path to the orchid no longer blocked, he chooses not to pick it. You see, Anansi’s discovered that he doesn’t
really need the power of the great beasts because he has the power of
friendship, responsibility, etc. So,
that’s issue two and honestly, it’s probably the best one of the bunch. You see, unlike some of the other issues that
just try to force Spider-Man into a folk tale framework, this story instead tells
an Anansi story and uses our familiarity with the Spider-Man mythos highlighted
by visual cues to accent some subtextual elements of Spider-Man. Most notably that there’s always been
something oddly tribal about Spider-Man.
The notion of “Spider-Man as trickster” is kind of obvious, of
course. Everyone knows that Spider-Man
is often depicted as an underdog who wins his battles through agility and
cunning. But also consider how many of
his enemies have an animal motif (Dr. Octopus, Rhino, Scorpion, Lizard, etc),
are themed after forces of nature (Electro, Hydro-Man, Sandman), are positioned
as rival tricksters (Mysterio, Green Goblin, Hobgoblin) or even rival spiders
(Venom, Doppelganger). Heck, he even has
a villain named Kraven the Hunter who’s supposed to be a “great, white hunter”
with a lion motif thrown in for good measure.
Even emphasizing Uncle Ben’s role or even the role of New York City kind
of calls back to the roles that family and community play in African folk
tales. This comic isn’t the first to
note this. J. Michael Straczynski wrote
a run on Amazing Spider-Man in the
early 2000s that essentially turned the subtext into text by suggesting that
Spider-Man got his powers not from a radiation accident but from a mysterious
spider totem. But yeah, best one of the
bunch.
Issue 3: This one
draws on Japanese folklore in its depiction of Spider-Man. In this case, our Spider-Man is a young boy
named Izumi who lives with his aunt and uncle on the border of a forest
populated by evil yokai. At some point
in the past, the yokai killed Izumi’s parents and now he burns with a need to
get revenge. His aunt and uncle warn him
against it. However, Izumi goes off into
the woods anyway only to find the yokai went after his aunt and uncle after he
left. His uncle is killed in the
encounter. His aunt however is kidnapped
and he goes off to rescue her. The yokai
in this are reminiscent of the Spider-Man villains Venom, Vulture, Black Cat
and Man-Wolf. Here, they seem to be
taking the form of a Tsuchigumo, Tengu, Bakeneko and Okuri-inu respectively
(keep in mind that I’m not an expert in Japanese folklore, so I could be a
little off). There’s also some stuff
about Izumi being corrupted by the power of the Venom Tsuchigumo. This is reminiscent of the famous “Alien
Costume” story, which you may be aware of if you’ve seen Spider-Man 3. This is the second best story in the
miniseries. It plays with some decidedly
Asian and Buddhist takes on the themes in Spider-Man like family honor and
revenge, playing off how the loss of Peter’s parents effects him. Playing the alien symbiote thing as a sort of
contamination of spirit rather than body is also interesting. Not as good as the Anansi story, but still
good.
Issue 4: Guess
what, folks! It’s “Cinderella” time
again! That’s right! The most over-played folk tale in all of
Western culture is at it again.
Okay, okay. I’ll try
to be fair to this one.
In this case, Peter Parker is the son of Sir Richard Parker,
a knight who is slain in battle. He’s
raised in the household of the Goblin Knight, Sir Norman Osborn. Peter is mostly kept as a slave/servant at
the beck and call of Norman and his son Harry.
He isn’t alone in the endeavor, because Mary Jane also slaves away in
the Osborn household. Peter finds out
that the king is holding a grand ball to win the hand of Princess Gwendolyn
(Gwen Stacy). So, Peter sets out on a
plan to disguise himself as a sort of Spider-Knight, attend the ball, win the
hand of the princess and reclaim his birthright. There isn’t any Fairy Godmother. Peter does the work himself. Though, Mary Jane does his work for him while
he’s at the ball. There’s some stuff
with a webbed brassard instead of a glass slipper. There’s also some sword-fighting action
between Peter and Norman when Norman learns who the Spider-Knight is. And if you know your Spider-Man storylines,
you can probably expect that Princess Gwendolyn doesn’t come out of that
unscathed. So, it’s basically “The Death
of Gwen Stacy” turned into a gender-swapped Cinderella story. I’m going to be honest, this is my least
favorite of these. Combining the
Spider-Man elements with the Cinderella elements doesn’t really feel like it
enhances either. At least it has some
interesting artwork. The combo of Nick
Dragotta and Mike Allred is very good and Allred’s distinct style even comes
out when he’s just on inks.
So, what’s our takeaway here? Well, I suppose it’s that these kind of
mash-ups are most interesting when one half can bring some sort of interesting
theme or subtext out of the other.
That’s why the Anansi and Yokai stories were so interesting while the
“Little Red Riding Hood” and “Cinderella” riffs were not.
There’s one more miniseries in this cycle. It’s Avengers
Fairy Tales, which is kind of a different animal in its own way. But, that’s a post for a future date.
Wow, what a strange combo, but the more you think about ti the more it kinda makes sense.
ReplyDeleteWhat's the link for the x-men fairy tale post you did? I think I must have missed that one when you wrote it.