The Non-Fan's Perspective: Miscellaneous

I'm titling this entry of The Non-Fan's Perspective "Miscellaneous" because it covers Spider-Man, the (Ultimate) Fantastic Four, and the JLA, but none of them to the extent that referencing them in the title wouldn't be misleading.

As I explained in the previous entry in this awkward excuse for a series, this installment covers not one but two classes of the course. For the first, we read SPIDER-MAN: THE DEATH OF GWEN STACY. For the second, each student had his/her choice between ULTIMATE FANTASTIC FOUR: THE FANTASTIC (say that three times fast) and JLA: TOWER OF BABEL. I'm covering both classes in this one entry because, from my subjective point of view, the Spider-Man trade didn't generate enough interesting comments from the other students to warrant its own chapter.

The student response to that one can be boiled down to "I didn't like it, but I respect it," whatever that's supposed to mean. I also learned that lots of casual fans don't read the credits, as there was some confusion over whether Stan Lee or Gerry Conway wrote the issues collected within. ("Both," that is the answer.) Darn it all, am I the only person who has a borderline OCD need to read the credits box whenever it shows up? Seriously, even when I *know* a trade paperback has the same writer and artist throughout, I still can't help but skim through those cursed rectangles *every* *time* they shows up. And it's as annoying as it sounds! Aaah...

There were a couple of people who made remarks along the lines that, by all rights, they *should* have found Peter Parker whiny and "emo," but they didn't, for reasons they couldn't pinpoint.

Also, there was some back-and-forth over whether or not Spider-Man should be held responsible for Gwen Stacy's death after one of the facilitators brought up the neck-snap theory/fact. Interesting that even the non-fans were making statements about how he couldn't just let her fall because "that's not what a superhero does."

According to the facilitators, a bunch of the students who picked the FANTASTIC FOUR trade wrote in their reading responses that they were confused by the discrepancies between it and the Fantastic Four movie -- namely the differences in the origins. I, however, am personally convinced most of them were feigning said confusion just to give themselves something to fill up their mandatory reading responses with.

I find it hard to swallow that *any* American could be so unfamiliar with the concept of adaptations taking liberties with the source material. Heck, even when I was in grade school, I remember discussing with a friend the differences between, of all things, "cartoon Swamp Thing" and "live action Swamp Thing." (At the time I didn't have the slightest inkling he was a comic book character. Heh.)

I didn't read the FANTASTIC FOUR trade, so if there was any further discussion of its contents, I don't recall it.

As for the JLA book... After reading it, a number of the students were left with the impression that Batman was some sort of League leader or something, with the others as his underlings. Hee. I can see how reading TOWER OF BABEL in a vacuum could lead to that line of thought.

Honestly, there really wasn't much discussion of either trade because a goodly portion of the class that week was spent on an activity where we made up superhero teams out of pre-existing characters. "Democratic education," good people: the education that is anything but.

We were divided into groups for the activity, each one concocting its own super-team. I don't remember most of the results, but one particularly amusing creation was the team formed to bake a giant pie to sate Galactus's hunger and consequently spare the Earth. The members were the Human Torch (to bake), the Flash (to gather ingredients), Aunt May (for her culinary talent), and one or two other individuals I'm no doubt forgetting.

Aah, I suppose you had to be there.