The Four Color Media Monitor

Time gave some history of a few of the characters appearing in the new Madame Web movie (which has been widely panned by reviewers), predictably without making any differentiation between what came before and after Marvel's loss of continuity coherence since the turn of the century, and whether any of these stories were artistically successful (they weren't). This, of course, is a movie featuring characters who appeared in Spider-Man, but in the film adaptation may not have any direct connection to Spidey himself:

In her debut appearance in The Amazing Spider-Man No. 210, Spider-Man goes to Madame Web for help rescuing a kidnapping victim, and in the process Web learns Spidey’s secret identity, thanks to her powers. As is often the case for long-running comic-book characters, tracking Madame Web’s story over the next several decades becomes an exercise in complexity. At one point she gains youth and immortality during a conflict with her granddaughter Charlotte Witter, a supervillain Spider-Woman. She later loses these gifts and is eventually murdered in a 2009 storyline, though she was able to give her precognitive abilities to Julia Carpenter, the Spider-Woman who will be played by Sydney Sweeney in the Madame Web movie. Madame Web was resurrected, as a clone, in a 2016 storyline, though she died again when her clone body deteriorated, as clone bodies do.

I'm sure there's a throughly valid complaint to be made that some characters - or their series - ran far too long to matter after a while, but Time's writer has no interest in making that point. The whole pamphlet format itself is long outmoded, and none of these press propagandists care to make it clear, because that wouldn't suit their narrative.

Dakota’s Madame Web is joined by three friends who are also Spider-affiliated heroes in the comic books, though none of them have the same origin story as Peter Parker. Rather than being bit by a radioactive spider, all three have more complicated backgrounds and it remains to be seen how they will all gain powers—let alone what sort of powers they’ll have—in the upcoming film.

If the reception so far is any suggestion, few will care what kind of powers they have, let alone origins. I do know, though, that at the time Jim Shooter was Marvel's EIC, they made a stupefying mistake to try and kill off Jessica Drew (who may not appear in the Madame Web movie). Though they reversed course pretty quickly, which was the correct thing to do, Drew still remained marginalized for years to come, and by the mid-2000s, it was already too late. I just don't understand the reasoning behind the decision to kick Drew to the curb when it happened, though it's worth noting it made way soon after for Julia Carpenter. Granted, Marvel at the time may have handled her writing better than what was to come 2 decades later, but even so, it's bizarre why Shooter or anybody else involved wanted to sideline the Drew character just to reach that point.

Now, here's where they turn to spotlighting J. Michael Straczynski's Ezekiel Sims character, who's portrayed as a villain in this film:

The trailers for Madame Web showcase a Spider-Man-lookin’ baddie in a black Spidey suit assaulting Madame Web and her friends. This villain is not Venom—the Spider-Man character typically associated with the black suit—but instead a reimagined version of an obscure but important character from the comics.

Notably, Ezekiel Sims, who made his debut in Amazing Spider-Man No. 30 in 2001, was never a villain in the comics and was instead something of a mentor or foil, depending on the story. It’s revealed that he obtained Spider-Man’s power thanks to a magic ritual involving a Spider-Totem well before Peter Parker gained his abilities. Ezekiel eventually informs Peter that his superpowers are actually part of a much larger mystical “Web of Life” rather than simple random chance involving a spider bite. Ezekiel helps Peter fight Morlun, a multiversal vampire of sorts who preys on the Spider-Totem powers, and later dies when fighting The Gatekeeper, a supernatural being who wanted to kill those it deemed unworthy of having the spider powers. Originally it was going after Peter, who gained his powers in an accident, but Ezekiel realized that the selfless Peter was actually the more deserving one and sacrificed himself.

And then, in a manner of speaking, One More Day's deal with Mephisto de facto retconned much of that storyline away. I won't be shocked if it didn't matter to JMS if Joe Quesada's wanted to throw it all out with bath water than some believe, no matter what JMS has said since. And Ezekiel's "important"? Please. When all that gets jettisoned as though it had never been - its poor crafting notwithstanding - it's pretty obvious it was never very important to begin with. What worked for DC years ago (but not post-2000) has not always worked for Marvel, and certainly didn't here. This is nothing like the time when Dr. Hank Pym gave his Ant-Man mantle to Scott Lang in the Bronze Age.

Collider also gave history of J. Michael Straczynski's now irrelevant creation, and comes off just as laughable:

Ezekiel Sims first appeared in 2001 in Marvel Comics' The Amazing Spider-Man vol. 2 #30. At his core, Ezekiel opened up the Spider-Verse to some of its fullest potential, connecting Spider-Man to his counterparts, both friend and foe, across dimensions. When we meet him, he's a relatively older man, a wealthy businessperson who (like a lot of Spider-Man's circle) runs a well-off corporation. Years prior, he participated in some kind of mysterious ritual that granted him his powers (which we'll dive into in a moment). After the ritual, Ezekiel became aware of the spider-totems, which was a mystical connection between the spirit of a spider and that of the person wielding their abilities. This would open the door to ongoing lore surrounding a wider set of animal totems and the various villains and heroes connected to them.

With the help of his corporation and his financial advantage, Ezekiel discovered Spider-Man's true identity as Peter Parker. Ezekiel believed that Peter's encounter with the radioactive spider wasn't an event of mere chance, but rather a moment of spiritual connection between Peter and the spider-totem, in which the spider deliberately passed its powers to Peter before it was killed by the radiation.

For anybody who's familiar with Stan Lee's original premise, it should be obvious this was little more than a weak attempt to retcon Spidey's origins in a way that would only diminish his uniqueness as a member of the Marvel universe. Worse, however, was JMS's leftist ideologies seeping into the writing, making it exceedingly difficult to read at all, and it all came to a horrible head when the Sins Past storyline came around, causing serious damage to how Gwen Stacy was portrayed, ditto Mary Jane Watson. How anybody can overlook that today is beyond me.

In the comics, Ezekiel is one of the good guys! (...for the most part.) He certainly tends to have selfish intentions, but he's usually forthcoming and rarely seems to cause pain beyond necessity. The Amazing Spider-Man #506, "The Book of Ezekiel: Chapter One," presented what is arguably the best depiction of Ezekiel Sims. It gives a human look at Ezekiel and, while fleshing out the near-friendship between Ezekiel and Spider-Man, allows Peter Parker to show a side of himself that was rarely seen in the comics. Because Ezekiel is one of the few to know Spider-Man's true identity, he's able to join Peter and Mary-Jane (who, by this time, is Peter's wife) at their home, and the group share a casual and incredibly fun-to-read evening.

In The Amazing-Spider-Man #507, Ezekiel brings Spider-Man to the temple where he gained his powers, intending to summon a giant spider that would take Peter as a sacrifice. You see, being a part of the hierarchy of totems, Ezekiel was constantly pursued by ill-willed supernatural beings that fed on members of this mystical food chain. He believed that, if he were to offer Peter as a sacrifice, the order would lose interest in hunting Ezekiel. Recognizing his selfishness, Ezekiel admitted to himself that Peter was a force for good, constantly using his abilities to help others, and Ezekiel confronted the giant spider to sacrifice himself instead.

And this makes clear even JMS wasn't trying to establish Ezekiel as a recurring cast member in the end, but rather, something like a plot device. It's no wonder the setup JMS employed aged so badly. The whole notion Ezekiel would attempt to betray Peter to nasty deities for the sake of survival also puts the notion he's a good guy under a question mark. So, you can see how that whole storyline's impact didn't last. Maybe the film's rendition isn't all that different from the comic's after all.

In other previews, we learn that the film's version of Ezekiel worked with Cassandra Web's mother when she was studying spiders (and right before her death), which is an element of Sony's creation, but the secret tribe aspect of Ezekiel's origin at least somewhat aligns with his comic book lore. Rahim continued, "These powers...they allow him to see into the future, including his own death." With the movie pitting him against Madame Web and her team of Spider-Women, Ezekiel takes on a villainous role, but, much like his Marvel Comics predecessor, he may open the door to a live-action arc depicting the spider-totems, broadening and connecting Sony's Spider-Verse on a new level.

If the reception so far is any suggestion, he'll only close the door on any such possibilities. On which note, John Nolte at Breitbart says it looks like another "feminist" flop:

Madame Web, the latest girlboss offering from Hollywood, is already looking like a $100 million flop.

One reviewer described it as “a low point in wannabe feminist superhero films.”

This co-production between Columbia Pictures and Marvel Entertainment (i.e., the Disney Grooming Syndicate) hits pretty much every theater in America on Wednesday, Valentine’s Day, and is already earning appalling reviews and the kind of box office projections that give studio executives bald spots.

On the one hand, any feminist angle is something the prior articles didn't mention. On the other, if Disney has any connection to this production, that's more than enough reason to stay away. Nolte continues:

With promotion costs, Madame Web must have cost something between $125 million to $150 million. The box office math says that after the theaters take their cut, a movie has to double its costs to break even. From where I sit, that’s looking mighty unlikely.

Will Hollywood ever go back to making movies for normal people? Nobody wants to see a feminist superhero movie. Not even feminists. If just ten percent of Hillary Clinton voters went to see Madame Web, it would be a hit.

Hollywood has spent the last six years hoping its big and small-screen propaganda would rewire human nature. Hollywood was going to get us comfortable with gay sex, Bossypants female heroines, and smug lectures in place of universal themes. Well, it’s not working.

If only some had seen this coming over a dozen years ago, when the Thor movies did race-swapping, as though the whole production depended entirely upon that. Now, it's all snowballed into a whole hodgepodge of identity politics, some of which this new movie is apparently built upon to boot, and turning everything into a whole tangled web of films and TV programs that just aren't worth the CDs they're recorded on. The flood of comic-based movies has got to stop, ditto the overuse of special effects. Media based on pop culture has gotten way out of hand. If Madame Web flops financially, I couldn't care less.

Labels: history, marvel comics, moonbat writers, msm propaganda, Spider-Man