Issue 11:
Tournament of Villainy
By
Rascal Stallion
| Name: Chris Finch |
|
Name: Annie Wilkes |
| Occupation: Paper Sales Rep |
vs. |
Occupation: Retired Nurse |
| Origin: The Office (BBC) |
|
Origin: Stephen King’s Misery |
Chris Finch was on his way home from a very successful sales visit. He closed a mammoth deal to sell paper to a rural school district that would surely net him a huge bonus from Wernham-Hogg. Although he had several hours of driving on desolate, snowy road ahead of him, he was already halfway through his third pint of Lager.
His healthy buzz certainly didn’t help him navigate the icy roads. When he swerved to miss a cow lazily crossing the road, he spun out of control, his crumpled car finally coming to a rest in a muddy drainage ditch.
When Finch came to, he found himself lying in a strange bed, an unbelievable pain shooting through his mangled leg. He was nude and his clothes were neatly folded next to him on the floor. Standing over him and changing the dressing on his wound was his savior, Annie Wilkes. The nurse had pulled him from the wreckage and taken him to her house to care for him.
As Annie bent over Chris he quipped, “While you’re down there why don’t you wrap your laughing gear around my old single barrel pump action yogurt rifle?”
Annie leaped with indignation. “What did you just say to me?”
Finchy replied, “C’mon luv. How about just one up the bum, no harm done?”
Annie was now livid. “You listen here, you foul-mouthed cockadoodie! I am going to teach you some manners.” Finchy watched in horror as Annie took a sledgehammer and swung it full force at his knob.
Despite his terrible pain, Finch acted with lightening quick reflexes to save his prized possession. In one move he narrowly dodged the crippling blow and grabbed a shoe from the bedside. He cocked the shoe and yelled “Stone me! I’ll teach you, you gormless plonker.”
Finch hurled the shoe at Annie with pinpoint accuracy and tremendous velocity just as she raised the sledgehammer over her head for another blow. The shoe struck Annie squarely in the nose and caused her to drop the hammer right on her head. She died instantly, but that didn’t stop Finchy from groping her as he made his way to the phone.
View Tournament Bracket
Issue 11:
Superhero Information Initiative
By
Medulla Vesuvius
I originally tossed around the idea of calling this article “Spider-Man is Lonely.” It would have had a curious simplicity to draw a reader in. Of course, the main problem with “Spider-Man is Lonely” as a title is that this article isn’t about Spider-Man’s loneliness. (Although the case could certainly be made for such-he’s socially-awkward, a science-whiz and his one friend, Harry Osborn, is as much a mortal enemy as a friend. And then there’s all the mooning over Mary Jane Watson. Just look at the monologue to the first movie: “This, like any story worth telling, is all about a girl.”)
No, the real power behind the Spider-Man story is the ethical dilemma in which Peter Parker finds himself.
But first, some facts, (since this is the Superhero Information Initiative): Spider-Man first appeared in a comic book in 1963, which would be right around the time The Beatles were becoming really famous overseas. His real identity is Peter Parker, high school student. His amazing super-human strength, agility, and near-precognition come from a bite by a radioactive spider. (One interesting difference I found between the movies and the traditional comic is the method by which he slings those marvelous webs. In the movies, the webs come out of his body from some strange mutation. But the comic book Spidey has mechanical web-shooters. And don’t forget about his ability to walk up walls.
Clearly, he has some amazing powers. But the question of how or even if he should use those powers is where the story gets interesting for me. His Uncle Ben gets to reveal one of the guiding themes of the comic as a whole- “with great power comes great responsibility.” Peter takes this idea and runs with it, organizing his life around works of vigilante justice as an extremely mobile crime-fighter and defender of the public good.
However, I just glossed over a fact that muddies Peter’s ethical waters. Peter only takes on the responsibility philosophy after Uncle Ben’s death at the hands of a criminal. Why is this important? Peter feels responsible for the death of his uncle because of his inaction at a critical moment. He then feels the need to “be responsible” with his powers out of the potential problems for him and his loved ones. While he is acting on principle, it’s not exactly altruistic. His responsibility still fights with the concerns of self. He may have super-human powers, but he is still plagued by merely human ethical concerns. And there is no better display of this than his hesitance with Mary Jane, for fear of her well-being: “No matter what I do, no matter how hard I try, the ones I love will always be the ones who pay.” It really does play out that Peter’s powers are a gift and a curse.
I noticed in the first movie that the Green Goblin presents an interesting alternate ethical course for Peter, (other than Peter’s renouncing his powers altogether and trying to “act normal,” which no one really sees as a viable option- not for long, anyway.) In Green Goblin’s speeches we are presented with a more existential view of the world. If Spider-Man insists on being heroic with his powers, he will never know what to do when a “lunatic” comes along with a “sadistic choice.” Indeed, Green Goblin puts him in a spot of dual responsibilities-save the girl or save the cable-car full of innocents-”make your choice and see how a hero is rewarded,” he snarls ironically, “we are who we choose to be.”
Green Goblin’s ethical standpoint is very interesting. If Uncle Ben is the angel on Pete’s shoulder, Gobby would be the devil. He would probably say that “with great power comes great freedom,” a la Raskalnikov in Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment, who proposes that “truly great” persons should be allowed to subvert the rules and regulations of common ethics. He offers Spider-Man a way out by an invitation to join forces with him: “The teeming masses exist for the sole purpose of lifting the few exceptional people onto their shoulders.”
Few people would probably sign-up for the Green Goblin’s school of behavior. But I can’t help but wonder how different the character of Spider-Man would be if he was beholden to no one in particular- no Uncle Ben, Aunt May, and certainly no Mary Jane. What if he was only beholden to society as a group? While it would be fun to say that a woman screws it all up for Peter and that there is no ethical dilemma without M.J in the story, it’s probably more accurate to say that Peter’s unfulfilled longing for her is what royally screws things up, (in the movies, at least), and complicates his ethical decisions.
Because Spider-Man is lonely.
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