Showing posts with label Halloween. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Halloween. Show all posts

Sunday 30 October 2022

Halloween: Spider-Girl's Birthday

 

Well, Halloween is upon us once more and that means it is time to wish May ‘Mayday’ Parker aka Spider-Girl a Happy Birthday! Or is it? Let’s take a look at the situation.

 


At the commencement of the now legendary (and infamous) Clone Saga of the 90’s Peter and Mary Jane Parker learn they are going to have a baby and indeed, Mary Jane is pregnant throughout the entirety of the Saga. These same events play out in the MC2's past also, as seen in Spider-Girl #48-#49. Mary Jane apparently goes into a particularly painful and unusual labor after her food is spiked by Alison Mongrain (Sensational Spider-Man #11).

 


Mary Jane is taken to hospital where she learns from a Doctor Folsome that her regular doctor is not available. In the birthing suite, Mary Jane asks if her baby is breathing and is told by Folsome ‘everything is going exactly as planned as an unseen Norman Osborn watches on. Following an agonising delivery, Mary Jane again asks Folsomewhy isn’t she crying’ before breaking down in tears. The doctor offers his condolences, while Mongrain (disguised as a nurse) wheels an unidentified ‘package’ to her car. Alison meets up with her employer at the docks where she is told she is going to Europe with a sizable bonus as she boards a yacht. Mongrain’s employer tells her she can call him by his real name: Norman Osborn (Amazing Spider-Man #418, Spider-Girl #48). Unbeknownst to both of them, Kaine will track down Mongrain.

 


 










All these events transpire across the day and through the night of October 31st, Halloween. Thus, May ‘Mayday’ Parker was born on October 31st in both the Main Marvel Universe and the MC2. So why is her birthday celebrated well after Christmas (Spider-Girl #54) in Spider-Girl #67? Well, this is a question I worked on answering many years ago now with good friend and excellent Spider-Man scholar Big Al. Here is an extract of our efforts from his own blog on Tumblr:

 


 


It is simply not logical that practically a whole year elapses between the Season of the Serpent and Marked for Death arcs, especially given how Mayday was clearly stated to be fifteen at the start of the series.

Whilst we don’t know for sure when Mayday celebrates her birthday in contrast to when Season of the Serpent happens (the latter arc itself spanning an uncertain amount of time itself) it wouldn’t be unreasonable to estimate that at most we’re talking late February maybe early March, but even that is a fairly extreme guess. But no way is it October.

Myself and Frogoat from this fair site in discussing this topic ultimately resolved to take our conundrum to the sources themselves and so Frogoat kindly asked Mr. Tom DeFalco and Mr Ron Frenz about the discrepancy at hand. Here is what Mr. Frenz had to say on the matter:

May’s birthday is considered to be October 31st.(As celebrated by and on this very message board!)Any story(seeming)inconsistency that suggests otherwise has been officially designated a SNAFU by no-less a legendary figure as Mr.Tom DeFalco himself.

 

May’s “Special Day” as shown, I believe, in our tenth-anniversary issue is a separate celebration of the day May was returned to her loving Parents by “Uncle Kaine.“

 

Oh, and shame on you for not knowing all of this. Shame, I say. ;D

 

Regards,

Ron.’

 

Well there you have it. Just a simple mistake.

But this wouldn’t be Continuity Confusion if we just left it there right?

Without starting any heated debates about continuity, what’s on the page vs. authorial intent or anything like that for the sake of argument let’s agree that Season of the Serpent happened at Christmas and that Mayday’s birthday occurred shortly thereafter.

How could this possibly in-universe make any kind of sense if we know for a fact that Mayday’s birthday falls on October 31st?

 

 

So now that we have a co-creator’s comment, we must work out a No-Prize explanation for why Mayday’s birthday is celebrated months later. The answer is surprisingly simple, given that officially, baby May Parker was presumably declared deceased on October 31st. We also know that months passed where Alison Mongrain travelled Europe in a yacht with the newborn May, while Peter and Mary Jane mourned their lost baby (Spider-Girl #48-#49). So, here is the most explanation Big Al and myself arrived at, again quoted from his post:

 


So, why not try this on for size. Given how she was presumed stillborn it is possible that Mayday was not given a birth certificate on October 31st and may even have lacked one entirely during her abduction. There would however have been a record of her death.

This would’ve created a great deal of legal hassle for Peter, MJ and their lawyers not least because of them having to explain the circumstances of May’s abduction and retrieval. But the point is that they would have had to more than likely fill out an all-new birth certificate and legal records. My proposition is that when they did that Peter and MJ essentially assigned Mayday a different date as her birthday other than October 31. And if you think about it this makes a certain amount of sense emotionally speaking as October 31 would be a day that would hold very painful memories for Peter and MJ. So why not choose to celebrate the life of their daughter on a day free from the taint of any sad recollections?

 







Thanks to Big Al and to my fellow MC2 fanatic arias-98105 for their immense help and continual tolerance of my abysmal memory. With all that out of the way, we can assume that the Parker Family celebrate Mayday’s birthday sometime at least a few months after her actual birth, a good guess being around late February at the earliest. Gee, I bet that was a paperwork nightmare…Wait does that mean May's a probably a few months older than she thinks?!

 

Happy Birthday, May ‘Mayday’ Parker and Rest in Peace Ben Reilly. Have a good Halloween, everyone!

 

Until I stop rehashing old points of interest and plucking at threads, I remain

 

frogoat

 

 

 

 

 

 

Saturday 31 October 2020

Night of Evil: Unused MC2 Halloween Story

 

It’s Halloween so I thought I might try and put out a small post to mark the holiday. This post might kick off an irregular series detailing Unused MC2 Concepts. We’ll see. For now, let’s look at the unused Spider-Girl Halloween story Night of Evil.

 




Here’s what Spider-Girl co-creator, artist and all-around great guy Ron Frenz had to say about this concept when he unveiled it on Alvaro’s Spider-Girl Message board in 2012:

 

 

Back in the day, (I really don't remember the specifics)I had this idea for a Spider-girl Halloween story which kinda,sorta adapted one of my favorite Spider-man'67 cartoon episodes.

"Night of Evil" would've brought Parafino into Spider-girl continuity.(Before you laugh too hard,we had already done the same with The Fifth Avenue Phantom,remember La Fantome?)

Anyway,instead of robots,the wax figures would be brought to life by black magic provided by Mephisto as part of a soul bargain.

The Gang(Davida,Moose, Courtney and Brad) were to be featured dressed for the holiday as the characters from Scooby-Doo.

It would've been great.

Really.

Trust me.

Oh well...

Ron.

 





For those who don’t know, Parafino is a villainous character voiced by Len Carlson who first appeared in the original 1967 Spider-Man animated show on October 21 1967 in ‘The Peril of Parafino’. Parafino owns and curates a wax museum, using his secret formula in an attempt to convert Spider-Man into one of his wax displays.



Returning in ‘The Night of the Villains’, Parafino used animated wax figures of various historical figures including Blackbeard, Jesse James and a French Executioner to commit crimes and battle the interfering Spider-Man before being defeated and handed over to the police.

 



I’d really have loved to have seen this idea come to life, hopefully one day it will. I enjoy the connections between the ’67 show and the MC2 and who doesn’t love Scooby Doo and the gang? Ron’s mention of the Fifth Avenue Phantom aka La Fantome will probably form the focus of a future post.

 

Until I see this story published, I remain

 

frogoat

Thursday 24 October 2019

Zombies in the MC2




Well, it's near the end of October and I haven't had done a single Halloween-themed post! I've been busy with work and family matters, but I'm going to try to rectify that now by talking about the shambling undead we all know and love: Zombies in the MC2!




Okay, so technically these lumbering monstrosities aren’t actually the living dead. Created by Asgardian sorceress and daughter of Loki, Sylene in Avengers Next #1 by combining her magic with stolen blood and tissue samples from past and present Avengers, these ‘magical clones’ are sent against the current Avengers team as a diversion.







If you are curious, the horde of decaying bizarro-Avengers is comprised of zombiefied versions of the following heroes: American Dream (Shannon Carter), Black Panter (T’Challa), Black Widow (Natasha Romanoff), Blue Streak (Blue Kelso), Luke Cage, Falcon (Sam Wilson), Freebooter (Brandon Cross), Hawkeye (Clint Barton), Hercules, Hulk (Bruce Banner), J2 (Zane Yama), Quicksilver (Pietro Maximoff), Scarlet Witch (Wanda Maximoff), Stinger (Cassandra Lang), Thunderstrike (Kevin Masterson), Vision, Wonder Man (Simon Williams) and Yellowjacket (Hank Pym).




While Sylene had intended for her constructs to be self-sustaining, she found they were constantly draining her ethereal energy and required her constant supervision to maintain and control. When her focus was broken by the interference of Spider-Girl, the putrid doppelgangers turned to dust almost instantly forcing Sylene to retreat, but not before her subordinates succeeded in stealing a component of Ultron and kidnapped the real Kevin Masterson.





The next three examples of Zombies in the MC2 are actually all from variant covers rather than in-story appearances. In case you missed it, the Marvel Zombies craze led to many comics titles receiving variant zombie covers and Spider-Girl was no exception. Amazing Spider-Girl #13 featured the art of Marvel Zombies cover artist Arthur Suydam for what is both a striking and disturbing rendition of Spider-Girl. Is the costume accurate? No, but I can give it a pass because it does seem to vaguely reference the cover of the character’s first appearance in What If #105.






The following year saw a new wave of zombie variant covers and once again, Spider-Girl was zombiefied on the cover of her title. This time, Amazing Spider-Girl #25 saw long-time Spider-Girl artist Pat Olliffe return teaming with inker Serge LaPointe for this alternate cover. Featuring an undead May ‘Mayday’ Parker on her bed in costume chowing down on her stuffed animals. I love this cover for its pitch-perfect concept and tone. Better still, Pat dubbed this version of Mayday with the moniker ‘Spider-Ghoul’ over on his blog.









*UPDATE* I missed this one when first publishing the post. Thanks to reader arias-98105 for bringing it to my attention.

Another year and another variant cover. This time for Web of Spider-Man (Vol. 2) #1 featured a zombie variant cover by artist Mirco Pierfederici depicting 'Spider-Ghoul' in gruesome battle with her zombiefied father, Spider-Man. The costume isn't 100% accurate again but it's still a pleasant surprise to discover something I previously had no knowledge of before today. I like find new old things, even foul-smelling undead!





That’s about it, everyone! Hope you all have a great time this Halloween and remember: Don’t eat too many brains! Until my real jobs stop turning me into a living zombie, I remain



frogoat

Thursday 1 November 2018

Happy Halloween

Unfortunately didn't have much free time this year to post anything significant (and then ran into some computer problems) but here's something I prepared when it was still technically October 31st.



Happy Halloween and Happy Birthday, Mayday!

frogoat

Tuesday 1 November 2016

Happy Halloween

Thought I'd put up a brief little post to wish everyone a Happy Halloween and mention all the tremendous work my pal Al is doing over at http://www.spidey-dude.com/ to celebrate not only the spooky holiday, but also the twentieth anniversary of the end of the Clone Saga and May 'Mayday' Parker's Birthday. Obviously,  I'm aware it's a day late for me, but I'm sure internationally Halloween is still in full swing. Anyway, don't eat too much candy and dress for the occasion. We miss you, Ben! Happy Birthday, Mayday!