Thank goodness for the Internet Archive! The Wayback Machine is an invaluable source of information on the lost and long gone days of the wild west internet. Today, as a sort of early present, I thought it would be nice to post the promotional comic commonly referred to as ‘Internet Super Heroes Meet Internet Super Villains’ in its entirety.
But what is it, exactly? Well, for starters, it has two
names. ‘Internet Super Heroes Meet Internet Super Villains’ is
the title that appears on the cover, but the comic’s indicia gives it the title
‘Wired Kids’, along with listing it as ‘No.1, November 2005’. I
would argue this latter title should be its official title on places such as
the Marvel Wiki, but that’s not important right now.
The comic was a custom comic printed under exclusive licence
and donated by Marvel to Wired Kids Inc., a charity in the United
States which was partly dedicated to promoting internet safety for children
and teenagers. It appears Microsoft contributed to the comic’s
production, as they are also attributed on the cover and in the indicia, along
with their own internet safety program at staysafe.org. And yes, this
comic was originally distributed for free. Here’s a few examples of the groups
aiming to educate the public about internet safety, courtesy of the internet
archive:
The comic is written by C.B. Cebulski with pencils by
Scott Hepburn, with Cebulski and Nicole Wiley acting as
editors. The latter name, Nicole Wiley may be familiar to Spider-Girl
readers where she also served as an editor for a time. I have to point out that
Mayday does appear visually familiar and similar to her MC2 or Earth-982
counterpart but as will become clear, this is not the MC2 Universe.
‘MayDayOne@internetsuperheroes.org’ is May’s
email address, while Queens, New York is her physical address, though
the Parker
Family Home depicted does not resemble the design we are used to, and
in my opinion resembles more the one from the Sam
Raimi Spider-Man films. May is definitely out of character with
her actions in this story, though perhaps it’s forgivable given the purpose of
the comic. The less said about this facial hair free Peter Parker the
better!
The Human
Torch is a younger, more immature version, while the Thing…isn’t
half covered in metal. So this appears to be an incarnation of the Fantastic
*FOUR* closer to the early days of the Main Marvel Universe or Earth-616,
albeit with a mature adult Peter Parker who’s a father to a teenage
daughter and has an obsession with internet security! Evidently, Mayday
is known to Johnny and Ben in her civilian identity. That’s nice.
The mysterious secret shadow-dwelling big-bad ‘Mood Dood’ is revealed to be none other than Doctor Doom! Not only does Doctor Doom know Spider-Girl’s secret identity as Mayday, having used her personal email to infect and spread his trojan horse virus, but the story rather uncomfortably suggests Victor Von Doom formed an entire online identity and parasocial relationship to do so. I’ll let that sink in.
Another contact of May’s is targeted, Bruce Banner aka the Incredible Hulk. Bruce’s Xbox gaming session is interrupted by one of Doom’s emails leading to him hulking out. The Human Torch, Thing and Hulk all track down Spider-Girl, three adults knowingly plan to beat up a teenage girl. And keep in mind, they all know her secret identity and therefore know Peter is Spider-Man.
Thankfully Peter shows up in costume and clears things up, shortly before a page stuffed with dialogue balloons that delivers the message the whole story has been laying on thick. Oh, and Victor? Maybe next time don’t use your work email to troll people online? ‘Mooddude@Latveria.com’, I mean come on, really!
As much as I am dunking on this harmless and well-intentioned promotional comic, I will say ‘We’ve beaten him so many times, maybe he feels cyber-crime is the only way he can take us down.’ Is possibly the most savage take down of Doctor Doom I’ve come across. Then again, Doom delivers a rather shocking self-own after he is arrested at the Latverian Embassy by the police (can they actually do that?): ‘I wonder if they have internet access in prison…hmmm…so many kids, so little time.’ I know he’s a villain, but I’m surprised Marvel approved portraying their most high-profile villains in this way.
Well this was fun. Happy Holidays! I’m off to update my
internet security!
Until I decipher what THINKB4UCLICK means, I remain
frogoat