Lady Octopus in the MC2

With her recent reappearance in Nick Spencer's Amazing Spider-Man run (and since I absolutely missed a similar opportunity last year with the release of Into the Spider-Verse) I figured it would be a good time to take a look at Carolyn Trainer aka Lady Octopus in the MC2.

Carolyn Trainer made her first full appearance in Amazing Spider-Man #406 ( with only her tentacles seen the previous issue) wherein she took on the mantle of Doctor Octopus following the murder of Otto Octavius by Kaine. Carolyn was later instrumental in resurrecting her predecessor and assumed the role of student under Otto's tutelage.

However, due to several big changes behind the scenes on the Spider-Man books in the late 90's, Carolyn simply stopped appearing and wasn't seen for several years. When she did return in the 2000's in small roles throughout various titles, she was dubbed 'Lady Octopus', presumably to differentiate her from the original Doc Ock. While the events of these later stories are almost certainly not canon to the history of the MC2, the moniker 'Lady Octopus' does play a curious part in events.

With that out of the way, the MC2's Carolyn Trainer first appears in Spider-Girl #68, working with Dr Sonja Jade, a former ally of Otto Octavius. With a reference to her predecessor earlier in the issue, the major involvement of Dr Jade and the final page of the story leaving Carolyn shrouded in shadows, it's left unclear which Doc Ock we are seeing. However, the letters page for the issue proclaims 'Doctor Octopus is back!'

The mystery is teased a bit further throughout Spider-Girl #69 as John Jameson is kidnapped by Jade's goons with assistance from a set of mechanical tentacles. It's no until later in the issue Carolyn Trainer makes her big entrance declaring herself 'the new Doctor Octopus'. It's here we learn that Otto Octavius has recently died. Dr Jade and Trainer abducted Jameson and his wife's scientific equipment, planning to turn people into 'monsters for mobsters'. Unfortunately for The Buzz, they first tested this on his father John Jameson, turning him into the Man-Wolf once more.

When her control module for the Man-Wolf is destroyed and she is nearly shot dead, Carolyn abandons the plan, splitting from Dr Jade and leaving the equipment and Jade's men to be captured. After Dr Jade is apprehended by Spider-Girl, Doctor Octopus quickly defeats her but spares her life as repayment for the heroine having saved her from a bullet earlier.

Next, Carolyn becomes embroiled in the ongoing gang war between the Black Tarantula and recently incarcerated current Kingpin of crime, Canis. Offering up her protection and technology to chop shop owner and mobster 'Handsome' Richie Valentine in exchange for a weekly stipend, Trainer encounters Spider-Girl when the latter is given intel by the Black Tarantula's assistant Chesbro that Trainer is working with Valentine's boss, Canis (Spider-Girl #72).

However, when Spider-Girl is knocked into Valentine's workshop and is forced to fight off his goons, Valentine surrenders, believing Spider-Girl is working with 'Lady Octopus'. Afterwards, Carolyn thanks Spider-Girl for 'attending' to Valentine for her. Spider-Girl, feeling used, attacks Lady Ock only to be soundly beaten and on the verge of being killed when Ock suddenly leaves. Spider-Girl then receives a phone call from Chesbro offering the Black Tarantula's assistance (Spider-Girl #72).

When next we see our fair Lady Octopus, she frees Canis from police custody during a transfer and seemingly forms an alliance. With Chesbro informing Spider-Girl of this alliance and offering the Black Tarantula's assistance again, Spider-Girl soon confronts the pair of criminals in the sewers only to find herself buried beneath tons of rubble by Ock covering her escape (Spider-Girl #74).

With Canis losing control of his criminal empire, Lady Ock reminds him that he must still compensate her for efforts in breaking him from prison. Offering to eliminate Spider-Girl if he identifies his various criminal connections. Unwilling to do so, Canis attempts to organize a meeting of his men to bring them into line but this too falls apart thanks to the intervention of Spider-Girl. Left with no other options, Canis agrees to Lady Octopus' terms (Spider-Girl #75-76).

Carolyn meets with and convinces the leaders of the various crime families to attend a special meeting, promising her client can provide protection, worldwide distribution and strength. Later, Canis arrives at his meeting to discover that it is not his lieutenants in attendance just as Lady Octopus leaves, having sealed him in. Encountering Spider-Girl, Ock informs her of Canis' predicament and reveals her betrayal, allowing her to escape as the hero attempts to save the fallen crime lord (Spider-Girl #77).

Elsewhere, the Black Tarantula concludes his meeting with the former lieutenants of Canis. We learn that Carolyn has been secretly working to undermine Canis for the Black Tarantula the whole time, just as the Black Tarantula has been manipulating Spider-Girl to target his rival's organisation. The co-conspirators are interrupted by an angry and hurt Spider-Girl who has organised others to aid Canis so that she can follow Lady Ock (Spider-Girl #77).

Confronting Lady Ock and the Black Tarantula, Spider-Girl is soon joined by Agent Weadon's team, led by Kaine. Outnumbered, Carolyn attempts to flee with Raptor and Spider-Girl in close pursuit. No longer restrained by the Black Tarantula's orders not to kill her, Lady Octopus throws a large boat at Spider-Girl, nearly killing Raptor in the process. However this time Spider-Girl blindfolds herself and trusts solely in her instincts to guide her through Lady Ock's tentacles to rip off her harness and disarm the villain. Soon after, the Black Tarantula (briefly) turns himself over to the authorities (Spider-Girl #78).

Unfortunately, that's the last time we see Carolyn Trainer in the MC2. I think it's very notable that in the lead up to her MC2-debut and in her early appearances ol' Carolyn was originally billed as 'Doctor Octopus' -her rightful title especially following her mentors death-  but this was later dropped as the series drew closer to Spider-Girl #75. For those who do not know, the Spider-Girl series was slated for yet another cancelation attempt around this time, possibly resulting in the character being renamed 'Spider-Woman' to accommodate the new character Anya Corazon aka Araña who was to be given the moniker and series title 'Spider-Girl'. Perhaps these events are unrelated, and Carolyn was simply renamed 'Lady Octopus' to keep in line with her Main Marvel Universe counterpart and avoid confusion....but I can't help drawing connections.

Given how I recently talked about LGBT+ representation in the MC2, I think I might be called out if I didn't at least mention that at least some fans believe Dr Jade and Carolyn were in a romantic relationship. I'm guessing this opinion may have arisen at least partially due to Carolyn's proclivity to refer to Sonja Jade as 'my sweet' and 'my darling' and even 'my dear'. While I don't want to dismiss these claims, I do have to point out that Carolyn also referred to others in a similar fashion on various occasions, including both Spider-Girl and Canis. That said, Carolyn was quite thankful when Jade was apprehended; remarking she had become 'tiresome of late', referred to The Buzz as 'definitely not my type' and insisted on clarifying her relationship with the original Doctor Octopus was that of 'colleagues' when Spider-Girl suggested otherwise. So...draw your own conclusions, fans!

Until I find more time to research, write and post these silly little blogs, I remain

frogoat

Spider-Girl: The Complete Collection Vol. 2

It doesn't feel all that long ago that I reviewed Spider-Girl: The Complete Collection Vol. 1 and here I am again nearly exactly 365 days later, taking a look at Vol. 2. Collected in this trade paperback release we have Spider-Girl (1998) #16-#32 by Tom Defalco, Ron Frenz and Pat Olliffe.

While it's not my intention to review the issues within the collection, I have to admit, flipping through these stories I was transported back to my youth, to a time when I had nothing but wonder and joy for the medium of comics, when I first fell in love with the Spider-Girl character, her supporting cast and her world. There is so much to enjoy in these stories, with subplots and threads pulling together in surprising yet natural ways. There's a sense that any teething issues the creative team may have had are gone and now they are delving deeper into all the characters and giving us a richer and more fleshed out look at the established cast. 

When I wrote my review for the first volume in this collection, I wasn't aware of  some of the complaints I've since encountered online. While I mentioned the flimsy cardstock, I didn't have as much of an issue with the paper quality, but in hindsight I can see why this would be frustrating. As a fan of the series, I really want to see these issues reprinted in the best possible quality. It's also worth mentioning that I received another copy of the first volume with several missing pages in the weeks following my review, which after my initial anger I decided was perhaps worth retaining as a misprinted edition, even if it never amounts to any monetary value. With all that out of the way, the card stock for Volume 2 appears to be ever-so-slightly thicker than it's predecessor. Meanwhile, the glossy pages of the interior seem to be much the same. I've not noticed any issues with the printing process, nor have I encountered any missing pages, crinkling along the spine or even dints and folds in the cover. 

The cover is, in my humble opinion, a much more appealing choice than the first volume. Vibrant colours, a great layout and design with mood and menace and atmosphere emanating from every corner and an honest to gosh great looking Spider-Girl and maniacal Goblin looming in the background really made me want to crack this thing open and dive into the story. 

I think the choices of which issue to start and end the volume are solid. Despite my personal preference to package Spider-Girl #17 as the final issue of volume 1 because I feel it's a good culmination of her early adventures, I can't deny it would have made for an odd second volume 2. If the second volume had started with Spider-Girl #18 and had to close out with #32, it would be smaller volume and the only alternate then would have been to collect a few further issues such as #33-#34, meaning chopping up a few of the next major ongoing story arcs. Plus, this way the volume ends on a great cliffhanger. All in all, I think this was the best option. 

As for additional material, there is far less on offer here than last time, with only three pages in the back reproducing inked covers to several relevant issues in the collection in addition to two pages reproducing various inked pages of art from the stories. While these are a nice inclusion, I think printing several covers and interiors per page is a mistake. I'd much prefer to view Pat Olliffe and Al Williamson's art one-per-page so they can be better appreciated.

With that all said it's still a great collection, and currently the best way to physically read these issues. If you have the spare money, I'd recommend picking it up. If you don't have the money, I believe these stories are now available digitally through Marvel at a high quality too. Here's hoping the other MC2 titles get similar treatment in years to come.

Until I stop buying, disavow the MC2 and get legally declared non compos mentis, I remain

frogoat

Stinger in Lego Marvel Super Heroes 2

Reddit user and founder of the delightful subreddit r/MaydayMemes, 'maydaymemer' recently brought it to my attention that Cassie Lang aka Stinger is a playable character in the Lego Marvel Super Heroes 2 video game.

Stinger was released as part of the 'Ant-Man and The Wasp Character and Level Pack' DLC on the 3rd of July 2018 which added various Ant-Man related characters from both the original comics and the Marvel Cinematic Universe films. In addition to Stinger, these including Ant-Man (Scott Lang), Wasp (Hope van Dyne and Ghost as they appeared in the Ant-Man and The Wasp movie, Egghead, Crossfire, Giant-Man (Raz Malhotra) from the comics, and for some reason The Human Fly.

Before anyone points it out, I did notice that that the Stinger costume depicted shares the same silver doodad's on the shoulder pads as the Cassie Lang of the Main Marvel Universe. While it's definitely likely this was no coincidence, I think given that the MC2 costume and identity predates and even inspired the MMU version it's fair to count this as an adaption. It's at least more clear cut then other examples.

It seems Stinger doesn't have any unique voice lines and I can find no voice actor credited, which is a shame, though not unsurprising for a bonus character. The more curious detail is the omission of any other MC2 characters in the game, considering the plot revolves around alternate universes and future and past timelines interacting. Other popular realities such as 2099 and Future Imperfect are represented along with more recent additions such as the character Spider-Gwen. But I wouldn't like to speculate about the reasons...


Luckily, good ol' maydaymemer has an answer to the lack of MC2 representation in the game, too:

Until we get a proper MC2 game, I remain

frogoat

Sony VS Marvel: How it affects the MC2

Some of you may recall that back in November 2014, Sony Pictures were the target of hackers, resulting in a large amount of confidential data being leaked online. Amongst the documents released were several detailing the Amazing Spider-Man film series and correspondence with Marvel Studios. It's fairly well known the backlash to the concepts and opinions leaked resulted in Spider-Man appearing in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. 

Which brings me to today's post. I hadn't given much thought to the exact details of Sony's contracts and agreements to produce films based on Spider-Man, which characters they could and couldn't use or anything like that until I saw this recent video by the YouTube channel Midnight's Edge:

Spider-man: The uncertain future with either Marvel's MCU or Sony's Venom

It was while watching that I noticed a familiar name in one of the screenshots of the Sony documents: Meagyn Brady. I'd always figured May 'Mayday' Parker was included in the package of characters for the film rights to the Spider-Man franchise, but it never really occurred to me such minor characters would be mentioned. So I did some digging through the leaked documents.

As it turns out, I found a lot of original MC2 character's names mentioned under various categories. I may have missed a few within this document which appears to be a more finalized version of these prior documents but I've attempted to include even some which may not, just for the sake of completeness. Let me know what I've missed or omitted. Here's the list of the characters quoted as presented under the various sub-headings in the document:

Alternate Versions of Spider-Man include all of the following

Spider-Man (IV)/Gerry Drew

Schedule 6

Named Characters

Black Tarantula (II)/Fabian LaMuerto
Buzz, The/Jack Jameson
Crazy Eight
Daze
Goblin God/Peter Parker
Green Goblin, The (VI)/Norman "Normie" Harry Osborn
Killerwatt
Misery/Melissa Carsdale
Mr. Nobody
Scarlet Spider (VII)/Felicity Hardy
Spider-Girl (I)/ May "Mayday" Parker
Spider-Girl 2020/May Parker
Spider-Man (IV)/Gerry Drew
Spider-Venom
Spider-Woman/ May "Mayday" Parker
Venom/Spider-Girl, May "Mayday" Parker

Teams/Groups/Gangs

Team Spider

Supporting Characters

Aftershock
April (first appearing in Spider-Girl #75)
Babbit, Mr

Barney – agent of Hobgoblin (first appearing in Amazing Spider-Girl #2)
Bitter Frost
Brady, Meagyn
Canis
Carlo, Mona
Claw
Desantos, Simone
Diana - Black Cat's love interest in MC2 Universe
Dragon King/Carlton T. Hackmutter
Drasco, Det. Vinnie
Duran, Courtney-May "Mayday" Parker's friend
Funny Face
Fury the Goblin Queen/ Elan DeJunae
Golden Goblin
Grief Machine
Groote, Leonard
Hardy, Felicity (daughter of Felicia)
Healy, Gus
Healy, Joyce
Healy, Sandra
Hicks, Ralphie
Hingle, Duane
Hingle, Cindy
Hingle, Sarah
Impact
Jade, Dr. Sonja
Kirby, Davida - May "Mayday" Parker's friend
Kodiak
Kurkle, Charlie
La Fantome
Ladyhawk/Regina Morgan
Ladyhawk/Rosetta Morgan

Lieber, Caitlyn
Lu, Nancy - May "Mayday" Parker's friend
Mansfield, Billy
Mansfield, Katy
Mansfield, Moose
Mansfield, Mr. - father of Moose
Miller, Brad
Mr. Abnormal
Parker, April - clone of May Parker
Parker, Benjamin "Benjy" Richard Parker
Phillip, Charlie
Pirouette
Quickwire
Ragone, Theodore "Turtle"
Raptor/Brenda Drago

Reverb / Rudolf
Spyral
Thompson, Gene (son of Eugene "Flash" Thompson and Felicia Hardy)
Tyne, Reilly
Weadon, Arthur
Westin, Wes
Yama, Jimmy
Yi, Spike

Business and Other IP

Café Indigo
Deacon's Den
"EVERYBODY'S HAPPY" - program
Hotel Caprice
Humanity First
Kingsley International
Spider Shoppe
Spidera
St. Andrew's -women's shelter
Zebra Patrol

SCHEDULE 7A

Frozen Characters

Hero or Villain

Spider-Man appearing as a member of the Fantastic Four (e.g., as a member of the Fantastic Five or Fatal Force)
Reilly Tyne as an alias for Darkdevil

Anthropomorphic Variations

Mary Porker

Schedule 8

Marvel Reserved Characters

Hero or Villain

Bluestreak (III) (first appearing in A-Next)
Coal Tiger/T'Chaka
Darkdevil
Dragonfist
Freebooter/Brandon Cross
Mad Dog Rassitano
Magneta
Stinger/Cassandra "Cassie" Lang
Stormtrooper/Eric Masterson
Thunderstrike/Kevin Masterson
Wild Thing

Teams, Groups, and Gangs

Sons of Serpent/Soldiers of the Serpent

There were many, many other characters that appear in the MC2 who I didn't included in the above list because I only transcribed characters who hadn't appeared anywhere prior to their MC2 appearances. So Phil Urich isn't listed above because he debuted beforehand, meanwhile Normie is listed only as a version of the Green Goblin. Make sense? Good. You'll have noticed a few odd spellings and the occasional character that might not be from the MC2, but I've listed some (such as 'Mary Porker') because I believe they may be typos, misreading or similar mistakes.

The most fascinating discovery was that a character named Reilly Tyne could be used by Sony, so long as he wasn't linked to Darkdevil, and Marvel Studios appears to be able to use the design and name of Darkdevil so long as his secret identity isn't Reilly Tyne. This is attributed to the Daredevil-related elements of the character's super hero identity. Being the son of Ben Reilly -a literal clone of Peter Parker- means he's a Spider-Man character while his super hero moniker, appearance and origin link him to Daredevil as well as Ghost Rider who's film rights were previously held by Sony.  In early versions, Sony Pictures recommended 'Darkdevil' be frozen, likely due to the aforementioned conflict of rights. The use of 'Reilly Tyne as an alias for Darkdevil' appears on the list of 'frozen' characters while 'Darkdevil' appears under 'Marvel Reserved Characters'. Poor Reilly, even in the real world he gets a raw deal, split between so many 'fathers'.

(This might also explain why The Buzz was licenced for the Spider-Man Unlimited mobile game but Darkdevil never appeared, despite actually having spider-powers and being directly related. Not strictly relevant, but I did often wonder!)

It's also worth noting that in earlier versions mentioned above, Meagyn Brady, Magneta and Dragonfist were among the list of characters Sony Pictures wished to have included in their licence agreement, in addition to requesting the spelling of 'Mona Carlo' be corrected. Sony Pictures also felt 'Bluestreak' had 'clear associations with Spider-Man and/or a subsidiary character' enough to request a rationale for exclusion. Regardless, other than Meagyn, all these characters appear on the Schedule 8 list for 'Marvel Reserved Characters'.

It's simple enough to see how and why Stinger, Thunderstrike, Coal Tiger and even Magneta and Dragonfist and other aren't considered a part of the film right for Spider-Man, and are listed as 'Marvel Reserved Characters'. With characters like Hope Van Dyne in the MC2 based on Hope Pym, it's safe to assume the MC2 characters are on the radar for Marvel Studios to mine for future films. My money is on Stinger being the next MC2 character!

I do wonder where a character like Bluestreak falls in the eyes of a legal team. Blue is a former member of the mutant team X-People who first appeared in the Avengers related title A-Next, which is mostly associated with the MC2, primarily known for Spider-Girl, a Spider-Man character. Presumably she counts as either an X-Men character or an Avengers character or both like her predecessor in speed, Quicksilver. This stuff is messy!

The introduction of Spider-Man into Marvel Studios' MCU while Sony Pictures retains several related characters such as Venom for their own 'Sony Marvel Universe' further splits up the available characters within the MC2. For example, would a symbiote character like April Parker aka Mayhem be retained by Sony for their Venom film series or would her clone nature mean she is loaned to MCU?

It would seem that Mayday and her family are all free and clear to appear in a future production (such as a Into The Spider-Verse related movie, for example) but only some of her rogues gallery, supporting cast and fellow heroes are free and clear to make appearances alongside her. Personally, I'd settle for a great Spider-Girl appearance in a future animated film from Sony if it was as well produced as Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse.
I could cover this a bit more in future, if there's any interest. Let me know!

Until I stop being far too excited by legal documents, I remain

frogoat