The Amazingly Bombastic Bag-Man

 

Sony’s Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse has released another trailer and with it we got another glimpse of the very tangentially related ‘Bag-Man’ costume which also happens to make a few appearances in the MC2. I have already published posts about Six-Arm Spider-Man and the original Spider-Armor, so be sure to check those out too.

 

Let us take in some context and history, shall we? Full credit goes to Youtubers Jason Lethert (HeroJournalism and Comics2Film) and Chris Baker for doing all the research and making their confessions. I will try to keep It straightforward, but it is all over the place, so strap in. The iconic and well-known iteration of Peter Parker in an old Fantastic Four costume with a paper bag on his head comes from MC2 creators Tom Defalco and Ron Frenz in Amazing Spider-Man #258. Following the discovery that his new black costume was, in fact, an alien symbiote, Peter was left wearing nothing but his underwear until Johnny Storm outfitted him with the aforementioned suit and bag and slapped a ‘Kick Me’ sign to his back.

 

After intervening in a hit and run robbery, Peter finds himself surrounded by news reporters who bombard the humiliated hero with questions. Returning home, Pete catches a news report about his paper bag persona who the press dubs  ‘The Unknown Super-Hero’. As others above have noted, this is a reference to ‘The Unknown Comic,’ a stand-up comedian who frequently appeared on The Gong Show wearing a paper bag over his head.

Now that we have detailed the infamous origin, let us look at a precursor from way back in Amazing Spider-Man #82 by Stan Lee and John Romita Sr. With his Spider-Man costume in desperate need of the local laundromat but worried about onlookers, Peter dons a paper bag mask and swings in to finish his laundry. It is a nice touch from Romita Sr to draw web-shooters on Peter’s wrists, even if the colourist seems to have rendered them the same yellow as Peter’s shirt.

 

The Spider-Man animated show (not to be confused with Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends) which began production in 1981 (though it apparently wasn’t completed or widely aired for some time after) also features an instance of Peter wearing a paper bag mask. In the episode ‘The Sandman is Coming’ written by Jeffrey Scott, Spider-Man finds himself inadvertently unmasked by the villain and uses a paper bag to cover his face as he makes his way home in his Spider-Man suit.

 

Writer J.M. Dematteis and artist Luke Ross give us yet another version of the Bag-Man in Spectacular Spider-Man #256. When confronting the villainous White Rabbit and her goons, Peter is forced to throw together this paper bag mask and shirtless look which he dubs ‘The Bombastic Bag-Man’ before launching into a humorous fictitious origin story for his temporary identity. Dematteis even references ‘The Unknown Comic’ again.

 

Now it is time to look at how the Bag-Man costume made the transition to another medium and probably the one most responsible for propelling this design to wider recognition: video games.  Making its first video game appearance in Activision’s Spider-Man in 2000, the costume is dubbed ‘The Amazing Bag Man’. The Bag-Man would go on to appear in various Spider-Man games from then on, but the question remains, why is the Fantastic Four costume with the paper bag mask called ‘The Bombastic Bag-Man’ nowadays if that nom du jour refers to the Dematteis version?  Well, Chris Baker has the answer.

 

As he explains in a video on his YouTube channel, Chris Baker was working as a Licensed Game Manager for Marvel on game developer Beenox’s Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions in 2010. With the Bag-Man costume, Chris asked them to change the name from whatever name it had originally been given in-game to ‘Bombastic Bag-Man.’ Mr. Baker not only admits his error but points out the actual source of the name, Spectacular Spider-Man #256 while musing what they would call that costume if it appeared alongside the other design in a future game. Games and merchandise since 2010 have often used the ‘Bombastic Bag-Man’ moniker making it widely accepted regardless of accuracy.

 

Now, let us circle back to the MC2 and its own history with the Bag-Man identity. For what might be considered Bag-Man 3.0 or even 4.0 we must look to Spider-Girl #47 in which Peter is visiting the Fantastic Five Headquarters so that Big Brain aka Reed Richards can work on his new bionic leg. When Apox the Omega Skrull destroys the top floors of the building, Peter aids members of the Fantastic Five, his daughter Spider-Girl and the new Scarlet Spider, leaping into battle with a familiar temporary costume courtesy of Johnny Storm aka the Human Torch, albeit this time the trademark paper bag is replaced with a metal helmet belonging to The Thing.

 

This brings us to Spider-Man Family Vol. 1 #1. Therein we have a story (seemingly) set during the mostly unexplored point in time after Baby May is rescued and returned to Peter and Mary Jane Parker by Kaine but before Peter loses his leg in his final battle with Norman Osborn aka the Green Goblin. Lured into a trap by the villain Jack O’ Lantern aka Maguire Beck, Spider-Man meets and teams-up with Araña and her *sidekick* Miguel as they battle a museum room full of Spider-Man robot’s designed to resemble various costumes and points in Peter’s career. Among these we see a robot that appears to be clad in The Unknown Super-Hero costume. This robotic Bag-Man duplicate is destroyed by Spider-Man who alongside Araña and Miguel go on to defeat the mastermind Jack O’ Lantern.

Much like with the case of Six-Arm Spider-Man and the original Spider-Armor there is the lingering question of how Jack O’ Lantern came to know of the connection between Spider-Man and The Unknown Super-Hero given it’s not even spider-themed. I would like to offer a No-Prize explanation. Given the media picked up the story and he was caught on camera, it is not hard to believe there is footage of the Bag-Man crawling up a wall. Thus, Jack O’ Lantern was able to deduce the two were probably one and the same.

 

It is absolutely mind-blowing how much this one-off gag based on a stand-up comedian’s own gag has taken off. It is even more amusing that none of the writers of the Bag-Man appearances seem to have been referencing each other another.

 

Until I wind up in a paper bag with a ‘Kick Me’ sign tapped to my back, I remain

 

frogoat

Baby Mayday in Across the Spider-Verse

 

It is not exactly news now, as I am sure you have already heard or seen it: Baby Mayday is coming to the big screen for the first time in Sony’s Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse. We have seen snippets and glimpses of little Mayday in trailers for the movie, as well seen some officially released concept art.

 

It seems the downtrodden Peter B. Parker who mentored Miles Morales in Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse reconciled with the Mary Jane of his universe and the couple brought the little bundle of joy into the wide world. From concept art we know that this depiction of Mayday has heterochromia and red-hair. We got our first look at Mayday last year around the release of the initial full trailer with this colourful concept art:

 

 

 

In the YouTube Afterparty video following the full trailer, in conversation with Hailee Steinfeld

 Phil Lord and Chris Miller had this to say:

 

"Peter B. Parker is in a family way. Peter got back with Mary Jane and they had a baby named Mayday. She has half spider-blood. Parenting is hard enough when they don't have the ability to stick to walls."

 

With the latest trailers and tv spots we see more of the cutie Mayday, though I do not believe we know who voices her just yet. I am not sure if this adorable baby can talk, but she sure can ‘Coo!’ so someone’s providing those vocalisations. Someone is getting paid to make baby noises, I wonder who?

 

I am very excited for this movie, and not just because of Peter B. and Mary Jane’s bouncing, wall-crawling baby girl, either. The original Into the Spider-Verse film set an exceptionally high bar that I hope this first sequel can reach if not exceed.

 

Until I stop finding babies utterly adorable, which, let’s face it, is impossible, I remain

 

frogoat

William 'Wild Will' Fitzpatrick

 

Here is a quick little post about something not directly related to the MC2 at all, just something I wanted to cover and hopefully break me out of my writer’s block. That said, I am hoping to build this and potentially other related posts into a rather large combined entry in the MC2 Family Tree series. Today, we will be looking at the Marvel character William ‘Wild Will’ Fitzpatrick.

 

You are probably wondering why we are looking at William Fitzpatrick and the answer is two-fold: he is the great-grandfather of May ‘Mayday’ Parker aka Spider-Girl and he has an interesting real-world counterpart. Fitzpatrick makes his first appearance in the Untold Tales of Spider-Man #-1, part of Marvel’s ‘Flashback’ month which saw many of their titles switch to a minus issue set in the past. Given that Untold Tales of Spider-Man was already set in the past, this issue goes back to the days of Peter’s parents, Richard and Mary Parker on a fateful mission during which we flashback even further to glimpse Mary as a young girl with her father, William ‘Wild Will’ Fitzpatrick.

 

Not only do we learn a little more about Mary, such as her maiden surname Fitzpatrick and her aptitude for learning, we learn that Mary’s mother died while very young leaving Will as her only parent. We also learn that ‘Wild Will’ was part of the O.S.S. or Office of Strategic Services which was an American intelligence agency during World War II. This organisation was dissolved and shortly after replaced by the Central Intelligence Agency, where later Mary Fitzpatrick would work as a translator and data analyst and, after meeting Richard Parker, a field agent (Untold Tales of Spider-Man #-1).

The Marvel Appendix entry for Mary Parker and ‘Wild Will’ Fitzpatrick notes that the Marvel Sliding Timescale may soon render William’s status as active during WWII as an O.S.S. operative pretty unbelievable if he’s the father of Mary and the grandfather of Peter Parker, if the latter exists in the modern era. As they point out, Will may have been older when Mary was born which, for now, is as good an explanation as any, especially considering he dies while Mary is still relatively young. Regardless, as an MC2-focused blog, we have an additional fourth generation to take into account between the 1940’s and the present day.

 

William ‘Wild Will’ Fitzpatrick is based on the real-world American soldier, lawyer, intelligence officer and diplomat William Joseph “Wild Bill” Donovan who is best known for serving as the head of the Office of Strategic Services during World War II and is regarded as the founding father of the Central Intelligence Agency. The minus issue of Untold Tales of Spider-Man was written by Roger Stern and he would re-use ‘Wild Will’ in another story that firmly ties the character to the Second World War.

 

In 1998’s Marvel Universe #1 we have a story set during World War II, specifically 1945 wherein William Fitzpatrick works alongside Robert Frank aka The Whizzer to interview various people about the character and loyalties of members of the superhero team The Invaders including Namor the Sub-Mariner, the original Human Torch and Captain America. Following this, ‘Wild Will’ Fitzpatrick tasks the group with a secret mission involving Hydra.

 

 While it is not confirmed, I would like to suggest that the Intelligence agent seen in Marvel Universe #3 is also intended to be Fitzpatrick, given his appearance (aside from the miscoloured hair) and attire appear similar.

 

There’s not a huge wealth of stories to delve into here but I wanted to do this post because I think what we do get about Fitzpatrick tells us volumes, and by extension we gain a better understanding of Mary Parker. The heroic traits, intelligence, and wherewithal on display from father to daughter mirrors some aspects we see in Peter and his daughter Mayday’s relationship.

 

Until I remember where I left my notes for the next post, I remain

 

frogoat

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A-Next Infinity Comic Review

 

It looks like 2023 is a good year for MC2 fans, with Cassie Lang suiting up (still without a codename) in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, Aftershock appearing as the first antagonist in Disney’s animated Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur show, and now we have been graced with a brand-new two-part A-Next story in the digital pages (or should I say panels?) of Avengers Unlimited Infinity Comic #37-#38. I want to give a quick review of this story.

 

Exclusive to the Marvel Unlimited digital comics subscription service, this two issue A-Next tale was brought to us by MC2 co-creators Tom Defalco and Ron Frenz with inks by the brilliant Brett Breeding, colours by the colossal Chris Sotomayor and loving lettering by Joe Sabino. The first instalment opens in ‘a future…which may or may not be our own’ with J2 telling Bluestreak about the unseen events on Asgard alluded to way back in A-Next #1. First recapping the events of the aforementioned first issue of A-Next, impeccably recreated by Ron Frenz, Bluestreak demands further details of J2 when he mentions a feast and another fight (Avengers Unlimited Infinity Comic #37).

 

It is nice to discover that Jolt and Stinger enjoy a good party. Feeling humiliated in front of Loki, Tyrus the Terrible leads a group of trolls in ambushing Thunderstrike and J2 for a rematch. But after a brief battle, the trolls flee when confronted by the assembled soon-to-be Avengers alongside Thor, though still threatening revenge. J2 finishes his recollection, doubting Tyrus is dumb enough to return after two embarrassing defeats. However, a portal opens and a hand emerges within Avengers Compound through the framed picture of those early A-Nexters (Avengers Unlimited Infinity Comic #37).

 

The following issue brings us back to the MC2’s present where the previous one left off as we see the Uru Monster named Uroc emerge from the portal alongside a horde of rock trolls led by Tyrus who wields ‘The Orb of Orikal,’an artifact which attracts and absorbs Uru energy. Bluestreak and J2 battle the trolls alone before being joined by Sabreclaw and the rest of the Avengers. Among the rock trolls is Maroc aka ‘Granny,’ the elderly grandmother of Uroc responsible for transporting them to the Avengers Compound (Avengers Unlimited Infinity Comic #38).

 

When the Orb is activated, it begins to pull in Thunderstrike until Stinger suggests he overload it with his blasts which causes the artifact to explode and knock down Tyrus. With their leader down, Uroc demands Granny return them to Asgard. Granny Mardoc does so, chastising them all and suggesting they instead focus on mining and crafting rather than seek pointless revenge. Bluestreak tells J2 that he knows ‘how to show a girl a good time’ before kissing him on the cheek (Avengers Unlimited Infinity Comic #38).

 

Some genuinely wonderful stuff here. I am probably just a smidge biased but it is delightful seeing Tom and Ron seamlessly slide back into the MC2 and deliver a brand-new story. A few points I found interesting: the Orb (and its namesake Orikal) first appeared way back in Thor #138. Uroc, the Uru Monster makes his MC2 debut after being first introduced by Tom Defalco and Mike Mignola in the pages of Thor #408. Granny Mardoc is also apparently a familial relation of Uroc, and mentions she granted Uroc his Uru form and healed his past injuries. Notably, Uroc here has a new and familiar looking left hand, which references his previous limb being destroyed in Thor #450 by the special police unit Code: Blue and acts as a dual reference to Mignola’s most well-known creation Hellboy who has a ‘Right Hand of Doom’.  

 

In addition to the familiar relation between Uroc and Granny Mardoc, we also learn that Tyrus is the son of Ulik, a mainstay of Thor’s rogues gallery and who showed up in the Avengers Next mini-series working alongside Sylene, the daughter of Loki. It is a nice piece of continuity that father and son troll worked opposite daughter and father Asgardian, respectively. Tyrus also spoke of regaining the good graces of his Lord Loki, perhaps suggesting Loki returned from Limbo or that Tyrus does not know of Loki’s fate. The first time we encountered Tyrus was as an alternate future version opposing the Dargo Ktor in Thor #384, wherein he is apparently missing an eye which is echoed here when the Orb explodes.

Finally, Ron Frenz managed the nigh-impossible task of connecting the Troll dolls of the 80’s to the orange-skinned rock trolls of Marvel by way of Granny Mardoc’s appearance. Thanks to Mr Frenz for clarifying a comment he made on the Make Mine Mayday podcast regarding this. *An additional thanks to Ron Frenz for clarifying and correcting the original version of this post*

 

I was very pleased with this short story, it managed to fill a long-existing gap between panels in A-Next #1 and provided us a glimpse at the Avengers team in the MC2’s present at the same time. Now we’ve gotten essentially A-Next #½, I’m hoping someday we’ll get the inevitable A-Next #1½ story which details events surrounding Jolt, Jubilee and Speedball returning to the Avengers Compound during Peter Parker’s visit in What If #105. Come on, you know you wanna do it, guys! I am guessing Crimson Curse was not a member anymore since she’s…. you know…probably dead again following the 2015 Secret Wars event.

 

Until every gap in the MC2’s storied history is filled, I happily remain

 

frogoat