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

Spider-Man 2099 in the MC2?!

 

The release of Sony’s Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse is upon us and with it we will get to see Miguel O’Hara make his first full appearance on the big screen following his cameo teaser in the end credits of 2018’s Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. I am very excited for this and so today I wanted to look at how Spider-Man 2099 and the MC2 are connected. I’ve already written individual posts about Six-Arm Spider-Man, the original Spider-Armor and the Bombastic Bag-Man so be sure to give those a read too.

 

First, some context, as always! Spider-Man 2099 first appeared in Spider-Man 2099 #1 (unless you want to count a preview of that issue in Amazing Spider-Man #365) and was created by writer Peter David and penciller Rick Leonardi with MC2-alumni Al Williamson on inking duties. On Earth-928 in the year 2099, the brilliant scientist named Miguel O’Hara worked as project head for the megacorporation Alchemax’s genetics program. After being forced into a human trial of his work results in the test subject dying, Miguel attempts to quit Alchemax in protest, but is poisoned with the addictive Alchemax-distributed drug called Rapture by his boss Tyler Stone to ensure he remained with the company.

 

 As Rapture bonds to a person genetically, it leaves a person permanently addicted. Miguel breaks into his Alchemax lab and attempts to restore his genetic code using the blueprint of it he had on file. However, his disgruntled co-worker Aaron Delgato tampers with the equipment causing O’Hara’s genetic code to be combined with the genetic code of a spider Miguel had been researching earlier in hopes of endowing humans with extra abilities like the ‘Heroic Age’ figure, Spider-Man (Spider-Man 2099 #1).

  Aaron dies following an ensuing explosion and Miguel learns he has gained spider-powers while escaping the Public Eye. With the aid of torn ‘light byte’ cloth from a ‘skysail’ gifted by a Thorite (a believer in the second-coming of Thor) and an old black and red Day of the Dead costume made from unstable molecule fabric, O’Hara fashions a disguise to throw Alchemax’s cyborg tracker Venture off his trail as he back-tracks through his apartment. After a chase across the city of Nueva York, Miguel as Spider-Man is captured but manages to free himself using his talons and battles Venture, discovering his ability to produce webbing and in the process defeating the bounty hunter. Thus, the year 2099 gained its own Spider-Man (Spider-Man 2099 #2-#3).

 

In Spider-Man 2099 Meets Spider-Man, a special one-shot story, Miguel O’Hara finds himself unexpectedly transported to the present day, waking up next to Mary Jane Parker. Meanwhile Peter Parker finds himself in Nueva York in 2099 evading the Public Eye before battling the Vulture of 2099. Miguel learns thanks to a trip to the Daily Bugle that he ended up in this time as a result of the small company Fujikawa (in O’Hara’s time known as Stark-Fujikawa) demonstrating a new energy source, temporal energy, which will lead to the end of the Heroic Age with the heroes of Peter’s time vanishing mysteriously.

 

 Meanwhile, with the help of Miguel’s brother Gabriel, Peter learns the centre of technology and research in Nueva York is the Alchemax Building and decides to start his search for a way home there. After a proper conversation with Mary Jane, on his way to the source of energy waves only perceptible to his accelerated vision, Miguel is waylaid by a fight with Eddie Brock aka Venom.

 

With both men reaching the source of the temporal energy waves, the two Spider-Men finally meet one another. Finding themselves in a desolate future landscape, they encounter the Hobgoblin of the year 2211 who attacks the two heroes with Retcon Bombs, intending to erase them from the time stream, only to be thwarted by the Spider-Man of 2211. As they are being sent back to their own times, Miguel and Peter tell each other they became Spider-Man because they had to, with Miguel adding he was partly inspired by Peter, in much the same way Peter was by his Uncle Ben. With the day saved, Miguel discovers that history seemingly has not changed, but the date the heroes vanished in the past is no longer recorded and now no one remembers it. Peter reunites with Mary Jane, telling her he knows his actions affects and inspires people who are not even born yet.

 

Now, how does all this have any bearing on the MC2? Well, we know for sure these events transpired in the past of the MC2’s Peter Parker thanks to an unlikely source; 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 variety of museum like room full of Spider-Man robot’s designed to resemble various costumes and points in Peter’s career. Among these we see a robot Spider-Man   in Miguel O’Hara’s Spider-Man 2099 costume. This robotic Spider-Man 2099 duplicate is destroyed by Spider-Man who alongside Araña and (the other) Miguel go on to defeat the mastermind Jack O’ Lantern.

 

Much like with the case of Six-Arm Spider-Man, the original Spider-Armor and the Bag-Man there is the lingering question of how Jack O’ Lantern came to know of the connection between Spider-Man and the Spider-Man 2099 costume given it’s not particularly spider-themed. The answer is fairly straightforward. Given the fact O’Hara spent a decent amount of time at the Daily Bugle and openly announced he was Spider-Man from the year 2099 to a room full of reporters, it is not hard to believe that word got out, even if it was distorted. Thus, Jack O’ Lantern incorrectly assumed the two were the same person.

Unless I’m mistaken, the Spider-Man 2099 Meets Spider-Man story is the first instance of a legacy Spidey character meeting their namesake (and no, I’m not counting clones as legacy characters). This may also be the beginning of the ‘Spider-Verse’ concept as it is known today.

 

Until I miss out on seeing Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse on opening day due to a temporal anomaly, I remain

 

frogoat