Spider-Man harasses the people of Poland

When J. Jonah Jameson sees this, he's going to have a field day.

I'm a bad father

My 2 year old came up to me today. There were three comic books sitting nearby. She pointed at the one I had in my hand and said, "That's Spider-Man."

I was shocked. I couldn't remember showing her anything about Spider-Man.

I held up a picture of Superman. "Do you know who this is?"

 She said, "Dunno."

 I showed her a picture of Batman. "Do you know who this is?"

"Dunno."

It's time to set up a superhero classroom around here.

Dreaming of super powers

The other night I had a dream that my super powers finally kicked in. I felt relieved rather than surprised.

I knew intuitively that I should keep them a secret. Super strength was the first thing to kick in and kept asking, "Where's my spider sense? When I will be able to crawl on walls?" But no dice. Only super strength.

Then this weird guy with long, stringy hair started hanging around all the time, trying to take pictures of me. He kept asking me if I had powers and I kept telling him now... right up until the time he hit me with a car and pinned me to the pavement with his car. My upper torso was sticking out from under the driver's side of his car. He rolled down his window and said, "Are you sure you don't have any powers?"

"That's it," I said, and then I yanked myself out from under the car, crumpled the car door with my bare hands, yanked it off and then grabbed the guy and threw him over the building in front of us. I figured that was the last of him.

But then, when I was at my friend's party a couple of days later, he showed up and got a picture of me with some weird camera. I could tell it was sending the information somewhere else, not just a local camera (Spider-sense?). He gave me a creepy grin and he said, "I have powers, too. You're going to have do more than throw me over a building."

Then I woke up.

Next time I see that guy, I promise you, he's going to get more than thrown over a building. I'm not going to wait around and ask him questions, either. That guy is officially banned from my interacting in my dream time.

What if Wes Anderson wrote and directed the new Spider-Man movie?

Then I guess I would go see it. Try to deny that this is awesome:

Spider-Man's blog

You guys. Peter Parker has a blog, which, frankly, wouldn't be all that interesting if we didn't already know that he's the spectacular Spider-Man.

But check out this hidden page on the blog.

This is, of course, viral marketing for the upcoming Spider-Man movie. I trust you just caught the virus.

Important Spider-Man trivia to keep you safe from rabid Spider-Man Grammar Police

What with the new Spider-Man movie coming out, there are a lot of people talking about our friendly neighborhood Webhead. Since I care about YOU, the potentially brand-new-to-Spider-Man reader here at BHR, I thought it would be important to point out this little bit of punctuation-related trivia about Spider-Man's name: his name is Spider-hyphen-Man. Spider-Man. Not Spiderman. And if you get it wrong, geeks across the internet will make fun of you. Comics geeks and grammar geeks and (gasp of horror) Comics-Grammar-Geeks. The sort of people who like to write blog posts that say, "I found a mistake on the Internet."

 I know, I know, this probably shakes your world to the core and has you wondering, "What about Bat-Man or Super-Man? How deep does this particular grammar hole go?" Allow Geekdom to help you with this lovely piece of art from Cathy Leamy:

Why is this important now? Because this July Hollywood is re-setting the Spider-Man franchise with a new movie, starting out at the beginning with young Peter Parker in high school and his (original) girlfriend Gwen Stacy back in the picture. It actually looks pretty good. Check it out:

The name game

You may have heard that UK youth George Garratt has changed his name to Captain Fantastic Faster Than Superman Spiderman Batman Wolverine The Hulk And The Flash Combined.

Let us think about this critically. First of all, the Flash is clearly the fastest hero in this list, despite the occasional farcical race in which Superman ties him (yes, that's right, I am referring to Superman #199 and Flash #175). Let's be honest, here, the Barry Allen Flash could run at speeds approaching the speed of light... so that's pretty fast. Superman is a close second. However, Batman is an ordinary human being. So his speed would drastically lower the average. In fact, none of the others can come remotely near the speed of light. If we combined these six heroes together they would scarcely be able to break the sound barrier.

I will mention, however, that I had a small white stuffed cat in high school that we named using the same technique that Captain Fantastic Faster than Superman Spiderman Batman Wolverine The Hulk And The Flash Combined used. His name was Lyle Kyle Roscoe Shane Fuzzy Thing Jelly Doughnut Bat-cat Psycho Brain Gush.

P.S. Poor Captain Fantastic spelled his own name wrong. It's "Spider-Man" not "Spiderman." That's just sad for him.

Free Comic Book Day

This Saturday is Free Comic Day.

You just walk in and pick up your free comics. It's a great way to get a couple of free reads. Of course the plan (like any addictive substance) is that you'll get hooked and keep coming back for more.

I put a picture of one of the free comics on the side here in case, for instance, you happened to be looking at BHR one day and your son (who is too young to watch Spider-Man) happened to see pictures of Jesus and Spider-Man together and tried to convince you that meant he should be allowed to watch it. Now you can go get this comic FOR FREE and then hand it over.

NOTE TO PARENTS: If you have young kids, I'd suggest you read the comics before giving them to your kids. I personally always liked it when my dad read my comics. Now if I find a good one I let him read it when I'm done.

ANOTHER NOTE: If you're in the San Francisco Bay Area be sure to head over to Flying Colors Comics (my former workplace) to snag your free comics, and be sure to say hello to all my buddies there.

Spider-Man and Jesus

I watched Spider-Man 2 tonight, since Krista is still out of town. I always liked the movie, I think it is certainly the best of the three Spider-Man movies. I tried to explain to people the deep spiritual significance I found in the film at the time, and most people gave me blank stares.


I even tried to explain the Christ parallels, and again, most people didn't seem to get what I was saying. I wrote a paper about it in one of my seminary classes (about Spider-Man progressing through the "Stations of the Cross" during one portion of the movie), but I think what was more compelling than anything I wrote was the pictures.