The Marvel Team-Up you NEVER expected: RiffTrax: Spider-Man 3

Mike Nelson, formerly of Mystery Science Theatre 3000, continues to provide smart-alec commentary to films at RiffTrax, where you can buy MST3K-style mp3 commentary tracks to play along with your own DVD's at home.

On some of the tracks he's accompanied by either some of his former MST3K alumni, or special celebrity guests. But I never expected this:

The biggest Spiderman movie of 2007 is now the biggest Spiderman-based Rifftrax of 2008! All your favorite characters return (Hoffman, Mr. Ditkovich, Ursula) and new favorites join in the fun (Crane Operator, Emergency Room Doctor, Kid in Central Park)!

And joining Mike is writer/ newspaperman/ radio guy/ blogger extraordinaire/ podcaster/ best-selling author and uber-fan of the Spiderman series James Lileks! Just what will his reaction be when he sees what they've done to his beautiful series? Will he freak out and begin hitting Mike with a folding chair? Yes, he did, but we edited that out of this ArachnaRiffic Rifftrax and left only the funny!

(emphasis mine)

Let the Riffing (and the Bleating) begin!

You can buy the RiffTrax here.

You can (and should) read James daily at his blog, The Bleat.

Is that your Spider-Sense tingling, or are you just happy to see me?

In the Seventies, Marvel Comics and Planned Parenthood teamed up for a mini-comic.

I presume Planned Parenthood either paid Marvel to do this, or Marvel did it as a charitable write off. I doubt that any serious thought or concern went into the story. I'd bet that Marvel wanted to avoid any blunt talk about sex, pregnancy, and protection, so the message about the importance of getting good information about such issues was squeezed into two very awkward pages, that make the villain look like the bearer of a straw man argument.

The misinformation that the villain gives seems crafted so that it doesn't come across as a social conservative or liberal. Instead he looks like a nut, vaguely promoting careless sex, and saying that getting pregnant is no big deal. What the heck kind of agenda is this? W.T.F.?

It's pretty sad, considering how Spider-Man handled the issue of drug use in a much more mature, logical, and dramatic fashion in his regular book in the same era.

For one of comic's better attempts at Sex Ed issues, there was Vertigo's Death Talks About Life from the early Nineties. Then again, it was not a story, but fictional characters talking directly to the audience about AIDS prevention. No tap-dancing around the issue: Just the facts, with a light touch of humor.

(via Ed Driscoll)