"Does Whatever a Multi-Million Dollar Summer Blockbuster Can"

...and "Spider-man 2" is going to be a big hit; but, we already knew that it would be.

Personally, I'm not a big fan of Spider-man these days and haven't been one since the 1960's. I was a great follower of Steve Ditko's work on the comic book and even after he left as artist and co-writer I followed the title well up past #100 when Gil Kane was handling the art chores and fans were treated to stories of him having 6 arms, meeting Morbius the Living Vampire, going to The Hidden land and meeting Ka-Zar and the Death of Gwen Stacy and The Green Golbin, but lost interest soon afterwards with Doc Octopus attempting to marry Aunt May, "The Spider-Mobile" and the original clone saga.

Some years back I picked up on the book again when he changed to a black costume and the Venon character was introduced, but my renewed interest didn't last very long and when the clone sage was RE-introduced, Aunt May died and then Marvel began this up-dated version, well, that pretty much spelled the end of me ever wanting to keep up with him.

The first Spider-man movie was "okay". Can't say I cared for things like an armored Green Goblin or revisions to Uncle Ben's death; thought they were as unnecessary as changing the name of the wrestler from Spidr-man's original origin. Neither did I like putting Mary Jane Watson in the "Gwen Stacy Bridge Death" scenario. I guess the best thing I liked about the movie was the credit finally given to Steve Ditko. But forgetting all I ever knew about the character beforehand and trying to watch it "cold" and take it as 2 hours of entertainment, I liked it as well or better than say, the first time I ever saw the 1989 "Batman" flick or the first Chris Reeve "Superman" film.

In the Marvel movie fare I've thought the X-men flicks were probably the best written. I can't resist watching Patrick Stewart as Prof. X ('Course, I'll watch just about anything Stewart's in since I like him as an actor).

Spider-man 2 will, of course, be the biggest box office hit (so far) money-wise for Marvel of any of their comic book character adaptations, and I'm sure they need another hit after such flicks as The Punisher and (the somewhat disapointing) Incredible Hulk.

Probably over at D.C. Comics (or,Warner Bros.,these days) they are carefully watching and weighing Marvel's various success stories of the cinema before wading back into the water with new character adaptations of their own produced in the "blockbuster" style.