Celebrating Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man Trilogy

It’s been a busy few years for Spider-Man cinematically.  Peter Parker swung into the Marvel Cinematic Universe in 2016’s Captain America: Civil War with Tom Holland wearing the webs.  In 2017 he had his solo MCU debut, Spider-Man: Homecoming.  This April he suited up next to the Avengers and Guardians to battle the Mad Titan and his Black Order in Avengers: Infinity War.  And Friday Sony releases their animated Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse with Jake Johnson as Peter Parker – and far more excitingly – Shameik Moore as Miles Morales and Hailee Steinfeld as Gwen Stacy!!!  So it’s easy to forget where Spider-Man’s modern movie career began.  We, as a culture, tend to proclaim each new incarnation as “the best [fill-in-the-blank] ever!”  While I enjoy Tom Holland as Spider-Man and I can’t wait to see Into the Spider-Verse, as far as I’m concerned NO ONE’s come close to capturing who Spider-Man really is more than Sam Raimi with Spider-Man (2002) and Spider-Man 2 (2004).  Even after all this time, his Spider-Man Trilogy can stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the best of the MCU.

The First Wedding I Ever Attended

It’s Throwback Thursday time again and this week I’m feeling extra nostalgic.  You see, tomorrow is my birthday (which I LOVE; I’m not a hate-your-birthday kind of guy).  I’ve actually been thinking a lot about my return to this love of comic collecting and how, as an adult, I can now experience new layers to stories I first read as a kid.  My nostalgia led me to pull some old favorites out of the closet and revisit the first wedding I ever attended – the wedding of Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson!

A Lifelong Love Affair with Spider-Man

The costume was more exciting than any of the others.  He was funny – equal parts heroic and hilarious.  His powers came from this awesome mix of accidental mutation and his own ingenuity.  He was the underdog, occasionally on the superhero/super villain battle scene but always struggling to make ends meet and balance his own life.  He stood up for the little guy, protecting his neighborhood and leaving the world/cosmos saving exploits (most of the time) to the other guys.  He experienced incredible loss…but let it teach him.  He held tight to a moral code that was nonnegotiable – with great power, comes great responsibility.  I’m not sure which of these first drew little four-year-old Michael to the amazing Spider-Man but I have loved him for over thirty years now.  This is perhaps my most personal post yet, the story of why Spider-Man has always stood above all other superheroes for me.