Dynamic mechanics

I said I’d be getting to actual comics during all this role-playing talk, didn’t I? Here we go.

Spider-Schlep

In one of the letter columns in the late-80s Question, Denny O’Neil refers to Peter Parker as a schlep, and always having been one. That’s Yiddish, and a little confusing because that precise word is a verb meaning to lug something inconvenient, but here, and as I’ve often heard or used it, it’s short for schlepper, meaning an inept, stupid person.

Sense, coincidence, nonsense, and consequence

We’re all grown-ups here, right? Not gonna freak out when I say, all plot is contrivance.

Who I am

This is the fourth and last post for my series on The Amazing Spider-Man #1-100 as a novel.

Jackpot, Tiger

This is the third of four planned posts about Spider-Man as Stan Lee’s novel, running from the original appearance in Amazing Adult Fantasy #15 through Spider-Man #100.

Dark Omen

September is Cosmic Zap month here at Doctor Xaos Comics Madness. Today brings talk of a role-playing session using the game With Great Power … by Mike Miller, which featured Dark Omen, wielder of the Power of Negation, holder of the Eighth Chair, wearer of the Armor of Faces.

Flyin’ high

Here’s what happened: in the course of a series of Spider-Man issues which included more and more youthful voices and more and more explicit political positions, Stan Lee and Gil Kane did a pretty intensive story including street drugs.

Bad guys and bad fathers

I’m on about Stan Lee’s run on Spider-Man as a novel again, for the second of four intended posts. The first one was Today I am a man.

Today I am a man

That’s more than just that tank he lifted.

BONUS POST: Thanks to Markku Tuovinen and his July pledge at the Doctor Xaos Patreon!
So my long-standing claim is that Lee’s run on Spider-Man – technically, Amazing Adult Fantasy #15 and The Amazing Spider-Man #1-100 is a straightforward and excellent novel. This is the first of four planned posts about that.

I, said the Fly

This was real.

Every so often, one can see superhero comics’ heart.

Superhuman endurance

No glamor.

It’s 1966, in The Amazing Spider-Man #33, co-plotted by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko, drawn by Ditko. it’s the third of a three-issue story called “If This Be My Destiny …!” which is so iconic as to have its own detailed Wikipedia page.

What does this power do?

Uh oh.

This is a role-playing post. Flee!