It's the selling shoelaces that got me.
And now, a Moment of Comic Book Greatness! From Amazing Spider-Man #4:
Here's something I just don't think would have worked in a thousand years, as Peter encounters the Sandman for the second time, also in Amazing Spider-Man #4:
Okay, we all know the Sandman could rip right through that vacuum cleaner in two seconds. Why he just sits in there and waits for the police, I don't know. Maybe he's like a parakeet, in that he gets all docile when he's encased in a dark environment. If that's the case, anyone who encountered the Sandman in the future probably could have saved themselves a lot of trouble just by draping a sheet over his head.
From the very beginning, Peter had his moral stumbles. He supposedly learned about "great responsibility" after Uncle Ben was killed by the burglar Peter failed to stop earlier. But apparently, Peter still had his flaws:
Hmmmmmm.... no, I think staging a photo is pretty unethical, no matter how close in time and/or place you might have been to the event you are fraudulently passing off.
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17 comments:
My personal favorite is in issue 9, when he fakes photos to prove that he's Electro, just 'cause he really needs the money!
Wow, you are really getting nit picky on this stuff mang. If he fills the whole bag and there is other debris in there with him then he wouldn't be able to move around to break out of anything especially because he would be stuck in sand mode.
As far as faking the photos, he did do those things. I think he deserves abit of leeway being that he risked his life to stop a hardened superpowered criminal. The worse thing that will happen about the fake pix is that someone might have to sweep up some sand.
"I think staging a photo is pretty unethical, no matter how close in time and/or place you might have been to the event you are fraudulently passing off."
You're not keeping track of what passes for "journalism" these days... :-(
Imagine if Peter had PhotoShop in 1963!
And, for the record, I agree with MarvelX42.
At least Peter's not trying to rewrite history.
What I do find surprising is that Steve Ditko, with his adherence to Ayn Rand's Objectivism, would have drawn (and probably plotted) that particular sequence.
Mr A would not have done it...
One more point about superhero ethics; how many times have those "paragons of virtue", Superman and Batman, faked evidence or outright lied to protect their secret identities?
Okay, Adam, here's where I call 'shenanigans' on YOU:
For two posts this week you've been tut-tutting the Elongated Man because he stretches things that humans can't normally stretch, like knuckles and noses. Right?
But NOW you're complaining because Sandman in his sand-form can't rip through a vaccum-bag. I actually don't remember if it's metal or canvas, but even if it's the latter, that *might* be hard for an average guy to rip his way out of from the inside.
I call 'shenanigans' because I think *you're* giving Sandman more power than he had at the time. Sandman wasn't super-strong then, as a lot of Kirby stories make him seem; he could just turn rock-hard. Being "hard" may be good for a lot of things (har), but not for busting out of vaccum-bags.
Wow! Is Spider-Man a sacred cow or something? I didn't realize I was taking a whiz on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier here. ;-)
Of course, I have no intention of stopping. If I did, we wouldn't have much of a blog, would we?
"I didn't realize I was taking a whiz on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier here. ;-)"
Depends on if it's the Golden Age, Bronze Age, or any of several current Unknown Soldiers (depending on which incarnation is currently in favor at DC)! ;-)
Hey--I thought it was funny. The thing is, as goofy as those early Spider-Mans were, they're still not as goofy as the stuff you usually lampoon. I admire your bravery, though, tackling Spidey.
Now you have me thinking about Elongated Man fighting Sandman. Thanks.
Now you have me thinking about becoming a street shoelace vendor. I mean, look at the potential market: how many times have you been out and about and broken a shoelace, and realized that you would have to walk around with one shoe flopping off your foot until you could getto your emergency shoelace stash at home, or even to your nearest shoelace retailer? OK, probably not very many, but imagine the convenience if there were someone nearby selling shoelaces out of a tray. I bet you'd be willing to pay a hefty markup for such a service!
My God, does Aunt May know how to lay on the guilt or what? Peter is simply putty in her wizened old hands.
My grandfather who recently died was present at the raising of the flag at Iwo Jima. That photograph was "staged" even though it had happened in reality just moments earlier. Noone derides that as being unethical.
And Elongated Man couldn't do that? Well, uhm didn't he JUST do it? Which means he can?
I am wondering, where did Aunt May get the shoelaces to begin with? Did she have abunch of shoelaces sitting in the house? I mean I always wonder where homeless people get the materials for their signs. Cardboard wouldn't be to hard to come by I guess, but a functioning marker? I think I am in tangent town now.
Well, there's something I never in my life wanted to see: the back of J. Jonah Jameson's naked legs. Could be worse I suppose. Imagine if J. Jonah wasn't wearing those boxers. On second thought, don't imagine that. *shudder*
At first I was prepared to justify Pete's photo fakery, as I thought the expectation was he'd lose his job without the pics. But when he admits that he's just doing it for the extra dough, well that's a bit less defensible.
I always heard the Iwo Jima flag raising wasn't staged. Did your grandfather say it was staged?
It is sort of complicated. There were actually afew different flags raised that day. It is too complicated to go into here. Suffice to say that the famous picture is not a picture of the original flag that was originally raised. Then there was another photo know as the "gung ho" which is a different photo all together which was "staged" (sorta) but that wasn't of the raising.
I'm not sure if Ditko had become a hardcore Objectivist at the time he drew this strip. In any case, while I have no idea if Ditko or Lee planned it from the start, but particularly over the course of the first 33 issues of Spider-Man we see his gradual maturation from the geeky, well-meaning but flawed adolescent hero into the more mature & responsible adult hero. To my knowledge, no previous superhero had undergone such a change.
As for ol' Flint Marko, hey, give the guy a break, he was stunned senseless by the sheer audacity of a costumed nut coming at him with a vacuum cleaner! You can bet he never related this embarassing incident to the Wizard or Paste Pot Pete. He soooo longed to become a Jack Kirby villain with a neato costume and the extra oomph in power to take on the FF singlehandedly!
I sat through "Flags of Our Fathers," now that you mention it, and that showed them having all kinds of angst over the alleged "staging" of the Iwo Jima photo. Personally, I'm not a fan of passing anything off as real when it isn't. It's fine if it's a staging, like the "Crossing the Delaware" painting, but I don't like being flim-flammed.
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