Spider-Man 3 – The Review of the Century!

Hi! So today I’m going to talk a bit about my feelings on Spider-Man 3. Almost all of Phi Delta Theta fraternity went to the IMAX with me on midnight opening night and it was a fantastic time. We all got pretty good seats and the theater was totally packed with Spidey Fans. All in all it was a pretty awesome night but thats not what I’m here to talk about. I’m here to review Spider-Man 3 the movie.

Before I get started, lemme give a little background information. I HATE it when people give really critical and negative reviews not because I don’t like to hear it but rather because it seems so pointless to give out a blanket statement that the masses are supposed to read and take into account when deciding to see a movie. Movies are kind of like music in some respects, how the heck are you supposed to review something when everyone on earth is going to have a completely different feeling and background going in? I guess it’s tough but a necessary thing.

Anyhow, I believe MY opinion in particular matters when it comes to a Spider-Man review because I have loved Spider-Man ever since I was a tiny kid. When it comes to comic movies a lot of non-readers look to me for my interest level in order to determine how excited they themselves should be. In other words, comic fans are thought/opinion leaders when it comes to comic related movies. With that being said, this is my OPINION on the movie.

Spider-Man, unlike X-Men maintained a fantastic director throughout the trilogy and has long been praised as the best comic book movie series in the history of comic movies. I tend to agree with this as Spider-Man focuses on the individual man’s struggles in the everyday world (paying taxes, girlfriend issues, school etc) so more people can relate to it. So without further Adieu (or however u spell that) I give you my review of Spider-Man 3 (SPOILER ALERT)…

Google Adsense…

Lately I have been doing a lot of reading, researching, and even a little experimenting with a certain Google product/service called Google Adsense.

For those of you who’ve never heard of it, it is essentially an advertising program and combined with it’s other half, adwords, and Google’s ever popular search engine, they form the perfect TRIFECTA. It is, in my humble opinion, the perfect business model and absolutely ingenious.

To try an explain in pure layman’s terms would be very tedious so I will craft a fictional scenario that will paint a picture for you of the TRIFECTA! Here goes:

Austin, is a web publisher, he runs a website for the purpose of spreading a message that he cares deeply about, say, the preservation of the American comic book as part of American culture. He pays for a server and hosts his files and images and writes articles and updates his page. He has a following of people who agree wholeheartedly with his cause, as well as thousands of people who stumble upon the site from searching for words like Comics, or Marvel or DC. Unfornately, however, Austin is running out of money and as much as he cares for the topic, he cant afford the server costs of xx a month.

Jerry, is an avid comic book collector who owns his own comic store in Florida. He does pretty well there and he’s got a good base of customers. However, he’s a business man at heart and he knows he’s not going to get rich doing this, and all the overhead of inventory and fluctuating demand on comic books is often leaving him with excess inventory of comics and other collectibles. He wants to sell it all so he can expand his store and maybe even start a chain.

Google, is a multi-billion dollar company that runs one of the highest volume (traffic volume that is) search engines in the world. And in case you didn’t notice, search engines are what everyone uses to navigate the madness we call the internet.

And FINALLY You, are just a person, browsing the web, looking for stuff that interests you and in this case you are one of the millions of people that like comics.

Lets see how it goes down.

Austin and Jerry, through Googles efforts in marketing both hear about Adsense and adwords respectively. Austin, a web publisher goes with adsense since he has a website that gets traffic. Jerry goes with adwords since he wants to start a website to sell his excess inventory and such but has no experience with online marketing and has no idea on how to get traffic to his site. How can he sell if no one knows about his page?

Moments pass… Jerry now has a rudimentary website up and running and has bought the following keywords though adwords, comics, Marvel, DC, Spider-Man, wolverine, and other such keywords.  Austin, whos website is already getting traffic for people searching those terms will place adsense ads on his webpage. This means that austins webpage now has advertisements on it. Not annoying flashy ones you see in places like myspace and such though. They are just plain text, they are informative and they fit in with the rest of the site. All done.

Now whenever people search for any of those keywords, marvel, dc, comics, wolverine, spider-man, they will get austin’s page, and upon going in there see Jerry’s ads, and maybe if they are interested, click on it, jerry pays google XX cents for each visitor this way and google pays austin xx-x cents for each person austins page sends to jerrys page. With thousands of visitors austins making hundreds of dollars, googles making a few bucks (but hey they’ve got millions of people making a few bucks for them), and jerry’s paying hundreds of dollars; but selling thousands of comics!

It sure sounds like everyone benefits huh? Yes its true, they all do. All three of them, or should I say, all TRI of them.

Thank you.

The MARVEL Civil War?

Last Tuesday, I decided not to go straight home after work and decided instead to stop by the local comic book store at the UW. Zanadu Comics. I kindly informed the store owner that I had been out of touch with comics for a long time and that I’d like to get back into a few storylines, if there were any good ones that weren’t too far developed yet. He noted my X-men Tshirt and proceeded to recommend me a new Universe wide story arc in the Marvel Universe known as, the Civil War.

For those of you who don’t know me, I love comics. For those of you who do know me, you probably know I love comics. Particularly the Marvel Universe and specifically the X-men and Spider Man. My favorite characters are Wolverine (typical), spidey, Colossus, Juggernaut and pretty much everyone else. Some of my favorite baddies are Dr. Doom and Magneto.

Anyways, getting back to business: The Civil War begins when congress (the fictional version of course) passes a law in response to a severe disaster that happened after a group of rookie heroes, hoping to boost the ratings of their own reality TV show. Several hundred people were killed in an enormous explosion, including over 200 children (elementary school nearby). Congress passes a law that says all superhumans (people with powers or abilities beyond the average person [includes punisher and daredevils]) must register as agents of the government. they would have to make known their secret identities, become subject to government provided training, but most importantly, operate as one united front of heroes. This obviously doesnt sount too bad, what what if you take into account some of the rivalries amongst the heroes? Some of the hatreds? Wolverine is a murderer. Several other heroes are former Villans. Hell even spider-man has never been the jewel of the public eye. What if their identities are public and their family members become targets of the “bad guys”?

 

Essentially, the Marvel Universe becomes split in two. Half for this new law, and half against it. Captain America goes AWOL and leads the resistance while Iron Man leads the effort of uniting the heroes. Not only are the heroes split, but so are the bad guys and so is each individual team. Former friends are now enemies, former enemies as you might guess are now working together for freedom or for security.
The story is very compelling and though I have only read the first 2 issues ( of 7) I am already hooked. This has the promise to be like House of M in the size of it’s scope and I’m very excited to read the rest. I know, even as an off an on comic book reader, that Marvel does do this sort of thing a little bit too often where they shake the whole universe to the core and whatnot, but you know, honestly I enjoy every moment of it. House of M was absolutely brilliant. The artwork and the writing is always top notch and I know I’ll be a Marvel fan for the rest of my life probably! Its absolutely crazy!!!!!!!!

Anyways, if you are a comic fan and like me have been out of touch with comics for a while, Civil War is definitely the perfect series for you to go ahead and “hop on” as it is still early in the series, it probably is collectible, the artwork and writing is stunning and compelling and the all our favorite heroes are featured!!!!! Have a great day.