For your Spider-phile pleasure, here's an alternate story direction inspired by the end of Amazing Spider-Man #144, featuring the shocking return of Gwen Stacy, as though from the grave. This story, when I first read its reprint, built a "Gwen Stacy returns" subplot that was clearly hair-raising, haunting and cool, though it was six years before I found out what happened next. You can find a synopsis online easily, like http://spidermanreviewed.blogspot.com/2009/12/amazing-spider-man-144.html -I feel much the same! ASM#145, for those of you who know or want to know the source story, is fine, and out of respect and familiarity, I suggest no changes, not even yet to make Gwen any less vulnerable, as these are distressing circumstances. Well, it would be nice if the New York Police Department didn't hand Mac Gargan his crime-making outfit and equipment, as it seems ill-advised to treat it just like handing back a wallet and keys. There's a few good places ...

Part One: A new idea grown from the ending of Amazing Spider-Man #90, or, How to Have a Dream Girlfriend and an even more Marvelous storyline! I’m not in a position to return to the original issues themselves. Some background, courtesy my friend Nathan Adler: I finally had a chance to look at the actual issues in question, and it’s a bit more complicated than I had remembered. At the end of Amazing Spider-Man #88, Doctor Octopus is seemingly killed in an airplane crash & explosion. At the beginning of the next issue, Peter sees the headline of the Daily Bugle is “Dr. Octopus Killed in Airport Crash.” So, as of the next morning, people in NYC believe Doc Ock is dead. However, Peter notes that no trace of Doc Ock or his tentacles was found in the wreckage. Fearing that Ock is still alive, Peter decides he’d better search for him as Spider-Man. Over an hour later, Spidey comes across Doc Ock wrecking one of the smokestacks on the city’s main power plant. Rubble has fallen onto...

What do Eminem and most Integr8d Fix readers have in common? Comic books, man. As a boy, I had two Power Records, a brand that released dramatized versions of comic books on 45 rpm, complete with a book sampling most of the comic's artwork. The first was a stand-alone Superman adventure I think was written by Elliot S! Maggin, where aliens fell to earth in the form of silver-hued bullets. The second one, I only had the record, but it was intense: Captain America and the Falcon confront the mystery of The Phoenix, a man whose thirst for revenge is born from Cap's battles in the world war before his frozen suspension. I didn't get hooked on Eminem's 2013 release "Rap God" until I was putting together a hip hop playlist this September. Not unlike when Anj and I discovered Snoop Dogg and Dr. Dre back in college, I was wrestling with an angry mood over someone who cheated me of recording time after I gave up eleven Sundays of my life to give...his initials ...

Ten of my favorite Rick and Morty Characters 10Bird Person I covered this pair in my first post, early this week. 9Squanchy 8* The President of the United States ---I bumped the Prez for Beth as my new entry, but Keith David's voice work shines. His stately regard for Rick's world-saving pop song 'Get Schwifty' is hilarious. 7Unity Do opposites attract? Such a generalization---but here, it makes a case study sort of point. Unity is a consciousness that takes over other minds and essentially replaces their will with Unity's will. Rick? Not a collective kind of guy; in fact, he won't even join an organization composed solely of different versions of himself: The Council of Ricks (which is a character in and of itself). Squanchie and Bird Person are pretty much the only grouping Rick tolerates---and after that, his daughter and her family, just barely. The decision to do something for the good of the whole, and in so doing, be a part of something ...

Science that's more art than science! How today's tall tales are told with Rick and Morty! by C Lue t's fun to think Rick's interdimensional career kicked off about the same time as Reed Richards did as a fictional character in 1961. If Rick's 80 and 54 years have passed, then a breakthrough like the prototypical portal gun by the time he's 26 sounds credible. Super geniuses, particularly in more abstract mathematical fields, physics, etc, that is to say, IQ's over 180 that manifest in anything but the self-destruction of the person in question, tend to have their signature breakthroughs fairly early in life. Many of our most accomplished minds complete their most difficult concentration to a breakthrough of sorts before 35. For skills where supply overwhelms and washes away one's contribution until the right attachment arises, like writing, it's all bullshit, anyway; objectively speaking, critical reflections of your work are possible, an...

Ten of my favorite Rick and Morty Characters: that sounds fun! Let's kick it off with Rick's best friends. Oh, yeah: spoilers without mercy! 10Bird Person- First of all, at least the version we apparently know now rests in peace! Thanks a lot, “Tammy.” He had some valuable insights into what makes Rick tick, conveyed while showing kindness to Morty. He's got a legendary cool past, implied more than shown; Bird Person added depth to the story in just three appearances. His effort to find a late life mate opens the downfall of a coalition of rebels living outside Federation law. It's such a silly show, but it has an emotional dimension and true personalities, too, which sets the stage, given the constant recurrent danger, for an actual story tragedy. I can't help enjoying it as an adventure show as much as a family sitcom. Bird Person's the first and best of that adventure's heroes to fall. But we never actually saw him in battle. Alas, Bird Per...