{"id":24339,"date":"2024-12-31T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-12-31T04:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/?p=24339"},"modified":"2024-02-21T16:40:47","modified_gmt":"2024-02-21T20:40:47","slug":"ppsm-42","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/2024\/12\/31\/ppsm-42\/","title":{"rendered":"PPSM 42"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

We\u2019re back with PPSM, but we\u2019ve got a 2-part story by a guest team starting this month. Behind that handsome Kyle Baker cover is a story written by Zeb Wells, colored by Steve Buccellato, and drawn by Jim Mahfood! This was meant to be a bit of a quirky one, and I guess Mahfood\u2019s work on UMTU made him the guy for it. Zeb Wells… It\u2019s weird, I don\u2019t remember what his bona fides were at this time. I can\u2019t find it online, either. I feel like he\u2019d done something, like a fan film or something, that got him in the door at a few places. He\u2019d end up doing a lot of TV, working on things like Robot Chicken. But I feel like he\u2019d done something that got him this gig. Can\u2019t remember what, tho\u2019. Well, anyway:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Really taking it to Mtv on page one. And more specifically\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u2026really taking it to Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake. \u201cTiffany Gibson\u201d is a pretty savage criticism for anyone old enough to get it. Later that night they\u2019re arguing about who should be more popular on the beach when Johnny is completely absorbed into the sand. Sand, eh? Remember where we left Sandman in PPSM 22<\/a>? I\u2019m sure that will be relevant. I do actually kinda remember this one. Meanwhile, Peter Parker is flipping through the channels, bored at home. Could Peter Parker afford cable? Like\u2026 ever? Seems unlikely. He winds up on Mtv, sorry, Sonic News.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Backstage, a lady is directing traffic so Wells can make more jokes about celebrities like \u201cMaria Kelly\u201d and, really upping the ante, \u201cCrisco\u201d…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The longer I sit with this\u2026 I feel like all these jokes are like 2 years after the fact. When was \u201cThong Song?\u201d Yes, \u201cThong Song\u201d was 2000. Justin Timberlake was already a solo artist by 2002, his romance with Britney Spears long a thing of the past. Really hitting the current events, here, Zeb. Peter watches as Zeb Wells makes up an entire fake verse to \u201cThong Song\u201d and Crisco leaps down onto the beach, only to be grabbed by a giant fist of sand and disappear. Despite having a cold, he decides he has to go down there and see what\u2019s going on. SO, soon, Spider-Man is just walking into Mtv Spring Break, in costume, among the rabble, which is pretty funny. That lady runs up asking if he wants to be part of the show, but obviously, he has other plans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The Kid Rock reference is even more stale than the rest of it. Did Zeb Wells\u2019 cable get disconnected in 2000? All these \u201csick burns\u201d on pop culture things people had already forgotten about don\u2019t seem like they would land very well. I don\u2019t actually remember how I felt about it. Sandman keeps reliving bits of his life as Spider-Man is forced to switch into swimwear if he wants to remain on the premises. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The already dated Mtv jokes and general \u201cyoung punks, get off my lawn\u201d vibe of this comic continues for 2 more \u201chilarious\u201d pages before Maria Kelly hitting her famous high notes upsets Sandman enough to turn him into a sand tsunami, swallowing up the whole dancing crowd.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I\u2019m not sure I can make it through part 2 of this. I mean, not liking trends in pop culture is pretty natural, but swinging his bat a so many dusty references doesn\u2019t exactly make Zeb seem too hip by comparison. There\u2019s a lot of pop culture stuff I don\u2019t like, too, but I wouldn\u2019t decide to make anyone sit through 48 pages of Spider-Man comics about it. But then, Zeb Wells will prove no stranger to poor story choices in Spider-Man comics\u2026 But as usual\u2026 I\u2019m getting ahead of myself.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We\u2019re back with PPSM, but we\u2019ve got a 2-part story by a guest team starting this month. Behind that handsome Kyle Baker cover is a story written by Zeb Wells, colored by…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":24317,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1864,1],"tags":[1957,1871,101,2,994,2017],"class_list":["post-24339","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-2000s","category-uncategorized","tag-jim-mahfood","tag-peter-parker-spider-man","tag-sandman","tag-spider-man","tag-steve-bucellato","tag-zeb-wells"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24339","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24339"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24339\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24340,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24339\/revisions\/24340"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24317"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24339"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24339"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24339"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}