For some reason, in this period, Marvel did a bunch of these one-shots wherein Stan Lee meets various characters he’s associated with. You can’t simply say “character he co-created,” since one of them is Silver Surfer, who even Stan admitted Jack Kirby came up with on his own, and one of them is Dr. Strange, which Stan said in two letters he wrote in the 60s was wholly Steve Ditko’s idea. But after 40 years of aggressive self-promotion, he “created” them all now. Each issue had several stories, the first written (Allegedly. Scripted, at least) by Stan for a major artist, then one by a different team, then a comedy thing, then a reprint. Some real heavy hitters in this. Stan Lee Meets the Thing by Lee & Lee Weeks, plus a story by Roy Thomas and Scott Kolins. Stan Lee Meets Dr. Strange by Lee & Alan Davis, plus a gonzo story by Bendis and Bagley making fun of fan outrage over this era of extreme change. Stan Lee Meets Silver Surfer b Lee & Mike Wieringo, plus a story reuniting Paul Jenkins and Mark Buckingham. Stan Lee Meets Dr. Doom by Lee & Salvador Larocca, plus a story by Jeph Loeb and Ed McGuiness. And, of course, Stan Lee Meets Spider-Man, which we’re looking at today. You wouldn’t necessarily expect Marvel to pull Olivier Coipel off important things to draw this, or let Joss Whedon’s perpetually late X-Men get even later so he could write for this, but here we are. The thick white border around the figures on this cover has always perplexed me. Coipel is inked by Mark Morales and colored by Jose Villarrubia in the main feature, which opens on Stan home alone for the evening, saying his wife is visiting his daughter, and he’s decided to make cookies, when Spider-Man appears at the window.
It’s very Stan Lee sounding. Over a montage splash that depicts both Stan & Spidey chatting and listening to records, and Spider-Man facing the strange assortment of Mysterio, Electro, Black Cat and Rhino, while Spidey complains that all he does all day, every day, is risk his life fighting supervillains.
Why on Earth is original 60s Black Widow in there? They never even met til she got her new look in ASM 86. And I sincerely doubt Stan singled out these characters, considering it includes Jackal and Rocket Racer, who are very much not of his time.
Ya know what, this is so short, I’m just running the rest.
Well, there you go. This was not one of the better ones, as I recall. Lovely art, tho. This is followed by Joss Whedon and Michael Gaydos doing a story about an interdimensional comic convention, from which the Stan in the corner of the cover on all these comes, and which is very tedious to read. Then a Fred Hembeck 2-pagers, then a reprint of ASM 87. Seems an odd choice, right? I wonder if they tried to have Stan pick one for each character. They say he had a famously terrible memory, so I don’t know if that would’ve even been possible by 2006. Anyway. Fun bit of fluff, I suppose.
Well, speaking of short, this post is also going to cover a brief bit of 2006’s Blade #1. Despite becoming a surprise box office star in the late 90s, Blade absolutely could not sustain a comic book. While he was a big time movie star, he starred in a MINISERIES that did so bad it got canceled before it could end! How bad do sales have to be to cancel something that was always meant to be finite!? But, as I recall, in that series, he had like a cyborg arm or something, so maybe it makes sense. Anyway. This was the first attempt to bring him back since then, and in typical 2000s Marvel fashion, they decided the answer lay in hiring some guy from TV. So it’s Marc Guggenheim, writer from things like Law & Order and CSI: Miami, at the helm. On art chores, a past-his-prime Howard Chaykin, tho no one would admit that to themselves at the time. Chaykin was a really important and influential artist, having done thing a string of things with a ton of impact in the 80s, but by the 2000s, well… His style had kind of calcified. His rendering is still interesting, but his figures look like ragdolls and everyone has the same face. I remember an interview with him about this time where he said it was crucial for a comics artist to keep up with fashion trends so their characters wouldn’t look dated. Meanwhile, he gives Blade a hightop fade like he’s in House Party. In 2006! Anyway, when you’re launching a new series about a guy who can’t sustain a monthly series, you want Spider-Man on the cover, and so they had him, as rendered by the great Marko Djurdejvic.
And he’s also on page 1.
How does he know Spider-Man is Peter Parker? How does he know Spider-Man is married? Is this meant to just be a cute thing for the reader?
RrrrrrrRRrrrRough start. So, Spider-Man is a vampire, and now shot in the knees, and Dracula, the most dangerous of all vampires, is dead by page 3. Trying to be shocking, I guess. Blade proceeds to find a bunch of teenage vampires in a school trying to turn their teacher, then there’s a flashback to his birth, then this…
Blade: Agent of SHIELD? Why not, I guess? There, Spider-Man exits the book, badly mistreated, but presumably having assured your $2.99. Blade proceeds to fight a bunch of vampires who’ve infiltrated SHIELD and even blow up a helicarrier by the end of the issue. I remember liking this series, but my goodness, what a rough start. This time out, Blade managed to sustain a title for 12 issues before being canceled yet again. And we’ll be checking back in, believe it or not, before it’s over, as this book desperately tried to stay on the stands with appearances by Dr. Doom, Wolverine, and a 2nd appearance by Spider-Man, among other things… For now, tho, let’s get back to Spider-Man comics.