Why, you, I oughtta—! Jim Henley’s longish post this morning about Spiderman (the movie) and Spiderman (the comic book and character) fairly bursts with worthwhile observations, about (among other things) storytelling; why Spiderman is a liberal icon; and the pleasures and and pitfalls of comic-book continuity:

The problem Marvel-Age continuity creates is that, to keep Spiderman in his designated niche for as long as Marvel did, the reversals must reliably come—no matter how powerful Spiderman’s body and how inventive Peter Parker’s mind, things must happen, more or less on schedule, that will keep Peter broke and lonely and Spiderman misunderstood and unappreciated. That kind of stasis requires some….forceful manipulation, gods out of endless dreary machines. After awhile, you start to feel like the creators are jerking Spiderman around; then, that it’s you, the reader, they’re jerking. And you separate yourself from the comic book and character almost as an act of self-respect. Okay, that was me. But maybe it was you too.

The point is that a movie has the freedom to tell the Essential Story one time and be done with it.

That’s just a taste. This is one of those posts that demonstrates what I like best about blogging (and, for that matter, good fanzine writing): a big, engaging, loose-limbed chunk of conversation, not constrained by the requirements of a more formal essay, but no less nourishing for that. And Henley obviously knows in his bones something pertinent to this currently mega-popular movie: how we fall in love with superhero comics, and how they come to break our hearts.

(No, Teresa and I haven’t seen the movie yet, but we certainly will.) [11:21 AM]