#ev talks comics

[jaigeyes]

i made this for twitter but i’m sharing it here too because if famously dead boys Bucky Barnes and Jason Todd can come back as vicious heavily-armed vigilantes with a ton of angst, then Gwen Stacy should also be allowed to do that

[jaigeyes]

I’m calling for a cessation on referring to any older male superheroes as father figures for 616!peter parker but especially ones that haven’t been heroes for as long as he has

[jaigeyes]

Amazing Spider-Man #502 (2004)

[jaigeyes]

was it ever explained how spider-man's mask eyes emotes with him without cyber optics?

The short answer is that… well, they actually don’t. There are a couple of adaptations (the Marvel Cinematic Universe and the Spider-Man PS4 game) where he canonically has some kind of electronic system that allows the eyes to emote, but in the comics themselves (as well as in many of the animated adaptations) it’s a stylistic shorthand that some artists use to convey emotion in a character who’s wearing a full-face mask in a huge portion of the art. 

Basically, in the comics themselves, the emoting eyes are a style choice similar to action lines, speech bubbles, the wavy lines that represent spider-sense, or drawing a character multiple times in the same panel as they move about - it’s part of the visual language of comics, but it’s something that exists only to the audience, not the characters themselves.

I’ve ended up with a whole essay about my Opinions on the emoting eyes under the cut:

The emoting eyes are actually something I’m not particularly fond of in most cases (definitely not in live-action or otherwise highly realistically-styled adaptations - I loved Spider-Man PS4, but the character animation was strong enough that it didn’t need the emoting eyes), and pretty much never in the comics, to be completely honest. It’s a relatively new style choice (I think it first starts to become noticeably present in the 90s, but I’ve noticed it really being pushed more and more heavily in the most recent decade), and the major issue that I have with it is that it tends to get used as a crutch for expressing emotion that older comics were able to convey powerfully using nothing but writing and body language. Peter’s an intensely physical character, and so much of his personality and feelings can be shown through poses rather than expressing through a mask that can’t actually emote. 

The blankness of the mask serves a few purposes, in my opinion. It pushes artists to focus on strong posing and composition to depict emotion. It’s also kind of creepy in a way that I think is really well-suited to a spider-themed vigilante who gets his kicks from beating the shit out of criminals at every opportunity. His targets - his prey, according to Straczynski’s love for predator-prey metaphors - look at him and they don’t see anything that resembles a human face, just a huge pair of unmoving eyes. It’s inhuman! It’s spooky! And spooky suits him! He’s a hero but he’s got a dark streak, and the emotionless mask helps to lean into that.

(Web of Spider-Man #32, 1987)

I’ll never pass up a chance to post pages from Kraven’s Last Hunt. But it’s a great example, because the poses and the art really convey so much here - even without reading the words, even without a mask that emotes, the audience knows exactly what emotions he’s experiencing here. A thing that I really like to do for myself when I’m reading Spider-Man comics is to imagine what his face looks like in a given moment underneath the mask, because even his expressions are covered, it’s never hard to imagine if the art and writing are strong enough.

A particularly powerful example of this is in Amazing Spider-Man #33, which is one of the most iconic issues of the series. In this scene, Peter is trapped underneath the collapsed structure of an underwater laboratory, and if he doesn’t escape not only will he be killed, but his aunt will die of a disease whose only cure he has in his possession (comics! gotta love ‘em). This scene is notable from a grander storytelling point as the metaphorical point when Peter goes from being a boy to a man in a superhero coming-of-age moment, but the art is an important part of it. His mask in this art doesn’t show expression, but these pages are LOADED with emotion - Ditko’s art and Lee’s writing are telling us SO MUCH about what he’s experiencing in this moment, even if we can’t see his face:

(Amazing Spider-Man #33, 1966)

The MCU’s take on this iconic scene falls flat for me for multiple reasons, but a big one is the choice to have that version of Peter be unmasked during it. To me it looks like a lack of confidence in the ability of the physical performance to carry the weight of the scene without being able to see the actor’s face.

I also like the emotionless mask because it’s such a strong contrast to how expressive his face is when he’s unmasked, and to how strongly he feels emotion in general. So many Spider-Man stories are intensely emotional, and he’s a character who feels deeply and intensely (Love and rage, guys. It’s all about love and rage). When he’s not wearing his mask, his feelings are clear in his face - he’s not someone who keeps his emotions to himself or puts up facades. 

This is also something that I really liked about the Amazing Spider-Man movies - the mask in those movies is unmoving, and because of that they rely HEAVILY on Andrew Garfield’s physical performance during all masked scenes. And he knocks it out of the park every time! Every time I watch those movies I’m blown away by the amount of characterization that gets conveyed through nothing but body language. This is the kind of dedication to acting that earns Tony Awards and Oscar nominations, people.

[jaigeyes]

“Pick it up. You’ve still got one good arm. Go ahead.”

“...no...”

“I said pick it up!”

Amazing Spider-Man #540 (2007)

[jaigeyes]

“I vowed there would be no more innocent victims like Uncle Ben while it was within my power to prevent them... by any means ...even if others vilified me for it.”

What If? Peter Parker Became the Punisher (2018)

[jaigeyes]

truly I don't understand why marvel comics have peter parker apologizing for injuring criminals now like... please. we've all read American Son and Grim Hunt here. we already know about the face ripping

[jaigeyes]

I’m not necessarily against characters in comic books making references to other media, but like, it’s gotta be more that just the writer going “well I like this TV show so I’m gonna write that this character also likes it.” no! it should tell us something about the character! why do they enjoy it? why do they connect with that media specifically? how do they spend their downtime? what can we learn about this character from the media that they consume?