Tag Archives: spider-man

May dreams

When I wake up and remember bits of dreams, I like to jot them down in my phone. Here’s what I can make out. Each bullet point is a different dream.

I was at a church in which there were a lot of books. It might have also been a library. One kid got Heinlein, Dan Simmons, and some other book with which I was impressed. He tried to give me a book, and I wasn’t sure if it was a library book or one he owned himself. It was a choose your own adventure with robots and cut outs. Then gem needed help with something and talked to my boss. And then I have “Tara Ska Half past two electronic.” Did Half Past Two play at the church/library?
I was taking prospector home buyers through my grandparents’ old house while holding Henley, but Henley was a young infant.
While working as a cashier at Albertsons, a man bought cheese, meat, and bread and then asked me to make him a sandwich.
I was playing a zombie dince game in which each player controls zombies of a particular color with the goal of coverting people to zombies of their color. It was a commentary on racial crime.
Edward and I played arcade games.
It was the middle of the night. I was about to go to a concert. There was water and a beach ball. I was with a close friend, and someone I kind of knew kept hitting the ball my way. I thought about Snapchat.
Someone I knew (and I do remember who it was in the dream as well) was standing over my bed telling he was broke. He was speaking very quietly, and his voice sounded pleading. He grabbed my wrists, and I struggled to understand. I thought it was real. What was scary and infuriating was that I thought this person had just come over and come into my room while I was sleeping. I moved my hands through his arms in an effort to see if they were real, and they passed right through. I was convinced he wasn’t real, and he disappeared. Next I looked around my room but was still unable to get up or move for a good 10 minutes of what I believe is real time. Ugh.
There was a lizard in the room.
I could fly, and someone seemed to be after me. I was flying near tall building, and many of them had terraces, rooftop areas that were easily accessible, etc. I got curious and landed on one of the terraces, looking into windows and walking right into the kitchen of some nice restaurant.
“so many spider men.” I vaguely remember this – everyone was Spider-Man basically. I think there were apartments or something, and one of the Spider-Men was the real Spider-Man. UPDATE! Man, Duncan remembered part of this dream that I mentioned. The police were trying to arrest the real Spider-Man but couldn’t figure out who was the real one. Nice.
Here are my notes. “Killed people?” “Immortal” “Waiting to see those people again later” “Trying to text them using borrowed phone” I don’t actually remember this one.
I was at the airport, and David (from Friends) was there, just back from Minsk. He was desperately trying to win back Phoebe.
This is a bad one. Someone tortured a rabbit but left it alive. They cut off its ears and mutilated it. Next they pulled the stuffing out of a stuffed giraffe and put the rabbit inside – a mutilated living rabbit in a stuffed giraffe suit. He pulled out the eyes of the stuffed animal so the rabbit could see out. I seemed aware in the dream that this was to torture it even more. Finally he gave it to a dog as a chew toy. Disgusting.
I was going back to UCI and wanted to room with gem and Antonio. I found what I thought was my room, and I was apparently rooming with Eric (who lived in my suite when I lived in the dorms). However, I was mistaken. Then I got punched. Eventually I found my room, and I had a woman for a roommate, which surprised me. gem and Antonio were each in separate rooms.
I was at a British wholesale store, and someone was with me. He said he could get me a card. Suddenly some people show up with guns. These appeared to be normal civilians. Next some guys called the militia, but then both the militia and the first group are pointing their guns at the normal people. I realized they were in cahoots and that something was wrong (yeah, go figure). I sneaked out with some others, but we were being chased. While I was running, I ran into an actual bear that seemed super angry. I gave the bear my bag, and he got happy. Then he wanted a hug, so I gave him a hug and took a selfie. Then I kept running, and suddenly I was running with James and gem.
This one had something to do with Barnes & Noble. First Melissa was there, and then I was with someone else who was talking about a guy she liked. I was surprised and asked about her husband, but she said he died in a car accident. I got home, and gem was there. Apparently we lived in the same house.

Daredevil Volume 3

The third volume of Mark Waid’s Daredevil collects issues 11 through 15 of Daredevil volume 3 along with issue 6 of Avenging Spider-Man and issue 10 of the The Punisher volume 8. The Omega Drive continues to be a driving factor, but Waid manages to get other unrelated stories into the comic while still keeping the focus on the Omega Drive.

The story flows seamlessly between the three different series without the art or writing changing styles drastically. By the end of the collection, the Omega Drive story arc comes to what I assume is a conclusion for the time being. It comes as a nice bit of a twist as well.

My favorite story in this book was unrelated to the primary story arc; as Matt talks to his date about his friendship with Foggy, he recounts his college days. It goes into the details surrounding a professor lying in an attempt to get Foggy expelled, Matt risking his college career to defend Foggy, and Foggy repaying Matt. I’ll withhold the details, but it’s a great story.

In the second volume of Mark Waid’s Daredevil, my favorite story was also one unrelated to the main arc of the Omega Drive. The best Daredevil stories seem to be the ones that don’t cross-over with the rest of the Marvel universe. In addition, Waid intends to return Daredevil to the swashbuckler he once was and to take him out of the darkness. I think the dark stories work better. Despite preferring a harsher tone, Waid’s Daredevil continues to be interesting and fun. In the final of this collection, we definitely see some dark things happen to poor Matt again as the story arc changes.

The Amazing Spider-Man

While the Amazing Spider-Man was quite entertaining, I also found it strangely flawed. Before I even gave it a chance, I have to admit that I was annoyed that it was being rebooted so quickly. It seemed really soon to show Spider-Man’s back story as well. Most people are already very familiar with Spider-Man, so did we really need to learn how he got his powers? However, showing it helps reinforce the idea that this is a reboot. I suppose in this respect there was just no winning.

I liked the actors in the Sam Raimi trilogy, especially Tobey Maguire, and I didn’t care for Andrew Garfield’s look at first. Having now seen the movie, his appearance does seem to match the character as he’s written, but he’s not written as I know him. Peter Parker is supposed to be a smart, nerdy kid. He’s an outsider because of that. In the Amazing Spider-Man, Parker is still an outsider, but I don’t really see him acting like a nerdy loser. He seems smart, sure, but he also has the self-centered attitude stereotypical to teenagers. For example, after a teacher tells him not to use his skateboard in the hall, he waits until out of his sight, drops the board, and continues skating. Perhaps things have changed since I was in school already, but weren’t the skaters the cool kids? Peter Parker is definitely a different Peter in this film, but it still works for him. The intelligence is still there, but the nerdiness isn’t as highlighted. As he’s younger in this film as well, it seems only fitting that he’s filled with angst. He’s a rebellious teenager at this point, and it shows.

The Lizard was an interesting and memorable villain but not quite as memorable as some from the Raimi trilogy. I didn’t find Sandman or Venom very interesting in Spider-Man 3 (despite really liking Venom), but I still found the Green Goblin and Doctor Octopus more interesting than the Lizard.

On a less important note, there’s a scene in which Spider-Man jumps off a balcony without his backpack and later has it. I caught it immediately and have to wonder how no one attached to the film caught it in time to fix it. The security at Oscorp is ridiculous. How they don’t manage to notice Parker going where he shouldn’t seems like flawed writing to me. At first I wanted to say that it also seems unbelievable that Parker would touch the things he did, but I might be projecting values of the Raimi Parker on the new Parker.

The film is darker than I’d like Spider-Man to be, but there’s still humor. I particularly liked Spider-Man’s use of his cell phone. In once scene, he plays a game on his phone while waiting. In another, he sits atop a building in costume talking to his aunt about picking up groceries for her. As minor as it is to the story, it sets the mood quite well and is my favorite scene of the movie.

To reiterate, things definitely weren’t all bad. I really enjoyed the film, and there were some excellent parts. Gwen Stacy wasn’t very important in Raimi’s films, and I didn’t really care about her. She’s portrayed and written well in the Amazing Spider-Man. She’s cute and a good love interest for Parker. It was a little odd that she dressed so provocatively at work, but she’s a teenager, so I suppose that’s realistic. It’s also odd that a high school teenager has time to intern at a large corporation, but I’ll accept that. Her father, Captain Stacy, was also an important role in the film. I enjoyed Parker’s interactions with him.

I came into my viewing biased against it, so I was looking for problems. The Amazing Spider-Man was actually a fun superhero movie and has a lot of things going for it. Parker is a little less nerdy and a bit more angsty and angry. This is different, sure, but it works. Emma Stone’s portrayal of Gwen Stacy was great, and I’m happy to see her heavily featured. I’m looking forward to the sequel!