Spider-Verse: Mini-Marvels Spider-Man (And A Bonus)

Spider-Verse is a currently running event in the Spider-Man comics that will involve every* Spider-Man we've ever met, including several Spider-Women and Spider-Girls (not to mention Scarlet Spiders and Spider-Hams and whatnot), and several brand-new versions. The premise is simple: there's a group of people trying to wipe out every Spider character across the multiverse, so all the Spider characters will team up to stop them. This is, of course, a massive event - multimedia even, since it will also feature in the Spider-Man Unlimited video game and the animated series Ultimate Spider-Man - and given the premise, it's only natural that it will add a few entries to this catalog.

*I say "every" because Marvel says "every", but there are a few that won't be showing up, such as Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield.

Today's entry is Mini-Marvels Spider-Man.

From 1999 to 2001, Marvel published a comic strip called Bullpen Bits in "Bullpen Bulletins", a page set aside in comics each month to deliver news and answer fans' questions. The comic strip was drawn and written by Chris Giarrusso, and it presented the majority of Marvel heroes as children who always wear their costumes (even in their everyday lives) and sometimes fight crime but mostly just hang out.

Since Bullpen Bits ended, they've been collected in numerous trade paperbacks and one-shots, usually along with new material by Chris Giarrusso or others, under the name Mini-Marvels.

In Amazing Spider-Man #12 (January 2015), this Spider-Man can be seen as a member of the "Spider-Man Recruitment Drive" that started last month with Ultimate Spider-Man and 1967 Spider-Man:

Note the diminutive stature, cartoony hands and feet, and - arguably the most notable feature - the black part of the costume instead of blue.



Also worth mentioning is that in the bottom panel of the page this Spidey appears on, Ultimate Spider-Man calls this team the "Web Warriors", which Other Ultimate Spider-Man (Miles Morales) objects to.

This, of course, is a reference to the current season of Ultimate Spider-Man, Ultimate Spider-Man: Web Warriors, which features a four-part Spider-Verse crossover event.

Spider-Verse: Spider-Man J

Spider-Verse is a currently running event in the Spider-Man comics that will involve every* Spider-Man we've ever met, including several Spider-Women and Spider-Girls (not to mention Scarlet Spiders and Spider-Hams and whatnot), and several brand-new versions. The premise is simple: there's a group of people trying to wipe out every Spider character across the multiverse, so all the Spider characters will team up to stop them. This is, of course, a massive event - multimedia even, since it will also feature in the Spider-Man Unlimited video game and the animated series Ultimate Spider-Man - and given the premise, it's only natural that it will add a few entries to this catalog.

*I say "every" because Marvel says "every", but there are a few that won't be showing up, such as Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield.

Today's entry is Spider-Man J (スパイダーマンJ).

Spider-Man J is a 2004 manga about a 15-year old boy named Sho Amano who gains his spider-powers through supernatural means. His goal is to prevent a villain named Lord Gokibu from stealing the fossil of the Insect King, and the only person who knows his secret identity is a detective named Makoto. Other supporting characters include counterparts to Aunt May, Mary Jane, and Harry Osborn. Sho is shy and doesn't have many friends, but he does have three pets: a cat named Leo, a dog named Par, and a bird named Don. This is a shoutout to the tv show Supaidaman, which featured a robot named Leopardon.

He first appeared in American comics in a cameo in Amazing Spider-Man #9 (October 2014)...

...though his first full appearance was in Amazing Spider-Man #12 (January 2015). I don't know if he shows up anywhere but this group shot, but you can tell it's him by his small stature, his black-and-white costume, and the fact that you can see his pupils through his mask.

Spider-Verse: Supaidaman

Spider-Verse is a currently running event in the Spider-Man comics that will involve every* Spider-Man we've ever met, including several Spider-Women and Spider-Girls (not to mention Scarlet Spiders and Spider-Hams and whatnot), and several brand-new versions. The premise is simple: there's a group of people trying to wipe out every Spider character across the multiverse, so all the Spider characters will team up to stop them. This is, of course, a massive event - multimedia even, since it will also feature in the Spider-Man Unlimited video game and the animated series Ultimate Spider-Man - and given the premise, it's only natural that it will add a few entries to this catalog.

*I say "every" because Marvel says "every", but there are a few that won't be showing up, such as Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield.

Today's entry is Supaidāman (スパイダーマン).

Supaidaman is a 1978 live-action tv series produced by Toei. The show is about a motorcycle racer named Takuya Yamashiro, who finds a crashed warship called the Marveller and its dying pilot, Garia, the last survivor of the planet Spider. Garia injects some of his blood into Yamashiro, which gives him spider-like powers, and he also gives him a bracelet that can shoot webs, make his costume appear, and control the ship Marveller, which can transform in the robot Leopardon. With these powers and weapons, Yamashiro fights Professor Monster and the Iron Cross Army.

Yes, it's basically Spider-Man meets Green Lantern meets Power Rangers, and funny you should mention that, because without this show there wouldn't be a Power Rangers. The popularity of this show led to Toei wanting to make a Captain America counterpart called Captain Japan, but this evolved into a show called Battle Fever J, about a team of five country-themed heroes. Toei considered this series to be the third Super Sentai program (just Sentai prior to this season) and was the first to include giant transforming robots, a holdover from Supaidaman. This season made Super Sentai a success and giant robots a staple of the series, which meant both were still around a decade later, allowing Kyuryu Sentai Zyuranger to be adapted into Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers. Thanks, Spider-Man!

Anyway, Yamashiro first appeared in a cameo in Amazing Spider-Man #9 (October 2014)...

...though his first full appearance was in Amazing Spider-Man #12 (January 2015), as you can see here:

He speaks Japanese, he has his transformation bangle, and he's piloting Leopardon. I'm sure the "emissary from Hell" line is from the show too. As far as I know, this page is pretty much the bulk of his appearance. He shows up, fights the bad guy with Leopardon for a bit, and then presumably loses. Still, I've been looking forward to this appearance for months and I was starting to think he was going to be one of the ones that can't show up.

Gadget Spotlight: Supermobile

I'll refer you to the recent Comic Book Legends Revealed piece on this because anything I write will border on plagiarism, but to give you a quick rundown, Corgi wanted to make a Supermobile toy to counterpart the success they were having with the Batmobile, and they wanted DC to include it in the comics. DC obliged in Action Comics #481 (January 1978):

But Corgi didn't actually release the Supermobile toy until 1979. There were two versions, a model-sized one and a Matchbox-sized one:

Costume Spotlight: Supergirl

Superman: The Movie was a major hit in 1975 for everyone involved, so it's no surprise that it led to numerous sequels and left an indelible mark (for better or worse) on the Superman franchise. What many people don't know, however, is that it even had a spinoff, 1984's Supergirl.

Production for the movie began in 1983, and for test shots they used a Supergirl costume of their own design, which had a very contemporary look:

DC, for unknown reasons (but probably corporate synergy), decided to give that look to Supergirl in the comics as well:

The design first appeared without the headband in Supergirl #13 (September 1983), and then she made the headband in Supergirl #17 (January 1984). This wasn't a huge deal because Supergirl changed her costume all the time; readers could even submit their own designs that might make their way into the book. As you might have noticed, this costume is the one she wears on Crisis on Infinite Earths #7 (1985).

However, there's one hitch: by the time the movie started actual production, they had changed the costume!

Regardless, despite Supergirl not being nearly as successful as the Superman movies, it was able to leave its mark on the franchise as well.

Spider-Verse: 1967 Spider-Man

Spider-Verse is a currently running event in the Spider-Man comics that will involve every* Spider-Man we've ever met, including several Spider-Women and Spider-Girls (not to mention Scarlet Spiders and Spider-Hams and whatnot), and several brand-new versions. The premise is simple: there's a group of people trying to wipe out every Spider character across the multiverse, so all the Spider characters will team up to stop them. This is, of course, a massive event - multimedia even, since it will also feature in the Spider-Man Unlimited video game and the animated series Ultimate Spider-Man - and given the premise, it's only natural that it will add a few entries to this catalog. And it has, as you can see to the right.

*I say "every" because Marvel says "every", but there are a few that won't be showing up, such as Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield.

Today's entry is Spider-Man (1967).

Spider-Man is the first animated Spider-Man series, most famous for its theme song ("Spider-Man, Spider-Man, does whatever a spider can..."). It's also known for the poor production values and limited animation that plagued animated series of the time. It ran for three seasons, and while the first was pretty faithful to the comics, the second two did away with Spider-Man villains and had him fight generic monsters to re-use animation from Ralph Bakshi's Rocket Robin Hood series.

The Spider-Man from this world first appears in a cameo in Amazing Spider-Man #9 (October 2014)...

...and the world itself first appears briefly in Amazing Spider-Man #11 (December 2014), which makes note of the simple animation style:

But as you can see in that final panel, the world mainly shows up in Spider-Verse Team-Up #2 (December 2014), where it's visited by the Spider-Man from the Ultimate Spider-Man animated series and Miles Morales from the Ultimate Spider-Man comic book.

In addition to mentioning criminal copycat Charles Cameo (whose first appearance was in the episode "Double Identity", 1967), we also see the show's versions of Electro and Vulture:

Spider-Verse: Ultimate Spider-Man

Spider-Verse is a currently running event in the Spider-Man comics that will involve every* Spider-Man we've ever met, including several Spider-Women and Spider-Girls (not to mention Scarlet Spiders and Spider-Hams and whatnot), and several brand-new versions. The premise is simple: there's a group of people trying to wipe out every Spider character across the multiverse, so all the Spider characters will team up to stop them. This is, of course, a massive event - multimedia even, since it will also feature in the Spider-Man Unlimited video game and the animated series Ultimate Spider-Man - and given the premise, it's only natural that it will add a few entries to this catalog. And it has, as you can see to the right.

*I say "every" because Marvel says "every", but there are a few that won't be showing up, such as Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield.

Today's entry is Ultimate Spider-Man.

Ultimate Spider-Man is a 2012 animated series that is a weird mix of the regular, Ultimate, and Cinematic versions of Marvel, with its own twist on top of that. In the show, Spider-Man is a teenage superhero that has garnered the attention of SHIELD, who brings him in and puts him on a team with White Tiger, Nova, Power Man, and Iron Fist to help keep an eye on him and train him to be a proper superhero. They also give him some new gadgets like the Spider-Cycle. The show can be too aimed directly at kids sometimes to be fully enjoyable, but overall it's pretty decent and can have some good stories. (I've also only seen the first season, so it may have gotten better in that time.)

This Spider-Man appears in Spider-Verse Team-Up #2 (December 2014), where he teams up with the actual Ultimate Spider-Man, Miles Morales. And it's funny, because while he shares "Ultimate" status with Miles Morales, he also shares animated status with the other Spider-Man in the story: 1967 Spider-Man! I highly doubt this is a coincidence.