cyberghostface (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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scans_daily2015-04-28 10:17 pm
cyberghostface) wrote in scans_daily2015-04-28 10:17 pm
'The Thousand'
Since S_D seems to be on an Ennis kick atm I figured I'd repost an entry I did a while back for his Spider-Man story 'The Thousand' which was part of the 'Tangled Web' anthology book.
While it's more SFW than your average Ennis book, there is quite a bit of gruesome body horror that wouldn't be out of place in a Cronenberg film, so take that as a warning.
Disclaimer: Three issues, seven pages from each.
The story opens with a surly guy at a diner watching Spider-Man battle the Rhino outside his window.
We go to Peter at the Bugle where Jonah's turning down his photo of Spider-Man and the Rhino.
She attempts to mace him when she sees Carl but it doesn't do anything.
#2...
Beginning of the issue has "Miss Patton" telling Peter that she needs a place to stay for the night. Peter offers her his.
She throws Peter out the window. He manages to get dressed up as Spider-Man and takes on "Miss Patton" who identifies herself as "The Thousand". The Thousand ends up biting Spidey on the neck, paralyzing and knocking him out. He wakes up tied to a chair.
Heh, so Jessica Jones was there when Pete got bit by the spider and so was this guy. Wonder if there have been any other retconned characters present?
EDIT: And since writing this we now have Cindy Moon AKA Silk who was present.
#3...
The issue opens with Mr. Ambrose, the super, coming in and seeing Spider-Man surrounded by the spiders. Spidey tells him to run but it's too late as the spiders jump down his throat and devour him from the inside.
(Back to Silk, this is one of the reasons why "Someone else got powers from the spider" never bothered me like it did others because this guy beat her to it.)
Carl tells him that his body began to break down as his insides were being consumed by a thousand spiders with his consciousness. He eventually moves onto his own parents, first his mother and then his father. Each time he moves from a body he gets stronger.
Spider-Man tells him that all his time he's been monologuing, the poison has worn off.
The battle goes outside. Carl tells Peter he doesn't know how easy he's had it. "The death-defying exploits. The lethal array of colorful villains. The string of beautiful girlfriends -- all because some nerd gets bitten by a spider? You know what happened to my beautiful girlfriend? I had to eat her."
Carl, in his rage, doesn't realize he's about to hit a high-voltage box. Spider-Man tries to warn him but Carl ends up electrocuting himself.
no subject
After some pondering, I actually have to agree that there has been a change in his stories, but I perhaps believe it is more due to the fact that he is no able to write more of the stories that he wanted to then, as you pointed out in your last paragraph. Even then, though, I feel there is a constant presence of the same character types and glorification of certain actions/approaches as the only ways to really solve anything.
I do, to repeat myself, completely understand why people like Ennis's work. He is an excellent writer with a good grasp of pacing and scene building in the medium of his work. For me personally, the reason I can never really consider him a great writer is that he remains so nestled in his comfort area to truly ever challenge him to tell a different story or to use a different perspective.
And by the way, I agree that Adventures of the Rifle Brigade was truly ghastly and to me perhaps illustrated a larger problem with when Ellis tries to something satirical as his work as he, for me, rarely manages to truly make fun of those character types at the heart of them. Although I do have to admit that despite my many problems with The Boys, it is probably the closest Ennis has ever gone to examine his problematic main characters.