A long overdue day...

Boy today was a long time in coming for me in a couple of ways and both paid off in a BIG WAY. First if you will all recall from my year end blog posting I had said I was still trying to find a church home, well today on February twenty eight of the year two thousand and ten I went back to church for the first time in at least two years. I'm still not sure what kept me away directly for sure all that said time expect for thinking "I need to spend only one day with our heavenly father and that's it all said and done with it all", but I know as I said before knowing God and spending time with HIM are really a part of who I Matt am deep down in my soul I thought going to a "MEN'S fellowship breakfast was all I had to do on Saturdays which what I did do for at least three years time now off and on at the Cathedral of Joy which is just a few miles up the street behind me, here's a picture of it's backside that I took from a walk that I have done only twice before (maybe sometime I'll blog about that.) Well to say that going to church was a great thing would be a understatement in the least. The sermon was about "FOR GOD SO LOVED THE CHURCH with CHURCH crossed out and over the x out church was the word WORLD". Boy it was put together well expect for one small part I will get to that in a moment, the pastor was working from the book of "James" for his point in relaying the course of the message he was pointing out how we all condone spreading the understanding of worship with thy self but then keeping it to oneself instead of sharing it with everyone who needs/wants to seek GOD'S understanding and can not because churches are like airports? how's that again you say "churches are not airports but are they all churches promise it you follow their faith all you have to do is wait. When you book a flight anywhere what is it that you have to do? Wait. They showed a video clip of this with a example of a girl getting a dog that didn't know it own name but responded to per grated shredded cheese so as you can see when she lost her dog there was only one way to get it to come back. Here's my gripe about the whole thing though ALL Churches that think they are right because the are Republicans and if your a Democrat you don't matter to GOD when I say it doesn't matter what one's view of politics are what matters is how GOD sees All of us as vessels to spread his teachings. Outside of that the Message was great.
Now I said there were two things that made today overdue didn't I?, Well yesterday I got in touch with my sister in law Kathie, we made plans after church to spend some time together today. I called her today after my Church service got over and we, she brought my niece Heidi and nephew Cannon with her and we went out to eat at a place called . Out in their parking lot Heidi & Cannon both gave me a big hug while Kathie took the picture
Heidi & Cannon both went with having something off of the "kids menu" so that they could get some cotton candy. I had good ol American Macaroni & Cheese Kathie was truly brave one of us at trying something she'd never had it was an Asian noodle dish that I forget it's name right at the moment, while we waiting Cannon & Heidi had a st patty day shamrock they could color Heidi dedicated hers to me. After we got done eating we went to feed the geese down at Columbia park, but first we went to Winco a grocery store where everything is super cheap an got a loaf of bread for the geese. While on the way to Winco Kathie told me that Heidi was going to be in a play at her school sometime in March and wanted to know if I'd like to come, but first they have know the play's dates which Heidi is to find out about this week sometime. While waiting in the parking lot of Winco both Cannon & Heidi dove into their cotton candy. I got an easy photo of Cannon and his cotton candy as seen here, but getting Heidi photo was a bit harder because she was right behind me and at first I aim the camera to high with my second attempt I got it just right.

When we got to Columbia park we saw a ice cream truck and even though Heidi & Cannon were full of sugar already Cannon still asked if he could have some ice cream even though when we were in our car he just promised he wouldn't ask, so it was to say in the least a relief when he said "Oh alright". With Cannon's first piece of bread you can see how much he was eying the geese as he feed them. Within a few minutes I too had joined in on the bread tossing fun with both of my niece and nephew in another pound just across the way. Kathie noticed a what she called a "Dog's eye" I think before I had joined Heidi & Cannon in that bread tossing fun I think I got a great shot of it, I was not looking at the sun this was to the left of it and these have what looks like a rainbow burst coming out of them when your looking at one straight on. I attempted to take a few shots with my camera setting of automatic and a few on the setting of P on the mode dial which sets the shutter of the camera to where no light but natural light gets in the photo one would be taking. After we got done feeding the geese we head to the other side of the park where there was a "Big Toy play set", that is what I remember calling these when I was a kid. Heidi was at first playing store with Cannon and the other kids there when I commented to Kathie, "Hey doesn't that remind you of Lucy giving Charlie Brown advice in the "Peanuts" comic strip" she of course agreed it sure did look that way. Heidi was a real climber at some point in her playing and a little later on Cannon too followed suit by climbing this same thing.
Then before we left please don't ask me how, but Cannon found himself in "Big Toy" jail. While his older sister Heidi had made a "new friend" at that said time , we stayed for at least ten more minutes of playtime then headed home. When we got to my house before leaving the car I had been talking all day about a gift in the way of a belated Valentine's Day for the kids on the way there to my place. So I ended up giving them two small stuffed animals with candy and a card as well. Now I may still be unsure of which church home I may wish to be a part of at least for now I am, but I know what's important even if I really get a small amount of time with them and that is family.

What ever had happen to Peter Parker's LOST kid? part one

Hello to all you guys that were left on Valentine's wondering why did I post this very image at or near the end of "What is the meaning of this Spider-man tease?",Was I fooling all of you with that very image of a girl Spider-Man? was the woman in question possibly Mary Jane herself? Not even close so read on... The image itself comes from the very first time Spider-Man or as he was known back when he was created in August of nineteen sixty two the Amazing Spider-Man in a final issue of a comic titled AMAZING FANTASY number fifteen.
Which was written by a seasoned comic book writer by the name of Stan Lee and was illustrated by a fellow who was named Steve Ditko. That very cover however was done by Jack Kirby who'd was illustrating Lee's other two comic books titled the Fantastic Four & The Incredible Hulk.
All of the top above pictured are characters own by Marvel Comics, but the character of Spider-Man had became the most recognizable icon of the company and has remained so till today even. Marvel at one time or another had all of these characters married at one time or another with only the marriage of Reed Richards and Sue Storm of the Fantastic Four intact till now. Bruce Banner who is the man pained with the affliction of becoming a monster known as the incredible hulk, has been married a couple of time as the hulk please don't ask me to go into detail here for I just never got into the hulk comics. Those of you who know me know how I like my Incredible Hulk from the seventies television series. Still at some point in the character's history the man whom becomes the creature got to wed as well to his old flame from the beginning Betty Ross, whom is the only soothing factor Bruce could use to control his inner demon. Marvel let Betty Ross die in the early nineties so now Bruce has no one to help him or love him either. Spider-Man's always been about a fellow known as Peter Parker who learned after gaining great powers must one use the power wisely. Yet for Peter something in someway or other seems to go wrong and yes I know that this blog isn't about Peter this time but it still starts with him so where to begin this story? With the only way one can with the death of Parker's intended wife and girlfriend Gwen Stacy
Wait a minute who is that your asking yourselves right? Wasn't it just always that Peter and Mary Jane from the beginning to be the ever loving happy one pairing in Spider lore. Well actually no Stan Lee had always intended for Peter to marry Gwen but he found that he loved writing MJ's (that's Mary Jane abbreviated for you true fans out there and also Stan admits on a DVD special where he's interviewed by Kevin Smith of silent bob fame from "Mallrats" & "Clerks" that first one mentioned by way was Stan Lee's first bit where he had a cameo before all the Marvel based super heroes movies he's been in. Well in that interview he said he had no idea that naming a fictitious character was so wrong because Mary Jane of course is another name for the drug known as marijuana so he went and shortened her name to MJ but it still retains meaning to the drug somehow but Stan told the fans there was no way that his creation was luring to people ever using the drug), dialogue. So in due to this his writing of Gwen seemed to make her character less appealing and the art director at Marvel at the time was John Romita who'd worked on the book ten years before getting that position in the nineteen seventies decided to have Gwen killed off. The writer of the Amazing Spider-Man at the time was still fairly new to comic writing his name was Gerry Conway, he wrote Amazing Spider-man number one hundred twenty one,

the story had Peter coming back from Canada where he'd fought Banner's monster in the previous two issues one hundred nineteen and one hundred twenty in one hundred twenty one we see that Pete's best male friend Harry Osborn has had another fight with Drugs the last time this had happen was when the comic code authority didn't approve of the three part story (More on this in a blog I have titled "Quite interesting to say in the least part II), so Peter returns to his apartment to find there's been a struggle because Gwen was wanting talk to him about Harry apparently. Harry's father Norman had relapsed into his other known identity the Green Goblin, who knew Parker's secret of being Spidey and want to make the boy suffer in the worst possible way by hurting the one Parker loves more than anyone outside of Aunt May of course. He takes Gwen to the top of the (in the story Conway called it the George Washington Bridge but in truth it was the Brooklyn Bridge) and the two men fought each other with a unconscious Gwen between them. At some point in the fight Goblin knocks Stacy's unconscious body off of the pillar that she and Spider-Man are on. Up to this point we as readers didn't have a title for this very comic installment of Amazing Spider-Man and usually the company putting out the product puts the title on the opening splash page of the book, but this time Marvel kept the title of the story unclosed till the very end where Spider-Man uttered these words to the Goblin. Gwen's death was the first time a major love interest was killed off and sent shock waves as much as what Marvel did to current story lines with the banishment of the Spider Marriage. In the very next issue Spider-Man and Goblin duke it out at one of Osborn's warehouse where Spidey nearly beats Osborn to death but stops short of it, when his Spider sense goes off he jumps out of the way as Norman is impaled on his own Goblin glider. After his loss of losing Gwen Stacy who is at his apartment to help Peter through his grieving process even though he want to be left alone is Mary Jane Watson.

At least back then Marvel owned up to it's mistake and tried to fix it with the first Clone storyline around nineteen seventy four a person that looked like Gwen started popping up around issue

where after seeing her or what looked like her attacking him through a store front window during another battle altogether,

and coming home to find that said lady standing in his own apartment,
was Gwen Stacy his old love, hadn't she died a couple years ago Peter even knew that she had because he was there himself. So whoever this was it wasn't Gwen Stacy right?

Peter had thought he'd gone bonkers. It turned out that Gwen's very demise upset someone else besides Peter Parker but who was it and why would they go to the trouble of creating a new Gwen at all was a mystery within itself. We meet a villain during this story arc called the Jackal whom we see here holding a Spider-man head? The Jackal who ever he was seemed at first as a goofy type of Spider-Man foe when he first appeared in this very issue with a fellow known as the Punisher. Who was to have silenced the wall crawler for good on his orders, but Spidey talked the Punisher out of making himself a targeted bulls eye. We come to find out that Gwen herself doesn't know who she is either she has only fragmented memories when she and Ned Leeds
try to find Peter later from when he had been on a assignment for the Daily Bulge where in the same airport moments ago Peter and Mary Jane shared their first kiss. Mary Jane herself was ready to tell Peter he need to make up his mind about her or Gwen when they returned to his apartment. A short time later after Ned has apologized and has agreed to help Peter in helping out the confused girl know as Gwen Stacy. Apparently Ned Leeds was on a assignment of his own when the Gwen Stacy murder had happen for the Bulge. After asking Peter's biology science teacher known as Miles Warren if he knows anything about Gwen himself he only tells them his assistant may know more since he took her DNA quite a while ago, so both now he and Peter split ways to find out who she is? Ned helps out by following Warren's leads while Peter searches for the whereabouts of Gwen. Peter of course is now Spider-Man fighting a villain known as the Black Tarantula in midtown when it seems the Tarantula lures him to a bus terminal and onto a bus. When all of a sudden the bus stops in the middle of their fight to pick up a passenger but not just any bus patron. It turns out who gets on the bus is as the fight continues between the two Spider dudes, the hero one is so worried because his girl is right in the middle of it and he doesn't know why the bus has picked up speed? It seems to be heading towards a place Spider-Man knows very well and soon the bus nears....

When now Spidey is facing not only the Black Tarantula but also the Jackal as well....
Was the Jackal possibility on the bus too? if so was he another passenger like Gwen was? It turns out that the Jackal wants Spider-Man's fate to be like that of the real Gwen Stacy to be tossed off of a bridge, but not just ANY BRIDGE the very same bridge is what he wants. Spidey is just all the more confused by whoever the Jackal is this puts him in the loony bin in the web head's way of thinking. How could the Jackal known of Gwen Stacy's place of demise and more importantly why would he bring her here again? To of course see her killer dealt with? but wasn't it the Green Goblin who had killed Gwen Stacy or was it Spider-Man? The Jackal sees her death only being caused by the web slinger so he feels it's his right to end the foul insect's miserably rotten life himself.
So as a chained up Spidey falls off the very same bridge pillar that his lady love known as Gwen had when he was fighting a mad man known as the Green Goblin, he knows he has one chance to save himself if he can only shoot a web line.... When he reaches the top of the Bridge pillar he is very thankful to find that the two psychos are gone. What was going on here?, he had to know why were he and Ned Leeds on a goose chase?, Who was this Mad Man known as the Jackal? What was the reasoning of trying to kill him like a girl known as Gwen Stacy from two years ago? And what about Gwen she is dead so how come is she now alive? Spider-Man wakes up in a lab that he has never been and see Ned beside him wondering what's going on to find the Jackal over both them. Spidey breaks free of his shackles to have a bit of answer time with the Jackal. The Jackal of course gives him a fight for he wants to keep his secrets about himself very much a fog you could say to whom he knew as "sweet Gwen Stacy's"murder as he saw it.
Before knocking the Wall crawler out completely he says something about Miles Warren but of course Spidey can't make heads or tails outta what is being said because of the beating by the Jackal.
The Jackal had said Miles had seen a newspaper article about Gwen's death and that Miles had a crush on the young lady but knew nothing could come of it for it was a guy named Parker she seemed to love. Then his lab assistant had found a way to make copies of a animal from actual cells of that same living creature. Miles was wanting to see if this process would work with human DNA, when his assistant found out Miles killed the man with his bare hands.
Miles Warren burn his assistant in a smoke stack so he could try making a test sample of a human copy. Hence he created a new copy of "Miss Stacy" the girl he loved as much as Parker did.
Miles made sure that this "Gwen" his "Gwen" never got to see him when he became his "other self". Spidey is now just unsure of what to believe as he is now listening to end of the Jackal's little tale and since he was unconscious for most it these past few minutes he of course doesn't believe a single word of his old biology teacher creating a "Clone of a girl named Gwen" and lets the Jackal escape still not knowing where Gwen and Ned are at all.

The only thing Peter can do is go to see if Leeds has found out anything from his end of things besides trying to track down the Jackal, Black Tarantula and Gwen wasn't easy since he had no clue as to where they had gone. So he heads to the Bugle to find Ned Leeds and walks in on Ned's gal Betty Brant in tears with his bosses J.J. Jameson & Robbie Robertson trying to find out what has happen as well. It seems Betty went to Peter's apartment to get his help in finding Ned and found Mary Jane there to wanting to talk more about Gwen Stacy. Betty is surprised when Peter comes into the office of J.J. Jameson to find out her fears for her boyfriend are true he must have been kidnapped because last she knew Peter & Ned were trying to find out more about Gwen that she recalled.
After taking J.J.Jameson's usual berating as he does when Jameson says something about the web head being involved somehow with this whole mess Peter replies "I 'll find Ned". So throughout the rest of the day Peter is thinking about everything that had occurred while he was Spider-Man the last few days, he recalled everything in his head of the fight he had with the Black Tarantula and the Jackal both on the bus ride to the bridge where Gwen died and the secret of the Jackal's as well and something about the Jackal not setting off his Spider- sense from earlier before. Was the Jackal really and truly Miles Warren himself? Peter didn't know if he was?, and then he remembered the Jackal's fight in the lab with him and the Jackal had said to meet him at midnight at Shea Stadium.He'd also said something about "Between you and your hidden self!" as he escaped through a sliding metal wall, what had he meant by that?
So comes midnight and we see Spidey swinging towards Shea Stadium still full of questions that he was hoping to get talk to Mary Jane about while there at the Bulge. When outta nowhere the Jackal once again has the upper hand, and boy what a upper hand it turns out to be?
Was Spidey going crazy was he hearing himself for a moment that can't be? Or is it? as he wakes up in the middle of the stadium he sees himself. He or they both hear a voice from above them. It's the Jackal whom seems to have cloned Spider-Man for his own amusement with Ned Leeds as the Prize of their war that Jackal had said "If the cloned one came near the bomb it would go off!" With Ned Leeds chained to a bomb Peter knew he had to defeat this creation of himself that the Jackal was forcing him to fight. He just wanted to get Ned outta here and back to a normal life with Betty Brant and his reporter job at the Daily Bulge. So as Peter fought himself the bomb's timer was slowly ticking away.
As the two Spider-Men fought each other it was Gwen Stacy who by showing her emotions in a way towards the Jackal that makes him see the error of his own ways. Miles Warren cuts his prisoner lose from the bomb as both Spider-Men race to save Ned Leeds. Then Miles tries to stop the bomb from going off only to have it go off..... After that blast of the bomb goes off it appears that Spidey is checking to see if Ned Leeds is okay on his vital signs, as the blast seems to have killed the other Spidey & the Jackal as well. Gwen asks Spider-Man how does he know he's the original and NOT the clone. He simply doesn't know. Sadly Gwen decides she doesn't want to be with Peter anymore and wants her own life to lead the way she wants, but first she & Peter go to visit the grave of the real Gwen. Thankfully when Peter heads back to his apartment he thinks Gwen has changed her mind, come to find out she isn't there but Mary Jane is.

Peter himself ponders the question Gwen asked him from a few days ago and after going to see his other science teacher Curt Connors who gives Peter a DNA test to tell if he's the clone or not?

Peter decides for himself that he must not be a clone for how would a clone have feelings of love towards anyone. So he takes his clone in a sack to a smoke stack. We see that Peter has clothed the clone in a Spider-Man suit, was this in case the body fell out the bag people wouldn't be thinking "Hey why is Spidey carrying a body of Peter Parker around?" "Or that he did kill the person who is Peter Parker?" and what better way not to be blamed for something he didn't even do, of creating a clone of himself? Up until the last minute we see that he is still truly uncertain himself if he's the real Peter or just a lab experiment that was broken. And then something sets off his Spider sense..... Who was it that set of Spidey's spider sense will happen to remain a mystery for quite some time? We do see that he has finally made up his own mind about who he is of being the real McCoy by what he did with the clone's lifeless body......

Marvel had decided that they had nothing more on this story of the nineteen seventies clone storyline to offer fans in response to dealing with a way to bring Gwen Stacy back into the Spider universe. What had really happen was that Gerry Conway the boy who wrote Gwen out of the book in seventy three had found a way to put her in the story again, but he left his notes for the clone story even though he went to work for the competition. One writer however had some photos of Spider-Man over a deceased corpse of Peter Parker in issue Amazing Spider-Man number one hundred and sixty nine be on the cover and a small bit of Jonah Jameson once again asking questions. At the same time making readers question was Marvel truly done with the clone storyline.

It was five years later in nineteen seventy nine that Marvel put the first volume of the comic titled "WHAT IF" check out how this series works by reading "What the meaning of this Spider-Man tease?" post. Well in nineteen eighty this had two story related to these two Stories by Mr. Conway. Here are there respective covers:while in the regular Marvel universe which I myself have learned in the past few years of Internet searches is referred to as 616 and then each other sub part of other universes are designated by a number themselves. This is how a Marvel fan can keep track of their favorite characters set with in their own each universe. Marvel by the early eighties had established that the Spider-Man who had survived the explosion from the Jackal's bomb is the Real Peter Parker because now he had a new goblin adversary known as the Hobgoblin who like the original Green Goblin who was still six feet under had Spidey and readers continually guessing at who he really was for a very long time. Then of course in early nineteen eighty three Marvel put their big selling heroes into a comic called "Secret Wars" where a being known as the Beyonder tested both the good and dark sides of heroes and villains alike how the story started was there was a big structure that seem to appear in different parts of the world till it had everyone the Beyonder had chosen to be in his test. For Spider-Man it had appeared in the middle of Central park in Amazing Spider-Man#251. While in this test of the Beyonder's Spidey got a living suit, but didn't find out about till he return back to earth. Here is a group shot of Spider-Man's adversaries, per how they were back in that said time of the early eighties. One thing I forgot to mention was that up until nineteen seventy six there was only one comic dedicated to the web head known as Peter Parker called "The Amazing Spider-Man" but by that clone story's sells Marvel decided to grace Spidey with another comic title simply called "The Spectacular Spider-Man", and his popularity grew even more so that by nineteen eighty five he was granted a third comic title known as "Web of Spider-Man". So for a hero with the powers of an arachnid back in the early sixties Spider-Man had spun his web everywhere and it seemed to be stuck where ever you looked. Spider-Man creator or co-creator as he is known wanted Peter & Mary Jane to wed in nineteen eighty seven, many comic creators felt this was dread for the character but the Marriage lasted till two thousand seven. Hence: Brand New Day. I did say this was Spider- Girl's blog so let's not dwell on today's comics mishap shall we? Even so in nineteen eighty eight Marvel had tried to run a Story just through their summer annuals with a story called the "Evolutionary War"one important piece of the story was from this issue of Spectacular Spider-Man in the course of this part of the story the High Evolutionary had said that "A human known as Miles Warren had acculturated technologies that humans weren't to have yet and made from those technology a pair of clones. At least the Gwen Stacy clone from that nineteen seventy four through seventy five was a real person by the name of Joyce Delaney. Did that mean that the clone of Spider-Man was really another person altogether too?
It was nearing Spidey thirty anniversary in nineteen ninety when Marvel decided to let the comic creator Todd McFarlane who had brought Spider-Man's sale figures over the past two years have his own Spidey book because they didn't want to loose him as a property they offered him a fifth Spider book to write and draw his own stories. His run on the book lasted sixteen issues altogether,. And went seventy eight more issues to a total run of ninety eight altogether.
As a gift for his thirty anniversary Marvel made it seem that Peter's parents had never been killed as Marvel history had said they had back in a "Giant sized" Amazing Spider-Man annual number five had claimed in nineteen sixty eight.

Before I get too far ahead of myself yet again I want to tell you that I felt back in nineteen eighty nine that Peter & Mary Jane should have a kid. So around issue Amazing Spider-Man three hundred and forty eight I hand wrote a letter to Marvel saying I could see how it was possible with the past storyline they had titled "Powerless" I guess Marvel decided that they would at least think about the idea at some point and shelved the idea itself. I'm thinking back on it now and shortly after I sent them my letter I saw a few other fan letters wanting the same thing, but I never saw my own letter on a letter page as I recall....
TO BE CONTINUED.....