"Happy Birthday"

Not content to continue making it's own mistakes, "The Amazing Spider-Man" franchise (which was actually looking a little better what with Paul Giamatti now officially playing The Rhino) is now intimating that it intends to make Sam Raimi's mistakes as well...

Day 3. #happybirthday twitter.com/MarcW/status/2…
— Marc Webb (@MarcW) February 7, 2013

This picture of a metallic locker numbered "14" was Tweeted by ASM2 director Marc Webb yesterday, as part of what's become a succession of cryptic prop-image teases from the now-shooting film. The "Happy Birthday" seems to be in teference to the actor playing Harry Osborn in the movie, but the reason The Internet is flipping out over the image-proper is that in the Ultimate Spider-Man comics "Locker #14" is where Ultimate Peter Parker and Ultimate Eddie Brock found the Ultimate Symbiote Suit that wound up turning Ultimate Eddie Brock into Ultimate Venom. Ultimately.

I actually had to look that up, incidentally - I don't have any USM trades onhand, and to be frank the series never left much lasting impression on me. Hence why I never put a lot of stock into the various justifications for the stuff I hated in the first movie being "closer to the Ultimate universe." I know it is, folks - and it wasn't good there, either.

So... Venom again, possibly as a post-credits tease for Part 3.

Sigh.

For me, Venom belongs on that list of comics characters/stories like Doomsday and "Knightfall" that just aren't good but could maybe be gutted, skinned and reshaped into something halfway-useful for a movie. What has The Internet riled up about it in this case (apart from refusal to accept that simply seeing Spider-Man and his dull MacFarlane-era 90s foil tussel onscreen won't be the Greatest Moment Ever) is the connection to the "Happy Birthday!" tweet, which - if toy reeeeeeaaaaaaallllllllyyyyy stretch it - could be taken to imply that it's Harry Osboron, not Brock, that becomes Black Monsterface Spider-Man. I think that's how they went in the current, Marvel Movieverse tied-in "Ultimate Spider-Man" animated series, so there's that.

Incidentally, in the Ultimate comics the Ultimate Symbiote is tied into the Ultimate Research being done for Ultimate Oscorp by Ultimate Richard Parker; so this could be another indication that we're not abandoning that insipid plotline for these sequels. Ultimate Bummer.