fumanstan

Call yourself a "true fan" or "real fan" or whatever the hell you want, its still just a made up term that's only ever used to dismiss other people's opinions and act as though your opinion matters more then the next guy. I've never seen it used in a context other then that, just like here.

Also, bluetoast's example can be applied to this too; what makes you a true fan? Do you just need to know the history? What if you haven't read the comics but have read about all the origins? What if you know the source material but hate it, and prefer other adaptations? What if if you know all the material up to a certain point, and then stopped? It's all ridiculous posturing to me.

DonnachaOne

The web-pattern on his suit is stylized in such a way as to manipulate the perceived perspective; its flatness is an optical illusion.

- actual explanation I've received from a very adamant comic fan in the past.

I'm sure a someone will no doubt be able to cite just what comic it was mentioned in and why it's so important, with a nice tone of condescension to remind us we're all stupid non-fans.

PhantomStranger

Anyone that hasn't ever read a Spider-Man comic book is not a true fan of the character, there I said it.

Supermallet

Anyone who doesn't love Scarlet Spider isn't a true Spider-Man fan.

Groucho

I've always noticed that people declaring themselves "true fans" always conveniently draw the line at their own level of fandom, and never beyond.

Supermallet

Anyone who doesn't own an original copy of Amazing Spider-Man #1 isn't a true Spider-Man fan.

Jaymole

Anyone who has ever killed a spider isn't a true Spider-Man fan.

DonnachaOne

This whole "true fan" thing is nonsense, but I like the Wolverine character from the films and cartoons, and the character history is interesting. I've never liked a Wolverine comic, however.

kgrogers1979

The comics are the source material, so there isn't anything beyond that.


What about Amazing Fantasy #15?


It sounds like you at least tried the comics though. The thing that gets my goat, and why I even started this silly argument, is people that claim to be such a huuuuuuuuuuge fan of a character then you ask them what their favorite comic was with that character and they are like "oh I don't read comics I just watch the movies." How can you be such a huuuuuuuuuuge fan if you have only experienced 5% of what the character even has to offer...

Supermallet

The problem is that "true" is a meaningless indicator. You could say you're a more knowledgable fan than someone who has only seen the movies, but "truer" means nothing.

argh923

I love how you convinently ignored fumanstan's questions.

bluetoast

Also it seems like you're using this fallacy:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman

fumanstan

What percentage is necessary for someone to be a true fan? 50%? 75%? 100%? What if you like the comics but don't bother watching any of the movie adaptations, or animated series? Do you have to read all the novelizations too? Play all the video games? They wouldn't be experiencing everything the character has to offer either.

arminius

A huge fan of the movie character? So you read every book that every movie you watch is based on? After all the book has so much more character offerings or something.

Dr. DVD

FWIW, I prefer the mechanical over the organic, and I consider myself a comic fan as I have read a fair amount. That said, I still expect the Raimi version to be more superior to this version. While it was not 100% faithful in everything, I felt it captured the feel of both the comic and the character of Peter/Spidey. This looks like it's going to be what the first round of movies would have been if they had given the director duties to a hired gun who made whatever would sell toys.

kgrogers1979

Raimi didn't really capture the character of Peter/Spidey at all.

He started out as a 15 year old high school student that was a brainiac in science and was fun-loving and made wisecracks all the time. None of that was shown much at all in the Raimi films. The Amazing Spider-man trailer shows more of it than the entire Raimi trilogy did.

toddly6666

Sam Raimi's first Spider-man showed a high school student that was a brainiac in science, was fun-loving, and made wiscracks. Am I missing something?

Just say you didn't like Raimi's Spider-man movies, but all three (even the third one) were good Spider-man movies for people that also enjoyed the comic books and the cartoons. Who gives a crap about who's a true fan or not - that's baby talk. I don't like the Star Wars prequels but kids like the prequels. I'm not more of a Star Wars fan because I don't like the prequels and those kids do.

Dr. DVD

Exactly. The Spider-Man of Raimi's movies had his share of wisecracks, but too many of them would have been overkill. You can't have him making jokes all the time, as people would start to think the movie too tongue in cheek.

argh923

No point in arguing with him here. He's ignoring fumanstan's questions because the answers to them don't support his twisted belief.

My Other Self

Who the fuck determines what a true fan is anyway? Is there some organized society that depicts that and hands out titles?

For my own argument, X-Men has always been my favorite comic book series and property. I was introduced to them in the form of the animated series that aired on Fox when I was a kid, and that grew in to me reading the comics, collecting the toys, seeing the movies, and all that crap. A good friend of mine is very knowledgeable with the franchise, grew up watching the cartoon like I did, but didn't get in to the comics as much as me. For the most part he and I can have a good argument over a lot of things. Am I really a true diehard just because I read the comics? Does that automatically make me better than him in terms of X-Men fandom? I can't look at it that way. It's silly.

Draven

I agree with this. The Raimi films had a great sense of fun, which fit Spider-man to the tie. This looks dark, loaded with conspiracies and what humor there is in the trailer seems forced.

Solid Snake

Are you guys going to start sucking each other's dicks now?

kgrogers1979

Arguing is pointless anywhere because how often does anyone ever actually change their opinions. Very seldom if ever at all.

I assumed fumanstan's questions were rhetorical anyway. My brain is much more analytical in nature. I greatly prefer to do things that have a clear correct answer, like crunching numbers, and I hate doing things with no right or wrong answers, like debating shit. So I tend to phrase things badly since I am not exactly a social person. The whole "true fan" thing was badly phrased, and I later tried to correct it by saying I really meant that it peeves me when someone, for example, claims to be a huuuuge Batman fan yet has only experienced Nolan's Batman. How can he be such a huuuuge fan if he has actually not even experienced much of what the character has to offer. It makes no sense to me. Does it make him any less of a fan? Well he is obviously a fan of Nolan's Batman in particular, but I would say he isn't a fan of Batman in general since he hasn't experienced anything but Nolan's Batman.

Anyway on to fumanstan's questions which I will try to stumble through.

I think I already answered part of this with the Nolan's Batman example.

If you care enough to wiki or google a character's history and/or origins then you care more than a lot of other people. Maybe you just don't have the time or resources to sit down and read a lot of comics. Don't say you won't read comics because its too nerdy. That really peeves me. If you are already watching a comic book movie, you are already a nerd whether you want to admit it or not.

If you hate the source material but like other adaptions, I guess that is okay, but I have to wonder how many people that hate the source material would even bother with other adaptions. For example, I don't particularly care for Ghost Rider so the Ghost Rider movie had zero appeal to me and I never bothered to watch it.

Knowing all the source material up to a certain point and then stopping is okay. At least you were a fan of the comics at one time. Most people don't remain comic book readers all their life for various reasons. There aren't really many people out there that have comic collections numbering in the thousands.

The percentage would have to be rather low just due to the sheer number of comics out there. By my rough estimate this is how many Spider-man comics have been printed since his beginning in 1963.

Amazing Spider-man is almost to its 700th issue.
Spectacular Spider-man ran from the 70s through 90s for about 250 issues.
Marvel Team-up ran from the 70s to 80s for about 125 issues.
Web of Spider-man replaced Team-up until the late 90s for about 125 issues.
(Adjectiveless) Spider-man ran for about 75 issues in the 90s.
Spider-man Unlimited was a 90s quarterly book for about 25 issues.
Marvel Knights Spider-man in the 2000s for about 25 issues.
Friendly Neighborhood Spider-man in the 2000s for about 25 issues.

By my very rough count, that's about 1,350 Spider-man comics, and that's only the main universe comics not counting spin-off titles in a different universe like Spider-man 2099 or Ultimate Spider-man.

So what percentage would you need to read to be a "true fan"? Only the most hardcore of the hardcore will have read every single one of them. Heck, I myself haven't even read them all. I have read the vast majority of them, but I stopped reading for a period of time during the nonsense of the 90s Clone Saga. (Many many people stopped reading then in fact... its one of the reasons Marvel nearly went bankrupt in the late 90s because that whole period was just a very bad time.) Even in the 2000s I haven't been that hardcore of a reader because there has been a lot of dreck that has turned me off like Sins Past turning Gwen into a slut that fucked Norman Osborn and One More Day with Peter making a deal with the devil and breaking up his marriage to MJ. Anyway, rant aside, even if you have only read 50% of the comics, that is still hundreds and hundreds of comics and would be very impressive. You certainly don't need to read that many though.

What if you like comics but don't like the movies, animated series, or video games? Well going by my own weird logic, if you like the source material (the comics) you are still more of a fan than someone who doesn't like the source. But who cares. I actually kind of fall into that category myself. I like most of the movies, but most of the animated stuff I don't particularly care for, and video games I rarely even play anymore.

Well that was certainly a long-winded response, longer than I thought it would be. But you asked for it.... be careful what you ask for.

bluetoast

Wait a minute....aren't you forgetting Tangled Web?

And on that note, this is odd but Sins Past is the arc that got me back into comics. In retrospect the arc sucked, but the artwork was great, and 2004 was when I started getting into a lot of titles. Funny that it was thanks to that arc. Civil War is what turned me off of Marvel completely, and I barely read the funny books these days except for a few select titles.

kgrogers1979

I have only seen the Raimi films once each, and I am the kind of person that needs multiple viewings for a film to stick in my mind long-term, so I don't really remember them that well.

What I do remember wasn't a "great sense of fun." Maguire seemed to me to be more of a whiny mopey guy than a fun-loving guy like in the comics. Especially in Spider-man 3.

I also don't remember his scientific genius being played up in the Raimi movies at all. What did he do to display his science knowledge? He obviously didn't make any webshooters... Was he even still in school because I don't remember any scenes at school other than the very beginning when he was bitten by the spider at the college science exhibit?

As for the new movie, I don't see any real darkness in the trailer, well other than every scene seems to take place at night time. Even though Spider-man was fun-loving in the comics, there were also many dark times as well. JJJ hates his guts and is always bashing him in Daily Bugle articles. Spidey has been wanted by the police many times in the comics for various reasons, so being wanted in the new movie isn't any different.

Conspiracies? Other than the OsCorp conspiracy, what else is there? And OsCorp has always been a conspiracy even in the comics. They have always secretly researched weapons technology and the founder even turned himself into a weapon.

Peter's parents have always been a conspiracy in the comics as well. In the comics they were secretly CIA agents killed by the Red Skull. That was one of the dumbest Stan Lee stories, and the movie turning his parents into OsCorp scientists who discovered OsCorp's secret and were killed for it is a huge step up from that CIA agent crap. Heck, it even explains why Peter loves science since his parents were scientists.

Really the only things I don't like about the new movie from what I have seen is that they are basically turning Captain George Stacy into JJJ whereas in the comics he always supported Spider-man, and also I don't like how they are seemingly making Curt Connors a villain right from the beginning. Connors is supposed to be a Jekyll and Hyde kind of person who was a good man who unleashed an evil monster inside him. In the movie he seems to always be evil.