Mark's Epic Blog of Randomness

By Mark Rodriguez Spider-Man and Wolverine team up to track down the Janus Directory, which contains files of every known spy mission ever, to keep it from falling into the wrong hands. While fighting off the combined forces of Kraven the Hunter, Omega Red and Mysterio, Peter decides to look into his parents' final mission as spies. The files revealed that Logan, working for the Red Skull at the time, was the one that killed his parents. Now Spider-Man is seeing red and is out to kill Wolverine in cold-blooded revenge!!   "Spider-Man VS Wolverine" opens with Spider-Man socking Wolverine across the face yelling out that he killed his parents. Wolverine tries to explain but Spider-Man hits him again. He yells out that he saw Wolverine kill his parents. As flashbacks pass that show Logan attacking the Parkers in an airplane, Peter says he's going to kill him.   Wolverine says he doesn't want to hurt Peter and says he can't trust what he saw after all the mind ga...

 By Mark Rodriguez There's been a couple of character team-ups coming out last week. The Vision and the Scarlet Witch, Hulk and Doctor Strange but the one that got me curious enough to pick up a copy was Spider-Man and Wolverine. I'm curious what got these two to work together (this time anyway since they've teamed up several times before over the years) and what villains they will face. Let's check it out.    "Duality" opens in Berlin Germany as Wolverine hacks and slashes his way through HYDRA zombies. Wolverine says he doesn't do 'funny' but Bill has some sense of humor inviting him to a HYDRA Remnant Safe House after so many years. Bill, a career spy intelligence agent to the highest bidder, says Wolverine hasn't lost his touch. Wolverine asks what he wants and Bill asks if he's heard of the Janus Directory. Wolverine knows that the Janus Directory is a master database of the world's double agents. He figured he'd be on it, and...

By Mark Rodriguez Gwenpool is a 'real world' Marvel fan named Gwendolyn Poole that somehow ended up in the Marvel Universe. Fearing that she might be killed off as a random extra as collateral damage, she chose to become a superhero popular enough to stick around. While she had some fighting skills, Gwen's biggest weapons are being incredibly genre-savvy and able to break the fourth wall. But now there's a deadlier and darker Gwenpool running around. What will happen in this new series?   The issue opens in a Weapon X Facility: Beta as some armed soldiers are looking for their target. One of them hears that the target is in the vicinity and activates her night vision. She asks Calloway if she has eyes on the target. Their target says that agent Calloway has such beautiful eyes. The target shows the agent Calloway's decapitated head. The agent opens fire and mows the person down. The agent declared the target to be down. The target says she's wrong and asks for h...

 By Mark Rodriguez Back in 2013 we had the story where Doctor Octopus switched his dying body with that of Peter Parker. For a while Octavius became the Super Spider-Man, fighting the bad guys his way, but eventually Peter got his body back. Now the Superior Spider-Man has somehow returned. Let's see what brings him back a decade later. Before we begin, the preface explains that Peter Parker got to live in a reality where Uncle Ben lived. Upon returning, he regained his memories and a new sidekick called Spider-Boy that claims to have always been around. Meanwhile, Doc Ock has hazy memories of his time as the Superior Spider-Man. When he ran into one of his older experiments, he accidentally released a super villain he captured when he was the Superior Spider-Man. Due to this, the villain is now seeking revenge against Spider-Man instead of Doc Ock. 'Mistaken Identity Crisis' starts in New York City where a criminal named Mirage robbed a jewelry store. The villain has the ...

 By Mark Rodriguez Where we last left our Spider-Men, Miles was going to take Peter to the place where the Ultimate Parker died, when suddenly the helicopter they were in was blown up by the Ultimate Mysterio. The web-heads save the pilot and are ready to face the villain. Issue 3 starts with the heroes being confused, while Mysterio is also  wondering how these two Spider-Men found each other so quickly. Miles recognizes him as an online character called El Mysterioso. Miles tries to attack him but is easily thrown back into Peter. Mysterio decides that the universe has decided that this day he will get revenge for all his humiliations by taking out two Spider-Men for the price of one. He blasts them into the river and considers running. Then he remembers, his avatar form can hurt them but they can’t hurt him back. The heroes come back and Peter mentions the Ultimate East River is as disgusting as the one he knows. He realizes that this is the Mysterio he k...

 By Mark Rodriguez Last time, Spider-Man fought it out with Mysterio and was accidently sent to the Ultimate universe where he ran into Miles Morales, the second Ultimate Spider-Man. In case no one knew, the Peter Parker of the Ultimate universe died in the epic ‘Death of Spider-Man’ so how will Miles react upon meeting our classic Peter Parker? Let’s find out. Issue 2 begins with Mysterio waking up after Spidey knocked him out to discover that Spider-Man went to the Ultimate universe. He puts on some VR- looking tech and activates an avatar version of himself. Somehow Mysterio has discovered the Ultimate universe and wants to use it as his personal playground. He sends the avatar Mysterio into the alternate universe to stop Spider-Man before he ruins his fun. Elsewhere, the 2 Spider-Men are face to face, having a bit of communication problems since neither of them want to say too much. Miles asks if the Spider-Man he’s seeing is Peter Parker… and that freaks out Spidey. Spider-Man...

 By Mark Rodriguez Back before all the Spider-Verse and MCU Multiverse stuff, we had the regular Marvel Universe and the Ultimate Universe. The Ultimate Universe was meant to be a modern re-telling of the Marvel Universe for new readers that didn't want to be bogged down by decades of continuity. In the Ultimate Universe, Peter Parker was Spider-Man for a few years until he tragically died. After this, Miles Morales took over as the new Spider-Man. While currently Miles exists in the 616 universe alongside Peter, this was the first time the two got to meet. Spider-Men # 1 starts off with Spider-Man (Peter Parker) swinging around the city at night, monologing about awesome New York City is. He stops a couple of car thieves, and as usual, the cops try to arrest him. Pete sees a strange purple light coming out from an abandoned warehouse and decided to check it out. He finds this strange energy spiral which seems to show another world coming from sort of device from the ground. Spidey...

 By Mark Rodriguez I managed to grab a couple of Marvel Team-Up books, back in the day when comics still came as one-shots. These guys are pretty old, comics were still 35 cents back then. Checking the comic, it was released August 78. Oh wow. Let's see what Iron Man and Spider-Man were up to in the 70's. "Crack of the Whip!" starts with Spider-Man shining his Spider-Signal upon a group of crooks that are stealing some furs. The crooks try to shoot Spidey with drugged 'Mercy Bullets'. Spidey quickly takes down the bad guys while dodging their shots. He takes their furs, which makes the bad guys think the Bugle was right about Spidey being a thief, but he actually used them to cover them up to make it easier to clobber them.  Suddenly the truck the bad guys were using open fired upon Spidey from its machine gun turret, and the hero is hit. The Mercy Bullets are gelatin encased and shatter upon contact, sending a nerve drug directly into his bloodstream. Spidey ...