It is a new year in history, 1964, where President Johnson has declared a"War on Poverty", plans are announced to build a twin set of gigantic towers in Downtown New York, and the Russians shoot down one of our jet fighters over East Germany, killing 3 as the Cold War boiled over in the aftermath of JFK's murder. All this sets up Peter Parker finally showing some personal manhood as The Amazing Spider-Man number 8 gets the Comics in the Classroom treatment.
The issue opens with Midtown High being featured as a site for a demonstration of a scientific wonder known as The Living Brain, which sounds like a bad 50's horror movie. Before the demonstration begins, Peter and Flash get into a jaw jacking match which escalates and results in Flash "accidentally" breaking Peter's glasses, which is always a great segue into discussing bullying in the class. Peter used the glasses as part of his Peter Parker persona, his play on the Clark Kent role. Finally fed up with Flash, and not really needing the glasses anyway, Peter decides he's had it with faking his cowardice and finally gets in Flash's face, where a good old fashioned fight is planned for after school.
Meanwhile The Living Brain is shown off in class and all the kids want to know if it can deduce Spider-Man's identity. Peter is selected as the student to program the Brain with the information and he is actually nervous that the high tech contraption will reveal his identity to the class. Written in mathematical code, Peter is given the task of decoding the answer.
So when school ends Peter shows up to the gym for his fateful showdown with Flash Thompson. Challenged to a boxing match, both men glove up while the entire class cheers for Flash and pities Parker. When Parker uses his enhanced strength and agility to evade Flash and eventually smash him through the ropes, the class thinks it was a wild fluke.
While the spectacle is going on the gym, two delivery men plan to steal The Living Brain to feed their gambling obsession and once again Midtown High is the scene of chaos. How this school isn't shut down amazes me :)
So during the robbery attempt, The Living Brain crashes and short circuits, running destructive amok around the school. Just as it hits the gym, Peter hits Flash with a haymaker and knocks him unconscious, but the class is distracted and thinks Peter hit Flash with a foul blow.
While The Living Brain runs while and attacks students and walls, Peter slips into his Spider-Man gear and leaps into battle. The two combatants proceed to smash each other through several hallways while Spider-Man dazzles the students by smashing open walls and locked doors to lead them to safety. Meanwhile the delivery guys who set the thing off try to escape while The Living Brain stalks after Spidey.
Spider-Man manages to get on top of The Living Brain as it smashes through a doorway and drags them into the stairwell, where Spidey manages to pull out some of its wiring as they tumble down the stairs. Spider-Man shuts The Living Brain down and saves the day, but the fleeing delivery men crash into Flash Thompson, who was aimlessly wandering the halls once he woke up from Peter's knockout punch. Flash is revered as the hero for stopping the thieves while Peter basks in the quiet irony. And another lesson in bullying is in the books, kind of :)
Peter got a chance to get back at Flash for all the name calling, ribbing and other assorted annoyances to be classified in the bullying index. During all the excitement, Peter used the opportunity to turn things around on Flash, teasing him about secretly being Spider-Man in front of the class while Flash turns red with frustration at Peter publicly outwitting him. Meanwhile Peter is able to discard The Living Brain's answer to Spider-Man's real identity. All in all, a nice ending and an ego boost.
In the second part of this double feature, we are treating to a quick splash of action as Spider-Man decides
to play a prank on Johnny Storm aka The Human Torch, while he shows off his new Stingray at a party at his girlfriend's house. What starts out as a prank turns into an adolescent superhero brawl as Johnny accuses Spider-Man of being jealous of his glamorous lifestyle. One of my student's astounds me when he brings up an excellent point. It says before Johnny had the new Stingray, he was driving an XK Jag, now I thought the Fantastic Four were a non profit organization and all their funding goes into research. I immediately assign the students to find me pictures of both styles of cars as we begin a discussion on commercial endorsements and how they would play out in our superhero styled community. The class asks to add some sort of Fantastic Four reference in our story about corporate superheros. I agree and we have the secretary add it to the notes. Every class needs a Betty Brant,
Spidey and The Torch tangle into the sky before crashing onto the beach and duking it out with webs, flames and one liners until the rest of The Fantastic Four attempts to break up the fight, which results in Spider-Man taking a few jabs at Mr Fantastic and The Thing before the melee is brought to a peaceful resolution when Susan Storm aka The Invisible Woman flirts with Spider-Man and settles the bad air. Once again we flirt with the idea of The Fantastic Four popping up in our story, perhaps in our sequel down the line.
So besides cameos, commercialism and sequels, we discuss an important scene in our master script........
The Action Sequence
Testing the class to see how well they retain information, I assign homework for them to go back over the first 7 issues of Amazing Spider-Man or bring in a description of their favorite action sequence from a movie of their choice, which we will then bounce around the class about how to adapt it to Spider-Man. The students bring up the idea of the Colonel John Jameson's rocket from the opening issue of Amazing Spider-Man, which has never been used in any of the films and would make the perfect twist for the science fiction aspect of our story. We kick around the idea of having Jameson's rocket being successful instead of sabotaging and the major issue that comes up is Jameson's is returning from a deep space mission when his vessel either breaks down...................or is attacked.
I finish the class by telling them about the time I rented a seafoam blue Jaguar and tore around the streets of Oahu as I sped around Hawaii like James Bond, until I was almost beaten up by a bunch of crazed locals.
The kids salivate when they bring up the idea of having the Venom alien symbiote making an appearance in our master script. And with that another fun session of Comics in the Classroom comes to an end.
Vocab Word Web
1- Dramatize
2- Technician
3- Invulnerable
4- Rampage
5- Somersaulting
6- Concentrate
7- Analyzing
8- Deceptively
9- Extending
10- Increased
11- Out-Maneuvered
12- Dislodge
13- Conscience
14- Haste
15- Deactivated
16- Burly
17- Wallop
18- Dialogue
19- Intense
20- Demolish
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