Spider-Man: Another big, stupid, musical disaster

Since we're on the topic of big-budget, horrible musicals, I'd like to turn your attention to this:


This is one of many images from the actual upcoming Broadway musical; "Spider-Man: Turn off the Dark" (as in "dammit, who left the dark on? I told them a thousand times; before you leave the house, you have to turn off the dark.") Julie Taymor, who has done the impossible in the past by bringing "The Lion King" to the Broadway stage and getting a huge amount of acclaim for it, is directing. Note that she has also directed "Titus" and "Across the Universe"; the latter of which was astounding visually, but utterly moronic story-wise.

Meanwhile, Bono-who it should be noted, has never composed a Broadway musical (or anything remotely approaching a Broadway musical)-is putting together the music. The villains featured are Carnage, The Green Goblin, Swiss Miss (created for the show), and a new villain based on greek mythology. According to various sources around the internet, Swarm and Kraven the Hunter are also going to be in it, but it's difficult to determine how much of this is just hearsay. But hey, at least we can see the Swiss Miss...
Okay, seriously? What the hell is that? Is that C-3P0's awkward sister? Madonna playing the Tin Man? What is that?

Also, what kind of a name is "Swiss Miss"? Really? I guess the point is that he (she? it?) is a swiss-army-knife themed villain. Alright, excusing the fact that that's the kind of villain a 7-year old would come up with, why would you name a knife themed villain "swiss miss"? That doesn't inspire fear. It makes me want to brew some hot chocolate and go hiking. Plus, just look at how impractical that costume is for someone who's planning on doing a lot of fighting. It's so awkward and off balance-you can barely move your arms, you can't really crouch, and a blunt object to your chest would knock you over, leaving you squirming to get back up. Maybe it looks cool when a ballet dancer is prancing around in it, but most supervillains aren't trying to impress an audience with their skillful pirouettes.

I mean, seriously, you couldn't have just found another villain who already exists? Why are Julie Taymor and Glen Berger writing this script when you could have paired one of them off with somebody who actually writes and understands comic books? I mean, somebody must have done some research on these characters. Because after all, they put a lesser-known character like Carnage in the mix...

THAT's not carnage! That's what a carnage toy would look like if you cooked it in the microwave on high for three minutes! This is a professional costume design? Not only is that not a good Carnage costume, it's not a good costume, period!

I mean, if you needed to pull off a high-concept villain onstage, why not someone like Sandman, or Dr. Octopus? You know, somebody who DIDN't have to wear a stupid-looking halloween mask for the entirety of the production?

Look, I'm not going to complain about what they left out, what they screwed up, and how they got the comics wrong. This isn't a film, there's no CGI, and there are going to be a lot of compromises made with the original material.

That said, this looks poised to be an epic disaster. Not only is it continuing the desperate trend of Broadway trying to be more like the movies by adapting literally anything popular into a big, forced production, but it's making every mistake a Spider-Man movie could possibly make. Look at what this show is trying to do for a story: it's trying to tell Spider-Man's origins (including the death of Uncle Ben shown in shadow-puppet form), show off upwards of 4 villains, integrate musical numbers and elaborate stunts, and all for an audience (Broadway regulars) that probably has only a passing familiarity with the source material.

Meanwhile, the show has been delayed twice (most recently due to a couple of stunt-man injuries) and will be opening in January-well past the holiday rush. Spider-Man isn't exactly a hot property right now, either, seeing as how his last film was a poorly received threequel three years ago, his comics have been suffering since the "One More Day" fiasco, and his new film won't be out for a few years. Comics fans probably won't be too interested in seeing a freakish troll version of Green Goblin flying around on a hang-glider, theater fans aren't exactly waiting on bated breath for Bono's Broadway debut, and comic book fans who are also theater fans (myself) are too poor to go see this (I may be projecting a little, though). I have a feeling this will be an incredible bomb. Then again, I thought "Avatar" was going to be a massive flop.

Honestly though, I don't want this to succeed. I don't want Broadway to smell a hit in every comic book property. I don't want "Batman: Turn off the Dark Knight", or "Iron Man: Turn off the Mark-1", or "Watchmen-Nite Owl gets Turned On". If I thought that this show was borne out of some genuinely brilliant experimental vision wherein pop-culture and elitist theatricality were melded into some sort of Baroque masterpiece, then I might be willing to give it a chance. But those pictures only demonstrate a desperate desire to cram as many neat comic-booky things onstage as possible, with little understanding of what makes these characters and their associated images so special in the first place.


All images are viewable here.

Oh, and can we please stop putting "Ka-Pow!" into the title of every single comic-book related article? Please?