They’ve been gassing the PR machine pretty hard lately around the impending opening this fall of the $25 million-dollar budgeted Broadway musical, Spider-Man: Turn Off The Dark. Directed by the brilliant Julie Taymor and featuring a score from U2, it’ll either be a great night of theater or else the most-embarrassing piece of shit ever. When it comes to a musical sung by a superhero and supervillains, I doubt there is much of a chance for middle ground!

But did you know that there already was a Spider-Man musical? Yup. In 1975, a Spidey rock opera, Rock Reflections of a Super-Hero was released. One day when I was 9-years old my dad brought it home for me. It had a cool album cover which was a painting of Spidey/Peter Parker by John Romita and narration by—who else—Stan Lee. It’s gloriously awful, basically the Peter Parker story set to song (“Square Boy” is about his nerdy high school years. “Gwendolyn” is of course about the death of his girlfriend Gwen Stacy).

The best/worst song is the Doctor Octopus song. In it he threatens to turn the Black Panther and Thor into go-go dancers. If the whole things were a Doctor Octopus album, it would have been way better. It begins in the second half of the clip below:
 

 
And dig the back cover: The Hulk on drums, Silver Surfer on synth, Luke Cage on bass, Thor on trumpet, the Fantastic Four on backing vocals (Ben Grimm has a certain Mama Cass-like quality to his voice, don’t you think?) and Captain America on… tambourine?
 

 

 
Dangerous Minds pal Charles Johnson has posted another tasty classic comics cover over at Little Green Footballs. Wait until Glen Beck gets ahold of this, PROOF that Marvel Comics promotes racism or reverse racism or Communism… or something:

Since the New Black Panther Party has been the race-baiting rage lately, here’s a related cover image from the Lizard Collection: issue #52 of Fantastic Four, a classic released in July 1966, an arguably more innocent and open time. This book featured the first appearance of African superhero Black Panther, who would go on to become one of the Avengers. It’s Jack Kirby and Stan Lee at the top of their talents, drawing on 60s memes and cultural icons to create a new, distinct, and very influential form of pop art.

 
This lawsuit from the heirs of the great comic artist Jack Kirby has been a looong time coming. The legal ramifications of this case are immense, considering the billion dollar value of these corporate trademarks. Comic artists often signed away rights to their creations during the “Golden Age” of the industry, putting their signatures on contracts measurably worse than the ones signed by blues musicians.

From the New York Times:

When the Walt Disney Company agreed in August to pay $4 billion to acquire Marvel Entertainment, the comic book publisher and movie studio, it snared a company with a library that includes some of the world’s best-known superheroes, including Spider-Man, the X-Men, the Incredible Hulk and the Fantastic Four.

The heirs of Jack Kirby, the legendary artist who co-created numerous Marvel mainstays, were also intrigued by the deal. Mr. Kirby’s children had long harbored resentments about Marvel, believing they had been denied a share of the lush profits rolling out of the company’s superheroes franchises.

They spent years preparing for a lawsuit by enlisting a Los Angeles copyright lawyer, Marc Toberoff, to represent them. When the Marvel deal was struck, Mr. Toberoff — who helped win a court ruling last year returning a share of Superman profits to heirs of one of that character’s creators — sprang into action.

Pow! Wham! Another high-profile copyright fight broke out in Hollywood, and this one could be the broadest the industry has yet seen.

A Supersized Custody Battle Over Marvel Superheroes (New York Times)

Here’s a creepy “save the date” invite for an event created by Elixir Designs:

If what you do is ostensibly what your competition does, then why do your customers choose you? Because you do it differently. And, you want to do it better. We help our clients cultivate their authentic differences. Then we communicate them in ways that their customers trust.

Our tangible work-the graphic evidence of the design process- embodies the client?