Thursday 2 January 2014

STAR JAWS!

Welcome to Images Degrading Forever!

What other way could I start a project of such a epic and ground breaking nature…than with a short video introduction....



STAR JAWS appears within issue 31 of Spidey Super Stories - a comic made to tie into The Electric Companies TV show of the same name

The TV show was designed for very, very young children as a show to learn and have fun, a lot like Seasame Street, but even younger (possibly) and with Spidey in the episodes



The Spidey Super Stories comic often actually literally adapted some of the TV episodes into comic book form (yes even the above...) as well as having a sort-of very young Marvel Team up being featured, with most of the rest of the Marvel Universe guest starring in one issue or another

These stories was equally “Kiddifed” and aimed at the same audience

One can imagine that the aim of Spidey Super Stories was to be the first thing a kid would ever read

But STAR JAWS was something else, it was a whole issue devoted to one story (which never happened in any other issue of Spidey Super Stories), it had guest stars both from the rest of the Marvel Universe as well as The Electric Company together for the first (and probably only time) and the story was a mash up of 2 movies, not only of Star wars but also Jaws all into one crazy comic!




The best thing then, really is to just present my recreation of this comic and keep the commentary from this point onwards to a minimum 




This is obviously a parody / homage to the very famous painted movie poster of Star Wars by the Hildebrants… the image has been flipped, but we have Spidey standing in for Luke Skywalker and Moondragon and Princess Leia - and….

DR DOOM as Darth Vader! Talk about perfect casting for Doom, as we will see




So,we start off this minor little epic with MJ and Peter in the wood on a moonlit night, and it would appear romance is in the air and or very much on MJs mind…




Peter and MJ even look like they are just about to kiss when a rocket conveniently appears and crashes, yet MJ seems to be rather upset at being sent to go for help - quite what the message is here for younger children is rather uncertain

Still I know enough that most 5-7 year old boys would probably saying kissing was bad or “bleech” or something similar

And that editorial thought exposing any younger reader to such things was not such a good idea, but does that mean mommy and Daddy can never kiss in front of their kids, seriously??!

I think I will leave whatever the educational value may be of depicting a woman being upset for no clearly defined reason that could be explained to young child well alone…




Peter clarifies that this was in fact a date he had with MJ, but doesn’t that raise more questions than it answers for younger children?! That aside, our first guest star makes his appearance - in his dual role of both R2D2 and C3P0 it’s Sam The Sesame Street Robot - who on emerging from the rocket and saying he his “in perfect working order” - launches into the well worn maniac robot vocal trinity

This is where a robot will repeat the same thing three times, usually with increasing volume or stress in vocalisation, ranging from the Daleks with “Exterminate” to Robby the Robot with “Danger”

But luckily enough before we wonder if this mean Sam wants to take over the world, a caption assures us that it was just the crash landing that shook Sam up and is  all in fine by the next panel…




Now we go into a flashback, which is obvious enough to us older comic book readers, but possibly not that well explained for younger children, still we get a picture of Sam in a caption to explain it is him who is telling the story

For younger kids the fact that sam can take rides in a spaceship or that Moondragon had a spaceship to offer a ride in would be fine no questions there

For us or even anyone who had read any of Moondragons previous adventures would be rather perplexed at the leap of imagination required that she would be flying in a space ship with Sam the Robot from Sesame Street but that is only the start of many such leaps…




As the story now stars to obviously mine the Star Wars universe with “a space station as big as a planet”… Which remains thankfully unnamed - Fatality spheroid anyone?!

Meanwhile all the kids will do is (quite rightly) say WOW!

NEXT WEEK:- Dr Doom makes his debut and unveils his evil plot!

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