I’m a Southerner (Birmingham, AL) as well, I was too young to experience either Glam or the original Punk movement. I can only imagine what it might have been like to be a punk in the mid-70′s, when Southern Rock ruled the airwaves. Even in the early 90′s it wasn’t the most accepted of music. Things are much easier for “the kids” these days.

I imagine being into glam down here in the early 70′s would have been…risky.

And is Spiderman really just an “ordinary joe”? He’s had his life threatened countless times, you’d think he would harden eventually. You use the example of World War II, but most of the soldiers in WWII were either conscripts or recent volunteers, unlike Peter the experienced, willing participant. And even then, I would have to imagine that soldiers reactions were different when a comrade, or especially their own, lives were directly threatened, which doesn’t reflect killing Osborn, but would reflect Wonder Woman killing Maxwell Lord. I’m not sure what you mean by “pragmatically reinforce his knee-jerk response”, but if your point is that he doesn’t kill out of habit, that still doesn’t explain his opinions on killing.

I know I’ve sometimes wanted to kill some of the politicians I’ve seen on the news, but if I actually imagine doing it, I know there is no way I ever could. I don’t know if I could even seriously hurt somebody on purpose.

I’d also note that Spider-Man’s “standard simplistic morality” is in most regards far more realistic if you rememebr that he’s meant to be an ordinary joe. For chrissakes, in real life it’s taken decades of changes in military training just to get most troops to shoot people in combat reliably. Studies of World War II, for example, show remarkably low rates of trigger-pulls in battle; and Peter Parker is not only just a middle-class dude from Queens, he’s a dude who’s gotten through thousands of adventures without killing, which would seem to pragmatically reinforce his knee-jerk response to the matter.

I know a lot of superhero readers like to imagine they’d be twisting the heads off of Dr. Doom and the Red Skull if they had powers and opportunity, but the odds are good that most real people would have a lot of trouble with the idea of deliberately killing someone in person and by hand.

Remember All-Star Superman #12, where Luthor suddenly can’t murder now that he sees, and feels, and hears what his violence physically does to people? That’s an exaggeration of an instinctual set of responses that most non-sociopaths have in situations of potentially lethal violence.

Killing for the greater good or even for simple justice is a genuinely different ballgame when it’s your hands and a flesh-and-blood person than when it’s abstracted consideration about paper-cutouts on a comics page or names in a history book. You’d be a lot more likely to react as Peter does, if you consider the matter with any degree of honesty.

I hear that Far From Heaven and I’m Not There are really good though.

Both are pretty amazing.

They both walk a tight line as well, with a bit out there concepts, but the story and characters never give way to the style.

Fair enough. In which case, I totally agree. I think that it confirms the idea that Spider-Man’s moral code is as nuanced and mature as that of an eight-year-old; he doesn’t kill because it’s wrong, and it’s wrong because the internalized notion of the father figure ( in this case, Uncle Ben ) says so, so he won’t even consider it for fear of being spanked by his conscience.

For more on Peter’s infantile perspective on right and wrong, see the paparazzi story ( he’d rather have the friends and family that he keeps in the dark about his secret ID approve than make the money he really needs to fight crime ).

Good lord. That’s probably one of my favorite, I dunno, 20 or so movies ever. Of course, I’m sort of obsessed with glam (growing up in the South means I missed it completely, though when punk followed I immersed myself quite thoroughly), which I suspect helps a lot.

However, if they kill him, some stupid writer will just bring him back in a few years, and I always hate it when they do that. In fact, I got really upset when I found out they brought him back in the ’90s. (Although I didn’t actually find out about it until around 2006. It happened during the time I’d stopped buying comics.)

And it doesn’t seem right that Hawkeye would be the one so intent on killing him. This is the guy who drove his own wife out of the Avengers after she killed a man who’d raped her. Surely I’m not the only one who remembers that. If Bendis needed an Avenger to insist on killing Osborn, wouldn’t it have made more since to use Wolverine, or Ms Marvel? I know she’d made her own plans to kill Osborn last Winter, (But I haven’t read her book since then, so I don’t know if she changed her mind or anything.) (Oh, interesting thing… When I first read that issue of Ms Marvel last Winter, I still didn’t know Osborn was suddenly in charge of everything. I hadn’t been reading Secret Invasion, and I didn’t get the New Avengers issues from that time until a few months later. So I was just reading a quiet story about Carol going home to see her family, and then on the last page, the narration calmly states, ‘I’m going to kill Norman Osborn’. That just floored me. I had no idea she even had any particular reason to hate him. It just came as a total shock. I know these comic companies try to stun readers several times a month, usually with sudden twists that end up ruining things when they try to justify them within the next few issues. And those shocks rarely have much effect on me. But this one did. I don’t know what lesson the writers and editors can take from this. Maybe shocks like this only work on those readers who miss a lot of issues.)

FGJ – I’ve only watched Velvet Goldmine once (and that was at least 10 years ago), but I really hated it.
I felt they really missed the mark with the Eno songs. I was in the depths of a serious Eno obsession though, so I might have been too biased. It might be time for another viewing.

I hear that Far From Heaven and I’m Not There are really good though.

That’s still impressive for a song that was never officially released until the soundtrack of the film whose title it inspired!

Oh, I’ll pay that – surprised they took a risk like that, not many other artists you’d get away with it.

Ripper of a film as well.
Todd Haynes makes much better films than he seems to get credit for.

Less laid back. It’s probably a bit more ‘Planet-Wavesy’.

I’d say that’s quite accurate.

The 1966 ones are, as I mentioned before, more “snarl”-y.

Brian, Chad, et al: Have any of you heard any of the Rolling Thunder Revue concerts, from 1976? I downloaded one recently, and it might be the best live Dylan I’ve heard besides the Live ’66 album (the one in which an audience member yells “Judas,” right?) Mick Ronson, David Bowie’s lead guitarist during the “Ziggy Stardust” years, played some lead, and Dylan’s clearly having a great time.

If you like those, Mike, you should really look for the earlier Revue concerts.

The idea was still fresh in 1974/1975, and it was a lot more fun than the slightly more bitter 1976 concerts (although the 1976 concerts were good, too).

Also, the official release of the Rolling Thunder Revue is a freakin’ COMPILATION! How lame is that??!? Just pick a good concert, for crying out loud!

Also, ironing shirts really does suck.

@Chad: I completely forgot to comment on Greek Street. I keep buying it because I always like to give the “good” Peter Milligan the benefit of the doubt. It probably helps that I’m not so well-versed in Greek mythology that I see all the parallels. (Oedipus didn’t run away with Cassandra, did he?) But I’ll probably drop it if it doesn’t become more engaging. I also feel very mixed about Gianfelice’s art. His drawing is quite beautiful in some ways (very nice rendering of hands, which always catches my attention), reminding me of Duncan Fegredo in places. But unlike Fegredo, his inking isn’t very rich, leaving wide open spaces in the drawing that just feel like they need something more.