Li'l Benjy-the Spectacular Spider-Baby

 



Writer: Tom DeFalco
Penciller: Colleen Coover

Synopsis: Spider-Girl's little brother has baby adventures with the help of his spider powers. 

Comments: The Li'l Benjy comics were printed as back up features in Amazing Spider-Girl #25-28 and Spectacular Spider-Girl vol. 2 #3. 

The title of the feature seems to be taken from comics with child protagonists with the word "li'l" in the title. Some I found online were Li'l Jinx, Li'l Tomboy, Li'l Genius, Li'l Kids and Li'l Willie (*chuckle*). 







Tom DeFalco said in an interview that the main influence of stories were Sugar and Spike, a DC book featuring baby protagonists. This is before Rugrats or Marvin. 



I suppose these comics can be considered semi-canon at most. Benjy seems older than he appeared in the Spider-Girl comics, but then his age has always seemed a little inconsistent, especially during the Spider-Verse crossover. Benjy powers include spider-sense, wall crawling, agility and probably super strength since the web shooters take a certain amount of pressure to fire them. His organic webbing ability would not be revealed until Amazing Spider-Girl #30, which is why he uses a web shooters in the comic below. 







Only one of the features never showed Benjy using any of his powers and it could have been for almost any baby comic strip where Benjy and his friends confuse snow with flour. 








Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Randall Frenz Interview

Image
  Superman #149, brothers Randall and Ron Frenz credited on the cover. The Randall Frenz Interview When I first read the issues of Thor #400 and #401 back in high school (this would have been in the early 2000s, years after they were first published in 1989), I saw the name of Randall Frenz. I was familiar with Ron Frenz, the penciler of Thor , The Amazing Spider-Man and Spider-Girl , but who was Randall Frenz? Was it Ron's real name? Was it his alter ego? I even admitted as much when Ron wished Randall a happy birthday on Facebook.  However, I saw that there was confusion from others online as to who Randall Frenz is. The above commenter is correct, but they should have written  is, not was.  Years later, with the advent of YouTube and a book written by Tom DeFalco titled  Comics Creators on Spider-Man , I also learned that Randall Frenz is Ron's older brother through various interviews that Ron has conducted.  Randall wrote 13 published comic book stories for Marvel and DC
Read more

Spider-Girl #59

Image
  Writer: Tom DeFalco Penciller: Ron Frenz Synopsis: It's death and life as Spider-Girl has her showdown with Seth and a new character is born.  Comments: Spider-Girl's fight with Seth takes its cues from Amazing Spider-Man #229-230, written by Roger Stern and drawn by John Romita Jr. where Spider-Man fought the Juggernaut and Amazing Spider-Man #269-70 by DeFalco/Frenz, where he fought Firelord. These stories deal with a fight against a much stronger foe on a construction site and in all three instances the hero thinks they've killed the bad guy, but is mistaken.  I have re-read this comic multiple times, but I never noticed Spider-Girl kicking Seth in the groin until frogoat pointed it out . It's juxtaposed with Mary Jane giving birth, so there's a lot going down there.  Seth definitely overcompensates for Spider-Girl kicking in the groin by turning into his giant snake form, calling it his "unfettered glory." May isn't impressed. Seth does have a
Read more

The Amazing Spider-Girl: The Dance

Image
  Writer: Tom Defalco Penciller: Ron Lim Synopsis: While planning and attending a high school dance, Spider-Girl has to contend with Claw, the world's greatest cat burglar.  Comments: This a prose story from Amazing Spider-Man Magazine . I got the story in full from frogoat's blog . frogoat places it after Amazing Spider-Girl #13, so I'm doing that as well.  The format of this story is a throw back to the text stories that were published in comics in 40s and 50s. According to Paul Kupperberg , they were apparently used as a loophole to get cheaper postal service in shipping comics. Stan Lee's first comic book credit was a Captain America text story. Tapping into nostalgia factors, Grant Morrison and Alan Moore have also done text stories. Alan Moore does not surprise me since his love of old super hero stories is well documented.   Spider-Girl's comment about about Claw looking like a young Keanu Reeves in The Matrix is funny since Reeves was 35 when the first
Read more