“Somebody screamed! And all the lights went out!”  Thanks for filling us in Mary Jane.  The “EEEEEE” across the top, and the copious amounts of black ink probably filled most of us in on both of those facts, but maybe some of the slower readers appreciate your keeping them informed.  Of course, describing to Peter exactly what he just saw happen not two seconds before doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, but ‘not making logical sense’ is kind of par for the course with this strip.

Spiderman - 02/13/2009

To me, the ironic thing is that when the Spiderman strip unvieled it’s HUGE CHANGE back in January, they used constant large dialog boxes to fill us in on what was going on when they could have used character exposition to catch the readers up on 90% of what was happening.  In this case, Mary Jane insists on describing what’s happening for the benefit of the reader, even when it’s completely unneccessary and mostly nonsensical within the strip’s dialogue.  Meh.

So we’ve already seen some similarities between Peter Parker and Electro, and now we’re being shown even more.  It’s like they were separated at birth!

So we’ve spent the last week learning about the history of “Electro”, and we now see him returning home to his family, just like how Spiderman returned home to Aunt May in Sunday’s strip.  Both walk into their house in broad daylight, clad in full super-hero/villian regalia, and then change clothes quickly, hoping that their family members won’t just happen to be in the room when they walk inside the house.

I, for one, can’t wait to see how the final showdown happens.  Peter Parker will freak out because he left his Spider suit in Aunt May’s laundry basket, but then a brick will fall on Electro’s head, making him forget who he is.  All this followed by a surprise ending no one will expect - be ready!

Spiderman - 02/01/2009

Spiderman - 02/06/2009

Spiderman - 01/27/2009

It’s not enough that Spiderman has been moping around for the past week because his camera was broken(he secured it to the ledge of a building with his webbing, but his webs were no match for Super-Pigeon).  Now Electro is whining about losing the money he stole.  Instead of actually doing any fighting, these two will just see who can complain the most.  Eventually, one of them will probably do something stupid and defeat themselves, and the other one can claim a ’sort-of’ victory, and go back to watching television.

Family Circus - 01/23/2009

Meanwhile, the Keane’s are cleaning out the junk from their attic.  So did Papa Keane attend this USC or this USC - or maybe this one?  Either way, it looks like Dolly will be attending Sweet Briar University, a women’s college in Virginia.