Sunday, August 6, 2017

I'm sorry, Aunt May. I'm sorry.

Guest appearance by Vera Miles. Thanks, Vera.

I fully realize that the character of Aunt May, Peter Parker's nigh-saintly guardian in The Amazing Spider-Man, has undergone a rather dramatic makeover in the movies. She was played by Sally Field in the previous Spider-Man film series, and she's played by Marisa Tomei in the current one. But the Aunt May of my own youth—the one depicted in the Marvel comic books I grew up on—was an impossibly decrepit old lady with a gaunt, haggard appearance and a wardrobe out of the 1890s. She was supposed to be lovable, I think, but I found her off-putting and even frightening, more threatening in her own way than any of Spidey's declared foes. Imagine the Crypt-Keeper dressed as Granny from Looney Tunes.

Anyway, the "classic" Aunt May lives on in the daily Amazing Spider-Man newspaper comic. And she's as unsettling as ever, as evidenced by today's strip. So I decided to have a little fun with her, Hitchcock style. No offense, Aunt May. Really.