Spider-Man is working for the competition

March 5, 10:44 AMComics ExaminerBrian Steinberg

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Spidey names members of the competition

For eons, it has ever been thus: Two separate but equal communities of super heroes. On one side, Marvel, home to Spider Man, Captain America, the Hulk and the Avengers; on the other, DC, home to Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman and the Justice League. Rarely do the two meet - except when there's a crossover event that can help both publishers make big wampum.

So that's why it's quite surprising today to see in the daily Spider Man comic strip that everyone's favorite Wall-Crawler is talking about Batman and Gotham City and Superman and Metropolis. In Marvel lore, there are no Gotham City or Metropolis, just real cities (that's part of what has given Marvel a grittier, more realisitic milieu over the years). In today's strip, he tells a baddie: "Superman's busy in Metropolis. Batman's saving Gotham City. So New York's stuck with me."

It's like watching an ad for Coke and hearing the people in the commercial talk about Pepsi. Are the writers of the daily Spider Man strip angry at Marvel? Did DC find a way to sneak mentions of its characters into the panels of this often-humdrum spot on the comics page? (We've written before about how ludicrous this comic can be at times).

 You know what they say: To be continued...