All right, I’m finally sick and tired of this.

With the previews beginning to leak out from Spider-Man’s “One Moment In Time” story, which they claim will be the magic bullet that retconned Spider-Man’s marriage, I can stay silent no longer.

Everybody says “Oh, they’ll never put Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson back together.” And every time somebody says so, I can’t help but think of Latka and Simka.

In the two part Taxi episode, “Scenskees From A Marriage”, Latka (Andy Kaufman) strays from his marriage to Simka (Carol Kane) and due to their cultural restrictions, they must break up. To explain where I see all of this heading, we now must show the climactic scene of the divorce (jump ahead to about 2:55, if you must):

Now, there’s another thing to consider. The comics industry, for all of its maturing and stabilization, still remembers the scare of censors and the like. Does Disney really want to deal with the backlash from the religious right when they finally notice that this leading hero cut a deal with the devil to destroy the sanctity of his marriage? Personally, I’m amazed that James Dobson, who’s always looking for a new thing to beat up Disney over, hasn’t already gone after this one.

But the lingering resentment is still there from fans, who look at that and say that it came out of left field, that it ruined the character of Peter Parker, because of the way this change was made.

Luckily, there is a solution to all of this.

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Trailers and photos are beginning to leak out from the most disparaged unreleased movie of the year.

We’re finally seeing something from Seth Rogen’s Green Hornet movie, set for release next January. Already, that’s a bad sign – usually, big deal action flicks are released in summer or around Christmas, and Green Hornet was moved back from this summer into an all-but-invisible slot.

The stuff that’s been released is, of course, the really cool stuff. There’s nothing that says this is all the cool stuff the movie has to offer, but we always have that sneaking suspicion. Seth doesn’t look too bad– sort of plumpish Michael Keaton as Bruce Wayne. And Jay Chou looks like he
can handle the martial arts. It other words, there was nothing to chase me
away, like in the Spirit and Jonah Hex trailers. And there’s at least one thing that’s really cool-looking.

That would be the car, Black Beauty, after which they named the powerful amphetamine. It looks great. It damn well should; it might be carrying the movie. But… can it act?

I’ll probably see The Green Hornet for at least three reasons. The villain is being played by Christoph Waltz, of Inglourious Basterds fame, and he stole that movie, dropped it on me, and performed a lap dance. Edward James Olmos is playing hard-edged reporter Mike Axelrod, the man out to
expose the Green Hornet to impress his publisher, who also happens to be the Green Hornet. And long-time comics artist Arne Starr is in the movie, in a bit part but still, it’s always cool to see friends in the movies.

But I am most certainly not sold on The Green Hornet. At least, not yet.

We are saddened to report the passing of Adrienne Colan, wife of Gene Colan, over this past weekend. Clifford Meth, pictured here at right with the Colans, adds this personal note for his friend.

The news hasn’t been great in the Colan home these last few months. If you’ve followed it, and if you’ve read between the lines, you’ve weeded out a kernel of truth and likely a whole cob of mistruths. And none of that really matters, now. It was all rubber-necking anyway.

But there are truths I’d like to share about Adrienne Colan, and chief among them was her and Gene’s love for each other. It read like an epic poem. The hardships and tragedies and obstacles were too numerous to count, but for half a century they remained at the center of each other’s universes. For richer or for poorer. In sickness and in health. For better or worse.

The Adrienne Colan you met at conventions was the real McCoy. She was tough and funny and uncompromising; warm and intelligent and spiritual. And her sense of humor was splendid. I think that’s where we met—at that dark crossroads where everything was tragic-comic. Our friendship existed outside of my friendship with Gene; we corresponded for decades, sharing dreams and fears.

And I guess I loved Adrienne. Now that the end has come amidst ashes and tears, I owe myself that honesty. I loved her attention, loved sending her a new story and when she got something I’d written and dissected it (and me with it); loved that she was intellectually curious about everything I shared and painfully honest with me…and with herself.

“Something I find fascinating about you is how you came to give yourself permission to live by your own standards without alienating those that love you and
you love,” she wrote to me last December, following a personal tragedy. “How and where does one go inside to know they have that right to live by their own truth?  I’m so interested in this because I’ve always had a POV about how I need to live my life but continued to allow myself to be crushed by [others]… I’ve allowed their version of right and wrong choices to annihilate my world view. That’s what the weight is about. And I can’t begin to tell you dear Clifford how awful it is [for] one’s psyche to still be crawling my way out of that at the age of 67. At this age I feel I acquiesced to letting myself ‘die’… But I’m responsible, so I eat.”

And there it was—that dark humor inside the sadness. So I eat. You could hear her say it.

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I didn’t see Avatar, but I’ll bet you a boatload of lawyers will be seeing its X-rated sequel this fall.

Larry Flynt’s Hustler porn empire just finished making
what is said to be the most expensive porn flick in history, and it’s called This Ain’t Avatar XXX, and, of course it’s in 3-D. Perhaps they want to be faithful to the original.

This is awesome, although some fans of the medium might
think it’s a remake of the hit 1968 arthouse classic I Am Curious Blue. Me, well, I’m not so curious. Ever since The Stewardesses (1969; the first single-camera 3-D movie), porn has long been the most logical subject matter for 3-D movies, unless you’re really into small-breasted women or are easily frightened by money shots.

As it turns out there was an alien sex scene in Avatar, but it was cut because somebody thought showing the two leading blue characters hooking their tails together on-screen would jeopardize the movie’s rating or the merchandising licensees’ delicate sensibilities.

Maybe the parody will incorporate James Cameron’s environmental message. That would make This Ain’t Avatar XXX relevant… something that the original was not. We can find out in September. I can hardly wait for the IMAX screening.