We all need a little chuckle.

The other day I was with a group of friends and we were passing jokes around. We all had a good laugh and it seemed to make the day go by faster and just a little bit brighter. Then I thought to myself, "Self, why don't you make a post about this." (That is a Mr. Brown reference for those that had him as a teacher.) So, here I am making a post.

I thought that I would leave a joke and others can use this to post jokes here as well. It's as much fun telling a good joke as listening to one. Besides, we all need a good joke to store in our memory banks. And I thought I would stick to an old person theme.

These two elderly women were out driving one sunny afternoon. They come up to an intersection. The car didn't slow down and ran right through the red light. The passenger became concerned with this. "Did we just go through a red light? No, it must be my old eyes playing tricks on me." the passenger thought to herself. "I will just pay closer attention the next time."

Another intersection came up and the car kept trucking through yet another red light. "Now I know we ran that one!" again speaking to herself.

Passenger: Ethel! Ethel! Did you know you just ran through two stop lights?!

Driver: Holy crap! Am I driving?

It's short but I thought it was very funny. And it is also clean. I know some better ones but they tend to get a little rough. But, by all means, leave a joke. It doesn't have to be clean like mine. That was the first old person joke that popped in my head. And your joke can be about anything. I hope that everyone can get a good chuckle out of this post. We all need a good laugh or two.

While I am at it.

The last post reminded me of yet another old man story that happened back around the summer of 1999. And the old man in the story was also hard to understand. So, I will tell the story as the best I remember it.

I was working as an intern for a private civil engineering business. I was with two other guys and we had to go to Hindman, KY to do a survey for the state. Lunchtime came and we went to the "mini mall" they had close by to where we were at. After eating at the family restuarant there, we sat out in the lobby area of the "mall" to finish out our lunch. As we sat, we were saying hello to passer-bys just to be friendly. Not a single soul responded to our friendly gestures. We were snobbed by people in Hindman, KY. I will let that set in for a minute before proceeding forward.

Just a minute more.

Okay.

Finally, this old man came along and one of my colleagues decided to try to communicate with the locals. He actually responded but not in the way we intended. It was funny. We could only make out every other word. In between words were sounds and mumbles that we couldn't comprehend. On top of that, the octone of his voice kept raising and lowering. And I will try to recreate the conversation that took place.

Friend: Hello

Old Man: Hello hmphf murf *mumble mumble* today

Friend: (Holding back laughter) Just fine. And you?

Old Man: *Mumble* *Mumble* zippity ho hot sunshine shade

Friend: Yeah, we are out working. We are trying to take it easy for a minute before we have to go back out. Trying to let this food settle.

Old Man: Yeah, working *mumble* hiding from bossman *mumble* *mumble* pine tree blacksnake.

(At this time, we are all almost in tears about to bust out laughing)

Friend: (Says this as he is laughing.) Really? Yeah, we aren't hiding. We actually need to get back.

Old Man: Heh heh. You boys balati coo up bibity.

Friend: (Waves). Ok. Zimity bo.

Old Man: Hacha ba. Ha ha.

Then the old man walked out of the mini lobby and out to his car. We then proceeded to laugh uncontrollably. Our friend just carried on a conversation with this guy and we didn't have a clue what he said or what he was talking about. But, at least he talked to us. I think he talked to us. Now that I look back over this, I don't know if you could count this as a conversation. At any rate, it gave us something to laugh at and a story to stick with us for a long, long time.

I have been commissioned.

Welcome back everyone. I hope that all enjoyed the holidays. I hope that it was safe and everyone was able to be with family and friends.

Alright, as the title says....I have been commissioned to answer a burning question that was left in a comment in the previous post. The question is basically asking about the origins of cosmic Spider-Man and my nerdiness might be able to shine a light on the situation. Which is going to be kinda tricky. I can't really recall which happened first but I do believe that it happened in this order. Again, I am just doing this from memory and searched the internet for only pictures to give a visual of the costume and the exact comic covers of the cosmic spidey events.


First, our friendly neighborhood Spider-Man was "possessed" by Captain Marvel. Captain Marvel was a cosmic being and was killed during a fight. However, his spirit continued to roam the universe. Now, if memory serves me correctly, in the issue Spider-Man gets Captain Marvels' powers, the powers are bestowed to a dog first. He resuces his owners from a certain death due to a hot air balloon mishap. Then the spirit leaves the dog and goes on to search for another host. The powers never stay with a particular being because it will drive the host completely insane. It stays long enough to complete a huge task then leaves. The picture shown here is the Captain Marvel version of cosmic Spider-Man. I believe that this version lasted a couple of issues and can't really remembered what Spidey fought and when Marvel's powers left him. There is a issue of What-If that goes into the scenario of what if the powers stayed with Spider-Man. And as all great What-If's that deal with Spider-Man, Spidey is killed at the end.


The other cosmic Spider-Man was in his traditional costume. Spidey got his powers from a lab accident at the college during an experiment that Peter Parker was helping with. Basically, a genterator exploded and Parker jumped in to save the professor from certain doom. However, the generator proved to be a conduit to give Spider-Man the power cosmic. This story line can be found in this issue shown. Again, going from memory, this issue basically starts off with some villians getting together and deciding to fight each other's nemisis. The line of thinking here is that the people they normally fight are used to fighting them and this is why they are always being defeated. So, by switching heroes, then they can defeat said hero because the hero won't know how to fight them. And the Trapster gets to fight Spidey in this issue which is a Human Touch villian...I believe. Please correct me if I am wrong here. At any rate, Spidey fights Trapster at the beginning and gets the better of him. Trapster is gloating over is victory and truly believes he destroyed Spidey. But, the wall crawler was able to escape death from the hands of the Trapster. After the fight, the accident happens (which is explained earlier) and Spidey gets the power cosmic. He first realizes his new power when he comes to the rescue of some citizens when a power cable is cut and flailing wildley. He realized that he should have been killed from the electricity when he was struck by the cable while he was protecting people from it. Then later on, he faces Trapster again with his new powers. Needless to say, Spidey mops the floor with him. Like I said, this issue begins a series where Spidey fights an array of people, like Magneto. Which was another good issue. He fights Magneto in a junkyard. Talk about a very big disadvange that Spidey was facing. Fighting the master of metal in an old junkyard full of old cars. Yep, it was a very good fight. In that same issue, Spider-Man learned that he could fly.
*Just a side note. This same style cover was used when Spider-Man lost his powers for an issue. Basic differences are that Spidey is doing a shrug with his sholders and a crook was coming through the doorway instead of Trapster.

Now, I just had to mention this because of what was in the last comment. Yes, there was a tussle with the Hulk. As seen here in this issue, which was drawn by none other than Mr. Todd McFarlane. Now this wasn't the first time Spider-Man faced the Hulk. Basically, after defeating Magneto, the bad guys start to get worried about Spidey's new powers. And Parker was getting used to his new found powers. I believe in this issue, he dispatched a group of bad guys trying to blow up the Statue of Liberty with ease. He whipped them and encased the bombs they had with webbing and used his cosmic powers to turn said webbing into adamantium. The bombs went off but did no damage to the structure. At any rate, the bad guys go out into the desert and find the grey Hulk sitting on his "throne". They made a deal with the Hulk to destroy Spider-Man. They began to fight and Spidey was just trying to keep him at bay. Until he noticed that innocent lives were in danger and the Hulk was not going to stop until the job was done. So, Spidey punched the Hulk so hard that he put Hulk into orbit. But, being the character that Spidey is, he flew up and brought the big lug back to Earth.

There were many more adventures. At one point, he fought the Tri-Sentinel created by Loki. But it is hard to remember because I haven't picked those issues up in a long time. All this happened when I was a little nerd...just starting out in my nerd quest.

Now, that is what I remember about the cosmic Spidey era. This is just from my memory banks and not looking up information nor going back through old issues to read up on it. Granted that I did look up pics to put into this post but I believe the pics are nice visuals. If there are those out there that could add and/or correct anything that I have posted, then feel free to post a comment. Hope that answers or brings back any memories of the cosmic Spidey era, Cory. Heh heh. Well, that is enough dorkism for awhile...later all.