Original Air Date
- June 6, 2023
Part 1 Begins
Hero Song (3:20)
- “Hero” by Chad Kroeger Featuring Josey Scott
Superhero Smash (1:00)
- Featuring the best in “Superhero Music and Comic Book Lore”
- Focusing on current superhero movies and popular culture
- Playing the best music that features superheroes and is highlighted in superhero movies and shows
- Also playing great music that is tied to the idea of heroism
Audio Episode Theme: Spider-Man (4:00)
- Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse just came out!
- Don’t worry, this is a NO SPOILERS show!
- Release Date: June 2, 2023
- The movie is amazing
- Shout out to the Indiana Mall Theatre and it’s discount movie Mondays with free popcorn!
- Great art, great acting
- Lots of surprises
- Fantastic music
- Very emotional scenes
- Some scenes are so lifelike
- Took a huge number of artists and CGI experts to animate the film
- Lots of laughs and also very intense action
- Really unique artistic look
- Feels like a comic book brought to life
Instrumental Theme Music (2:04)
- “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse” by Jared Moreno Luna & ORICH
Collector’s Item Classic Comic Book (6:00)
- After World War II, the market for superhero comics supposedly dried up
- Publishers turned to romance and horror comics
- But Stan Lee wanted to write superhero stories
- When he learned that Amazing Fantasy was going to be canceled, he pitched a story idea for the last issue and so Spider-Man was born
- First Appearance: Amazing Fantasy #15
- Publication Date: Aug. 1, 1962
- Publisher: Marvel Comics
- Written by Stan Lee
- Penciled by Steve Ditko
- Ditko is from Johnstown, PA, where they are working to raise funds to put up a statue in his honor
- Value: In 2011, a copy of Amazing Fantasy #15 sold for $1.1 million
- My friend Dr. Romagnoli has a copy which sadly has the top third of the cover torn off, so it’s worth just a little less, but then again, it’s basically priceless!
- Dr. Romagnoli is my Co-Author for Enter the Superheroes: American Values, Culture, and the Canon of Superhero Literature
Theme Song (1:03)
- “The Amazing Spider-Man TV Theme” from Sci-Fi’s Greatest Hits Vol. 4: Defenders of Justice
Show ID: Superhero Smash (3:00)
- WIUP FM 90.1
- Alternative music for Indiana County and beyond
- Check out pagnucci.org and click the big Superhero Smash button
- Or email Professor X using the address superherosmash2023@gmail.com
- Lots of great shows coming up
- I would love to get your input
Part 1 Ends (@20 minutes)
Part 2 Begins
Origin Story (6:00)
- Spider-Man
- Born mild mannered high school student Peter Parker
- Always getting picked on by Flash Thompson at school
- Ignored by all the girls
- Bitten by a radioactive spider while on a field trip
- Wakes up the next day feeling stronger and not needing his glasses anymore
- Wants to impress a girl, not with his powers, but by winning enough money to buy a car!
- Enters a wrestling match and wears a mask to hide his identity
- Wins, but wins too quickly and easily, so the show’s promoter won’t pay him the prize money
- As Peter is leaving, he hears a guard yell, “Stop thief!”
- Peter watches a man run past with a bag of money
- The guard then rushes past and says, “Why didn’t you do something? All you had to do was stick out your foot to trip him!”
- Peter says, it’s not my business
- Later a policeman comes to tell Peter that his Uncle Ben has been shot by a burglar
- Using his powers, Peter catches the burglar, then removes the burglar’s mask and finds that it is the same thief he let go free
- And so Peter learns, “With great power comes great responsibility”
- Originally the line was “With great power there must also come–great responsibility!”
- It was only a caption, but later the line was attributed to Uncle Ben
- While the saying is sometimes mocked for being repeated so often in the comics, it’s still such an important message because all people who have power of any kind have a responsibility to use that power as ethically as they can
Spider-Man Song (4:53)
- “Ode to a Superhero” by “Weird Al” Yankovic (Parody of “Piano Man” By Billy Joel)
- Thanks to my son Loughlin who suggested this song
Public Service Announcement (PSA) #1 (5:00)
- 3 Rivers Comicon just happened this past weekend
- Putting the comics back into comicon since 2016
- Great promotional image for the show which is an homage to Amazing Fantasy #15 with a comics fan web swinging across the iconic Pittsburgh skyline with the glass castle of PPG place visible in the background
- You could get yourself a t-shirt with that image from the con’s big promoter, New Dimension Comics, which has 6 stores in the area
- Don’t be worried if you missed that show, though, because I’ll tell you about another upcoming con in a few minutes
Spider-Man Song #2 (3:42)
- “What’s Up Danger” by Blackway and Black Caviar from Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse
Station ID: WIUP FM 90.1 (2:00)
- Alternative music for Indiana County and beyond
- Check out pagnucci.org and click the big Superhero Smash button
- Or email Professor X using the address superherosmash2023@gmail.com
PSA #2 (:30)
- AARP Heroes
Part 2 Ends (@40 minutes)
Part 3 Begins
Long Lost Show: Spider-Man on Broadway
- Spidey had his own Broadway musical
- Spider-Man: Turn off the Dark
- I saw it myself while I was at NY Comicon
- Music by Bono and the Edge
- Spidey swings around on his web inside the auditorium
- The production had many problems including many actors getting injured performing stunts
- The opening was delayed, so some critics reviewed the “unfinished” production in protest
- The negative reviews caused it to be suspended for a month and then retooled
- Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, a longtime comic book writer, was brought in to revise it
- It set the record for longest preview period in Broadway history with 182 performances before it officially opened
- Most expensive production in Broadway history with a budget of $75 million
- It set a box office record for earning $2.941 million over 9 performances in one week
- Ran from 2011 to 2014 when it closed at a massive financial lost
Long Lost Hero Song (3:52)
- “Rise Above 1” by Reeve Carney who played Spider-Man in the production and featuring Bono and the Edge from U2
Romantic Interlude (5:00)
- Miles Morales (voiced by Shameik Moore) and Gwen Stacey (voiced by Hailee Steinfeld)
- Also Spider-Man 2099 voiced by Oscar Isaac who also stared as Moon Knight/Marc Spector
- Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson
- In the first Spider-Man movie: upside down in the rain and it was Mary Jane (Kirsten Dunst) who pulled down Spidey’s mask (played by Tobey Maguire) and gave him a passionate thank you kiss for saving him (and he wasn’t even driving a car to impress her)
- Ranked #7 on GoldDerby’s “24 Best Movie Kisses, Ranked”
Romantic Melody (2:38)
- “Sunflower” by Post Malone and Swae Lee from Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse
PSA #3 (3:00)
- Sci-Fi Valley Con is coming to Altoon’s Blair County Convention Center this coming weekend, June 9-11
- Some fun celebrity guests including the voice actress Grey Delisle who played Daphne on Scooby-Doo and a reunion of stars from the Avatar: The Last Airbender animated show
- I’ve been to the show several times
- Lots of crafts and toys and unusual items
- Some people dressed up in cosplay
- You can learn more at scifivalleycon.com
To Be Continued Next Issue (1:00)
- Same Bat Time, same Bat Channel–Tune in next time for: Iron Man
- Songs with Stephanie coming up at noon
- And remember…
- You don’t need superpowers to be a hero. The only thing it takes to be a hero is the courage to do what’s right when someone needs your help.
End Credits Song (3:04)
- “Spider-Man Theme (Junkie XL Remix)” by Michael Buble
Part 3 Ends (@60 minutes)
Long Lost Memories: Spider-Man No Way Home
- When people learn Spidey’s identity, it causes him lots of problems and this becomes the focus of Spider-Man: No Way Home
- Spider-Man (played by Tom Holland) asks Doctor Strange (played by Benedict Cumberbatch) to help him, but Strange’s spell rips a hole in the multiverse
- I’ll be talking about alternate realities more when we get to The Flash who wrote the book on inter-dimensional travel, but these alternate realities do feature prominently in that movie and in Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
- The dimension hopping does enable the Tom Holland Spider-Man to meet the Tobey Maguire Spider-Man and the Andrew Garfield Spider-Man, who redeemed himself nicely after two films people generally disliked
- Strange manages to undo the spell, but it means that everyone who has ever known him loses their memory of him, even his good friend Ned Leeds ands his girlfriend MJ
Lost Memory Song (3:19)
- “Memories” by Thutmose