At first, I thought they were going to say this film was set in that period during the first film — more like a soft reboot, just jumping back in time to tell an untold story. But the mechanical web shooters nixes that.

The arc where Gwen Stacey died is included in volume 4, I think? (It’s all chronological, anyway.) It was pencilled by Gil Kane and inked by John Romita Sr.; they’re my favorite Spider-Man art team ever (much more than when Romita was on pencils, even).

My biggest issue?  How the hell does he fit all that hair under the mask?

She told MTV: “My hair is naturally blonde, so it’s kind of nice. I look in the mirror and say, “Oh my God, it’s me again, it’s been so long!” http://splashpage.mtv.com/2010/11/24/spider-man-emma-stone-gwen-stacy/

Oh, and people have been accusing it of being “Twilight-ish” for far longer than this trailer has been out, so I don’t really know what the “rationale” is, other than high school. If you can call it a rationale. I’m not sure that term applies, because you would need to have reasons for it to be a rationale.

The romantic angle isn’t forced; he has to fall for Gwen, and how unnecessarily dark is it when you know the girl is going to die (eventually, maybe not in this movie), his parents are dead, and it’s his fault that his uncle dies, you know?

As for the costume…well I hated the Tobey Maguire costumes, too.  I don’t really know what I would like, you know?  Comic book costumes are basically nudes; you have to make changes in the real world unless your name is Batman.

All told, Marvel’s track record on its own properties is fairly strong so far.  I look forward to the Captain America: First Avenger release this week for many reasons; not the least of which is to see where they’re taking us in this live-action universe they’re crafting.

Spiderman needs to be several things; he needs to be irreverant, he needs to be down to earth, he needs to temper his angst with optimism, and he needs to web-sling.  (Not necessarily like McFarlane drew in the early 90′s, even if that’s become the standard).  If ‘The Amazing Spiderman” can deliver that, and this ‘Proto-Goblin’ villain they’re slinging doesn’t insult our intelligence like the Green Goblin/Iron Goblin did…well that’s fine by me.

Personally, I would have gone with Kraven or the Chameleon.

I had a discussion this weekend trying to explain the point of all the superhero movie reboots that is on display right here, the sense that Marvel is taking the reigns of their properties this time around for a full-on movie universe rather than the past’s ill-fated “hand the characters over to some director and give him flexibility over the origins and plot, weather or not it’ll alienate the existing fans at the risk of trying to pull in new ones, who will only be confused when the origins and stories don’t match up at all.”

It does look like it’s trying to be Ultimate Spider-Man and the animated Spectacular Spider-Man rolled into one, with a slight costume redesign to boot. I’m excited, and from here on I’ll be hoping they don’t go the route of Spider-Man 3 and over-expose us to trailer after trailer after trailer, including entire scenes online for no reason but to just spoil everything for us.