Michael Bay, why must you destroy everything that I love?

I had planned to write nothing on this site about next summer’s crapquel Transformers: Rise of the Bile. After all, my one-blog army that took on Michael Bay and the Geekformers in 2007 had surprisingly little impact on that movie’s box office results, so I had begun to think that the Allspark-like power of my Hollywood influence had waned into non-existence. Perhaps best to sit out the sequel, I figured, and allow it to pass unnoticed and neglected into its rightful place in cinematic history.

But then I came across this toy, this bastardization of my beloved Spider-Man, and all of that rage just came flooding back.

It’s not enough that I hold Marvel responsible for bloating Spider-Man 3 to the breaking point, causing a fine director like Sam Raimi to compromise, acquiesce and otherwise lay down (admittedly onto a very large pile of cash); it’s not enough that now we’re hearing about Tobey Maguire’s unfathomable sum of a paycheck to reprise his role in two more SM sequels, the pointlessness of which has yet to be contemplated. It’s not enough that my childhood memories of Spidey comics, Spidey exploits and dreams of creating my own Spidey costume while trying to figure out exactly how I planned to stick to the walls but damnit I sure as hell was going to try – it’s not enough that these things, so critical in my early childhood development stages, have been all but destroyed by the Hollywood machine.

I guess the problem started long ago, however, because there have been warehouses full of Spider-Man toys that run the gamut from pointless to astoundingly weird. I’ve seen Spider-Man flying a helicopter. Or wearing a jet pack. Occasionally he can be found in a basketball uniform or a firefighter’s outfit. And really, why wouldn’t Spider-Man suit up – over his costume – to play some hoops?

But I’ve got to draw the line at the Spidey/Transformer. It goes against everything I’ve held dear. Maybe it’s because I grew up with action figures that were simply that: toy figures, action not included. You had to make up your own adventures, your own stories that perhaps didn’t follow the character’s canon but still somehow worked, if only in your imagination. My childhood action figures didn’t come with buttons to press, missiles to shoot, vehicles to control and FRIGGING MOTORCYCLES TO MOTHER-EFFING TRANSFORM INTO.

No, my childhood Spidey looked more like this little guy on the right. Which was fine.

Now you Geekformers get off my lawn!