A small spider-man 2099 reading guide
Just watched atsv and wondering where to start getting into Miguel O’Hara? Hate trying to figure out comic timelines? Well hopefully this guide can help a little bit. Please note its far from a definitive guide and could probably use some work but I'm hoping it helps someone out!
Also not including spider-verse appearances or those in most other comics, because we could be here forever listing every comic appearance and this is meant to be a quick guide
Miguel's original appearance was in Amazing Spider-Man #365, but that was more of a preview than anything else. I've split it pre-2000's and post-2000's, but listen to me if you have to pick one comic to read out of all of this make it the original 1992 run. You basically cannot go wrong with just reading 1992.
A few have been marked with asterisks because you really don't have to read them but it felt wrong to not include them on the list.
Pre 2000's
Spider-man 2099 (1992): Literally Required Reading. Keep in mind that the last two issues had different writers and are kinda disregarded by just about everyone. Issue #16 starts the crossover event Fall of The Hammer, a mini-guide to which I've included below. The Special and Annual take place in between issues but it's easiest to just read them last.
Spider-Man 2099 Meets Spider-Man (1995): It's short, it's sweet, give it a read.
*2099: World of Tomorrow (1996): At the time this was meant to close off all the 2099 plots, theres lots of other 2099 characters in here but a fair bit of Mig.
*2099: Manifest Destiny (1998): Further closure to the 2099 world, again lots of other characters but still a solid read. Basically waves away the last two issues of sm2099 (1992) in a slightly hilarious way and worth reading just for that.
Fall of the Hammer crossover mini-guide:
Spider-man 2099 (1992) #16
Ravage 2099 #15
X-men 2099 #5
Doom 2099 (1993) #14
Punisher 2099 (1993) #13
Post 2000's
*Superior Spider-man (2013) issues #16-19: Largely set up but its cool too
Spider-man 2099 (2014): You can read this without the Superior Spider-man setup but depending on your prior comic reading experience you may be a bit confused. If you're a seasoned reader and used to taking weird comic shifts in stride due to missing some random issues of a completely different comic you'll be fine
Spider-man 2099 (2015): Solid run, I don't have much to say about it honestly
Marvel's 2099 (2019 event): you are better off looking up a separate guide for this one it is not my ballpark
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The most recent episode of Interview with a Vampire let's us see Lestat's side of the story and see how it compares to Louis' accounting of their relationship. As a result, it reaffirms just how unreliable of a narrator Louis is, but it also further illuminates elements of his character that the director and writers have been playing with since the beginning of the show.
There's this part in the episode where Lestat turns to Louis and apologizes and it's framed with Lestat turned to Louis on one side and Claudia on his other side. They're the angel and devil on Louis' shoulders, but who is the angel and who is the devil? And as my friend said, Armand and Daniel are placed into that same dynamic with Louis later on. We are being asked to decide who to trust, who's telling the truth, who's the good guy, but the fact of unreliability robs us of that decision.
This whole story is about Louis, he's the protagonist, though not the narrator, and he is constantly being pulled in two directions, no matter when or where he is in his story. He's a mind split in two, divided by nature and circumstance. He's vampire and human, owner and owned, father and child, angel and devil. He's both telling the story and being told the story. His history is a story he tells himself, and as we've seen, sometimes that story is not whole.
Louis is the angel who saved Claudia from the fire but he's also the devil who sentenced her to an life of endless torment, the adult trapped in the body of a child. He's the angel who rescued Lestat from his grief and also the devil who abandoned him, who couldn't love him, could only kill and leave him.
He's pulled in two directions, internally and externally at all times and so it's no wonder that he feels the need to confess, first to the priest, then Daniel, and then Daniel again.
He's desperate to be heard, a Black man with power in Jim Crow America who's controlled by his position as someone with a seat at the table but one who will never be considered equal. He doesn't belong to the Black community or the white community, he can't. He acts as a go-between, a bridge, one who is pushed and pulled until he can't take it anymore. He's a fledgling child to an undead father, he's a young queer man discovering his sexual identity with an infinitely experienced partner. He's confessing because he wants to be absolved, that human part of him that was raised Catholic, that child who believed, he wants to be saved. He wants to be seen.
Louis wants to attain a forever life that is morally pure, but he can't. He's been soiled by sin, by "the devil," as he calls Lestat, and he can never be clean again. Deep down, I think he knows this, but he can't stop trying to repent. He tries to self-flagellate by staying with Lestat and then tries to repent by killing him, but can't actually follow through. He follows Claudia to Europe to try and assuage his guilt. He sets himself on fire, attempts to burn himself at the stake, to purify his body, rid himself of the dark gift.
Louis is a man endlessly trying to account for the pain he has caused and he ultimately fails, over and over again, because he can't get rid of what he is. A monster. He's an endlessly hungry monster. He's hungry for love, for respect, for power, for forgiveness, for death. He's a hole that can never be filled. He can never truly acquire any of those things because he will always be punishing himself for wanting and needing them in the first place. He will never truly believe he deserves them and as a result, can't accept them if they are ever offered. He can never be absolved for he has damned himself by accepting the dark gift and thus has tainted himself past the point of saving.
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This might be the second worst thing that’s ever happened to Gareth while wearing these stupid shorts, or in general he guesses. The first being when he was in gym class and the got caught on the fence he tried to hop in order to skip said class, successfully exposing his lemon yellow carebear boxers, the only pair he had left because everything else was in the wash. Luckily it was only the gym teacher, Mr Carrey, and Linda Stern, a girl that kept to herself so unlikely to share such scandal. Neither brought it up again but that doesn’t mean Gareth was free of the memory, or free of reliving it whenever he opened his drawer to pull out some underwear.
But it’s not just the shorts that tie Gareth’s ‘most embarrassing and traumatising events of my life so far’ memories together. No, the instigator of both of these events also keeps them joined in Gareth’s mind. Edward Munson. It was Eddie who insisted that skipping class while in said class would be the smartest move to make ‘think of it Gareth, imagine it, skipping right under Mr Carrey's nose? He'd never expect it! High class rogue moves for sure!’
So of course Gareth was convinced by Eddie’s manic eyes and excitement and successfully flashed his gym teacher while the mastermind was laughing and pulling him down off the fence. Mr Carrey must have felt sorry enough for Gareth to let him run and isn’t that a fun addition to an already horrific memory?
Anyway, back to Eddie Munson; worst person to enter Gareth’s life. Because now? Now Gareth is stood outside a stupidly big and stupidly fancy house, in the offensive (now repaired, thanks Granny) gym shorts, and a pair of plastic and bent out of shape fairy wings. Originally he was supposed to be in a white vest too but he drew the line there, adamant he’d be wearing his Iron Maiden shirt to save some sort of dignity. And to top it all off it’s a beautiful day so of course people are out mowing their lawns, families are walking their dogs, children are playing in the streets and just enjoying the surprisingly mild february weather. All of them staring, quite obviously, at what they see as a strange teenager in wings being shouted at by an equally strange kid hiding behind a, not nearly big enouhg, bush for ‘stealth reasons’ apparently.
‘RING THE DOORBELL MAN, COME ON!’
Gareth slowly turns to look over his shoulder to glare at Eddie who is peaking around the shrubbery.
‘YOU RING THE FUCKING DOORBELL!’
‘GARETH YOU PROMISED! DON’T BE A DICK’
‘YEAH, BECAUSE YOU TRICKED ME!’
‘NO I DIDN’T, YOU SAID YES NOW RING TH-’
Of course that’s exactly when the door to the stupid house opens and the reason Gareth is here steps into the doorway.
Gareth grits his teeth and begins to recite his lines ‘Steve, o steve. You are beauty that has to be seen to be believed. Wont you be mine until the end of time?’ He finishes and stands glaring over Steve fucking Harrington’s shoulder
‘DO THE FUCKING REST GARETH’ Eddie’s voice emanates from somewhere to the back of Gareth, probably still hiding behind the stupid bush. So Gareth ‘does the rest’ he does a very slow and deliberate 360 spin before crouching down to one knee and shooting a plastic bow and arrow at Steve’s chest. Of course the arrow just rattles to the floor, sad and pathetic, just like it’s shooter Gareth thinks to himself.
‘Gareth? Why…umm, are you okay?’ Steve is obviously trying to hold back laughter and doing a terrible job of it. His face is convulsing like he’s just eaten a whole lemon, rind and all. And well, who knows, maybe he has, maybe it's a secret trick for keeping his hair so big, Gareth isn’t here to judge, he just wants to leave.
‘Dude please just answer the question and put me out of my misery’ He’s still half on the ground and his knee hurts and it’s hot and he’s kneeling at Steve Harrington’s fucking door dressed as a fucking cupid because he couldn’t say no to his fucking stupid fucking best friend. Gareth pulls himself away from thoughts of despair when he sees Steve’s mouth open to speak. He’s got one hand on the door frame, the other on the back of his neck
‘Oh, uh, yeah? I mean, yes? This is for Eddie right?’ Gareth stopped listening after the initial ‘yeah’, instead standing and turning to the, very small, hedge Eddie was doing an awful job of concealing himself behind
‘HE SAID YES. CAN I GO HOME NOW?’
Suddenly there's a whoop and an air punching Eddie Munson who realises he’s exposed his ‘perfect’ (shitty) hiding spot and is in full view of Steve. The idiot even tries to play off the air punch by combing his hand through his hair which obviously gets stuck on his rings and then tries to play that off by just keeping his hand in his hair while waving with the other, not trapped hand. With a violent yank he manages to free the entangled fingers with only a small whine.
‘Uhh…Hi Steve’ Eddie says with a dopey smile and somehow, somehow he’s got an equally lovesick looking Steve smiling right back at him ‘Hi Eddie’. At this point, Gareth has quite frankly had enough, Eddie and Steve are slowly walking towards each other like some romcom end of the movie scene and he’ll be dammed if he’s watching those two tragically flirt at each other. So he grabs the van keys out of Eddie’s pocket as he passes, resigning himself to an hour of shooting Eddie’s empty cans in the back of the van while he waits. Gareth is almost off the lawn when Eddie must get brave
‘NICE SHORTS BY THE WAY CUPID’
‘FUCK YOU!’ Gareth snaps the arrow in two trudges off, wings flapping behind him.
—---
Three weeks ago
Gareth was at his desk, he was trying to practice some drum rhythms when Eddie flounced in and dramatically dropped onto his bed. For the past half hour Gareth had been regaled with yet more ‘reasons why Steve Harrington is my dream man’ from Eddie
‘You don’t understand man. He was just driving and the Eagles came on. Don’t look at me like that, I know it’s the eagles, but it was life in the fast lane and he was singing along to it dude. The line! You know the one! I swear it was an instant hard on, thought I’d came by the end’
‘DUDE STOP. STOP. I’ll do whatever you want just please never talk to me about your Steve related dick events again’ Listen, Gareth loved Eddie, he did. But there's only so much a man can withstand and Eddie could monolgue for hours if given the chance.
‘Whatever I want?’ There was no obvious devious tone here but Gareth still should have known better than to agree. If he had clocked Eddie's face he would have seen an expression so devious that he'd be running out the door.
‘Yes! Fuck, just no more. My ears are never going to feel clean again’
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