New for Patrons: Spider-Ham Guide!

I’m so happy to be getting my Crushing Comics guides back on track, and to kick that off I have a brief guide for a sentimental favorite to offer to all CK Patrons!

The Definitive Spider-Ham Guide

Spider-Ham on the cover of Spider-Man Annual 2019 #1

Long before I was a regular comic reader, I had a meager stack of comics from newsstands and spinner racks that sat on a slim bookshelf in my closet.

One was an old Conan comic from my father. Another was a random issue of Captain America.

The third was Peter Porker, The Spectacular Spider-Ham (1985) #6.

Peter Porker The Spectacular Spider-Ham (1983) #6

Possibly my first ever comic book?

I don’t know why I had it. I think people in my family assumed I would really love Spider-Man because I shared his name, but at the time (and, to this day) I was much more interested in Wonder Woman.

That one issue (which I still have!) meant I’ve always had a soft, nostalgic spot for Peter Porker. I never expected he would appear in a comic again other than as a one-off joke about the silly excesses of the 80s… until Spider-Verse.

Spider-Verse brought almost every iteration of every spider-character ever back into play for a brief, somewhat-bloody event, which included this Spider-turned-Super-Pig from Earth-8311.

Spider-Ham survived the carnage (not THE Carnage – lower-case carnage) of the event, befriended Spider-Gwen, Spider-Gwen become a hit, and the event inspired one of the most successful and awarded animated movies of all time.

The rest is (recent) history!

This might lead you to wonder: are there many Spider-Ham comic books to read? Are they anything like the zany version of the character who was cartoony even for a cartoon in Into The Spider-Verse.

Well… that depends.

Spider-Ham made a respectable 51 appearances prior to Spider-Verse, in all of which were either explicitly a children’s comic with no bearing on modern continuity or (in the case of the 5 most-recent appearances) an obvious spoof on him being a children’s comic book character (still with no bearing on modern continue).

It’s not until Spider-Verse – and, really, after Spider-Verse – that Spider-Ham becomes the wisecracking “cartoon in the real world” version of him we saw in the film.

For better or for worse, that means your deep dive into “modern” Spider-Ham reading will actually be into a shallow pool of issues. But, if you have an unironic appreciation of seeing his cartoon silliness on display in his original cartoonish Earth, there’s more for you to read.

Here’s the current list of Patreon supporter exclusives!

Current Exclusives For Crushing Cadets ($1/month): 22 Guides!

DC Guides: Batman–Index of OngoingTitles, Batman:Legendsof theDarkKnight, Green Lantern Corps, Green Lantern: Hal Jordan, Green Lantern: Kyle Rayner, Omega Men