As we told you a couple of weeks ago, reports say that Sony and Sam Raimi have come to a loggerheads about the villain for Spider-Man 4. Raimi wants The Vulture, but Sony has been adamantly against the idea of Spidey battling a flying octogenarian. So who does Sony want as the villain in the fourth Spider-Man movie? If my made up sources are correct, they want ol’ Webhead to confront his most devious enemy:
SKIP WESTCOTT
This is a really bold choice for Sony, as Westcott doesn’t have the kind of brand identity that other Spidey villains, like Electro or The Rhino, have. But he is, without a doubt, Spider-Man’s greatest nemesis. After all, he did what the Green Goblin never could, what Doc Ock only dreamed of, and what never even occurred to the Sandman:
Skip Westcott sexually molested Peter Parker.
I’m not making this up. It happened in the Spider-Man/Power Pack free comic that was given out to school children in 1984 (school children like me!); Spidey reveals to the kids in Power Pack that when he was a young man he met an older student named Skip Westcott at the library and they became fast friends. Skip liked Peter for his brains, and nicknamed him ‘Einstein,’ which is a really good example of how unique and creative Skip was.
Skip and Peter would hang out after school a bunch, and Aunt May really liked him. I guess she had been worried that Peter’s first sexual experience would be too positive. Anyway, one day after school, Skip showed Peter some porn mags (again, this was 1984, back when you had to look at porn using physical media) and then suggested that he and the superhero-to-be re-enact some of what they saw. Peter doesn’t go into detail, but he does say that he was too scared to leave…
The best Spider-Man villains are those who are personally connected to Peter Parker, and no one is more personally connected to him than the guy who touched his wee wee when he was 12. Also, the inclusion of Skip works thematically – Sony tried to fuck the franchise by inserting Venom into Spider-Man 3 against Raimi’s wishes; now they can try to fuck Peter Parker by inserting Skip Westcott into… okay, even I can’t finish that sentence.
Who could play Skip Westcott? I think that Bruce Campbell would be pretty great, and if he’s not available, Raimi can always hire Jeffrey Jones. Some fans may be up in arms about Skip not having white hair, but there’s always the magic of make-up. They made Bryce Dallas Howard blonde for Spider-Man 3, after all. I think the white hair is integral, as it makes Skip look like a younger Uncle Ben, which was always the subtext of the story. In fact, maybe J. Michael Straczynski could return to the Spider-Man comics pre-Spider-Man 4 and establish that Skip Westcott is just Peter’s way of covering up the fact that Uncle Ben raped him. It wouldn’t be any worse than Straczynski turning Peter into a Spider monster and having Norman Osborne fuck Gwen Stacy, after all.
The other option is having Skip Westcott be a completely CGI villain. Finally a chance for the folks at WETA digital to really strut their stuff! Could someone achieve a fully photorealistic pedophile? Even Peter Jackson didn’t attempt it with The Lovely Bones, opting instead for old-fashioned ‘acting,’ but with a big enough budget, the support of a multi-national corporation, millions of man hours and the smartest people in the FX business, I think Spider-Man 4 can finally present a truly lifelike boy rapist. We can only dream.