Fanboys Anonymous

After over two years of intense scrutiny and a lengthy catalog of injuries, the Broadway experiment known as Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark will shut out its own lights permanently this January. The play, featuring a story loosely—and I mean loosely—based on the iconic character, garnered the largest budget of all time before heading into a production whose story is almost as tragic as that of the hero it attempts to depict.

After multiple injuries, a lawsuit, and the introduction of someone called "Swiss Miss," it's easy to forget that the play opened after a series of delays. When you combine the costly start with nearly universal critical panning, it seems the attitude from the very get-go was not, "Will the play be cancelled," but when. It seems that day is now in sight, following performances that have hardly managed to break even on their weekly costs.

That said, I believe this is a humbling reminder that no franchise is infallible. Still, I must applaud the attempt to try and find new ways to depict such culturally classic heroes. Sometimes you have to break a few Bat-Nipples before you get a hit.