YOU SHALL RUE THE DAY YOU CROSSED..... SCREWBALL!

The Ronin here,

After all of the reboots and reviews and the like it's time to look back at another wacky villain. This one is pretty recent and comes to us from the "Brand New Day"* era Spider-Man comics. This villain is so mind numbingly, painfully bizarre she had to end up here. Honestly I don't know what to make of this villain. (But she is probably not based on a mass murderer so that is a bonus) It is Ms. Web 2.0 her self, Screwball.

So who is Screwball? That is a damn good question. Screwball appears to be a young woman in her 20s, physically fit and skilled in the sport of 'Parkour'. (and yes, there was a bad pun based around the fact it sounds like Parker) A kind of urban gymnastics, involving running, scaling obstacles quickly, performing tricks etc. It is impressive stuff for sure in the real world... In a world populated with super heroes? less so.

Screwball's motive is pretty straight forward. She views the act of committing crimes as a kind of performance art, she records them with the help of camera men and cameras on her and puts them on her blog. That is her motivation, blog views. So you can tell she is super threatening.

So she basically has the speed, strength and agility of a young woman in good physical shape. This some how allows her to out maneuver and out run Spider-Man! The guy who could win a Parkour contest with his eyes shut and while sleep walking. Literally. Through luck and good fortune she manages to stay ahead of Spidey in her first few appearances before fading into the background like a number of other villains introduced during the BND* period.

Not even Screwball likes Screwball's gym-suit costume.

My guess? And feel free to use this Marvel, she must secretly be a Scarlet Witch level reality warper, because that is the only way in hell she is able to out maneuver Spider-Man.  I can see it now, the newest crossover, House of Screwball. It would be identical to the current continuity except Screwball is popular and successful. It would be kind of a boring event really.

One of the real problems here is the obvious attempt to make a 'relevant' character that 'them kids' will be into. Its kind of like a bunch of 45 year old men got together, threw a bunch of buzz words into a hat that 'the kids' say and came out with this. Web 2.0, Blog, Youtube, Parkour, viral. Bam you get Screwball. 

Actually that is probably exactly what happened. Screwball reminds me of those terrible TV cop dramas whenever they do anything involving the internet, or video games, or god forbid 'hacking' that your grandmother watches.
                                     
She recently turned up again to menace a more appropriate hero; an non-powered 16 year old Spider-Girl... who very rapidly dispatched her. Speaking of which she probably should of gone with a full face helmet.

Youtube?!?! Its all about the twitter bitch!

So what is the deal with Screwball really, is she a reality warper? Designed by committee? Product of half-assed writing? Result of smoking way to much pot before writing Spider-Man?

Hell if I know, but at least she isn't Adolf Hitler.




*BND - Brand New Day, an era of Spider-Man between the controversial retcon of Spider-Man's marriage and past, and the current 'Big Time' era. featuring a rotating group of creators and 3 comics a month.