All right, Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark. I think I’ve kept quiet about you long enough.

The bizarre Broadway spectacle is a schadenfreude gravy train to those of us who have been shaking our heads ever since news about a Spider-Man musical first surfaced. Let me say, though, that I’m in no way making light of all the performers who’ve gotten hurt during rehearsals and during what is now the longest preview run for a Broadway show in history.

I understand that the production is groundbreaking in many ways, but with all the money that went into it, I just don’t see how so many technical issues plague it on a daily basis. Aren’t there stunt shows in Vegas and theme parks every day? Where are those crew guys to check the harnesses? Did it really have to come to the point where the U.S. Dept. of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (better known as OSHA) had to fine the show for all its preventable injuries?

Unfortunately, the paltry $12,600 in total fines only underscores the fact that those most responsible for this fiasco, namely the creators and producers, are going to be the ones least affected by all the bad publicity and scathing reviews. The show is selling like gangbusters, raking in over a million a week. It’s probably doing better business than it would have if the show were actually good, and the audience weren’t fearing for their own lives as well as the performers’.

Yes, it looks like Julie Taymor might actually be stepping down as director, but something tells me she’ll live to fight another day. And I don’t think Bono is losing any sleep over this. He’s a little too busy, you know, being Bono.

Of all the news stories surrounding the show, the most frustrating one is the report from last month that playwright Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa was being brought on board to help fix the show’s script (or “book,” in Broadway lingo). Why is this so aggravating? Because aside from writing for HBO’s Big Love, he is also a comic writer, having worked for over a year on Sensational Spider-Man. Why, oh why, was someone like this not involved in the first place?

I am the first to admit that superheroes are inherently silly. The idea of people in brightly-colored spandex punching other people in differently-colored spandex has a lot of work to do to maintain a grounded sense of character and story, and there are choice few people who know and love the conventions of the genre enough to tell the stories successfully, without succumbing to the pitfalls. Those people are the ones who are creating and reading comics today, and are the ones responsible for not just overcoming the ridiculousness, but actually maturing the genre and turning it into something legitimate. Mostly.

Superheroes as characters are certainly open to interpretation and experimentation. They have to be when they star in new adventures on a monthly or even weekly basis over the course of multiple decades. But the fact is, not just anyone can write them. And being creative is not enough. The very thought of taking Spider-Man and writing a rock musical about him, and one that’s not a farce, was enough to indicate to most of us head-shakers that Taymor and Bono were already the wrong people to tackle such a thing, creative and successful though they may be otherwise. Superhero projects need superhero talent.

It’s a lesson that The Cape learned too late. I only hope David E. Kelley is paying attention. Getting Cary Elwes and Elizabeth Hurley cast in Wonder Woman is nice, but his resume, almost exclusively filled with legal dramedies, isn’t exactly brimming with geek cred. He better check himself before he . . . does further damage in some way to himself.

By the way, none of this means, in any way, that I’m not totally chomping at the bit to see Spider-Man: TOTD. When they get their shit together. Because, I mean, come on.

Related posts on 30ninjas.com:

• It’s All Geek to Me: Spider-Man‘s Ultimate Reboot
• It’s All Geek To Me – NYCC ’10 –The History of Superhero Movies
• It’s All Geek To Me — What Not to Wear: Amazon Edition
• It’s All Geek To Me — Scott Pilgrim vs. The Box Office
• It’s All Geek To Me — Trying on The Cape
• It’s All Geek To Me — TV Heroes After Heroes