posted
Notice: Only people who have read Spider-Man comics in the past two decades will know what I'm talking about.
And even then, they probably won't care.
One of the problems with Spider-Man is he ceased being a character who changed and grew. At some point in the 1970s, he became "set". He was a character who could either be plugged into new situations...or one could try mixing the old situations up.
I think that's why the Spidey books see a rash of grim, gritty, joyless stories every five to ten years. The writers think the essential tongue-in-cheek, loveable loser mode of the status quo is what's keeping readers away. They'll show 'em! Put Spidey through the wringer! You thought Gwen Stacy being murdered was bad? Well guess what? Gwen had an affair with the Green Goblin and bore his kids and the kids now want to KILL Spidey! Oh, so messed up! So serious! So...hey, how come readership's still dropping?
Joe Quesada, the current big guy at Marvel decided the reason why Spider-Man readership is dropping is because he's married. Now, never mind that Spidey got married over two decades ago. Never mind that there are many readers who never knew an unmarried Spidey...Spidey was single when Quesada was a kid. And he's single in the films, which make so much more money than the comics.
Being single must be the key.
But killing Mary Jane Watson would be depressing. It would also rob Marvel of one of its consistently most popular supporting characters.
Divorce 'em?
Icky. Also depressing.
Create a convoluted story in which Aunt May is dying and the Devil himself literally offers Peter and MJ a deal to save her life? A deal in which their marriage is erased from history because their marriage was based on love and the Devil thinks love is lame?
"Yes," cried Quesada, "That one! Do that! It's BRILLIANT!"
JMS requested that his name be removed from the last couple issues of Amazing Spider-Man. Reading them, it's easy to see why. They're little more than talking heads whining or sneering. The method of resetting the book is just so terminally lame.
The worst part was the attempt to squeeze -some- small measure of real tragedy into what's essentially a retrogression.
The Devil: "Ha! Because you took my deal, Spider-Girl will never be born!"
Majority of Spider-Man readers: "...*...who's Spider-Girl?"
Minority of Spider-Man readers: "Oh no! ...wait, Spider-Girl was always an alternate reality comic to begin with!"
When the "knife-twisting" moment of the book is something that pointless, I get the feeling Marvel's more desperate than they let on.
posted
JMS's run on the book wasn't that well liked, was it? If HE wants his name yanked, you know somethings up.
Posts: 5422 | Registered: Dec 2001
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posted
When they were hyping up One More Day, I assumed it would be some stupid thing to make Peter and MJ not be married anymore. They've been whining about it for so long. I'm glad I decided not to check this out. It sounds like it was just as bad as I imagined.
Posts: 1960 | Registered: May 2005
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posted
I cannot figure out why Quesada thinks that the current Spider-Man readership is incapable of dealing with Parker as an adult.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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He'd rather use a scapegoat than admit the editor-driven, ultra-gloomy event story-lines generated short-term sales boosts but ultimately harmed the character.
I'm just hoping Slott is able to do something good with the ridiculous new starting point.
Posts: 6689 | Registered: Jan 2005
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posted
It's a shame that Untold Tales of Spider-Man was not well-supported by Marvel, and that sales on Ultimate Spider-Man are (apparently) dropping. Both supply the "eternally juvenile Spidey" paradigm.
Posts: 6689 | Registered: Jan 2005
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posted
I don't read huge amounts of comics these days- mostly a few that I borrow from friends. I have to say, though, that in some ways I find Spider-Man more interesting as a character in others' stories (like in Runaways) than as a lead. Partly because he's kind've a reliable reference point- he's the guy who's most supposed to be "a guy like us, but with superpowers". Partly because, as it's been mentioned, there seems to be a regrettable need from some writers to either monkey with his powers or inject angst into his life.
Posts: 3826 | Registered: May 2005
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posted
Funniest things I've read on this subject: Quesada's remark that he didn't want Peter and MJ to just separate because of the negative publicity that might trigger.
So...he doesn't think Spider-Man consorting with the Devil will provoke any negative publicity? Posts: 6689 | Registered: Jan 2005
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posted
Doesn't this void parts of Civil War*? Or does Civil War* still happen and then everyone magically forgets? Or is there going to be a George Lucas style remastered Civil War* out sometime next year?
*And other major stories.
Posts: 254 | Registered: Apr 2005
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posted
Civil War still happened, but Spider-Man's part in it are all now iffy and undefined.
The unmasking was just a blatant, superfluous publicity stunt by Mark Millar anyway. It had no real connection to any of the alleged issues of the series. Posts: 6689 | Registered: Jan 2005
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posted
Actually, I thought Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man dealt with the unmasking fairly well. It was the only Spidey book to bother, though; all the other ones were busy being angsty. (In this, FNSM was a lot like X-Factor, the only book to bother actually trying to deal with M-Day.)
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: Actually, I thought Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man dealt with the unmasking fairly well.
But that was PAD, right? I was referencing Millar's treatment of it, where it was just more stuff he threw against the wall.
Not that PAD's recent stuff has been perfect. I -really- disliked the recent story where the mentally ill/emotionally troubled woman who thought Spidey was out to get her was chewed out by MJ for lacking backbone. That's what causes mental problems, a lack of solid morals! Posts: 6689 | Registered: Jan 2005
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posted
I read Spidey during my pre-teen to early teenage years and again for a few years from 2002-04. He was always my favorite superhero. My first thought upon reading the first post was that it has to be a joke. I'm speechless.
By the way, is the "devil" in the arc Mephisto?
Posts: 80 | Registered: Nov 2003
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Yeah, Mephisto. Who specifically said he was doing this because the Spidey-MJ marriage was pleasing to God. Weird, eh?
Quesada has recently tried to claim that the -only- continuity changed by this was Spidey and MJ actually getting married, that for the past 20 years they've been common-law spouses instead.
Which doesn't explain how Peter's civilian identity is secret again or how Harry is alive again. Bleah.
Posts: 6689 | Registered: Jan 2005
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So, Spidey still unmasked during Civil War, it's just nobody remembers who he was?
How totally lame. This is the 21st century, not the 1960s. There'll be a TON of video evidence alone.
(I know, I know..."The Devil got rid of it!")
As for the rest of the stuff...yup. It's 1973 or so again. At least progress-wise.
(So...if Harry -and- Norman are alive...then why does Harry hate Spidey? And was there REALLY a demand for Harry's return?)
Posts: 6689 | Registered: Jan 2005
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posted
Guess they figure that a complete retcon is the only way to fix the mess that they got themselves into.
Posts: 2705 | Registered: Sep 2006
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[quotefor the past 20 years they've been common-law spouses instead[/quote] Oh... good.
Why don't they let Spidey have a kid, and then they can have kid Spidey. Or they can have two sets of comics, one for the web swinging single and another where time actually progresses. Maybe they can go through alternate universe holes and wind up in each other's lives now and then.
Posts: 11017 | Registered: Apr 2003
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posted
There were no less than three different ongoing comics featuring an eternally young, single Spidey at the time One More Day's retcon occured.
There is a comic called Spider-Girl featuring an alternate universe 40-something Peter Parker with a teenage super-hero daughter, but Marvel only rarely promotes it beyond releasing the occasional trade paperback.
Posts: 6689 | Registered: Jan 2005
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Comicbookresources.com has Joe Quesada's detailed explanation behind the decision to "annul" the marriage. I only skimmed it, but it seemed interesting. I didn't catch how or why they retconned Spidey's unmasking though.
Posts: 80 | Registered: Nov 2003
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posted
If there's one positive thing that'll come from this, it may finally shatter the bizarre myth that Marvel's continuity is sacred and unbroken. Marvel's revised, revamped, and retconned things for years upon years...but unlike DC, they usually did so quietly, dropping references to the changes as soon as they could.
This allowed them the illusion of being the company where all the old stories mattered, no matter what.
Heh. Already the hardcore Marvelites in the blog-o-sphere are chattering away about how new and different this is from reliable, set-in-stone, always-consistent Marvel.
Posts: 6689 | Registered: Jan 2005
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At the comic shop today, after reading Amazing Spider-Man #546, I heard customers telling the clerks to cancel Spider-Man from their "hold" boxes.
This is significant. Spider-Man, X-Men, Batman...these are the comics that no matter how the readers gripe, the majority end up buying the books anyway. Usually for crazy reasons that only make sense to fellow comics fans.
Character loyalty. The desire to not have a gap in ones collection. "Maybe it'll improve some day"...reasons like that.
But no...customer after customer was deciding to just not buy the book anymore.
I don't think this is a slight to the new writer and artist (who do the best with the dreadful set-up to give readers a passable status quo set-up story) so much as it is Marvel finally found the straw to break the camel's back.
If what I saw wasn't unique, Quesada may negate this "Just like the good ol' days!" Spidey fast.
Claiming all the while that this was his Master Plan all along, of course! Posts: 6689 | Registered: Jan 2005
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When you confirmed that it was Mephisto, one of my first thoughts was that they can always retcon the retcon as I seem to recall that having happened before when Mephisto changed something.
Posts: 80 | Registered: Nov 2003
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posted
Looking at #546 again, the story itself isn't too bad. It's just nothing special. If one ignores the very painful, shoehorned in panels where Peter proclaims for no particular reason that he's -very- young and single and has no plans to ever get married, it's even kind of fun.
It's just not the sort of new beginning worth making a hash of 20+ years of stories over.
The new villains are kind of interesting.
Making MJ into a super-heroine and Aunt May into the old lady who can "speak jive" from Airplane though? Painfully bad. Posts: 6689 | Registered: Jan 2005
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