The leisurely comic discussion thread

[KnightWing]

I've been seriously thinking about just getting out of comics for a while after November....

Looks like I'm going to be joining the long list of trade waiters.

I totally get that.

Personally, I only keep up with (and purchase) a few comics here and there. GL if I feel like it, GLC even less likely, and occasionally an issue of Brightest Day. I am getting all the Flash issues, though. Each one is like a bite of caramel ice cream.

[SuaveStar]

I've been seriously thinking about just getting out of comics for a while after November....

Looks like I'm going to be joining the long list of trade waiters.

I totally get that.

Personally, I only keep up with (and purchase) a few comics here and there. GL if I feel like it, GLC even less likely, and occasionally an issue of Brightest Day. I am getting all the Flash issues, though. Each one is like a bite of caramel ice cream.

I agree with those, but I like the idea of trading them, as I can put them on a shelf, and read them again with ease, instead of having to go get a new comic every ten minutes.

[KnightWing]

Yeah, that's most of the reason why I don't get them consistently. I'm considering dropping Flash, too.

[Venneh]

Dearest Joe Quesada:

GO F*** YOURSELF.

To recap, the conclusion to OMIT:

-Peter made some deal with Dr. Strange, Reed, and Stark to make everyone forget he's Spidey... somehow, magic, I guess, and fuck you, we don't have to explain it, it's magic.

-Peter made MJ remember the whole thing, AND the deal, and that's why they totes broke up, yo.

-MJ "set Peter free" so he could go get set up with Carlie Cooper (who just so happens to be named after Quesada's daughter)

-OMG, you guys! Even Mary Jane likes Carlie Cooper and thinks she's ideal for Peter! And she understands Peter so much! Isn't she JUST GREAT?

...Really Quesada? Especially on those last two points?

[KnightWing]

Waaaaait...

So... MJ and Peter still remember that they got married, but now that there's no existing legal contract, they just decide to forget about it?

What the F***?!? Does the fact that they made a solemn vow to one another mean NOTHING to them?

[Venneh]

No, in this universe, the marriage never happened, cause Spidey was out cold in a dumpster somewhere. MJ remembers the universe where they were married. I think. It's all very confusing.

[KnightWing]

Ohhhh.... right. Wait, what?

[Venneh]

This happened first, which is the not-wedding in this continuity.

Then this.

Then, this latest fuckery, and I think Strange's whole thing caused her to remember, like everything, including the deal with Mephisto and everything that had happened prior. I think. Fuck you, it's magic, we don't have to explain it.

[Koete]

The funniest thing out of all of this is that Quesada's efforts have just reinforced that Peter and Mary Jane are supposed to be together, rather than that Peter is meant to be with someone else.

[Stavros]

It's true. If you place loads of obstacles between two people to stop them being together, then the fans are only going to want it more. It just so happens that this obstacle is the boss of Marvel.

Strange thing is, Joe even cast himself as the Devil in the story.

[KnightWing]

I actually really like what they've been doing with the post-One More Day stories. But the Mephisto crap was the absolute worst way to get there.

[Molly]

The new takes on Doc Ock and Rhino were incredible.

[KnightWing]

Yeah, and the stories were/are actually fun. It got back to the "heart" of Spider-Man stories: endlessly witty humor, love triangles, creative action scenes, etc.

I think the change they made to the Spider-Man world was a great move. They handled it beyond terribly, but it paid off in the end.

[Molly]

I don't see why the MJ marriage had to be dissolved to tell these stories.

[Missy]

I've seen people pissing and moaning about JRJR's rendition of Judge Dredd, but I don't get it. Why all the negativity?

[Molly]

I have no idea. That's awesome.

[Koete]

Yeah, and the stories were/are actually fun. It got back to the "heart" of Spider-Man stories: endlessly witty humor, love triangles, creative action scenes, etc.

If you want that, there's about thirteen volumes of Essentials you can read.

[Stavros]

I've seen people pissing and moaning about JRJR's rendition of Judge Dredd, but I don't get it. Why all the negativity?

I was literally just over at a friend's house discussing this. He's a huge 2000AD fan and he was asking why people were complaining too. I think the only thing you can question slightly is the fact that you can see his eye through the visor, but that just about it. Aside from that it looks great.

[KnightWing]

I don't see why the MJ marriage had to be dissolved to tell these stories.

Because that made Peter into a responsible adult. SM stories always involved love triangles and endless dating conundrums; it's one of the things that most defined the conflict that the character is known for. To have that same kind of conflict in a marriage situation would mean creating marital conflict, and that's just not a fun thing to read.

It's not that the post-marriage stories weren't still great, but the whole idea was too far from what made Spider-Man special in the first place. If it had been an overall improvement (like turning Robin into Nightwing), that'd be one thing. But it's not. Removing the relationship conflict only made things less fun and interesting, not better.

A lot of comics fans are under the false assumption that characters are meant to develop realistically, decade after decade, until the end of time. That doesn't work. Iconic characters like Peter Parker aren't meant to have "real" lives; they're meant to go on and on forever. If you want Peter to get married and actually do things that make realistic sense for the character, make it a story with an actual ending, not one that's gonna keep on running 'til Marvel Comics goes bankrupt. Make it a "What If" or alternate-universe story; don't do it in the main series.

Eliminating the MJ marriage screws over the the last mini-era of Spider-Man comics, but the truth is that it's ultimately better this way. It sucks, and it's not the "right" thing for the character (from an in-universe perspective), but it was the best thing to do.

[Guest]

I'd argue that the best thing to do is try to write for a character without relying on fifty year old tropes, but that's part of the reason I haven't cared about Spider-Man for about a decade anyway.

[Koete]

Taking care of his Aunt made Peter an adult. Getting a job when he was a teenager to support himself and his aunt made Peter an adult. Choosing not to kill the man who murdered his girlfriend made Peter an adult. Getting married to the woman he loved despite the risk made Peter an adult. Losing a child made Peter an adult. Taking a job as a teacher rather than spending the rest of his days at the Bugle made Peter an adult. You know what doesn't make Peter an adult? Getting his marriage dissolved by Marvel's Devil analogue so that he can wind up back living at Aunt May's, back working for the Bugle, and back playing out the stories that Joe Quesada read as a kid.

Your "too iconic" argument works for characters like Batman and Superman, but to say that a character who has gone from high school to college to graduate school to adulthood shouldn't develop realistically is ridiculous. Being treated realistically isn't against what the character of Spider-Man is; taking ten steps backwards in character development is.

And the argument that Peter getting married made him less interesting as opposed to a cliche'd and tired love triangle is one I just don't understand.

[KnightWing]

>_<

I wrote that first sentence wrong. I meant that the marriage made him into a responsible adult, not dissolving it. And by that I mean that he shouldn't necessarily be completely responsible and on-top-of-things.

Like I said, the "developing realistically" argument works if you're going to actually write the stories realistically. But when you've got a 50-year-long run in the comics, that's not plausible. The idea of ending such a huge ongoing conflict like that implies that there is literally an end to the story, which there isn't. Not in the 616 books.

There should always be an ebb and flow with the writing of the iconic characters, but they shouldn't change so drastically that they're different from what made them great. Peter being a science teacher, husband, and almost-father is the kind of thing that should cap off the end of the Spider-Man saga; it shouldn't be in the middle.

I wholeheartedly support the idea of a Spider-Man narrative that takes him through life in a compelling and realistic manner, but the main comic series isn't the place to do that.

[Koete]

Why not? He got to where he got because his story's been told for 50 years. Why can't there be an adult Spider-Man when there's titles like Ultimate and Marvel Adventures out there with the single Spider-Man everyone apparently wants?

[dc20willsave]

Personally, the one thing I do like about Marvel is that characters like Peter don't have a status quo. One of the beauties of a continuing narrative is that your characters aren't tied down to one thing. If you decide to retcon it with magic then you're basically fucking over the readers. That's part of the reason why the Ultimate line was established: so people could read teenage Peter Parker while the rest of us could enjoy a character made richer by years of continuity. I mean, you have 50 years to build off of. Why not build off of it instead of saying, "Hey. Let's just back-up, undo what makes this character unique and return him to the immature version that hasn't existed since ever." I fail to see how the marriage could ever have been considered a bad thing for him. Clark and Lois have never been done a disservice by being married. Then again, Quesada has done nothing except convince me why being a DC is the better choice over the last ten years so I don't expect him to start doing otherwise now. When he steps down, I see a lot of his ideas going to way of The Draco and never be mentioned again. Or maybe:

LOGAN bolts up from bed. A shower is seen through a door in the background. He walks across the room pulls the curtain back to reveal JEAN GRAY.

LOGAN: Jean! I thought you were dead!

JEAN: Oh, I was but now I'm back again.

LOGAN: I had such a nightmare. The Hulk was red, most of the mutants got blinked out for no real reason, Gwen Stacy got knocked up by Norman Osborn, I was an Avenger and gained the ability to be in 30 places at once, and Mephisto became a divorce attorney.

JEAN: It's all right Logan. Scott, Kitty, and Beast are out in the Mystery Machine and we're going to find out if Onslaught is Old Man Magneto.

[KnightWing]

Personally, the one thing I do like about Marvel is that characters like Peter don't have a status quo. One of the beauties of a continuing narrative is that your characters aren't tied down to one thing. If you decide to retcon it with magic then you're basically fucking over the readers. That's part of the reason why the Ultimate line was established: so people could read teenage Peter Parker while the rest of us could enjoy a character made richer by years of continuity. I mean, you have 50 years to build off of. Why not build off of it instead of saying, "Hey. Let's just back-up, undo what makes this character unique and return him to the immature version that hasn't existed since ever." I fail to see how the marriage could ever have been considered a bad thing for him.

Hey now, I really don't like the way they did it (I think this will probably go down as one of the most infamous moves in all of comics history), but I really do think that we're better off with the way things are now.

You're totally right about the Ultimate line in that that's how it started, but now it's switched up. Marvel realized they could tell the iconic stories in the main books (like DC does), and make the alternate universe stories the ones where the characters veer off in different directions.

I won't argue that characters shouldn't develop period, I just think this specific example falls on the "it's better to leave that conflict unresolved" side.

Clark and Lois have never been done a disservice by being married.

Ohhhhhh yes they have. It doesn't bother me nearly as much, since I can actually buy Superman having a generally happy status quo, but yeah, the Lois/Clark/Superman triangle was one of the basic tenets of the entire story, especially after the post-crisis reboot. Exchanging it for resolution was an unnecessary move that only served to eliminate a central conflict.

Let me ask this:

Disregarding the manner in which it was done ('cause, hey, there's no getting around that frak-up), do you think the Spider-Man comics are worse off now than they were before OMD?