Well, the New York Post blew the reveal of the end of Civil War #2 before the book was on the stands. Then again, I suppose anyone who actually reads that rag deserves what they get so, y’know, that’ll teach ya.
We, however, will allow those who don’t know what’s going down with Spider-Man to frequent the board without having it ruined for them. For those who do want to discuss it–and you know you do–I provide the space below. Have at it.
PAD
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Dan, your words are certainly heartfelt, but it basically boils down to the same argument everyone else is making: that this is not the Spider-Man you read as a kid.
I don’t get it. 40 years of Spider-Man comics, at least half a dozen different series, most of which have been reprinted in one form or another… with all that wealth of Spider-Man stories to read or re-read, why complain that the ones currently being written aren’t the same as when you were a kid? Of course they’re not. No comic is the same that it was ten, twenty years ago (and thank Zod for that). If this isn’t the Spider-Man you read as a kid, there are many, many more comics that do have what you’re looking for than don’t.
Or maybe I just don’t get the whole “connecting to my idol” thing. I’ve never idolized a comic book hero or looked to them for inspiration. As a kid, I never latched onto a particular character like that. I never wanted to be them (well, I wanted to be a mutant, but that’s neither here nor there). I read them for entertainment, nothing more. The characters I read now aren’t, for the most part, the ones I read as a kid. So to say that there’s something wrong with the character just because you can’t relate to him anymore seems silly to me. I don’t want to relate to comic characters. I love Layla Miller, but I can’t relate to her in the slightest. I just think she’s a great character. And the same goes for all my favorite characters.
I guess it just comes down to what it is we look for in a comic. I don’t, however, see the point of complaining to Marvel, as though your inability to relate to Spider-Man is a flaw in the writing rather than your own personal hang-up.
Then again, I haven’t read Spider-Man comics since the late ’80s, so what do I know?
I think if you have a problem with the way Spider-man is written, or developments in the books, you should definitely write a letter and stop buying.
It is the only way you can make a difference.
I can definitely understand hpow you feel-like many I related to and identified with Peter Parker. He was like me, only cooler.
I still care a lot for him, but sometimes I feel they are doing everything in their power to make him less unique than he was, and less identifiable-which was a large part of his appeal. Surprising, considering the movies mostly kept to the early characterizations, with some differences.
From Bernard: You’re confused with another of Peter’s friends: Marcy Kane. She was a Contraxian like Jack of Hearts.
Really? I could have sworn it was Deb Whitman, I even remember thinking how it made no sense for the character to be alien, as it seemed to go against the plot the character had had in Spidey’s book. And I thought it was the Deb Whitman breakdown. Though I could be wrong, and Marcy could have had her own storyline that made the alien thing make no sense. *g*
I’ll take your word for it, as it would be easy enough to check. Keeping in line with my life philosiphy of doing as little as possible when possible, though, I will not do so. *g*
Though I am tempted to look up Marcy Kane simply because I don’t remember her at all, even vaguely, and I thought I remembered that period of Spidey pretty well. Then again, it was about 20 years ago I was reading those storylines, so… *g*
Ok, now I feel old, and must go lie down. Provided I can find my walker so I can make it from the computer to the couch…
Peter, thanks for answering my question about Flash!
Aside from my comment that I think Joey Q is on crack, I have to say that I KNOW they will blow this. It will be like the Clone saga, only less embraced. It could potentially open up some doors, but I think it will close much more.
It seems those two guys (JMS and Joey the Q) don’t seem to know what to do with this character. He’s a magical Spider-guy that dies comes back to life with new powers they don’t explain (cuz I don’t feel they had much confidence in the idea after they were done with it). He has two costumes he wheres for no apparent reason. Pick one. He has two jobs I guess, one a school teacher which he doesn’t need as he works for Stark as his new lacky(the new Rhodey). The EIC doesn’t like the marriage, I get that, but let the writers do something with them.
I’m not sure who this guy is supposed to be anymore. If they can’t figure that out, I don’t see how they are going to be able to pull something cool out of this story.
SPOILER WARNING!!!!
Baby May is Layla!!!!
It was Marcy Kane.
Bruce Willis is really dead in that movie with the kid who sees dead people.
He’s his father.
It was his sled.
She’s got a wang.
Spider-Man having money? Good thing there’s the Avengers’ stipend (does it still exist?) because Peter is likely going to be out of a job soon.
Can you imagine ANY school board wanting Peter in a class full of kids, knowing the Rhino or some other nutjob may be coming stomping through looking for payback? Honestly?
To answer Den’s electric Smurf question about Superman–well, I thought it was a cool idea and I liked the stories. But hey, I liked Voyager and Enterprise, too, so my taste can be questioned by some people. characters have to be dynamic or they suffer from the ho-hum factor.
have to be dynamic or they suffer from the ho-hum factor.
And yet you liked Voyager??? Those characters were about as dynamic as a pet rock.
Patrick,
It was indeed Marcy Kane that got alienized in the Jack of Hearts mini-series. You are, however, correct that what they did with Marcy seemed so out of it to me that I remember wondering what drugs the author was on.
Marcy was a fellow grad student at ESU. She had an abrasive personality, but was smart and could make cutting remarks. I remember one storyline where she starts wearing all sorts of stuff covering her hair (scarf, hat, etc.) and it turns out that Marcy has been bleaching her hair blond since it started to darken when she was a girl. Unfortunately, she couldn’t do it anymore without ruining her hair. It was a very humanizing moment and made some great points about how our culture is obsessed with certain types of appearance.
Enter the JoH mini. Marcy is revealed to by an alien and half her body is blue. She’s been using some method of concealing this. Am I supposed to believe that she could change the color of half her body but she couldn’t maintain her hair color? Was that touching story that I read supposed to just be a scam on her part to develop “back-story” for her role on Earth.
Final point: I never read anything with Jack of Hearts before he appeared in an early Rom, so I pretty much in the dark about his early history. It was my impression that Jack knowing Marcy was established in the mini that revealed they were both aliens. Given that, they could have created a new alien chick out of whole cloth for the mini, so I concluded at the time that they were using a semi-limboed ex-supporting cast character because she had a connection to Spider-Man as a lame attempt to get a boost in sales. What it accomplished was trash my willing suspension of disbelief. Things went downhill from there…
Micha: “Peter and Mary Jane Parker tonight on Oprah, discussing his book My Secret Identity.’?”
I think that I’d pay $ 30.00 Cdn. or so to read such a book, written as if from Peter and MJ’s POV. Gladly.
As for the charge of violating genre conventions…genre conventions are what we choose to make them. Personally, I have no problem with this development, and I’m looking forward to seeing what’s next.
If they do end up doing some kind of “clever takeback”, that’s when I’ll be PO’ed.
I think its long, long overdue to shake up the same o’ same o’ of the cape and longjohn scene.
I in fact have stopped buying comic books because comics in general havent changed much.
They need to take chances.
And it seems that Marvel Comics has finally decided to do that.
Bravo! I may even return to buying Spider-Man again and see how this pans out.
Who knows, maybe this kind of thing will catch on…
Superman will lose one of his friends to a sudden death and he’ll have to live on knowing he is immortal and cannot die.
Some other major character will be killed in action and that death will be felt throughout that universe.
Life in the comicbook world has long been pretty stagnant. Maybe this will not only start the contriversy that it did, but it might bring readers back into the comic book stores which will increase sales which will be good for all.
I hope.
I hope you don’t mind if I put my opinions of what would happen here.
Spider-man has become a person just like any other, a person whose every action either in costume or without will have tremendous reprocussions in his life.
Very few individuals liked Spider-Man/Peter Parker due to the Bugle, and so as people rejected him with the mask they may reject him with it. Peter Parker/Spider-Man has taken the on accountability in all its forms.
There is the chance that the government or shield would harass him due to his powers.
One can say that this chance seemed to have been inevitable ever since shield unmasked him earlier. But now that the SRA has been passed, what would prevent the government from making even more laws that would further bind the hands of super-humans? Would there be one day where all super-humans would have be branded, or micro chipped so the government could keep tabs on them? Would there come a time where all these super-humans would be forced to work under the military as pathetic mindless dogs ready to run into there own deaths? Peter Parker/Spider-Man has trusted the government that might betray him in more ways than one. Is that a mark of stupidity, innocence or patriotism, who knows? But when these troubles come, I hope Peter Parker/Spider-Man is ready for them.
But it won’t only be the organization that might betray Peter Parker/Spider-Man, what would truly hurt would be the rejection from individual people themselves.
STUDENT: “Hello there Mr. Peter Parker I don’t want to study in your classes no more”
PETER: “How come”
STUDENT: “Being with you is dangerous; a lot of bad people are after you”
But you know there is still a chance that Peter/ Spider-Man would accept that because:
In Gwen’s grave;
PETER: Hello there Gwen, been a while. I’ve just come to tell you that I’ve just revealed my secret identity to everyone.
GWEN’S GHOST: How come?
PETER: So that people will now what dangers they are getting themselves into when they get close to me.
GWEN’S GHOST: Couldn’t you’ve done that a few years earlier; before someone dropped me of a very high bridge to my imminent death?
Or how about this:
POLICE: Mr. Parker also known as Spider-Man, you are under arrest.
PETER: How come?
POLICE: For snapping an innocent girls neck when you tried to save her with your webbing.
We cannot also forget the fact that many people would actually want to try to sue Peter-Parker/Spider-Man for damage to their property, such as the people who owned the cars that were used to sandwich Mister Vibranium-Man A.K.A Charlie Weiderman a few issues back.
Forget the glamour forget the celebrity status, Peter Parker/ Spider-Man may have taken the ultimate sacrifice, the ultimate risk,the ultimate form of trust in unmasking; opening himself up to the public. The question is: whatwill the public want next? If you believe that God was Jesus and Jesus was God, have you ever wondered how awkward it is that people praised and worshipped God when he was transcended and showed no fact to them, yet when he came down with a face of a man, a smile of a man and the speech of a man they quickly got the nearest tree and crucified him on it? The same thing can happen to Spider-Man/ Peter Parker. When he seemed to be beyond man, beyond human comprehension he was untouchable, but when he shows human emotion, human weakness, he becomes someone to be exploited, hurt and crushed. Human nature can be sometimes like that. Behind all those faces that clicked there cameras during the unmasking, in their minds, how many do you think were looking for the nearest tree to crucify Spider-Man/ Peter Parker on?
Of course we can’t forget the chance that the school janitor wouldn’t be coming by to take Peter/ Spider-Man out with a sniper rifle before any of these happen. “Spider-Man, in what direction does your Spider-sense tingle now?” Bang!
The marvel universe has indeed become far more dangerous now. Now the list of those people hate not only includes mutants but all other super humans as well. “They’ve run out of one animal to slaughter; now they are just going for everything else. It’s a good thing Spider-Man got rid of the blue from his costume; in that way it will blend more with his blood, sweat and tears.
To me, Spider-Man is still an every-day man, but right now he is an every-day man trapped in some of the most tragic scenarios that can ever befall a person. Would you still dare to read? Yes.
I don’t think we need to worry. Peter didn’t reveal that he was indeed Spider-Man. The clone did it. They’ll find a way to work the clone back in, and Peter will wind up doing damage control for the next umpteen years to convince people that it wasn’t him.
I wan’t to see proof of the strength of the everyday man to overcome even some of the most terrible scenarios in life. So that if our hero is able to overcome even the worst situations maybe we can also. I think that what may happen now to Peter is a way to do that. I want to see what will happen next.
philioteria21: “Speaking of comics yesterday, did anyone else read the newest issue of Ms. Marvel? Carol has to go into hiding, and is told to check into a room under the name Linda Danvers, because no one would be interested in that name.
I miss Supergirl.”
You aren’t the only one. Linda is my favorite comic book character of all time.
“Personally, I was looking forward to a ‘Screw you all and the horses in upon which you rode!’ from Spidey.”
THAT is in character for Spidey….
“Spider-Man has always wanted to be liked…” yeesh!
“My feeling on Reed’s support of the SRA is that it does make sense for him, because he’s a reasonable man. If you were to come to him, with a system that seemed to be a reasonable way of dealing with a situation like this, a system of rules and regulations for super-heroes, he’d see it as a good idea–and any concerns with it could be rationally, reasonably discussed. Security of the system? Reed can work around that. Autonomy of the heroes? Just needs a good system of checks and balances, that’s all. All of these things can be worked out rationally, and the basic idea is sound.”
My knowledge of Reed’s attitudes/thoughts about a Superhuman Registration Act stem from an old story arc in the Fantastic Four issues of the Acts of Vengence crossover. Reed Richards was against and went before a special Congressoinal Committee to testify against it.
For a lot of people, that doesn’t matter. It shouldn’t really matter if you are writing the story and the majority of the audience didn’t read those old (good) comics. Guess what? I have. The knowledge damages my willing suspension of disbelief for THIS comic. I am not the audience. I won’t be buying.
“Ironman was a good choice to announce his secret identity. Although do you really want a drunk behind the wheel of nearly indestructable power suit?”
Iron Man is not a drunk. He’s an alcoholic who has been sober for a long long time. Unless the writer changes. Morons. Moronic writers.
“I have to disagree with the spidey thing. He’s a natural rebel. I thought he would be hanging with Capt. America’s group.”
Spider-Man has the most natural tendency to tell people to “screw off” when things don’t quite make sense for him. See The Amazing Spider-Man vol. 1 no. 1.
See that issue of the Avengers were Captain America offers him a membership position but the government liason throws a panic attack on the whole thing…. Captain America even offers to go to the POTUS, and Spidey was polite to Cap about not going out of his way, but was basically…. “up yours” to the liason, Sikorsky.
“(3) Heroes who don’t register are being…what? Arrested? Imprisoned?? Yeah, that’s gonna work well on Ghost Rider (for instance).”
The Dan Ketch version of Ghost Rider could only transform is A. the need for vengence arose and B. he touched the magic thing on his bike. So imprisoning Dan Ketch would have been easy.
“(4) The Reveal – – so, is Spidey going maskless from now on? I mean, that was the whole reason for the mask, right??”
Spidey, if comics were all well-written, could simply wear the mask for the same reason I call myself the Blue Spider while online. I could go without it and there would not be a difference. Glenn or PAD could contact my ISP and lie (or tell the truth even) about my activities here and find out my real name. Or they could google me. Or click the link to my blog. Point being: the costume is an affectation.
“They are going to have a Guantanomo Bay type thing for those who disagree I think”
I believe you and I think that it is stupid. Gitmo’s current purpose in the real world is to house people with assumed malicious intent. Spidey and company are/were vigilantes.
Honestly what the story should be is that these vigilantes were accepted by authorities because of tradition. Then someone changes his mind, the goverment moves and it is decided that vigilantes are vigilantes or they register. Does anyone know what they do with vigilantes in real life? They jail them. They do not put them in internment camps.
CIVIL LIBERTIES?! Does anyone have the civil liberty to swing around in a costume and beat people’s heads in? no. Do people have civil liberties to run around not expect costumed jerks from jumping about and beating on them?
“I don’t understand this statement, since Marvel comics were founded upon superheroes who have no secret identities — the Fantastic Four.”
The FF are not and have never been super-heroes, any more than Rip Hunter, Cave Carson, Blackhawk (ignore that storyline!), the Challengers of the Unknown, Fox Mulder, or Captain Krik and the Crew of the Starship Enterprise have been.
“Spider-Man having money? Good thing there’s the Avengers’ stipend (does it still exist?) because Peter is likely going to be out of a job soon.”
I don’t know where or when there is a story in the past two years where Peter Parker “has money” to the extent that it’s no longer an issue. The Avengers stipend, however, was in the seventies and early eighties $1000 per week and at the time those Avengers which took it drew their paycheck from the Maria Stark Foundation. With inflation I imagine the numbers in the stipend would be higher in the nineties, without growing in value.
The New Avengers don’t have the same connection to the Maria Stark Foundation, thanks to Brian Bendis. In the issue of New Avengers where Steve recruits Peter (I believe it was issue #3) Cap told him that the Avengers’ stipend was no more as a response to Pete’s declaration that the additional money wouldn’t hurt. Peter’s reply? Something to that effect of ‘that’s just my luck’.
In a later story, a later issue, Peter moved his family into Avengers Tower.
Keep in mind that at least twice in the character’s history Peter Parker lived in a high-end living space for free because his best friend was Harry Osborn.
“So far, I enjoy it a lot. Reading such a political, thought provoking comic story in Marvel is not something I am used to and also in the context with the ongoing ‘war against terror’ and related topics, you can`t help to make some comparisons.”
I still don’t get that. They’re vigilantes. Or they’re liscensed, registered, sanctioned officers. If you can find a civil libery dispute in that, I really want to know what rights that costumed fun-lovers have that I don’t.
“Peter ALWAYS wanted to be liked – he was an outsider, a geek, a victim when he was growing up.”
He was shunned and mocked, but hardly victimized. If he wanted to be liked so much, he probably should have done less of his own thing (going to obscure exhibitions on radioactivity) and more hanging with the guys on their terms. He executed interest in his own stuff at the expense of his relationships with others.
“That’s why when he 1st got his powers he went the showbusines route, he wanted the fame, the glamour, the adulation – to compensate for how he was never loved (outside of his home)when growing up.”
That explains the mask and secret identity when he went on the Ed Sullivan Show!
weeee! rants!
“It just seems like someone (cough, Warren Ellis, cough) who doesn’t get either character decided that Steve and Tony have to be on opposite sides of every issue.”
Back in the Armor Wars Tony Stark represented a Libertarian point of view and Steve Rogers (whom ironically was on the outs with the American government at the time) was opposing him, taking a law-and-order standpoint.
“I know some people wish they were still reading Peter Parker high school everyman (though I, to this day, argue that science nerd who can design high tech web shooters and dates an endless series of hot girls is about as everyman as a millionaire who dresses like a bat)…”
I’ve felt this forever and have been making this argument for about six months now. He created a formula that reverses a mutation that turned a man into a telepath super-lizard humanoid. He did this from scratch. He figured that the Vulture flies because of magnetism and built a magnetic inverter. He did that from scratch. That stuff was in the first six issues of the comic. He re-installed a crucial fragment on a falling space pod. He built his own equipment and sewed his own costume. While there are things that Spidey should and shouldn’t be, that he should and should not do… he is not the everyman.
“Now they are living in the specially-designed HQ of ‘Earth’s Mightiest Heroes’. If the Avengers, including the Sentry and let’s not forget Jarvis, can’t keep them safe, then the Gods had it in for them and they were dead anyway.”
I remember when the Masters of Evil broke into Avengers Mansion, tied up Captain America and the Black Knight like damsels-in-distress, beat Hercules (strong as the Hulk) into a coma, and then tortured Jarvis in front of Cap just for kicks (and to hurt Cap, of course). The Sentry better be really stinking powerful, because if he isn’t omnipresent and the writer feels like it… living in Avengers Mansion is as much bait for harm as it is protection from it.
Also keep in mind that the Avengers West Compound was under attack almost every story. Spider-Woman Julia Carpenter realized that keeping her child on the grounds for residential purposes was not a great way to keep her safe.
I think the bottom line on the secret identity revealed for Spider-Man is that change is good, but revealing his ID is not original change. It’s been done enough already in comics. It has been done successfully in the Flash. The Other storyline was change that was good and original. The organic webshooters was change that was not good (I think that more says that the industry thinks little of the comic audience that they want the comic to reflect the film, that someone couldn’t figure out why the comic was different than the film for his powers). Daredevil did the reveal ID and I personally don’t like that storyline (actually I haven’t like much of the new run of DD (volume two), except for the five issue story arc by Bob Gale. I think the ID reveal storyline will serve immediate shock value, but it will take very good writing to keep it from feeling like everyone did after the Clone Saga.