Joe Quesada is discussing Spidey's wedding day in his new blog post. I'll be honest, I just got the PR and I haven't read it, but I thought I would let you know since so much ink has been spilled over the whole Brand New Day storyline.
I didn't read it. I never really did read Spider-Man much growing up - only caught MacFarlane's run and a few issues here and there. Of course, I - like any normal comics kid - loved Spidey and the cartoon, the story, etc., I just never really got into the title because nothing ever really changes with Peter Parker; he's as solid and entrenched a property as any out there and, given that, you already know how every story is going to play-out: nothing significant is going to change. Besides, my taste runs grittier and always has, so I was into Daredevil and X-Men and so on.
But I did read the back-and-forth in this month's CBG (taken from their discussion forums) and I got the gist of it. And, I have to say, I don't like it one bit. No one else seems to, either.
I dug that Spidey got married - that was one of the few non-MacFarlane issues I sought-out (and it was before Todd worked on the title) and I still have it - and it was a pretty big deal, but not a major, major one. Of course it probably was for die-hard fans, but for an X-Men kid/collector, it was just a hot speculative property. It never bothered me one way or the other and I think there are just as many - really even more - stories and plotlines that can come from a superhero with a dependant as one without. What did bother me was several years later, when I heard that one of the storylines was about how MJ had cheated on Petey.
Maybe it was because it was only a few years after I had personally experienced the pain of such a slut-bag, but the bigger issue was that I didn't want to hear about how Spidey's wife cheated on him! Of all the many stories and ideas you could explore, I found the entire concept completely inappropriate for Spider-Man - both the character and the title. Maybe part of my distaste for it had to do with it being "too real," but mostly, it was due to the fact that it just didn't fit - the character, the title, their relationship - it didn't fit anything to do with Spidey, at all. Like I say, I was never a regular reader and I didn't read this particular Spider-Man "event" "arc" either, so if I was misinformed, then so be it, but the same can be said of the whole Brand New Day storyline:
It just doesn't fit and it was completely unnecessary.
But when I read how the whole thing was handled - as though the marriage just never happened - I was absolutely disgusted!
As much as I harp on the shit state of entertainment these days, I would be so completely remiss if I didn't point-out what an utter cop-out that is! This is the worst possible way to have handled this - or any other - storyline. I mean, this would spark outrage if it appeared on a soap opera (which is more what Spider-Man is than a superhero title, which doubles the pointlessness of this "Brand New Day")! In fact, it did - back in the 1980s, when an entire season was retconned by the writers of Dallas.
This is why I am not champing at the bit to write for network/mainstream properties in any capacity. While I would love to have the chance to usher, say, Moon Knight through a year or two of development and progress, the very idea that everything I - and anyone else - do with the character, his story, and the world and populace around him, can simply be "undone" by anyone else, at any time, for any reason is just too much to handle. And I don't say that about me or my work - I mean that the entire practice is even accepted bothers me and renders the whole thing moot! It just seems like a waste of time and effort. But I digress...
If you are so uncreative - if you are at such a loss for a plausible explanation, so void of talent that you can't viably explain what you have just done that took several years/months of planning - that you just cop right the hell out and say, "Well... I can't explain it, it just [didn't] happen[ed]," then writing is not your bag, baby. Hang it up and walk quietly away.
There are at least 100,000 different ways to have handled this and even though 99,500 of them are just as hack as you can get, this single "method" is the absolute worst of the worst! Were I a Spider-Man reader, my intelligence would be so insulted by this point, that I would cancel my subscription and fume loudly for a few years - I might seriously even write-in and ask for my money back (wouldn't expect to get it, but I damned well might do it)! Really!
The way I see it, if the last 20+ years "never really happened," then what the hell was I paying for? If a restaurant doesn't serve me a meal, I don't pay them for the meal I never received, now do I? Not the same situation, you say? Okay: if I have to return my meal because it isn't done right and I never get to eat it, I am not going to pay for it!
Just the worst idea in a history of really shitty ideas from Marvel since Jim Shooter left. Joe Quesada should resign and Straczynski should publicly apologize for his inability to write and handle a major property and title. There are too many of us out here who have actual talent for shit-hacks like this to have our jobs!
© C Harris Lynn, 2008
2 comments:
You know I hate to sound like an utterly insensitive jerk, however; Aunt May is, what...like, 150 by now (75 in comic years)? Theoretically, they'll have to let her die eventually, won't they?
I guess I don't have as much a problem sounding completely insensitive, but... you know. They're big boys.
Yeah, I think Aunt May did die a handful of times or something, actually. Like I say, I don't read Spidey, so I can't say for sure, and it has been around for like 50 years now, so I understand that they have to be allowed some missteps here and there, but retconning two decades?
That's just unconscionable. There is no excuse for that, whatsoever.
But yeah, given that she was in her like late-60s to early-70s when the comic started, she'd have to be at least 110 by now - even by comic book standards.
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