It's been a while since I really sat down and read spiderman so this one caught me by surprise.

LINK

Apparently Marvel has decided Spidey was getting too comfortable with married life or something.

I never was a Spiderman X Mary-Jane fan, naw. I'm your average hardcore Spiderman X Gwen Stacy fan through and through.

well the way they were written it was obvious Peter and Gwen were meant to be but no like in real life loves is thrown off a bridge

I thought this was a zany move at first; very wild, very dangerous. Personally, I always liked Peter and Mary Jane's relationship. It was one of the things that felt, I don't know, grown-up about Spider-Man. And when Marvel did this whole stunt, I thought it was a wild play, but now I'm not so sure.

Ever since Superman "died" I have been leery of comics that think they're pulling some big shocker. I still hold to a belief that Captain America will return, yes, just as we remembered him, and that somehow the whole Civil War incident will become screwed around with to the point that it doesn't exist. So I'm also in the camp that believes, rather firmly, that we haven't seen the end of Peter and Mary Jane's relationship.

In fact, I predict that will be Marvel's next big move with this series. When the readership gets a little to low for their liking, they're gonna do something like bringing them back together to spike sales. Or they might try killing off another character.

It's utter crap. They retconed the last 20 years or so, basically invalidating everything that I've read in that time. "It's magic," what a bunch of shit.

it so marvel can rekindle the romance again between the two...
marriage gets boring, but the romantic chase is more intriguing

It's not more intriguing because all it will be, is a REHASH.

Yeah it'll be a rehash but people will find it interesting because the kids reading it now aren't the same kids who were reading it during the last 20 years. On top of that, a romantic chase adds more drama as he fights for her attention with other guys. A steady marriage doesn't have any of that drama or tension. Remember, what made spidey so popular is that he was something teenagers could identify with. Making him married and in a steady relationship with a job makes it hard for the target audience to identify with him.

I understand why they're doing it; it'll keep the spiderman line going but it is a pretty goofy way to do it. God forbid spiderman just get a divorce or something.

Apparently it sold well by today's standards (which isn't saying much), and it's got everyone and their grandmother talking about Spider-Man, so I guess it worked. But stuff like this is the reason why I haven't picked up almost any of Marvel and DC's major titles in over a decade. I'm just not interested in reading four issues' worth of a "story" that's just an excuse for a retcon, which in turn is mostly a business decision.

Same reason I will never understand what anyone sees in "Crisis on Infinite Earths". To me, it's the original sin. It inspired everything I hate in comics.

Hey - great news!

Now Mary Jane is free to become the new Captain America!

DAJB
Hey - great news!

Now Mary Jane is free to become the new Captain America!

They don't need a new Captain America, the Steve Rogers who was shot was a Skrull! And besides, Wolverine is going to undo all of that with a magic spell he found on a Twinkie wrapper!

oh god that would probably work

In simple terms:

This story is insulting to anyone who has ever cared about any Spider-Man comic for the past 20 years.

Iba said it best: Marvel is trying to drag in new readers. But they seem to have forgotten that their most loyal readers (aka, me) have been reading it for years and don't really want to see Peter go back to his old, angsty ways. But, I'm going to go out on a very thin limb and give Marvel a chance here; if they work at it and really want to create a good storyline, then I'll stick around.

My biggest worry is that they'll go out of their way to pretend nothing happened and that this is a new beginning. Bull, we had a beginning years ago, we don't need another. I am hoping, although it will slightly contradict my earlier post, that Marvel at least acknowledges this incident has happened and that things have changed.

The readers remember it, and I know that Peter Parker isn't supposed to, but it would be best if they used this to their advantage instead of using it to create a whole new series. At the very least, give Peter some nightmare memories about his life with Mary Jane.

I definately agree. By at least giving him some sort of vague clues or something they could tie the idea into the overall better. It would give him another conflict, allowing them to maybe get new readers to identify with him while keeping the continuum for the older readers out there. If they play their cards right he won't have to go back to his old teenage angst. I'm willing to bet they have plans of bringing the two back together in some way already.

Of course it's Marvel though. The same company who decided that things like Usagi Yojimbo weren't good enough left alone and gave us Space Usagi. They just love to take years of work and shitcan it to get interest up again.

Inkmonkey
In simple terms:

This story is insulting to anyone who has ever cared about any Spider-Man comic for the past 20 years.

I agree. It's not fair to the fans who've stuck with Spidey through the years. I had no problem with the Peter Parker/Mary Jane marriage. It was a nice progression from the geeky teenager he was to the man he is today (or was until this storyline happened). I'm not a big fan of this move.

jgib99
I agree. It's not fair to the fans who've stuck with Spidey through the years. I had no problem with the Peter Parker/Mary Jane marriage. It was a nice progression from the geeky teenager he was to the man he is today (or was until this storyline happened). I'm not a big fan of this move.

Ditto. The old, nerdy Peter is fine, but it's always nice to see a character grow and mature. He had to stop being a geek sometime.

I dont mind at all when they kill off Superman or Captain America - coming back to life is part of the genre. I remember when I saw a DC guy being interviewed about the Death of Superman story arc. The reporter kept acting like Superman was really really gone, and the DC guy finally said "Um, you know we aren't canceling his comics, right?"


And I understand that younger readers may prefer "single spider-man" - but that's what Ultimate Spider-Man was for! And "Marvel Age" spider-man as well.

No, this is just silly and annoying though. I'll try Marvel again in a few years. The current editors will be replaced eventually.

I can wait.

You don't have to wait a few years. We all know after a few months, something magical will happen that puts Spidey and MJ back together again, and the whole Mephisto business never happened.

Totally crappy, lazy storytelling. ANY serious writer would shudder at using "magic" to get themselves out of a fix.

And, please, what's so exciting about dating? So they can change the face of the girl in peril. Big deal. I'm sick of hearing how his being single is better or will bring in more readers. As a whole, society still (at least subconsciously) cleaves to the importance of traditional marriage. They would feel more fear for a person Peter has given his heart AND his future to than the vagina-of-the-week.

Up until now, while I hadn't always agreed with Quesada, I had thought he was doing a stunning job making Marvel relevant again. This move, however, just shows that he considers his agenda more important than any respect for the readers. I'm not firmly in the "Quesada sucks" camp.

To be honest, however, it really doesn't matter. Spiderman will be around when our great grandchildren die of old age at 250, and he'll still likely sell more than all of the characters we create will earn *combined*. I'm not putting any of our work down. Hell, from my perspective, if you want moving, lasting, impactful storytelling in graphic form, you shouldn't be looking at any of the big 2. They're characters are corporate tools, that produce wonderful dividends for the stock holders. As long as the characters are icons, & produce such impressive profits they will NEVER die or ever have any REAL change in they're lives.

Plus, the comicbook public tends to prefer purile (sp?) entertainment. They can bitch all they want that is not the case, but sales MORE than back that up. Spiderman *may* se a slight dip in sales (I suspect it'll be the opposite), and people may claim they hated Quesada's crappy choice, but sales will return to noble in less than 3 months. A majority of us are addicts. Hell, I collected X-Men starting with v1 #94 (yep, I that old), and didn't stop collecting it for another 200, 300-odd issues, EVEN THOUGH I"D STOPPED ENJOYING IT 20 or so issues after Byrne left. A large majority of us are that way. Marrvel's not afraid of revolt. There's never been one, & there'll likely never be one.

That's my 2 cents.

Later,
Chip

cs3ink
please, what's so exciting about dating?

You want the whole list? (Sorry - couldn't resist!) ;)

Back on topic ... Is anyone else old enough to remember Dallas the first time round? Remember the whole PR whirlwind that surrounded the "who shot JR?" cliff-hanger season finale? Yeah. My, how the ratings dropped when they subsequently decided that that whole season of the show was "just a dream"!

I don't see any great difference here. There'll always be a market for Spider-Man - young or old; married, divorced, widowed or single. But it will be interesting to see whether the net loss from their existing fanbase (because I assume there will be some) will be outweighed by the net gain among younger readers. If not, you'd have to say Quesada has got this one as wrong as the producers of Dallas.

DAJB, see, that's exactly my problem. I think it's stuff like this that actually keeps most people from buying comics.

The only people who are willing to tolerate this kind of storytelling are comic fans of a certain type. Barely intelligible retcons that affect decades of continuity, nearly 100 pages of story that only exist for the sake of such retcons, etc - these kinds of stories are about things nobody but the ever-shrinking core fanbase of American superhero comics cares about. Most "normal" people want to read stories about characters that they can relate to in some way, facing engaging conflict that leads to interesting character development. Very roughly speaking. These retcon stories aren't about that. They're about continuity nerd-ism. And that's why most people don't want to read comics.

The success of TV shows like Lost, Heroes or 24 or the soap operas you're reffering to clearly shows that there is a market for the kind of serialized storytelling that superhero comics represent when they're good. The slowly unraveling mysteries in Lost, the twists and cliffhangers in 24, hell, Heroes even has superpowers. But if people who watch this stuff pick up one of the market leader comics from DC or Marvel, they'll see a bunch of convoluted crap that only seems to be revolving around obsessing over its own continuity, and it will either bore or confuse them.

One More Day sold well by present day comic standards, but did it sell as many copies as the Spidey movies sold tickets? And if not, why aren't all these people buying Spider-Man comics? There are other reasons, but I'm pretty sure this is one of the big ones.

Well, that's why the graphic novel has become so popular in recent years. It has everything the superhero comics don't like a concrete plotline and definitive overall storyline framework. Graphic novels still carry the continuity but they don't have the problem of the endless loop cycle that Marvel and DC make the superhero stories into. At some point the graphic novel actually goes somewhere to a conclusion. The superhero comics just wind up returning the character to the original status quo to repeat it. Nobody wants that loop cycle any more.

I think Marvel is going to have a lot of it's older readers pissed but few of them will drop actually drop the comic. I don't forsee them picking up a lot of new readers because of this either. They'll probably end up with about the same number of readers.

Yes, comic books superheroes need to grow up, grow old, have children, and DIE. I don't mind if they live in a slower timeframe (hold old is Spiderman in RL years?), but the progression needs to happen.

Spiderman should either be a middle-aged man or dead by now. Either he continues to have readership as a middle-aged character, telling the type of stories The Incredibles tell (look how well that sold), or he fades into the background cast, and let the new generation tell its story. I don't care if he has a successor with the exact same powers; it'll still be a different person living in a different time.

I have to disagree, mlai, but not for the reason you'd think. Personally, I'm in your camp. This never aging crap just drives me crazy, but, speaking from a business perspective, aging heroes, as far as the big 2 are concerned, would be a BIG mistake. They're earning MILLIONS & MILLIONS from the characters as they are. While people like you & I wouldn't waste our green on such a trite cliche, there are billions of people world wide that have no problem doing so. I think those people are hilarious, but, if I could have the same audience for Terran Sandz , & it meant I could never kill him & he could never age... I'd sell out in a heartbeat. 99% of the creators on this site would (despite their protestations to the contrary).

Marvel shouldn't change a thing unless they start to lose money, which they probably won't any time soon.

Later,
Chip

cs3ink
Marvel shouldn't change a thing unless they start to lose money, which they probably won't any time soon.

Uh, if you look at the sales figures over the past ten years, they've dropped to a terrifying extent. Marvel actually went bankrupt at some point. They're still market leaders, but it's a much, much smaller market than in the first half of the 90s. I agree that to them, killing off Spider-Man is like McDonald's pulling the Big Mac from their menus, but the cold, hard fact is that fewer and fewer people read this stuff every year.

The problem with the American comics industry is that what it considers "mainstream" isn't mainstream anywhere else. Mainstream TV shows aren't about superheroes, mainstream movies aren't unless they're based on comics, mainstream videos aren't, etc. At least not the spandex-clad, flying through space type. You could make the argument that Jack Bauer is a superhero, of course. But the bottom line is that they're not catering to what most people are interested in, and it's killing them.

Yes, Marvel's market is smaller than it was 10 years ago, but by comparison, so is everyone else's. Marvel owns as much of the market as they did 10 years ago, as well as ten years before that. Quesada saved Marvel's butt, but not because their stories sucked (okay, most of 'em did), but because he introduced exciting change. The market at the time was all Image ripoffs & badgirl, big booded books.

The comic market imploded as a whole. Hundreds of comic companies went out of business. No one even comes close to the numbers of 20 years ago. Look at the numbers today & you'll see that Marvel is doing better than ever. They *are* the mainstream. Whether we like it or not, the big 2 own the industry. Easily, 95% of stuff put out is crap. It amazes me what my countrymen consider entertainment. It saddens me that people continue to buy the crappy storytelling and flawed artwork of most of what's out there. Image is a great example. Spawn changed perspective (writing-wise) 3 times in the first issue, & McFarlane's storytelling skills are pretty week, & yet it was hotter than all get out. X-Men 3 had more plot holes & poor acting than you could shake a stick at, & yet it was hugely popular.

Later,
Chip

I've thought about Spiderman and Marvel more than a man my age is comfortable admitting to, but I have come to some odd conclusions in comparison to the rest of you.

First - although I wasn't perspicacious enough to keep it - I bought the original issue of spiderman way back on the hero's debut. I therefore grew up with Peter Parker and his adventures as a lone hero doing his Spidey thing on the building walls and through the city sky of New York city. I thrilled to the introduction of all the original enemies and wondered in my breathless youth - as I horded my allowance for the next issue - how in the world he was going to survive the original Green Goblin or the Sandman, Dr. Octopus, or The Kingpin while getting his homework done, dealing with being a geeky outsider among judgmental and clannish high school teenagers, how he was going to somehow deal with Aunt May's poor health and keep her from ever discovering who and what he was - lest the shock of discovery kill her; and ad infinitum.

I recall my shock and anger and jealousy when he first began dating Gwendolyn Stacy and when the equally stunning Mary Jane came onto the scene. I didn't have a girl friend and certainly had I, she certainly wouldn't look like those two looked!

I grudgingly allowed for Peter Parker's slow motion maturation, however; and when I finally did begin dating, rather forgave him his early betrayal of our geekhood bonding. Pitiful, eh?

Hell, I'll admit to still being something of a fan of the character after I got out of the military service - for a while longer anyway. Increasingly, however, I felt really weird going to comic book shops and purchasing the latest issues. Why I didn't just purchase a subscription is beyond me. Anyway, I gradually began turning my back on the character when he began to show up bloody damn everywhere and it no longer became possible to keep track of everything he was doing without a great deal of effort.

I think that's what finally did it for me, made me turn away from the character and away from Marvel. I understood the business imperative to maximize the profit take, but to so exploit the character that a fan actually got over saturated made me angry and made me finally give up reading Marvel comics. I think I was around twenty-seven at the time.

I don't think I was bothered by Peter marrying. I don't think I had it in me at that time to care one way or the other. But now that I do think about it I believe that the original lone character against the world and the societal outsider made for the strongest, most rooted version of the character.

I would like to see Marvel put Spiderman and a few other characters into an alternate reality where they are returned to their roots and original ages and, hell, experience level and start again from scratch.

Peter would again be a high school science geek and again gain spider powers and again become the lone and angst ridden hero living with his Aunt May. Either let him encounter again equally reset villains or introduce a host of new villains, but let the writers take their time and make each encounter count and NEVER contaminate this new world by bringing in elements from the older, more cynical and world weary reality.

Not that any of this will happen. It's just my thoughts on the subject from a former, and formerly serious fan of the super hero.

CharleyHorse
I would like to see Marvel put Spiderman and a few other characters into an alternate reality where they are returned to their roots and original ages and, hell, experience level and start again from scratch.

Peter would again be a high school science geek and again gain spider powers and again become the lone and angst ridden hero living with his Aunt May. Either let him encounter again equally reset villains or introduce a host of new villains, but let the writers take their time and make each encounter count and NEVER contaminate this new world by bringing in elements from the older, more cynical and world weary reality.

Well then, champ, you are in LUCK [en.wikipedia.org]! See, that's the thing about this; the whole thing is basically an excuse to set Spidey back into the "status quo", especially as it relates to the movies, where Petey is still a young man just figuring out his powers and struggling with women. But they already have that in the Ultimate Marvel line. Granted it's not as ideal as your suggestion, but it's pretty damn close. It's basically what they're trying to do here, and it's just stupid to force the main universe to conform to that. I'm not saying it can't be done, but that if they are going to try some BS like this, they might as well put more effort into it than essentially saying "A wizard did it".

I have to disagree with the fear of replacing generations. I think this fear is what is killing US comics in the long term.

Look at DBZ. Most popular thing ever, heck globally. It went on for a long time. Son Goku was like, my hero. But it's manga not US comics, so in the end it was ended (except for some video games popping up now and then). Because the Jpnese have sense in their heads. The Jpnese know Goku won't be my hero after I get 10 yrs older, and only 50% of the next gen might see him as their hero, and so on.

Does this mean all of a sudden, mangadom loses steam? No. Here comes Bleach, essentially the same story construct disguised in a different storyverse. Oh, most popular thing ever! Going on and on so far. And I was really into it, more than I would have been with DBZ if it hadn't ended.

Mangadom is different from Marvel/DC in business model, etc. But the concept I outlined is the same.