This is the very reason why I don't read mainstream comics or any continuous series. When you put business before fans you make decisions that affect business (which don't always please the fans).

lba
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.

Ultimate Spidey already rehashed the relationship. Rebooted him back to high school and everything. And that's what a lot of his fans today did grow up reading ... Ultimate Spidey.

A steady marriage doesn't have any of that drama or tension.

Meh. A steady marriage could have drama and tension. One More Day really isn't about rebooting the Peter/MJ dynamic. At least not according to Joe Q.

mlai
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.

Spider-Girl did that. Heck, Cap already died in that line's "universe."

cs3ink
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.

The shift in Marvel, and how they dug themselves out of bankruptcy has to do with this shrinking market. Because comic books aren't mass market periodicals found on newsstands anymore ... and thus are specialty shop novelty items found only where Diamond Comic Distributors places them ... Marvel (and DC) changed their focus from making profits on volume of issue sales ... to making their profits on licensing their properties in other media.

The Marvel Universe is basically a stable for potential movies, video games, action figures, lunchboxes. The comic books are now secondary. So the low low sales don't really kill the publishing line, even if it they continually kill specific titles (like say, Aquaman or Moon Knight).

It's just how the mainstream super hero comics are adapting to the world today. Not that big a deal. But things might be a tad different if Diamond had competition.

One More Day, also, is not designed to put Spidey back to a solo spot in the Marvel U. He's not going back to Spidey vs. the World. Because, sadly, he's still a member of The Avengers. And is still all over the place in the Marvel U, as high profile and over-exposed as ever.

I really don't know what to make of One More Day other than to say it's a story that didn't need to happen. Unless of course, it's going to get rid of Spidey revealing his identity in Civil War. But then ... that's just kind of stupid on its own.

The underlying problem is surely a lack of creativity on the part of the writers (or, to be generous to them, a lack of courage and conviction on the part of the editors who give them their commissions).

If Marvel really believe there's a market for a lone geek against the world type super hero (and I'm sure there must be), why aren't they creating a new one? Why retcon a character whose backstory is already accepted by millions? Leave Spidey as he is for the fans who've grown with him and put a new kid on the block designed to appeal to the younger generation.

When you consider how few new characters are launched and properly supported by the big two, you can't help but be in awe of the creativity that characterised (no pun intended!) DC in the 1940s and Marvel in the 1960s.

DAJB
Leave Spidey as he is for the fans who've grown with him and put a new kid on the block designed to appeal to the younger generation.

Greasy, spotty, Emo-boy? It could work. :)

ozoneocean

DAJB
Leave Spidey as he is for the fans who've grown with him and put a new kid on the block designed to appeal to the younger generation.

Greasy, spotty, Emo-boy? It could work. :)

way ahead of you

Oh jeebus :(

DAJB pointed out something I've had problems with for a while. The lack of new characters in mainstream comics, but the reason for this, I believe, is that Marvel and DC would rather hedge their bets with a safe and successful comic series than one that could flop.

I also have to say something in response to Spacehamster, who mentioned successful TV shows and compared them to comics.

You are way off base with most of that.

I agree with a lot of what you said (not all of it, but a lot of it) all the way up until you used Lost, Heroes, and 24 to show how good a serialized drama can be. Each one of those examples is a poor one. Lost has already lost a good portion of its viewers because of its convoluted nature (more so than any comicbook I've read in years), 24 is just silly in the way it randomly chooses to go about executing various characters, and Heroes...okay Heroes is actually working brilliantly right now, but I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop.

But regardless, I think mainstream comics are fine and I actually love reading them. I love the indie scene as well. Hell, I just like comics in general, but I can't abide this idea that somehow mainstream comics have to be "evil" when they're just trying to do good business, the same as television, movies, or any regular book you read.

If you really want integrity, might I suggest you stick with webcomics? :)

Steely Gaze
I agree with a lot of what you said (not all of it, but a lot of it) all the way up until you used Lost, Heroes, and 24 to show how good a serialized drama can be.

Wait - I didn't say they were good, just that they were far more successful than comics and similar in big ways. I personally like 24 and Heroes quite a bit, but Lost bores me to tears.

This is a reply to InkMonkey from the first page of this thread:

Magic - as the easy solution to plot problems - was why I was never a fan of DC comics, even though they generally had the better looking costumes. I liked my comic book fiction to have a bit of a grounding in the trappings of science unless it was something that was supposed to be strictly about magic, such as Dr. Strange.

Anyway, pay me no never mind in this. I'm just pining for the 'good old days' that probably were not really all that great anyway. Simpler, yes. But better? Who knows. Besides, the past isn't going to return anyway. At best one just gets a fun house mirror distortion of what one recalls, and so nothing seems right.

As for Marvel, they will probably eventually hit upon a business model that really works again to bring in the bucks from kids that are already entertainment saturated . . . um-well- maybe not, now that I think about it.

==============================================

Now to catch up with the progress of the thread itself:

I recall the first time that Marvel tried to produce a teenage super hero replacement for the then maturing Spiderman. This hero was called Nova and his powers were, I believe, the ability to fly really, really fast and be ultra maneuverable. It hung in there for a few years I think but was ultimately a flop because the powers and the background and the storytelling wasn't close enough to the Spiderman/Peter Parker meme to capture the fans' interest.

The reason that Spiderman worked is because he was the perfect geeky kid's fantasy alter ego. He possessed super strength and speed, but otherwise looked normal and therefore could have a secret life without exposing his real life to enemy scrutiny. He could detect danger and avoid the same if he wished. He could freaking climb walls and leap around like a spider. He taunted bad guys like geek boys wished they dared to taunt bullies. He was brilliant and brave and yet civilized and sensitive and everything a geek boy of the day wanted to be. Yet he was also terribly misunderstood by his family members and friends, thus bringing in the alienation factor that geek boys generally felt around other people. Then, of course there were those web shooters, which were the absolute perfect mid-point between letting a character actually fly or keeping him nailed to the ground, and so Spiderman could fly in a way, but did so through stupendous and awe inspiring displays of physical grace and strength and incredible precision; and once in a while one or all of his special gifts or abilities or his few pieces of equipment would fail him at critical times; and so there was always the aspect of impending drama even when nothing was happening.

Simply put, Spiderman had it all for the day and time. Marvel was incapable of creating a new teenage superhero that could match the sympathy factor and awe quotient that Spiderman generated. I suspect that this is still a major problem for the Marvel company today.

They would probably love to come up with a new teen hero that they could turn into another major money maker, but they cannot seem to come up with anything that fits all those specialty niches described above.

So they keep retconning the characters that do work for them.

By the way, JMS, who's credited with writing One More Day but apparently had a lot of his story changed by editors, summed up everything that's wrong with OMD fairly well himself on Newsarama , in case you guys haven't read this yet.

J. Michael Straczynski
"So what does Mephisto do?" I ask.

"He makes everybody forget Peter's Spider-Man."

"Uh, huh. So Aunt May's still in the hospital --"

"No, he saves Aunt May."

"But if all he does is save her life and make everybody forget he's Spidey, she still has a scar on her midsection."

"No, he makes that go away too."

"Okay...:

"Then he wakes up in her house."

"The house that was burned down?"

"Right."

"But how --"

"Mephisto undoes that as well."

"Okay. And the guys who shot at Peter and May and were killed, they're alive too? Mephisto can bring guys back from the dead?"

"It's all part of the spell."

"And Doc Strange can't tell?"

"No,"

"And the newspaper articles? News footage?"

"Joe, it's been forgotten."

"I'm just asking is that stuff there or not there?"

"Not there. And Peter's web shooters are back."

"Is this the same spell or a different spell?"

"Same spell."

"How does making people forget he's Spidey bring back his web shooters?"

"It's magic, okay?"

"I see. And Harry's back."

"Right."

"And Mephisto does this too."

"Yep."

"So is Harry back from the dead, or has he been alive? If they ask him, hey Harry, what did you do last summer, will he remember? And the year before? And the year before? If he says they all went on a picnic two years ago, will they remember it?"

"It's --"

"Because if he now has a life he remembers, if he's not back from the dead, then you've changed the continuity you said you didn't want to change. Those are your only options: he was brought back from the dead, and there's a grave, and people remember him dying --"

"Mephisto changes THEIR memories too."

"-- or he's effectively been alive as far as our characters know, so he's been alive all along, so either way as far as our characters are concerned, continuity's been violated going back to 1971.

How do you explain that?"

"It's magic, we don't have to explain it."

And that's the part I had a real problem with, maybe the single biggest problem. There's this notion that magic fixes everything. It doesn't. "It's magic, we don't have to explain it." Well, actually, yes, you do. Magic has to have rules. And this is clearly not just a case of one spell making everybody forget he's Spidey...suddenly you're bringing back the dead, undoing wounds, erasing records, reinstating web shooters, on and on and on.

What I wanted to do was to make one small change to history, a tiny thing, whose ripples we could control to only touch what editorial wanted to touch, making changes we could explain logically. I worked for weeks to come up with a timeline that would leave every other bit of continuity in place. It was rigorous, and as logical as I could make it. In the end of OMD as published, Harry is alive and he's always been alive as far as the characters know...so how is that different than he was alive the whole time?

It made no sense to me.

Still doesn't. It's sloppy. It violates every rule of writing fiction of the fantastic that I and every other SF/Fantasy writer knows you can't violate. It's fantasy 101.

There's more at the link, but this pretty much sums it up. Marvel claims Straczynski knew what was expected of him and then didn't write the story they had agreed on.

spacehamster
By the way, JMS, who's credited with writing One More Day but apparently had a lot of his story changed by editors, summed up everything that's wrong with OMD fairly well himself on Newsarama , in case you guys haven't read this yet...

Wow, that was a very eye-opening little piece. But it didn't really tell me, except in his own words, anything I didn't already know. Still, I really have respect for JMS, even more so for the way he handled himself there. Sounds like he just wanted to get the facts out and thats that. He even says, at the end, that he doesn't want this to turn into a public pissing contest, which I hope it doesn't. Hey, in any form of media, writers and directors often take a backseat to producers and editors.

Thanks for bringing that to my attention.

I think what just compounds the ridiculousness about this is that Mephisto doesn't simply "unmarry" the Parkers, but also undoes Peter's metamorphosis (eliminating the organic webbing), brings Harry Osbourne back to life, makes everyone ever forget that Peter Parker is Spider-Man (which is just pointless, since steps were already being made to confuse the populous as to whether or not Peter is really Spider-Man), and turns Mary Jan into a Superhero. Well, that last one might be deliberate misdirection on the part of the writers, but I kinda doubt it at this point.

Tweaks to the Spider-Man mythos can be very cool. The storyline with Morlun where it's revealed that there's a level of magic to Peter's powers beyond simply "Radioactivity + Spider = Awesome!" But then you get stupid crap like revealing that Gwen Stacy, in the space of three months, had sex with Norman Osbourne, gave birth to twins, and battled Norman for custody before he threw her ass off a bridge. Sure... why not. Some people didn't like the idea of Spider-Man revealing his identity, and I agree it changes the character in a way that isn't wholly appealing, but at least that was real. It was a real problem with real repercussions.

Also, if Mephisto's going to show up to Peter to tell him how to save his Aunt's wife, why didn't he show up during The Other story arc and make the same offer to Mary Jane? From what I've read the fact that Peter is Spider-Man is purely coincidental in his eyes, and he's more interested in the super-special-awesome love between MJ and Pete. Peter was in the exact same situation in that story (he was going to die and even Dr. Strange couldn't help him), and his family was willing to do anything to save him. That story also did some weird crap (Spidey gained the ability to shoot talons out of his forearms...) but it was fairly well written and didn't take continuity over a desk and Roger it to shit and back.

Hopefully this will turn out to be another "House of M" thing where the world is vastly changed for a brief period and some catalyst will bring everything back to normal. It'll probably be up to Spidey, in some sort of situation where he knows changing things back will re-kill Harry, so that should be fun. They'll probably keep his identity re-hidden somehow, though...

"That should be fun"? How about, this is all stupid and ppl just don't care anymore?
The only thing all this convoluted nonsensical magic crap accomplishes, is to distance readers from the character, making it completely impossible to relate to him and care about him.

Funny how the entire goal was to help readers related to him better.

And all that is why I never got into hero comics...Or many others for that matter.
But it's great to read what people say about it :)

True ozone. I started the topic, but I'm enjoying what other people have to say more than jumping in myself.

mlai:

The idea is to make him more approachable in the long run. They're thinking that once the crap from this has settled down, spidey will be more interesting again being a little more like he used to be.

I do have to agree that the magic thing is a load of crap. This is definately a case where magic makes the idea sound pretty stupid. Like I said earlier, it would have been a lot better for him to end up getting a divorce and dealing with the other problems one by one. They could have had the same effect to send him back by doing so through normal means and just addressing each issue one at a time over a period of months rather than doing the quick fix. That's one of the major issues with Marvel and DC. They keep going for the quick fix rather than actually using storytelling to change the characters and their environments.

You know what? I like Inkmonkey's post above mine (I'm not quoting the whole thing, go read it if you haven't) and I think he hit it spot on, but it got me thinking about something that wasn't quite answered.

Yes, Mephisto went whole hog and changed everything in an incredibly silly manner, but maybe this all has something to do with what Mary Jane told him just before he did his little spell. Peter wasn't sure what she had done, and all she said was that she wanted him to have a chance to be happy. What's that mean? Well, maybe it was somehow her doing that changed the known order of things.

At least, Marvel would be wise to use that instead of Mephisto got bored of his generic plan and decided to muck with the fabric of the universe.

There was also the possibility of having one of the major league superstar god like beings infesting the Marvel Universe abduct SpiderMan, explain to him how a series of unfortunate decision on HIS part - recall that this should be an angst-ridden, self-flagellating, I screwed everything up character - absolutely distorted the destiny of Earth to such an extent that everything is about to come to a dramatic and messy ending . . . with no humanity left to be worried about piddly little things like destiny or death and taxes.

Then the super entity could give Peter Parker the irrevocable choice to begin a new reality branch just as if none of the bad decisions had ever happened; but this choice would come with no guarantees that he wouldn't screw everything up again, because it would also require a complete mind wipe of Peter Parker so far as the life of Spiderman goes.

Oh, yeah . . . a choice. The other choice would be to remain where he was and continue to try and salvage a reality that is rapidly reaching the explosion point DUE TO HIS PRESENCE.

So what will this noble, innately self-sacrificing super hero do? Right, being Peter Parker he is built for self-sacrifice for the greater good. So he will do the right thing and we will all shed a brief tear for our tragic hero. Boo-hoo-hoo!

So the BAD Earth line would still exist, but do so with their/our Spliderman having permanently vanished; thus perhaps affording them the remote chance of gradually recovering form the destiny poisoned results of his history of unfortunate decisions . The new branch of reality would take whatever pristine to semi-pristine form that Marvel wanted, and then away we go.

SO everything would have been done by super science. The old reality would still exist, just without Spiderman in it. The new reality branch would star a relatively new Spiderman who would begin his career from scratch -- without any of the other villains or super heroes having met this novice superhero before.

I believe that such a relatively simple solution - as it's based on speculative super science rather than magic - would have gone down a bit better with both fans and writers than the current "It's magic and so it doesn't have to have sense or consequences" solution.

But, hey, it's too late now and Marvel and fans are going to have to live with the results of a REALLY boneheaded editorial decision.

====================================================================================

I want to add something else, based on my youthful decision to concentrate on the Marvel rather than the DC line of comics. I did so because in relative terms the Marvel universe made more sense in that mostly its storytelling and rationalization processes were based on pseudo science as a rule of thumb rather than DC's 'use any rationalization , no matter how stupid and illogical' approach to storytelling and continuity.

I could not suspend disbelief in the DC storylines and plotting devices enough to enjoy much of their stuff. Since Marvel's rationalizations at least seemed more or less logical and reasonable, however, I could suspend disbelief and enjoy the stories and care about the characters.

Because at any time the DC editorial staff wanted to utilize 'MAGIC' as a plotting solution I could not care about the really bad things that were happening to the featured hero. Because Marvel characters had to use logic and the 'laws' of pseudo-science to solve their problems and deal with logical consequences, should they fail, and did not have the golden parachute of magic to save the day, Marvel work felt more real to me as a youngster.

This means to me that Marvel either never understood what really separated their product line form DCs or have such contempt for their own product line today that they no longer care about the differences that originally made them a viable competitor back when DC had a near monopoly on the market.

With this decision to use magic to effect a dramatic change in the fate of Spiderman, the Marvel company has destroyed the last vestige of a difference between to two comic book lines. Actually I rather wonder if this wasn't a deliberate boardroom decision to do just that . . . in a warped bean-counter's hope to somehow make Marvell even more competitive by truly making it indistinguishable in product from DC.

Albone
. They retconed the last 20 years or so, basically invalidating everything that I've read in that time.

I couldn't agree more.
One of the reasons I was never that much of a DC fan was that they were always messing with the timelines and continuity when they would run low on storylines. They had so many alternate realities that I couldn't follow it. On the Marvel side, they seemd to try to be a little more consistent (X-Men being a notable exception) and it helped reinforce the idea that the Marvel Universe really was all one big place.
And I have a confession to make. I have been guilty of living vicariously through Peter Parker as a yong man, including the part where he actually got to marry the girl of his dreams, the ultimate triumph over his geekhood. My wife noticed this about me when I got very emotional during the first Spider-Man movie. I had to explain (quickly) that it wasn't that I had a thing for the actress playing Mary Jane, it was that a certain part of me really wants to see Pete get the girl.
Is that pathetic or what? But it did give my wife ammo to use against me the next time I ribbed her about crying during a movie.

I think alot of us could relate to Peter Parker, hence a lot of the outrage about the decision to retcon. That being said, the last year or so....Peter unmasking and making deals with the devil has flown in the face of what we knew of Peter. I think Daredevil would have made more sense instead of Peter.

Ziffy88's right, that would probably work!

This is so stupid it defies belief! This is why I don't buy comics anymore.

Noone, and I mean NO ONE, can write anymore! They want to re-hash and re-start everything they can't write themselves out of a corner on. That's why I don't like the Ultimates and I don't like X-Men anymore (how many times can they kill and un-kill Jean Grey, I ask you!) or the FF or the Avengers or Wonder Woman or Superman.

A good writer can write themselves out of just about any corner, or bring in someone who can.

I like the magic incantation on a twinkie wrapper idea...

This is why I co-write my own comics now! It's much more satisfying than paying $3.99 for recycled garbage.

spacehamster

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!

CharleyHorse
There was also the possibility of having one of the major league superstar god like beings infesting the Marvel Universe abduct SpiderMan, explain to him how a series of unfortunate decision on HIS part - recall that this should be an angst-ridden, self-flagellating, I screwed everything up character - absolutely distorted the destiny of Earth to such an extent that everything is about to come to a dramatic and messy ending . . . with no humanity left to be worried about piddly little things like destiny or death and taxes.

Then the super entity could give Peter Parker the irrevocable choice to begin a new reality branch just as if none of the bad decisions had ever happened; but this choice would come with no guarantees that he wouldn't screw everything up again, because it would also require a complete mind wipe of Peter Parker so far as the life of Spiderman goes.

Oh, yeah . . . a choice. The other choice would be to remain where he was and continue to try and salvage a reality that is rapidly reaching the explosion point DUE TO HIS PRESENCE.

So what will this noble, innately self-sacrificing super hero do? Right, being Peter Parker he is built for self-sacrifice for the greater good. So he will do the right thing and we will all shed a brief tear for our tragic hero. Boo-hoo-hoo!

So the BAD Earth line would still exist, but do so with their/our Spliderman having permanently vanished; thus perhaps affording them the remote chance of gradually recovering form the destiny poisoned results of his history of unfortunate decisions . The new branch of reality would take whatever pristine to semi-pristine form that Marvel wanted, and then away we go.

SO everything would have been done by super science. The old reality would still exist, just without Spiderman in it. The new reality branch would star a relatively new Spiderman who would begin his career from scratch -- without any of the other villains or super heroes having met this novice superhero before.

I believe that such a relatively simple solution - as it's based on speculative super science rather than magic - would have gone down a bit better with both fans and writers than the current "It's magic and so it doesn't have to have sense or consequences" solution.

But, hey, it's too late now and Marvel and fans are going to have to live with the results of a REALLY boneheaded editorial decision.

Oof, I don't like that idea at all either. It's still essentially nulling every accomplishment Spider-Man's made in the past 20 years. More than that, actually. It's nulling everything Spidey has done ever.

But I guess the problem is that someone on the Marvel executive board said "Make Spidey young again", and the writers were sort of forced to get there somehow. When left with that dumb concept as your goal, there's not a lot of room for too many really good ideas.

Inkmonkey
But I guess the problem is that someone on the Marvel executive board said "Make Spidey young again", and the writers were sort of forced to get there somehow. When left with that dumb concept as your goal, there's not a lot of room for too many really good ideas.

I agree. Once an editorial decision this farcical has been made, there is no sensible solution for a writer to come up with. Marvel has opted for magic. God-like extra-terrestrial beings are also pretty much just another take on magic because that option also means the writers don't have to explain how it was possible. The last 20-30 years were just a dream is another. Oh, and let's not forget time travel. That's always a good ruse for erasing the past. Actually time travel is great because, as Superman showed us, you just have to reverse the rotation of the Earth. Never fails!

But this affects more than just Spider-Man, surely? Given that Marvel has tied itself in knots by trying to manufacture a ridiculously strict continuity across its whole range of titles, I can't help but think this "magic solves everything" approach must have some pretty bizarre implications for the rest of the Marvel universe, too. Although I suppose they'll all be ignored. (You can do that with magic!)

DAJB
Actually time travel is great because, as Superman showed us, you just have to reverse the rotation of the Earth. Never fails!

Gah! I hate when people make that mistake! It's a pet peeve of mine. Superman did not reverse the Earth's rotation to travel back in time. He flew at relativistic speeds and traveled back in time. The Earth's rotation only appeared to reverse because, for Superman at that point, time was flowing backwards. If you reverse the Earth's rotation, you'll fling everything on the surface out into space!

Okay, I feel better now.

And I agree, all this stupid retconning is what made me stop reading comic books in the first place. Have the writers learned nothing from the Shower Scene on Dallas? It's a slap in the face to your fans.

D: OMG! Dude. That sucks.....I love Spiderman but I mean come on, Let Peter and Mary-Jane have a nice life in peace!!!

Fenn
And I agree, all this stupid retconning is what made me stop reading comic books in the first place. Have the writers learned nothing from the Shower Scene on Dallas? It's a slap in the face to your fans.

Marvel is very heavy handed in how it treats its fanbase. After reading the wonderful JMS interview and accompanying links I was curious to see what the buzz over at Marvel.com would be concerning this whole morass.

I've no love for Marvel.com, since I was once banned from the site for making a poll about ninjas. Technical difficulties over there when they released their online subscription service have since rebooted my ban, but I really don't post there at all anymore. Just happy to be able to read the nonsense. And boy what nonsense there is! So much that I found this post by a moderator:

Here is your ONE warning. Make insulting comments towards anyone no matter if they are a fan that liked the story, defends various creators, Joe Quesada or JMS themselves, or whomever and you will be banned. Simple as that.

There is absolutely no reason to bash, threaten, insult or whatever else to those involved with writing a fictional story you did not like. Don't like it? Stop buying it. Easy as that.

By all means feel free to critique the work itself (meaning the story), but not the person. And instead of saying "It sucked!", contribute to the forums by posting why you didn't like it, because just posing "It sucked!" is trollish behavior and nothing more.

EDITED:
This is a private forum, which you sign up and are allowed to post on as long as you can follow the guidelines, which by signing up you agree to do so and by posting on these forums you agree to do so.

This is not up for discussion. All threads on this will be deleted. If you have questions, you are more than welcome to PM me and ask, but do not create a thread to reply. This thread was closed for a reason, that does not mean it is okay to make one to reply to it.

This is classic Marvel.com! Over moderation, and a clear disdain for posters who don't like things the company publishes. Talk about slapping the fans in the face. Heh. The company goes and makes an extremely controversial mini series altering the direction of one of its flagship characters. And then lets its forum moderators loose to quash any and all discussion about said major event. What the heck is the point?

But that's how that site works. The only discussion allowed on those forums are positive pro-marvel spin discussions. To me that's a bigger slap in the face than One More Day itself. And explains why JMS has to go so far out of his way in his interviews/statements to stress how much he respects Joe Q ... even after Joe Q goes and rewrites the key elements of his story, ticking him off enough to want to pull his name from the finished product.

:P

I dunno. The internet just makes me laugh sometimes. No matter how much marvel.com tries to stifle OMD criticism, the story speaks for itself. This might not be as dark a day as the Clone nonsense was, but Spidey's seen better days.

Emperor Joe Q., huh? That's pathetic.

I thought giving Banner Lou Gehrig's disease was inane enough (he's the Hulk, he's survived every injury known to man and alien -- how could he have such a thing?) and now the possibility of a Red Hulk. And the strangeness with Gwen Stacy and clones, inc. was bizarre but whatever. Then there's the perpetual death and resurrection of Jean Grey and whether the mutants will have powers this week.

Marvel gets no more of my money, just like they haven't since 1994. (DC either, for that matter, or any print comic.)

Well that's why if you like Spider-man you read Ultimate Spider-man Sure Bagley's art for the first hundred and something issues is not great but it's serviceable. Plus Bendis writing is not that bad