Amazing Spider-Man #601

Nah, sorry, this doesn't fly with me. And it actually disheartens me with the online comics community almost to the point of me not checking websites like this anymore, because it's like no one even batted an eye about this.

Peter had drunken sex with his roommate, drunken sex to the point of he didn't even know who she was. And we're all supposed to think this is "funny"?

It's not that I object to drunken sex--especially not within a work of fiction. But drunken sex where the participants don't even really know what's going on or who's who? That's like borderline date-rape, folks. You may say, "Oh the girl was into it!" and maybe I'd agree. But the fact remains that LOTS of people and women's organizations say that "rape" occurs whenever the girl is drunk, because she can't give her consent. Again, though--whatever--this is occurring in a work of fiction, but it's just really unbelievable that Marvel can show Peter "Mr. Responsibility" Parker in this sort of a situation, and very few of his supposed fan experts seem to care.

I'd actually be chuckling along with you guys if it were Flash Thompson that did it, but not Peter.

And I'm not even a big Spider-Man fan. It's not like I care about "sullying the integrity" of the character or whatever (although, yeah, showing the guy as an irresponsible sex-maniac will kind of do that), it's just that I expected more people to be a little concerned about what happened in this comic, because it's y'know, WAY out of character for Mr. "Power and RESPONSIBILITY". But you guys don't even care, huh? Most of you didn't even notice that it was out of character?

And no one had a problem with issue #600, either, even though the conflict in that issue resolved itself when jokey Peter Parker proved himself to be Doc Ock's superior in terms of INTELLIGENCE, WILLPOWER and MENTAL TOUGHNESS? And then the next issue opens with supposedly the same character waking up after a night of drunken sex with a woman whom he thought was someone else, the same guy who is supposedly smarter than Doc Ock? Am I alone or does anyone else think that the personality of Peter Parker is just completely disparate and nearly meaningless by this point? We're supposed to believe that the guy is simultaneously: a nerd, a much-in-demand bachelor, a spouter of kinda passe quips and ad hominum insults, a SUPER genius who REALLY knows his hard science, a carefree flighty hipster with nary a weighty thought in his head, a grounded young man with a heart of gold, and oh yeah now he's also a sleezebag who has drunken orgies with women whose identities he isn't all that sure on. Yeah...that all fits. Sure. It's like: What if Jon Stewart from Comedy Central were also a super scientist with the demeanor of an "Aw-shucks" Jimmy Stewart, the sex appeal of Brad Pitt from fifteen years ago, and yeah now he's also the worst sort of frat-dude who gets a girl drunk and fucks her--but it's okay because he's drunk too--and yeah he's supposedly FUNNY. (It's even FUNNIER because he confuses some new girl with a character we knew as his WIFE for twenty years. Yeah, funny.)

Let's be honest, Peter Parker doesn't mean anything anymore. The myth of Spider-Man stopped growing a long, long, long time ago. It basically had an ironic happy ending when the super-nice super-nerd got to marry the super model. Today the myth of Spider-Man only has some sort of weird postmodern "all-eras-existing-simultaneously" existence, that may be "fun" but doesn't really mean anything in terms of cultural myth-building. "Oh but it makes a lot of money for movie studios!" So do movies about Greeks and Trojans, but those myths are dead too.

If Spider-Man is your cup of "fun", hey that's fine with me (obviously). I actually picked Jeph Loeb's Hulk as my PoTW--because it was the most "fun" I had this week (I only read three comics). I can indeed see the flaws in Hulk, but I still had a decent time with it. If you had a decent time with Spidey 601--more power too you. But, really, you guys can't see the huge flaw of it?

It just makes me think less of the readership, sorry. And less of Mark Waid.

P.S. I wouldn't be surprised if in an issue or two Marvel goes out of their way to have it stated that Peter did have safe sex, or didn't have all-the-way sex really at all. But that's not the point. To get himself in that situation he behaved WAAAY irresponsibility. Sex isn't the issue. You may as well have shown Peter losing all his money at a casino or something, and I would have reacted the same way. And I'm not against gambling, or sex, or one-night stands. But they're just things that Peter Parker doesn't do; he wouldn't get smashing drunk and do those things. And more than that, I'm not even so mad that he had a one-night stand--it's more that I'm sad about how the readership doesn't really CARE and evidently doesn't even notice that it's out of character for him to do so, that it's a total repudiation of what the character ever was. Instead it's like "Uh, it's COOL for him to have sex!" Yeah, I'd agree, actually--except that this is drunken sleezeball sex. Heroes should be better than this, but if they're not then readers should be better than to just this slide.

Oh, I know, I know, guys: It's all about the "FUN". And who doesn't like fun? When Stan Lee was building the myth of Spider-Man, he too was mostly worrying about the "FUN" of it all, not so much about artistic integrity. But at this point it's like, we can have "FUN" but that's going to possibly obliterate anything that remains of the cultural MEANING of Spider-Man. Complete nonsensical "FUN" vs. a little thing called meaning. That's the boat we're in these days, all too often. But I'm as guilty of voting for "FUN" over meaning as much as anyone. I can't believe I picked Hulk (3/5) over this, but, yeah.

/rant over

I'm just going to disable the comments because I don't want to risk the chance of someone calling me a Christian or a virgin or a Republican or something, even though I'm none of those things. As if being any of those things were the worst thing in the world. (Now someone will think I'm a "communist" or a "fascist" for not allowing comments. Sigh. Nah, I like this site. It's more respectful than almost any other comics site. I'm just not in the mood for comments. I had a loooong week, and then I get home, crack open a Spider-Man comic to have some "fun", and then I see him acting like an asshole.)