Have you ever had a favorite restaurant? The kind of place where you go every week, and as you walk through the door That One Waitress With The Hair smiles at you from across the room and puts your usual drink order in without even needing to talk to you?
I have that place not far from my house, although I don’t get there too often now that smokiness and the absence of highchairs is something I actually have to care about instead of just pointing and snickering at the people who do. I used to stop in every Sunday night and nod to the One Waitress that, yes, I wanted the usual. Nothing too fancy; just straightforward, full-speed-ahead heart murder. A rare burger as thick as my head. Onion rings big enough to fashion into a crown for said head… a salad that inexplicably has more meat in it than some sandwiches… mmm….
What was I talking about? Oh!
If you don’t have a place like this in your life, put a bookmark in that copy of Essential Dazzler right now and go get a place like this in your life.
Now, imagine if you will that this favorite place of yours came under new management. The place had been consistent, more or less, but going there as often as you did it was hard not to notice that the service and the quality had been going downhill for a couple of years now. The guys in the kitchen were well-known, but they’d gotten too used to regulars who came there because it was the place they always went, and Smirnoff is Smirnoff, and that stained Health Department “C” on the front door is all part of the head chef’s vision or something. The waitress had started giving you the hairy eyeball when you walked in: “Oh boy, this bozo again. Johnny Meat Salad and his 14% tip. Hope you like spit in your drink, Mr. Rockefeller.”
All of that was different now. You dreaded it at first, but the new owners delivered on some big promises. They redecorated; the place was brighter, and they’d done something about that musty smell by the bar. The portions were bigger, and the ingredients were fresh for the first time in twenty years. They had gone back to basics and taken another look at all the recipes with a fresh set of eyes and new cooks in the kitchen: what was it about this place that everyone liked when it opened? The results were so tasty, they had you coming back more often than ever.
Let’s say, though, that a handful of the people who fancied themselves old-timers and loyal regulars didn’t like what the new guys had done with the place. The joint had been a mess, but it was their mess and they loved it. What do you suppose those disgruntled regulars would do?
a) start hanging out at the place the old owners had just opened down the street
b) try some of the knock-off places that tried to serve the same dishes in unique ways
c) give up on the whole thing entirely and go try some new cuisine
d) keep coming to the restaurant every week for years, standing at the hostess’ station and booing towards the kitchen until they got into fights with the other diners.
If you answered d), you eat at a place where a lot of comic book fans like to go.
Obviously, I have been talking about The Amazing Spider-Man this entire time. What’s that? It wasn’t obvious at all? This seems to have had nothing to do with anything? Well, go with me on this; it made a lot of sense when it came to me at 2:00 a.m. the other night. See, Spider-Man is the restaurant, and the many issues by writer J. Michael Straczynski were the steadily declining years with the drink spit, and… I think that maybe Venom was salad dressing…? To be honest, I sort of lost track of the metaphor when I started thinking about how juicy those burgers down the street are.
I’m pretty sure the waitress was Aunt May.
Anyway! A year ago, Marvel Editor-in-Chief Joe Quesada finally made good on his threat to undo Spider-Man’s marriage after years of complaining that it had been a bad idea to marry him off in the first place. The Spidey Cafe was under new management. While I was never ready to start an online petition about it or anything, I could see where he was coming from. Being a married character arguably made Spider-Man seem older and less relatable while also placing limitations on what they could do with him, like that ridiculous mustache Dan Aykroyd insisted on growing while he was supposed to be doing Jimmy Carter impressions on Saturday Night Live. There’s only so much wiggle room.
When it happened — especially the way it happened — people naturally slipped the surly bonds of sanity, and I can see where they were coming from too. The marriage was at least a fig leaf of long-term development that could be pointed to, although all it really left from an action-adventure standpoint was the promise of kidnapping storylines and all the nail-biting melodrama that fretting about your kid’s college fund has to offer. (Who were those stories meant to be for, twelve year olds who love retirement planning or the adults who were reading comics so they didn’t have to think about that stuff for ten minutes of their lives?) I did see a lot of people snark about “returning to the old status quo” while also making the point that the book had featured a married Spider-Man for their entire lives (as if this was the best reason to leave it alone rather than the best reason to change it). My friends: if you’re mad someone changed something that’s been unchanged for your entire life, the old status quo is the side you’re fighting for, not the one you’re against. After 20 years, you’re not mad it’s changing back; you’re mad it’s changing.
You heard a lot of, “I’ve been reading Spider-Man since he got married in late 1987; bow to my authority on this topic.” As luck would have it, I’ve been reading Spider-Man since early 1986 (so, you know, neener-neener, or whatever we authorities say) and believe me when I tell you the part to be outraged about is not Joe Quesada clumsily breaking up the marriage; it is Peter and Mary Jane getting clumsily married in the first place. I don’t know if people were up in arms at the time, because there was no internet and people still smiled, but I have been slowly rereading these comics in recent months and remembering that, when they announced they were marrying these two off, they were literally not dating. At all. My favorite panel is from four issues before the proposal:
Two issues before he proposed:
Then he proposed:
Then after the next issue they were married.
With that out of the way, the writers were free to begin immediately scrambling to get Mary Jane out of the way. What do you know, Peter has to go on a book tour! Alone…!
Can you imagine the strokes that people would have online today if two characters who had barely even seen one another over the last few years suddenly declared their love and got married from the clear blue sky, apparently due to nothing more than some bizarre editorial dictate?
Yeah, but still.
People were going to hate everyone that touched the unmarriage no matter how it was carried out; why not go ahead and bring the actual devil onboard? That plot Band-Aid needed to be yanked off. They did what they did, and the sun rose the next day, and the resulting stories have put a grin by my chin every time. The new status quo has been very engaging, and although the execution didn’t do it for me I didn’t even really hate the whole devil thing. Some readers were incensed, however. They demanded a Peter Parker who grew and evolved and aged and married and procreated as they had done, and that’s why the very next month sales of The Amazing Spider-Girl, which featured an old Peter and his kids and the creative team from 1986, skyrocketed until it replaced The Amazing Spider-Man as Marvel’s flagship titl– what’s that? Nothing remotely like this happened? Spider-Girl sold 47 copies last year and 45 copies this year? It was all a bunch of hot wind? Who would have guessed such a thing? Everyone was so mad.
But never mind all that. The important thing is that angry Spider-Man readers were free to try another restaurant, and yet I was reading a Marvel Q and A just days ago when I saw this “question” (emphasis mine):
Posted by Lore on Aug 12, 2008 5:24 AM
Hey Joe,
1) Thanks to “Brand New Day,” I’m saving $9 a month on Spider-Man books. I used to buy every single issue that had Spider-Man in it, but seeing as how Peter’s become so unlikable and unrelatable ever since BND started, I no longer want any issue with that version of Spider-Man in my house. I just read it through in the shop. Which is saving me a lot of money. Thanks for that.
2) Ever since I first heard the spoilers about “One More Day” and what it was going to be, about a year ago, I’ve successfully lost 42 kilos (92.59 pounds), all from being pissed off about the ruination of my favorite character. I’d say that’s about the only positive thing I can say about it. So thanks for giving me something to focus my energies on.
And a question: Is the Spider-Man in BND a Skrull, a Dire Wraith, the Chameleon in disguise or some other kind of imposter?…
Clearly, the writer is very proud of himself; I picture him hitting “send,” shouting “zing!” and high-fiving his friend, which is to say the bust of the Hobgoblin he has on his desk. But the meat of his comment is that a change he hated happened in the book a year ago, and he has been reading the book and thinking about it since it happened a year ago. A year later, he is still firing off zingers into the ether.
In the time since this happened, you understand, with the time this guy has spent thinking about how much is wrong with the book he continues to read, I (with some assistance from my wife) have created a new human being and nearly taught her to walk and speak rudimentary English. (To look at it another way, this means Spider-Man has been unmarried for her entire life.)
And it’s not just this guy. You should read the letter columns. A year later, and… I mean… if I opened up a comic and found I was pictured in it, molesting a household pet, I would not write a letter.
Of course, as much as I want to mock these impassioned “readers,” didn’t Joe Quesada do the exact same thing, times twenty years? If you think about it? Didn’t he just sort of bide his time till he could buy the restaurant?
Maybe that’s the lesson to take away from all this. It doesn’t have to be this way! You don’t have to spend $40 a year and countless calories on Flash comics you think are abominations. If anything, take everything you hate about those bad stories and use them as grist to make your own good stories. Let that passion be your fuel; let that garbage be your inspiration. Even bad art can bear good fruit if you make it. If you think your little MySpace zinger gave you a charge, think of how tingly you’d be the day you won your Eisner and dedicated it to those clowns who ruined Spider-Man.
If nothing else, I implore you: don’t say you’re leaving and then keep coming back to complain. There are lots of other places; actually go to them. The rest of us are trying to enjoy our meals over here.
Jim Mroczkowski thinks Spider-Girl isn’t half bad, actually; it’s just not his particular cup of tea. It felt good to get this one out of his system, so now’s the time to knock him down a few pegs at Jimski.com or Twitter.
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well said. jimski consistently delivers the stuff!
brilliant as always sir. Well done. From a person who though OMD was a mess and thinks BND is pretty damn awesome i loved this column
Dear Jim,
Nice post. I think it can be generalized to the theme of stale love. Who hasn’t loved a book (I mean really loved) at one stage of his/her life, only to lose enthusiasm for it over time. For me, it’s the X-Books. In 1992, I read anything with an X – Marvel made quite a bit of change off me. And I loved it. I loved X-Factor with Polaris and Havok, X-Force with Cable’s former New Mutants. I loved having a second X-Men book for no good reason. I learned everything about the Age of Apocalypse, and I would have done anything to stop it (if I had useful mutant powers instead of a good sense of urban geography).
Like everyone, I weaned off comics for a while and returned a few years ago. Interestingly, what brought me back was the early Brubaker Captain America, but all I wanted was to jump back on with the X-Men. And while a lot of the characters were still around, it wasn’t the same. Thankfully, my LCS owner seemed to pick up on my dyspepsia and recommended Astonishing X-Men, which was great. Still, I think that the Whedon Astonishing was a bit of an aberration, and it still wasn’t the same.
Which is a good thing. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have found my new BFF’s – Fables, Powers, Rex Mundi (I must be the only person to profess love for that book), and others that I’m still catching up with in trades. And when I think about it, my perspective has changed. Maybe that shabby bar with the incessant beer stink and mediocre nachos isn’t quite as attractive to the 39 (ok – 40 in a couple of months) year-old me as it was to the 24 year-old.
Jim suggests that we use our disappointment as fodder for writing. That wouldn’t work for me – every book would feature the protagonists being chased by bears (as I recommended to my wife when she was writing a story about a disaffected country-rocker). I would recommend falling back in love with comics (or some other art form) by trying something different. Thanks, Mr. Jimski.
Agreed. I wonder if many of the people who now complain about the heavy-handed editorial driven dissolution of the marriage realize that that’s how the marriage came about in the first place.
I don’t disagree with the decision to get rid of the marriage. It has lead to better storytelling, and raised interest in the book. But here’s my one problem with it. During CIVIL WAR Marvel had Peter unmask. It was a big selling moment, and it promised to change the "status quo" (God, I’m tired of hearing that word) of Spider-Man and the Marvel U. But around the time that Peter unmasked, the creators over at Marvel were in creative meetings coming up with the storyline to unmarry him, effectively retconning a "status quo" changing event in little over a year later. So I don’t mind the undoing of the divorce, just don’t sell me big stunts like the hero unmasking to the public while discussing how to undo it behind my back.
I guess I’ll put on the bad guy hat and say, almost a year later, I still don’t like the unraveling of the marriage. Obviously, I don’t still seethe about it like I did when it happened but Peter and MJ being married and actually being happy about it some (unlike Reed who never seems to notice Sue unless Namor is trying to boink her or if Doom’s trying to kill her.) was something that made me want to read the book. It was Peter growing up and maturing. Granted it was a pipe dream, but especially after he joined the Avengers, I was hoping that eventually Spider-Man would ascend to a level some day where he’d replace Cap as the leader of the Marvel Universe like writers would tease every now and then. Then when OMD/BND happened, I was vastly disappointed. It felt like Peter had turned into some mid-life crisis victim, trying to pick up college chicks who were 19 when he 27. It was a retread that I was really disappointed especially since Marvel was finally getting a good grip on how the marriage would work. I haven’t read Amazing Spider-Man in a few months, but I honestly have no desire to at all. I suppose it just isn’t my Spider-Man, anymore.
Though I will say give me a Marvel Knights title with a married Spider-Man and I’ll never speak ill of Amazing Spider-Man again.
My only problem with BND, and I guess with OMD as well, is it that hard to really make Mary Jane a factor in a comic book? Dont tell me arcs from BND like Freak, Zeb Well’s Winter story, and others cant have Mary Jane in it? All of these stories, and I’m sure some of you will find a way to say no on this, could have Peter and Mary Jane married and they’d still have the same quality to them.
They were married for over 20 years, and your now telling us you cant find good stories for them? Did Joe Q or other writers really hate the marriage, or did they not have enough imagination to come up with good stories? I guess Joe Q didnt mind the years of JMS and medicore storytelling, but as long as JMS used Mary Jane then he was pissed. Look OMD could’ve work if they went in the other direction. Wouldnt we be praising Marvel for making Parker a level-headed adult and finally succum to the fact that his Aunt is going to die?
Sure it’s comics and people die all the time, but couldnt Marvel just stick to her getting killed and stick with the marriage? Think of all the great drama and writing that could’ve came about if Aunt May did die. We hate BND because not only did it erase 20 years of stories, but it erased all the good qualities of Peter Parker. Parker was finally a responsible adult, who loved his family, and tried to make a living teaching kids….Now with BND he’s a guy with barely a job, living with his aunt, meeting a ton of girls, and overall acting like what he was before the marriage….If I read Spider-Man from the 1960s to now, I’d be pissed on how the characterization of Parker has changed drastically in the last 8 months.
Peter Parker, Mature Adult isn’t Peter Parker. That’s why it had to be done. They had matured Peter into story-telling oblivion.
Jimski you might be my new hero for writing this article. One of the guys who works at my LCS has this issue with the X-Men (I found this out during Messiah Complex) and, month after month, when I come in to get my books he’s usually reading a X-Book from his stack. Bravo sir
I don’t know if I buy that, Conor. Peter Parker becoming a mature adult was one of the big sellers for me on the book. Yes, Spider-Man has had a few rough patches in the last couple decades but I don’t think MJ being his wife was what made the Clone Saga and The Other suck. On the other hand, Kraven’s Last Hunt, Best of Enemies, and even some of the much aligned JMS run (such as the New Avengers/HYDRA arc which managed to be fun, exciting, AND still have MJ hanging around as Peter’s wife.) In fact, when the stories were bad, the high points for me were the marriage stuff. I don’t buy the line that MJ was what dragged the book down during Sins Past and Book of Ezekiel.
after "wife.)", it should say "still managed to be good."
Sorry, all.
That’s where we differ.
I suppose it is.
As someone who limits his Spider-Man intake to USM, it’s always interesting to hear what’s going on with the alternative/What if? takes on Spider-Man out there.
You know, I wasn’t particularly invested in the marriage, and I didn’t much follow the Spidey solo book before or after Brand New Day. But I have to admit it annoyed me in the latest Secret Invasion that Spidey kept his mask on with the other Avengers. It just really seems to hurt the dynamic of the team book that his identity is treated differently than everybody else’s in the Marvel U. I don’t care about the public unmasking, but would it really hurt anything for him to be ‘out’ among the other heroes?
Anyway, that’s just a side note. I agree with the general point. People who say they’re going to drop a book and then keep complaining about it rank on the same level with Americans who swear they are moving to Canada after every election.
You see? Paul is a sass-mouth, but he found another Greek place that makes the gyros the way he likes them. Everyone be like Paul. Just generally.
I wrote a line along the lines of, "No good married Spider-Man stories? So, what, the last 20 years of stories haven’t been good?" Then I thought, "Well… sort of, yeah," and deleted it. That clone thing was like half the marriage, and he hit her Pym style in one a’ those. How’s that for some character development, True Believer?
I know I sound like the crazy old man who lives under the overpass, but I’m telling you marriage lovers: pick any two or three years from the pre-wedding ’80s or ’70sand read them, and you will come away thinking, "Wow. Turns out I grew up without ever reading an actual Spider-Man comic."
I don’t know, Jim, isn’t "You didn’t really like what you thought you liked" from the same school of argument as the "If it can get you upset, it must be good" line that you’re so fond of? I have no dog in this fight, but it’s not impossible to conceive that somebody could like the married/grownup Spider-man more than the young unattached one because the young/single phase of life is less interesting to that particular reader. If some people find a single Spider-Man inherently more relatable, doesn’t it follow that some people are going to feel exactly the opposite?
The Clone Saga was a low point, but I think that has more to do it being the 90’s and everything being bad then Peter being married. On the flip side, Kraven’s Last Hunt and Best of Enemies were truly wonderful books, right alongside The Death of Gwen and The Sin-Eater storyline. I think it’s a little wrong to discount them because it’s was at a time when Peter got hitched.
I have the Visionaries: Romita trade. My first comic book ever was Amazing Spidey 261, which was pre-marriage. I’ve a decent share of unmarried Spidey and all, but I like my Spidey married and I doubt that’ll change any time soon. I grabbed the first two or three months of BND and I really did not like what I saw. It felt very bland and uninteresting to me.
@Jimski: So your telling me that some of the worst Spider-Man stories came about because of the marriage? Your telling me that stuff like The Clone Saga, The Other, and other medicore/bad stories were the result of the marriage? Just like my arguement on having Mary Jane in these BND stories, you take out MJ for those stories mentioned…and they are 100% better?
I think people are confusing themselves with choice then tastes. Like Joe Q, people just hate Mary Jane and just want her gone…instead of focusing on the bad writing these people give us for issues. I cant image JMS, Terry Kavanagh (who thought up the Clone Saga), and others felt: ‘Boy I need to make a storyline, but Mary Jane is in the plot! How can I write my magium opus, if she’s in the picture!? Yeah that’s what JMS was thinking when he wrote a whole Totem arc…
Look I might be defending pre-OMD but I am not a huge fan of Mary Jane….but I dont hate her. But you need to keep her around because she is a big factor in the Spider-Man mythos. Why is she used more then Gwen Stacy in other media’s? Cause it’s depressing to use a woman who died so they need to use someone who is actually REVELANT to Peter Parker. I mean we’re talking about big events, but what about single issues that we dont quote all the time? Are those one-shots, mini stories, and others just plain crap because Mary Jane is in them?
Plus keeping Aunt May sure made her a better character right? Oh right she’s a useless supporting character who helps out the poor….hasnt she been like that for 40 years now? A mature Peter Parker was more entertaining then a guy who makes jokes and had a bad social life…If you want a character who has now no appealing characteristics to them, more power to you for liking him…Instead of seeing Parker as a teacher for troubled kids, I gotta see him work at a TMZ like tabloid or go job hunting *yawns*
@ohcaroline, that was meant to be more of a recommendation of the old books than a correction of people who like the later ones. I certainly liked stories from both eras. As for the people who prefer the married Parkers, again, good news: their book is being published every month. Bad news: sales numbers suggest these alleged readers don’t exist. Spider-Girl is the logical conclusion of what these people claim they want, so where are they?
@TheNextChampion – No one I know who supported the change hates Mary Jane. The marriage =/= Mary Jane. I’d be fine if they dated again at some point.
@Jimski Okay, that makes sense. I mean, *I* know people who loved the book because they loved the marriage, but it’s also true that everybody I know bought ‘Cable & Deadpool.’ I don’t delude myself that my friends are the buying public.
@conor: I’m gald they dont hate Mary Jane, I mean what is to hate about her? But if they dont hate her then why specifically do they hate the marriage? I’ve seen so many arguments on this topic and I have yet to see full-on testimonies on why the marriage is so ‘terrible’ that we needed to *cough*notarecon*cough* the whole mythos of Spider-man.
@TheNextChampion – Marriages closes down too many story avenues. It eliminates all romantic storylines. No more sexual tension with other characters. No more love triangles. This has all been discussed here before, in-depth.
@conor: No love triangles, or sexual tension? That cant be true, Parker has had a ton of girls before he made Mary Jane his one true love. What about Black Cat? Hell isnt that the only reason she’s around, to make her a different love for Parker? Or Betty Grant, couldnt she have a crush on Pete? Or just add new women to the cast, it cant be that hard to think of new characters….Marvel has been doing it for 40 years!
Also, Peter and Mary Jane were married for 20 years….I hardly think all of those 20 years they were the same stories. JMS was adding new things with his Totem stuff, just tweak the characters a bit and you could have a whole new story to work with.
This post is awesome. One of the reasons I’m CONTINUING to buy and read Secret Invaison is so that I can complain about it…wait, that makes no sense and I’m wasting money…oh well
For the record, the subplot in ASM since BND started that people seemed to talk about the most was the one where MJ came back. A Mary Jane appearance that is actually interesting? Chalk up another success for BND.
@TheNextChampion – I don’t understand what you’re saying. They broke up the marriage to add those romantic angles back to the stories that were eliminated when Pater and MJ got married.
I think this is the part where I’m contractually obligated to say that it’s possible to make interesting stories about married people, just like it’s possible to make interesting stories about all kinds of character dynamics.
I would then have to concede that it’s fairly rare that anybody working in a serial medium actually *does* it.
@conor: I’m saying why couldnt they have done angles like that when they were married. They could use the fact of infedelity, cheating, divorce, and other romance sub-plots to make the comic more interesting. Your saying that because they were married, stories (mainly romantic) cant be done…That comment seems to sum up the laziness of all the writers/editors of Marvel who came up with OMD in the first place. Being a good writer means coming up with new ideas, if you cant think of one, get a new writer to think of new ideas. Sorry that Joe Q, JMS, and others couldnt think of anything new for Mary Jane cause if the marriage worked for 20 years and they couldnt do a new story for 2-3 years….then that’s laziness
Hell why couldnt they just kill Mary Jane!? How great would that be for Marvel to kill such an important character? Reverse Aunt May with Mary Jane for OMD and that could be a really great story. Do a whole year, or more worth of stories with the death of MJ in Pete’s mind….That is 100x better then what ended up as the new ‘status quo’.
@ohcaroline – That would suggest it’s nearly impossible to do in a continuing serial format that is supposed to attract younger readers. It’s not like there is a lack of talented writers who have tried. Not just in comics, but in TV as well. What ALWAYS kills the TV show?
@Jimski– Spider-Girl actually isn’t quite what I want. I want Spider-Man active and the main character of the book, not as a side character whose retired and one-legged. Like I said up top, I would buy a Marvel Knights series of a married Spider-Man but it’s obvious that isn’t happening.
@conor – "Will they or won’t they?" always kills the TV show for me, long before the couple ever gets together. But I accept that I’m not the target audience for much of anything.
Great piece, Jimski. Is it sad my favorite ‘dive’ is an Applebee’s?
I have to say I enjoy Brand New Day as much as I had any good Spider-Man prior to that. I love the 3 issues a month and like the brain trust and what they’ve given us so far.
However, I’m still trying to wrap my head around the stories you can tell with a single Spider-Man that you can’t tell with a married Spider-Man. Peter missing out on a date because he had to fight Shocker (how about updating that character)? What, men don’t have dates with their wives? (I think this was Joe Q’s big argument during the whole build up).
I just don’t see what changes Peter not being married has made to the story so far – maybe I’m not reading closely? (Aside from the reintroduction of MJ to the BND – that should go without saying.) They could have still introduced/reintroduced any of the storylines or characters in Brand New Day that they’ve brought out so far.
Either way, I’m digging BND and anticipate the inevitable re-retcon.
This is a complete tangent, but can Joe Q break up Superman’s marriage as well. 🙂
I thought the sub-plot at the beginning of JMS’ run with Peter trying to get MJ back was spendid with the marriage hanging by a thread giving it a weight and emotional impact that I don’t think would be there had they just been dating. Plus, the wrap-up of the plotline with Peter telling MJ he could only keep going on if she was there with him remains one of my all-time favorite Spider-Man issues. And then from there, all the little moments between them, from the "bedroom farce" scene in Skin Deep to to the "Aunt May and Jarvis!" scene in the New Avengers/HYDRA story to Fraction’s excellent annual of Sensational Spider-Man became my favorite thing about the book(s). And when BND dropped, that got replaced with the Carlie/Lily thing that I neither cared about nor enjoyed. We go from Peter clawing himself out of a grave because of his love for his wife to making out with a hoochie-mama who just wants Peter as a stepping stone to Harry? No thanks. I’m glad those who like it like it, but it’s not my cup o’ tea.
I Love Dan Aykroyd.
I have not and will not buy a 616 Amazing issue with this whole BND business. Mary Jane wasn’t the problem. Everyone was complaining back then that there was no consistency among the books, and Peter had like seven jobs besides being Spider-man. JMS wasn’t bad, just not the style I liked – the only storyline that I didn’t like one bit was Sins Past.
What annoys me more was how Marvel lied about their goals for the title, especially after the unmasking and how it wasn’t going to be written out. A lot of the BND changes would not have to be done differently at all if the marriage was still in place. (Have May die and give her parts to MJ, you’re telling me that having the guilt of his aunt’s death on top of his uncles doesn’t add a layer to the Spidey angst?)
I always hear people say Spider-Girl is out there for the people that don’t like BND, but the fact is that series focuses on May and not Peter/MJ.
Nice post. I read amazing online because I recently dropped the book with the second issue of this latest 90’s style storyline. I feel like if people would stop paying for crappy books then we’d have more say, but comics fans as a general rule will still buy a crappy book just to complain. Do what I do torrent baby, then you can read, complain and not give Quesada any money for the sub par quality of stories he’s signing off on to make a quick buck. At least Spider-girl isn’t that bad.
Great article as always, Jim.
I bitched loudly during the OMD fiasco but I have to admit to enjoying Spider-man now more than I have in years. Sometimes good things come from bad situations.
Leaving Spidey unmasked and killing Aunt May would have made for much better stories. Could care less about the marriage. Damn, I miss ASM.
As one of the 12 or 13 people on this site that pull Amazing Spider-Girl each month. I have to say that it has been a very consistent book. Good to see a shout out towards it…even if it is partially getting made fun of!
I admit, after BND I read a few issues in the store…but that was my version of giving the new stories an honest chance. Turns out the new stories weren’t for me.
As for the T’Challa/Ororo marriage, I’ll thank everyone to note that Chris Claremont planted their romance in Uncanny X-Men during the 1980’s. It didn’t come out of nowhere.
ASM has produced more great content then any other book I’ve been reading this past year. In a few years, when it’s probably not being printed 3/4 weeks, people will look back and be like.. wow… that was amazing. (pun intended)
This isn’t about the marriage, this is about rebooting a series to find a way to tell great stories again. Corporate culture uses buzzwords like ‘redefining our core competencies". Comics don’t expect you to swallow that bullshit. They just say "this happened… um, now we’re moving on".
Props on the Dire Wraith reference. Long live Rom!
@Crippler: This isnt about the marriage? Then why did Joe Q waste all of his breath on talking about why he hated the marriage and approved a *cough*notarecon*cough* with a clean slate of Parker/Mary Jane as the central point?
To me the stories have been generally boring, only Zeb Well’s run and Paperdoll arc have been entertaining…..The villians are extremely bad or just lame (sans Mr. Negative who I like)…and it just hasnt been entertaining period….I hate it people still say you couldnt do new stories or tell great ones if they didnt *cough*notarecon*cough* this character.
Zeb Wells arc? Throw in Mary Jane as the sacrifice instead of some unknown cop and you got a story. The Bookie? Somehow make him bet on Mary Jane dying along with his father and you got a story. Female Craven? Have her hunt down Mary Jane so she can temp Parker to save her and go threw a series of traps to get her. There was it that hard to throw in Mary Jane in a story? Granted I’m not a writer, and they are all generic sentences….but is it that hard to somehow think of ways to get MJ into the picture? Oh and btw: One of the best stories from this BND (Paperdoll) HAD MARY JANE INVOLVED!!!!!!
@TheNextChampion – Yes, that’s true, but the MJ element of the Paper Doll arc worked so well precisely because A.) she and Peter are not together, and people feel they belong together, and "Team Spidey" is now seemingly playing "keep-away" with her and Peter, and 2.) we’re not sure what she knows after the "One More Day" aftermath, and we’re interested in finding out. So the reasons that MJ in the "Paper Doll" arc had such impact was precisely because what the character had been through in "One More Day". Now, I’m someone who regularly trumpets JMS and his Spidey run, and I think he had a great Peter/MJ dynamic at work in the book. "One More Day" is a partial retcon, sure, but it’s also going to be very interesting to see what ramifications there are, specifically with MJ, down the road. (I say "partial retcon" because it has yet to be seen what the full ramifications of the events in "OMD" are going to be in regards to the events of the book. If Marvel does this right… we haven’t seen the last of Mephisto’s deal here.)
Oh, and killing her, as you suggested? That would be the most boring thing they could possibly have done with her. In fact, I think they tried it once. It sucked. And throwing her into the BND stories in the ways you mentioned above… wow, those would be completely generic and boring. No offense; I know you said you’re not a writer. But c’mon… JMS thought of better ways to use her than as the "damsel in distress". Is that the best you can do?
@TheNextChampion – You’re still missing the point. It’s not about not having Mary Jane involved, it’s about having them not married. Again… no one said that Mary Jane shouldn’t be in the book.
@conor: Then if you dont like the marriage, then why have her in general? We all know eventually Marvel will recon this *cough*notarecon*cough* (sorry running joke here) and we’ll be back with square not. Nothing lasts forever….it’s just delaying the inevitable of bringing back MJ and Pete to dating, then get them married again….Otherwise for the rest of my life, Marvel is gonna have to keep this Mephisto deal in line which I dont see happening.
@McCloud: I thought it was a good idea….I know I’m not a writer but I tried….I did my best!!! Let’s see any of these BND writers do better with Mary Jane!…..Oh right….
@TheNextChampion – Dating doesn’t equal marriage.
I still think that the marriage was only one of many things that changed. It’s just that the marriage ending got all the attention. Peter seems to be more the just-out-of university age now don’t you think? Mostly because he’s hanging around a bunch of other young people. Meet new roomate, hang out at coffee shop with Harry and GF, go to party wearing do rag…. all involving interacting with with characters without capes (well, we think so anyway). Romantic hijinx ensue.
Well, I stopped reading after the Mephisto/retcon nonsense after not missing a single issue in years. I haven’t read one issue of BND & haven’t complained about how the book is now, because I don’t read it. So, I think I’m in the clear here.
But, if anyone is curious, I stopped reading for more than the obvious reason of the poor handling of Marvel wanting Spidey to be single again, fair enough if that’s what they wanted, but the story of the "deal with the devil" was such a cop out.
The way it affected other storylines & plots was too much — if everyone in the whole Marvel Universe forgot about the reveal that Spider-Man was Peter Parker because of "magic", that was just too silly for me. I know superhero comic books are all silly if you really think about them, but this was just too much for me to swallow.
"If nothing else, I implore you: don’t say you’re leaving and then keep coming back to complain. There are lots of other places; actually go to them. The rest of us are trying to enjoy our meals over here." Totally. The’re a lot of guys at my LCS that always are like "man this book is so crap" but they say that every month…since 6 months. It’s quite funny actually but can get annoying. I didn’t read OMD, or BND, but I’m reading NWTD and its a fun Spidey book, so it’s cool. I’ll probably stop after New Ways though…9$ a month is a lot.
Also, this article made me laugh my ass off.
Seriously, amazing.
Great article, I agree if you don’t like a book you should drop it and move on. I have no investment in Spiderman either married or unmarried but I think it was a shame that OMD and BND took the cowards way out of the hole that Sipderman was written into, and re-booted. I would have been interesting to have pursued the world were Spiderman didn’t have his secret identity, perhaps with Aunt May dead, perhaps they could have used good storytelling and intelligent writing to refresh the titles without the cheap re-con. Heck perhaps they could have even ended the marriage some other way, gasp, Spiderman divorced, now that would be a challenging story.
Props to Diabhol for recognizing that the roots of the Black Panther-Storm marriage come from the Claremont era. On the other hand, nobody is invested in Black Panther’s love life.
I had a place in college. They put salad dressing in maple syrup bottles and the pancakes sometimes tasted like cigarette ash. That was a loooooooong time ago, and I still enjoy complaining about it. So I think anyone paying (or just reading it in the store) has a right to their opinion.
I would like to throw in that Tony Stark had a lot more to do with making pre-BND Spider-Man boring than MJ. Spidey as Iron Man’s bodyguard is about as goofy and out-of-character as you can get. Does anyone really believe that there were no more interesting stories to tell with Peter after Civil War? Does the fact that Peter and MJ’s marriage was an editorial dictate mean that two wrongs do = right?
BND has been fun. But it has had next to nothing to do with whether Peter is married or not. In nine months MJ is still the closest thing he’s had to a love interest.
I have serious issues with the way OMD was done. It turned Peter Parker into someone I don’t like, and took away years of character development. For me it was like if Dick Grayson became Robin again – he took a step backwards. Not only that, but he made a deal with the devil. I mean. Seriously.
I liked the fact that we got to watch Peter grow up a little – he has come a long way from the high school boy, and was truly an adult. What was wrong with that? If I wanted to read teenage Spidey I could just go read Ultimate or Marvel Adventures. But Peter Parker had the chance to grow up and change, and taking it all away and then blaming bad storytelling from the 90s on the marriage? That doesn’t work for me.
But then again, I read Spider-Girl. So what do I know.
What we’ve got here is… failure to communicate. Some men you just can’t reach. So you get what we had here last week, which is the way he wants it… well, he gets it. I don’t like it any more than you men.
Am I going to have to eat 50 eggs now?
On the other hand, I read (Teen) Titans every month, even though it makes me angry, so I really have no right to say anything about Spider-Man.
@conor….and everyone else: What is the difference between dating and marriage other then the obvious paperwork involved? If Mary Jane was dating Parker instead of being married to him, you’d still get the same plots. She’d still be in the book as much as she was before hand, and she’d still be a huge factor in some big stories then she would if she was married.
I understand your saying that if they were dating, I’d have nothing to critize about. But if they were dating why did we have to go threw this Mephisto deal!? Just have them get a divorce and have a year of them sorting out their difference….Seriously conor, did we need to have a whole *cough*notarecon*cough* to just change the landscape of Peter villian wise and his personal life?
Every time I see someone say, "Why not have Spider-Man get divorced?" I think about going and getting some genetic testing done just to find out once and for all whether I am actually from the same planet as the people I’m talking to.
I also have to say I find Peter Parker’s dealings with The Dev-ill much less disturbing and revealing than my dealings with people who say, "Peter just needs to accept that his mom figure is old and let her diiiiie. Who cares if he’s the one that got her shot and killed? Why would he care about that?" I would like to revisit this topic with some of you cold-blooded Fiddy Cent mutha#$&$as as your own parents age.
A single bachelor is such a different guy than a divorced guy, it’s not even funny. I’ve dated, and I’m married. It might not seem different, but seriously, there are married guys on here, right? It’s way different. It’s renting and owning different.
And to continue to be vaguely spammy, which I apologize for, and to actually be on the topic this time, I did drop everything once. And quit reading for three years, before I realized that I love the medium and the characters so much that I might as well pick everything back up. It’s like coming home, in a way. You can’t always go home again – things change, they move on. You probably complain about how it’s different, but you really just love being there so much that you can’t give it up, even if it may not be the same as you remember.
Which probably explains why I’m still reading Titans. Love the characters, hate the writing and the art. It’s like an addiction, just judging by the sheer number of books I read. I may not like the direction the book is going in, but the thought of not reading it is worse than actually just reading it.
Hopefully, that made some sort of sense. I need more coffee. And I’m totally done spamming now.
@ Jimski – re: "Every time I see someone say, "Why not have Spider-Man get divorced?" I think about going and getting some genetic testing done just to find out once and for all whether I am actually from the same planet as the people I’m talking to."
Really?!? So, a divorce is out-of-bounds, but a mystical annulment is a-ok in your book? You must have a more understanding wife than I do.
Are we talking about the life we want to live, or the one we want to read? If we start from the premise that the Spider-marriage is a problem because it makes him older and puts the story in a corner, ex-wives and alimony are, let us just say, not the solution to that problem.
@patio – A divorce is out of bounds, yes. The entire point of this change was to have Peter seem younger and more relatable to (hopefully future) readers. A divorce does the exact opposite. I am astounded this is so difficult for people to understand.
Patio wrote:
>I would like to throw in that Tony Stark had a lot more to do with making pre-BND Spider-Man boring >than MJ. Spidey as Iron Man’s bodyguard is about as goofy and out-of-character as you can get.
Ahh, see, that’s the only recent Spider-Man storyline I’ve ever really liked.
@ jimski – that’s not a premise I’m willing to start at. And I didn’t mean to get personal or anything, I realize this is a story, ok. But if we’re going to talk about these things as if they are the things that they represent, then the Mephisto deal is no better or worse than a divorce. It’s just semantics. (I’d like to point out that I didn’t even want to get sucked into this conversation because it was a wound I had put behind me, but it’s open now and raw all over again.)
@conor – if they can undo a marriage, then I don’t see how anything is out of bounds. If they can undo death, they can also undo a divorce. They can have a character do any number of unspeakable things and then have it turn out to be a doppleganger. I like where we are now but I don’t like how we got here. It’s dirty pool.
@ohcaroline – I liked the interactions between Pete and Tony too, to tell you the truth. But it was like an alternate continuity because it certainly didn’t fit into his teacher persona or photographer persona and DEFinitely not his lovable loser persona.
@patio – They cosmically undid the marriage to return Peter to the state he never should have been moved out of in the first place – young, single guy in the city. Divorced Peter artifically ages him even further. As Jimski said, it’s hard for kids to relate to a divorced guy with divorced problems. You want kids to see themselves in Peter Parker, you don’t want them to equate him with their own parents. That’s why the cosmic angle is preferable. Wipe the slate clean and get back to a place before where the character lost its way in the first place.
@ conor – you keep talking about kids… I’m talking about me!!! Kids can have USM. I want Spider-Man written for meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!
@patio I apparently just don’t have any interest in Peter Parker stories where he behaves the way people say Peter is supposed to behave. "Lovable loser" is not my thing.
Seriously, I love BND, but it boils down to good comics, not who it can be marketed to.
Ditko thought Pete should never age past 16. That’s just not possible. Imagine if in 2040 Invincible was still in college. That’s not modern storyltelling. It’s fine for comic strips, not so great for more complicated plots. If characters don’t develop, and to a degree, age, their relevance is going to spiral downward.
Wolfman and many other writers thought the marriage was the biggest mistake since the cancellation of Millie the Model. Fine, we are where we are. I like it. But I still feel like I’m hanging out with a brother-in-law who cheated on my sister. I can forgive him, but I’m not going to forget about it.
@conor: What kids should read a book where there is a lot of death, swearing, drug use, shooting, blood, and other adult themes? While they have two options where one could be rated Teen (USM) or G for Kids (Marvel Adventures). I dont know what sick kid your letting buying this new ASM….Maybe you ment to say teenagers?
Also great comment patio: A mystical annulment is much better then an actual divorce? Think of all the praise Marvel could’ve gotten for using an adult storyline of two people having bad time with a relationship. Instead we get the generic, fantasy nerd way out of something. The point I complain about this book again and again is that Peter was finally growing up. It’s fun to see him joke around, but when you get right down to it he was finally acting like a responsible adult. What did BND do in the long run? He’s back to his spunky ways, not learning a moral, and just fighting bad guys while trying to get a paycheck *yawn*
@TheNextChampion – I am having real trouble following your lines of logic on this topic. AMAZING SPIDER-MAN is not kid friendly? I’m shaking my head in bewilderment.
….Okay we just had a storyline with two big scary monsters, a man dressed as a goblin destroying buildings and attacking people, people getting mistreated chemically by Oscorp, and a set of villians which include a guy that could kill you by throwing teeth at you….Oh yeah that sounds so kid friendly.
@TheNextChampion – I couldn’t agree more. If movies like The Dark Knight can draw massive crowds with serious adult drama seamlessly blended with the spectacle and excitement of fantastical characters then surely the comics can manage this. I used to think that ‘superhero’ movies would never catch up with the brilliance of comic books, the last 12 months has me thinking it is the comic books that are now playing catch up. Why do we have to dumb down just to keep it for the kids. In reality many kids are often growing up in a world were loved ones die, or leave or get divorced.
But I agree with Jimski, and find myself going to the other ‘restaurants’ (novels, tv shows, movies) more and more and my stack of comics shrinks each year. If you don’t like it, just don’t buy it.
Shakin’ the tree, boss! Shakin’ the tree!
To me, Peter is now a divorced guy whether by the State of New York or Mephisto’s retcon punch. If you were once married and are now not, you’re divorced. I really don’t see how magically removing his marriage out of the timeline makes him any younger. He’s still the exact same age he was before One More Day. Unless Peter walks into some Deus Ex Macina machine set up by Reed Richards that instantly makes him 19 again, those days are long over. Whether he’s married, single, divorced, separated, or on trial for bigamy, Peter is somewhere around 26-30 and still is around 26-30. The simple fact that Harry, a guy Peter’s same age, is already thrice divorced just underscores that to me. Thus, to me, Peter and Harry just look like a couple of divorced guys having a mid-life crisis in that first issue I read and I doubt any upcoming stories will make me feel any better about that.
@Josh – Dating is to renting as marriage is to ownership? I hope for your sake that your wife doesn’t read the comment boards… (I’d put a smiley face emoticon here if I had the option. Just something else to ad to the "To do" list, boys.) HOWEVUH… your point is accurate. The only guys who think that being divorced is the seem thing as being never-married single… are the never-married single guys.
Look, I don’t care if Peter’s married or not married. I just want the stories to be good. And up until the second to last arc (and ignoring the wretched "Sins Past" storyline), I enjoyed JMS on ASM. I understand why Joe Q wanted Pete single again, and I’ve enjoyed the BND books so far, for the most part. (Although I’m not reading New Ways to Die; waiting for the hardcover/trade).
However, in a superhero book, (and remember, I’m someone who really, REALLY liked "One More Day" as a piece of writing; JMS went out with style and talent) I’d much rather the protagonist be given a choice by a supervillain that he just can’t make, only to have the love of his life step in and make the hard choice as a noble testament to the very love that the villain was attempting to destroy. In trying to tear down true love, Mephisto inadvertently gave MJ an opportunity to once again show true love’s ultimate, self-sacrificing strength. And as a reader, I’d much rather wait for the ultimate ramifications to that act…
… than reading about two grown people who can’t make their marriage work and need to get a legally sanctioned divorce from the state of New York. And then, maybe, one of them will put on some tights and beat up a mugger.
You know, it’s that type of storytelling that led to the controversial "Will Mary Jane quit SMOKING?!" storyline of the mid-90’s. What a suck-fest that was. Who reads comics for that? "Demon in a Bottle" being the exception that proves the rule. Okay, and the Green Arrow/Speedy addiction storyline. Maybe I should have just deleted this paragraph as I’ve clearly undermined my own final argument. Still, Spider-Man gets a divorce? BOOOO-RING!
Quite true, coltrane68, that no one cares about Black Panther’s lovelife. I just feel the need to mention it everytime someone falsly references it as an "out-of-nowhere" storyline.
As for Spider-Man, they shoulda just made Mary-Jane a Skrull. Yeah, they already did the same thing with Johnny Storm, but nobody remembers that anymore and it would’ve been topical. 🙂
I was going to leave a comment about liking the article, but after reading the other comments, I don’t really remember the article.
I will say that people underestemate kids, though. There has been nothing in Spider-Man since BND started that I would hesitate to give to my potential future ten year old kid. I was reading Spawn when I was ten… that book had a lot more of the devil than One More Day.
@cormano – Agreed 100%
Ah, Spawn. Only Spawn could have Alan Moore, Neil Gaiman, and Frank Miller writing back-to-back-to back and manage to be so bad to make me cry blood.
Speaking of rereading 80s Spider-Man comics: you wanna talk about appropriate for kids? Take a gander at Todd McFarlane’s approach to newlywed MJ. Did you know that, after you get married, your model wife wears lingerie around the house all day long? There were some books that introduced me to some new ideas. Monsters attacking people, I’d seen.
Sadly or not sadly, growing with Tim Burton’s Batman and its sex, violence, and profanity thrown in, lingerie and implied newlywed nookie didn’t bother me a great deal.
Oh, it did not bother me. It did not bother me one bit.
I never thought of ASM as kid-friendly to begin with. Hell I wish I had Ultimate Spider-Man or Marvel Adventures when I was a kid. Cause after seeing these kid-friendly books, and looking back on old issues of ASM, god not a whole lot of them were for kids…Then again there were no alterntives back then, so of course kids would pick these issues up.
I don’t see how Ultimate Spider-Man is any more kid friendly than Amazing.
"It’s renting and owning different." – Josh Flanagan.
"You see this ring on her finger? That means she’s my property and I own her" – Homer Simpson.
😉
@CAM @Race — In Josh’s defense, I don’t believe he specified *who* was doing the renting/owning.
@ohcaroline
It goes both ways, my wife often claims ownership of me. I actually completely agree with what Josh said, so often my single friends just don’t get it.
In fact I was speaking to some friends who had been living together for a couple of years (IN SIN!!!!!) who recently got married and, while they weren’t expecting that "newlywed excitment" having been together for so long they said that they were surprised to feel it. A sweet story.
I really just wanted to quote that classic simpsons line.
Anyone who thinks marriage shuts out drama and storytelling has clearly got a very biased view of what marriage is (despite what some people think it’s not all chores and staying in!). Also it would be nice to get some sort of rundown of what fantastic storytelling in BND would have been precluded because of the marriage. Pretty much every major plot could have been told as is with Pete married to MJ.
Marvel decided to regress the character of Peter Parker back past loveable loser into someone it is very difficult to like anymore. He is coming up 30 (despite Marvel trying to rejig his age) and at the start of BND doesn’t have a partner, doesn’t have a job, mooches off his elderly aunt and is generally pathetic. They seem to be succeeding in turning him into some 30 something loser who bounces from partner to partner and can’t make a decision.
When it comes down to it, all Marvel have managed to do with BND is sell more comics to less people (estimates had BND bottoming out around the 68 – 69k mark per issue prior to the NWTD sales spike, well below JMS’s issues). It is only the fact that they are now selling ‘Amazing’ 3 times a month as apposed to one Amazing plus two satellite books that makes BND commercially successful. Now, every time someone decides that ‘Amazing’ isn’t for them Marvel are in essence losing three readers. Fingers crossed that the sales continue to dive enough to prompt Marvel to ‘Clone Saga’ this mess and we get a bit of heart and depth back to Amazing and more importantly Peter Parker.
Just for the record, my rental/ownership metaphor had more to do with the long term responsibility of owning property, as opposed to renting it. You’re in for the long haul, and you can’t just walk away.
A) I can’t believe we’re still talking about this. It’s been a year. It happened. Jeez.
B) It’s not that they can’t tell stories about marriage that don’t have drama, etc, but that they didn’t want to, and the people who hold the reigns for spiderman decided to go this way. And you can look at the sales #, but I would bet that they’re selling a lot more trades than they were before, since the stories are a bit more accessible.
@josh
A) Can’t see why there is a problem with still discussing it. I thought the point of the original article was to provoke discussion 🙂
B) You may well be right about the trade sales. Personally I would be surprised if BND trades are selling more than some of the pre BND trades simply because I would argue against the accessibility of them and I would have thought JMS is a bigger draw outside of pre-existing comic readers than Slott, Wells and Gale. Having said that, they do have some high profile artists and that can often make a difference.
Actually, the point of the original article was "I can’t believe people are still complaining about this a year later." So, imagine my delight.
Maybe the comments section should have been switched off then! :-p
But the article does solicit comments. The fact that someone has an opinion on the retcon doesn’t mean someone’s been bitching about it constantly since it happened.
I shouldn’t have been so– what’s the Tom Cruise word? Glib? It’s been a sleepless week; I’m not going to translate well to the page today.
No dont turn the magical word box! How can I complain more about the medicore BND issues if there is no comment box!? I cant write a letter to Jimski, he’s blocked my emails! 🙁 lol
@Jimski – I, for one, am constantly comparing you to Tom Cruise. With your inspiring and well-thought out manifestos a la Jerry Maguire, of course. Not crazy-eyes jumping up and down on Oprah’s couch Tom Cruise.
It has been announced today that Amazing Spider-Girl, the series in which Peter and Mary Jane stayed married and continued to grow and age just like everyone on earth cries out for them to do, has been canceled.
http://www.comicboards.com/app/show.php?msg=spidergirl-2008101220464912