Dread
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Better late than never due to the holidays, Marvel finishes off 2007 with a bucketload of books. Most of them are good. One is mediocre. And the other is the second time Marvel has kicked Spider-Fans in the 'nards in the last 15 years. Yes, OMD is our Clone Saga, folks. Whatta way to kick off 2007.
As always, full spoilers ahead. Or you could choose to let May live and have no spoilers.
Dread's BOUGHT/THOUGHT for 12/28/07:
BLUE BEETLE #22: Yeah, this delight from DC, which has also had a rough year, also came out. After a delightful fill-in/debut issue last month, Rogers & Albuquerque get back into gear for a new storyarc, which actually ties up the latter half of the series as the Reach's grand plan is revealed and Jamie Reyes starts to put together the pieces to stop them. Blue Beetle saves some people near a volcanic eruption and manages to uncover a hidden temple that connects to said plan, as well as is the home of warrior named Tovar the Lava-King. Danni Garret, grand-daughter of the original Blue Beetle and inheritor of Ted Kord's Beetle-ship thingie tags along for the mission. Meanwhile, Peacemaker wakes up and has a "talk" with Jamie's spunky monther while La Dama confronts his dad trying to settle things with her daughter, who is holed up there after learning the shock of La Dama's identity. It is a very busy issue in which a lot of the seemingly random battles from past issues come together to weave into a grander plot and methodology, and that's a great thing, really. That is how you do long arcs without static formats and offering one shot stories as well. As always, Rogers provides some of the best dialogue in comics right now, with a lot of very relatable and human banter from Jamie and between his supporting characters. DC hasn't had a lot to be proud of this year, but this title is one such thing. The Reach's grand plan is complicated, but what makes it chilling is how workable it is; far more likely to produce a conquored planet than a blunt invasion, as the characters note. I'm very interested in seeing how the next few chapters play out. A lesson in doing legacy heroes right.
AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #545 - One More Day Part 4: This is the first Marvel book I read this week, and that is good, because it gets the horse **** out of the way immediately. Maybe before I get into a full curse laden rant about how terrible, pathetic, stupid, illogical, regressive, insulting, and just plain retched this comic and the event as a whole is, maybe I will get the positives out of the way. Dan Slott is coming up next month, and nothing he does could possibly be any worse, and in fact I am looking forward to A-game stuff. The covers by Marko Djurdjevic are lovely in their simplicity. And while Joe Q's decisions and tenure as EIC are up for a great debate, his skill as an artist is not one of them; he was never my favorite artist, and he has his flaws, but his art isn't bad, and he puts in some good work (although seeing how late this book is, and then seeing about 2 pages worth of Photoshopped Copied Panels can be irksome). And this marks the end of the JMS tenure, a tenure that has become overrated at worst and an editorially-mandated pile of feces at worst. But, having lasted some 6 or so years, was among the longest in modern ASM history, least after the Mackie era. And hoo boy, does this remind me of Mackie/Jemas era. And lastly, it proves that the worst comic books in modern Marvel history are not always written by Brian M. Bendis.
In summary: the last 20 or more years of Spider-Man lore, and especially the last year of it, is magically swept under the rug by Mephisto. This is Infinite Crisis on Spider-Earths territory, complete with cluster-F*** moments. If you want to get specific, Peter & MJ cuddle away their last night on earth together, before making their deal with Mephisto that saves Aunt May, but splits up their marriage, completely erases all knowledge of Spider-Man's identity from civilians (thus rendering AVENGERS: THE INTIATIVE #7 a useless exercise), AND, because JMS and all other Spider-writes have proven incapable of spending 1/8th the amount of effort in creating new supporting characters as they are in creating bull**** events and moments, Harry Osborn is resurrected as if he never died or became the Green Goblin, thus rendering his death from 1993 completely worthless. Much as the death of his father, Norman, during the 70's was rendered worthless just to end the Clone Saga a decade ago. See a pattern? It is like every time Marvel gets themselves into a corner by having Spider-Man jump over more ****ing sharks than a billion oceans, they think resurrecting one of the Osborns will fix things. It seems odd to do so to capitlize on the movie franchise, considering that franchise just KILLED HIM THERE, TOO (yeah, Harry dies in SPIDER-MAN 3, sorry if I ruined it for the 4 people on the planet who didn't see it). On page 11-12 or so, if you look really fast, it almost looks like Mephisto is giving you the finger, and that sums up this event in a whole; a big ****-You to people who bothered to come back to Spider-Man after Clone Saga, or even after Sins Past or The Other. A year or so ago, I tore into Bendis' Ultimate Clone Saga, thinking it retrended on old failures and made them worse, and was just a crappy story on every level. Well, I regret to say that I was wrong; ULTIMATE CLONE SAGA is GOD compared to ONE MORE DAY. It makes me long for ULTIMATE POWER, or PHOENIX-WARSONG, a mini not even I could finish. It makes me long for the worst stories of Austin. It makes me beg to see Spidercide resurrected, or Facade return. This toxic fecal matter unworthy of a buffalo's large intestine was so bad, not even JMS himself wanted to be creditted for it:
http://jmsnews.com/msg.aspx?id=1-17697
Posted on 12/4/07 and reported by Newsarama Blogs, JMS essentially admits that "there's a lot [he] doesn't agree with" about OMD and that he literally wanted his name taken off the last two chapters of OMD, but, essentially, he sucked it up because Joe Q signs his checks and it would be bad professionally to embarass him in such a way. He also lays SINS PAST at Joe's feet too. He also attempts to cover for Joe Q by claiming things like "he has the best interests at heart" and other excuses that always seem to be made about people in authority who make dumb**** decisions. Now, don't get me wrong; while JMS is doing great with THOR, many of the problems Spidey has had over the past half decade have him to partly blame, from mystical crap to having Peter have zero social life beyond his aunt, his wife, and the New Avengers. I have no love lost for JMS on ASM, but I actually feel kind of sorry for him, always having to take the blame and work around Joe Q's editorial decisions for Spidey, which are always terrible. Always. A chimp on LSD could make better ones, or at least would do less harm to the franchise.
Remember when Joe Q and Mark Millar beated their chests about how "shocking" and "innovative" revealing Spider-Man's identity was? Remember all that malarky that they spewed, and that people still spew on the last page about Joe Q, about Big Surprises? Well, barely a year old, and they got a Hell-Lord to literally wave his hand and undo it. Yeah, way to show some cajones, fellas. This is beyond Slott's attempt to "tweak" it; this is an intentional whitewash.
And in True Man fashion, they try to alliviate the stigma of Spider-Man literally dealing with the Devil by having MJ be the one to push for it when the chips are down, and make much of the deals. Yeah, blame the woman, like all men do, ever since the Garden of Eden. Very classy. I almost wish that the problems that have plagued Spider-Man as a franchise for the past decade or longer could be laid at the feet as something as simple as a marriage, but that is untrue. The problems have arisen from one "shocking, status quo altering event" to the next, from allowing the supporting cast to die off and be underutilized, by rehashing the same stories for the same villains over and over without any tweaks, for being unable to make any competant new ones, for squandering any potential new ones, for chasing every Hollywood fad, and on and on and on. And what makes it more gualling is that Joe Q had the nerve to claim the 1987 marriage was "a cheap stunt" (in so many words), just as he and Hudlin were hitching up T'Challa and Storm, which only required a back-up story that went untouched for a quarter century, a lot of retcons, and a lot of screaming over the top of their promotional lungs about how important it was. Hypocrite, thy name is Joe Quesada.
If Joe Q and Marvel really had balls, really were serious about splitting up the Parkers, and really had the strength to stand on that, and if they had all that and understood what made Spider-Man work, they would have gone with a divorce. Make it outright, make it human. Peter & MJ have been strained a lot over the years. The story against that usually was, "it makes Spidey seem old". Baloney. The median age for first marriages is around 26, and over 50% end in divorce. Many children who have grown into adults had to deal with it. Handled that way, there could have been a lot of human moments, a lot of moments that made people say, "I've been there", like Bendis famously claimed in a WIZARD interview that Marvel had, and DC lacked. But instead, they bring up Mephisto, and mystical universe alterings. The human element has been removed. THAT has done more to ruin Spider-Man than any spinsterhood. Forgetting that the adventures of the man in the tights was not supposed to completely overrun Peter's life. But, Joe Q & Co. know better. They know what they feel in their gut is best for a franchise one year can become "a genie to get put back in a bottle" the next. They know damn well it won't be 3 years before people are heavilly hinting at a reunion, especially if SPIDER-MAN 4 ever becomes closer to reality. A divorce would make it seem more final than a demonic undoing, because no one in the history of mankind has ever remarried someone they divorced (smell my sarcasm)? But, no, they took the comic booky way out, because they don't have any balls. It is like Meltzer thinking he was a he-man by having Sue Dibney get raped and murdered, and not a female character that people REALLY would have cared about, like, oh, Lois Lane. Either have stones or don't, but don't be a poser.
The only interesting angle to all this is was reviving Harry; a recent poll on Spiderfan.org, which is still there as of this post, of 3,800 fans, noted a cool 60% who wanted Harry Osborn back. It indicates a potential audience that did want that. I was hardly one of them. For the record, 57% of that 3,800 also wanted Ben Reilly back; wonder if that one is down the pipeline? All I see it as is a chance to undo what was once a poingant moment, and a chance to rehash the same damn issues with Harry that have been done a billion god damned times. Will he snag MJ? Will he become the Green Goblin again? Will his father somehow come between he and Peter, either in death or life or legacy? Oh good golly we've never seen THIS before, it is so original! And that is another issue with the Joe Q tenure, this sense that nothing that has been done with him as EIC has ever been done before, even if it has, and better, and to resolution, decades or less ago. This contempt of the past, this sense that they read those ESSENTIALS volumes and poo-poo the people of yesteryear without putting things into perspective. People laugh at current DC's unwillingness to give anything that happened after 1986 a try, but Marvel Zombies like myself will have to put that aside after this. But oh, it gets much, much worse.
The story is a pile of cancerous flesh, needing to be cut off the body and burnt to oblivion for the sake of survival by itself, but it is the details of the issue that turn it into more **** soup, like the maggots in a corpse, or salt in a wound. There's that bit where Mephisto brags about exposing Peter to the shards of "alternate lives" that could have been, including the Parker's daughter. That made me laugh. Marvel has been afraid of having Spider-Man breed since the Jemas era, when they made sure to sweep Baby May under the rug. SPIDER-GIRL serves as a bone tossed to about 17,000 or so readers to keep that pooch down. Like it is REALLY the fault of the Parkers that they never had a daughter, I hate blaming characters for editorial decisions. Then we have the shouting of a "brand new day", even if the end scene feels like a Bold Old Day from the 80's, when Cassettes and VHS were king, car-phones were a novelty and Big Hair Metal was the rage. It is only new to anyone who has never read a Spider-Man comic before 1996, and if you haven't, even via reprints, I feel bad for you. And then they have the nerve to reprint a few pages from 1987's ASM ANNUAL #21, which was the wedding issue. How ****ing cold blooded is THAT!? On the 20th anniversary of that occasion, which an entire generation of fans have accepted and enjoyed, they not only negate it from existance like it was Greedo Shooting First or something, but then show you how it began, in full color, as if you kick you when you are down. I doubt it was out of deliberate contempt, but probably ignorance as usual. And finally, as if they felt they needed the voices of others to support the work, as if knowing it didn't stand on it's own legs even if it had King ****ing Kong holding it aloft, they have quotes from a bunch of present and past creators licking OMD's ass. A quote from Bendis, who through character assassinations (literal and writing wise), poorly researched events, influence and editorial support has done more damage to the Marvel Universe than a hundred Howard Mackie's. A quote from Loeb, who hasn't written anything above mediocrity since becoming exclusive, and mostly has written donkey **** himself. A vote of confidence from Mark Millar, who has only relied on equally ill-thought "Big Moment" stories before and who was responsible for shattering endless character relationships with CW, who didn't even live up to his own hype. From Marvel Studio's President, like he'd say anything bad. Romita Jr. and Stan Lee...they're sweet ol' guys, they wouldn't say anything negative and as insiders, see it as business. Stan Lee didn't exactly marry 'em himself. It reminds me of someone who knows they are losing a point in a debate and then thinks that riling up supporters will boost the point's merit. It doesn't, it simply creates a mob. If the work from JMS, Joe Q & Co, couldn't stand, why the hell do they truck out others to sell it for them on the last page!? Oh, I bet some of those editors knew this'd be seen for what it is. Like a fan who hates it is suddenly going to go, "Golly, Bendis and Stan Lee didn't say it sucked, even though if they did, it wouldn't have been printed in OMD's last ****ing issue. I totally can't say it sucked now!" Total B.S.
As I wind down, it is interesting that despite Dr. Strange's magic and Mephisto's reality warping, Spider-Man is able to communicate with every hero, villain, and cosmic being in 616, except for one person; Aunt May herself. She was in a coma, not dead; her soul/psyche was still in existance. If she was conjured up and Peter asked her advice, in all honesty, would May Parker have said, "Sure, make a deal with Satan that undoes your love with MJ and negates any potential grand-children or happiness between you two, because I wanna live, damn it!" !? No ****ing way. She would have done what she has always done; wanted the best for Peter, even at the expense of herself. During the Lee/Ditko days, May preferred to pawn off beloved gifts from Ben rather than worry Peter with money woes, and that was in 1963. May would have told Peter that, yes, while it was not as she intended, she never would wish misery on the two of them just so she could live a few extra years. She would have told him she was proud of him, that at least she would be reunited with Ben, and probably something sweet. But, of course, that would pooch Joe Q's vendetta, so naturally the person whose fate is being decided in the deal is not allowed to speak for herself. Because that would send the house of cards a-flutter. Of course, there were other comic book answers, too. Like Dr. Doom would have abandoned a relatively small feat to get Spider-Man's aid against the Fantastic Four. Like they couldn't have tried transferring her brain into a speed-cloned body, like they did for Charles Xavier and no end of other characters (often villains). Sure, Pym is willing to watch them mass clone MVP like it was a friggin' yard sale but not try it with May? This story fails on so many levels to make any sort of sense or be appealing, it could take a hundred planets a hundred lifetimes to collectively list them all.
If there is any vindication, sales for OMD, when compared with sales for ASM over the past year or so, have it the lowest it has been since 2006. Yes, Back In Black, a story where Spidey changed his costume, outsold OMD so far and likely will. That means Marvel may have oversold it's hand in negating the marriage, especially in so stupid a fashion. Slott was willing to reunite Ben Grimm & Alicia Masters in under 10 issues of material; would he be allowed with the Parkers? ASM has been in perpetual crossover mode since 2004-2005, and OMD is selling the worst out of all of those. Or most. That should say something. But it won't. The powers that be will go, "oh, 103k is a solid number, who else can we rape?"
If not for Dan Slott, I'd be gone from ASM for another 15 years, and even he is given no favors coming off this cosmic waste of imagination. Even the Clone Saga didn't try to split up the Parkers. Yeah. Even the last Spidey Super ****-Up had a limit that OMD crossed. JMS is ashamed, and y'know what, I'm glad he's ****ing ashamed. I'd be ashamed too if my name was anywhere near this festering sea of demonic fecal matter.
The worst story of the 21st century so far, hands down. Dissasembled is Eisner compared to this. Long suffering Spider-Fans, are we ever going to get a respite? To paraphrase Mark Millar, it will only come when Spider-Man is written by people other than "old men afraid of the future."
As always, full spoilers ahead. Or you could choose to let May live and have no spoilers.
Dread's BOUGHT/THOUGHT for 12/28/07:
BLUE BEETLE #22: Yeah, this delight from DC, which has also had a rough year, also came out. After a delightful fill-in/debut issue last month, Rogers & Albuquerque get back into gear for a new storyarc, which actually ties up the latter half of the series as the Reach's grand plan is revealed and Jamie Reyes starts to put together the pieces to stop them. Blue Beetle saves some people near a volcanic eruption and manages to uncover a hidden temple that connects to said plan, as well as is the home of warrior named Tovar the Lava-King. Danni Garret, grand-daughter of the original Blue Beetle and inheritor of Ted Kord's Beetle-ship thingie tags along for the mission. Meanwhile, Peacemaker wakes up and has a "talk" with Jamie's spunky monther while La Dama confronts his dad trying to settle things with her daughter, who is holed up there after learning the shock of La Dama's identity. It is a very busy issue in which a lot of the seemingly random battles from past issues come together to weave into a grander plot and methodology, and that's a great thing, really. That is how you do long arcs without static formats and offering one shot stories as well. As always, Rogers provides some of the best dialogue in comics right now, with a lot of very relatable and human banter from Jamie and between his supporting characters. DC hasn't had a lot to be proud of this year, but this title is one such thing. The Reach's grand plan is complicated, but what makes it chilling is how workable it is; far more likely to produce a conquored planet than a blunt invasion, as the characters note. I'm very interested in seeing how the next few chapters play out. A lesson in doing legacy heroes right.
AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #545 - One More Day Part 4: This is the first Marvel book I read this week, and that is good, because it gets the horse **** out of the way immediately. Maybe before I get into a full curse laden rant about how terrible, pathetic, stupid, illogical, regressive, insulting, and just plain retched this comic and the event as a whole is, maybe I will get the positives out of the way. Dan Slott is coming up next month, and nothing he does could possibly be any worse, and in fact I am looking forward to A-game stuff. The covers by Marko Djurdjevic are lovely in their simplicity. And while Joe Q's decisions and tenure as EIC are up for a great debate, his skill as an artist is not one of them; he was never my favorite artist, and he has his flaws, but his art isn't bad, and he puts in some good work (although seeing how late this book is, and then seeing about 2 pages worth of Photoshopped Copied Panels can be irksome). And this marks the end of the JMS tenure, a tenure that has become overrated at worst and an editorially-mandated pile of feces at worst. But, having lasted some 6 or so years, was among the longest in modern ASM history, least after the Mackie era. And hoo boy, does this remind me of Mackie/Jemas era. And lastly, it proves that the worst comic books in modern Marvel history are not always written by Brian M. Bendis.
In summary: the last 20 or more years of Spider-Man lore, and especially the last year of it, is magically swept under the rug by Mephisto. This is Infinite Crisis on Spider-Earths territory, complete with cluster-F*** moments. If you want to get specific, Peter & MJ cuddle away their last night on earth together, before making their deal with Mephisto that saves Aunt May, but splits up their marriage, completely erases all knowledge of Spider-Man's identity from civilians (thus rendering AVENGERS: THE INTIATIVE #7 a useless exercise), AND, because JMS and all other Spider-writes have proven incapable of spending 1/8th the amount of effort in creating new supporting characters as they are in creating bull**** events and moments, Harry Osborn is resurrected as if he never died or became the Green Goblin, thus rendering his death from 1993 completely worthless. Much as the death of his father, Norman, during the 70's was rendered worthless just to end the Clone Saga a decade ago. See a pattern? It is like every time Marvel gets themselves into a corner by having Spider-Man jump over more ****ing sharks than a billion oceans, they think resurrecting one of the Osborns will fix things. It seems odd to do so to capitlize on the movie franchise, considering that franchise just KILLED HIM THERE, TOO (yeah, Harry dies in SPIDER-MAN 3, sorry if I ruined it for the 4 people on the planet who didn't see it). On page 11-12 or so, if you look really fast, it almost looks like Mephisto is giving you the finger, and that sums up this event in a whole; a big ****-You to people who bothered to come back to Spider-Man after Clone Saga, or even after Sins Past or The Other. A year or so ago, I tore into Bendis' Ultimate Clone Saga, thinking it retrended on old failures and made them worse, and was just a crappy story on every level. Well, I regret to say that I was wrong; ULTIMATE CLONE SAGA is GOD compared to ONE MORE DAY. It makes me long for ULTIMATE POWER, or PHOENIX-WARSONG, a mini not even I could finish. It makes me long for the worst stories of Austin. It makes me beg to see Spidercide resurrected, or Facade return. This toxic fecal matter unworthy of a buffalo's large intestine was so bad, not even JMS himself wanted to be creditted for it:
http://jmsnews.com/msg.aspx?id=1-17697
Posted on 12/4/07 and reported by Newsarama Blogs, JMS essentially admits that "there's a lot [he] doesn't agree with" about OMD and that he literally wanted his name taken off the last two chapters of OMD, but, essentially, he sucked it up because Joe Q signs his checks and it would be bad professionally to embarass him in such a way. He also lays SINS PAST at Joe's feet too. He also attempts to cover for Joe Q by claiming things like "he has the best interests at heart" and other excuses that always seem to be made about people in authority who make dumb**** decisions. Now, don't get me wrong; while JMS is doing great with THOR, many of the problems Spidey has had over the past half decade have him to partly blame, from mystical crap to having Peter have zero social life beyond his aunt, his wife, and the New Avengers. I have no love lost for JMS on ASM, but I actually feel kind of sorry for him, always having to take the blame and work around Joe Q's editorial decisions for Spidey, which are always terrible. Always. A chimp on LSD could make better ones, or at least would do less harm to the franchise.
Remember when Joe Q and Mark Millar beated their chests about how "shocking" and "innovative" revealing Spider-Man's identity was? Remember all that malarky that they spewed, and that people still spew on the last page about Joe Q, about Big Surprises? Well, barely a year old, and they got a Hell-Lord to literally wave his hand and undo it. Yeah, way to show some cajones, fellas. This is beyond Slott's attempt to "tweak" it; this is an intentional whitewash.
And in True Man fashion, they try to alliviate the stigma of Spider-Man literally dealing with the Devil by having MJ be the one to push for it when the chips are down, and make much of the deals. Yeah, blame the woman, like all men do, ever since the Garden of Eden. Very classy. I almost wish that the problems that have plagued Spider-Man as a franchise for the past decade or longer could be laid at the feet as something as simple as a marriage, but that is untrue. The problems have arisen from one "shocking, status quo altering event" to the next, from allowing the supporting cast to die off and be underutilized, by rehashing the same stories for the same villains over and over without any tweaks, for being unable to make any competant new ones, for squandering any potential new ones, for chasing every Hollywood fad, and on and on and on. And what makes it more gualling is that Joe Q had the nerve to claim the 1987 marriage was "a cheap stunt" (in so many words), just as he and Hudlin were hitching up T'Challa and Storm, which only required a back-up story that went untouched for a quarter century, a lot of retcons, and a lot of screaming over the top of their promotional lungs about how important it was. Hypocrite, thy name is Joe Quesada.
If Joe Q and Marvel really had balls, really were serious about splitting up the Parkers, and really had the strength to stand on that, and if they had all that and understood what made Spider-Man work, they would have gone with a divorce. Make it outright, make it human. Peter & MJ have been strained a lot over the years. The story against that usually was, "it makes Spidey seem old". Baloney. The median age for first marriages is around 26, and over 50% end in divorce. Many children who have grown into adults had to deal with it. Handled that way, there could have been a lot of human moments, a lot of moments that made people say, "I've been there", like Bendis famously claimed in a WIZARD interview that Marvel had, and DC lacked. But instead, they bring up Mephisto, and mystical universe alterings. The human element has been removed. THAT has done more to ruin Spider-Man than any spinsterhood. Forgetting that the adventures of the man in the tights was not supposed to completely overrun Peter's life. But, Joe Q & Co. know better. They know what they feel in their gut is best for a franchise one year can become "a genie to get put back in a bottle" the next. They know damn well it won't be 3 years before people are heavilly hinting at a reunion, especially if SPIDER-MAN 4 ever becomes closer to reality. A divorce would make it seem more final than a demonic undoing, because no one in the history of mankind has ever remarried someone they divorced (smell my sarcasm)? But, no, they took the comic booky way out, because they don't have any balls. It is like Meltzer thinking he was a he-man by having Sue Dibney get raped and murdered, and not a female character that people REALLY would have cared about, like, oh, Lois Lane. Either have stones or don't, but don't be a poser.
The only interesting angle to all this is was reviving Harry; a recent poll on Spiderfan.org, which is still there as of this post, of 3,800 fans, noted a cool 60% who wanted Harry Osborn back. It indicates a potential audience that did want that. I was hardly one of them. For the record, 57% of that 3,800 also wanted Ben Reilly back; wonder if that one is down the pipeline? All I see it as is a chance to undo what was once a poingant moment, and a chance to rehash the same damn issues with Harry that have been done a billion god damned times. Will he snag MJ? Will he become the Green Goblin again? Will his father somehow come between he and Peter, either in death or life or legacy? Oh good golly we've never seen THIS before, it is so original! And that is another issue with the Joe Q tenure, this sense that nothing that has been done with him as EIC has ever been done before, even if it has, and better, and to resolution, decades or less ago. This contempt of the past, this sense that they read those ESSENTIALS volumes and poo-poo the people of yesteryear without putting things into perspective. People laugh at current DC's unwillingness to give anything that happened after 1986 a try, but Marvel Zombies like myself will have to put that aside after this. But oh, it gets much, much worse.
The story is a pile of cancerous flesh, needing to be cut off the body and burnt to oblivion for the sake of survival by itself, but it is the details of the issue that turn it into more **** soup, like the maggots in a corpse, or salt in a wound. There's that bit where Mephisto brags about exposing Peter to the shards of "alternate lives" that could have been, including the Parker's daughter. That made me laugh. Marvel has been afraid of having Spider-Man breed since the Jemas era, when they made sure to sweep Baby May under the rug. SPIDER-GIRL serves as a bone tossed to about 17,000 or so readers to keep that pooch down. Like it is REALLY the fault of the Parkers that they never had a daughter, I hate blaming characters for editorial decisions. Then we have the shouting of a "brand new day", even if the end scene feels like a Bold Old Day from the 80's, when Cassettes and VHS were king, car-phones were a novelty and Big Hair Metal was the rage. It is only new to anyone who has never read a Spider-Man comic before 1996, and if you haven't, even via reprints, I feel bad for you. And then they have the nerve to reprint a few pages from 1987's ASM ANNUAL #21, which was the wedding issue. How ****ing cold blooded is THAT!? On the 20th anniversary of that occasion, which an entire generation of fans have accepted and enjoyed, they not only negate it from existance like it was Greedo Shooting First or something, but then show you how it began, in full color, as if you kick you when you are down. I doubt it was out of deliberate contempt, but probably ignorance as usual. And finally, as if they felt they needed the voices of others to support the work, as if knowing it didn't stand on it's own legs even if it had King ****ing Kong holding it aloft, they have quotes from a bunch of present and past creators licking OMD's ass. A quote from Bendis, who through character assassinations (literal and writing wise), poorly researched events, influence and editorial support has done more damage to the Marvel Universe than a hundred Howard Mackie's. A quote from Loeb, who hasn't written anything above mediocrity since becoming exclusive, and mostly has written donkey **** himself. A vote of confidence from Mark Millar, who has only relied on equally ill-thought "Big Moment" stories before and who was responsible for shattering endless character relationships with CW, who didn't even live up to his own hype. From Marvel Studio's President, like he'd say anything bad. Romita Jr. and Stan Lee...they're sweet ol' guys, they wouldn't say anything negative and as insiders, see it as business. Stan Lee didn't exactly marry 'em himself. It reminds me of someone who knows they are losing a point in a debate and then thinks that riling up supporters will boost the point's merit. It doesn't, it simply creates a mob. If the work from JMS, Joe Q & Co, couldn't stand, why the hell do they truck out others to sell it for them on the last page!? Oh, I bet some of those editors knew this'd be seen for what it is. Like a fan who hates it is suddenly going to go, "Golly, Bendis and Stan Lee didn't say it sucked, even though if they did, it wouldn't have been printed in OMD's last ****ing issue. I totally can't say it sucked now!" Total B.S.
As I wind down, it is interesting that despite Dr. Strange's magic and Mephisto's reality warping, Spider-Man is able to communicate with every hero, villain, and cosmic being in 616, except for one person; Aunt May herself. She was in a coma, not dead; her soul/psyche was still in existance. If she was conjured up and Peter asked her advice, in all honesty, would May Parker have said, "Sure, make a deal with Satan that undoes your love with MJ and negates any potential grand-children or happiness between you two, because I wanna live, damn it!" !? No ****ing way. She would have done what she has always done; wanted the best for Peter, even at the expense of herself. During the Lee/Ditko days, May preferred to pawn off beloved gifts from Ben rather than worry Peter with money woes, and that was in 1963. May would have told Peter that, yes, while it was not as she intended, she never would wish misery on the two of them just so she could live a few extra years. She would have told him she was proud of him, that at least she would be reunited with Ben, and probably something sweet. But, of course, that would pooch Joe Q's vendetta, so naturally the person whose fate is being decided in the deal is not allowed to speak for herself. Because that would send the house of cards a-flutter. Of course, there were other comic book answers, too. Like Dr. Doom would have abandoned a relatively small feat to get Spider-Man's aid against the Fantastic Four. Like they couldn't have tried transferring her brain into a speed-cloned body, like they did for Charles Xavier and no end of other characters (often villains). Sure, Pym is willing to watch them mass clone MVP like it was a friggin' yard sale but not try it with May? This story fails on so many levels to make any sort of sense or be appealing, it could take a hundred planets a hundred lifetimes to collectively list them all.
If there is any vindication, sales for OMD, when compared with sales for ASM over the past year or so, have it the lowest it has been since 2006. Yes, Back In Black, a story where Spidey changed his costume, outsold OMD so far and likely will. That means Marvel may have oversold it's hand in negating the marriage, especially in so stupid a fashion. Slott was willing to reunite Ben Grimm & Alicia Masters in under 10 issues of material; would he be allowed with the Parkers? ASM has been in perpetual crossover mode since 2004-2005, and OMD is selling the worst out of all of those. Or most. That should say something. But it won't. The powers that be will go, "oh, 103k is a solid number, who else can we rape?"
If not for Dan Slott, I'd be gone from ASM for another 15 years, and even he is given no favors coming off this cosmic waste of imagination. Even the Clone Saga didn't try to split up the Parkers. Yeah. Even the last Spidey Super ****-Up had a limit that OMD crossed. JMS is ashamed, and y'know what, I'm glad he's ****ing ashamed. I'd be ashamed too if my name was anywhere near this festering sea of demonic fecal matter.
The worst story of the 21st century so far, hands down. Dissasembled is Eisner compared to this. Long suffering Spider-Fans, are we ever going to get a respite? To paraphrase Mark Millar, it will only come when Spider-Man is written by people other than "old men afraid of the future."
