Comics Get ready people, JMS and Joe Q are planning ANOTHER Spider-Man event

[Herr Logan]

Changing window dressing= Good.

Blowing core concepts to atoms= Bad.


Examples of good "window dressing changes that don't actually change anything":


Reed Richards and Sue Storm getting married (their relationship and the group dynamic of the FF didn't change a whit).

Thor growing a beard.

Spider-Man gaining/losing supporting cast members.

New characters being introduced.

The FF going from blue-and-black to black-and-white costumes.

Iron Man tinkering with the look of his armor.

The Avengers moving into new headquarters for a time.

Jonah Jameson stepping down as editor-in-chief of the Bugle.

I knew it! You totally did read 'Superman on the Couch.'

 

[Herr Logan]

Well, Pig-****er, if you were REALLY as intelligent as you CLAIM to be, you'd've noticed I acknowledged you said yer an *******, and noticed that last jab was towards th' fact yer clueless to how yer viewed. Which only shows how dumb a **** you really are.

A flashy vocabulary don't make you "intelligent", bunky. Methinks you need to reconsult yer dictionaries and learn what does.

But... I said I did know how I'm viewed...

Why, oh why does the education system let so many promising children slip through the cracks?

 

[roach]

Sigh.

Who is "Spiderman"? Some banker in a two-piece suit?


I want Spider-Man to be the mythic, universally-appealing, all-ages-type character that he once was. I want him to outlast my lifespan. I take offense when selfish fanboys whine about how he must grow and change along with them. I weep for the future generations who will never understand what made Spider-Man successful.

Is that selfish?

and the only way to make Spider-man a mythic, universally appealing, all ages type character is to make him a teenager and have him never grow up.
I dont know how many people on this board were alive when Amazing Fantasy #15 came out...that doesnt mean they dont get the character. Spider-man speaks out to people in different ways. I got my first Spiderman comic from my dad. I loved the character so much that I kept reading into my teenage years and beyond. I went back and got the old issues and reprints. Did I not understand Spiderman because i didnt read AF15 when it came out???? It is selfish because instead of wanting people to love the character for what speaks to them about the character you want to impose your will. So we just say FU to those who like Peter being married??? What should the kids think when Franklin Richards is aging faster than Peter?????
Do we have to keep rewriting Spiderman's origin since the way people talk have changed...I mean he is a teenage but why is he saying groovy?????? Do we rewrite him for every decade since teens in the 80's were different from the teens in the 90's and 2000's??????
How come he isnt on the computer like me and my friends are?????

 

[Herr Logan]

The Batman who killed was dropped early on (after the bugs were worked out, as I said). Rainbow costumes and aliens were WINDOW DRESSING. In all those years, Batman was still BATMAN, and acted like Batman.

Well, that's both true and untrue.

I think it's pretty safe to say that the Batman has changed a lot over the years in terms of his tactics and interpersonal behavior (and probably other things as well), but a few things have stayed the same throughout.
He has always been a detective. He has always taken his mission seriously, and although he has been able to crack a smile and a joke at various times, he's more solemn than not, all the way through his run. Even Adam West's rendition of the Batman was pretty serious. I don't care if he and Robin looked silly or not, West's Batman was a straight-edge (a "square," if you will... and you will...) who had his mind on the business at hand for the most part. That's a constant for the Batman; the focused, unyielding, ever-vigilante detective.

Spider-Man, on the other hand, was 99.9% defined in his first appearance. All that was missing then was his location (New York), his job, and members of his supporting cast and rogue's gallery.

I gotta disagree with you on this, Greg. Spider-Man was not fully or mostly fully defined in 'Amazing Fantasy' #15. His sense of humor and the more complex emotions reflected in his inner dialogue didn't show up until he had his own series, and the jokes didn't really start until 'Amazing Spider-Man' #3, I think.
Still, I'd say that's a fairly brief grace period before he hit his stride. I'm only arguing the technical aspect of what you said, but I agree that Spider-Man was molded very quickly into the character we know and love, and he stayed that way for decades before inferior writers decided to turn his comics into trashy, grocery-aisle magazines.

 

[Herr Logan]

Excerpt from my essay (link in sig):

And speaking of the organic webs...they don't work. They are stupid. They are a clunky attempt to make an inherently fantastic character more "realistic" (By, amazingly enough, making him even more *unrealistic*!).

Spider-Man's costume, powers, and equipment have remained basically the same for some 40 years. Because they work. Because they are PERFECT. The web-shooters were an ingenious, elegant solution to a problem Stan Lee and Steve Ditko had back in 1962: If they had given Spider-Man organic web-shooters, he would have been perceived as even creepier than he already was (Remember, Lee's publisher, Martin Goodman, predicted that Spider-Man would fail because most people hate spiders and think they're disgusting and frightening.).

The web-shooters also serve a thematic purpose in the origin story in Amazing Fantasy # 15. When the shy-but-brilliant Peter Parker gains super-powers, his buried creativity (and ego) are unleashed. He ultilizes his underappreciated genuis to come up with a stage name, design and create a flashy costume, and build web-shooting devices ALL ON HIS OWN, with no outside help or inspiration. Because that's who Peter Parker is!


Compare that to the Peter Parker of Ultimate Spider-Man, who was given the costume for his wrestling job (he only added the web-pattern and spider symbols), and whose late father invented the web-fluid formula, which Peter perfected.


Compare that to the Peter Parker of the Spider-Man movies, in which the web-shooters are a natural part of his super-powers, in which the name "Spider-Man" comes from an outside source, and in which the Spider-Man costume pops up with NO EXPLANATION whatsoever (We saw Peter's first homemade costume in the wrestling ring, and it was pathetic.). Maybe he got the ornately detailed costume--which cost $100,000 to make in real life--from a costume shop? Yeah, that's it. Sure.


In the 1990s, writer-director James Cameron was attached to the troubled development of the first Spider-Man movie. In a story treatment he wrote, Cameron gave Peter Parker organic web-shooters, using them as a not-so-subtle metaphor for adolescent development (In the treatment, Peter awoke one morning covered in sticky white webbing. That's right. He had a..."web dream". Ahem.).

When director Sam Raimi was attached to the project, he decided to keep this concept in his Spider-Man film. Raimi stated in interviews that it made sense because it would give Peter one more thing to be ashamed about. Huh? In the original origin story, Peter is enamored of his powers, and doesn't at all feel like a freak.

Anyway, more importantly, Raimi chose to keep the organic webs because he, Raimi himself, could not have invented web-shooters and web-fluid when he was Peter Parker's age.

Let me repeat that.

He said that Spider-Man would have organic web-shooters in the movie because he, *Raimi*, could not have invented mechanical web-shooters at age 16.

*Ahem*. As established in the comics, Peter Parker is a scientific genius. He's just stuck in a crappy local high school because of his family's financial situation, and can't become a scientist because he's just too darn busy trying to make ends meet while also being Spider-Man. The guy in the Spider-Man movies ain't Spider-Man! He's just a regular teen who happened to win a science scholarship (and who also whipped up a $100,000 costume with no explanation...).

From an interview with Raimi:

RAIMI: "The main reason was, it was an idea that James Cameron came up with in a treatment. It was just a subtle riff on Stan Lee's original concept anyways, whether he shoots web mechanically or organic. Finally, in a nutshell, the strength of the movie was always going to be for us, as it was in Stan Lee's comics, was Peter Parker is one of us. It's what made Spider-Man a unique story, a unique superhero. He's a kid like us. We soar with him when he becomes this hero. So, we decided to do everything we could to keep that concept alive and real and potent to the audience. We wanted him to be someone we really identified with, so that when it came time to talk about the story aspect where he could create the web-shooters and have the technological ability to create such a mechanical device in his little Queens bedroom and have the ability of a chemical engineer to the degree that he could create this incredible substance that doesn't really exist in our world, we felt that Cameron's idea would be better for the movie. I'm not saying for the comics. I love Stan Lee's idea, but for the movie, to make him a real person, to stick to that theme and stick with it through the course of the picture, we felt that was a change we had to make."


The classic Peter Parker of the comic books may be the "Everyman's Super-Hero", but he's also larger than life at the same time. He is US (the everyman who has to deal with work, school, and girls), and he is also BETTER than us in many ways (his intelligence, his moral drive, his compassion). This unique dichotomy gives us both a hero we can see ourselves in AND look up to at the same time.


Anyway, in Spider-Man 2, at least, Peter's intellect is given more focus. Yet, how come he can talk about the highly technical details of a cold-fusion reactor with Dr. Otto Octavius (which no normal college student would be able to comprehend), yet NOT be "smart enough" to build mechanical web-shooters? Sheesh.

It's called "suspension of disbelief", people!

Raimi doesn't understand a God damn thing about what makes Spider-Man unique. Otherwise, Movie!Spider-Man would have been witty, self-aware and Movie!Peter wouldn't come off like a useless, slack-jawed mute who keeps saying "I don't know" whenever anyone asks him a question about what he wants or thinks.

Yeah, he's "one of us." That's why he was so popular in high school and the early days of college, right? That's why he was the one kid at his school to get a science scholarship. That's why he's willing to tutor a girl --after he had lost his attraction for her-- who previously rejected and ridiculed him. Feh!

 

[Cullen]

Part of the fun of threads like this is that you learn so much. You see so many different points of view. Wrongheaded, genius, different, enlightening. All here. All potentiall worthy of thought and response.

I feel so guilty that I have nothing useful to contribute. Maybe later. Maybe next thread.

 

[Herr Logan]

Part of the fun of threads like this is that you learn so much. You see so many different points of view. Wrongheaded, genius, different, enlightening. All here. All potentiall worthy of thought and response.

I feel so guilty that I have nothing useful to contribute. Maybe later. Maybe next thread.

"Wrongheaded"?

Pray tell, Cullen... who's "wrongheaded" in this thread?

Speak up!

 

[MC2Spiderman]

Link for those who don't know what that is:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_Theseus


If a part of the ship is replaced one plank at a time, is it still the same ship when ALL the planks have been replaced?


The core elements of Spider-Man have been so gradually perverted and replaced, that there's little left of the character, and we are now reading about what is essentially a replacement character with the same name.

And those who have been conned insist nothing has changed. Those who don't get it insist that "things MUST change".

Those who HAVEN'T been conned and DO get it look on from afar with tears in their eyes, and try to open other people's eyes, with mixed results.

This is why Spider-Man is effectively dead. Because the "fans" and the "fans" who became "professionals" killed him.

Just because a few books currently being published bear the title "Spider-Man" on the cover doesn't mean the character isn't dead.

Everything that he was, everything he stood for, every theme, every emotion, every event, has been trodden on, defiled, or "retooled".

Is there room for interpretation? Yes.

But a character is a character is a character. When Spider-Man was created, THAT is who that character was. It was set in stone. ANY major deviation from that character is NOT that character, and is merely a poor imitation.

I will fight to my last breath to prevent the history books from saying that the character of Spider-Man was "created by" JMS and/or Bendis, or that said writers wrote the very best stories in the character's history (and that everything prior was just childish garbage).

Erm when did dieing to save a comic book become logical ?

ack forget what i said even tho the powers and suit change its still the same old peter parker, i prefer change in doses and in quantites, if it wasnt for that i would of given up reading spiderman heck i gave up when they broke pete and MJ up, either way i like change and to others who do like change there okay in my book those who dont like change and prefer peter remain solo be moody all the freakin time and be an ass well thats your kicks either way bring on civil war, bring on the iron spidey HECK BRING ON Another clone saga as ill read it because the more arcs we get the more possibilities that open

 

[Cullen]

"Wrongheaded"?

Pray tell, Cullen... who's "wrongheaded" in this thread?

Speak up!

I'm not going to name names, but I did post one other time on this thread. I could easily be referring to myself.

(Not you. Relax.)

 

[WOLVERINE25TH]

Okay, how about when they made Captain America the Captain? Or Iron Man an alcoholic? Or Jim Rhodes Iron Man? Or Reed and Sue left the FF?

Chracter progression is KEY in serialized mediums. That's how th' world works. You don't have that, you get rehashed refried ****.

 

[Herr Logan]

I'm not going to name names, but I did post one other time on this thread. I could easily be referring to myself.

(Not you. Relax.)

Re... lax?

What is this "Relax" of which you speak?

 

[Cullen]

Re... lax?

What is this "Relax" of which you speak?

Well it's...

Uh...

Damned if I know...

 

[deemar325]

I wish Cancer on Joey Q.

It's a bad thing to say, but that's how I really feel.

 

[deemar325]

Joe Q please, just die!

Of cancer.

Slow and painful.

 

[WOLVERINE25TH]

Hey, welcome to th' crap fest, dee. Scroll down a bit to find that thread I mentioned.

 

[deemar325]

Will do.

Also Wolvie I think my heart is broken.

 

[WOLVERINE25TH]

Heart, spirit, soul...join th' club, we've got jackets.

 

[deemar325]

I guess I'm gonna have to buy me one of those jackets.


Jeez! I'm steaming right now, I wish you could see the expression on my face.

 

[dan1]

Basically, as I've said before, Joe Q let success in terms of SALES regarding Marvel Knights, the Ultimate line, and the movies, as well as his restructing the Marvel Universe that he's become obessed with sales gimmicks and crossovers, not unlike Jim Shooter when he was EIC. And as a result, Joe Q is pulling the same stunts Marvel did back in the early 90s that help contribute to them almost becoming bankrupt. Hell, if there is any single proof that Joe Q and Tom Breevot are obessed with this decade, they've commissioned Rob Leifeld (along with Jeph Loeb) to revisit Heroes Reborn and Onslaught for it's tenth anniversary.

And yet we're supposed to believe that Quesada and JMS--the very guys who put Spidey in the current mess he's in--to somehow fix him to go back to the "Stan Lee days?" The same bunch that claimed the Other was going to be Spidey's new status quo, and now they've sort of said "Oops. Guess we spoke too soon on that one." So you can understand why I and most other posters here are a little skeptical.

Exactly Stilla. JoeQ got his merit based on SALES and created new lines that forego the 616 universe continuity.

He's a slam dunker with no outside touch, and everyone assumes because he's worked for Marvel for a good while, that he will start making consistant free-throws. He can't. He can only make the slam dunk that has no outcome on the game as a hole, in fact, he makes a couple of slam dunks and proclaims victory because he got a bunch of people to spend money and come to his flashy game. But his team is a shell of what it was. No teamwork, no creative plays within the system, no pride in the teams history. Just a bunch of "all stars" running around the court, aimlessly looking for their own slam dunk ally oop opportunity from Quesada.

Why anyone is surprised that Joe Quesada went this route with his EIC leadership is really beyond me. It was pretty easy to see, right when he first came on board and said that Peter should have never gotten married and he can't divorce him, because that would be "creepy," but..(and he left that up to our imaginations) and when he had JMS actually rub in our face that the Clone Saga supposedly never happened when Ezekial was the first person so similar to Spidey that he ever "fought side by side with." JoeQ stated that the Clone Saga was mum. But there is a difference from being mum to re-writing like it didn't exist. There is an arrogance to it (foreshadowing).

Who wants to be George Bailey(It's a Wonderful Life) when he didn't exist! No one, that's the nightmare itself. If you want to ask when Marvel "Jumped the shark," it wasn't the Clone Saga, or even the ill conceived re-boot. It was when Marvel started pretending and writing as if the Clone Saga never happened. Then they snowballed that in Pretending a lot of other things never happened.

It's ok to make mistakes, but to pretend you didn't make them is far worse.

Clone Saga, for the 50 billionth time, was too long and became contrived nonsense eventually, BUT, the team always strove to keep the continuity intact. The effort was there.

Joe Quesada serendipitously got the EIC job based on his SALES wins. With his market positioning and the sure-thing Movie coming out, he was given the longest leash in comic book HISTORY.

He did not earn it the 616 Marvel way.

JoeQ's intentions were foretold. MJ will probably be killed off. 616 Spider-Man will probably continue to forsake continuity and eventually Joseph Quesada's Ultimate Universe will become the only Marvel Universe.

That is, if he continues to reign supreme.

 

[Kirsten-Is-Hot!]

Atleast its only going to be a mini but I really don't want them on Spidey any more. Someone else should fix their mess not them, they cannot be trusted.

 

[gildea]

I wish Cancer on Joey Q.

It's a bad thing to say, but that's how I really feel.

You should probably stop reading comics then as evidently it is making you insane.

 

[Dangerous]

I don't wish cancer on the man, but I would'nt mind if he fell off a cliff.

 

[shinlyle]

Well, Pig-****er, if you were REALLY as intelligent as you CLAIM to be, you'd've noticed I acknowledged you said yer an *******, and noticed that last jab was towards th' fact yer clueless to how yer viewed. Which only shows how dumb a **** you really are.

A flashy vocabulary don't make you "intelligent", bunky. Methinks you need to reconsult yer dictionaries and learn what does.

I think you meant to use the contraction "doesn't", right? I mean....seeing as how you're so intelligent and all....

 

[shinlyle]

Erm when did dieing to save a comic book become logical ?

ack forget what i said even tho the powers and suit change its still the same old peter parker, i prefer change in doses and in quantites, if it wasnt for that i would of given up reading spiderman heck i gave up when they broke pete and MJ up, either way i like change and to others who do like change there okay in my book those who dont like change and prefer peter remain solo be moody all the freakin time and be an ass well thats your kicks either way bring on civil war, bring on the iron spidey HECK BRING ON Another clone saga as ill read it because the more arcs we get the more possibilities that open

Ugh....your post....hurts to read it...

Man, please use some punctuation and capitalization. It would make you at least seem less inept.

 

[WOLVERINE25TH]

I talk like I talk, Shin, and I write like I talk. When ya deal with morons ya don't waste th' time on stuff like proper grammar.

Frankly, Joe Q's really got his business sense skewed. By avoidin' all fan commentary an' goin' by sales only he's only gettin' half th' picture. Especially since his recent sales were boosted by umpteen variant covers.