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Matt Reed Byrne Robotics Security
Robotmod
Joined: 16 April 2004 Posts: 35952
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Posted: 28 August 2009 at 11:12am | IP Logged | 1
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Don Zomberg wrote:
Peter Parker began as an Everyman that the average reader could relate to. He soon thereafter became what the average reader wanted to be. |
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Peter was always both. When he was well written by authors who understood the character, Peter was both Everyman and someone to aspire to be. Peter himself couldn't wait to don his costume and leave behind the world of bullies and rejection he lived in as a civilian. So Peter was the best kind of wish fulfillment. His everyday life was similar to that of the readers, yet he was able to become something the readers also wanted to be. They, like Peter, wanted to be able to escape, if only for awhile, their normal lives and become something spectacular (pun intended). I know I did.
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Andrew W. Farago Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 19 July 2005 Location: United States Posts: 4079
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Posted: 28 August 2009 at 12:36pm | IP Logged | 2
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Spider-Man really went off the rails when he went from being a regular guy with regular problems who found escape as a superhero to being a superhero with superhero problems who occasionally found time to be a regular guy. The "Brand New Day" era was a big step toward resolving this, but I'd still rather not see Spidey in the Avengers with every single member of the team in on his secret identity.
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Matt Reed Byrne Robotics Security
Robotmod
Joined: 16 April 2004 Posts: 35952
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Posted: 28 August 2009 at 12:43pm | IP Logged | 3
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Totally agree, Andrew. Spider-Man as written by Bendis on the Avengers squad is all sorts of wrong. A Peter Parker who was "cool" in his every day life when he rarely spent time as Peter Parker was boneheaded. People may hate to hear it, but the best ASM issues were pure soap opera...and they were great. They weren't page after page of Spider-Man intermixed with a couple of panels of Peter. His classic supporting cast is every bit as important as him being Spider-Man and yet it's been largely ignored for years.
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Paulo Pereira Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 24 April 2006 Posts: 15539
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Posted: 28 August 2009 at 1:12pm | IP Logged | 4
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I'm currently reading the Lee/Romita (and friends) run. Really digging those issues.
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Jonathan Stover Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 01 June 2004 Posts: 749
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Posted: 28 August 2009 at 2:23pm | IP Logged | 5
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What if Rick Jones Became the Hulk?, What if the Original Marvel Bullpen Became the Fantastic Four?, the two Doctor Strange What Ifs (Had Never Become A Master of the Mystic Arts and Had Become a Disciple of Dormammu), What If Elektra Had Never Died?... Admittedly, there were a lot of bummers, from Jo Duffy's What If Phoenix Hadn't Died? to the two Spider-man joins the Fantastic Four issues to...well, you know the drill. What if World War Two Had Been Fought in Outer Space didn't have an unhappy ending...it was just loopy. Cheers, Jon
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005 Posts: 133340
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Posted: 28 August 2009 at 2:54pm | IP Logged | 6
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What if World War Two Had Been Fought in Outer Space didn't have an unhappy ending...it was just loopy.•• WHAT IF? was a book that lost its way pretty fast. The 4th issue -- featuring the Invaders -- was not even a "what if?" at all! And by the time we go to stuff like Rick Jones becoming the Hulk, or Jane Foster becoming Thor ---- well, things had strayed pretty far from their roots in the Marvel Universe. In a way, WHAT IF? contributed to the processes of "deuniquing" characters sneaking over from DC. Issue 3 was probably the best of the whole run, but it was really depended on Iron Man ceasing to be unique (and then ceasing to be! Another problem!). When other characters started getting the powers we were really in trouble. ANYBODY could be the Hulk. ANYBODY could be Spider-Man. ANYBODY could be the FF. Etc.
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Jonathan Stover Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 01 June 2004 Posts: 749
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Posted: 28 August 2009 at 3:43pm | IP Logged | 7
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That early Spider-man is Betty Brant, Flash Thompson et al. at least had the coda in which it was revealed that Peter Parker was really meant to be Spider-man after all, something most of those other issues lacked. The most laughable late What if? (series 2, I think, but I'm not really sure) was the one in which Tony Stark becomes Master of the Mystic Arts, complete with computerized spell-casting. I'd add that the knee-jerk tragedy and downbeat endings also seemed to seep into regular comics (as noted above by someone else, What if became Now Then). The worst large-scale examples of super-depressing endings were the What if Phoenix Lived? (She destroys the universe) and What if Korvac/Michael had lived? (He destroys the universe). Because 12-year-old readers love crushingly depressing endings! Cheers, Jon
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Martin Redmond Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 27 June 2006 Posts: 3882
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Posted: 28 August 2009 at 3:59pm | IP Logged | 8
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I thought they were hilarious. Actually, most What If stories just lost my interest because they went too off path. So that they rarely felt like true alternatives that might've been used in their respective books.
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Arc Carlton Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 13 April 2009 Location: Peru Posts: 3493
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Posted: 28 August 2009 at 4:40pm | IP Logged | 9
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I've only read a few What If issues. Haven't read the first ones, though.
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