Brian K. Vaughan (Lost writer, 2007–2009; cocreator of Runaways and the Hood): If you’re an awkward nerd, it’s a slam dunk to read about Peter Parker, who is an awkward nerd with money problems and girl problems, but gets to live this other life as a wisecracking hero.

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Doesn't seem right to me. Peter Parker wasn't an "awkward nerd" -- he was a brilliant teenager far more into science than socializing with his peers. True he wasn't a star athlete and the BMOC type, but he wasn't shy and retiring and geeky; instead he was rather haughty and stand-offish. How he became Spider-Man actually cut him down a notch or twelve. True he had money trouble, but his only girl trouble was having to beat them off with a stick. No wonder Flash disliked him so!

Well, I admit that by one dictionary definition Peter fits the bill of a nerd. The other denotation, though, namely: "a foolish, inept, or unattractive person," that just isn't him. I don't think Lee-Ditko meant him to be taken as such, even from the outset. But I could be completely wrong.

His glasses were key, for sure.

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The Thing went from an early established maximum lifting power of 5 tons to the 100 Ton Class. And while he picked up more "dese and dose" along the way -- and a lot fewer uses of "Bah!" -- I don't think he qualifies as an "everyman".

Arguably, as a college football hero, fighter pilot ace and test pilot, he was out of that camp before we ever met him!

If the Marvel properties are so tacky, why did Joe Quesada abandon his own properties so fast? There's alot of bullshiters in comics who just need to come out of the closet and admit they're flamboyant merrily marching society super hero lovers.

QUOTE: I feel like I'm the only one here that has never read Maxim.

I have the first issue. :} I wonder if it's worth anything....

QUOTE: I think a lot of writers use this as an excuse to treat the Marvel characters with a lot more disrespect than DC characters.

Well I disagree,  DC books are unreadable to me. Marvel still is at least okay or good.

Steve De Young wrote: The other thing I like about Dark Reign (if this turns out to be the case as their hinting at) will be if they follow through and have a returned Steve Rogers, Thor, and Iron Man team up to get rid Osborne and set the Marvel U straight again.  (Thereby implying that it was their absence at the core of the MU that made things go awry in the first place.)

Fill me in.  I get Cap and Thor being gone, but when was Tony Stark absent?  Wasn't he the one that spearheaded one faction of heroes to get the dissenters to register?  Wasn't he, in fact, a huge part of the problem and why the MU, as written, has gone awry?  I haven't read any Avengers book in years because, well, they were just boring, starred characters that were unrecognizable to me, featured Spider-Man and Wolverine as star players on the roster, and every story took at least six issues to tell often spread out over several titles.  Too much work for a book that I used to really enjoy but now find extremely tiresome.

This thread and that article serve as a remind to myself of how I wait for the eventual day when Joe Quesada is no longer EIC. Thou i'm aware that the next person maybe just as bad if not worse. I hold onto hope that the next EIC can do something to make Marvel comics more like the Marvel I use to love.


At this point I think it's so bad that to fix things no storyline is even needed or could fix things. Marvel just needs to say our books have been shit so we are just starting back at a point where each title was still true to the core of what it was suppose to be. Continuity be damn. WE are going to do fun stories good stories that down play down to the lowest common dominator.Nor are we going take it to the Ultima of realism either. Comics for everyone.
The Comics code may have been a blight on the industry however from the 90's to present day thats exactly what Marvel needed. Someone to regulate alot of the crap they've been doing.

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That's a mantra I've been hearing since the departure of Jim Shooter. Seems to me like the spiral has only been downwards. And as long as the bean counters are the ones who are really in charge -- which began in Shooter's day and has only grown more with every passing year -- I cannot see that course ever reversing itself.