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Topic: 50 years of SPIDER-MAN! (Topic Closed Topic Closed) Post ReplyPost New Topic
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Greg Kirkman
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Posted: 09 August 2012 at 10:23pm | IP Logged | 1  

That isn't really a Spider-Man comic is it?  Just a Peter Parker look-a-like right?

+++++++++

Yes and no, in that order.

Spider-Man tells the abuse story of a young boy (seen on the above-posted page), which helps another young boy deal with his own abuse. Spider-Man realizes that telling the story has helped him deal with his own abuse (as he was indeed the boy in the story).

 

But, hey! Nice cover!

 



Edited by Greg Kirkman on 09 August 2012 at 10:29pm
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Greg Kirkman
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Posted: 09 August 2012 at 10:28pm | IP Logged | 2  

I use a version of my SUPERMAN IV analogy for the clone saga. It's
terrible but it's still a superhero comic book. There was a period in the
past ten years when Marvel stopped publishing superhero comic
books.

++++++++

Can't disagree with that.

The Clone Saga did, in fact, have some interesting stories and ideas. Compared to recent developments, it's akin to the Lee/Ditko run.

The bar does just get lower and lower, doesn't it? Did anyone ever think that the Spider-Man mythos could reach a point lower than the one which the Clone Saga took it to?

 
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Greg Kirkman
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Posted: 09 August 2012 at 10:33pm | IP Logged | 3  

I did the cover for that particular book, and only later did I find out it was Peter who was the victim. I thought it was unnecessarily sensationalistic. Peter has enough crap in his life --- Uncle's death was his fault, remember? He doesn't need more, even in a good cause.

++++++++

Hey, at least it isn't canon, right? If it is, then SPIDEY SUPER STORIES must be, too! Complete with stuff like Thanos' helicopter with his name on it!
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Greg Kirkman
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Posted: 09 August 2012 at 10:50pm | IP Logged | 4  

On the subject of worst Spider-Man comics of all time, the Gwen Stacy/Norman Osborn affair storyline was the first time I'd stopped reading Amazing Spider-Man since I'd started collecting twenty-something years earlier. 
++++++++++++++++

Don't forget (or, please DO) Spider-Man kissing Gwen and Osborn's pre-teen, unnaturally-aged, lookalike daughter.

 

The sheer awfulness and contempt for decency of those stories aside, the thing that proved to me beyond all shadow of a doubt that the inmates were running the asylum was this:

After the fan s***storm unleashed by SINS PAST, a popular fansite writer wrote the following articles...

http://www.spideykicksbutt.com/GreenwithEvil/DeFloweringGwen .html

http://www.spideykicksbutt.com/GreenwithEvil/CultofGwen.html

 

...in which he posited that the...incident...took place when Gwen went to thank Osborn off-panel for saving her and her father's life at the end of ASM # 61.

 

Marvel took this idea, and inserted it into various post-2004 editions of the OFFICIAL HANDBOOK, as seen here, in this wiki which reuses the text from the published OHOTMU comics:

http://marvel.com/universe/Gwen_Stacy

 

That's right. Marvel took a fan theory and made it canonical so as to justify that story.

 

My nutty essay went to great lengths to show that SINS PAST doesn't work purely in terms of anal-retentive continuity and chronology. But, the bottom line is that it doesn't work, period.

It is a perfect example of the "archaeology" effect seen in modern comics, where writers dig up old stories for the shock value of twisting them around, or telling us that everything we know is wrong. And Gwen Stacy has been trotted out again and again over the years, for good and ill. Did Marvel really think this was a good idea?

Well, I suppose it was, since it got me to quit! Thankfully, I didn't have to (directly) suffer through THE OTHER, CIVIL WAR, etc.

++++++++++++++++


Runner-up is probably Maximum Carnage, a 14-part crossover series that marked the first time that I realized that just because a story is published by Marvel, it doesn't mean that the story had to be told.  It could have been a fun four-parter running through a single title, but it took forever for anything to happen, and the payoff wasn't remotely proportional to the page count.
+++++++++++++

That story was certainly the first big clue that marketing was running the Spider-books, by that point.

That's how the Clone Saga went from a six-month story designed to install Ben Reilly as the new, single Spider-Man, to a three-year story that meandered endlessly.



Edited by Greg Kirkman on 09 August 2012 at 10:54pm
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Michael Todd
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Posted: 09 August 2012 at 11:04pm | IP Logged | 5  


 QUOTE:
stuff like Thanos' helicopter with his name on it!

HA HA HA!
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Philip Obaza
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Posted: 10 August 2012 at 12:48am | IP Logged | 6  
I mentioned above my appreciation for Sal Buscema's work. However, one thing that always bothered me about his Spider-Man work was when his style changed.

I recall one ignorant "fan" complaining in the letters page of what I remember being Spectacular Spider-Man #216. He felt that Sal's style *had* to change simply because it hadn't changed since he first began drawing the book (which is both inaccurate and wrong).

A few issues later, Bill Sienkiewicz began doing the finishes (starting with Spectacular Spider-Man #220). Suddenly, the artwork became too dark and sketchy. I'm not sure why Sal needed Sienkiewicz (or if he did at all).

As a result, we went from this:


To this:


Definitely a drop-off there.


Edited by Philip Obaza on 10 August 2012 at 12:52am
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Larry Morris
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Posted: 10 August 2012 at 9:43am | IP Logged | 7  

 QUOTE:
I find it interesting that Mephisto was considered as the "out" for the Clone Saga (involving a time loop that allowed for Peter AND Ben to both be the genuine article), but that idea was nixed because he was deemed inappropriate as a Spider-villain.

I never knew that.  Was that in LIFE OF REILLY?  It's been several years since I read it, but don't recall seeing it there.

I still maintain, though, that Peter did not do what Pym did.  He is so caught up in his anger at Ben that he doesn't even realize what he's doing.  The second he realizes it he's horrified. 

And this is not an endorsement of the scene.  No way it should have seen print, IMO.  I just don't see it as him striking his wife the way Hank Pym did.  But it's far closer to it than Peter Parker should ever go.

The Clone Saga can't work, or wasn't going to work, because you were asking readers to accept that for 20 years the guy they've been reading about wasn't the real Peter Parker.  That  was never going to fly.  Even though I think the most likeable character in that arc was Ben Reilly.  He routinely put Peter and MJ's needs before his own.  Even after it had been proven(at the time, anyway) that he was the real Peter.
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Andrew W. Farago
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Posted: 10 August 2012 at 12:14pm | IP Logged | 8  
It's probably best to just ignore those Gwen stories and pretend they never happened.  It wouldn't be too difficult in the Marvel Universe to explain the twins away with Skrulls, clones, fake diaries, implanted memories or some combination of all of that, but leaving that whole storyline dead and buried is the next best thing.  Keep it on a shelf next to The Other, Harry Osborn and the Chameleon building perfect robot duplicates of Peter Parker's parents, Peter smacking his pregnant not-wife Mary Jane, unmasking, making a deal with Mephisto, and any other stories that really shouldn't or couldn't have happened. 

Spider-Man's been around 50 years, usually appearing in two to four titles a month plus guest appearances, and that's a lot of stories for a character who's fictional timeline spans about a decade.  It's easy enough to say that some stories didn't really "count," given the impossibility of fitting them all into a working timeline where a clone could have replaced him for five years and he was in a not-really-married-to-Mary Jane relationship for about five years, too.
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Greg Kirkman
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Posted: 10 August 2012 at 12:19pm | IP Logged | 9  

Remember when you didn't have to ignore large chunks of Spider-Man's history in order to enjoy the character?

Remember a time when even bad stories didn't need to be ignored, because they weren't a big deal, and didn't completely warp the characters and the mythos?
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Andrew W. Farago
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Posted: 10 August 2012 at 3:51pm | IP Logged | 10  
Every character who's been around since the 1960s has some stories that are absolute clunkers, or that shouldn't have been approved by editors (or submitted by writers), and I'm fine with never re-reading the worst stuff and current writers/editors never referencing it again. 

Almost every major Marvel character has at least one run that was so phenomenally awful and/or out of character that it should be just swept under the rug.  DC sidesteps this by nuking continuity and starting over every now and again, but I think selective memory is the best way for Marvel readers to handle the worst stuff.  If every Batman story from the past 75 years still had to count, I think we'd have to ignore large swaths of his history, too.
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Michael Roberts
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Posted: 10 August 2012 at 4:11pm | IP Logged | 11  
It's probably best to just ignore those Gwen stories and pretend they
never happened.  It wouldn't be too difficult in the Marvel Universe to
explain the twins away with Skrulls, clones, fake diaries, implanted
memories or some combination of all of that, but leaving that whole
storyline dead and buried is the next best thing.

-----
Marvel doesn't really seem interested in ignoring the story. JMS wanted
to retcon it away when he undid the marriage, and he wasn't allowed.
There was an opportunity to just no longer reference it post-Brand New
Day, but they've brought back Gabriel Stacy. Someone at Marvel
enjoys Norman Osborn cuckolding Peter Parker.
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Andrew W. Farago
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Posted: 10 August 2012 at 4:25pm | IP Logged | 12  
I hadn't read the American Son mini-series, and didn't realize they'd kept that character around.  I guess it's trying to make lemons into lemonade (or manure into fertilizer).  We're probably heading into some kind of re-start when Amazing Spider-Man #700 rolls around anyway, so that's another chance to sweep him under the rug.

My prediction for ASM #700's milestone event is the return of Gwen Stacy.  Her profile's been raised thanks to the new movie, only Uncle Ben seems to be completely off-limits, and since magic and other wackiness has already reared its head in Spidey's personal life, why not go the extra mile and do a major reset? 
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