It's a good analogy that Peter is the kid who gets picked on in school for being a brain, while Spider-Man is admired by the kids for being "cool." Spider-Man *should* be an escape for Peter, from a life that's overall not too great-- and it's clear that Bendis doesn't get that either, as being Spider-Man is more of an aggravation than being Peter. Not to mention that Peter's been a real @$$hole at school over the past year.

POST 1600 -- woohoo!

Jason Schulman wrote: Then again, Batman did take a dip in the Lazarus Pit in a story written by Denny O'Neil in the 1990s, as I recall, so if one really needs an explanation for Bruce's continued vitality, there 'tis.

So what’s Bart Simpson’s secret? 

The Peanuts gang has been seven years old forever, the Riverdale gang has been 16 years old forever.  Superman should be 29 years old forever, and Spiderman should remain a teenager.  Forever.

You, as a 28 year-old lawyer, found ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN too slow a read, yet insist that if kids want to read about the character of Spider-Man closer to their age, they can read ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN.  Idiotic.

Jason Schulman wrote: As for Spider-Man's current status quo, which I agree is generally pretty bad, I will say this -- making Spider-Man an Avenger gives the now 29-30ish Peter Parker a reason to continue putting on the costume, at least.

Worst.  Decision.  Ever.  Among a host of horrible decisions, this one is close to or at the top.  Spider-Man is Marvel's quintessential loner.  He's not a part of a group.  He doesn't play well with others.  Hell, he's a superhero who, for the most part, was an outcast among other heroes in the MU.  Put him in Avengers, have him sit around the "Tower" and a table full of Marvel's most powerful superheroes, and he's an accepted member of a group.  Not only that, but the one thing he's always coveted among all other things is his secret identity.  Since his inception, he's steadfastly fought to keep his identity a secret from everyone for fear that those closest to him might come to harm should Peter Parker be discovered.  Remember the horror he felt when DD spent time with Spider-Man and then Peter and discovered their heartbeats were the same?  Flash-forward to now, where we have Spider-Man unmasked during a prison break of over a hundred villains during the first issue of NEW AVENGERS...and he does nothing to cover himself up.  That self-same Spider-Man sits around the meeting table in Avengers Tower without a mask as every hero in the room calls him "Peter", not to mention having moved his Aunt and wife into the tower with him.  That's so far afield from who the character of Spider-Man is, it's mind numbing.  And before Rob "Devil's Advocate" Hewitt chimes in, I couldn't give two shits if it's "rumored" to be a short stay in the tower or not.  The simple fact that he's a current member in good standing on the most prominent team in the MU, has exposed his identity to everyone on the team (pretty much everyone that enters the tower, member or no), and has taken his family with him to the ONE place where there is sure to be dangerous, deadly supervillan attacks, is a clear indication to me of how far the character, and those telling his stories, has fallen.

Talk of superhero gloom reminds me of an exchange from a recent issue of PLASTIC MAN. For a series that's actually produced by DC, it's probably had the funniest spoofing of the company's current direction I've seen, as in this sequence where Plas and pal Woozy Winks react to the seeming death of a friend:

Plastic Man: I must go weep. Like a hero.

Woozy Winks: Boy, is he sad. That’s what it would really be like to be a superhero. Sad.

=D

Eric Kleefeld wrote: I don't see too much of a contradiction there, Matt. On the one hand, Ultimate Spider-Man is too slow. On the other hand, it's the closest to the original vision of Spider-Man of any Spider-Man book out there right now. These are not mutually exclusive, and I think "idiotic" is too strong a word to use to describe Rob's perspective on this one.

That's just silly, Eric.  "Closest to the original version" really doesn't mean a thing when the stories are too slow for a 28 year old to stick with the series on a monthly basis, yet that self-same 28 year old would point to it in answer to those who are looking for the character as he was decades ago. Also, a story in trade doesn't pick up the pace, and you know that.  22 pages in the first issue of USM is still the first 22 pages of a USM TPB.   Sorry you can't see the contradiction, bud, but it's clear as day to me.

Why do writers 'write for the trade'? If they want to release 240-page graphic novels, why don't they go do that and leave the monthly episodic fiction to people who write monthly episodic fiction? All this 'decompressed' stuff is garbage. Even the word suggests that its compressed to begin with, which is plain false.

Or are we too PC to use the proper terms: slow, drawn-out, padded?

Am I missing something here? Or am I just not part of "today's comics fans"?

So all those stories starring Spider-Man that I read where Peter's life is in the toilet and everything he's doing/involved with in his civilian identity couldn't be going worse, so he puts on his costume to "get some air" (code phrase alert: that means "escape", it means "life is cooler when I'm Spider-Man".  In short, it means "Wahoo, I have powers great.") were all contained in the first half of AMAZING FANTASY 15? Huh...

Yeah, I'd have to call bullshit on that one.