Point well taken, Gregg. I do think we (people in general, not just JBF posters) can be too quick to assume the worst about other people. I think all of us could do a better job of giving others the benefit of the doubt. I put myself in that category, by the way.

And I am sincerely sorry for your loss.

If we start breaking things down on whether or not the people in charge are "doing a good job" then we range off into mind-reading and all sorts of places that automatically invalidate our point. We must assume the people doing the job are "doing their part" or we cannot proceed in any logical fashion.

QUOTE: But that right does not extend to an assumption that what they don't like about it was done deliberately to be something they would not like.

Not trying to go there.  Whether I agree with the results or not, I come in assuming that the creative types are simply trying their best to tell entertaining stories.  I'm sure some stories are told knowing that a segment of the audience will handle it badly (case in point), but the overall purpose is to entertain not anger.  (I also don't intend to imply I could do the job better, though I realize I'm skirting the line a bit.)

At the same time, I think there's a difference between a scene where
a) a character does something I don't like while still seeming like a logical development and
b) a scene where a character does something I don't like (or heck, even something I DO like) and it makes absolutely no sense to me at all. 

I'm not about to get into why the creative team made the choices they did because it doesn't matter.  It still kicks me right out of the story and makes the puppet strings all the more easier to see. 

Heck, back to the Spider-Man reboot - I can believe Peter feeling overwhelming guilt and doing everything he can to save Aunt May.  And, with a little reaching and pretending I hadn't seen Joe Q interviews on the topic of the Spider-marriage, I can even buy a spur of the moment deal with Mephisto.  But what was Mephisto even doing there in the first place?  Why would he care?  How in the world does "forgetting they were married" and "secret id forgotten" magically repair Aunt May's house, bring Harry back to life (which may be a story point later on, to be fair), etc.  That goes beyond "letting the audience see the strings" all the way to "letting the audience see the stagehands decorating."

I'm not about to accuse anyone of maliciousness, but coming across as "benign neglect" can still have a detrimental effect on the stories.

 We must assume the people doing the job are "doing their part" or we cannot proceed in any logical fashion.

As my wife always says, and it applies to many a situation, all over the place, "they're just doing the best they can with what they have to work with". It's kinda like a southern saying I've picked up on lately around here. " Bless their heart."

I have always admiirted Peter Sanderson's encyclopedic knowledge of the Marvel Universe, but I have to take exception to his reading of the Clone Saga.

Peter says:

<<As the Clone Saga evolved, the Spider-Man editors and writers saw it as a means of simplifying Spider-Man continuity and eliminating the marriage. They identified the Peter who married MJ as the clone and shipped them off to Portland, Oregon to live happily ever after; MJ even became pregnant. Ben Reilly was identified as the original Spider-Man and reassumed his Spider-Man identity. Hence, the “Spider-Man” who starred in stories from Amazing Spider-Man #150 into the mid-1990s was an unwitting impostor.

And readers rebelled, quite understandably. The Baby Boomer writers and editors of the Spider-Man books might have been happy since the Spider-Man stories from 1962 into 1975, which they had grown up with, were left intact.

But what if you had started reading Spider-Man in 1976 or later, and Marvel had just told you that you had been reading about a phony Spider-Man? Even if you were a Boomer Spider-Man fan you might be outraged. The Clone Saga was effectively discarding twenty years of Spider-Man comics. Unintentionally, Marvel was telling its audience that they had wasted the last two decades reading about the wrong character!

So Marvel hurriedly sought to undo the damage. Peter and MJ rushed back to New York, Ben was proven to be the the clone and was killed off, and Peter returned to his role as Spider-Man. As for MJ’s pregnancy, she gave birth and was told the baby was stillborn, and the baby was abducted by an operative of the original Green Goblin. Was the baby live or dead? There was no answer, and thus the baby became a continuity time bomb, liable to detonate at some point in the future.

The Clone Saga also failed in its objective of providing a Spider-Man who was unmarried. And so Peter and MJ’s marriage survived for another decade, not alienating readers, as far as I know, until editor in chief Joe Quesada and company devised their solution to the alleged problem in the recent “One More Day” story arc which culminated in Amazing Spider-Man #545, whose writing is credited to J. Michael Straczynski and Joe Quesada.>>

Sorry, but those statments are easy enough to make with 10 year hindshight--and becuase the are made by Peter, might be considered gospel. I am telling youa s someone who was there from day one, it didn;t happen this way. The Clone Saga was not derailed because the "readers rebelled". They were never really given the chance to rebel before editorial got cold feet and decided to start playing around with the story, stretching it out, and backing off from what the writer's intended. As I have mentioned before, I have foudn my original notes for the clone STORY(it was not intended to be a SAGA) and the writers pitched it as a 3 MONTH event. Did we thinkl that reader's might react--yes. But the READERS did not cause the story to fall apart... it was the change in editorial, and their anticipation of what MIGHT happen.

 it was the change in editorial, and their anticipation of what MIGHT happen

Wow, that's amazing. I would assume they'd see how the idea fared, and then make a decision. Thanks for the insight, Howard.

Allan,

You make a very interest point about TV shows and DVDs vis-a-vis comic books and trade editions. But let's explore your analogy: What if virtually EVERY show on television was written like Lost or 24 (i.e. miss the first episode, you're done for the season, good luck jumping on)? I suspect you'd have people drifting away from television viewing because it isn't accessible anymore. (Heck, my beloved, a huge Star Trek fan, gave up on DS9 in the pre-TiVo era because she was never at home to watch, and the story was so interconnected she couldn't follow it after missing shows.)

Also keep in mind: comic books are (at present, for the most part) a destination purchase. You have to seek out the comic book store, and plunk down the coin for the issue. It costs money to sample, and money to commit. New TV shows are pumped free into your house. No risk of funds (or at least, additional funds after your cable bill is paid) to try out the new shows.

I've long thought we need to rethink the distribution methodology for comics. You get television by cable or satellite, you download your music, you stream your news on the internet, it's all coming straight into your house. As much as I like to hold pulp in my hands, if you go to an electronic distribution process you eliminate printing and shipping costs, and those funds that can be redeployed to marketing.

My beautiful new 24-inch iMac is PERFECT for reading electronic comics. The comics on DVD come out at full-size. Online comics, like the one's Grell has posted, look sharp and are easy to read. Soon everybody's going to have a nice screen like that, or a colour Kindle, and this will become a viable distribution option. Partner with Apple, have online comics available for 99 cents, fade in a watermark that doesn't appear on screen but does if you print the material (so you can protect future trade collections) and this is the business model of the future.

Forget about re-booting Spider-Man. We need to re-boot the industry!