| Author |
|
Brad Danson
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 02 May 2007
Posts: 1440
|
| Posted: 15 January 2008 at 10:33am | IP Logged | 1
|
|
|
For what it's worth, Quesada did say in a recent interview that they only
revealed his identity because they had planned to undo it as part of
Mephisto storyline.
••
And George Lucas had STAR WARS all worked out from the beginning.
So you think he just decided that he wanted Peter to revert to his 1970's status quo in the past year? Quesada has been bad mouthing the marriage (and therefore the status quo) for about two years.
|
| Back to Top |
profile
| search
|
| |
Glenn Greenberg
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 16 April 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 6746
|
| Posted: 15 January 2008 at 10:33am | IP Logged | 2
|
|
|
<<<That changed when he dropped out of school (I think this happened
during Bill Mantlo's long run on Spectacular, which would be a rare misstep
for Mr. Mantlo, who is one of the best Spider-scribes ever, in my opinion.)
When Peter dropped out of grad school, he became an adult in my eyes -
and a no-so-successful one at that. I really think that did more to age him
than the marriage.>>>
That happened under Roger Stern, actually, on AMAZING.
|
| Back to Top |
profile
| search
|
| |
Brad Danson
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 02 May 2007
Posts: 1440
|
| Posted: 15 January 2008 at 10:36am | IP Logged | 3
|
|
|
Bill Mantlo's long run on Spectacular, which would be a rare misstep
for Mr. Mantlo
I'm hoping JB is going to expand on that comment. JB, didn't Mantlo have some crazy idea about Spidey and the Black Cat having a child together? (I don't remember what you said the idea was...but I remember it was crazy.)
|
| Back to Top |
profile
| search
|
| |
Michael Heide
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 26 July 2007
Location: Germany
Posts: 398
|
| Posted: 15 January 2008 at 10:36am | IP Logged | 4
|
|
|
Well, I can explain the clone thing. You see, in "Avengers: The Initiative", we have three characters called "Scarlet Spiders" (why does that sound familiar?) wearing copies of the Spider-Man armor Tony Stark created. That armor had camouflage abilities.
Those Scarlet Spiders are clones of a dead former member of the team, a character called "MVP" who had no relation to Peter at all.
In #7, Peter meets the Scarlet Spiders. In front of a news camera, the three of them use their camouflage abilities to look like Peter Parker in his civilian clothes. They say that Peter was a fourth "Scarlet Spider", but never the real Spider-Man. They say that Peter only outed himself as Spidey to do the real Spider-Man a favor, like in Amazing Spider-Man #12.
This story doesn't undo the unmasking, but it created doubt.
And from what I've heard, One More Day was planned before Civil War came along. Knowing that they will have Mephisto tinker with the status quo anyway, they were free to out Peter as Spider-Man and shoot Aunt May in the first place.
So yeah, they were thinking that far in advance. But saying that Tony Stark was the devil in the storyline is stretching it a bit, I'd say.
|
| Back to Top |
profile
| search
|
| |
Ian Carroll
Byrne Robotics Member
King Of Pain
Joined: 01 May 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 526
|
| Posted: 15 January 2008 at 10:37am | IP Logged | 5
|
|
|
JB: Now that I think about it, wasn't Parker still a college freshman -- and
therefore still a teenager -- when Stan hit the 100 issue mark and moved
on?
**********
I did a little research on your question, and with thanks to Spider-fan
Adam Chapman (his essay on the aging of Peter Parker can be found
here), it appears that Spider-Man referred to himself
as "Peter Parker, boy sophomore" in Amazing Spider-Man #70, March
1969.
Stan's final issue as regular scripter was #109, June 1972 (although his
continuous tenure on the title stopped with #100).
Your question was of interest to me because I believe Peter Parker's
college career provides a helpful organizational scheme for following
Spider-Man's adventures. Here's how I do it:
1. Peter Parker, the pre-college years: All character appearances
occurring from Amazing Fantasy #15 through Amazing Spider-Man #30.
Short but essential!
2. Peter Parker, the undergraduate years: Amazing Spider-Man #31-
Amazing Spider-Man #185 (first story).
3. Peter Parker, graduate to married man: Amazing Spider-Man #185
(second story) to Amazing Spider-Man Annual #21, 1987.
4. All post-marriage tales through One More Day (1987-2007). (This
lengthy "era" could admittedly be broken into two parts using the Clone
Saga as an end point for the first part.)
My personal favorite Spider-Man stories from my childhood and early
teen years happen to roughly correspond with Peter's "college graduate to
married man" (or as my longboxes have it, G2MM) period. The college
graduation (nearly) occurred in Amazing Spider-Man #185 (Oct. 1978)
and of course the wedding to MJ happened in the 1987 annual. Using the
Marvel Universe Chronology Project as a guide, I have collected all of
Spider-Man's appearances during this part of his career.
A lot of great stories occurred during this period, including the
introduction of the Black Cat, the Owl-Octopus War, the Hobgoblin
mystery, the saga of the alien costume, the death of Jean DeWolff, etc.
There are complete runs by Denny O'Neil, Roger Stern, Tom DeFalco, and
Peter David, with art by Keith Pollard, John Romita, Jr., Al Milgrom, and
Ron Frenz. Plus some fun Marvel Team Up stories and many guest
appearances and cameos in other titles. There is the dud issue now and
then, but at least the overall integrity of the Peter Parker character is
maintained throughout -- the Spider-Man of 1978-1987 is still the guy
Stan Lee wrote.
With the wedding and the coming of McFarlane, a new era began, one
which arguably lasted until One More Day. I'm biased, but I think the
near-decade's worth of stories from late 1978 through 1987 are a lot
more fun to read (apologies to Glenn, Howard, and our host!) than the
last twenty years of Spider-Man!
Edited by Ian Carroll on 15 January 2008 at 10:40am
|
| Back to Top |
profile
| search
|
| |
John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
Posts: 134687
|
| Posted: 15 January 2008 at 10:37am | IP Logged | 6
|
|
|
So you think he just decided that he wanted Peter to revert to his 1970's
status quo in the past year? Quesada has been bad mouthing the
marriage (and therefore the status quo) for about two years.
••
Everything I have seen coming out of ^^***** for the past five or six years
carries all the earmarks of thrashing around. If there is any whiff of
a long-term plan, I cannot see it.
And -- to flip that -- if the Mephisto "fix" was part of a long term
plan, then this is the worst kind of lazy, careless writing I have ever seen!
"Go ahead and do whatever you like. In two years, we're gonna erase
everything."
(JMS's complaints seem odd in the context of a long-term plan. Was it a
SECRET long-term plan? Secret even from the writers on the books?)
|
| Back to Top |
profile
| search
|
| |
Glenn Greenberg
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 16 April 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 6746
|
| Posted: 15 January 2008 at 10:39am | IP Logged | 7
|
|
|
<<<Since then, he never seems to leave school so much as writers forget
that he was going so they don't have him attending classes anymore.>>>
EXACTLY!!!!!!
We put him (and Mary Jane!) back in school after the Clone Saga, and within
two or three issues, no mention was ever made of that fact again.
|
| Back to Top |
profile
| search
|
| |
Michael Heide
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 26 July 2007
Location: Germany
Posts: 398
|
| Posted: 15 January 2008 at 10:39am | IP Logged | 8
|
|
|
You guys type fast.
|
| Back to Top |
profile
| search
|
| |
Todd Douglas
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 14 July 2004
Posts: 4101
|
| Posted: 15 January 2008 at 10:40am | IP Logged | 9
|
|
|
QUOTE:
| Anthing Quesada says in interviews is always dubious. He has waffled on several things over the years. So much so, in fact, that I am surprized the man isn't a politician. |
|
|
Normally, I'd agree. But, a few pages back, when I went looking for what I recalled as him saying the unmasking was around for the long haul, he parsed his words very carefully, even the week of the unmasking and the following week.
That same week of the reveal, he was talking about the Spider-Man "mini-series" he was doing with JMS, with the comment, "I can't wait until this same time next year, I bet Peter will be virtually unrecognizable from the character that he used to be!"
http://www.newsarama.com/NewJoeFridays/NewJoeFridays02.html
The following week, we got:
QUOTE:
| NRAMA: Yeah, but at least some of that came from reports of Kevin Smith in a radio interview saying that there have been plans in place to undo Spider-Man's unmasking "in a few months" and the plans were in place before the issue came out?comment?
JQ: Well, I didn't hear what Kevin said, so I have no idea if that's true or not, I've only heard of it filtered through someone reporting what someone had posted on some messageboard. Remember, just two weeks ago on this very site, I mentioned Warren Ellis' name and suddenly it was all over the net that he was writing Thor and that I had said as much. But, more to the point, if Kevin had said that, I have no idea how he would know, I haven't spoken to him about it. I can also tell you that come 2007, Spidey will still be public and unmasked. |
|
|
http://www.newsarama.com/NewJoeFridays/NewJoeFridays03.html
So, yeah...in this case, it looks like the Mephisto junk was planned pretty far in advance.
|
| Back to Top |
profile
| search
|
| |
Brad Danson
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 02 May 2007
Posts: 1440
|
| Posted: 15 January 2008 at 10:48am | IP Logged | 10
|
|
|
"Go ahead and do whatever you like. In two years, we're gonna erase everything."
I read a lot of Quesada's interviews and he had been bad-mouthing the marriage for about a year when the identity reveal came about. He had been talking about getting Spidey back to being single and how badly that aged him and affected the status quo. When the identity reveal came about, I knew we were in store for a reboot. It didn't fit in with ANYTHING Quesada had been saying about the status quo.
My personal philosophy is that Quesada looked at the past to see how he could get away with the reboot. His answer was the return of Aunt May; a horribly cliched story that everybody bitched about...but the fans got over it because Marvel never waffled on it. We all just accepted that Aunt May was alive and moved on. So that's my philosophy; Quesada didn't care WHAT the story was, as long as it reset the status quo.
And please, everyone, don't think I remotely agree with the guy except for one thing: There was no good way to do a reboot.
|
| Back to Top |
profile
| search
|
| |
Gregg Halecki
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 03 June 2005
Posts: 759
|
| Posted: 15 January 2008 at 10:52am | IP Logged | 11
|
|
|
So JB based on that what is the point of having any Super Hero not be a teenager or even younger?
And despite the fact that you claim the number one complaint from kids was about Superman being too old, having him be that old still allowed him to be one of the most popular and successful charachters in the history of mankind. And when was the last time you were at a con talking to kids? I am not trying to claim what you are saying is untrue, but it has about the same relevance as picking random persons out off the street and asking them who they are going to vote for and why.
We all saw how Superboy, Power Pack, Speedball and other young charachters just burned their way off the shelves to record sales, while "old fogies" like Superman and Batman have been barely keeping a measily two, three, seven title at times selling every month.
There is more to a charachters success than saying young means more kids and old means less kids.
|
| Back to Top |
profile
| search
|
| |
Matt Hawes
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 16 April 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 16614
|
| Posted: 15 January 2008 at 10:52am | IP Logged | 12
|
|
|
Todd wrote:
| ...So, yeah...in this case, it looks like the Mephisto junk was planned pretty far in advance... |
|
|
Well, everything was not hammered out until after "Civil War," it seems, or (as JB notes above) JMS's complaints with the story as published seem out of place.
|
| Back to Top |
profile
| search
| www
|
| |
|
|
Topic Closed)
