Yeah I don't read comic books, but I bet this won't last long before they do the whole mental battle for control thing, Peter will win, and BAM, Peter Parker will be Spider-Man again. Either that or they'll contrive some other way to bring Peter back.
Thats why i dont get why the fans are being pissy. If it sucks they can retcon it and if it doesnt they can run with it.
Oh, also...
EDIT: You know what? I bet this is simply a case of "They changed it now it sucks. [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheyChangedItNowItSucks]"
Mr. Chipman, if you're reading this, I'd like you to know that I look forward to Tuesday every day of the week. I always learn something; and this video was calm and reasoned, so thank you for that.
If that's what you want to take away from this then be my guest although I don't think that's what Bob was saying at all. I think he was saying that the fan's are over reacting now and every time they say something, Spider-Man in this case, is "ruined forevar."
People are getting upset about this? This doesn't seem like a big deal, just another new plot twist in a comic book. I wonder how many people would get angry on the Internet because I said today is Tuesday, as it seems everyone hates everything...
Full disclosure, I haven't read the issue yet, but it's because I have no interest in reading this new direction. I do read comics and was actually hoping to use the whole Superior Spider-Man relaunch to finally start reading a Spidey ongoing, but I have no interest now that I know what direction they're going in.
Anyway, on to my commentary.
Man, I was very disappointed with this episode, it felt condescending and amounted to nothing more than several minutes of Bob telling us all that it's only going to be temporary so we should all calm down. No one who actually reads comics thinks this is going to be permanent or game changing, that's not why people are upset. Many fans are upset because they don't like the story and don't see it as a fitting or necessary "end" to Peter Parker's story, that serves as little more than the latest in a string of series of pathetic industry-wide publicity stunts.
Spoilers because this portion of my comment is kind of rant-y and very much written from the perspective of a fan of the character.
This was not a fitting ending for the character as far as I'm concerned, and to see why you need look no further than the recent death of Peter Parker over in Marvel's Ultimate comics. The way Ultimate Peter Parker went out was pure Spider-Man; alone, forsaken and abandoned by all the other superheroes, fighting and winning against his greatest enemies to protect his loved ones even at the cost of his own life. It was dignified, tragic, emotional, and effective. It was a pitch perfect sendoff to the character.
By contrast, here Spider-Man goes out with a whimper, having been outwitted and defeated by the guy who's really only his arch-nemesis when the Green Goblin is unavailable, and dies basically hoping that the guilt trip he downloaded into Ock's head will somehow make a stone cold murderer, a man who months previously tried to kill almost the entire population of the planet in order to be remembered as history's greatest monster, into someone who won't use his stolen body to destroy everything that Peter Parker cares about. Bull. Shit. Peter Parker wouldn't accept that, he wouldn't let that happened, that's like his whole deal, that when the universe shafts him yet again Peter Parker turns around and says "No, fuck YOU!" and keeps fighting because people depend on him. I simply cannot buy that the same Peter Parker from that classic scene in the flooding tunnel where he almost gives up but then pushes himself to the breaking point to save Aunt May, would allow Doc Ock to walk away with the potential that he would hurt Spidey's friends and family. I simply cannot buy it.
But even beyond my complaints as a fan and dude who loves Spider-Man, I still think this is a bad, bad decision, for a few reasons.
First of all, it makes very little sense from a business perspective. This status quo is exactly the sort of bizarre and silly shit that keeps people from reading comics. I honestly don't think it's an accessible status quo and I doubt people with a vague interest in Spidey will be clamoring to pick up a Spider-Man book where Spidey isn't actually Peter Parker, he's Doc Ock riding around in a Peter Parker meat puppet, but it's okay because Ock, despite having been a remorseless villain for the past 50 years, something even casual fans of the cartoons know, is totally a good guy now. Plus they're almost certainly going to have to change this back in time for the next Spider-Man movie, so the story is ultimately not going to go anywhere, even by comic book standards.
Additionally, it makes almost no sense from a story perspective either in my opinion. This kind of body swapping shenanigans probably could have worked back in the 70's or so when Spidey was hated and distrusted by everyone, including his fellow superheroes, but it simply doesn't make much sense today. Spidey's on multiple teams at this point, and his change in behavior has been pretty obvious. So we're left in a situation where Spider-Man's friends and allies are either so staggeringly stupid that they don't realize what's going one, which is especially ridiculous in a world where body swapping, clones, and mindcontrol are pretty much a regular Tuesday, or, much worse, they're somehow just okay with a murderer masquerading as their friend, an idea that is disgusting and disrespectful on a moral level.
Finally, and I'm genuinely surprised and disappointed that Bob, and most of the people here didn't bring up the big and unpleasant issue. The one that got people fired up:
KoDOmega said:
... whoa.
The actual big bad issue, Bob.
You missed it.
If most people are getting their panties in a twist over Spidey dying, that's fine.
The thing they should ACTUALLY be mad about?
ANYONE, INCLUDING AFOREMENTIONED REDHEADED CIPHER, HAVING A SEXUAL RELATIONSHIP WITH SPIDER-MAN.
Basically, Doc HAS to either tell his sexual partners he's actually a reformed supervillain in a superhero's body or else ANYTHING they do could be considered <a href=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_by_fraud>rape by fraud, a very serious, very real crime that he could very easily perpetrate if he's not careful. Heck, by some definition, ANYTHING he does, regardless of what he tells people, could be considered rape... OF PETER PARKER.
Again, I AGREE with you on the fact that this story has a lot of potential for good, twist-on-the-mythos storytelling. But Doc better keep the pistol in his holster or else Spidey comics are going to get VERY uncomfortable VERY quickly.
The whole rape thing. Seriously, it is massively creepy and wrong, and the reaction from Marvel editor Stephen Wacker to the controvesy has been especially disappointing. Wacker essentially said that it wasn't an issue and that people who were offended where looking to be offended, which, no they weren't Stephen, you're just a tone deaf idiot who let rape implications get into your flagship character's book. This isn't even the first time something like this has come up, the Chameleon story that Bob praised in the video featured Chameleon masquerading as Peter and having sex with one of his love interests, before Marvel hastily backtracked and claimed that the two had merely made out after people called them on treating rape by fraud as a joke in their comic. This is a huge deal that speaks volumes about the way that women and the subject of rape are treated in comics.
I mean, for the record I don't think that Marvel and Dan Slott are actually going to go ahead with an MJ/Spider-Ock romance, but even the implication is skeevy, and as KoDOmega mentioned any relationship that the "new" Spidey gets into will be on shaky ethical grounds.
I am incredibly disappointed in Bob this week. He had a chance to talk about the story merits of this "ending" to a character with decades of history, as well as the potential, both good and bad, for this new direction, not to mention what it says about comics as an industry and some of the unfortunate sexual politics therein and how comics seem to actively discourage female readers. This could have been a fascinating and engaging episode, but instead Bob chose to crap out a lazy, predictable, preachy, and irrelevant piece about how it's going to be temporary and stuff like this has happened before, succeeding in completely ignoring that ACTUAL issues at hand. Genuinely disappointed in Bob, I expected far better coverage of the issue, especially after his thoughtful retrospective of Supergirl's history and what it tells us about comics as a whole. Not impressed at all.
If I recall my mad scientist correctly Doc Ock has a massive sence of entitlement, which will probably make some interesting internal conflict along the lines of whether or not to help himself to some of the loot the bad guys he just twarted were holding onto. It'll also be funny to see him trying to preen over whatever public victories he has, only for the police to try and arrest him because the Daily Bugle says he's a bad guy. Along that line I expect to see J.J. dangling off a few buildings whenever there's bad press.
Now that I think about it maybe it'll be a lot like a Deadpool comic.
I enjoyed clone wars and some of the stuff after that, around 2000 is when marvel went to sht and nothing was good anymore. AFAIAC Most comics finished up in the 90s. I deny the exitsitance of anything past then. LOL
Here's the thing about it, I don't particularly mind Peter being replaced as a whole. Legacy heroes exist in lots of fiction and some of them can wind up better than their predecessors (I contend Wally West > Barry Allen). The problem is that Peter's death felt...weak.
I mean Barry Allen died because he ran so fast against the flow of an antimatter bomb he caused it to malfunction and died in the process due to rapid ageing, Supergirl died after a huge beatdown she gave the Anti-Monitor, Doc Ock died after a pretty impressive brawl against the Spidermen (clone saga I think, Kane was there).
Heck, even Ultimate Peter died after saving dozens of people from a gang of villains attacking him and giving Green Goblin a MASSIVE beatdown. And that death was treated really well, everybody showed up for it and you could see the genuine sorrow on everybody's face that knew him. The "affirmative action" thing might have been a root cause but at least it was done well to get it.
As someone who has never followed an American style comic consistently, I never understood how it was possible to care about what goes on in this kind continuity/status quo arrangement when everything that happens that matters/ is significant is generally bound to be undone or retconned out in a year. That kind of seems to undermine the entire point of this kind of infinite continuity if these stories are functionally separate in that they start and end at the same status quo.
It helps in cases like this, where the actual story was a lot of fun. The continuity may be a horrible mess, but I checked out this arc(and the previous one, with the hobgoblins) because it sounded exciting. And it was! It was a nice story, and I would totally recommend giving it a look.
I am incredibly disappointed in Bob this week. He had a chance to talk about the story merits of this "ending" to a character with decades of history, as well as the potential, both good and bad, for this new direction, not to mention what it says about comics as an industry and some of the unfortunate sexual politics therein and how comics seem to actively discourage female readers. This could have been a fascinating and engaging episode, but instead Bob chose to crap out a lazy, predictable, preachy, and irrelevant piece about how it's going to be temporary and stuff like this has happened before, succeeding in completely ignoring that ACTUAL issues at hand. Genuinely disappointed in Bob, I expected far better coverage of the issue, especially after his thoughtful retrospective of Supergirl's history and what it tells us about comics as a whole. Not impressed at all.
I think what's more telling is that, sadly for Bob, the whole rape thing flew under his radar. That's not his fault... if he didn't catch onto the controversy, he can't report on it. But, again, HE DIDN'T EVEN HEAR ABOUT IT. Plus, he hasn't read the comic, so he can't comment on the imagery therein. And if he don't know about it, he can't comment on it. And if he don't know about it, IT'S BECAUSE NO ONE IS TALKING ABOUT IT. And Bob's usually got his ear to the ground on these things, so I don't slight him for not picking up on it. NO ONE IS TALKING ABOUT THE OBVIOUS RAPE OVERTONES IN THIS NEW BOOK. That's... worse than one internet critic missing a theme.
I think what's more telling is that, sadly for Bob, the whole rape thing flew under his radar. That's not his fault... if he didn't catch onto the controversy, he can't report on it. But, again, HE DIDN'T EVEN HEAR ABOUT IT. Plus, he hasn't read the comic, so he can't comment on the imagery therein. And if he don't know about it, he can't comment on it. And if he don't know about it, IT'S BECAUSE NO ONE IS TALKING ABOUT IT. And Bob's usually got his ear to the ground on these things, so I don't slight him for not picking up on it. NO ONE IS TALKING ABOUT THE OBVIOUS RAPE OVERTONES IN THIS NEW BOOK. That's... worse than one internet critic missing a theme.
Yeah, I'm very, very disappointed in the comic book community on this one. Some of the sites that I frequent have talked about this stuff, but for the most part actual comic news sites and a lot of bloggers have ignored this incredibly messed up direction. I mean, as I've said, I pretty sure Dan Slott isn't so dumb that he'd actually go ahead with MJ/Spider-Ock, but even the implication is utterly disgusting, not to mention that like you said, this is an immense violation of Peter as well, though given how comics seem to recoil from the idea of men being sexually assaulted I doubt that'll get any consideration.
I really do feel like this should be a much bigger issue than it's being treated as right now, and I hope that if Marvel actually does go ahead with this pairing that is clearly rape, that they get in major shit for it. It's high time the mainstream media and advocacy groups took cape comic publishers to task for their pervasive misogyny and horrible sexual politics.
I stopped reading Spider-Man comics after Gwen Stacy had Norman Osborn's bastard Goblin children (Talk about screwing up decades of established continuity. Literally...), but hearing about all this, it doesn't really bother me that much, especially since everyone here knows that someway, somehow, Parker's coming back. I'm actually debating following this. Ock's always been one of my favorite villains. I'm curious about a Spider-Man story for the first time in a decade, so somebody's doing their job right.
I'm more pissed about what they did to the X-Men, but that's another kettle of fish.
While I hate to see Peter Parker get the short end of the stick, Spiderman has not been interesting for a very long time. The last time I enjoyed reading a Spiderbook was during the Civil War. I don't read all the time mind you, but a lot of writers just stick to the status quo and don't shake things up. Whether this is good or bad has yet to be determined, but different is not bad by virtue of the fact it's different.
Edit: The upside is that Ock has always been one of Spiderman's more thoughtful villains. He isn't just bad because that is easy. His character has had external stimuli that has lead him down that path, and it's really interesting to see him do a 180 because he all of the suddenly has a lifetime worth of heroic memories. Slott in the end seems to understand that outside of experience, we are only memories. That is important and all too human. Given the situation, it's plausible the character would do a flip. Now my brain is just struggling with how scientifically impossible it is to transfer memories from one person to another. That is why I love comics though, because scientific impossibility doesn't matter.
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