For a series entitled "The Big Picture", you seem to have chosen one of the smallest possible pictures to dwell on. Thumbs down.
The Big Picture: The Devil & Mr. Parker
- Thread starter Raithnor
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First, I'm going to have to agree that the end of One More Day...let's say it performs anatomically improbably actions that have no place in polite conversation. Or if you'd prefer me to be explicit, it's the literary personification of a puppy rapist. I didn't really get into Spider Man until the new arc in the 2000's, with Ezekiel and the spider totem and all that, and you know what? I loved it; I loved the fact that spider man was growing as a character, I loved the fact that a comic book wasn't mindless spectacle, but being driven by story and the characters. And then they pull this shit...
I'm still convinced that this decision came about because someone told Quesada they weren't pulling in that critical pre-teen girl reader demographic that makes Twilight so much money, and they decided that making dreamy Peter Parker single (and thus open to fantasy) was the solution. Fucking hacks.
I'm still convinced that this decision came about because someone told Quesada they weren't pulling in that critical pre-teen girl reader demographic that makes Twilight so much money, and they decided that making dreamy Peter Parker single (and thus open to fantasy) was the solution. Fucking hacks.
It's a really bad moment of characterisation really. For several reasons. It's not bad because it erases the marriage (though really if an editor feels he needs to resolve his parental issues in a comic, maybe he should consider getting some real therapy to go with it) it's bad because it isn't Spider-Man.
I'm not even a fan of Spider-Man, I haven't read anything but the Ultimate Universe comics for over ten years now, and I still know about this hunk of shit. Spider-Man reveals his identity, Aunt May, a ninety year old woman who's lived a good long life, gets shot. In other words it's his responsibility for revealing his identity. Remember the entire cornerstone of Spider-Man's existence?
'With Great Power, comes Great Responsibility'
You know, the most important phrase in the entire goddamn continuity EVER. Parker trying to get Aunt May back is him not taking responsibilty for what he has wrought. Also, it's just bad writing that in the entire Marvel universe, including people who have come back from the dead and peopl like Doctor Strange who are the greatest magicians alive, and no one can heal a simple gunshot wound?
Then, Peter sees Aunt May, who tells him she's ready to die. Does he take this to mean 'She's a ninety year old woman, it was going to be her time anyway, and I really should start accepting responsibility for my actions?' No, he decides that he's going to bring her back despite her own wishes! In a hospital if someone gives the DNR approval, you DNR!
There's several other things wrong. Including that Quesade directly promised that Peter revealing his identity wouldn't be undone with 'some magic retcon' (his exact words) and then a year later he proceeded to do exactly that.
It's not Peter Parker in this issue, and it sure as hell isn't Spider-Man, it's Joe Quesada working out his issues with his parents and using a beloved comic book character to do it.
The real Big Picture here is that editors should never ever be allowed to mess with writing the comics. J Michael Strasinski nearly had his name removed from this piece of crap, which should really tell you something about it.
Also, it says something that one of the single most popular Spider-Man related books of recent years was Spider-Girl, which told the story of a happily married Peter and MJ with a young daughter, and is widely considered one of the best Spider-Man storylines ever. If you read that, then trust me you'll wish it was the real continuity.
I'm not even a fan of Spider-Man, I haven't read anything but the Ultimate Universe comics for over ten years now, and I still know about this hunk of shit. Spider-Man reveals his identity, Aunt May, a ninety year old woman who's lived a good long life, gets shot. In other words it's his responsibility for revealing his identity. Remember the entire cornerstone of Spider-Man's existence?
'With Great Power, comes Great Responsibility'
You know, the most important phrase in the entire goddamn continuity EVER. Parker trying to get Aunt May back is him not taking responsibilty for what he has wrought. Also, it's just bad writing that in the entire Marvel universe, including people who have come back from the dead and peopl like Doctor Strange who are the greatest magicians alive, and no one can heal a simple gunshot wound?
Then, Peter sees Aunt May, who tells him she's ready to die. Does he take this to mean 'She's a ninety year old woman, it was going to be her time anyway, and I really should start accepting responsibility for my actions?' No, he decides that he's going to bring her back despite her own wishes! In a hospital if someone gives the DNR approval, you DNR!
There's several other things wrong. Including that Quesade directly promised that Peter revealing his identity wouldn't be undone with 'some magic retcon' (his exact words) and then a year later he proceeded to do exactly that.
It's not Peter Parker in this issue, and it sure as hell isn't Spider-Man, it's Joe Quesada working out his issues with his parents and using a beloved comic book character to do it.
The real Big Picture here is that editors should never ever be allowed to mess with writing the comics. J Michael Strasinski nearly had his name removed from this piece of crap, which should really tell you something about it.
Also, it says something that one of the single most popular Spider-Man related books of recent years was Spider-Girl, which told the story of a happily married Peter and MJ with a young daughter, and is widely considered one of the best Spider-Man storylines ever. If you read that, then trust me you'll wish it was the real continuity.
This about sums up my feelings on it.TsunamiWombat said:
It's not that BND erased continuity, it's that it did it in a really really shitty way.
Even in a universe where people die and come back so often that even Kratos is impressed, One More Day and Brand New Day are still horribly written and wildly out of character for spidey.
It even goes against the motto of his freakin' series, "With great power comes great responsibility". Oop, nope scratch that, "With great power comes the option to deal with satan to save your elderly aunt while erasing your marriage and keeping your identity secret" yeah, that's better.
Ignoring the fact that Spidey's also in the same universe as the entire Norse Pantheon, the universe's foremost scientific genius and the master of magic and no one can cure a freakin' bullet wound.
And there's the issue with the expy of Quesada's daughter (probably some freudian theories on that one) hooking up with Spidey.
It's just a bad story.
Man, I remember how disappointed I was at the end of the Ezekiel story. I mean, Spider-man was in a possition where he really needed to make a choice. He either had to stand by his politically correct prinsciples and spare the bad guy, knowing that he would keep on killing and possibly one day come after Spider-man again and kill him, or he could choose that the ends justified the means and kill the guy. What happened? The bad guys lakei killed him instead as the writers' way to save their own hero from making a choice. Up until that point I agree that the story was pretty awesome though.Charles Scholle said:
Actually, I'd say Spider-man was more similar to Twilight before, in that Peter Parker on paper should have no chance at getting the stunningly beautiful Mary Jane Watson, but does and of course with the faithful to one man/woman ethics. Though I guess pre-teen girls prefer it when it is the guy who is the amazing one and the girl is a nobody.
WOW mentioning the clone saga and one more day in the same sentence, I thought there where laws forbidding that. but my god does Peter get kicked in the gut as far as story telling goes.
what the hell marvel?
what the hell marvel?
Personally I blame Civil War, but then again it and House of M pretty much undid all the comics I'd been reading since I started reading comics again (around 2000, 2001) so all these retcons were a big "Fuck You" to the stories I'd been reading for 5 years, you know THE STORIES I WAS READING WHEN I EFFECTIVELY STARTED READING COMICS, hence I cried "well fuck this" and stopped reading comics.
Good on you Marvel
Good on you Marvel
You know I think I should have learnt from the Cap' A video.
What was the point of ANY of that? We know all that, you covered no new ground, in fact you barely covered the ground you were trying to cover.
When comic readers choose to read what they like (and they more than often do) and accept which cannon they want to get fired out of (Doctor Who fans have been doing this for literately decades)then it doesn't matter if it was a clone that made a deal with the devil to wear a black suit of Iron Spider armour whilst developing new powers under the guidance of a spider god, a fan will pick out what he likes and run with it.
These books have been running for (again) literately decades so of course the films audience don't stand a chance of just diving in, but there's enough well informed shop keepers out there to guide a potential new reader to the stuff that will satisfy.
Optimistic? Why not?
As to the whole 'The Big Picture' feature, to quote Spider-Man 'Stick a fork in me, I'm done.'
What was the point of ANY of that? We know all that, you covered no new ground, in fact you barely covered the ground you were trying to cover.
When comic readers choose to read what they like (and they more than often do) and accept which cannon they want to get fired out of (Doctor Who fans have been doing this for literately decades)then it doesn't matter if it was a clone that made a deal with the devil to wear a black suit of Iron Spider armour whilst developing new powers under the guidance of a spider god, a fan will pick out what he likes and run with it.
These books have been running for (again) literately decades so of course the films audience don't stand a chance of just diving in, but there's enough well informed shop keepers out there to guide a potential new reader to the stuff that will satisfy.
Optimistic? Why not?
As to the whole 'The Big Picture' feature, to quote Spider-Man 'Stick a fork in me, I'm done.'
All he did was analyse the event, not give a real opinion, which is what I wanted to hear.
I don't mind that they did OMD. I tend to let comics get away with a lot of stuff. What I DO mind is WHY they did it. Just seems lazy to me. Not to mention, it was VERY poorly executed. Y'know what, let me rephrase that: I didn't mind the concept of OMD, but it was done very poorly, and for all the wrong reasons.
And listening to this, I agree, this is the stupidest deal with the devil I've ever seen. What exactly did Mephisto get from this? They aren't married. Well, since they don't know they were ever married, it makes no difference. There's no misery, no suffering. Hell, for some reason, his dead friend is alive again. The only reason they conceivably went with Mephisto is because he's the only guy evil and powerful (and even that's a tough sell...) to pull it off.
This isn't a just bad retcon, it's a LAZY retcon, and that's even worse!
On a side note, an opinion would have been nice, not just Comic Events 101.
I don't mind that they did OMD. I tend to let comics get away with a lot of stuff. What I DO mind is WHY they did it. Just seems lazy to me. Not to mention, it was VERY poorly executed. Y'know what, let me rephrase that: I didn't mind the concept of OMD, but it was done very poorly, and for all the wrong reasons.
And listening to this, I agree, this is the stupidest deal with the devil I've ever seen. What exactly did Mephisto get from this? They aren't married. Well, since they don't know they were ever married, it makes no difference. There's no misery, no suffering. Hell, for some reason, his dead friend is alive again. The only reason they conceivably went with Mephisto is because he's the only guy evil and powerful (and even that's a tough sell...) to pull it off.
This isn't a just bad retcon, it's a LAZY retcon, and that's even worse!
On a side note, an opinion would have been nice, not just Comic Events 101.
Instead the word 'weird' to describe comics I would have used the word 'bad' as in this comic writer is really really bad. I like how Satan had multiple women around him. Only the devil would do that.
Not bad, Linkara has pretty much already explained why One More Day sucked, but this is an interesting angle, you could have said a little more, not much knew ground was covered here.
*applauds* Thank you.
Personally, I think one of the main reasons Comic Books have so much trouble being keeping sales up is this retcon habit they have anyways. Its hard to keep a loyal reader base if there's no continuity, or it gets changed whenever the editor lets a writer get away with dipshittery.
Personally, I think one of the main reasons Comic Books have so much trouble being keeping sales up is this retcon habit they have anyways. Its hard to keep a loyal reader base if there's no continuity, or it gets changed whenever the editor lets a writer get away with dipshittery.
