I take a look at the second issue of Brand New Day because, hey, people click on YouTube videos about Spider-Man and I’m a YouTube ratings whore. But I found the issue surprisingly entertaining, even if I still can’t let go of the OMD animosity completely.
This entry was posted
on Monday, January 21st, 2008 at 5:26 am and is filed under Best Shots (Vlog), Comics, Culture, Kevin Huxford, Op-Ed.
You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments.
You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.
3 Comments on “BSRV Week 17: Brand New Day Part Deux”
Kevin:
Stumbled across your vlog– I’m not the most internet-savvy guy in town– and wanted to respond to your comment that everyone who’s written Spider-Man would rather have him single, but no one you’d talked to could tell you why single was better.
I might be able to help here.
Disclaimer: I have not read One More Day and don’t plan to. In fact I haven’t read a Spidey comic with any regularity in years, but I agree whole-heartedly that Spidey is best as a single guy. I’m not surprised to hear that getting Peter back to that point was something of a trainwreck, but there was absolutely NO good way to do it. I’m just glad they did, and now everyone can just move forward.
Spider-Man is the best archetype of teen (or young person) angst that comics has. He’s an archetype on the same level as Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman– in fact, I think you can make a very good argument that Spidey is Marvel’s only archetypal character. Other people can be Iron Man or Captain America, there can always be new Avengers or X-Men, but Spidey should always be Peter Parker, he should always be young, and he should always be single.
Why single? Because by the very concept of the character, his life should be constantly frustrating and difficult and happiness should ALWAYS seem to be just beyond his grasp. Being married gives him way too much of a comfort zone– he always has someone who loves him to go home to. Even if you throw in the obligatory marital strife, at the end of the day Peter still has someone who has promised to (and, let’s face it, will) love him no matter what. Spidey shouldn’t have that sort of certainty in his life. And when the wife’s a super-model– !!! (FYI: I’m one of the guys who think Gwen Stacy was Peter’s one-and-only true love. Her death was one of the most upsetting comics I’d ever read up that point. And in retrospect I believe it was unquestionably the right thing to do.)
It used to be that Spidey would stop Doc Ock, save countless lives, and still the police would hound him, the Daily Bugle would hate him, and there was absolutely no place he could go for comfort. No one who knew what a great thing he had just done. That sort of feeling is so primal– if only they knew what I can really do! If only that pretty girl knew what a great guy I really am!– that undermining it in any way (like giving Peter a super-model wife who loves him) is a huge mistake.
That’s why Spidey should stay single.
On the other hand: I think Superman married to Lois is great! Even though Mark Waid cringes each time I say that…
The last two years leading up that ‘ending’ really proves that nothing is ever going to happen to Spider-man anymore. How do I know that? The Unmasking! As I understand it, it was going to be done in the 90s but they did the clone story instead. I know there would some great writer in the future who would love to of done a real ‘unmasking’ story, a story with real anguish and the real characters that surrounded Spidey. Nothing like a story that isn’t about Spider-man at all, like Civil War was. Let’s face it, the ‘powers’ at Marvel gave on Spidey and made him the gimmick guy for two drawn out years with some times absurd stories that made him a bizarre magic-based character that has regular costume changes and makes rash decisions that Peter Parker would most likely never make. But that real catcher is the ending where Peter Parker betrays all his principals that he ever held dear to make a deal with the embodiment of all evil, thus destroying the character in a way that is worse than if they had killed him off.
Joe Quesada has stated that he ‘almost’ gave up on the character, I think it’s true that he has. Surely, they could come up with a more plausible way of ending the marraige and bending time and space to do it and keep Spidey the good character he was. And sparing the hype that was wasted on the masking, what a great story that could of been.
“Being married gives him way too much of a comfort zone– he always has someone who loves him to go home to.’
Sorry but that’s a stupid argument. Being married is not a comfort zone, its a huge responsibility, one if you had a writer who knew how to write other than make excuses because of his lack of creativity could find several ways to make it interesting to the character.
I think the real problem that the comic book industry is facing is writers who are too lazy to actually come up with interesting stories and would rather let a character stay suck in limbo with out growth then to have him grow up and learn to face the real world.
Spider-Man is not about youth, its about responsibility, regardless of his marital status, its about him facing the world and trying to owning up to his responsibility.
Comment:
Subscribe
s h o t g u n r e v i e w s syndicates its weblog posts
and Comments using a technology called
RSS (Real Simple Syndication). You can use a service like Bloglines to get
notified when there are new posts to this weblog.
January 21st, 2008 at 12:03 pm
Kevin:
Stumbled across your vlog– I’m not the most internet-savvy guy in town– and wanted to respond to your comment that everyone who’s written Spider-Man would rather have him single, but no one you’d talked to could tell you why single was better.
I might be able to help here.
Disclaimer: I have not read One More Day and don’t plan to. In fact I haven’t read a Spidey comic with any regularity in years, but I agree whole-heartedly that Spidey is best as a single guy. I’m not surprised to hear that getting Peter back to that point was something of a trainwreck, but there was absolutely NO good way to do it. I’m just glad they did, and now everyone can just move forward.
Spider-Man is the best archetype of teen (or young person) angst that comics has. He’s an archetype on the same level as Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman– in fact, I think you can make a very good argument that Spidey is Marvel’s only archetypal character. Other people can be Iron Man or Captain America, there can always be new Avengers or X-Men, but Spidey should always be Peter Parker, he should always be young, and he should always be single.
Why single? Because by the very concept of the character, his life should be constantly frustrating and difficult and happiness should ALWAYS seem to be just beyond his grasp. Being married gives him way too much of a comfort zone– he always has someone who loves him to go home to. Even if you throw in the obligatory marital strife, at the end of the day Peter still has someone who has promised to (and, let’s face it, will) love him no matter what. Spidey shouldn’t have that sort of certainty in his life. And when the wife’s a super-model– !!! (FYI: I’m one of the guys who think Gwen Stacy was Peter’s one-and-only true love. Her death was one of the most upsetting comics I’d ever read up that point. And in retrospect I believe it was unquestionably the right thing to do.)
It used to be that Spidey would stop Doc Ock, save countless lives, and still the police would hound him, the Daily Bugle would hate him, and there was absolutely no place he could go for comfort. No one who knew what a great thing he had just done. That sort of feeling is so primal– if only they knew what I can really do! If only that pretty girl knew what a great guy I really am!– that undermining it in any way (like giving Peter a super-model wife who loves him) is a huge mistake.
That’s why Spidey should stay single.
On the other hand: I think Superman married to Lois is great! Even though Mark Waid cringes each time I say that…
January 24th, 2008 at 3:50 am
This is insane.
The last two years leading up that ‘ending’ really proves that nothing is ever going to happen to Spider-man anymore. How do I know that? The Unmasking! As I understand it, it was going to be done in the 90s but they did the clone story instead. I know there would some great writer in the future who would love to of done a real ‘unmasking’ story, a story with real anguish and the real characters that surrounded Spidey. Nothing like a story that isn’t about Spider-man at all, like Civil War was. Let’s face it, the ‘powers’ at Marvel gave on Spidey and made him the gimmick guy for two drawn out years with some times absurd stories that made him a bizarre magic-based character that has regular costume changes and makes rash decisions that Peter Parker would most likely never make. But that real catcher is the ending where Peter Parker betrays all his principals that he ever held dear to make a deal with the embodiment of all evil, thus destroying the character in a way that is worse than if they had killed him off.
Joe Quesada has stated that he ‘almost’ gave up on the character, I think it’s true that he has. Surely, they could come up with a more plausible way of ending the marraige and bending time and space to do it and keep Spidey the good character he was. And sparing the hype that was wasted on the masking, what a great story that could of been.
January 24th, 2008 at 8:22 am
“Being married gives him way too much of a comfort zone– he always has someone who loves him to go home to.’
Sorry but that’s a stupid argument. Being married is not a comfort zone, its a huge responsibility, one if you had a writer who knew how to write other than make excuses because of his lack of creativity could find several ways to make it interesting to the character.
I think the real problem that the comic book industry is facing is writers who are too lazy to actually come up with interesting stories and would rather let a character stay suck in limbo with out growth then to have him grow up and learn to face the real world.
Spider-Man is not about youth, its about responsibility, regardless of his marital status, its about him facing the world and trying to owning up to his responsibility.