I commend Quesada for thumbing his nose at the Temple of Continuity. I just wish DC would do the samething so we don’t have to endure another Crisis of Something. ”

Whoever said this is an idiot. DC spent the last 20 years “thumbing their noses” at the “Temple of Continuity” and it’s gotten them nothing but a colossal headache. Ask any Legion fan or anybody even vaguely fond of Hawkman how well reboots work. Superman’s worked out in the long run, but even there DC seems to be slowly working it back to the pre-crisis status quo. Will there be a “Brand New Day” for Superman in the next year or two?

Me? I’m more happy with the character than I’ve been with the uncertainty of how to handle him…because with titles like Ultimate Spider-Man proving reinterpretation will keep him infinite, .and Spider-Girl, the heir to the original canon showing an intelligent and credible Peter, MY Spider-Man, has his priorities straight…Spidey works better as a truer representation of who a human being with powers works in his own universe rather than anyone elses.

That said, everything Marvel’s done so far to reboot their characters, from Heroes Reborn to the Ultimate Universe to the Mackie “MJ is dead” storyline, has failed to attract the young’ns from collecting, so the industry may be locked in a slow death spiral (at least as far as the publishing arm is concerned) that will end when the last hardcore completist fan dies of old age. We’re still relatively new in this age of corporate franchises, and it may be that simply, a franchise has difficulties in perpetuating fan interest past the generation it was created for. Does anyone still see Mickey Mouse viable as a character?

You just summed up exactly why the big DC characters’ books have never appealed to me in the same way as Marvel’s. The first book I got seriously hooked on was Uncanny X-Men. This was back in ‘92 when the cartoon series came out, and I was hooked on that as a kid. So my parents, happening upon a comic shop, buy us three X-Men issues: Uncanny X-Men, X-Men Classic, and X-Men Adventures.

“Adventures” was fun because it retold the cartoon series exactly, but as soon as I read “Uncanny” it was like “wow, this is the real thing…what they’re up to now. I recognize this and that person, but who’s this team member?” Then with “Classic,” I discovered that the team they have now isn’t the team they always had, and isn’t the team that probably will be a few years from now. Old people sometimes left, and new people sometimes joined. And they’re personalities changed and evolved, and they even dramatically changed their uniforms every once in awhile. This was exciting to me, that they had a history, and evolved like real people.

Whereas on the other hand you have the DC icons, who aren’t allowed to change at all because they’ve become so iconic. Yeah, Superman and Batman’s chest emblems can evolve, but that’s about it. But who they are now is who they always were and always will be…they’re not really allowed to have character development, only their supporting cast are. How dull.

Now they’re turning Spider-man into a DC-style icon, trying to impose limitations on “what makes a Spider-man story.” Face it, Tiger…Stan Lee kept Spider-man from becoming that by actually allowing him to age (something else DC icons can’t do), allowing Spidey to graduate high school and go to college. Furthering this, he eventually graduated college, and then one day came full circle by becoming a teacher. The fact that we can read about Spidey when he was high school age, and read about him now at 30-ish I think it’s really engaging. And anyways, didn’t Stan have Peter and MJ marry in the comic strips he wrote himself before they were married in the comic continuity?

So now Spidey has to become a DC-style icon, barred from aging further or marrying, or apparently even living on his own. Why the insistence on telling the same old familiar stories? I’m surprised Joe Q didn’t also de-age him and send him back to college while he was at it.

Yeah, but Superman (and Batman) haven’t had any character for a long time. Sure there are writers that can make a good story out of them from time to time, but what Chuck Austen did was make me want to know more about them, as people. It was like watching wooden puppets become real people. Besides, how many tens of thousands of Spider-Man/ Batman/ Superman stories can you tell, before you simply must reinvent them? What’s so hard about trying it a new way? It’s just comic books. Lighten up. Have some fun. Piece out!

Over at the Byrne Robotics Web site, Byrne and others were lecturing on how bad it was for Spider-Man to be married, that the basic Spider-Man was a teenager with problems, etc. and that his status should never change.

That’s fine for someone who produces formula fiction to say; as long as he gets paid for what he’s doing, he can grind out stories like sausage links with little concern about originality in plotting, and no concern about character growth. Repetition of themes is a non-issue. The work is easy for the writer, but if the readers don’t know they’re getting formula fiction, they’ll be waiting for development and changes that will never come. Eventually, if they’re sensible, they’ll quit reading “Spider-Man” stories entirely.

The #1 reason for doing Spider-Man and other prominent characters as formula fiction is the unspoken assumption that they’re irreplaceable corporate assets. If they’re allowed to age and change, Marvel won’t be able to replace them with characters of equal value. That doesn’t say much for the creative potential Marvel’s execs see in anyone working there, including themselves. Perhaps the reason Quesada kept referring to “kids” as the audience for Spider-Man stories in the CBR interviews is that he and other execs are aware that the company’s been unsuccessful in attracting kids as customers in large numbers, that they still rely on teens and older readers for the superhero titles, and that it‘s better P.R. to talk publicly about “kids“ being the audience, but still superficially aim the stories at older readers, because the older readers‘ affection for the character will keep them reading regardless.

I‘ve never bought a “Spider-Man“ title regularly because I viewed the potential for creative stories as severely limited, well before Quesada. And now–? Marvel will be producing, according to their own definition, throwaway entertainment, but fairly expensive throwaway entertainment. There’s no reason for anyone unfamiliar with Spider-Man to start reading, unless he’s unaware of what he’s getting.

Formula fiction isn’t automatically and always garbage. A publisher can offer the reader different characters and settings, formulas can be tweaked–but, as readers of the old Harlequin romances could tell you, the stories aren’t something to hang onto and treasure. It’s “read ‘em and forget about ‘em.” Marvel’s public positioning re Spider-Man could be interpreted as telling adults to forget about him.

SRS

Actually, Evan, if you read the early Superman comics and especially the first 2 years of the radio show, Lois Lane was a super-annoying bitch. She was constantly nagging and upstagin Clark to get her story, so much so in some shows that I wished he’d superpunched her to shut her up. Austen’s approach to his short stint on Supes was to add aspects of the character from the early years. That was one of the reasons I liked the Austen run since he was doign a throw back…till DC got some nimrod to write the ending of the storyline instead of using Chuck’s original story.

Quesada essentially bowed down to Hollywood, and is letting them mandate where things should go. “If the movies say it, then so should we.”

Cause you know, those movie patrons are the mythical new readers he’s been talking bout for YEARS that will be walking through the comic doors any second now to start a sub list.

As for the person who used the Lana Lang/Superman refrefence, the writer of that story (Chuck Austen) went out and promoted the story proclaiming “Lois Lane is a bitch and I’ve always thought she was” and thought it was a great idea to bring back the concept of the rivalry.

And yes, it was shot down because everyone was clearly way out of character (just reading it proves that) and we’ve moved on from that concept. (Notice Morrisson hasn’t even tried that one in All Star that I’m aware of…haven’t read latest issue yet).

Its still cycling back to one main conceit from both Marvel and DC - The people there want the concepts back that they were reading when they were younger. What they seem to forget is, thanks to the ways writers tell stories now, most of today’s fans see how rudimentary childish, ktschy, and stupid Silver Age stories were and don’t want to see that particular type of storytelling brought back.

Granted I thought Meltzer’s reasoning behind the Silver Age in Identity Crisis was brilliant - “Mindwiped into being stupid”. Gave it a reason to exist as well as obvious one time only idea.

So I imagine if I saw the Spider Man movie and learned about Peter and Mary Jane…then saw that in the comics they were married I would become MORE Interested in reading not only the current series but the back issues to find out how they got to that point! But when I learn that writers just keep revising history and the characters don’t actually evolve then I completely lose interest in comics and go read manga instead because the best series tell complete stories with easy to follow volume numbers.

And besides how can everything really synch up? Most kids in the 80’s were introduced to Spiderman and His Amazing Friends. Do they refuse to read the comics because he didn’t have a secret lab in his apartment that flipped out when he pressed the statue?
Why didn’t Aunt May’s poodle appear in the movie?? When is Kirsten Dunst character going to finally turn into Firestar??

No conflict in marriages=ignorant writers.

I personally hated OMD and I’m not buying or even reading BND. I’m not going to reward Marvel for telling an awful story and wrecking the Spidey I’ve always known, all for the sake of telling stories with the bonus “but which girl is he going to SLEEP with?!” element.

This is very strange … I’ve noticed lately that whenever a comics fans disagrees on a comic-related topic, they are accused of being in the 35-40 year old range. How exactly is this bad? And the argument goes both ways … You want MJ and Peter married? You must be over 40! You want Pete single again? You must be over 40!

I am 39 … but I pay the same price for comics as everyone else. And while I was never thrilled with Peter and MJ marrying (I always thought we got a raw deal regarding Gwen), I thought he could have done worse. The marriage worked, Spider-Man fans seemed to like it — but the Marvel writers claim they don’t know how to write stories about a married superhero. Worse, they couldn’t figure out a dramatic way to separate them — which could have led to many interesting stories of separation, adjustment and then ultimately divorce or reconciliation.

Marvel is getting publicity, which is what it wants. But imagine the publicity it would have gotten with a mature, dramatic storyline about a couple’s failing marriage. A young kid, caught in the middle of a messy divorce, might even relate to that …

As for “core concept” … Why is Peter kissing a supermodel “skank” on the first page of BND? Wouldn’t the core concept call for her to spurn him while “dreamboats like Flash Thompson are around?”

“She’s kissing him so she can get close to Harry Osborn, you … you … you 35-40 year old!”

Oh, right.

In all three, the love story between MJ and Peter is central, with hardly any other real dating shenanigans going on (She dates two other dudes, but they’re just narrative conflicts to be smoothed over on the way to the happy ending. He dates Gwen and comes on to Betty, but only while in his crazy finger-gun phase).

The whole last movie revolved around him preparing to marry her, after all.

Having that said, I’ve always thought that one of the greatest moments in comics, was when Lana Lang explained to Superman just why Lois will never love him like she loves him. “Now things are getting good.” I thought. But, then all the core fans complained and that writer was pulled. I’d never been into Superman comics before then (save for what Alan Moore wrote) and that story would have sold me on them, if only DC would have stuck to their guns on it.

In my experience, the whiny internet fanbodys are almost always wrong. That’s the real reason a drop in sales never correlates with their rantings.