Amph SPIDER-MAN: The Amazing, Sensational, Friendly Neighborhood Discussion Thread (HTR Spoilers)

I agree with Mastadge. It's not BND that's bad. It was One More Day and they method they used to create this Brand New Day that left many, many, MANY, fans upset.

 

I?ve been picking up spider-man haphazardly since brand new day started. I have the first 13 issues of it, so I?m two behind. I don?t know what to think of it. Looking at it solely on it?s own merits, it?s a very mediocre comic. The first two arcs by Slott and Gugenhiem were both fun. The plots were nothing special, but the art was awesome. The third arc had what could have been one of the best new spidey villains in recent years, but was horribly executed. The fourth arc was probably the best-written arc of them all and also had strong art. The next issue which was a one shot by gale, who wrote the crappy third arc, was better than any of his other issues, had good art and finely tied together some of the events of the previous issues. I was happy that this issue did this because the first two arcs seemed very separate from each other and from the third and fourth arcs were more closely linked.

The whole poor peter, he doesn?t have any money thing makes no sense at all. He has a freaking graduate degree in biochemistry! I have a BA in math and I make 50 an hour tutoring, with an MS he could tutor Bio, chem., and physics and make at least 75 an hour.

The main thing that I?ve noticed is that marvel is putting some high caliber art talent on the book, but the writing talent is suspect at best, slot is the only one that I think is qualified to write spidey. Gugenhiem has written some good wolverine books and a good supreme power mini, but all of these stories were about darker, more violent characters. I was happy with his spidey issues, but his recent x men stuff makes me wonder if he can consistently write good spidey stories. Bob Gale, besides back to the future, what has he done? His issues were the weakest of the bunch. Zeb Wells wrote some spidey stories for the lesser bought spidey books a few years ago, they were solid but nothing outstanding. These guys seem like a down grade in writing talent compared to the last batch of spidey writers. I think these guys have the minimal compitancy needed to write a spidey book, they need the work, and they haven?t developed big enough reputations to be able to tell Joe Q no, I?m not going to write this garbage.

As for the reboot, that made little sense. None of these stories needed it to happen for them to take place. I also think it really clashes with new avengers and secret invasion. If you were afraid that some one on your team was a skrull, wouldn?t you be really freaked out about the guy who you never see without the mask and whose identity you don?t know?

 

My understanding was that they would do an arc in New Avengers about how the whole OMD/BND thing affects the rest of the universe so I am going to assume that it occurs after Secret Invasion. But since they are being rather quiet about it, I am hoping that SI will reveal it all to be an elaborate hoax...sadly thats unlikely...

 

No. There's a BND Spidey tie-in, and BND has already happened before SI.

BND happens during the Breakup issue of New Avengers, #38 I think. Most of the comic is about Luke going to Avengers Tower and confronting Jessica, right after they leave Strange's house. Then there's a "Later" caption and Iron Fist is showing the rest of the team to one of his buildings they can use. BND comes before that "Later" -- it's several days later, not just later that day.

The whole "100 days without Spider-Man" thing in early BND is nonsense. There aren't even 100 days in between Cap's death and the Secret Invasion. Maybe it was 100 hours.

They did promise that there would be some exploration of the missing memories and so forth, but so far that has not come to pass and I wouldn't doubt if they just drop it.

 

Where are you getting this from??

 

From reading the books: before that issue, everyone knows he's Peter Parker. In that issue, they no longer do. That's really the only place it can happen.

 

This is what it is about. Joe Quesada wanted to go back to the way the Spider-Man books were, before Tom DeFalco's first run as writer. Back before MJ knew. Back before the marriage. Back before JMS. Quesada wants a Spider-Man who cannot make good money and has to be a freelance photographer, rather than a teacher's assistant or even a reseach assistant. He wants to do things like they used to be and that's what we have here. The problem is that it doesn't work anymore.

As to Bob Gale, he did two Batman stories a few years back. Both were critically acclaimed. So why he doesn't fit with BND is beyond me.

 

It didn't work then either. Thats why the story evolved. And honestly erasing MJ knowing about Spidey is ridiculous as she's supposed to have discovered the truth the night Uncle Ben dies...how far back are they changing things???

 

As it is NOBODY knowns that Spidey is Parker. Not MJ, not Aunt May. (Although I have a pet theory that MJ does no, but isn't allowed to let Peter know she knows -- living with that pain might be what she offered to Mephisto in that whisper. . .)

The real question is: what happened to the memories of Norman Osborn or Venom? Does Norman remember why he killed Gwen Stacy? Apparently not. Can Venom possibly have have forgotten his original host, after whom his look is styled? Apparently so.

They better have some darned convincing storytelling coming up to explain these things, now that Spidey's fighting the Thunderbolts (in Avengers/Invaders, as well as June's ASM issues. . .)

 

Well the Venom angle will hopefully be addressed in the coming Anti-Venom storyline when JR Jr returns...

But this return to the status quo seems to be more about completely re-writing his history...which seems utterly silly given the impact it had having Norman know of his identity.

All I can say is this better be going somewhere.

 

But the official word is it's not. They say that the only major change is that Peter and MJ never got married: they lived together for a while, but never actually took the vows.

Otherwise, everything happened as chronicled. Just NOBODY REMEMBERS. It's a Sentry-level re-writing of memory, not history.

 

The difference is that the Sentry's story was at least interesting (for a time)....this is just a meandering mess that had no purpose other than Quesada being hellbent on trying to relive a time that is no longer relevant.

And MJ/Pete is not the only Major change. Harry being alive is a rather big change of history and quite frankly one I don't understand. His decay into insanity and substance abuse leading to his tragic death is one of the most moving story lines in years. Suddenly he is alive without reason, he was just away... What does that have to do with MJ/Pete's Marriage? What happened with Liz or his Father??

Its not just an issue of erasing people's memory and negating the marriage...

This is either a giant mess that was poorly planned or there is something else going on. Honestly at this point I am inclined to believe that Harry is a Skrull and this whole thing is part of a larger plot but thats hoping for too much.

 

This is either a giant mess that was poorly planned or there is something else going on. Honestly at this point I am inclined to believe that Harry is a Skrull and this whole thing is part of a larger plot but thats hoping for too much.

My guess is that it's a giant, poorly-planned mess and they're trying hard to convince us there's something else going on while they scrabble to come up with something that works. It's a giant mess, though, no doubt about it.

That said, you know death in comics. Cap's last death before Brubaker killed him, he simply came back from with no explanation at all. MJ's death suddenly became "she moved away to California" when they decided that wasn't a good idea. . .

 

Yeah but those were both retconning poor choices. Harry's death was almost as meaningful as Gwen's and was one of those deaths that felt appropriate for the character. It had a sense of finality and closure and really nothing more was needed to be said. I would be alright bringing him back if it had a purpose...if there was a reason to do it. This is simply out of the blue. I can't even imagine its a sales stunt because the fact he is back is so incredibly underplayed...

 

He seems to be taking the whole "Spidey back to his 1970's status quo" way too seriously. Mother in law jokes? Really?

Anyway, overall BND has been good. Slott and Wells have been really good, Guggenheim has been so-so, with only Gale as the real drag in terms of quality. I thought I read somewhere though that Wells and Gale were leaving the writing team soon though...?

 

1. History has changed. Peter and MJ never got married. They lived together for a number of years after failing to get married on the day of the wedding. Peter never got MJ pregnant. Harry Osborn never died. Otherwise, as I call it "Pretending It Never Happened".

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2. Gale and Wells are only leaving because they were going to be available for a short time. Wells, however, will contribute to the braintrust as creative consultant, of sorts. J.M. DeMatties, Mark Waid, Roger Stern and Joe Kelly will join Dan Slott and Marc Guggenheim.

3. The issue of people's memories. Only the memories of the marriage, the pregnancy and Harry's death have been altered drastically. Everyone who knew that Peter is Spider-Man, no longer remembers. Meaning that Wolverine, Daredevil, Norman Osborn, Mac Garigan, Eddie Brock and the Symbiote no longer remember who Spider-Man is. They remember seeing him unmasked, but cannot remember his face or real name. And from now on, they'll never know. Logan and Murdock will never run into Peter Parker and thus recognize him. Norman will never rip off Peter's mask or rely on a gas or Venom to find out who he is. The upcoming Venom arc and a Thunderbolts storyarc will deal with them post OMD.


4. It'll be a cold day in hell, according to Quesada, before they undo OMD. But it'll happen once today's readership comes into control of Marvel like Quesada did and choose to undo it. Basically for Marvel, everyone can evolve and advance except for Spider-Man. It hurts the character. Their words, not mine.

 

Take this with a grain of salt. Remember those changes Spidey went through in Disassembled and The Other? The ones that would change the character forever? Yeah. (Can he still make his own webbing, but simply can't remember that he can? Does he still have the enhanced spider-sense, but not remember it being any other way?) Remember the Spidey unmasking in Civil War, which they promised would provide years of story fodder? Yeah. Cold days in hell come regularly in comic books.

 

I'm still not 100% convinced this all isn't a massive storyline to drive us to #600 when true love will conquer all. Granted, that seems unlikely at the moment, but the way in the first BND issue they saw fit to mention #600 and the last page of the latest issue has me mildly curious...

 

A suggestion I've heard that I like: start a Spider-Man: What If. . . OMD was Just Another Day maxi or ongoing, written by JMS, and let him continue to tell his story from where he'd left off, and see which book sold better. . .

 

That I could get onboard with. I mean its great that they want to bring in new readers but whats the point when doing so alienates the current ones.

 

Well at this point BND sells well enough to justify the changes (I believe the magic number for success is 71,000, and the last issue in April sold about 77,000). However, the sales have been steadily going down since a high of well over 100,000 with the first BND issue, #546. As long as it stays over 71,000ish for the thrice monthly, then it's doing better than Amazing/Friendly/Sensational did pre-OMD. So for the moment, Marvel has no real need to give readers an option, as sales justify things as is.

 

The whole thing about peoples memories being rewritten is just stupid. It makes no sense. No one remembers that spidey is peter parker, well what happens when one of his former students cleans out their room and comes across a newspaper with his/her science teacher declaring he is spiderman on the front page?

 

One would assume that Mephisto was talented enough to erase not just the memory but tangible evidence of the occurance as well. Either that or its an ongoing case of amnesia where they may find records about it but the spell immediately makes them forget what they just read...

 

To quote Joe Quesada: "It's magic. We don't have to explain it."

 

1. Back when Quesada took over as EIC, one thing that he said that he wanted to fix was Spider-Man and the issue of marriage. This was back in 2000. He's been adamant about it for years. Roger Stern refused to write the books for a long time, because of it. Kurt Busiek, Mark Waid, Dan Slott, Tom DeFalco and others have said throughout the years that getting Peter married was a mistake. That it only happened because Jim Shooter made a foolish decision to get them married to tie in with the daily newspaper strip. DeFalco said that he had planned to have MJ leave Peter at the alter, but it was too late to change it and so he left it. Marvel did the Clone Saga as a means of having a single Peter Parker once again, but got cold feet. Gwen Stacy was killed off because they didn't want Peter to marry her.

2. All evidence of Peter being unmasked was erased by Mephisto. Newspaper pics, video tape and digital cameras. All of S.H.E.I.L.D. footage. Etc.