Thursday, December 27, 2007

IT WAS A JOKE!

Remember back when I said they should bring back Harry Osborne? I was joking. It was a joke. I was throwing out some ridiculous thing. I love Harry. I would love to have him back. That doesn't mean that I thought bringing him back was actually a good idea. Marvel already brought back Norman.

Anyway, do I tell the guy at the comic book shop that I'm dropping Amazing Spider-Man from my pull list tomorrow, or should I wait until the first issue of "Brand New Day"?

Monday, December 03, 2007

I <3 Jeff Parker


Jeff Parker is awesome, and there is an interview with him up at Newsarama. Here's an excerpt:

JP: Because the suggested line-up I was originally given mentioned only one woman (I think I suggested Storm) and assumed Giant-Man would be in there. I knew the Wasp had gone gigantic before, so I originally suggested her as being able to go tiny or giant. The editors and VPs thought it might be too confusing, so we opted for her as Giant-Girl only. My thinking was, if I only have two women on this team, then I'm going to make one of them really hard to miss. I'd still rather it be three women. Just like if I were magically in the Marvel offices in the 60's I would beg Stan and Jack to make Angel a girl so the X-Men would have had a different dynamic from the beginning.

I love Giant-Girl, so I am really glad she's there, but I do not understand why having her be able to go tiny or gigantic would be too confusing. That's just dumb. I also love Jeff Parker for wanting to put three girls on the team. That would have been awesome. I wonder who he would have wanted them to be. Good for him for making her stand out as much as possible too. I don't know about making Angel a girl though. (When I was a little girl, I had a crush on him. He was blue then, and I thought the whole blond hair, blue skin and wings combo was really pretty.) That explains the X-Men First Class, vol.2 #1 story with Marvel Girl and the Invisible Girl though, as well as the friendship between Jean and Wanda, both of which I am so grateful for. It's so rare to see girls bond in comic books. It's even more rare to see a mentor relationship between two female characters. As a matter of fact, I don't know that I had ever seen that before. What he did there was so fresh and awesome, and yeah, it really is a very different dynamic.

Anyway, so much love for this man. Go read all his stuff, especially the Spider-Man/Fantastic Four story he did with Mike Wieringo, because it's a totally fun Spider-Man and Fantastic Four story drawn by Mike Wieringo. I can't wait for all his upcoming stuff too. I didn't read any of the 1602 stuff after the first miniseries, even though I liked it a lot, but I am all over this one.

Oh, and the Hulk screaming "Earth just want to be friend!" is my favorite part of "Ego the Loving Planet" too.

Also, 150th post! Woo Hoo! And it was about something positive. Yay for unintentional celebration.

Sunday, December 02, 2007

Scout Attacks! Sensational Spider-Man #41

Uhg. I have responsibilities now. There are more important things that need writing, but "One More Day" is so bad that things just need to be said. So, let's just start at the beginning.

The one good thing I have to say about part 3 of "One More Day" is that the art has gotten a lot better. Quesada's got his weird noses under control. However, the covers are still the same covers.

That red haired troll looking thing sandwiched between the "Who are they?" and "What deadly secret do they share?" That's supposed to be the little girl from the story, who is actually kind of cute, if creepy. That thing is just stringy haired and ugly.

Speaking of the little girl, there is some alternate version on Peter and Mary Jane that are terrible parents.
First of all, they let her go off by herself just because she's smart? Yeah, being smart is totally enough to save her from predators. Also, she's smart, but she'd rather be pretty like her mother? Whatever. Stupid comic book.

Let me just say this, I have a hard time believing that any daughter of Peter's wouldn't take at least some pride in being smart. I also have a hard time believing that any daughter of Mary Jane's would be self-conscious about her looks. Also, Peter, if a little girl expresses insecurity about her looks, you assure her of how beautiful she is. You do not tell her she will grow up to be beautiful. I am not surprised that some alternate version of you is an awful parent. You obviously suck at dealing with kids.

Moving on to the less trivial and nit picky complaints and getting on to the more serious reasons to hate this issue:

I hate the fact that everything this little girl is saying is true. That is exactly how JMS and Quesada have been characterizing him since "Civil War." It's like they are saying "Look! This is what Spider-Man has become. Don't you want us to change that? Oh, and by the way, he's only acting this way because he's married. It's all the marriage's fault."

But that is not what Spider-Man has become. That is how they are currently portraying him in order to justify this crappy story arc. This is the worst kind of writing - making your characters fit your stories instead of your stories fit your characters. It is everything a writer is not supposed to do.

I am not even going into those alternate versions of a powerless Peter that he runs into, because they are just too dumb and insulting. I just want to point out the naked girl in the champaign glass.
I'm probably reading too much into this, but I'm just getting this vibe. This vibe of them retconning the Lee/Ditko era to make it more like the freaking movie. I have no words for this, if my suspicions are true.

Back to the bad writing:













I was trying to think of what could make this worse. What could possibly be more random than JMS pulling Mephisto out of his ass as a deus ex machina in the penultimate issue of this arc? All I could come up with is if JMS had actually written the Marvel editorial staff into the comic book. But then, at least, that would be honest. Mostly, this is just stupid because Mephisto's whole motivation for caring is literally that he is the devil. That's it. How does this even count as a story anymore? Also, on the final page, Mephisto says there's a part of their soul that will remember and scream out in pain for what they have lost. What's stopping them from meeting again, and getting married again? So dumb.

I was going to post the last two pages too, but it doesn't matter. The whole "I want your marriage" thing is so ridiculous that it seems pointless to go on. I will say this, though. What they did by having MJ be the one to want to hear Mephisto out is significant. JMS did the same thing when Peter was deciding whether or not to unmask. Both times Peter has dismissed the huge status quo changing decision out of hand, while Mary Jane has been the one to think it over. Basically, JMS is laying the blame at here feet, while simultaneously writing her as if she's the reasonable one so that the reader will be duped into thinking that the decision that is made is well thought out, and ultimately the right one. Well, not wanting her husband to abandon her and Aunt May to become a fugitive does not make her a villain. Neither does wanting to do anything to save Aunt May. It also doesn't mean that the decisions that are made are the right ones, especially when the writer fails to have the characters thoroughly explore all the reasons why the characters shouldn't make the decisions that they ultimately end up making. (I will, however, point out that during JMS's run, he has had Aunt May learn that Peter is Spider-Man and retconned Gwen Stacy's death so that it is the result of her own actions rather than Peter's, thereby removing two of the biggest reasons for Peter keeping his identity a secret. That doesn't really change the fact that Gwen Stacy's death should have at least been brought up in that particular conversation.) But, while none of this makes Mary Jane a villain, it does make Peter a coward for never really being an active participant in his own life. As long as he's not at fault though, right? Because that is what would ruin the character.

I've written all this without even going into the fact that all this magical, mystical crap is completely inappropriate for a Spider-Man story. After six years, that's kind of a moot point.

On a final note, if the next issue doesn't have Peter and Mary Jane giving it some thought, and coming to the conclusion that taking Mephisto's deal is the last thing that Aunt May would want them to do, it will just prove everything I have had to say about this story, and about the whole "Back in Black" story. For once, it would be nice if Peter would actually consider what she would think of everything he is doing.