MEGA CON '08: JOE QUESADA RECEIVES AWARD, TALKS SHOP

[MichaelDoran]

<img src=http://www.newsarama.com/marvelnew/Quesada_Colbert2.jpg border=0 align=right hspace-4><i>Report by Steve Ekstrom</i>

Friday afternoon in Orlando, Florida Marvel Editor-in-Chief Joe Quesada took the stage at <i>MegaCon</i> in front of a packed room of soberly quiet comic book fans and said, “Hi, I’m Joe Quesada and I’m a comic-aholic.”

The <i>MegaCon</i> day began in a special manner for Quesada. Earlier in the day, on behalf of the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce of the city of Orlando, he was awarded the <b>Sun Award</b> for his achievements in the comic book industry and for his efforts within the Hispanic community. When asked about his award, Joe remarked, “I just wish my Dad was around to see me receive things like this — he really got into these kinds of things.”

Afterwards, Joe headed up the panel which was intended to be loose Q&A between the audience and the E-i-C. The panel was filled with a series up-and downs as Quesada fielded questions in regards to current storylines at Marvel as well as questions about his tenure in the industry and the ever prevalent “break-in advice” asked by numerous aspiring creators seeking to break-in to the industry.

With a slow jovial start, it did not take long for an audience member to initiate questions of “Why?” regarding Spider-Man and his recently altered continuity. This new status quo ushered in the by the <b>Brand New Day</b> storyline finds Marvel’s flagship character in a restructured and emotionally unencumbered continuity sans his near 20 year marriage to Mary Jane Watson. This was after all, Quesada’s first comic book convention since the release of the controversial storylines.

Quesada quickly and eloquently disarmed a few unhappy audience members who seemed to gang up on him in regards to the Brand New Day storyline by explaining the ramifications of keeping Spider-Man continuity in its previous mode. He stated, “My wife is okay with me saying this now — but my life before I was married was much more interesting than after I got married,” adding, “I didn’t have the stability that marriage provides — and that kind of stability can lessen the options of writers when engaging Peter Parker/ Spider-Man in his life and adventures. Spider-Man is much more interesting when the chance for more stories that create more conflicts can be achieved.”

Quesada continually fielded questions in response to specific aspects of Spider-Man continuity and held by his repeated statement, “Just keep reading — you’ll see that things aren’t as different as you think.”

At one point, on an interesting note, another audience member changed the topic to Quesada’s personal beginnings in the industry — and how, as an unlikely artist several years removed from his art school training (and a musician no less…), with a very limited time frame for finding a job, was given one of his first mainstream jobs at DC Comics by an up-and-coming editor, Jim Owsley, a man who would become known as the popular writer, Christopher Priest. Quesada stated, “It’s just amazing how I’ve been able to keep work since my first job at DC — I like to think I’m the luckiest S.O.B. in the history of comics.”

Quesada was also asked a wide variety of questions in regard to Icon and who exactly is privy to printing under this specific banner to which Quesada replied, “We try to keep Icon specifically for the creators that Marvel Comics has established long-standing relationships with,” adding, “no, it’s not a line of books for unknown creators.”

Quesada then went on to favorably field questions in regards to Dan Slott getting more monthly work by explaining that he thinks that Slott “could easily be the #1 or #2 guy in the industry in a few years…” and he stressed that he believed that Slott could be meticulous to a certain point and that his own corrective nature may be the key to increasing more of his presence in the Marvel Universe. Quesada continued fielding questions in regards to the difficulties young writers face when entering the medium and he stressed that the key factors to “continually write” and to “self-publish as much as possible”.

After the Q&A session wrapped, Newsarama was able to sit down with Quesada and follow-up on some of the more elaborate questions posed during the panel.

<b>Newsarama</b>: Joe, now that the writer’s [WGA] strike is over, and some of these Hollywood-based writers are going to be returning to their day jobs, are there going to be difficulties with these kinds of creative relationships?

<b>Joe Quesada</b>: You know, not really — when you look back at during the writer’s strike — we were approached by a lot of guys who had quite a bit of down time and we were concerned that these guys were going to have issues with timeliness…and there’s always this fear that something is going to get in the way of the timeliness of our books…but the guys we have are still working with us. Jeph Loeb is going to be heading back to the production of <i>Heroes</i>; and guys like Damon (Lindelof) who has given me more scripted material recently; and we also have a couple of things in the can that we haven’t announced just yet that have been a product of the strike but we’re going to take our time producing them — I think they are going to be pretty cool.

<B>NRAMA</B>: You had mentioned during the panel that guys like Alex Maleev are encouraged to take photographs of buildings and backgrounds to enhance their work and expedite their process — can the same be said for using pictures of models or celebrities faces as photo references? With the recent controversies being addressed on the web, have there been internal mandates enacted to curtail this activity?

<B>JQ</B>: Yeah, there have been but you have to understand that an artist using models and photo references to assist them in their work has been going on for quite some time — there is nothing new about any of this. The only new thing is thing called ‘the internet’ and basically, it is just a matter of time before someone looks up the image and finds the reference. A lot of artists use themselves as a model — I know Alex does, I know I do...it’s the same thing. And sometimes, to expedite matters, an artist will find a reference and they may not even think about where it comes from and they will use it. Low and behold, before you know it, that photograph is found and it’s out there!

You just really have to be careful with what you use as a reference. Likenesses are a much bigger problem — there’s that famous Amy Grant album cover that was used on a Dr. Strange cover, I believe — and that led to a lot of serious legality issues. There are going to be times when you use a likeness and someone may not like it — you just have to be really careful. We do encourage our artists to try to avoid that — but again, we do have to produce work and produce it quickly. Fans of comic books these days demand a certain level of fine detail in their books and artists try to compensate for the amount of work that they are trying to expedite — the pressure is tremendous.

<B>NRAMA</B>: Okay, getting down to it, how have you, as a creator, reacted to the criticisms of <b>One More Day</b> and <b>Brand New Day</b> personally?

<B>JQ</B>: You know, when I took this job, Tom DeFalco gave me the best advice anyone could give me. He told me that if I was going to be Editor-in-Chief you have to have a broad back — because no matter what I do — a lot of people are going to be unhappy no matter what you do. You turn one way and they don’t like the direction you went in — you turn the other way — and other people like your direction just as equally. No matter what — you’re going to hear it.

I’ve always kept that in mind — and I think it only amplifies how I handle this stuff — I truly expect it. It doesn’t matter if it’s <b>One More Day</b> or <b>Brand New Day</b> or something completely different. It’s cool that people are passionate about this stuff, I understand.

With <b>One More Day</b>, the reason I opted to draw this story was to put the burden solely on me — I was worried that this story could potentially harm another artist’s career. So, I decided to draw it and deal with the responsibility myself — because I knew going in…and so did everyone else involved with the project that this was going to be a very controversial project all around. I knew that fans were going to be vocal — that some people were going to be unhappy. I just knew that at the end of the day — that I had another job I could do. So I said let me be the guy who puts his money where his mouth is and bare the burden of this story.

Like I said, I totally expected the responses we’re getting — and now, we’re where we want to be with our Spider-Man stories and readers will see…one year down the road and then two years down the road that we have their best interests at heart. I know what’s going on — it’s all kind of cyclical…so everyone can trust me when I say, “Everything is going to be cool.”

[<i>image from Quesada's appearance February on Comedy Central's "The Colbert Report"</i>]

[HartyPotter]

Good stuff. I like his explanation for why he did the art for OMD.

[SlamBurger]

Oh yeah Joe Q. is obviously hugely concerned about timeliness.:rolleyes:

[melperfect]

Congrats to Joe on the award!

I don't agree with everything the man does, and I didn't get anywhere near OMD (really didn't care for the last 3-4 years of JMS ASM run), but I am really liking BND and I have to agree with the notion that Spidey is more interesting as a single guy.

I'm one of the people who likes Spider-Man comics about 10% for Peter Parker and his personal life and the other 90% for Spidey kicking the $hit out of the Sinister Six. Married Spidey just never really seemed interesting to me, and I've been reading since about 5 years before the marriage Annual issue.

Those who disagree, feel free to be upset.

[Northstar04]

Nice to hear from Joe again, and congrats on the award.

[Alextron]

I have to admit it, OMD is the probably the worst thing I've ever heard of in all my years of reading comics. And that's saying something. You look at stories such as the Clone Saga and maybe even Teen Iron man and you think 'that's bad, but atleast they were trying'.

Here, it's just let's have a bunch of bad stuff happen and then forget it. Let's not do a story where Peter finally meets all his friends and talks to them after they know he's Spider-man, let's just pretend that never happened already and have Aunt May get sick or something. Let's not have anything on that 'new powers' tip that The OTher (an absurdly bad story in itself, thank you, and ignore that after we do the costume change thing again... and then again. That must take real talent to ignore all the possibilties in a story, that you can just ignore them because you want to make Spider-man unmarried. 'Let's not do that a few years ago and see how it goes, we've got all these untapped potential ideas to not do anything with.'

Look, if you have a story where everyone finds out who Spider-man is and you don't do that big epic story out of it, it doesn't matter whether he's married or not, nothing is going ot happen.

Enjoy Menace, Paper Doll, and .... Mr. NEgative.

Where's Doc Ock?

[Clem]

When your gut is telling you something will be controversial, for God's sake - DON'T DO IT.

Haven't bought an issue since. Don't intend to go back.

Stupid f*cking reset buttons. May as well be watching Star Trek.

[NatePetrelli]

you haters can be as pesky and snarky as you want,Joe Quesada brought Marvel back from the brink to one of the best publishing periods in the history of the company

:)

[HankPym]

I know what’s going on — it’s all kind of cyclical…so everyone can trust me when I say, “Everything is going to be cool.”
Emphasis added by me.

There sure are a couple of ways to interpret THAT...

[trialsze]

You know I did not like Joe Q to begin with but I never thought he was an idot until he said this:
He stated, “My wife is okay with me saying this now — but my life before I was married was much more interesting than after I got married,” adding, “I didn’t have the stability that marriage provides — and that kind of stability can lessen the options of writers when engaging Peter Parker/ Spider-Man in his life and adventures. Spider-Man is much more interesting when the chance for more stories that create more conflicts can be achieved.”

Marriage doesn't cause stability it just gives you a support system and someone to go through those trials with you. This is by far the dumbest statement I have ever heard.

Yep, no more Marvel for me and mine until Joe is gone.

[CodeGuy]

[<i>image from Quesada's appearance February on Comedy Central's "The Colbert Report"</i>]

This struck me as funny, in a good way. I recognised that image when I saw it, but after a the discussion in the interview about using other people's photographs, it seemed super appropriate for the article to end with proper credit for the screen cap.

As far as using photo reference goes, I divide that stuff into two categories. Using the photos as reference and stealing. Tracing is stealing. Pasting Magneto's face onto a portrait is stealing. Looking at a photo and drawing your own picture: that is reference, and that I don't think it is a bad thing.

[Spidey616]

And yet, still NOTHING on the return of New Joe Fridays.....

[SlamBurger]

you haters can be as pesky and snarky as you want,Joe Quesada brought Marvel back from the brink to one of the best publishing periods in the history of the company

:)

Lots of time to drink Kool-Aid waiting for Marvel to ship those quarterly "monthly" comics.

Marvel's sales are in the toilet compared to pretty much all their history except 1996-2000, during the bust that immediately followed the speculator boom. Quesada's sales look good because they follow literally the worst sales period in the company's history.

[shanealt]

While the specific direction of One More Day isn't where I personally would have gone, I think it's important to note that Joe Quesada's viewpoint has reasoning behind it. By nature, "dating soap opera" has the potential for a lot more dramatic storytelling than "stable marriage". And for a serial comic like Amazing Spider-Man, progressing a comic too far isn't a very smart idea for future readers.

Coming into comics can be daunting when you have to worry about too much continuity baggage. And while yes, that "continuity baggage" can be a good thing in some circumstances, too much of it isn't appealing to the casual reader. I know that my dad used to read comics, and I've been able to get him to read an occasional comic here and there, but often he just can't get into it, because these iconic characters are so drastically different. And if someone who has a familiarity with these characters, someone who already has an interest, is finding it difficult to jump on, what does that say for potential readers who don't have someone to continuously push them?

For those complaining that we're seeing unestablished villains: Well, yes, but I think that's a very good thing. Seeing the same villains, over and over, can get boring after awhile. Don't get me wrong--the classic villains are classics for a reason (and it's not just because they were created awhile ago--there are plenty of early villains who couldn't sustain), but I think that we need fresh blood, characters that can be invented and given a solid push. Do I think all of them would stick around? Not at all--just like the early days, characters that don't "click" will eventually be left on the wayside. But maybe--just maybe--we'll get some new classics from the arrangement.

I don't want to see the same stories, and yes, I do think that's a reason a lot of people are skeptical of Brand New Day--because, in a way, it's just a giant step backwards. But, as someone who has read the first two storylines of Brand New Day, I can confidently say that I don't think everything is the same. I'm honestly intrigued by many plot points, and I think that the potential here can be explored for some great stories.

I've since dropped the title monthly for trade/hardcover format, only because the title is self-contained, and collections will come out frequently--it's just easier this way. But I'm excited to be reading Amazing Spider-Man. I just finished going back and reading Straczynski's run, and I enjoyed it very much--and now, I look forward to enjoying the rest of Brand New Day. I think that the writers have a very specific vision for the title, and I can't wait to see how it pans out.

[HieuLeBui]

the reason I opted to draw this story was to put the burden solely on me — I was worried that this story could potentially harm another artist’s career. So, I decided to draw it and deal with the responsibility myself — because I knew going in…and so did everyone else involved with the project that this was going to be a very controversial project all around.

Joe Q is now officially my hero.

[Black Ice]

Good stuff. I like his explanation for why he did the art for OMD.

I don't agree with what he and the Spidey brain trust decided in regards to OMD, but I get where they're coming from. I also respect him for taking the "bullet" and handling the art chores. Funny thing is I really enjoyed the art. That Iron Man vs Spider-man fight was pretty kick-ass. I would pay for four issues of that. (Hint hint)

[Yaw]

Joe Q is now officially my hero.

c/s

Joe is the man for that, seriously.

[SpaceButler]

I am quite unhappy with some of the editorial decisions Marvel has made in the past few years.

At the same time I am enjoying a lot of Marvel's books.

I don't click on BND stories anymore, much less comment on them. I guess I am voting with my dollars. No Spider-Man for me, but I am enjoying the X-Men books and anything Brubaker, Thor and The Twelve, and Incredible Hercules. I may not like what Joe does all the time but you have to give him credit for promoting Marvel and for producing a wide enough range of books that you can find pockets of the MU you can enjoy.

Congrats on the award.

[Glacier]

Boring! That's what Spider-Man is now. Right back to square one. You know what pisses me off the most though? All the fans that said they hated the fact that Spidey was going backwards with this whole "BND" idea, and who said they would not buy or support Amazing Spider-Man. What happens thought? These issues sell big time! I'm sticking to my guns though, I will never buy another Spider Man title again unless it's someone else other than Peter Parker. CHANGE rules, which is why most mainstream comics are just a waste of time. I'm saving tons of money reading my back issues of various titles, and I'm pretty much getting the same stories as all these so-called "new issues" that keep on pouring out.

[Question86]

Until Bendis is off every single Avengers title, I have no respect for Quesada.

[Moosarama]

And yet, still NOTHING on the return of New Joe Fridays.....
Let's be honest: those interviews didn't really tell us anything, just as this one barely tells us anything. I think it's much better for Quesada's image to have abandoned Joe Fridays in order not to spout out at the mouth again and rile people up. Sure, he thought it was good for business, but essentially he was taking pride in the fact he was getting people angry. The less antagonism, the better.

[Bathawk]

I recall a commercial for the US NAVY a while back that went

"If somone wrote a book about your life, would anyone want to read it?"

My life? a book? more like a pamphlet you could write my family & friends, my school life, my work life, and who I did date and who I did or didn't marry. Joe Q's life is probably more than a bit more interesting than mine, but me him and you are normal pepole

Now the book of Spider-man's life... His triumphs, his tragedy's (oh wait he dosen't have tradegies anymore, just reboots) his allies his enemies, his love life becomes a very small part of who he is

Now being a small part dosen't mean it's something you can adjust at will, Let's say we toss Batman's butler out the window, and replace him with a manservent named Pablo, becuase having a latino Butler instead of English opens up so many story ideas for the Dark Knight right? Didn't think so, becuase regardless of how great or small Alfred is to Batman, it's still apart of who he is

To his credit Dan Slott openend up Brand New day with Peter Parker liplocking with a "new girl" thinking "wait! this isn't me!" (and no I didn't buy it just thumbed through it in the shop)

So we've established that Petrer Parker having a revolving door of female intrests make him a much better character......No? Didn't think so

When all is said and done it's not the marriage fans are upset about (though we have angst over that too) But the whole reboot, web shooters back, living with his aunt, secret ID back Aunt May is ready for her 12th heart attack/stroke/whatever...geez this old bird lives through more stuff than Jean Grey

If your going to take something away from the table and reset the clock back to 1987, bring back something NEW

... and three or four half thought out, c-list supervillians don't cut it

[shanealt]

... and three or four half thought out, c-list supervillians don't cut it

Why are they C-List? Because they've never been seen before?

By that logic, any new character is completely destined to failure. And maybe that's true, in today's industry, but I don't think that's a good thing.

[Black Ice]

For those complaining that we're seeing unestablished villains: Well, yes, but I think that's a very good thing. Seeing the same villains, over and over, can get boring after awhile. Don't get me wrong--the classic villains are classics for a reason (and it's not just because they were created awhile ago--there are plenty of early villains who couldn't sustain), but I think that we need fresh blood, characters that can be invented and given a solid push. Do I think all of them would stick around? Not at all--just like the early days, characters that don't "click" will eventually be left on the wayside. But maybe--just maybe--we'll get some new classics from the arrangement.



Yeah, I wonder how many people where like "a clown... WTF" when the Joker first showed up. Here's hoping Mr. Negative sticks around.



I don't want to see the same stories, and yes, I do think that's a reason a lot of people are skeptical of Brand New Day--because, in a way, it's just a giant step backwards. But, as someone who has read the first two story lines of Brand New Day, I can confidently say that I don't think everything is the same. I'm honestly intrigued by many plot points, and I think that the potential here can be explored for some great stories.



I've been enjoying the ride so far and I'm looking forward to the screwball's debut issue. Art by Barry Kitson. I say thee hell yeah. Long live the Order.

[NoPrize]

You want Joe to come back, for ask joe fridays...I will do this if everyone else agrees..nothing but positive Marvel posts for a month.

[collide]

Until Bendis is off every single Avengers title, I have no respect for Quesada.
So you think gaining your respect is worth losing the customers that Bendis brought to the book?

Thats pretty arrogant.

[RedRonin]

Man, people are petty. Both here and at the con.

[Brent Sienna]

Like I said, I totally expected the responses we’re getting — and now, we’re where we want to be with our Spider-Man stories and readers will see…one year down the road and then two years down the road that we have their best interests at heart. I know what’s going on — it’s all kind of cyclical…so everyone can trust me when I say, “Everything is going to be cool.”]

Trust you that you have things planned one and two years down the road? Sure. Just like there was years of unmasked Spidey stories out there after Civil War's unmasking..... oh wait that was dropped faster than the Clone Saga once everyone realized the corner it had painted them into.

I know everything will be cool Joe, this will be undone like every other change to Spidey. It is the cycle you were talking about. Marvel changes Spidey then wimps out. Its like a shell game.

See Aunt May dead... nope wrong shell! It was an actress!

See Peter Parker the clone and Ben the real... nope wrong shell again!

Over here check out John Byrne's reboot AH HA Fooled you again!

Whats this...Pete and MJ make a pact with Satan to erase thier marriage to save an old hag who has more lives than a cat and probably the only thing to survive a nuclear war along with cockroaches....yeah I'm sure this will stick, it has such potential for years worth of stories, much like the unmasking did.

[Dan20]

When your gut is telling you something will be controversial, for God's sake - DON'T DO IT.
.

Well, I don't think that's quite fair. I mean, killing Captain America and bringing Bucky back was controversial, but I think Ed Brubaker is crafting a terrific story.
One More Day wasn't bad because it was controversial; it was bad because it pretty much made no sense. Both in terms of the ramifications, which have severely *&#$ed up continuity (sure, I hope it'll all be explained in a way that makes sense, but so far I doubt it), and in terms of the characters' choices themselves.
The sad part is that Joe Q has been great for Marvel overall, and he's got a tremendous creative staff -- the fact that they all decided that One More Day was the best they could come up with is pretty depressing.

[Bathawk]

Why are they C-List? Because they've never been seen before?

By that logic, any new character is completely destined to failure. And maybe that's true, in today's industry, but I don't think that's a good thing.

By all means, let's see new villians I LIKE new charcaters, I started reading spidey comics in the early 90's where there was a new spidey cillian appearing in one of his books every month

but....

Menace: ANOTHER goblin, just that this one is "vicious"? Dosen't matter if he turns out to be Tony Stark's lovechild he had with Morganne LeFayand is secretly living in Aunt May's basement, he's still "another" goblin

Mr.Negative: a crime boss with a visual gimmick, well 40 years ago it was being bald and sumo-sized so I geuss we're improving

Freak: can anyone here on the site design a more cookie cutter look/name/origin for a villian? I mean were they trying?

I really not trying to seem harsh, I'm really not we've seen time and time again in comics that with the right writer any charcter old new or lame can gain serious momentum. But you need to build up a charcter make them stand out. Is there something deeper to Mr.Negative or Menace? (not even going to dignify Freak with inclusion)

Fine, but give themmore than 3 or 4 issues, and they need to be center stage of the storyline they're in. I don't buy Spider-man anymore, but I understand those that do are reading it for BND and the wriers know this, so for good or ill, theese new creations are takign a backseat for "exploring" this new status quo

[shanealt]

By all means, let's see new villians I LIKE new charcaters, I started reading spidey comics in the early 90's where there was a new spidey cillian appearing in one of his books every month

but....

Menace: ANOTHER goblin, just that this one is "vicious"? Dosen't matter if he turns out to be Tony Stark's lovechild he had with Morganne LeFayand is secretly living in Aunt May's basement, he's still "another" goblin

Mr.Negative: a crime boss with a visual gimmick, well 40 years ago it was being bald and sumo-sized so I geuss we're improving

Freak: can anyone here on the site design a more cookie cutter look/name/origin for a villian? I mean were they trying?

I really not trying to seem harsh, I'm really not we've seen time and time again in comics that with the right writer any charcter old new or lame can gain serious momentum. But you need to build up a charcter make them stand out. Is there something deeper to Mr.Negative or Menace? (not even going to dignify Freak with inclusion)

Fine, but give themmore than 3 or 4 issues, and they need to be center stage of the storyline they're in. I don't buy Spider-man anymore, but I understand those that do are reading it for BND and the wriers know this, so for good or ill, theese new creations are takign a backseat for "exploring" this new status quo

Yeah, but characters need time to be built up. And to be honest, there hasn't been a lot of the "ignore furthering the story just to explore the new status quo"--the stories have been front and center, while at the same time creating a solid background to build upon for future stories.

The new characters you're so simply dismissing will take more time to establish. I think that building a character who is incredibly complex right from the start is a bad idea--people have tried this, and they're generally disliked by the fans and then ignored by subsequent writers. A character that's slowly introduced, slowly built up over time by multiple writers, however--one who is simpler at first, easy for the fans to remember? Those are the characters who stick around for the long run.

It's not like the classic villains were introduced as they are today--it took years for them to reach the levels they're currently at. I think that more creators should put serious effort into building new villains and new supporting characters, because it could lead to great things. We just have to be receptive and open, not dismissing things at first glance.

[Supremeo]

Lots of time to drink Kool-Aid waiting for Marvel to ship those quarterly "monthly" comics.

Marvel's sales are in the toilet compared to pretty much all their history except 1996-2000, during the bust that immediately followed the speculator boom. Quesada's sales look good because they follow literally the worst sales period in the company's history.


That is an outright lie,marvel's sales are have been and are currently doing stellar. Considering they have been killing the competition you have no basis to form that claim.

[POWRSURG]

Who is this Joe guy? Is he new to Newsarama? I don't think I've ever seem him covered here before? Will we hear more from him? :p

[Psivage]

I was worried that this story could potentially harm another artist’s career. So, I decided to draw it and deal with the responsibility myself

How could drawing OMD hurt a artist career? I really don't get that. Writing it maybe, but drawing it?

[shanealt]

How could drawing OMD hurt a artist career? I really don't get that. Writing it maybe, but drawing it?

If a creator becomes associated with a project that ultimately turns out to be a significant failure, editors might be less willing to hire said creator, in fear of them bringing the reputation of a tainted project to a new project.

[Franklin Harris]

you haters can be as pesky and snarky as you want,Joe Quesada brought Marvel back from the brink to one of the best publishing periods in the history of the company

:)

So did Bill Jemas, but in his case it was clear by the end that he had done all of the good he was going to do and was becoming a negative influence. Of course, most of what's wrong with Marvel right now is the very sort of things Jemas scaled back or eliminated: crossover events and reset buttons.

[Bathawk]

How could drawing OMD hurt a artist career? I really don't get that. Writing it maybe, but drawing it?


I'm more concerendwith how he admits the damage this story can do to a creator, If he's convinced that a year or two from now we'll be agreeing that OMD was the right thing to do, then wouldn't this artist/writer be celebrated for what he did? Does not compute

Unless he's admiting that he knows he/we're in for a train wreck and is just enjoying the ride

[Franklin Harris]

That is an outright lie,marvel's sales are have been and are currently doing stellar. Considering they have been killing the competition you have no basis to form that claim.

We or may not be seeing a jump in sales right now, but frankly the data is impossible to trust because it's so incomplete. Given the margin of error, we can only gage sales over long periods of time, and on that scale, comics sales have been going down since the end of World War II, with various spikes and dips along the way. And it has nothing to do with the quality or subject matter of the comics; it's just a simple matter of more and more entertainment alternatives cropping up to compete with comics (and the fact that with CGI, movies can now duplicate the superhero stunts and fights in which comics once held a wide comparative advantage).

[BanMan]

That is an outright lie,marvel's sales are have been and are currently doing stellar. Considering they have been killing the competition you have no basis to form that claim.

And let's be real here. It's not like comics are the cheapest thing to get.

At $3 or $4, you may as well add a buck and get an extra value meal.

[Bathawk]

Yeah, but characters need time to be built up. And to be honest, there hasn't been a lot of the "ignore furthering the story just to explore the new status quo"--the stories have been front and center, while at the same time creating a solid background to build upon for future stories.

The new characters you're so simply dismissing will take more time to establish. I think that building a character who is incredibly complex right from the start is a bad idea--people have tried this, and they're generally disliked by the fans and then ignored by subsequent writers. A character that's slowly introduced, slowly built up over time by multiple writers, however--one who is simpler at first, easy for the fans to remember? Those are the characters who stick around for the long run.

It's not like the classic villains were introduced as they are today--it took years for them to reach the levels they're currently at. I think that more creators should put serious effort into building new villains and new supporting characters, because it could lead to great things. We just have to be receptive and open, not dismissing things at first glance.

I actualy agree with you, the last worthwhile Spidey villians were Venom and Hobgoblin Why? they were'nt overnight sensations. Even Venom who can be argued turned into a goldmine overnight, had his seed planted four years erlier in Secret Wars.

But those 90's villians that were oping up all over the place in the 90's I mentioned? How many of them are considered "A" list or even "B" list now? Knight and Fogg? Cardiac? Styx & Stone? Bloodshed?

If Mr.Negative, who unlike Freak wasn't created on apaper napkin, and Menace who I feel is too derivitave is going to be the next big thing in the Spider-man mythos, By all mean Marvel go for it, take a year and interweave Mr.Negative into a Machievelian villian that will rival the Lizard or Electro as a top-tier Spider-man villian

You don't however discard your new creation after a few issues to make way for yet the third of fourth new villian to apear in as half as many months.

But this is slightly off topic from my original point, would a new villian, a true classic who could make it into the next Spiderman trilogy, be enough of a "payoff" for the magic rest button that was OND/BND?

[SpaceButler]

We or may not be seeing a jump in sales right now, but frankly the data is impossible to trust because it's so incomplete. Given the margin of error, we can only gage sales over long periods of time, and on that scale, comics sales have been going down since the end of World War II, with various spikes and dips along the way. And it has nothing to do with the quality or subject matter of the comics; it's just a simple matter of more and more entertainment alternatives cropping up to compete with comics (and the fact that with CGI, movies can now duplicate the superhero stunts and fights in which comics once held a wide comparative advantage).

Yeah, we were discussing that in my popular culture seminar a few weeks back when we read Brad Wright's Comic Book Nation. Most of the people in the class had never picked up a comic book and that was one of the discussion questions we came up with, why they thought comics had lost so much of their market. These things were youth culture that challenged norms before we had Rock n' Roll. But then we did get Rock, and TV, video games, and now superheroes in other media. The industry is doing better than it was a few years ago, but you have to wonder how much longer the decline can be staved off. Right now the corporate properties of the big two are more valuable for their licensing, which is fine as long as the comic book movie craze continues, but after it dies down you have to wonder if there will be a point where it will no longer be profitable to run Marvel or DC. Guys like Joe, Didio, and Levitz have very tough jobs and while I disagree with some of the things they might do I cannot fault their intentions. Just a thought.

[netkinetic]

This new status quo ushered in the by the <b>Brand New Day</b> storyline finds Marvel’s flagship character in a restructured and emotionally unencumbered continuity sans his near 20 year marriage to Mary Jane Watson...Quesada quickly and eloquently disarmed a few unhappy audience members

Glad we have a Quesada apologist here to help us defined how "unencumbered" retconning decades worth of continuity really is...and doing so "eloquently". At least this article isn't in the News section, although the article's spin is more taylored for Op-Ed, IMHO.

[shanealt]

I'm more concerendwith how he admits the damage this story can do to a creator, If he's convinced that a year or two from now we'll be agreeing that OMD was the right thing to do, then wouldn't this artist/writer be celebrated for what he did? Does not compute

Unless he's admiting that he knows he/we're in for a train wreck and is just enjoying the ride

I don't think that's it at all. Controversial stories are risky, but risk can bring either success or failure. It may have been a risk he was willing to take, but he didn't want to force someone else to take that risk.

Think about the death of Captain America. When Brubaker decided to go that route, it was a pretty big risk--people could have hated it, and he could be remembered as "the guy who killed Captain America". It hasn't turned out that way so far, but it could have, and that would have been a stain he would have had on his career for a long time--look at the threads here, where people are so fast to ridicule a creator because of something they did once earlier in their career. It's very easy to raise the ire of fans, and much more difficult to repair the damage in their eyes.

Joe Quesada was trying to prevent others from risking their reputation on a story that was his decision. He's shown that he's willing to step up and, if necessary, take the fall. He acknowledges that there's the potential for that, and I think that's a good thing--it shows he's not making these decisions without preparation.

[pez dispenser]

Man, people are petty. Both here and at the con.


You said it.

I've mentioned this before, but I'd never be caught dead going to a con.
The prospect of being surrounded by people who actually get angry...I mean really angry, over comic books, of all things, is appalling and utterly embarrassing to me.

Well, that, and people dressed as Stormtroopers scare me.

[Blaqstar]

With <b>One More Day</b>, the reason I opted to draw this story was to put the burden solely on me — I was worried that this story could potentially harm another artist’s career. So, I decided to draw it and deal with the responsibility myself — because I knew going in…and so did everyone else involved with the project that this was going to be a very controversial project all around. I knew that fans were going to be vocal — that some people were going to be unhappy. I just knew that at the end of the day — that I had another job I could do. So I said let me be the guy who puts his money where his mouth is and bare the burden of this story.


Wait is that why he wrote it too.

[Yaw]

I'm more concerendwith how he admits the damage this story can do to a creator, If he's convinced that a year or two from now we'll be agreeing that OMD was the right thing to do, then wouldn't this artist/writer be celebrated for what he did? Does not compute

Unless he's admiting that he knows he/we're in for a train wreck and is just enjoying the ride

OMD was done to change the status quo. Quesada is talking about the change to get to the new status quo is what would be unpopular. OMD and BND although related are two different things. I wish people would understand that by now.:(

[Kevin T. Brown]

And yet, still NOTHING on the return of New Joe Fridays.....
They've been delayed.

:p

[shanealt]

But those 90's villians that were oping up all over the place in the 90's I mentioned? How many of them are considered "A" list or even "B" list now? Knight and Fogg? Cardiac? Styx & Stone? Bloodshed?

That's my point exactly--how many of them were built into actual characters? These were villains created because everybody wanted to make the next big thing, but creators didn't actually want to put in the effort to organically build the characters.

I think that people have learned that lesson, and that they're slowly taking the time to build stories and characters into ones that actually matter.

You don't however discard your new creation after a few issues to make way for yet the third of fourth new villian to apear in as half as many months.

I think that this is a good idea, actually. If they just focus on a single villain for even two years, it's a story arc. We've had creators that did that with villains, and they didn't stick around. This is more like how villains were built up originally, with appearances here and there to give different villains a chance to slowly grow on the audience, and then to gradually go with the ones that seem more popular.

But this is slightly off topic from my original point, would a new villian, a true classic who could make it into the next Spiderman trilogy, be enough of a "payoff" for the magic rest button that was OND/BND?

Overall, I think yes, but that implies that OMD/BND is a complete abomination with nothing redeeming on its own, and I don't think that's true, if for no other reason then that we haven't had time to see any of the big picture yet.

[rblythepitt]

There was already Spider-Man as a single guy: ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN.

[Zechs]

Oh Joey.. this is MERELY the beginning.

And how are OMD and BND two different things?

Both change the Spidey verse.. for a year or two (cause honestly does anything stay in a Spidey book a year or more now? :p ). Both try to take Spidey back to the 70s where's he's even more unlucky and single.

[Bathawk]

I don't think that's it at all. Controversial stories are risky, but risk can bring either success or failure. It may have been a risk he was willing to take, but he didn't want to force someone else to take that risk.

Think about the death of Captain America. When Brubaker decided to go that route, it was a pretty big risk--people could have hated it, and he could be remembered as "the guy who killed Captain America". It hasn't turned out that way so far, but it could have, and that would have been a stain he would have had on his career for a long time--look at the threads here, where people are so fast to ridicule a creator because of something they did once earlier in their career. It's very easy to raise the ire of fans, and much more difficult to repair the damage in their eyes.

Joe Quesada was trying to prevent others from risking their reputation on a story that was his decision. He's shown that he's willing to step up and, if necessary, take the fall. He acknowledges that there's the potential for that, and I think that's a good thing--it shows he's not making these decisions without preparation.


I can agree that a risky move can break a career, but if it pays off it gets major attention the Death of Captain America or the unmasking of Spidey, regardless on how successful the fans see it, the notewothiness of theese events spread to major media outlets creating popularity with folks who would have never picked up a comic otherwise

Remeber the rush of folks trying to pick up Cpatian America #25 wh themselves didn't buy comics but just wanted to grab the book USA Today was talking about?

Brand New Day is a different animal it's contovery isn't in "shaking things up" but "putting things back the way they were"

Sales on Spidey since BND are near the top of the charts, butthis is in good part due to the fact that even fans who hate BND/OMD want to see where things are going and how long can that last?

The Creators who crafted OMD/BND aren't going to have thier reputations damaged by the story itself Joe Q is gettign the backlash on that way more than JMS, The damage is going to land at the feet of the revolving door of artists and writers who are scrambling, hoping to create enough of a resolution to make this lukewarm rollercoaster worth it.

looked in that light you could see this as a way to spread the blame around between Joe Q, JMS, Bob Gale, Dan Slott, Guggenhiem and whoever else they get on board, at ehich point it no longer become the creators fault, but Marvel's

[rblythepitt]

you haters can be as pesky and snarky as you want,Joe Quesada brought Marvel back from the brink to one of the best publishing periods in the history of the company

:)
What planet are you on? Marvel's best publishing periods were during the 60's through the 80's. The numbers themselves will prove this. Marvel is still not selling ANYWHERE NEAR what they did back then, and never will. Anyone can sell comics with QUANTITY. Amazing Spider-Man sales continue to slip at the store I work in. Numbers are now under 20, as I predicted 4 months ago. I think the numbers in the coming months nationwide will prove this. Joe S(cumbag) can be thanked for alienating the MAJORITY of fans who wanted Peter still married to Mary Jane. I will say this again, ANY WRITER WHO CANNOT WRITE MARRIED CHARACTERS IN ANY MEDIUM SHOULDN'T BE WRITING AT ALL. As far as I'm concerned, it is EASIER to write a single character than it is a MARRIED character, and therein seperates good writers from bad ones. Joe's explanations don't was with me. And this whole "Marvel Universe" will be changed forever is getting old. Just more hype for what will be another boring major event. House Of M, Civil War, World War Hulk were all major disappointments from a creative standpoint. Great people, boring result. What is worse is the Skrull Invasion isn't original (neither was Civil War) and Brian Michael Bendis is writing it (again, House Of M: BORING). I love Bendis' work on POWERS, DAREDEVIL, ALIAS, THE PULSE, and ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN. But his New and Mighty Avengers are HORRIBLE. I dropped those books because they were stupid and boring. The only titles I am left with right now are FANTASTIC FOUR, CAPTAIN AMERICA, and ASTONISHING X-MEN. That's it. Everything else is average or worse at best. I'll make mine somewhere else.

[shanealt]

The Creators who crafted OMD/BND aren't going to have thier reputations damaged by the story itself Joe Q is gettign the backlash on that way more than JMS, The damage is going to land at the feet of the revolving door of artists and writers who are scrambling, hoping to create enough of a resolution to make this lukewarm rollercoaster worth it.

That's the point--Quesada is turning himself into the spotlight for negative reaction, because that's his job, to stand by his decisions and protect his employees.

[Bathawk]

Shanealt: Just wanted to take a break and say that i'm enjoying the discussion; you've had some valid points, and while I can't say I've changed my position. I hope yuou see this as I do as a friendly debate

[shanealt]

And how are OMD and BND two different things?

One More Day was a story outlining the end of an era to usher in a new one.

Brand New Day is the attempt to tell new stories, without being hampered by several decisions that had come before, in order to, ideally, craft a new, extended Spider-Man story to develop new classics.

The fact that fans refuse to separate the two is not a good thing. People are angry about One More Day, and as such won't give Brand New Day a fair chance.

[shanealt]

Shanealt: Just wanted to take a break and say that i'm enjoying the discussion; you've had some valid points, and while I can't say I've changed my position. I hope yuou see this as I do as a friendly debate

The fact that you actually seem to be reasonable, intelligent, and more than "This is how I think, everybody else is WRONG" goes a long way. Trust me, I feel much more comfortable debating this with you as opposed to several others on these boards who make me want to pull my hair out.

[wjclark01]

One More Day was a story outlining the end of an era to usher in a new one.

Brand New Day is the attempt to tell new stories, without being hampered by several decisions that had come before, in order to, ideally, craft a new, extended Spider-Man story to develop new classics.

The fact that fans refuse to separate the two is not a good thing. People are angry about One More Day, and as such won't give Brand New Day a fair chance.

I believe that part of the problem with viewing BND as a new era is that in the eyes of many, it really isn't.

It's returning Peter back to his dorky ways, full of personal insecurities and self doubt.

Been there, done that. And you know what - I'm bored by it. While I respect what Joe has done for Marvel as a whole, and I have a ton of respect for him for basically biting the bullet on the whole OMD/BND deal, this is one decision where I just don't agree and that is my right, just as it is anyone else's right to want to read the BND era.

Plus the whole Mephisto thing left a bad taste. There had to be a better way.

And yeah, there are those teenage years for Peter being done in Ultimate - I'll still read that. But Amazing? Nope. Not until Odin comes down and fixes things....

As for Joey Q - Take heart, dude. Yeah, you lost me with BND but you still got the best comic on the market with Captain America. Now that's the way you usher in a new era....

[Bathawk]

cool, now that being said

It seems that OMD/BND almost NEED to be the same, much in the way a trilogy or other franchise needs to be directly part of it's previous installments.

One one hand I can see this as a Trilogy of sorts we've seen the dark depressing "emo Peter Parker in OMD, and now "luckless loser Peter Parker reprising his role from 20 years ago" in BND and between these extremes we may see the brand new(?) status quo Spidey at the end of the Third Part, probably in time for the next Marvel ZEvent after Secret Invasion

Or at least I hope, Shanealt you seem fairly optimistic about this (story? event? whatever it is) becuase we can't see where this is going yet, that we can't see the big picture yet, as it's too early. Fair Enough, but this is hoping there is a picture to be seen

I'm reminded of the "Who shot JR" story from Dallas back in the 80's. I was 10 at the time but I know TV history. After realizing they had a big build up with no way way to resolve it, they have a charcter wake up in bed discovering it was "all just a dream"

Now after apparently having no other satisfactory way to break up Peter and MJ, we resort to Magic and Parker wakes up in his old bed at Aunt May's

Now if we have faith in Joe Q and this end up to be a huge three part epic in the Spideman mythos, I'll eat my crow and say my apologies.
But with the random new villian of the week, the constantly changing creative teams, I really feel like the editorial team is throwing thing at the wall to see what sticks and are just flying by the seat of thier pants.

With a 12 issue series I can see where we're headed by th6th or 8th issue, but at 9 bucks a pop per month Joe Q is expecting a lot of Blind Faith whwn we haven't even heard any confirmation more than "wait and see".....but with no idea for how long

[ThatGuamGuy]

Has any artist's career ever been damaged, let alone destroyed, for drawing a bad story? (Assuyming the art itself is good and not the source of controversy.)

[SlamBurger]

That is an outright lie,marvel's sales are have been and are currently doing stellar. Considering they have been killing the competition you have no basis to form that claim.

Look at sales in the 60s, 70s, 80s, especially the early 90's. Look at the 40's when comics solid in the hundreds of thousands regularly, and Captain American was pushing a million copies monthly. There are some sales figures here http://www.nostalgiazone.com/doc/zine/05_Q2/funnybusiness.htm and http://www.comichron.com/YearlyRankings/1960s/tabid/195/Default.aspx. As I said, Marvel's sales are only "stellar" in comparison to the post-boom depression, when sales were at an all-time low.


1968
Amazing Spider-Man 373,303
Daredevil 292,423
X-Men 273,360

1974
Amazing Spider-Man 288,232
Incredible Hulk 202,592
Batman 193,223
Daredevil 161,910

1980
Amazing Spider-Man 296,712
Incredible Hulk 201,000
X-Men 191,927

1986
Uncanny X-Men 417,000
Amazing Spider-Man 276,064
Incredible Hulk 196,933
Daredevil 189,959

1992
X-Men 967,808
Uncanny X-Men 731,425
Amazing Spider-Man 592,442
Wolverine (1993) 396,958
Ghost Rider 357,200
Incredible Hulk 299,755

[NedPepper]

Emphasis added by me.

There sure are a couple of ways to interpret THAT...


AMEN. Comics are cyclical. The fact that Joe is ushering in another low point is the strange irony.

It's almost as if that's a safety word for him to excuse negative fan reaction and a stubborn insistence to mold the seventies and the nineties into what is now Marvel comics.

When people stop buying comics, it won't be just because this is an cyclical industry and that's just the way it works. It's because you're knowingly doing this.

This is coming from the guy who took us out of that dark age. I think that's the biggest crime. He KNOWS BETTER.

How about another variant cover, Joe? :rolleyes:

[TheJerkle]

With One More Day, the reason I opted to draw this story was to put the burden solely on me — I was worried that this story could potentially harm another artist’s career. So, I decided to draw it and deal with the responsibility myself — because I knew going in…and so did everyone else involved with the project that this was going to be a very controversial project all around. I knew that fans were going to be vocal — that some people were going to be unhappy. I just knew that at the end of the day — that I had another job I could do. So I said let me be the guy who puts his money where his mouth is and bare the burden of this story.

I don't get this part. No one would blame the artist... and hey, it might have come out a lot sooner

[HawkeyeX007]

Joe Q has done great things for the Industry, and it's great that we actually have an E.I.C. of a major publishing company that isn't Caucasian!

As far as his run is concerned, he basically threw everything at the wall to see what sticks... luckily, a lot has actually stuck. I've supported him on so many controversial moves (revealing Wolverine's origin, bringing back his memories, the destruction of Genosha, New Avengers as a whole, death & rebirth of Hawkeye, Death of Cap, Civil War, Iron Douche) while tolerating others (Decimation, the inconsistency of the Iron Douche's characterization throughout Civil War tie-tins). Hell, Tony Stark was boring as Iron Man for a while before changing the second part of his name.

But OMD.... I'm sorry Joe, but I'm not supporting you on this one. Not a penny is going towards that atrocity.... and it's not like I have to discipline myself to do so. It's not merely a matter of principle.... I just don't have it in me.

[LikeaPhoenix]

Wow, Quesada has lost and managed to keep his weigh off.

So, now that OMD is behind him, is he going to resume his Joe Q Fridays??

For the record, I don't agree with his justifications of making Spider-Man single. I believe JMS made the same argument in the past. I just think he was on ASM too long and ran out of ideas/juice. Maybe it's not Peter's being married that's limiting the storylines. Maybe it's the writers who are limited. In any event, I must admit I am enjoying BND.

Again, I want my Joe Q Fridays, New Joe Q Fridays, Young Joe Q Fridays, or whatever the heck it's going to called! LOL

[shanealt]

I think a large part of it is that we, as fans, need to decide if it's worth our blind faith. I've learned that, by being optimistic, I enjoy reading comics a lot more than if I was looking for ways to hate what was going on. That's pretty clear, and I can't argue with my own experiences.

As I've said, this isn't where I would have gone, if I were the one making the decisions--but this is the situation we have. I think that, overall, there's been enough in Marvel under Quesada's run that I've enjoyed, and because of that, I have enough faith in this new direction to stick around. Some people may not agree with my evaluation of Quesada's success rate, and that's their right, and they should base their decisions accordingly. But I think that this will turn out nicely, in the end, and I hope that people will be open to it.

Ultimately, the decision belongs to the reader, but I hope people will make their decisions using reasoning and logic, as opposed to adamantly following a gut reaction following One More Day. Even if the reasoned decision turns out to be the same as the gut reaction, at least it'll be a well thought-out choice, and the readers may even learn something about what they really want to read in the process, which could lead them to wonderful new comics.

[Bog]

So in all seriousness, was I the only one more offended by the 3x a month thing than the magic devil man thing?

[ArkhamGuest]

Just for the sake of chiming in, I have to say that I like BND... but we shouldn't have had to go through a deal with the devil to get to this point. To me the true BND was Straczynski's initial storyarc, "Coming Home". Think about it... Peter was single, Aunt May was alive, he had just 'broken up' with MJ (interestingly there's no reference to MJ being his wife...). This is where a 'new direction' should have started, and it did for the most part... but then everything got bogged down in spider-totems and getting back together with MJ, as well as Spidey revealing his identity to the world... which let's face it, the REAL Spider-Man would never have done that. I find it funny that Spider-Man once had a brief convo with Tony (Marvel Knights Spider-Man #2) about never revealing his identity because unlike Tony he doesn't have a ton of bodyguards... but then later on he does reveal, with Tony's support (Civil War #2). The funny part? Both of those moments were written by Mark Millar.

Spider-Man's a skrull, people. The real clone died in that smokestack. Ben Reilly was the real Spider-Man... he's still out there somewhere. The Ben Reilly that died was a clone. Mary Jane has been a skrull all these years too but the real Mary Jane has returned as Jackpot. (crickets... crickets...)

[LazyHero]

What planet are you on? Marvel's best publishing periods were during the 60's through the 80's. The numbers themselves will prove this. Marvel is still not selling ANYWHERE NEAR what they did back then, and never will. Anyone can sell comics with QUANTITY. ...... I love Bendis' work on POWERS, DAREDEVIL, ALIAS, THE PULSE, and ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN. But his New and Mighty Avengers are HORRIBLE. I dropped those books because they were stupid and boring. The only titles I am left with right now are FANTASTIC FOUR, CAPTAIN AMERICA, and ASTONISHING X-MEN. That's it. Everything else is average or worse at best. I'll make mine somewhere else.

NatePetrelli's on the same planet I'm on ... along with all the thousands of other people who never post on these boards because we can not stand the pesky b!tchy snarky comments from people who have completely lost sight of what it's like for comics to be fun and surprising. The New and Mighty Avengers are FUN and fresh again after years of going through the same old. It sounds like you should quit reading altogether. He was referring to the energy and creativity of the current publishing period being one of the best in Marvel's history, not the sales numbers. Those sales numbers from decades ago will never ever return and it's not because of Joe Quesada. He rescued Marvel from death with creative thinking and fresh new ways to lure in a new generation, but there's only so many kids these days you can get. In fact, comics will probably go away in our lifetime because of the way you people turn new readers off with your constant b!tchfests, and because the vast majority of kids are just into other things these days.

[LazyHero]

Look at sales in the 60s, 70s, 80s, especially the early 90's. Look at the 40's when comics solid in the hundreds of thousands regularly, and Captain American was pushing a million copies monthly. There are some sales figures here http://www.nostalgiazone.com/doc/zine/05_Q2/funnybusiness.htm and http://www.comichron.com/YearlyRankings/1960s/tabid/195/Default.aspx. As I said, Marvel's sales are only "stellar" in comparison to the post-boom depression, when sales were at an all-time low.

EXACTLY ... sales of the current era of Marvel are stellar in comparison to the era that immediately preceded it ... the era that nearly destroyed the company. Without Quesada, and the creative renaissance that happened at Marvel from 2000 on, you wouldn't have seen a return to the sales numbers of decades ago, you would have seen Marvel disappear. The industry will never be what it once was. There are new sales standards now that the industry has shrunk. Embrace new ideas and new readers that come along with them. Our club is much too small nowadays to be this petty.

[Franklin Harris]

Both change the Spidey verse.. for a year or two (cause honestly does anything stay in a Spidey book a year or more now? :p ). Both try to take Spidey back to the 70s where's he's even more unlucky and single.

Marvel has been bringing back the '70s since Bendis came aboard. It's a generational thing: the creators in charge at Marvel now came of age with the Bronze Age, not the Silver Age. That's why characters like She-Hulk, Spider-Woman, Ms. Marvel, Shang Chi, Howard the Duck, and Moon Knight are more visible now than they were during the '80s and '90s.

[Andrew]

you haters can be as pesky and snarky as you want,Joe Quesada brought Marvel back from the brink to one of the best publishing periods in the history of the company

Yeah, but that was 7 years ago now. He's overstayed his welcome, unfortunately.

[Floyd Barber]

The industry will never be what it once was.

No offense to you in particular. But I really hate the way some people have just accepted that the industry will never be what it was. There are things that could be done, there just hasn't been a company to step up and do it yet.

[AC-WEB]

I trust Joe Quesada as much as I can throw him. Amazing Spider-Man is much more boring now than it has ever been. I really tired of the company bs line of wait and see. So let me get this straight, Joe. You're asking that people buy Amazing Spider-Man for a year or two to get some sort of payoff? There you go folks, get ready to shell out $215.28 for two years worth of stories and then decide if you like the direction of Amazing.

[AC-WEB]

you haters can be as pesky and snarky as you want,Joe Quesada brought Marvel back from the brink to one of the best publishing periods in the history of the company

:)

So it's ok for him to now drive Marvel's flagship character Spider-Man into the ground because of his hatred of the Spidermarriage? Alienating so many of the Spider-man fans does not seem like a wise business move. One thing is true, Quesada is and has taken sole responsibility for this direction (except for naming all the creators who helped him make the decision) and if sales tank, I hope he goes down with the ship.

[Andrew]

One More Day was a story outlining the end of an era to usher in a new one.

Brand New Day is the attempt to tell new stories, without being hampered by several decisions that had come before, in order to, ideally, craft a new, extended Spider-Man story to develop new classics.

The fact that fans refuse to separate the two is not a good thing. People are angry about One More Day, and as such won't give Brand New Day a fair chance.

No matter how you look at it, buying BND means that you support the changes made in OMD. You can argue all you want that "the two stories are seperate" or that you "like the new creators," but there is absolutely no way that you can deny that financially supporting BND means that you are perfectly fine with what happened in OMD.

This is why I will never buy Amazing Spider-Man ever again unless this mess is reversed. And for the record, I'm one of those younger readers still under 20 that Marvel desperately needs more of.

[BT Shire]

As a kid, Spider-man was my favorite comic. I've been a DC man for years, especially Batman. But I've read Ultimate Spider-Man since #1, and I've been loving it all along. I just couldn't relate to the other Spidey titles, though. Married or not, it didn't matter, but I couldn't get into the stories. It just wasn't my Spider-Man.

I agree that the way they got to this point (OMD) was stupid, but I don't care because I didn't read it. But I've been picking up every issue of BND and so far, I LOVE it. THIS is the Spidey I grew up with and loved. The stories are funny, fresh, and exciting. Mysteries are slowly building. Peter's bad luck is both funny and heart-breaking. Spider-Man's battles against his new villians contain the right mix of excitement, comedy, and tragedy. The stuff going on at "the DB" is cool. Spidey has heart again, struggling to do the right thing and not worrying so much about personal cost. And the stories are MOVING right along, not plodding, decompressed, "paced for trade."

This is good stuff. Let go of your preconceptions and just enjoy the ride.

Somebody finally realized that comics CAN actually be FUN. And BND is a whole lot of fun.

[cmdrkoenig]

I understand that single Spider-man is less stable than married Spider-Man and a bit more interesting, but the way it was brought about was incredibly stupid and damaging to the character (heroes making demonic deals isn't very heroic).

I don't understand how JoeQ can condemn Spidey's marriage, yet marry off several other somewhat prominant characters...Storm (has been featured in films/cartoons), Black Panther (may have a film in the works), and Daredevil (featured in a film)...It's contradictory to his reasoning for Spider-Man being married. Aren't these characters all more interesting being single? How is he doing anything different than what was done to Spider-Man years ago?

[Andrew]

As a kid, Spider-man was my favorite comic. I've been a DC man for years, especially Batman. But I've read Ultimate Spider-Man since #1, and I've been loving it all along. I just couldn't relate to the other Spidey titles, though. Married or not, it didn't matter, but I couldn't get into the stories. It just wasn't my Spider-Man.

I agree that the way they got to this point (OMD) was stupid, but I don't care because I didn't read it. But I've been picking up every issue of BND and so far, I LOVE it. THIS is the Spidey I grew up with and loved. The stories are funny, fresh, and exciting. Mysteries are slowly building. Peter's bad luck is both funny and heart-breaking. Spider-Man's battles against his new villians contain the right mix of excitement, comedy, and tragedy. The stuff going on at "the DB" is cool. Spidey has heart again, struggling to do the right thing and not worrying so much about personal cost. And the stories are MOVING right along, not plodding, decompressed, "paced for trade."

This is good stuff. Let go of your preconceptions and just enjoy the ride.

Somebody finally realized that comics CAN actually be FUN. And BND is a whole lot of fun.

That's fine and all, but the thing is, almost none of that stuff couldn't have been done with a married Peter Parker. How exactly do "fun" stories involving mystery and intrigue require Peter to be single? They don't.

[AnalSurprise]

<B>JQ</B>: You know, when I took this job, Tom DeFalco gave me the best advice anyone could give me. He told me that if I was going to be Editor-in-Chief you have to have a broad back — because no matter what I do — a lot of people are going to be unhappy no matter what you do. You turn one way and they don’t like the direction you went in — you turn the other way — and other people like your direction just as equally. No matter what — you’re going to hear it.

I’ve always kept that in mind — and I think it only amplifies how I handle this stuff — I truly expect it. It doesn’t matter if it’s <b>One More Day</b> or <b>Brand New Day</b> or something completely different.

Much as it may make me unpopular in some circles to admit it, generally speaking, I consider myself a Joe Quesada fan. I genuinely enjoy his more mature and realistic take on the Marvel Universe. I also didn't care if the Spider-marriage was dissolved or not, as long as the story was good. In fact, in one of the many damage control interviews published on this site during OMD, Steve Whacker quoted me as someone who'd been "on their side", mostly because I encouraged people to buy and read One More Day before criticizing it (which I ended up doing myself : both reading and hating it).

But even this Quesadahead admits rolling his eyes when JQ claims that he knew OMD would be universally shat upon. Trying to make yourself look smarter and more in control after the fact is unnecessary and, let's face it, embarrassing.

I remember JQ said the same thing after Civil War, with regards to how he knew everyone would be sympathetic to Cap's side and instantly paint Tony as the villain. Yet Mark Millar himself admitted that the entire bullpen went into the event assuming that readership would instantly rally behind the law, which is why a mandate was issued to slightly shade the pro-registration side to even things out. Millar even confessed that some writers (I'm assuming he meant Front Line's Paul Jenkins and ASM's JMS) took the mandate a bit too literally, and had Tony Stark come across as Dr Doom. How does that happen when the EIC claims he knew people would rally behind Cap from Day 1? Were we not promised "no right side" in this war?

Same with Avengers Disassembled. Same with The Other. Time and time again, Joe claimed after the fact that he knew all along what would happen; and that when backlash ensued he not only welcomed it, but was gunning for it. Hogwash. New Avengers would be no less successful if the story that set it up didn't suck.

Most of the time, your audience will be divided about whether the story was good or not. But those rare times when it's unanimously panned as terrible, as was the case with OMD, well... you can do a lot of things in reaction to that, but patting yourself on the back for allegedly knowing ahead of time that you were publishing a steaming pile of ... isn't one of them. For crying out loud, even those who argued in favor of dissolving the marriage ended up admitting that this story was terrible. So Joe knew this reaction would happen with this particular story? And he chose to go ahead with it anyway?

Is that why no one saw hide nor hair of him for months after that?

With <b>One More Day</b>, the reason I opted to draw this story was to put the burden solely on me — I was worried that this story could potentially harm another artist’s career. So, I decided to draw it and deal with the responsibility myself — because I knew going in…and so did everyone else involved with the project that this was going to be a very controversial project all around. I knew that fans were going to be vocal — that some people were going to be unhappy. I just knew that at the end of the day — that I had another job I could do. So I said let me be the guy who puts his money where his mouth is and bare the burden of this story.

Now this is where Joe really puts his foot in his mouth. So he fancies himself the general who jumped on the grenade to protect his troops -- is that why he strong-armed JMS into writing the story he wanted to see written? Or why he wouldn't let JMS remove his name from the writing credits, suggesting instead on meeting him halfway by putting both their names on the final issue's writing credits?

JMS tried and failed to let JQ "bare the burden of this story". How can Quesada possibly pat himself on the back for his heroic sacrifice after that? It's mind-boggling.

Like I said, I totally expected the responses we’re getting

Arg.

Readers will see…one year down the road and then two years down the road that we have their best interests at heart. I know what’s going on — it’s all kind of cyclical…so everyone can trust me when I say, “Everything is going to be cool.”

I'm sure that whoever was in charge during Heroes Reborn said the exact same thing. :(

/AS

[Franklin Harris]

I don't understand how JoeQ can condemn Spidey's marriage, yet marry off several other somewhat prominant characters...Storm (has been featured in films/cartoons), Black Panther (may have a film in the works), and Daredevil (featured in a film)...It's contradictory to his reasoning for Spider-Man being married. Aren't these characters all more interesting being single? How is he doing anything different than what was done to Spider-Man years ago?

I'm betting either Storm or Black Panther is a Skrull. No more marriage.

[MrToady12]

With One More Day, the reason I opted to draw this story was to put the burden solely on me — I was worried that this story could potentially harm another artist’s career. So, I decided to draw it and deal with the responsibility myself

... does anyone know if he said this with a straight face? I mean seriously, did anyone fall for this "let me jump on the grenade" crap?

I would give him credit for being honest enough to admit that he took the job because he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that OMD would be generating a lot of publicity, and it would ensure that as Publisher, co-writer, and artist, he would be given the lion's share of TV/ Internet/ Media coverage. But to come out with that load of rubbish - the man is pure "management."

Move over David Brent your replacement has arrived.

http://img.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2007/04_02/brentDM2504_228x283.jpg

Cheers :)

[ramberk]

With One More Day, the reason I opted to draw this story was to put the burden solely on me — I was worried that this story could potentially harm another artist’s career. So, I decided to draw it and deal with the responsibility myself

... does anyone know if he said this with a straight face? I mean seriously, did anyone fall for this "let me jump on the grenade" crap?

I would give him credit for being honest enough to admit that he took the job because he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that OMD would be generating a lot of publicity, and it would ensure that as Publisher, co-writer, and artist, he would be given the lion's share of TV/ Internet/ Media coverage. But to come out with that load of rubbish - the man is pure "management."

Move over David Brent your replacement has arrived.

http://img.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2007/04_02/brentDM2504_228x283.jpg

Cheers :)

According to your reasoning, JQ would also have drawn the Cap death issue and the Spidey unmasking Civil War issue. Not to mention, the fact that Joe Q is the face of Marvel, so he doesn't need to pencil or write any particular book-- he's the one that will always be asked for an interview. And no matter who writes what or who draws what, when a big change happens to any Marvel character, the finger is pointed at him. The buck stops with him and he will be the one interviewed.

You might not buy the "I'll take the blame, so I'll draw the issue" argument but you can't say it because he's whoring for attention. He'll get the interviews regardless. And in past Marvel events he has excluded himself from being the lead artist.

[Jeremy Williams]

I have to admit it, OMD is the probably the worst thing I've ever heard of in all my years of reading comics. And that's saying something. You look at stories such as the Clone Saga and maybe even Teen Iron man and you think 'that's bad, but atleast they were trying'.


Get a grip.

[cmdrkoenig]

I'm betting either Storm or Black Panther is a Skrull. No more marriage.

Yeah...I've been saying the same thing over on the Marvel Boards for a while now...It's probably the same with Luke Cage and Jessica Jones...One of them was probably a Skrull during their whole marriage too.

[artjunkie]

No offense to you in particular. But I really hate the way some people have just accepted that the industry will never be what it was. There are things that could be done, there just hasn't been a company to step up and do it yet.
Please inform us, genius, exactly how the industry is going to do a 360 and somehow return to the days of comics selling in the six and seven figures they enjoyed decades ago as opposed to the low-to-mid five figures (20,000 to 55,000) of today?




[cue crickets chirping]




We're waiting, hell, the entire industry is waiting to know how to make this happen, o' brilliant one...

[Silvermoth]

The problem with the Spidey franchise now isn't the stories. Its the fact that we as fans buy into the whole big event that will change everything cliche and then a year later they change it back.

Why read a story if within a year it will become obselete and non-canon? I think this is why alot of fans are turning on the "new" spidey. Because there is no point caring anymore because it will always change back without any real repercussions

[artjunkie]

Yeah...I've been saying the same thing over on the Marvel Boards for a while now...It's probably the same with Luke Cage and Jessica Jones...One of them was probably a Skrull during their whole marriage too.
You geniuses do realize that Luke Cage, Jessica Jones, Storm & the Black Panther (and lets add Reed & Sue Richards) are NOT Spider-Man, right? Meaning their marriages don't have the same effect on the essence and concept of their character as it did on Spider-Man.

Stop comparing apples to pork chops in a fruit contest.

[thejames]

You know I did not like Joe Q to begin with but I never thought he was an idot until he said this:
He stated, “My wife is okay with me saying this now — but my life before I was married was much more interesting than after I got married,” adding, “I didn’t have the stability that marriage provides — and that kind of stability can lessen the options of writers when engaging Peter Parker/ Spider-Man in his life and adventures. Spider-Man is much more interesting when the chance for more stories that create more conflicts can be achieved.”

Marriage doesn't cause stability it just gives you a support system and someone to go through those trials with you. This is by far the dumbest statement I have ever heard.

Yep, no more Marvel for me and mine until Joe is gone.


"Up Grow"

Hey Trialsze - thats a puzzle - figure it out

[beta-ray]

Lots of time to drink Kool-Aid waiting for Marvel to ship those quarterly "monthly" comics.

Marvel's sales are in the toilet compared to pretty much all their history except 1996-2000, during the bust that immediately followed the speculator boom. Quesada's sales look good because they follow literally the worst sales period in the company's history.

*takes a swig of kool aid*

Yeah and that is singular for marvel eh? Poor marvel, drowning while the rest of the industry sails by...

[beta-ray]

Let's be honest: those interviews didn't really tell us anything, just as this one barely tells us anything. I think it's much better for Quesada's image to have abandoned Joe Fridays in order not to spout out at the mouth again and rile people up. Sure, he thought it was good for business, but essentially he was taking pride in the fact he was getting people angry. The less antagonism, the better.


I can't speak for Mr. Q, but I am pretty sure he would be happy if everyone loved his books too. Though he has admitted that as long as people have passion he is cool with it.

You pretty much get what you put in or what filters you read with. I just like getting juicy bits of hints. If you feel the interviews don't give you anything that's fine, I'd say stop reading them. I like 'em though and would like to see them back. Surprised it wasn't asked though.

[MattBrady]

Folks, the discussion here has been okay for the most part, though I've had to pick out a few insults and others. If your coming here to discuss, fine - please keep is civil and respectful of those you disagree with.

If your version of "discussion" involves insulting those who don't agree with you, calling people names, or stereotyping whole swaths of people becuase they have a different opinion than you, please find another place to "discuss" topics.

MattB

[troutx]

This weeks issue of Amazing is the 1st book I didn't get since I started reading the title. I finished out what my store had ordered in advance and therefore it gave me a handful of issues to give it a chance.

But you know, this direction isn't really doing anything for me. I'm not a hater, but their logic doesn't jive with me. Why does Spidey need to be single to have a supporting cast? He couldn't have one while he wasn't? I take it then that whenever he begins to date someone the supporting cast will have to go away by that logic, right? Why does Spidey need to be single to tell "fun" stories, is fun somehow exclusive only to the single status? Why does Spidey need to be single in order to introduce new villains? Have these villains only decided to become in conflict with him because he's single?

Do you see where I'm going with this? If they truly feel that this is what's best for the character, fine. But to try and throw all this additonal stuff what they couldn't do is plain silly.

HIs single vs married status arguement isn't really what bothers me. I like Spidey when he had the average person's luck, some good, some bad. Not this attitude that he works best when his luck is almost always bad. That has become a cliche at this point and takes away from both the story and character in my opinion.

Plus, I don't like that Aunt May doesn't know anymore, to me her knowing his secret ID made her TONS more interesting AND gave her more story potential.

AND, Peter's never been a "player" in the dating scene and unlike let's say... Daredevil or Wolverine, I highly doubt they can have him bounce from 1 night stand to 1 night stand. Because of his characterization, there is alot of things on the dating scene they won't do to mantain his image.

While I'm at it, I realize he doesn't drink, which is fine, but am I to believe that he would even toast a glass of champagne? Even in the 3rd Spidey move they have him in that charcterization in ordering it before he planned to... oh guess what, PROPOSE to MJ.

I read the 1st few issues of BND, but what they consider Spidey and what I consider Spidey isn't the same thing...

[Spade]

OMD is a swerve job. It's not really happening. Mephisto is playing a game with Spidey's mind. Spidey will overcome the devil, wake up, and everything will be as it was before OMD.

[Ed (again)]

you haters can be as pesky and snarky as you want,Joe Quesada brought Marvel back from the brink to one of the best publishing periods in the history of the company

:)

A voice of reason - hear, frakkin', hear

[jeffgamer]

That's fine and all, but the thing is, almost none of that stuff couldn't have been done with a married Peter Parker. How exactly do "fun" stories involving mystery and intrigue require Peter to be single? They don't.

Exactly. Marvel could be producing stories with the exact same feel as these...heck, with very few alterations, they could publish the EXACT same stories...but could have left intact the elements that long-time fans are infuriated about having lost, the marriage being the most important. But Mr. Quesada has been quite clear with his own bias, that, somehow, being married makes the character magically lose his "interesting quotient". Patently absurd, contradicted by evidence of sales before the demonic erasure, and insulting.

I have dropped ASM and 75% of my Marvel titles...most of the other 25% will be going as soon as storylines are completed. Bring the marriage and its history back and people like me will consider returning. You don't have to lose "fun Spidey" to have the marriage back...all you have to lose is his chances to "git down and funky" with some other woman. And, as far as I'm concerned, he is still married, and any relationship they depict in the comics is Marvel Comics depicting adultery in their flagship character.

[Ed (again)]

The problem with the Spidey franchise now isn't the stories. Its the fact that we as fans buy into the whole big event that will change everything cliche and then a year later they change it back.

Why read a story if within a year it will become obselete and non-canon? I think this is why alot of fans are turning on the "new" spidey. Because there is no point caring anymore because it will always change back without any real repercussions

I hate the argument that fans are blindly buying into something like lemmings all heading over the cliff.
We all know Marvel is a company that wants to make copious amounts of money. And that BND is essentially a marketing strategy and yes the marriage could be restored at some point.
I’m buying BND in the knowledge of all those things cos A. the marriage being gone doesn’t bother me and B. I like the stories to date. All I want is good story well told and some half decent artist that understands storytelling to illustrate it. So far I'm getting that. After reading for 30 years I know there'll be more changes to this character over the next 30 years (hoping I'm still here for that!).
Look, the years before JMS took over were far, far worse IMO.

[astronato]

I love what Joe has done with Marvel. I am almost 100% satisfied with the Marvel Universe of characters whereas I am never more that 50% satisfied with what is goin on with DC's legacy factory.

We each have our own peeves about how comics should be. To me resets,reboots,retcons are all fair game in comic books. Especially with books that have been ongoing for decades. So it's a new era of Spiderman. How much do you want to bet Marvel uses this to come out with a Spidey book set in a different continuity where Parker and MJ are still married? It's all gonna be ok. The sun will still rise tomorrow.

But I do love how people take out their anger on Aunt May in these Spidey threads. It makes me chuckle. Poor old lady, what did she do? :p Leave her alone!

Joe...when the heat dies down, please come back and do Joe Fridays again.

[Ed (again)]

Exactly. Marvel could be producing stories with the exact same feel as these...heck, with very few alterations, they could publish the EXACT same stories...but could have left intact the elements that long-time fans are infuriated about having lost, the marriage being the most important. But Mr. Quesada has been quite clear with his own bias, that, somehow, being married makes the character magically lose his "interesting quotient". Patently absurd, contradicted by evidence of sales before the demonic erasure, and insulting.

I have dropped ASM and 75% of my Marvel titles...most of the other 25% will be going as soon as storylines are completed. Bring the marriage and its history back and people like me will consider returning. You don't have to lose "fun Spidey" to have the marriage back...all you have to lose is his chances to "git down and funky" with some other woman. And, as far as I'm concerned, he is still married, and any relationship they depict in the comics is Marvel Comics depicting adultery in their flagship character.

ASM, IMO, was slowly disintegrating bit by bit after issue 330 or so. The marriage which was novel to start with has been, little by little, getting staler. 20 years on and we are at this point. Yes blame the writer who can’t write about two married people if you will but JoeQ is right Spider-man has more verve about him when he was single. True JMS did write a good marriage but it was often overcooked with all that you complete me stuff...please.
JoeQ also comes backed with a long line of creators who were against the marriage so it wasn’t exactly his master plan or anything...he'd been getting the vibes from comic book professionals for years.
Peter is not committing adultery as he is not married anymore. Furthermore, MJ sealed the deal with Mephisto so it was at her behest. So no matter how much you want to pretend he is married – he’s not.
This is like the people who said "Oh I didn’t like Sins Past therefore it's not part of continuity in my spider-verse.
Marvel owns the character; it decides what the continuity is. And that can often be painful for us paying customers.
Why don’t people hire a billionaire to buy Marvel, install them selves as EIC and publisher do things the way you want 'em and then let’s see how long the company lasts....oh I’d say six months...

[MrToady12]

According to your reasoning, JQ would also have drawn the Cap death issue and the Spidey unmasking Civil War issue. Not to mention, the fact that Joe Q is the face of Marvel, so he doesn't need to pencil or write any particular book-- he's the one that will always be asked for an interview. And no matter who writes what or who draws what, when a big change happens to any Marvel character, the finger is pointed at him. The buck stops with him and he will be the one interviewed.

You might not buy the "I'll take the blame, so I'll draw the issue" argument but you can't say it because he's whoring for attention. He'll get the interviews regardless. And in past Marvel events he has excluded himself from being the lead artist.

Maybe you have a point, but being in the position of publisher, co-writer, and artist on a book certainly means he doesn't have to share any credit or limelight with anyone except Straczynski.

In addition, being a major creative force on the book ensures that his name will be remembered and identified with the character for a long time eg, Byrne on Superman and X-Men, Miller on Batman, Jurgens on Superman, Simonson on Thor etc. Something he couldn't claim in regards to the death of C.A., and the Spider-Man unmasking.

Maybe I'm wrong, but I have yet to meet and/ or work with many Managers who are as selfless as Quesada is making himself out to be. It doesn't fit the type of mentality most seem to have, and certainly isn't a trait that keeps them in such a position of power for any length of time. Like I said, his comments lack sincerity. If you believe it more power to you...

And just to be clear - I'm not knocking his talent, or abilities as head of Marvel as he is obviously doing a good job, just the "selfless" act.

Cheers :)

[Ed (again)]

As a kid, Spider-man was my favorite comic. I've been a DC man for years, especially Batman. But I've read Ultimate Spider-Man since #1, and I've been loving it all along. I just couldn't relate to the other Spidey titles, though. Married or not, it didn't matter, but I couldn't get into the stories. It just wasn't my Spider-Man.

I agree that the way they got to this point (OMD) was stupid, but I don't care because I didn't read it. But I've been picking up every issue of BND and so far, I LOVE it. THIS is the Spidey I grew up with and loved. The stories are funny, fresh, and exciting. Mysteries are slowly building. Peter's bad luck is both funny and heart-breaking. Spider-Man's battles against his new villians contain the right mix of excitement, comedy, and tragedy. The stuff going on at "the DB" is cool. Spidey has heart again, struggling to do the right thing and not worrying so much about personal cost. And the stories are MOVING right along, not plodding, decompressed, "paced for trade."

This is good stuff. Let go of your preconceptions and just enjoy the ride.

Somebody finally realized that comics CAN actually be FUN. And BND is a whole lot of fun.

bravo, sir!

[Smakk9]

I'm a believer, as much as I hated OMD, that alot of this debacle will be forgotten a year or so from now as long as the Amazing team produces top notch stories. I still don't like OMD but I prefer it to killing off MJ.

[Punchy]

When your gut is telling you something will be controversial, for God's sake - DON'T DO IT.

That's just ridiculous.

Reasonings like this are why comics are stuck in a rut.

I know you're a big fan of Geoff Johns' Green Lantern, how was bringing back Hal not going to be controversial?

[Beetle Bomb]

He stated, “My wife is okay with me saying this now — but my life before I was married was much more interesting than after I got married,” adding, “I didn’t have the stability that marriage provides — and that kind of stability can lessen the options of writers when engaging Peter Parker/ Spider-Man in his life and adventures. Spider-Man is much more interesting when the chance for more stories that create more conflicts can be achieved.”

Well, I think he just confirmed for everyone that it was his own personal agenda to reset Spidey and do away with the marriage. To paraphrase: "My life is less exciting now that I'm married, so see? It's the same with Spiderman. Marriage means less interesting."

Great Joe, just great. Sending all sorts of good messages nowadays. Deals with the devil. Broken marriages. 'Preciate it.

For goodness sakes, why couldn't Spiderman be made just as interesting married? What happens when he's outside the house web-slinging is just as feasible and doable when he's married or not married. A fight is a fight. And as far as the whole "constant female companionship" question goes, well, a wife being threatened by a badguy is not much different than your girlfriend being threatened by a badguy. You're still going to protect your loved ones. The fact that it's your wife only increases the sacrifice and risk, I think.

[JohnLynch]

Tracing is stealing.No its not! Its copyright infringement!

(if pirates can say it why can't tracers? :P).

Coming into comics can be daunting when you have to worry about too much continuity baggage.Only if you've got a hack writer. See the LoSH arc in Action Comics, Blue Beetle and Captain America for an example of using continuity well.

I know that my dad used to read comics, and I've been able to get him to read an occasional comic here and there, but often he just can't get into it, because these iconic characters are so drastically different.Wow! Does he only like reality television and game shows so he doesn't have to deal with characters that actually change over time?

what does that say for potential readers who don't have someone to continuously push them?That they should stick with daytime soaps if they can't handle the minimal change that happens in comics. Its certainly a profitable market, although certainly one I wouldn't want to belong to.

For those complaining that we're seeing unestablished villains: Well, yes, but I think that's a very good thing.But wait, won't people be confused when they see heroes fighting these non-iconic villains and be put off from comics!?

By that logic, any new character is completely destined to failure. And maybe that's true, in today's industry, but I don't think that's a good thing.Maybe if people like you're Dad gave them a try it wouldn't be true. You can even tell him he doesn't have to worry about them being non-iconic, because they're completely new!

I just don't get the "I don't want change" frame of mind. If you want old "iconic" stories, read back issues. Or hell, read the Ultimate universe! They've got a whole place for people that don't like back issues! I'm a fan of change and the idea that most comics should be treading water or worse, moving back just makes no sense to me. Which is why I'm currently digging such titles as Captain America, Blue Beetle, Flash and Green Lantern Corps. While churning out the same old recycled ideas is certainly profitable, its something I like to see comics veer away from.

[Prof. Warren]

To everyone who keeps harping about how all the stories that they're telling now in BND could've been done just as well with keeping Spidey married, please stop. If you want a Spider-man marriage that only involves him being married in name only and occasionally remembers that "oh, yeah - I'm married." while he leaps from one adventure to the next and interacts with all the many people in his life then sure, you could keep the marriage. It'd be the most unhealthy, negligent marriage on the books but you could have it. The fact is the pace of these new stories doesn't allow for any real attention to a Peter/MJ relationship. And for anyone who thinks that the same supporting cast and subplots could still exist with a married Peter, you're delusional. I'm betting most of the people with this opinion aren't married themselves. I'm married and wholeheartedly love it but the fact is, everyone else in my life takes a backseat to my family, as it should. I stay in contact with my friends, I go out with them semi-regularly, but it's not the same as when I was single. If it was, I'd be a very poor husband and father. For Peter to have the kind of adventures he's having now - and the kind that are surely mapped out for him over the next year or more - to also be married is impossible.

Some character should be married - like Reed and Sue. It makes sense for them. But Spider-Man is one that shouldn't. BND has been offering the kind of fun, fast-paced Spidey stories that the book used to be known for. I'm loving it and my thanks to Joe Q. and the rest of the new Spidey team for making me excited to pick up each new issue.

[rblythepitt]

"NatePetrelli's on the same planet I'm on ... along with all the thousands of other people who never post on these boards because we can not stand the pesky b!tchy snarky comments from people who have completely lost sight of what it's like for comics to be fun and surprising."

Which, hypocrite you are, you just posted. Don't lie and say you never post when you just did!

"The New and Mighty Avengers are FUN and fresh again after years of going through the same old."

Apparently, fun to you is blah, blah, blah, blah, blah...enough talking. I hear enough talk at work, I don't need wordy, boring Avengers. I don't have a problem with the lineups, I have a problem with shoddy dialog and lack of real focus of what the Avengers SHOULD be.

"It sounds like you should quit reading altogether. He was referring to the energy and creativity of the current publishing period being one of the best in Marvel's history, not the sales numbers."

Let's not confuse energy and creativity with something called DOLLAR SIGNS. The whole Marvel machine is more driven by money than creativity. The fact that Joe was willing to ignore the majority of fans who stil wanted Peter and Mary Jane married proves this. I could site numerous other example but then I would become your hero, the wordy Mr. Bendis.

"Those sales numbers from decades ago will never ever return and it's not because of Joe Quesada."

If you read my post, I NEVER mentioned that Joe S was responsible for ANY numbers. READ the post next time.

"He rescued Marvel from death with creative thinking and fresh new ways to lure in a new generation, but there's only so many kids these days you can get."

Marvel was rescued from death by the people that actually BOUGHT Marvel from under bankruptcy. There is always a money machine that will put money into a big company like Marvel. Joe is merely a TOOL of these people. As long as someone sees the bottom line is in the black, then its business as usual.

"In fact, comics will probably go away in our lifetime because of the way you people turn new readers off with your constant b!tchfests, and because the vast majority of kids are just into other things these days"

Kids won't be buying comics because of negative comments. Kids don't buy comics BECUASE THERE ARE MANY OTHER THINGS OUT THERE TO DO WITH THEIR TIME. Kids today play video games, play on a computer, watch TV, compete in sports, etc. The comic book has become insignificant to kids and children because of the culture we now live in. DC, Marvel and many others can continue to try and bring the kids in, but you are never going to see growth in that market. This is where Marvel makes a mistake with gearing toward the kids. Your only hope is to KEEP the fans that are still buying the comics (20-50). Pissing them off is only going to hurt the industry FASTER. If all you are left with is a few kids and teens, then we'll be seeing all our comics online sooner than later. Now go back to reading your Avengers books and fall asleep.

[Ken B.]

Two points, really:

- a bit too much adoration by the writer for Quesada. It didn't read as objective.

- I just don't care about Spider-Man anymore. Because of OMD, the fallout, and how Marvel just wanted people to accept it and move on because they couldn't be bothered to fix their mess, I just don't care. And that's apparently the thing Quesada is so scared about. I don't care about comics that much really, either anymore. Pretty much Booster Gold and X-Men: First Class are the only books I look forward too now.

And really, no one asked why Ultimates is so bad?

[Bugaboo-X]

"Quesada quickly and eloquently disarmed a few unhappy audience members who seemed to gang up on him."

Wow. Full disclosure, please: How long has this particular writer had a crush on Joe? I hope that after this lovely interpretation of the event, JQ invited him out for dinner to discuss a possible PR job ... or romance.

[Bugaboo-X]

If it's so gosh-darned beneficial to keep characters mired in their earlier lives instead of allowing them to collect "baggage" and change with the times, then why the heck haven't we seen Joe Q:

* Make Cyclops totally ineffective as a leader and bring back Jean as his one true love?
* Keep Banner wandering the country, changing into a mindless Hulk, doing damage and running away?
* Require that Tony Stark have to actually put on his armor piece at a time, and get him the hell out of SHIELD?
* Let Steve Rogers live to fight the Nazis again and again?

Why is it just Spider-Man he wants to totally lock down?

[House of J]

I'd forgive everything if he'd send me one of those "COLBERT - HULK" presidential bumper stickers!

COLBERT SMASH!

[Salieri]

1) That SOB comment's gonna end up on someone's sig.

2) That's actually quite interesting that he pencilled so that he could take the blame...very responsible, very wise. Almost as if he had predicted the outcome of OMD from the start.

[Uncle Jawa]

"Quesada quickly and eloquently disarmed a few unhappy audience members who seemed to gang up on him."

Wow. Full disclosure, please: How long has this particular writer had a crush on Joe? I hope that after this lovely interpretation of the event, JQ invited him out for dinner to discuss a possible PR job ... or romance.

Ok, so what were they supposed to do? Rip the guy a new a**hole just because YOU don't like him? Serously, don't bother reading Newsarama (or any other credible news outlet) if that's the sort of reporting you are looking for.

[Salieri]

rpblythepit - wasn't everyone complaining weeks ago because an issue of MA contained nothing but fight scenes with robots? Weren't they all praising NA's "The Break-up" for its well-handled emotional dialogue?

[Clem]

That's just ridiculous.

Reasonings like this are why comics are stuck in a rut.

I know you're a big fan of Geoff Johns' Green Lantern, how was bringing back Hal not going to be controversial?

I meant controversial in the negative sense, that it'll cause the entire comic community to riot and demand your head on a pike.

Geoff bringing Hal back from the dead wasn't really very controversial. He was righting a decade long wrong. Nobody is going to mind a character being alive and heroic again.

Now if only he wasn't DC exclusive. Then he could dart back and forth correcting BOTH universes.

[Xanrn]

OMD will be forgotten in a year or so...

Really? So everyone has forgotten Clone Sage and noone ever brings it up...

Anyone who thinks OMD won't be bought up for years to come, is living in La-la lands.

Also BND isn't fun, its dull, uninspired, lackluster and recycled stories

Maybe I'll come back for AMS 600 where Peter and MJ get married again or are married again.

[troutx]

To everyone who keeps harping about how all the stories that they're telling now in BND could've been done just as well with keeping Spidey married, please stop. If you want a Spider-man marriage that only involves him being married in name only and occasionally remembers that "oh, yeah - I'm married." while he leaps from one adventure to the next and interacts with all the many people in his life then sure, you could keep the marriage. It'd be the most unhealthy, negligent marriage on the books but you could have it. The fact is the pace of these new stories doesn't allow for any real attention to a Peter/MJ relationship. And for anyone who thinks that the same supporting cast and subplots could still exist with a married Peter, you're delusional. I'm betting most of the people with this opinion aren't married themselves. I'm married and wholeheartedly love it but the fact is, everyone else in my life takes a backseat to my family, as it should. I stay in contact with my friends, I go out with them semi-regularly, but it's not the same as when I was single. If it was, I'd be a very poor husband and father. For Peter to have the kind of adventures he's having now - and the kind that are surely mapped out for him over the next year or more - to also be married is impossible.

Some character should be married - like Reed and Sue. It makes sense for them. But Spider-Man is one that shouldn't. BND has been offering the kind of fun, fast-paced Spidey stories that the book used to be known for. I'm loving it and my thanks to Joe Q. and the rest of the new Spidey team for making me excited to pick up each new issue.

Sorry, no, I won't stop. By that logic then EVERY superhero marriage should be unhealthy and negligent, how much time does Reed spend in the lab, and he has kids. Superman is the premier hero at DC, he has adventures the REGULARLY take him off planet, back in time, different dimensions etc and yet THEIR marriages are somehow less affected.

I've been marrried for 9 years have to children work full time, read to my kids every night spend quality time with my wife, see my friends on a regular basis, and yet I'M not a superhero. So excuse if I find the "you're delusional" comment offensively. Fact is they could write it HOWEVER they wanted, but to blame the lack of fun, supporting cast etc on a fictional marriage, in my opinion, is one of the laziest excuses to glom on to the reasoning of ending the marriage.

If the felt that it limited story options, fine, if the felt it wasn't "true" to the character, fine, but all these EXTRA reasons... lame, just plain old lame.

I Joe Q and if this decision brings in tons of new readers than it is more than worth it. I don't feel the charcter belongs to me and I thrilled with the idea that it could potentially bring in a new generation of readers, no sarcasim, honestly THRILLED.

BUT... can we please call it what it is instead of trying to drum up more "justifications" of why this needed to be done? My trying to claim that the marriage prevented new villains, a supporting cast etc are the ones who are "delusional".

I'm truly not tring to pick a fight, if we just disagree, that's cool. It's comics, I love to read them, love to talk about them and again if this get kids hooked on Spidey like I was?

Isn't that awesome?

[pez dispenser]

"Quesada quickly and eloquently disarmed a few unhappy audience members who seemed to gang up on him."

Wow. Full disclosure, please: How long has this particular writer had a crush on Joe? I hope that after this lovely interpretation of the event, JQ invited him out for dinner to discuss a possible PR job ... or romance.


I think it was a pretty good way to minimalize how embarrassing some comic fans can be.

The less I hear about this incident, the better.
Some things are better left swept under the carpet, for the sake of not feeding the comic book fan stereotype.

[pez dispenser]

If it's so gosh-darned beneficial to keep characters mired in their earlier lives instead of allowing them to collect "baggage" and change with the times, then why the heck haven't we seen Joe Q:

* Make Cyclops totally ineffective as a leader and bring back Jean as his one true love?
* Keep Banner wandering the country, changing into a mindless Hulk, doing damage and running away?
* Require that Tony Stark have to actually put on his armor piece at a time, and get him the hell out of SHIELD?
* Let Steve Rogers live to fight the Nazis again and again?

Why is it just Spider-Man he wants to totally lock down?


Give him time.
He's working on it.

[hendrijr]

Lots of time to drink Kool-Aid waiting for Marvel to ship those quarterly "monthly" comics.

Marvel's sales are in the toilet compared to pretty much all their history except 1996-2000, during the bust that immediately followed the speculator boom. Quesada's sales look good because they follow literally the worst sales period in the company's history.

Yes DC fan but you will all give praise to Dildo and he cannot even beat ol Joe. And when is Kubert going to finish his arc on Action Comics? Did I like OMD? Not really but is was better than "The Other"(and waaaaaaaay better than Grant Morrisons laughable run on Batman) and the art was kick-ass. BND? I have been digging it so far. I like the streamilined continuity and just having the one (almost)weekly book. X-Men should do the same. MMM

[Skillet]

Boring! That's what Spider-Man is now. Right back to square one. You know what pisses me off the most though? All the fans that said they hated the fact that Spidey was going backwards with this whole "BND" idea, and who said they would not buy or support Amazing Spider-Man. What happens thought? These issues sell big time! I'm sticking to my guns though, I will never buy another Spider Man title again unless it's someone else other than Peter Parker. CHANGE rules, which is why most mainstream comics are just a waste of time. I'm saving tons of money reading my back issues of various titles, and I'm pretty much getting the same stories as all these so-called "new issues" that keep on pouring out.
I'm right there with you Glacier, except I went a little further and took all Marvel off my pull list. I've probably missed some good stories there, but I've expanded my DC and Independent selection and probably have read some even better stories by doing that. At this point I'm not sure there is anything Joe Q could do to get me back.

[Punchy]

I meant controversial in the negative sense, that it'll cause the entire comic community to riot and demand your head on a pike.

Geoff bringing Hal back from the dead wasn't really very controversial. He was righting a decade long wrong. Nobody is going to mind a character being alive and heroic again.

Now if only he wasn't DC exclusive. Then he could dart back and forth correcting BOTH universes.

'Righting a decade long wrong'

That's subjective too, there are tons of people who liked Emerald Twilight and the introduction of Kyle Rayner, which means Rebirth was certainly controversial in a negative way to some. The same as OMD was, some people like it.

And the Parallax thing was definately controversial, it's still being used as an example of DC's cop-out reasonings.

If EiC's shied away from doing anything controversial, there'd be no point in comics, and then you'd have nothing to complain about, and then you wouldn't know what to do.

[N. Blownapart]

No its not! Its copyright infringement!

(if pirates can say it why can't tracers? :P).

No it's not, it's first amendment protected parody. If anyone would actually expect Amy Grant to be on the cover of a Dr. Strange comic as "Amy Grant" then they're stupid. Parodies of public figures is protected and that includes their likenesses. What does parody consists of, two possible things, humorous imitation or poor imitation. As long as someone can see the humor of the juxtaposition of uber-fundy Amy Grant and occult sorcerer supreme Dr. Strange, I'd say they're safe. The same goes with just about any use of likeness in the ridiculous context of a fantasy based comic book. Same goes for works of art, literature, and politcal groups/activities.

[Ken B.]

'Righting a decade long wrong'

That's subjective too, there are tons of people who liked Emerald Twilight and the introduction of Kyle Rayner, which means Rebirth was certainly controversial in a negative way to some. The same as OMD was, some people like it.

And the Parallax thing was definately controversial, it's still being used as an example of DC's cop-out reasonings.

If EiC's shied away from doing anything controversial, there'd be no point in comics, and then you'd have nothing to complain about, and then you wouldn't know what to do.


GL: Rebirth was written well, though. It had a stupid Yellow Fear Bug to take away Hal being crazy, but at least the book was well written.

One More Day was a delayed mess that was decompressed and then pulled out the magic card without any foreshadowing whatsoever. The only positive review I read about the story from non-message-board-posters was by the guy who does those Ambidextrous columns here, and that read more like someone wanting to get more work from Marvel.

If the story was well written, and the Spider-Man marriage ended in a way that actually made sense, people would be more willing to try out the new lineup of creators. I know I would. But they didn't. They screwed up royally, and expect people to still come back.

[albion2000]

You can have the nicest house. Give it all the rooms and furnishings. Free cable, power ect. It can be the best house on the planet. Build it on swampland, and only the people who can handle the smell will live in it. Tell the tenents of the previous house to go to hell so they can tear it down to build this great house and they will leave. Tell the people that they will have to pay rent three times a month, and those who can't afford it will go elsewhere.

The article seemed to be spin, but that is what you need to sell this house. Did anyone expect different?

[Bathawk]

Please inform us, genius, exactly how the industry is going to do a 360 and somehow return to the days of comics selling in the six and seven figures they enjoyed decades ago as opposed to the low-to-mid five figures (20,000 to 55,000) of today?




[cue crickets chirping]




We're waiting, hell, the entire industry is waiting to know how to make this happen, o' brilliant one...

wouldn't a return to the past be doing a 180?

[Bathawk]

The problem with the Spidey franchise now isn't the stories. Its the fact that we as fans buy into the whole big event that will change everything cliche and then a year later they change it back.

Why read a story if within a year it will become obselete and non-canon? I think this is why alot of fans are turning on the "new" spidey. Because there is no point caring anymore because it will always change back without any real repercussions


Quoted For Truth

[Dagman]

Read the interview. Not much there. Nothing to alter my reasoning. Moving on. Cheers all.

[alaska1125]

you haters can be as pesky and snarky as you want,Joe Quesada brought Marvel back from the brink to one of the best publishing periods in the history of the company

:)OK...I can't get through the five pages before addressing this. I'm a "hater" because Joe Q crapped on Spiderman. If all you can do is insult readers who have supported the title for..oh, I guess, over 20 years, then I'm inclined to dismiss you based on the snark. Guess what? BND is selling like two copies at my LCS. Way to go Joe Q. :rolleyes:

[Bathawk]

I meant controversial in the negative sense, that it'll cause the entire comic community to riot and demand your head on a pike.

Geoff bringing Hal back from the dead wasn't really very controversial. He was righting a decade long wrong. Nobody is going to mind a character being alive and heroic again.

Now if only he wasn't DC exclusive. Then he could dart back and forth correcting BOTH universes.


Not to contradict you sport, but Green Lantern: Rebirth, while not as bad as OMD had the same effect on me. Characters being resurrected and tossing a decade of continuity out the window? I'm not sure if Parrallax was much better than Mephisto in the "excuse" department. And no I don't care how popular his series is now, the y lost a reader when the last series ended

[AnalSurprise]

But I do love how people take out their anger on Aunt May in these Spidey threads. It makes me chuckle. Poor old lady, what did she do? :p Leave her alone!

How far removed are we from the day an emotional YouTube video pleading everyone to just LEAVE AUNT MAY ALONE becomes all the rage? ;)

/AS

[Renonevada2000]

Quesada quickly and eloquently disarmed a few unhappy audience members who seemed to gang up on him in regards to the Brand New Day storyline by explaining the ramifications of keeping Spider-Man continuity in its previous mode. He stated, “My wife is okay with me saying this now — but my life before I was married was much more interesting than after I got married,” adding, “I didn’t have the stability that marriage provides — and that kind of stability can lessen the options of writers when engaging Peter Parker/ Spider-Man in his life and adventures. Spider-Man is much more interesting when the chance for more stories that create more conflicts can be achieved.”

"Hi honey, thanks for making my life boring."

As a recently married guy, I take all sorts of umbrage at Joey Q's assertation that "Marriage=stability=boring". Sorry, Joe, that your every day isn't like the picture of you and those strippers that's been floating around the internet for a while now. That doesn't mean though, that is isn't possible for there to be interesting stories about married characters. All you are revealing is a remarkable lack of imagination.


With <b>One More Day</b>, the reason I opted to draw this story was to put the burden solely on me — I was worried that this story could potentially harm another artist’s career. So, I decided to draw it and deal with the responsibility myself — because I knew going in…and so did everyone else involved with the project that this was going to be a very controversial project all around. I knew that fans were going to be vocal — that some people were going to be unhappy. I just knew that at the end of the day — that I had another job I could do. So I said let me be the guy who puts his money where his mouth is and bare the burden of this story.

Oh please. He continues under the insulting notion that "marriage=boring" and so wanting to be seen as the savior of fun, happy Spider-Man, he needed to draw the arc himself, just to be sure that his ego was properly stroked once everyone saw what a work of genius that story was that he knew it to be.

Unfortunately, it didn't turn out that way.

If you really wanted the burden of possible career harm, why didn't you let JMS take his name off the issues when he requested it? Why not just take the writing credit yourself then, to protect JMS?

Joe Quesada, ladies and gentlemen! Comic's own whirling dervish! Spin, man, spin!


readers will see…one year down the road and then two years down the road that we have their best interests at heart. I know what’s going on — it’s all kind of cyclical…so everyone can trust me when I say, “Everything is going to be cool.”

Ummmm.... not all of us are going to be around to see it, if it indeed comes to pass at all.

[AnalSurprise]

wouldn't a return to the past be doing a 180?

Umm, no. If you're going in one direction (the past) and then shifting into another one (the present) and then going back to the original direction... that's considered a 360.

Anything that implies going full circle is, well, a full 360 degree circle.

/AS

[Bathawk]

gotcha, didn't know if our start point was "now" or "then"

[AnalSurprise]

Anyone else find it funny that Joe Quesada would choose an event called "MEGA CON" to re-surface after that nasty OMD fallout? :)

I giggled a bit seeing those words next to his name in the headline. ;) But then again, I can be incredibly immature at times.

/AS

[Nate-Earth 2]

I have to admit it, OMD is the probably the worst thing I've ever heard of in all my years of reading comics. And that's saying something. You look at stories such as the Clone Saga and maybe even Teen Iron man and you think 'that's bad, but atleast they were trying'.


Where's Doc Ock?

Yeah, actually, I think the Clone Saga was better than BND. I think I was the only person who disliked Clone Saga, not because of what they did to Peter, but rather what they did to Ben. Having him was great. He was poor, he was still "new" to being Spidey, new relationships, new relationships with other heroes, and villians, that was different than what they were during his time. It pretty much did what Joe Q wanted to do here, but without ruining characters and continuity. You still had Spider-man, you still had Peter, and all his heroism throughout the years, all his trials and troubles he had to go through, and you had Ben, trying to reclaim a life he, for years, thought he had no right to.
Like I wrote on an article I did for my LCS, this Spider-Man now, isn't a hero. All through the comics, we see Peter doing stuff to help others, whatever teh consequences for himself. Now, however, we see him reduced to a snivelling child, making deals with devils in order to eliviate his own guilt. And do you have any of the interesting prospects that Ben brought? No, you have a Peter, same age, whos a loser who can't move out of his mom's (aunt's) basement.
So, I would have to say the Clone Saga was better than BND.

[ubuking]

Quesada quickly and eloquently disarmed a few unhappy audience members who seemed to gang up on him in regards to the Brand New Day storyline by explaining the ramifications of keeping Spider-Man continuity in its previous mode. He stated, “My wife is okay with me saying this now — but my life before I was married was much more interesting than after I got married,” adding, “I didn’t have the stability that marriage provides — and that kind of stability can lessen the options of writers when engaging Peter Parker/ Spider-Man in his life and adventures. Spider-Man is much more interesting when the chance for more stories that create more conflicts can be achieved.”

It's one thing to say that you want Spider-man's life to be interesting, it's totally another when you change 20 years of continuity and growth. I read the first arc of BND and I can say two things: 1. This is a good time for a brand new generation of readers to pick up Spider-man, and 2. it's a good point for older readers to drop the title. It seems to me that the way OMD was done, Peter as a character has ran his course and I can finally close the book on him. I'm not the kid I was 20 years ago and I can't return to be one. I can't identify with Peter anymore when (among other things) he lives with his Aunt again. Isn't it a basic rule in storytelling that the hero/central character must evolve and grow through experience?. If not with age (as is in comics), at least in morals and experiences? That's what makes him interesting. The situations Peter's involved now I've read them before, so what I'll do is go back and read older issues and, through those old stories, see what happens next.
"How else could it have been done?" you say. It's been done before and in so many ways. You want Peter to be single again? Have Mary Jane leave him. How do you do that without adding more angst to the character? Maybe to save his life she's bribed into leaving him. Maybe she's (apperently) killed. Who knows?!... I'm sure that in any other way it would have been better.
It's ok if you want more interesting stories, but this one should have been thought through and done better.

[Franklin Harris]

It's probably the same with Luke Cage and Jessica Jones...One of them was probably a Skrull during their whole marriage too.

Oh, yeah, we've definitely got a baby Skrull in the house.

[artjunkie]

wouldn't a return to the past be doing a 180?
In the usual sense, yes. But in the context of his reasoning, we're currently in the "180" of the entire cycle of comics existence. To return the glory days of old that he's hoping for would be completing the cirlce to a full 360.

[CMadness]

With <b>One More Day</b>, the reason I opted to draw this story was to put the burden solely on me — I was worried that this story could potentially harm another artist’s career. So, I decided to draw it and deal with the responsibility myself — because I knew going in…and so did everyone else involved with the project that this was going to be a very controversial project all around. I knew that fans were going to be vocal — that some people were going to be unhappy. I just knew that at the end of the day — that I had another job I could do. So I said let me be the guy who puts his money where his mouth is and bare the burden of this story.



I'm pretty sure he drew the storyline because he knew it was going to be a big seller, and we can't have those royalty checks going to anyone else now, can we? Not to mention we were without the regular Spider-titles while Joe worked his usual deadline magic.

[AnalSurprise]

I read the first arc of BND and I can say two things: 1. This is a good time for a brand new generation of readers to pick up Spider-man, and 2. it's a good point for older readers to drop the title. It seems to me that the way OMD was done, Peter as a character has ran his course and I can finally close the book on him. I'm not the kid I was 20 years ago and I can't return to be one. I can't identify with Peter anymore when (among other things) he lives with his Aunt again. Isn't it a basic rule in storytelling that the hero/central character must evolve and grow through experience?

Very well stated. In JQ's defense, however, he's stuck between a rock and a hard place. While it's the older nostalgic generation that's been keeping the industry alive this long, they won't be around forever. As the Marvel (and some would say the industry) leader, Joe must decide between cashing in on all of us as much as possible before we all pass away... and ensuring there's a successor to pick up where all of us left off to keep the business alive.

In other words, you can make the characters age and evolve to cater to those of us who've read every Aunt May story there was to be told... or you can keep the character frozen in time with a perpetual and immobile status quo (à la Archie), thereby targeting a more finite and specific age group that will be enjoying the character for a much shorter period of time before moving on to more adult material.

JQ's philosophy on the matter, for better or worse, seems to be : "You've read all those stories already? Then be on your way and let someone else enjoy them." It's a huge gamble, because it assumes there'll be a 'someone else' to enjoy them.

Hopefully for the industry, there will be.

It's ok if you want more interesting stories, but this one should have been thought through and done better.

Agreed. Perhaps the biggest letdown with regards to OMD, at the end of the day, is the arrogance and nonchalance that went into its planning -- which JMS exposed. JQ simply underestimated the amount of thought and work he had to put in this project before pulling the trigger on it, and forcing everyone around him to follow (including JMS himself, who wasn't even permitted to take his name off the final issue).

A leader who is so absolutely convinced that he's right and everyone else is wrong, that he'd muscle and force his views on his entire "nation"; despite their warnings, as well as those of his own generals... I admit, it's a pretty ironic position to be in when you're the EIC that oversaw books like Ultimates and Civil War (and the political undertones therein).

I love the man for making comics more interesting today than they were when he took the helm (Spider-Man notwithstanding), but let's face it... the man has betrayed every position he's ever taken. And there's just no magic wand to erase that legacy.

/AS

[davi0850]

He stated, “My wife is okay with me saying this now — but my life before I was married was much more interesting than after I got married,” adding, “I didn’t have the stability that marriage provides — and that kind of stability can lessen the options of writers when engaging Peter Parker/ Spider-Man in his life and adventures. Spider-Man is much more interesting when the chance for more stories that create more conflicts can be achieved.

Okay, I am a Marvel Zombie. I am loving a lot of stuff comming out of Marvel these days... EXCEPT Spider-Man!

Joe, I gotta tell you, your quote above really makes me feel sorry for you. As a married man with 2 kids myself, in all honesty my life before my marriage is a pale comparison of interest and excitement as it is now. I know that most of the married men I know feel the same way. So I feel sorry for you if your marriage is boring and "not story worthy," but if you think that marriage limited the storylines, then I say you are not a good writer. Maybe your personal experiances do not speak to the whole.

[ProfC]

Is this the grand finale to the OMD debate? The last hurrah? I hope so. I'm sticking with Spidey. There are too many subplots going on right now. Deals with the devil must have ramifications. Writers know this. I'm sure the BND writers know this. Of course, everyone will call it a retcon when it comes to pass, even if it was the plan all along. And I'll still be reading then, too. Who knows maybe MJ will be back but after all they've been through they won't be sure they want to married again?

The 3x times somewhat hurts the wallet since I only bought Amazing consistently. Gale's issue wasn't overwhelming. But I guess I'm not ready to "close the door on the character". Lucky for you if you are. You get closure. Me? I'm still anxious to see how it all plays out. People rarely mention the past year gave us two, dare I say it?, instant-classic Peter/MJ moments: The Spectacular Annual("Oh, you're a SHIELD Agent? Well, I'm a superhero's wife and I've been playing you the entire time.") and Silver Surfer Requiem ("Happy Birthday honey, I got you the Silver Surfer's powers for a couple of hours!"). How can I quit now when the lovers are so tragic?

*Seeing that the fight was getting him nowhere, the author put his shield down...

[AnalSurprise]

Is this the grand finale to the OMD debate? The last hurrah? I hope so. I'm sticking with Spidey. There are too many subplots going on right now. Deals with the devil must have ramifications. Writers know this. I'm sure the BND writers know this. Of course, everyone will call it a retcon when it comes to pass, even if it was the plan all along.

If the past is any indication, you can be certain that if this new idea bombs and they retcon the marriage back in, JQ will be right back on the mic, claiming he knew exactly how it would all play out, that he'd always planned to bring the marriage back, and that people should trust him more next time.

Love almost every book Marvel publishes these days (except Spider-Man, which I dropped two issues into the new direction)... but I'm beginning to believe that JQ needs to curb his addiction to the spotlight, for the good of the company.

I'm a fan of the guy, but his increasing arrogance and diminishing humility need to be downplayed... not made more and more public. This isn't professional wrestling, and he's not "Mr McMahon". There's no money for him to be made by being more and more disliked as a person. If his power has corrupted his personality to this extent, CUT THE MIC OFF OF HIM. Let someone else speak.

/AS

[Kenro]

To all you guys who hate the book and everything it signifies... are you still buying the book? I'm not spending my money on a Spidey book ever again (including trades). We should all speak with our wallets not jus the forums.

[jgiannantoni]

I read the first arc of BND and I can say two things: 1. This is a good time for a brand new generation of readers to pick up Spider-man, and 2. it's a good point for older readers to drop the title. It seems to me that the way OMD was done, Peter as a character has ran his course and I can finally close the book on him. I'm not the kid I was 20 years ago and I can't return to be one. I can't identify with Peter anymore when (among other things) he lives with his Aunt again. Isn't it a basic rule in storytelling that the hero/central character must evolve and grow through experience?

I don't read Spider-Man (anymore) b/c I identify with Peter Parker, I don't need to anymore in order to enjoy reading Spider-Man. And I don't think "cutting off the old readers to spare the new readers" is good or smart at all. Now I don't read or buy Spider-Man anymore.

Is this the grand finale to the OMD debate? The last hurrah?
No. Not for me anyway. Every BND thread will be haunted by OMD for the rest of time. That's the price Joe Q has to pay for dealing with Mephisto.

[Nate-Earth 2]

To all you guys who hate the book and everything it signifies... are you still buying the book? I'm not spending my money on a Spidey book ever again (including trades). We should all speak with our wallets not jus the forums.

Yeah, i'm not buying it. The owner of my LCS was telling me how good it was, but i'm like, sorry man, no deal. The only Marvel i get is Captain America, Nova and Thor, because I think they are all quality books, and, from what i can tell, none of them will be involved (to a significant effect) with the upcoming crapfest Secret Invasion.

[Coming Curse]

Until Bendis is off every single Avengers title, I have no respect for Quesada.

So, you have no respect for him because he put a highly successful writer on Avengers and reinvigorated the sales? But I guess that doesn't matter because YOU don't like this version of the Avengers as much. I guess Joe should base all of his publishing decisions around what comics you like in particular?

[ubuking]

I love the man for making comics more interesting today than they were when he took the helm (Spider-Man notwithstanding), but let's face it... the man has betrayed every position he's ever taken. And there's just no magic wand to erase that legacy./AS
Thank you for your response and am in total aggreement. I want to add that in the interview JQ wants to take all the responsibility for what has happened to Peter. It seems that he expects that all this will be forgotten in time, as long as the "angry fan" has someone to blame. He's offering himself up as the lamb, making himself a martyr. It's not that simple, though. He may be EiC, but Spider-man doesn't belong to him. Pardon me for putting it so bluntly but WHO CARES ABOUT JQ?!?!. He isn't the first artist/writer/editor/EiC to come along. He will be remembered as one of the many people who put an effort on this title, but it's what he does with it that matters. Artists and writers and editors come and go, but Spider-man will always be here. 'Cause it's PETER/SPIDER-MAN that matters. It's not for one man to decide what the fate of a character should be. This is Marvel's property. And Marvel exists not only because of the great stories it has put out, but also 'cause of the Fan. Spider-man is for the Fan, and has survived 40 years because of the Fan. It is not published so a certain publisher can enjoy it. It is for the enjoyment of the Fan/reader. There have been good stories and there have been bad ones, but there always was the Fan to support the title. Without the Fan, Spider-man wouldn't be so popular. I'll say it in another way so the EiC understands it (if he's paying attention): without the Customer, the Product wouldn't sell (I speak so 'cause in the interview he does refer to the success of BND money-wise). The Fan can't always have what he wants, but JQ can't betray (the word seems to fit) the Fan that has supported the character for so long.

[Coming Curse]

You know I did not like Joe Q to begin with but I never thought he was an idot until he said this:
He stated, “My wife is okay with me saying this now — but my life before I was married was much more interesting than after I got married,” adding, “I didn’t have the stability that marriage provides — and that kind of stability can lessen the options of writers when engaging Peter Parker/ Spider-Man in his life and adventures. Spider-Man is much more interesting when the chance for more stories that create more conflicts can be achieved.”

Marriage doesn't cause stability it just gives you a support system and someone to go through those trials with you. This is by far the dumbest statement I have ever heard.

Yep, no more Marvel for me and mine until Joe is gone.

The dumbest statement you have ever heard? I guess you haven't heard many statements then. You basically seem to be quibbling over semantics. You say marriage is a "support system" but argue that it does not "create stability"? Doesn't marriage create a more STABLE relationship compared to the relationships people have when unmarried? Anyway, I'm sure you had some valid reason for calling Joe an idiot and boycotting all Marvel comics..:rolleyes:

[Dagwood]

To start off with, I'd like to point out that I dig The Initiative, Criminal, Cap, Immortal Iron Fist, The Twelve, Thunderbolts, X-Factor, and various other Marvel books.

That said, I can't decide what the writer of this article likes more. Pimping or playing softball?

[baxtos]

To all you guys who hate the book and everything it signifies... are you still buying the book? I'm not spending my money on a Spidey book ever again (including trades). We should all speak with our wallets not jus the forums.


I know I quit 3 issues in BND.

OMD got me very upset but I decided to give BND a try.

It looked good but was unbelievably BOOOOORING.

Dan Slott is way overrated imho. He still has to prove himself and this is not doing it.

I'm still buying Ultimate SM which is still very enjoyable. I guess we still have that.

[9thDoctor]

So, Newsarama talks to Joe Q, and we get no news whatsoever about the future, or lack thereof, of New Joe Fridays. The last word was that it was on temporary hiatus while he finished up penciling OMD. So can we please either get confirmation that it's coming back or that it's gone the way of the dodo? Thank you.

[Pseudoderm]

If you're a good or talented writer you can make anything work. I find it fascinating as a commentary on our society that many people can't make married people interesting in fiction.

I think the reset button on Spider-Man was a cop out, plain and simple. Peter, in my eyes, is now a pathetic human being and is of no interest. Who wants to read about a 26-30 year old man still living with his Aunt? (Ooh ladies...what a catch.) Peter should be a loveable loser, not just a loser. If they wanted to restart Peter's life, why didn't they make him half the man he used to be? Being single is one thing. The slacker lifestyle works for college aged characters, but, beyond that, it becomes sad. (Unless Peter is younger than the 26-30 age group? I don't see how they could have deaged him too much.)

Luckily Ultimate Spider-Man is still available and brilliant as ever. This is the only Spidey I buy, btw.

[Black Ice]

Every BND thread will be haunted by OMD for the rest of time. That's the price Joe Q has to pay for dealing with Mephisto.

That's it! Joe to the burden for the whole deal. That's why spider-man got such a good deal. Peter was selfish but Joe suffers the consequences. That makes him Marvel Jesus. ;)

[Coming Curse]

This is where a 'new direction' should have started, and it did for the most part... but then everything got bogged down in spider-totems and getting back together with MJ, as well as Spidey revealing his identity to the world... which let's face it, the REAL Spider-Man would never have done that. I find it funny that Spider-Man once had a brief convo with Tony (Marvel Knights Spider-Man #2) about never revealing his identity because unlike Tony he doesn't have a ton of bodyguards... but then later on he does reveal, with Tony's support (Civil War #2). The funny part? Both of those moments were written by Mark Millar.


Well, I don't what the REAL Spider-Man would have done, because he's...you know...a fictional character who has been interpreted by various writers over the years. But when Spidey chose to reveal his identity it was because at the time he was living in Stark Tower and actually did have acess to all of Tony's security rescources. Plus, you have to remember that Peter was unmasking in order to demonstrate the legitimacy of the Registration Act, which did not even exist when he had that conversation with Tony in the Marvel Knights series.

[Andrew]

To all you guys who hate the book and everything it signifies... are you still buying the book? I'm not spending my money on a Spidey book ever again (including trades). We should all speak with our wallets not jus the forums.

I know I'm certainly not buying Amazing Spider-Man anymore, and I'm a part of the younger demographic that the comics industry so desperately needs.

Joe Quesada turned me away from my favorite hero with OMD/BND. I just don't care anymore.

Bravo Joe! :rolleyes:

[hookakat1]

Let's be honest: those interviews didn't really tell us anything.

That quote is about New Joe Fridays. It was worse than that though. Those interviews, in retrospect, were just full of outright lies.

[zauriel]

you know... i've read the interview and all what people said about it til now in these boards but the thing is, i just don't care anymore. that's it, apathy. i hope marvel and the industry survive, but they'll be doing it without me.

[JLAJRC]

Not to contradict you sport, but Green Lantern: Rebirth, while not as bad as OMD had the same effect on me. Characters being resurrected and tossing a decade of continuity out the window? I'm not sure if Parrallax was much better than Mephisto in the "excuse" department. And no I don't care how popular his series is now, the y lost a reader when the last series ended

I also didn't care for Rebirth or OMD. Maybe it's just me, but continuity isn't that important for me (also, I don't like penalizing new writers/series based on one bad story), so I decided to try BND along with GL and GL Corps. I dropped Corps because I just didn't find it to be interesting, but GL and BND are fantastic. But I respect your opinion.

[Doowhaadiddy]

Congrats to Joe on the award!

Those who disagree, feel free to be upset.

Get over yourself :rolleyes:

[kurupted]

controversy sells

[Coming Curse]

For all the people saying that they are dropping all Spider-Man or even all Marvel titles because they don't like the OMD retcon: I hope that you didn't read Sinestro Corps war and I hope you don't plan on reading Blackest Night either. They are based on Hal Jordan, a character who turned evil and then was killed off only to be resurrected and have all his evil deeds retconned as the actions of a yellow fear demon. That is just as lame of a retcon as OMD. Fans just don't complain about it as much because they like a living Hal Jordan more than they like a single Peter Parker.
In fact, people who are offended by OMD style retcons should not be reading DC Universe titles at all. The entire universe was retconned during Infite Crisis. For people complaining that their Spidey comics from the last 20 years "did not happen" because of OMD I have bad news. None of your pre-IC DC comics happened either. Of all of the comics DC has published in its history only those published post-Superboy wall-punch have "actually happened" in a truly cannonical capacity. And I'm sure that some future Crisis will come along to retcon all of the current comics too.
My point here is not that I thought OMD was good. It was a forced story to get from point A to point B. My point is that it is not unprecedented. Superhero comics are full of illogical plot devices, ressurections, and retcons. Fans usually accept them when they like the result(as with GL: Rebirth) but when they don't like the end result they start complaining that they are "illogical" or that they are "getting in the way of change."(OMD) If plot devices like OMD really offend people so much than they should probably not be reading mainstream superhero comics at all.
Also, the complaints about Peter making a "deal with the devil" are baseless. Marvel has repeatedly stated that Mephisto is not really "THE" devil but some kind of entity that resembles him. When you read a comic where, for example, Adam Warlock teams up temporarily with Thanos, a villian who has been depicted as being an EVEN GREATER threat than Mephisto in some ways, do you get all bent out of shape saying "Adam Warlock would never make a deal with Thanos! Out of character! That is immoral! What if children read this and see their favorite hero making a deal with Thanos! That is not heroic!" That is aboout how valid the "deal with the devil" complaints sound to me.

[jmb]

Well, that, and people dressed as Stormtroopers scare me.


That's funny....kinda freaks me out, too!!:)

[WildcardZ]

You know I did not like Joe Q to begin with but I never thought he was an idot until he said this:
He stated, “My wife is okay with me saying this now — but my life before I was married was much more interesting than after I got married,” adding, “I didn’t have the stability that marriage provides — and that kind of stability can lessen the options of writers when engaging Peter Parker/ Spider-Man in his life and adventures. Spider-Man is much more interesting when the chance for more stories that create more conflicts can be achieved.”

Marriage doesn't cause stability it just gives you a support system and someone to go through those trials with you. This is by far the dumbest statement I have ever heard.

Yep, no more Marvel for me and mine until Joe is gone.
So, you don't think that a support system and someone to turn to through trials doesn't give you a sense of stability? A support system is a form of stability. The man isn't an idiot, he knows what he is talking about.

[De Martini]

I hope that you didn't read Sinestro Corps war and I hope you don't plan on reading Blackest Night either. They are based on Hal Jordan, a character who turned evil and then was killed off only to be resurrected and have all his evil deeds retconned as the actions of a yellow fear demon. That is just as lame of a retcon as OMD.
No. A 'lame retcon' is taking a character whose personality and character had been established for 35+ years as a strong, responsible, exceptionally moral, and noble spirit, and turning him into a mass-murderer overnight. Returning Hal Jordan to his original persona is fixing a collossal mistake with a logical explanation. They didn't erase the previous 10 years worth of Green Lantern stories with Kyle Rayner, and in fact they kept Kyle Rayner around as an integral part of the GL universe.

As far as OMD/BND -- I only read Ultimate Spider-Man, as I've never been a big fan of the character anyhow. But I still think there were dozens of ways you could have addressed the situation without using the "Poof! It's magic!!" approach. It's lazy storytelling and insulting to your longterm fans. As a means to an end, hopefully it will be successful for Marvel. The issues are selling (so far) so it seems the strategy is working.

I just still have never heard of a kid picking up a Spidey comic and wanting to read/buy it, only to go through a few pages and find out Peter Parker is married, and dropping back onto the shelf with disgust. That I think is just a fixation -- or perhaps a delusion -- that keeps perpetrating itself in Quesada's head. But that's the EiC's perogative, so more power to him I suppose.

[math]

When your gut is telling you something will be controversial, for God's sake - DON'T DO IT.

Haven't bought an issue since. Don't intend to go back.

Stupid f*cking reset buttons. May as well be watching Star Trek.


Wow don't do something that will be controversial..what a boring world we would have ..in comics alone ..no Watchman..no Dark Knight Returns.......no Alan Moore on anything.....no O'Neil and Adams on Green Lantern ..no Julius Schwartz doing the first major reset on a ongoing sereis ,his new look on Batman,...no Juhn Byrne re-launching Superman....yeah lets not be controversial

[longshot7]

still aint buying Spidey. Never again.

[thejames]

But I still think there were dozens of ways you could have addressed the situation without using the "Poof! It's magic!!" approach. It's lazy storytelling and insulting to your longterm fans. As a means to an end, hopefully it will be successful for Marvel.


Quoted for truth - It was lazy and not imaginative storytelling. The thing is - in 2 years time whether this is retconned back or left as is - Spiderman stories will still be spiderman stories. They should be (and will be) based on the storytellers of the moment. I was a fan of Kyle as the main GL - same as I am Wally as the Flash - I think creatively more was done with them than their predecessors (with some exceptions specifically turning Kyle emo at the end of his run) so when rebirth came along and they 'cheaped out' the yellow fear demon as an answer to Hals actions, I was not happy with it, but I gave it a chance and I am happy that I did - Geoff Johns as made GL as interesting a character as I think he's ever been.

So while I am not happy with the devil deal of Spidey - I don't think it makes sense, I think it contradicts his character, I think it was lazy, I don't think it was well thought out...BUT I am not going to 'give up Spiderman because of 4 issues of controversial stories. I have been enjoying BND - its not the homerun I was hoping for but it is enjoyable. And I think (and hope) that most of us (notwithstanding the rhetoric we like throwing around the boards) are open minded enough to not drop a character (let alone a company) because a story made us upset. That would just be a pathetic revelation of our own lives that we are that tied up with a character.

Anyway thats just my opinion, I could be wrong...to quote Dennis Miller

[Coming Curse]

No. A 'lame retcon' is taking a character whose personality and character had been established for 35+ years as a strong, responsible, exceptionally moral, and noble spirit, and turning him into a mass-murderer overnight.


This is not a "retcon". It is character devolpment. You can try to argue that it is poorly executed develpment but it is certainly not a reton.


Returning Hal Jordan to his original persona is fixing a collossal mistake with a logical explanation.


I don't see how "magic fear demon" is more logical than "magical pact with Mephisto." I guess any actions of any character in the DCU can be retconned at any later time as the results of being posessed by some magical entity. Parallax is an OMD-like plot device used to return a character to a previous status quo.


They didn't erase the previous 10 years worth of Green Lantern stories with Kyle Rayner, and in fact they kept Kyle Rayner around as an integral part of the GL universe.

OMD didn't erase any Spider-Woman stories.


As far as OMD/BND -- I only read Ultimate Spider-Man, as I've never been a big fan of the character anyhow. But I still think there were dozens of ways you could have addressed the situation without using the "Poof! It's magic!!" approach. It's lazy storytelling and insulting to your longterm fans.


They could have killed off Mary Jane or had the two characters divorce, but Joe said that he was against either of those ideas. And honestly, either of those would have been highly controversial as well. So that leaves only wacky, comic book ways of ending the marriage. I don't see why you find that any more insulting than Parallax, Superboy wall-punches, "no more mutants" or constant character resurrections. This stuff happens all the time.

[purplerocket]

That's funny....kinda freaks me out, too!!:)

People dressed as Stormtroopers totally freaks me out as well. I went to that one man Star Wars thing and one started talking to me and I couldnt even talk. Then when I saw some at the Bristol Comix Expo I avoided going near them.

Its stupid, I know they're just nerds in suits but I've got some wierd complex. Maybe we need to set up a support group.

[purplerocket]

Guess what? BND is selling like two copies at my LCS. Way to go Joe Q. :rolleyes:

Maybe because you live in Alaska.

[AnalSurprise]

Thank you for your response and am in total agreement. I want to add that in the interview JQ wants to take all the responsibility for what has happened to Peter. It seems that he expects that all this will be forgotten in time, as long as the "angry fan" has someone to blame. He's offering himself up as the lamb, making himself a martyr.

I wouldn't have such a problem with the concept if not for the fact that JQ did everything he could to not be the only one to take the heat. Then, when he realized that people were placing the blame squarely on his shoulders and not JMS' (despite talking JMS into leaving his name on the book), then he volunteers to take said heat.

Honestly, it's one of the most embarrassing displays of pseudo-leadership I've been witness to in quite some time. A fair analogy would be a guy who volunteers to enlist in the army after he's already been drafted. Such courage and dedication for his country... not.

JQ's "noble sacrifice" would've meant a lot more if it had come before or during OMD. Not afterwards, when no one else but him was being blamed for it to begin with.

/AS

[Doowhaadiddy]

That is an outright lie,marvel's sales are have been and are currently doing stellar. Considering they have been killing the competition you have no basis to form that claim.

But.... is it a lie? As a longtime reader I remember the figures published in each individual comic in the statement of ownership (I think that's what it s called) and Slamburger does have a point (but maybe he's pointing it too directly and Joe Quesada and Marvel - rather than teh industry as a whole).

When compared to the 80's and early (pre speculator) 90's sales are relatively in the dumps. ASM was a regular 250 000 )+ seller. I don't think today's sales are "stellar" by comparison. Not blaming Joe Q or anything, but I think you have overstated here in your post.

Being the current industry leader does not imply a marvelous success sales wise given the historic perspective showing the proven sales potential of these characters. Case in point - ASM. Pre clones and mucking about with Spidey, fab sales (in comparison to the last few years). Speculators were not about pre mid 90's imho. Sales are what Marvel seem to be about, so the sales reflecting the satisfaction with the then married status quo seem to imply that Spider-Man was not broken so didn't need his Joe fix

[Coming Curse]

I wouldn't have such a problem with the concept if not for the fact that JQ did everything he could to not be the only one to take the heat. Then, when he realized that people were placing the blame squarely on his shoulders and not JMS' (despite talking JMS into leaving his name on the book), then he volunteers to take said heat.

Honestly, it's one of the most embarrassing displays of pseudo-leadership I've been witness to in quite some time. A fair analogy would be a guy who volunteers to enlist in the army after he's already been drafted. Such courage and dedication for his country... not.

JQ's "noble sacrifice" would've meant a lot more if it had come before or during OMD. Not afterwards, when no one else but him was being blamed for it to begin with.

/AS

Joe Q agreed to draw the book AND be given a writing credit. Plus he was talking for months ahead of time how he preferred non-married Peter. He was certainly never trying to distance himself from OMD. He obviously wanted JMS to keep his name on the book because it would be an embarassment if the book's own writer didn't want to be associated with it.

[ubuking]

Honestly, it's one of the most embarrassing displays of pseudo-leadership I've been witness to in quite some time. A fair analogy would be a guy who volunteers to enlist in the army after he's already been drafted. Such courage and dedication for his country... not.
/AS
Amen, brother...

[Bugaboo-X]

you know... i've read the interview and all what people said about it til now in these boards but the thing is, i just don't care anymore. that's it, apathy. i hope marvel and the industry survive, but they'll be doing it without me.

I care just barely enough to poke through these online articles (and occasionally post, like now), looking for the news that JQ's marriage screw-job has been corrected. ... I'm with ya otherwise. Just don't care. Not buying the book, and I've cut back on my Marvel product purchases overall.

[dlfurman]

As a kid, Spider-man was my favorite comic. I've been a DC man for years, especially Batman. But I've read Ultimate Spider-Man since #1, and I've been loving it all along. I just couldn't relate to the other Spidey titles, though. Married or not, it didn't matter, but I couldn't get into the stories. It just wasn't my Spider-Man.

I agree that the way they got to this point (OMD) was stupid, but I don't care because I didn't read it. But I've been picking up every issue of BND and so far, I LOVE it. THIS is the Spidey I grew up with and loved. The stories are funny, fresh, and exciting. Mysteries are slowly building. Peter's bad luck is both funny and heart-breaking. Spider-Man's battles against his new villians contain the right mix of excitement, comedy, and tragedy. The stuff going on at "the DB" is cool. Spidey has heart again, struggling to do the right thing and not worrying so much about personal cost. And the stories are MOVING right along, not plodding, decompressed, "paced for trade."

This is good stuff. Let go of your preconceptions and just enjoy the ride.

Somebody finally realized that comics CAN actually be FUN. And BND is a whole lot of fun.

And it could have been done WITHOUT dumping the wife and adding the "devil".

[Spy_Smasher]

Oh, God, I can't wait for the apathy to set in. As it is, I actively dislike the man.

[buhe]

I care just barely enough to poke through these online articles (and occasionally post, like now), looking for the news that JQ's marriage screw-job has been corrected. ... I'm with ya otherwise. Just don't care. Not buying the book, and I've cut back on my Marvel product purchases overall.

It feels like Joe wants to be famous more then anything else.

As for catching the bullet for everyone, sorry, not buying it, because not only did he draw the comic, but he also rewritten what JMS wrote to get what "he" wanted while having an ego trip with it and telling everyone that anyone who was against it was stupid or something.

http://www.comicmonsters.com/CMpromobanner.gif
http://www.comicmonsters.com/

[HawkeyeX007]

To everyone who keeps harping about how all the stories that they're telling now in BND could've been done just as well with keeping Spidey married, please stop. If you want a Spider-man marriage that only involves him being married in name only and occasionally remembers that "oh, yeah - I'm married." while he leaps from one adventure to the next and interacts with all the many people in his life then sure, you could keep the marriage. It'd be the most unhealthy, negligent marriage on the books but you could have it. The fact is the pace of these new stories doesn't allow for any real attention to a Peter/MJ relationship. And for anyone who thinks that the same supporting cast and subplots could still exist with a married Peter, you're delusional. I'm betting most of the people with this opinion aren't married themselves. I'm married and wholeheartedly love it but the fact is, everyone else in my life takes a backseat to my family, as it should. I stay in contact with my friends, I go out with them semi-regularly, but it's not the same as when I was single. If it was, I'd be a very poor husband and father. For Peter to have the kind of adventures he's having now - and the kind that are surely mapped out for him over the next year or more - to also be married is impossible.

So? Have him become a negligent husband.... then that could lead to a divorce. ANYTHING is better than this stupid retcon...

Some character should be married - like Reed and Sue. It makes sense for them. But Spider-Man is one that shouldn't.

But he has been.... for 20 years in real time. Readers didn't mind, and It was enough for Sam Raimi to introduce MJ into Spider-Man movie continuity in the first film, when it should've technically been Liz Allen.... and he shouldn't get the girl untill he meets Gwen Stacey.

BND has been offering the kind of fun, fast-paced Spidey stories that the book used to be known for.
And the marriage prevented them from doing that?? And a subsequent divorce would've gotten in the way?

[HawkeyeX007]

OMD didn't erase any Spider-Woman stories.

Poor counter-argument.

And OMD did change Spidey's relationship with the Avengers draaaastically.... I mean, they went from knowing he's Peter Parker to not knowing??

I won't start reading Amazing Spider-Man again unless someone does a "Spider-Man: Rebirth" type deal to fix up this mess... have Peter's memories get even more screwy than they became right after House of M... and remembering both his life with AND without MJ, and remembering the pact that he made with Mephisto. In addition to remembering having kids with Gwen Stacey and Uncle Ben still being around as a grown up adult... he should be having conversations with Wolverine about what it's like to have a messed up head.

THAT would make me buy Spidey again.

[De Martini]

This is not a "retcon". It is character devolpment. You can try to argue that it is poorly executed develpment but it is certainly not a reton.
There's nothing to argue. It IS poorly executed character development, plain and simple. One would have to be an absolute moron to think otherwise.

I don't see how "magic fear demon" is more logical than "magical pact with Mephisto." I guess any actions of any character in the DCU can be retconned at any later time as the results of being posessed by some magical entity. Parallax is an OMD-like plot device used to return a character to a previous status quo.
No, you're wrong. The Parallax entity makes logical sense and fits in seamlessly with all previous Green Lantern stories. It builds upon what happens before, doesn't negate any previous stories, doesn't disregard history, doesn't leave the past in a state of absolute confusion. OMD/BND, on the other hand, disregards everything that happened in Spider-Man continuity for the last 25 years. Did it happen? Did it not happen? How does this affect previous stories? Does it make logical sense in any capacity? It calls every single story for two decades into question as to whether or not they actually "happened", and has a spillover effect that changes Spider-Man's basic fundamental interactions with the rest of the Marvel Universe at the time.

If anything, I'd liken BND to John Byrne's "Man Of Steel" Superman revamp of the mid-1980s, replacing Mephisto with the Crisis... but let's be entirely honest here, it's not like Superman was a huge-selling, A-list creator title back then (although compared to now...) Man of Steel worked because it got people reading Superman again who hadn't even bothered with the character for years, if *ever*. Spider-Man, on the other hand, was never in the massive state of indifference that Superman had been languishing in for decades.

OMD didn't erase any Spider-Woman stories.
You missed the point of the analogy. Green Lantern: Rebirth did not retcon away any of the previous Green Lantern issues, *including* the Kyle Rayner era, nor did it retcon away the actions/existence of Emerald Twilight. It built upon the history, rather than demolishing it.

They could have killed off Mary Jane or had the two characters divorce, but Joe said that he was against either of those ideas. And honestly, either of those would have been highly controversial as well. So that leaves only wacky, comic book ways of ending the marriage. I don't see why you find that any more insulting than Parallax, Superboy wall-punches, "no more mutants" or constant character resurrections. This stuff happens all the time.
Because, for the most part, Marvel has avoided these types of "reality altering" hoo-hahs for the majority of their existence. Even JQ mocked the competition when he said that "We don't *need* a Crisis to clean up our continuity..." then basically goes ahead and does it. It's not part of Marvel's history, it's milieu if you wanna call it. Furthermore, having them divorce and/or Mary Jane die would have been much more satisfactory for Peter Parker as a charactor. It worked for him with Gwen Stacy, and he bounced back from that. Or if you want, geeze, rip of Tom DeFalco's moronic idea from the 90s, tie it in to Secret Invasion, have her be Skrull (like Alicia turned out to be in FF), the real MJ in stasis or kidnapped or dead or whatever, farfetched as hell but it wouldn't have been a tenth as idiotic as the "deal with the devil/watch me as I change everyone's memories even it makes no logical sense whatsoever" approach.

[Dagwood]

This is not a "retcon". It is character devolpment. You can try to argue that it is poorly executed develpment but it is certainly not a retCon.

RETCON = Retroactive Continuity

Altering the continuity of a character up until the present.

1. Peter's never been married to MJ
2. Harry's not dead
3. Peter has always lived with May

It is poorly executed, and it IS a retcon.



I don't see how "magic fear demon" is more logical than "magical pact with Mephisto." I guess any actions of any character in the DCU can be retconned at any later time as the results of being posessed by some magical entity. Parallax is an OMD-like plot device used to return a character to a previous status quo.

Peter would never make a deal with the Devil just because he can't deal. It's characteristically illogical.

Hal was taken over by a parasitic extraterrestrial, causing him to act in an uncharacteristic manner. This is logical because Hal would never commit acts of mass murder.

Where the Hell did you get "magic fear demon" from? It's plain as day you've never actually read anything pertaining to the storyline you are attempting to build a case around

[Unit99]

Enjoyed the article, and as much as I hate to admit it JOE made some REALLY GOOD POINTS concerning Spider-man, and it was interesting what he said about the "ICON" Print. If someone could only ask him about giving the MAX line a shot in the arm? Now that Garth is soon to be off Punisher/MAX. BY the way Congratulations to JOE for wining the Award and continuing to push Comics in the mainstream light...i.e. The Colbert Report, and ESPN Monday Night Football. :cool:

[Coming Curse]

Poor counter-argument.

Poor counter-counter-argument.


Oh...you want me to actually elaborate. I was comparing Peter Parker to Hal Jordan and you responded by saying something about Kyle. How is that relevant? Kyle is no more relevant to the discussion then Spider-Woman.


And OMD did change Spidey's relationship with the Avengers draaaastically.... I mean, they went from knowing he's Peter Parker to not knowing??


Yes. And Rebirth changed Hal's relationship with the DC heroes. He went from being their enemy to being friends with them again.

[Bathawk]

REALLY don't want to turn this into a GL debate as it's not Marvel, Spider-man or Joe Q related.....

But Jordan had his entire city nuked and he snapped, plain and simple

The idea that you see there's this big evil yellow gug of fear HE made me do it just started the eye rolling

Fans of Jordan say that "he would never have just snapped" would have not only been too human of a response but the great Jordan willpower would never have allowed it to happen.....too bad that willpower was absent when a "yellow fear bug" makes you murder the entire universe

Like another poster said, it's a "shame" that I dump great GL stories over an awful restart, but a writer needs to tell me what to xpect on his book, and if Johns didn't send me packing then I have two words for you

"Orange Lantern"

[HawkeyeX007]

Poor counter-counter-argument.


Oh...you want me to actually elaborate. I was comparing Peter Parker to Hal Jordan and you responded by saying something about Kyle. How is that relevant? Kyle is no more relevant to the discussion then Spider-Woman.

Spider-Woman didn't replace a Spider-Man that went mad after New York city was destroyed. I don't remember a Spider-Lax that Jessica Drew battled.

Yes. And Rebirth changed Hal's relationship with the DC heroes. He went from being their enemy to being friends with them again.

You are terrible in your debate skills.

The DC Heroes forgave him... no memory wipes were involved. Although I could make an argument against the Infinite Crisis that immediately followed Rebirth... which is why I dropped DC for the most part.

But until Infinite Crisis #6.... Heroes (including Batman) forgave and accepted Hal Jordan back again.

With the New Avengers... I cannot & will not accept the notion that they simply forgot that he's Peter Parker as a result of a "*poof* it's magic" situation.

[Coming Curse]

There's nothing to argue. It IS poorly executed character development, plain and simple. One would have to be an absolute moron to think otherwise.


I have never actually read the whole Emerald Twilight/Zero Hour story arc so I'll take your word that it was poorly written.




No, you're wrong. The Parallax entity makes logical sense and fits in seamlessly with all previous Green Lantern stories. It builds upon what happens before, doesn't negate any previous stories, doesn't disregard history, doesn't leave the past in a state of absolute confusion.



It doesn't fit "seamlessly." When people read Zero Hour they thought that Hal was acting of his own free will. Then, years later it is revealed that no, he was actually under the influence of a previously unmentioned entity. This is not "building upon" what has come before. It is undermining the stories where Hal has acted as a villain. It is contradicting the intentions of the writers who were depicting Hal during that time period.


OMD/BND, on the other hand, disregards everything that happened in Spider-Man continuity for the last 25 years. Did it happen? Did it not happen? How does this affect previous stories? Does it make logical sense in any capacity? It calls every single story for two decades into question as to whether or not they actually "happened", and has a spillover effect that changes Spider-Man's basic fundamental interactions with the rest of the Marvel Universe at the time.

I agree, but you are basically the describing pre-IC stories for any DC character.




You missed the point of the analogy. Green Lantern: Rebirth did not retcon away any of the previous Green Lantern issues, *including* the Kyle Rayner era,

That's great for people who bought the Kyle issues of Green Lantern but what about the people who bought Zero Hour? Actually strike that, because those issues of Green Lantern are pre-IC anyway and thus of questionable canonicity.


nor did it retcon away the actions/existence of Emerald Twilight. It built upon the history, rather than demolishing it.


It doesn't retcon the "existence" the Emerald Twilight but it certainly retcons the "actions" and absolves Hal of the responsibility for all of his actions during that time period and thus demolishing the original meaning of the story. I don't see how that "builds upon history". And can you answer my concern that any DC character could have any of their actions retroactively attributed to some similar form of "mind control" or "psychic entities."


Because, for the most part, Marvel has avoided these types of "reality altering" hoo-hahs for the majority of their existence. Even JQ mocked the competition when he said that "We don't *need* a Crisis to clean up our continuity..." then basically goes ahead and does it. It's not part of Marvel's history, it's milieu if you wanna call it. Furthermore, having them divorce and/or Mary Jane die would have been much more satisfactory for Peter Parker as a charactor. It worked for him with Gwen Stacy, and he bounced back from that. Or if you want, geeze, rip of Tom DeFalco's moronic idea from the 90s, tie it in to Secret Invasion, have her be Skrull (like Alicia turned out to be in FF), the real MJ in stasis or kidnapped or dead or whatever, farfetched as hell but it wouldn't have been a tenth as idiotic as the "deal with the devil/watch me as I change everyone's memories even it makes no logical sense whatsoever" approach.

I think a divorce or death would have been better. But even then people would be complaining. Plus they are trying to move Spidey into a more fun book with a younger audience and either the death or divorce ideas would have interfered with that a lot. As far as having MJ be a Skrull or whatever, that is just as bad as Mephisto. It undermines the stories just as badly as saying that they "don't exist" because of magic.



RETCON = Retroactive Continuity

Altering the continuity of a character up until the present.

1. Peter's never been married to MJ
2. Harry's not dead
3. Peter has always lived with May

It is poorly executed, and it IS a retcon

Re-read my post. I was referring to Emerld Twilight, not OMD. OMD definitely is a retcon.


Peter would never make a deal with the Devil just because he can't deal. It's characteristically illogical.

What do you mean? Peter would never make a deal with anyone?


Hal was taken over by a parasitic extraterrestrial, causing him to act in an uncharacteristic manner. This is logical because Hal would never commit acts of mass murder.


What about all those times when you hear about people on the news who commit violent crimes and their friends and neighbors say that they are completely shocked and that they would never have predicted the violent outbursts. You must think they are all under the influence of evil psychic entities. After all, that is more "logical" than believing that an apparently morally upright person can become a violent criminal.


Where the Hell did you get "magic fear demon" from? It's plain as day you've never actually read anything pertaining to the storyline you are attempting to build a case around


Parallax doesn't obey any scientific laws which I would recognize; hence "magic". It posesses the minds of its victims forcing them to commit violent and immoral acts; hence "demon". And it supposedly derives its power from the energies of fear.

[Renonevada2000]

For all the people saying that they are dropping all Spider-Man or even all Marvel titles because they don't like the OMD retcon: I hope that you didn't read Sinestro Corps war and I hope you don't plan on reading Blackest Night either...

Blah, blah, blah

Ladies and gentlemen this is such a strawman arguement that Ray Bolger will play it in the movie version.

[Coming Curse]

Spider-Woman didn't replace a Spider-Man that went mad after New York city was destroyed. I don't remember a Spider-Lax that Jessica Drew battled.

Please, tell me what any of this had to do my comments about the Peter Parker/Hal Jordan retcons. Are you saying that that the Kyle Jordan GL issues "really happened" but that the Spider-Man issues didn't. Because I have already pointed out that the Kyle Rainer GL stories aren't canon either becaue of Infinite Crisis.


You are terrible in your debate skills.


"poor counter-argument"


The DC Heroes forgave him... no memory wipes were involved. Although I could make an argument against the Infinite Crisis that immediately followed Rebirth... which is why I dropped DC for the most part.

But until Infinite Crisis #6.... Heroes (including Batman) forgave and accepted Hal Jordan back again.


My point is that he wouldn't have been accepted back into the Justice League or the Corps if his actions hadn't been revealed to have been manipulated by Parallax. I am not talking about mind-wiping or anything like that.

[Skillet]

For all the people saying that they are dropping all Spider-Man or even all Marvel titles because they don't like the OMD retcon: I hope that you didn't read Sinestro Corps war and I hope you don't plan on reading Blackest Night either. They are based on Hal Jordan, a character who turned evil and then was killed off only to be resurrected and have all his evil deeds retconned as the actions of a yellow fear demon. That is just as lame of a retcon as OMD. Fans just don't complain about it as much because they like a living Hal Jordan more than they like a single Peter Parker.
In fact, people who are offended by OMD style retcons should not be reading DC Universe titles at all. The entire universe was retconned during Infite Crisis. For people complaining that their Spidey comics from the last 20 years "did not happen" because of OMD I have bad news. None of your pre-IC DC comics happened either. Of all of the comics DC has published in its history only those published post-Superboy wall-punch have "actually happened" in a truly cannonical capacity. And I'm sure that some future Crisis will come along to retcon all of the current comics too.
My point here is not that I thought OMD was good. It was a forced story to get from point A to point B. My point is that it is not unprecedented. Superhero comics are full of illogical plot devices, ressurections, and retcons. Fans usually accept them when they like the result(as with GL: Rebirth) but when they don't like the end result they start complaining that they are "illogical" or that they are "getting in the way of change."(OMD) If plot devices like OMD really offend people so much than they should probably not be reading mainstream superhero comics at all.
Also, the complaints about Peter making a "deal with the devil" are baseless. Marvel has repeatedly stated that Mephisto is not really "THE" devil but some kind of entity that resembles him. When you read a comic where, for example, Adam Warlock teams up temporarily with Thanos, a villian who has been depicted as being an EVEN GREATER threat than Mephisto in some ways, do you get all bent out of shape saying "Adam Warlock would never make a deal with Thanos! Out of character! That is immoral! What if children read this and see their favorite hero making a deal with Thanos! That is not heroic!" That is aboout how valid the "deal with the devil" complaints sound to me.

I think your missing the point. People are upset with the way it was handled with OMD. Saying it magic we don't have to explain it is what has people upset. With GL they explained the retcon, the hows the whys and such. Marvel expects us to just accept it with the promise that sometime in the next year or so they will maybe tell us some of the details. Their ideology, that it doesn't retcon any books, but at the same time tell us that no one remembers Peter is Spider-Man, is contradictory. How are issues where Daredevil and other MU characters learned about his identity valid anymore? Oh thats right, they learned it but forgot, this is what has turned me off Marvel; the lack of taking the time to develop a good way to retcon the marriage with a valid explanation. Sorry but I feel that they have a total lack of respect for their fans so until I feel differently I will support other comic publishers.

[HawkeyeX007]

Please, tell me what any of this had to do my comments about the Peter Parker/Hal Jordan retcons. Are you saying that that the Kyle Jordan GL issues "really happened" but that the Spider-Man issues didn't. Because I have already pointed out that the Kyle Rainer GL stories aren't canon either becaue of Infinite Crisis.

Oh, Infinite Crisis ruined so many things for me... don't even get me started on that. But it's somewhat forgivable since DC already had a "Crisis" back in the 80's, and DC continuity wasn't very solid until sometime in the 1970's, I believe.

Spider-Man, on the other hand didn't need a reset button... and certainly not one that was related to his corner of the universe. I'm getting a headache thinking about how it's possible for Mephisto to make EVERYONE in the Marvel Universe forget that Spidey was Peter Parker. Including frikkin' Daredevil!

[QUOTE=Coming Curse]"poor counter-argument"

We've had enough of that. C'mon dude.

My point is that he wouldn't have been accepted back into the Justice League or the Corps if his actions hadn't been revealed to have been manipulated by Parallax. I am not talking about mind-wiping or anything like that.

But I am. And that's the heart of the problem with OMD/BND. This is the beef that I and many other fans have with this whole debacle... is the fact that continuity was erased. It's a gray area between whether or not it was a mindwipe, or whether events were simply erased... and neither option is any good.

With GL, Geoff Johns didn't erase what had previously occurred sloppily. He tried to justify what had happened, and added explanations behind Hal's actions, changed his motivations, etc.... but he didn't go *poof* that never happened. He simply brought new revelations that were added to the previous event.

But with OMD, they simply changed the status from "they got married" to "they never got married". And Daredevil never knew that Peter was Spidey.... I mean, how would you explain thsoe old scenes where Daredevil and Spidey called each other "Matt" and "Pete"?

Seriously, F%CK OMD. But congrats to Joe Q on the awards.... I don't wish the guy any ill will. I just want another EIC in the future to change this OMD/BND bullsh*t.

[Nate-Earth 2]

I have never actually read the whole Emerald Twilight/Zero Hour story arc so I'll take your word that it was poorly written.




II agree, but you are basically the describing pre-IC stories for any DC character.




That's great for people who bought the Kyle issues of Green Lantern but what about the people who bought Zero Hour? Actually strike that, because those issues of Green Lantern are pre-IC anyway and thus of questionable canonicity.


.

I think people on here have been overstating Infinite Crisis a great deal, in its retconning. It didn't really change a great deal. Wonder Woman was back as a founding member of JLA, Joe Chill was caught, and that, for the most part, is about it. And, anybody reading DC would know that Zero Hour is still canon, because Booster Gold was in that event his latest issue, and we saw Hal (as Parallax) there, ina way that didn't contradict Zero Hour at all, but also incorporated the Parallax idea into it, as well.
Comparing BND to IC does not make a great deal of sense. IC was intended to clean up some past problems; BND took a character who had nothing wrong with him, and destroyed him. I'd say thats a fairly big difference.

[Yaw]

Okay, I am a Marvel Zombie. I am loving a lot of stuff comming out of Marvel these days... EXCEPT Spider-Man!

Joe, I gotta tell you, your quote above really makes me feel sorry for you. As a married man with 2 kids myself, in all honesty my life before my marriage is a pale comparison of interest and excitement as it is now. I know that most of the married men I know feel the same way. So I feel sorry for you if your marriage is boring and "not story worthy," but if you think that marriage limited the storylines, then I say you are not a good writer. Maybe your personal experiances do not speak to the whole.


This is to you and everyone else that uses this argument. "Boring" is a VERY relative term. One's idea of fun and interesting changes once they are married and become parents or at least it SHOULD. The point Joe is making is that SPider-man as a married man is not as interesting as a single man. Being a married man and a superhero usually makes for a negligent spouse (see Luke Cage) unless you are Superman and can fly/run at the speed of light. How many people want to read a superhero book where the superhero is married with two kids? The Flash now has two kids and all I ever hear is how he needs to lose the family. Who wants to read a book where the superhero takes their children to soccer games or school plays? I'm not saying there is not a market for that sort of thing but I do believe evolving a character who became popular without those things may lose some of his appeal with those things. If there was a new hero/book that came out with the family as a central component then we have a different story.

[jgiannantoni]

How many people want to read a superhero book where the superhero is married with two kids?
Why do some people lump in kids in the marriage debate. Joe can retcon out all the kids he wants. Married Spider-Man doesn't have to have kids, nor do I want them.

[Yaw]

Why do some people lump in kids in the marriage debate. Joe can retcon out all the kids he wants. Married Spider-Man doesn't have to have kids, nor do I want them.
i was responding to the previous posters specific comments/situation.

[De Martini]

I suggest to anyone who thinks a superhero book featuring a married main character with two kids is "boring", to go and check out Grant Morrison's entire run on Animal Man. If you *still* think otherwise, someone replaced your brain with a turnip. ;)

[beta-ray]

GL: Rebirth was written well, though. It had a stupid Yellow Fear Bug to take away Hal being crazy, but at least the book was well written.

One More Day was a delayed mess that was decompressed and then pulled out the magic card without any foreshadowing whatsoever. The only positive review I read about the story from non-message-board-posters was by the guy who does those Ambidextrous columns here, and that read more like someone wanting to get more work from Marvel.

You really read a lot of intentions into people don't you?

Anyways... how was Parallax any more foreshadowed than Mephisto?

[beta-ray]

OK...I can't get through the five pages before addressing this. I'm a "hater" because Joe Q crapped on Spiderman. If all you can do is insult readers who have supported the title for..oh, I guess, over 20 years, then I'm inclined to dismiss you based on the snark. Guess what? BND is selling like two copies at my LCS. Way to go Joe Q. :rolleyes:

Who is this Spiderman you were a fan of?

[Dagwood]

Re-read my post. I was referring to Emerld Twilight, not OMD. OMD definitely is a retcon.

My apologies if I misunderstood you on that.


What do you mean? Peter would never make a deal with anyone?

Peter would never have struck a bargain with The Devil just because he couldn't deal with May passing.

What about all those times when you hear about people on the news who commit violent crimes and their friends and neighbors say that they are completely shocked and that they would never have predicted the violent outbursts. You must think they are all under the influence of evil psychic entities. After all, that is more "logical" than believing that an apparently morally upright person can become a violent criminal.

That doesn't really make any sense. We've been privy to all the elements of Hal's life. We know his character inside and out. No one truly knows the inner thoughts and feelings of the killers whose actions shock their neighbors. The comparison doesn't hold any water. And... no, it isn't logical in the slightest. You would make a horrible lawyer.



Parallax doesn't obey any scientific laws which I would recognize; hence "magic". It posesses the minds of its victims forcing them to commit violent and immoral acts; hence "demon". And it supposedly derives its power from the energies of fear.

Again, this argument is full of holes. By your definition, every single superpowered person in the DCU or the 616 could be classified as magical, and any character who uses psychic abilities to control others for amoral purposes would be a demon. According to your logic, Wolverine is a wizard, and Emma Frost is a demon.

[Enigma20XX]

With One More Day, the reason I opted to draw this story was to put the burden solely on me — I was worried that this story could potentially harm another artist’s career. So, I decided to draw it and deal with the responsibility myself

You didn't have to do that, Joe... we already KNEW who to blame... Who in the hell blames an artist for a crappy story? Personally, I blame the EIC who butts in and pushes his agenda over the writers of the book.

[Alex Cruz]

I think that the problem with Joe Quesada is that he want that the writers of Marvel do scripts of way morbid to attract the attention of readers and the writers of Marvel make many unnecessary things, how: Spider-man not need to remove his mask in public to make that Civil War was a better story; Kingpin not need kill to Foggy Nelson to improve the title of DD, and Tia May not need die (for the third or fourth time) to make better the book Amazing Spider-Man. The occurrences of Joe Quesada to make "more interesting" the scripts of the books Marvel, is destroying the confidence of readers of Marvel Comics. Please Mr. Quesada, no more interesting occurrences.

[JamesOliva]

This is to you and everyone else that uses this argument. "Boring" is a VERY relative term.
How many people want to read a superhero book where the superhero is married with two kids? The Flash now has two kids and all I ever hear is how he needs to lose the family. Who wants to read a book where the superhero takes their children to soccer games or school plays?

First off this is a bit contradictory. You say boring is relative term and then critique a book you're not reading. Granted Waid's recent Flash arc was bit too drawn out and took about 3 issues to get going but once it got there it was pretty good. And again, what's boring to you may not be to others, as you so eloquently stated. At least, Flash is trying to do something different. The jury's still out on whether or not it will work, but I'm giving it a chance, just like BND.

[AllPwrflStev]

So you think gaining your respect is worth losing the customers that Bendis brought to the book?

Thats pretty arrogant.

Please anybody who read the original book, knows that Bendis is writing a completely different title than what the book was originally. It's almost insulting to keep calling it the Avengers. At least the Ultimates had the decency to change the name. Bendis should call the book what it is. "Bendis's Superbuddies" Wolverine, Spiderman, a bunch of characters from the 70s people forgot about, and a character that was created as a hoax. He knows absolutely nothing about the original Avengers history, and has even been quoted when that issue was brought up in Wizard magazine. "Well you nobody expects you to have read every issue of the series." No, but would it kill you to at least the cliff notes!

[Sweeps]

Quesada says...



and guys like Damon (Lindelof) who has given me more scripted material recently


So does this mean that during the strike Damon Lindelof turned in his issue 5 (final) script for Ultimate Hulk vs. Woverine? Good God I hope so!

[AllPwrflStev]

REALLY don't want to turn this into a GL debate as it's not Marvel, Spider-man or Joe Q related.....

But Jordan had his entire city nuked and he snapped, plain and simple

The idea that you see there's this big evil yellow gug of fear HE made me do it just started the eye rolling

Fans of Jordan say that "he would never have just snapped" would have not only been too human of a response but the great Jordan willpower would never have allowed it to happen.....too bad that willpower was absent when a "yellow fear bug" makes you murder the entire universe

Like another poster said, it's a "shame" that I dump great GL stories over an awful restart, but a writer needs to tell me what to xpect on his book, and if Johns didn't send me packing then I have two words for you

"Orange Lantern"

I can't believe people are comparing an awesome story by a good writer to this travesty but here goes. Parralax was not a retcon. The story, if it had been read by some of the decryers, does not negate the fact that Jordan snapped over coast city being destroyed, it says it was the lynch pin that allowed the parralax entity to take control. If you read both stories you can see that Jordan became completely out of character, retaliating in a completely non human manner, so if anything Rebirth cleaned up the parralax story. You can tell Jordan was in a battle with the Parralax entity when he sacrificed himself to reignite the sun, and again when he took on the Spectre to gain atonement. It was completely logical to believe that these almost schizophrenic changes in character could be the result of an outside force. OMD, spiderman makes a deal with the devil and everything gets retcon with "it's magic" as an explanation.

[Bathawk]

please keep in mind that Spiderman Wolverine and Luke Cage have been on the New Avengers for 3 years now

Black widow 6 years of service
Black Knight about 5 years of service
Tigra 5 years of sevice
USAgent 5 years of service
War Machine 4 to 5 years of service
Crystal 4 years of serivce
Beast 4 years of service
Arachne 4 years of service
Sersi 4 years of service
Hercules about 4 years of service
Starfox 3 years of service
Black Panther 2 to three years of service
Falcon 2 to three years of service
Justice 2 to three years of service
Firestar 2 to three years of service

Less than a years worth of service (less than 12 issues as members) Sandman, Rage, D-man, Machine Man, Swordsman, Firebird, Moondragon, Original Human Torch, Mr.Fantastic, Invisible Woman, Forgotten one ect;

That's a quarter of all the charcaters who have been Avengers with only a couple of exceltions (She-Hulk, Ms Marvel) anyone who si not listed was a member during the 60's and 70's) So how long does someoen have to be in the Avengers lineup before you consider then "real" Avengers?

[Bathawk]

I can't believe people are comparing an awesome story by a good writer to this travesty but here goes. Parralax was not a retcon. The story, if it had been read by some of the decryers, does not negate the fact that Jordan snapped over coast city being destroyed, it says it was the lynch pin that allowed the parralax entity to take control. If you read both stories you can see that Jordan became completely out of character, retaliating in a completely non human manner, so if anything Rebirth cleaned up the parralax story. You can tell Jordan was in a battle with the Parralax entity when he sacrificed himself to reignite the sun, and again when he took on the Spectre to gain atonement. It was completely logical to believe that these almost schizophrenic changes in character could be the result of an outside force. OMD, spiderman makes a deal with the devil and everything gets retcon with "it's magic" as an explanation.


Not saying this to be confrontational, I really can't recall and don't feel liek pulling put old issues of "Day of Judgement", But when Jordan agreed to be the Spectre for "atonement" Was Hal Jordan in Heaven or Hell at the time?

Whatever the answer that should end the arguement there

[AllPwrflStev]

For all the people saying that they are dropping all Spider-Man or even all Marvel titles because they don't like the OMD retcon: I hope that you didn't read Sinestro Corps war and I hope you don't plan on reading Blackest Night either. They are based on Hal Jordan, a character who turned evil and then was killed off only to be resurrected and have all his evil deeds retconned as the actions of a yellow fear demon.

Ok, that was GL Rebirth not the Sinestro Corps, completely different stories. And Blackest Night isn't even out yet, and his evil deeds weren't retconned. They still happened they address them in the book. Unlike Brand New Day Where everything actually never did happen. And I know you'll go back and say well the heroes like him now. But Batman still distrusts him, and he got the crap beat out of him by the other lanterns when he returned to OA. Did you really not read this story?


That is just as lame of a retcon as OMD. Fans just don't complain about it as much because they like a living Hal Jordan more than they like a single Peter Parker.[/QUOTE}

Hal Jordan was brought looooong before Rebirth as the Spectre.

[QUOTE=Coming Curse] In fact, people who are offended by OMD style retcons should not be reading DC Universe titles at all. The entire universe was retconned during Infite Crisis. For people complaining that their Spidey comics from the last 20 years "did not happen" because of OMD I have bad news. None of your pre-IC DC comics happened either. Of all of the comics DC has published in its history only those published post-Superboy wall-punch have "actually happened" in a truly cannonical capacity. And I'm sure that some future Crisis will come along to retcon all of the current comics too.

This is a melodramatic overexaggeration of what actually happened. Superboy's wall punches were used to explain why things were suddenly getting strange in the DCU. Things like Identity Crisis Maxwell Lord going evil, OMAC project, Jason Todd coming back from the dead etc. All pre-planned for the wall punches. And the entire history wasn't retconned there would be no Justice Society if that were true, or Kingdom Come x-over.

My point here is not that I thought OMD was good. It was a forced story to get from point A to point B. My point is that it is not unprecedented. Superhero comics are full of illogical plot devices, ressurections, and retcons. Fans usually accept them when they like the result(as with GL: Rebirth) but when they don't like the end result they start complaining that they are "illogical" or that they are "getting in the way of change."

Wow now you get the storyline right. Again not a retcon, and followed a multi-issue heavily organized plot that used the history of the characters, and didn't change anything that happened in the past unlike the four issue mini-series of OMD

(OMD) If plot devices like OMD really offend people so much than they should probably not be reading mainstream superhero comics at all.

"If you don't like America you can get out!" There's lots of well-written mainstream superhero comics. It's just that DC is putting most of them out now.

Also, the complaints about Peter making a "deal with the devil" are baseless. Marvel has repeatedly stated that Mephisto is not really "THE" devil but some kind of entity that resembles him.

Do me a favor, go out and buy any official handbook to the Marvel Universe. Look up Mephisto and read his known aliases. "Lucifer, Satan, Belzzabub, the devil" He even looks like the devil, he commands demons, and he steals souls. Its clear Marvel doesn't read their own comics. His son Damien Hellstrom's comic was called Hellstrom Son of Satan! biblical Mythos even say Mephisto is another name of the devil.

When you read a comic where, for example, Adam Warlock teams up temporarily with Thanos, a villian who has been depicted as being an EVEN GREATER threat than Mephisto in some ways, do you get all bent out of shape saying "Adam Warlock would never make a deal with Thanos! Out of character! That is immoral! What if children read this and see their favorite hero making a deal with Thanos! That is not heroic!" That is aboout how valid the "deal with the devil" complaints sound to me.

And finally that's an adage used to describe lots of villains. That they are worse than the devil. And Thanos when in posession of the Infinity Gauntlet was a bigger threat than Mephisto because he was omnipotent and even Mephisto has his limits. But where as Thanos is a fictional character, the "devil" is believed to be real in certain religious settings. which is why parents might have a problem with their child's hero making a deal with someone who is described in their Sunday School as the root of evil.

[AllPwrflStev]

Not saying this to be confrontational, I really can't recall and don't feel liek pulling put old issues of "Day of Judgement", But when Jordan agreed to be the Spectre for "atonement" Was Hal Jordan in Heaven or Hell at the time?

Whatever the answer that should end the arguement there

Glad you responded cause I was just about to take out that part about the decryers not reading the story part of my post. I thought that was out of line and I apologize. and I borrowed that story from a friend so I'd have to re-borrow it in order to look it up cause I don't remember either.

[alf]

Please anybody who read the original book, knows that Bendis is writing a completely different title than what the book was originally. It's almost insulting to keep calling it the Avengers. At least the Ultimates had the decency to change the name. Bendis should call the book what it is. "Bendis's Superbuddies" Wolverine, Spiderman, a bunch of characters from the 70s people forgot about, and a character that was created as a hoax. He knows absolutely nothing about the original Avengers history, and has even been quoted when that issue was brought up in Wizard magazine. "Well you nobody expects you to have read every issue of the series." No, but would it kill you to at least the cliff notes!

I think that kind of depends on what you're considering "the original book." When I started reading comics, Bob Harras was writing the "original" Avengers and it was an unreadable mess of dull, b-list characters and weak subplots with atrocious dialogue. The first issue can remember being worth reading was Waid's #400. The only good run of what some people seem to consider the original Avengers I ever saw was when Kurt Busiek took over, or, what would it be, "Busiek's Superbudies" Captain America, Iron Man, two New Warriors and Triathalon? When Bendis relaunched the Avengers, he was replacing Chuck Austen. Do you think that run had a more legitimate claim to being an Avengers book than Bendis'? Mighty Avengers is mostly made up of characters from the "original" Avengers plus Ares and Sentry. Is it insulting to call that the Avengers? Personally, I've found the relaunched Avengers books to be kind of hit-or-miss but I love what Bendis has done with Cage and Spider-Woman in general. Good or bad, though, the argument that the book is somehow not really an Avengers book is something I'll just never understand.

As far as OMD/BND, when I started reading Spider-man, they were married and yet the writers still somehow managed to fit in subplots involving Harry Osborn, Flash Thompson, Felicia Hardy and the Daily Bugle staff without turning Peter into a negligent husband. It can be done. I saw at least 8 or 9 different writers do it pretty well over the years. But for whatever reason those characters were hardly ever used since JMS came on. I hated OMD--I don't particularly care whether they stay married but it was an insultingly bad, lazy and poorly thought out story--but I'm giving the new creative teams a chance. I saw nothing good about Slott and Guggenheim's arcs--and some of it was honestly quite good--that couldn't have been done with a married Spider-man. I did see a somewhat ridiculous overreliance on Peter running out of web fluid, though (seriously, in both stories? come on). And for god's sake, did they really have to take away his computer? It's been 7 or 8 years since the last time I knew an adult who didn't own at least some kind of computer, even ones who still lived with their parents. And if Gale's first issue was any indication, I'm probably not going to be sticking around much longer.

And just a side note on the Flash--I agree that Waid's super-family approach turned out kind of weak, but I'd argue his original run on the title before they had kids handled a serious, mature loving relationship about as well as any superhero book I've ever read. Even before they were actually married, Wally and Linda pretty much acted like a married couple and the power of their love was at the core of most of Waid's best stories. You don't need the instability of the single life to write good drama. You just need good writing. If the Spider-man books have been lacking that for a while, it's not Mary Jane's fault.

[ZEBULON]

I'm sure people will stop reading spiderman just like they stopped reading avengers right before it shot to the top of the sales charts.
I'm sure they will stop reading spiderman just like they stopped reading dc when dc erased like what? . . .40 years of continuity? I mean dc just took a big dump on their fans and said hey, everything you grew up reading doesnt exist anymore, but people kept reading. Heck dc does it every few months but people keep reading.

This spiderman thing is exactly like green lantern. Geoff created a phoenix rip off in parallax and basically did the same thing. If green lantern got off scot free for destroying the universe, murdering millions of people etc then I think peter can get off for not doing anything when MJ made a sacrifice for him when his back was to the wall. For those who say that spidey is less a hero for that lets try to remember that superman killed people, and his marriage was never interesting. lets try to remember that batman created Omac, and wonderwoman snapped a man's neck. Peter made a deal with an extradimensional being, not the devil! in order to save those he loved from his mistakes. When you really think about it, Spidey is the only TRUE moral hero left in comics.

[AllPwrflStev]

please keep in mind that Spiderman Wolverine and Luke Cage have been on the New Avengers for 3 years now

Black widow 6 years of service
Black Knight about 5 years of service
Tigra 5 years of sevice
USAgent 5 years of service
War Machine 4 to 5 years of service
Crystal 4 years of serivce
Beast 4 years of service
Arachne 4 years of service
Sersi 4 years of service
Hercules about 4 years of service
Starfox 3 years of service
Black Panther 2 to three years of service
Falcon 2 to three years of service
Justice 2 to three years of service
Firestar 2 to three years of service

Less than a years worth of service (less than 12 issues as members) Sandman, Rage, D-man, Machine Man, Swordsman, Firebird, Moondragon, Original Human Torch, Mr.Fantastic, Invisible Woman, Forgotten one ect;

That's a quarter of all the charcaters who have been Avengers with only a couple of exceltions (She-Hulk, Ms Marvel) anyone who si not listed was a member during the 60's and 70's) So how long does someoen have to be in the Avengers lineup before you consider then "real" Avengers?

I don't think I clearly articulated my point. and I might argue charaters like Black Knight and Hercules who served a while in the 70s and then served a while and then served again in the 90s. During Proctor and crossing storylines. though props for your mad classic Avengers knowledge. But as I was saying my point was not so much the characters themselves but the drastic change to the group dynamic. Mainly the Avengers don't kill mantra. I mean Hawkeye had his own wife disbarred when she allowed the Phantom rider to die after he raped her. Now Tony Stark hires Wolverine to be the teams killer. And are we talking real time or issue time cause I know it took at least two years for the first thirteen issues to come out. I you have to remember back then issues came out every month too.

[ZEBULON]

I cant believe this whole this is not really the avengers argument is still around. I'm going to go ahead and be frank. You people who swore that you would never read "this" avengers anymore yet are able to complain about every single plot thread the day the issue hits the stands are pathetic. Just stop reading it and complaining about it, trust me it will still be on the top of the sales charts, even higher then JLA. I for one am an avengers fan with a pretty healthy run, and the avengers were always static in membership. deathcry? triathalon? I as an avenger fan am proud that avengers is the BEST selling team book on the stands because i am really a fan, and not some poser who is hoping to bring down sales. It's obviously not working so give it up already. Or at least have some tact and stop reading the book like you said you were going to. It's been three years already! This avengers is simply the best avengers anyone can remember even without my captain america. Bendis writes comics for adults. I give thanks unto the bendis because i love these characters, and so does he. He brought back luke cage, iron fist, spider woman and several other characters back into the limelight, he made sentry more compelling and interesting then superman, daredevil more interesting then batman, and the avengers more interesting then the jla has been in years, and he deserves respect for that. Unless of course you dont really care about the characters and are just a hater.

As for spiderman, I forgot to mention that when it is revealed that spiderman is hooked up to some skrull machine, memphisto was really a skrull, and new avengers spidey post black suit is really a skrull now, alot of people will have egg on their face. I cant wait for the reveal.

one last thing. I remember people complaining that memphisto wasnt the badguy in house of M or civil war, and that marvel doesnt use him enough. Now they do, and the 'rama queens still complain. cant please these people. geez

[Floyd Barber]

he made sentry more compelling and interesting then superman, daredevil more interesting then batman,

Damn dude... I was right there with you. I love Avengers and all but...
those quoted statements above are just pure unadulterated bullsh!t.

[AllPwrflStev]

I think that kind of depends on what you're considering "the original book." When I started reading comics, Bob Harras was writing the "original" Avengers and it was an unreadable mess of dull, b-list characters and weak subplots with atrocious dialogue. The first issue can remember being worth reading was Waid's #400. The only good run of what some people seem to consider the original Avengers I ever saw was when Kurt Busiek took over, or, what would it be, "Busiek's Superbudies" Captain America, Iron Man, two New Warriors and Triathalon? When Bendis relaunched the Avengers, he was replacing Chuck Austen. Do you think that run had a more legitimate claim to being an Avengers book than Bendis'? Mighty Avengers is mostly made up of characters from the "original" Avengers plus Ares and Sentry. Is it insulting to call that the Avengers? Personally, I've found the relaunched Avengers books to be kind of hit-or-miss but I love what Bendis has done with Cage and Spider-Woman in general. Good or bad, though, the argument that the book is somehow not really an Avengers book is something I'll just never understand.

As far as OMD/BND, when I started reading Spider-man, they were married and yet the writers still somehow managed to fit in subplots involving Harry Osborn, Flash Thompson, Felicia Hardy and the Daily Bugle staff without turning Peter into a negligent husband. It can be done. I saw at least 8 or 9 different writers do it pretty well over the years. But for whatever reason those characters were hardly ever used since JMS came on. I hated OMD--I don't particularly care whether they stay married but it was an insultingly bad, lazy and poorly thought out story--but I'm giving the new creative teams a chance. I saw nothing good about Slott and Guggenheim's arcs--and some of it was honestly quite good--that couldn't have been done with a married Spider-man. I did see a somewhat ridiculous overreliance on Peter running out of web fluid, though (seriously, in both stories? come on). And for god's sake, did they really have to take away his computer? It's been 7 or 8 years since the last time I knew an adult who didn't own at least some kind of computer, even ones who still lived with their parents. And if Gale's first issue was any indication, I'm probably not going to be sticking around much longer.

And just a side note on the Flash--I agree that Waid's super-family approach turned out kind of weak, but I'd argue his original run on the title before they had kids handled a serious, mature loving relationship about as well as any superhero book I've ever read. Even before they were actually married, Wally and Linda pretty much acted like a married couple and the power of their love was at the core of most of Waid's best stories. You don't need the instability of the single life to write good drama. You just need good writing. If the Spider-man books have been lacking that for a while, it's not Mary Jane's fault.

Now come on that's not fair. No true comic book fan ever acknowledges the writing of Chuck Austin as being part of cannon. actually when Chuck Austen took over the book is when the book started too lose it's original feel. Plus Busiek so many characters past and present it was hard to tell who was on the team. but I definaitely think it was one of the best Avengers run. And Avengers Forever came out of it, which was one of the best avengers story. I liked Harras's run, minus the Crossing, but i can see why people can think it was bad. it was pretty campy in the dialogue area, but hey it was the 90s. I guess you can sum up the argument like this. Tony Stark disbands the Avengers. Which is the first time that ever happened. (They're not the x-men who disband every five years, of unless you count when he disbanded the West Coast Avengers during the fiasco with the Supreme Intelligence, but then they just reformed the next month as Force Works) Avengers fans just saw Wanda's character for completely destroyed from it's original basis, beloved long term members like Hawkeye, and Vision killed for no reason, and Quicksilver made into a villain. (Oh yeah and they killed Scott Lang) So if you're a long time Avengers reader, and just saw the entire team slaughtered in a way worse than Onslaught, Korvac, and Under Seige combined. And then while your grieving the rape of your childhood, a few months later the guy who killed it announces that he's making a brand new avengers with popular characters like Spidey and Wolverine to sell the book, but they'll be grittier and more covert. you kinda wanna draw a line between the original avengers and the new avengers.

[AllPwrflStev]

I'm sure people will stop reading spiderman just like they stopped reading avengers right before it shot to the top of the sales charts.
I'm sure they will stop reading spiderman just like they stopped reading dc when dc erased like what? . . .40 years of continuity? I mean dc just took a big dump on their fans and said hey, everything you grew up reading doesnt exist anymore, but people kept reading. Heck dc does it every few months but people keep reading.

This spiderman thing is exactly like green lantern. Geoff created a phoenix rip off in parallax and basically did the same thing. If green lantern got off scot free for destroying the universe, murdering millions of people etc then I think peter can get off for not doing anything when MJ made a sacrifice for him when his back was to the wall. For those who say that spidey is less a hero for that lets try to remember that superman killed people, and his marriage was never interesting. lets try to remember that batman created Omac, and wonderwoman snapped a man's neck. Peter made a deal with an extradimensional being, not the devil! in order to save those he loved from his mistakes. When you really think about it, Spidey is the only TRUE moral hero left in comics.

Oh for God sakes, if you wanna argue that he got off Scott free than argue that it happened during Zero Hour when he reignited the sun and the heroes gave him a f*cking heroes funeral! And he didn't destroy the universe (obviously) he attempted to recreate it but failed. Nobody died except for the green Lanterns he killed as Parralax. So it wasn't millions. And the reason I keep up with the Avengers is so I don't sound like a retard using stories as argument that I obviously haven't read and know nothing about. And please see my previous posts about Marvel stating earlier how Mephisto was their universe's equivalent of the devil and then backed out of that statement "magically" after omd

[MaSaKaRi]

I said it before, and i'll say it again, quality doesnt equal sales and vice versa. Quesada brought Marvel back from the brink, and the titles are selling, but that doesnt mean they are any good.

[ubuking]

I can't believe people can argue that a universal retcon can be compared to what has been done to Peter/Spider-man. There have always been revamps of different characters and universes. DC does it very often. Smaller publishers also. Marvel does them mostly to single characters. Often a hero dies and suddenly they come back from the dead or a new creative team has an interesting idea for old characters. It's all been done before, and besides some objections, it is generaly accepted. The basic rule seems to be that the essence of the character remains the same. What was done to Peter was he's been retconed, without retconing his timeline. Every character's timeline in the MU continues. Peter's still go, and so we're left seeing a man (as in, not a boy) going through what is basicaly teenage angst. .
We're seeing a 26-30year old man still living with his Aunt, among other things, and reacting to things like a teenager. That is just silly.
You can say and object that Green Lantern was brought back from the dead, as was Superman. How about Marvel's Captain Marvel? How about Dr Doom. Who can really say they won't at some time bring back Steve Roger's Cap America? I'm sure, though, that none of these characters will be brought back to life in diepers, though...

[odeisel]

yes omd was horses***t but brand new days is some of th ebest spidey stuff i've seen in a while. way better than the jms melodrama of the past couple. it feels vibrant and alive again. stop being stubborn and check out BND. you'lllike it

[NedPepper]

Very well stated. In JQ's defense, however, he's stuck between a rock and a hard place. While it's the older nostalgic generation that's been keeping the industry alive this long, they won't be around forever. As the Marvel (and some would say the industry) leader, Joe must decide between cashing in on all of us as much as possible before we all pass away... and ensuring there's a successor to pick up where all of us left off to keep the business alive.

In other words, you can make the characters age and evolve to cater to those of us who've read every Aunt May story there was to be told... or you can keep the character frozen in time with a perpetual and immobile status quo (à la Archie), thereby targeting a more finite and specific age group that will be enjoying the character for a much shorter period of time before moving on to more adult material.


/AS


There was one comment you made that struck me (whoever made it...whether it was Anal Suprise or someone else...sorry, I'm a bit hungover). The comment that those of us that have kept this industry going. When I think about that, I think about the people who stuck through the 90's drought, hoping that this industry wouldn't implode. It didn't, thankfully, althought the same problems that caused this industry to nearly implode are rearing their ugly head again.

And by the way, I'm twenty-eight years old. I'd like to believe I can keep this industry going for another twenty years if I can.

It's not like the old readers are in their seventies and knocking at death's door. Let's not exaggerate it too much.

Most comic readers in their late teens know Spider-Man as a a married guy. I'm assuming you're talking about all those new readers that jumped on board after the movies....

Oh, wait, that didn't happen.

EDIT: I just had another thought. I happen to believe that this industry captures very few NEW readers. I think it recycles readers who have quit reading and come back, or are just bouncing from book to book.

I imagine there are a number of teens yearly who discover comics, and even though I have no statistics to back this up, I bet the numbers are extremely low. Everything in this business is based on HYPE. And comic book fans, whether angry or estatic, feed off of empty hype like a vampire drinking blood. Even if they hate it, they still do it.

[Doowhaadiddy]

yes omd was horses***t but brand new days is some of th ebest spidey stuff i've seen in a while. way better than the jms melodrama of the past couple. it feels vibrant and alive again. stop being stubborn and check out BND. you'lllike it


Checked it out (the Slott/McNiven arc).... didn't like it.
Not arguing that the creativity was bad, it just was not my Spider-Man.

We are not "whining".... just stating our anger and frustration. You can comment on the positiveless you experience from BND, but you shouldn't be calling out fellow posters and labelling them. It detracts from your otherwise sensible post.

Peace

[De Martini]

I cant believe this whole this is not really the avengers argument is still around. I'm going to go ahead and be frank. You people who swore that you would never read "this" avengers anymore yet are able to complain about every single plot thread the day the issue hits the stands are pathetic. Just stop reading it and complaining about it, trust me it will still be on the top of the sales charts, even higher then JLA. I for one am an avengers fan with a pretty healthy run, and the avengers were always static in membership. deathcry? triathalon? I as an avenger fan am proud that avengers is the BEST selling team book on the stands because i am really a fan, and not some poser who is hoping to bring down sales. It's obviously not working so give it up already. Or at least have some tact and stop reading the book like you said you were going to. It's been three years already! This avengers is simply the best avengers anyone can remember even without my captain america. Bendis writes comics for adults. I give thanks unto the bendis because i love these characters, and so does he. He brought back luke cage, iron fist, spider woman and several other characters back into the limelight, he made sentry more compelling and interesting then superman, daredevil more interesting then batman, and the avengers more interesting then the jla has been in years, and he deserves respect for that. Unless of course you dont really care about the characters and are just a hater.

As for spiderman, I forgot to mention that when it is revealed that spiderman is hooked up to some skrull machine, memphisto was really a skrull, and new avengers spidey post black suit is really a skrull now, alot of people will have egg on their face. I cant wait for the reveal.

one last thing. I remember people complaining that memphisto wasnt the badguy in house of M or civil war, and that marvel doesnt use him enough. Now they do, and the 'rama queens still complain. cant please these people. geez
Could you repeat that please? I can't hear a word you're saying when you got Bendis's c0ck in your mouth like that... ;)

I KID, I KID... love Ultimate Spider-Man and New Avengers has won me over. But it sure aint "the best Avengers anyone can remember" by a long shot.

[littlewolvie]

I still hate OMD and you're not getting me anywhere near BND (as far as I'm concerned, it simply doesn't exist), but I've to admit Joe did some of his finest art work on OMD. I'm afraid that's about the only positive thing I've to say about Spidey these days.

[Lord Stark]

Ok, that was GL Rebirth not the Sinestro Corps, completely different stories. And Blackest Night isn't even out yet, and his evil deeds weren't retconned. They still happened they address them in the book. Unlike Brand New Day Where everything actually never did happen. And I know you'll go back and say well the heroes like him now. But Batman still distrusts him, and he got the crap beat out of him by the other lanterns when he returned to OA. Did you really not read this story?


[QUOTE=Coming Curse]That is just as lame of a retcon as OMD. Fans just don't complain about it as much because they like a living Hal Jordan more than they like a single Peter Parker.[/QUOTE}

Hal Jordan was brought looooong before Rebirth as the Spectre.



This is a melodramatic overexaggeration of what actually happened. Superboy's wall punches were used to explain why things were suddenly getting strange in the DCU. Things like Identity Crisis Maxwell Lord going evil, OMAC project, Jason Todd coming back from the dead etc. All pre-planned for the wall punches. And the entire history wasn't retconned there would be no Justice Society if that were true, or Kingdom Come x-over.



Wow now you get the storyline right. Again not a retcon, and followed a multi-issue heavily organized plot that used the history of the characters, and didn't change anything that happened in the past unlike the four issue mini-series of OMD



"If you don't like America you can get out!" There's lots of well-written mainstream superhero comics. It's just that DC is putting most of them out now.



Do me a favor, go out and buy any official handbook to the Marvel Universe. Look up Mephisto and read his known aliases. "Lucifer, Satan, Belzzabub, the devil" He even looks like the devil, he commands demons, and he steals souls. Its clear Marvel doesn't read their own comics. His son Damien Hellstrom's comic was called Hellstrom Son of Satan! biblical Mythos even say Mephisto is another name of the devil.



And finally that's an adage used to describe lots of villains. That they are worse than the devil. And Thanos when in posession of the Infinity Gauntlet was a bigger threat than Mephisto because he was omnipotent and even Mephisto has his limits. But where as Thanos is a fictional character, the "devil" is believed to be real in certain religious settings. which is why parents might have a problem with their child's hero making a deal with someone who is described in their Sunday School as the root of evil.


Actually, Mephisto is as much the Satan of the Bible and ruler of Biblical Hell, as Zarathos is, i.e., not very much really... and Daimon's dad ain't just Mephisto, it's a slew of other demons...
:D

[Lord Stark]

There was one comment you made that struck me (whoever made it...whether it was Anal Suprise or someone else...sorry, I'm a bit hungover). The comment that those of us that have kept this industry going. When I think about that, I think about the people who stuck through the 90's drought, hoping that this industry wouldn't implode. It didn't, thankfully, althought the same problems that caused this industry to nearly implode are rearing their ugly head again.

And by the way, I'm twenty-eight years old. I'd like to believe I can keep this industry going for another twenty years if I can.

It's not like the old readers are in their seventies and knocking at death's door. Let's not exaggerate it too much.

Most comic readers in their late teens know Spider-Man as a a married guy. I'm assuming you're talking about all those new readers that jumped on board after the movies....

Oh, wait, that didn't happen.

EDIT: I just had another thought. I happen to believe that this industry captures very few NEW readers. I think it recycles readers who have quit reading and come back, or are just bouncing from book to book.

I imagine there are a number of teens yearly who discover comics, and even though I have no statistics to back this up, I bet the numbers are extremely low. Everything in this business is based on HYPE. And comic book fans, whether angry or estatic, feed off of empty hype like a vampire drinking blood. Even if they hate it, they still do it.

Dude, but do you have any idea how these rants full of bile we see in these boards actually keep this industry from having more fans?
Who in their right mind would willingly be part of something whose fanbase can spew such hatred?
That's why my stance has always been thus : read only what you like, don't mouth off on what you don't.
Nothing positive can come of that.

[Brownstone]

Of course Marvel's going to try and make Brand New Day interesting. But aside from the new villains, this is nothing new. Same old problems. That has been presented before. It really is a cop out. All this revisionist crap gets old after awhile.

[Nate-Earth 2]

Not saying this to be confrontational, I really can't recall and don't feel liek pulling put old issues of "Day of Judgement", But when Jordan agreed to be the Spectre for "atonement" Was Hal Jordan in Heaven or Hell at the time?

Whatever the answer that should end the arguement there

He was in neither, if i remember correctly. He was in some sort of Limbo, with a bunch of other dead characters.

[Jude Terror]

The reason the tracing on covers is more noticable today is that artists try to make the covers look like magazine covers. In the past, a comics cover would have some kind of action scene that hinted at what was going on in the book. Now the idea is to take Ms. Marvel and pose her like she's on the cover of Maxim... then trace an actual cover of Maxim to make the cover... then wonder why people notice it.

[Nate-Earth 2]

I'm sure people will stop reading spiderman just like they stopped reading avengers right before it shot to the top of the sales charts.
I'm sure they will stop reading spiderman just like they stopped reading dc when dc erased like what? . . .40 years of continuity? I mean dc just took a big dump on their fans and said hey, everything you grew up reading doesnt exist anymore, but people kept reading. Heck dc does it every few months but people keep reading.

.

Yeah, but thats the thing. DC didn't do that, they didn't retcon out bits of history. If anything, IC brought more stuff back into continuity, by saying that everything before the original Crisis is still canon. So, really what DC did was say "Hey, everything from the last 70 years of DC continuity is still canon". But, then again, its kind of obvious that those saying DC "does this every couple of months" don't really read DC.

[ThatTalkingGuy]

Look at sales in the 60s, 70s, 80s, especially the early 90's. Look at the 40's when comics solid in the hundreds of thousands regularly, and Captain American was pushing a million copies monthly. There are some sales figures here http://www.nostalgiazone.com/doc/zine/05_Q2/funnybusiness.htm and http://www.comichron.com/YearlyRankings/1960s/tabid/195/Default.aspx. As I said, Marvel's sales are only "stellar" in comparison to the post-boom depression, when sales were at an all-time low.


1968
Amazing Spider-Man 373,303
Daredevil 292,423
X-Men 273,360

1974
Amazing Spider-Man 288,232
Incredible Hulk 202,592
Batman 193,223
Daredevil 161,910

1980
Amazing Spider-Man 296,712
Incredible Hulk 201,000
X-Men 191,927

1986
Uncanny X-Men 417,000
Amazing Spider-Man 276,064
Incredible Hulk 196,933
Daredevil 189,959

1992
X-Men 967,808
Uncanny X-Men 731,425
Amazing Spider-Man 592,442
Wolverine (1993) 396,958
Ghost Rider 357,200
Incredible Hulk 299,755


What do you think this proves? Honestly? Joe Quesada has taken a company that was in the dumps financially and turned it around. The post-speculator "depression" as you call it, was not his fault. It was the fault of previous management. And it nearly killed the entire comics industry. That said, Quesada, in the new playing field, has been very successful. It isn't fair to compare him to eras gone by. Comics aren't suddenly going to become as big as they were no matter if Quesada or Jim Shooter or Bill Gates is in charge. It's simply not going to happen, That said, Quesada sells better than the previous regime, has opened up the bookstore market which reaches out to new (and old) customers and isn't included in the DSM and Marvel is consistently the top publisher in the comics game, proving his success. Compare what he sells to what DC and Image sell in the post-speculator market. That's the fair way to do it.

[Yaw]

I suggest to anyone who thinks a superhero book featuring a married main character with two kids is "boring", to go and check out Grant Morrison's entire run on Animal Man. If you *still* think otherwise, someone replaced your brain with a turnip. ;)

maybe you missed the part where I said there is a difference between evolving a character into that role versus the character becoming with those things already in place. Animal Man was a bit character until Grant Morrison revamped him as an vegetarian animal rights activist family man. Morphing a character like Spider-man into role loses that original essence.

[Yaw]

First off this is a bit contradictory. You say boring is relative term and then critique a book you're not reading. Granted Waid's recent Flash arc was bit too drawn out and took about 3 issues to get going but once it got there it was pretty good. And again, what's boring to you may not be to others, as you so eloquently stated. At least, Flash is trying to do something different. The jury's still out on whether or not it will work, but I'm giving it a chance, just like BND.

I didn't critique the Flash. I said that the CRITICS dismiss the book because of the family element. As far as the boring part is concerned, saying that one's married life is "boring" in comparison to their single life is relative inthe sense that while I may find cooking with one's spouse maybe fun, some readers, especially readers of superhero action comic books may find domestic activities a bit boring to read.

[AnalSurprise]

It's not like the old readers are in their seventies and knocking at death's door. Let's not exaggerate it too much.

I didn't mean to imply that the nostalgics keeping the industry afloat were in any danger of dying within a week... but even if they've got another twenty years left in them, you have to factor in the fact that every year, at least a FEW of them will drop the habit. That wouldn't be much of a big deal if there were NEW readers to take their place. There aren't.

So if you're losing readers here and there every year just because a 100% retention rate is patently impossible, then you're not "OK" for another twenty years... you're "OK" until enough of the nostalgics have dropped the habit that it starts cutting into your bottom line.

The industry is fine for at least another 5-10 years one way or another, I think. But beyond that..?

While I think he's not half as brilliant as he thinks he is, JQ's heart is in the right place in looking beyond merely cashing in on the baby boomers and Gen X'ers who are still being loyal. He's looking 20 years ahead... but might have overplayed his hand. Because OMD's execution was every bit as bad as the Clone Saga's, for entirely different reasons.

Somewhere, some day, someone will come along and "fix" the Spider issue... but they'll do it with a lot less arrogance and self-righteousness than was involved with both the Clone Saga and OMD.

/AS

[cmdrkoenig]

You geniuses do realize that Luke Cage, Jessica Jones, Storm & the Black Panther (and lets add Reed & Sue Richards) are NOT Spider-Man, right? Meaning their marriages don't have the same effect on the essence and concept of their character as it did on Spider-Man.

Stop comparing apples to pork chops in a fruit contest.

You're really wrong here...Luke Cage should be single (he always has been and should remain so), as should Daredevil (lone defender of Hell's Kitchen), Storm (X-Man and team leader) and Black Panther (king of his own country and warrior)...Tying any of these characters down to married life, changes their characters dramatically. The Storm and BP marriage was a rushed and forced situation...It does not feel natural. How is Daredevil being married any different than Spider-Man? How is his situation different?

Reed and Sue Richards don't even enter into the equation...The FF is meant to be a family unit.

Don't be a moron.

[JamesOliva]

[QUOTE=AllPwrflStev]
Actually, Mephisto is as much the Satan of the Bible and ruler of Biblical Hell, as Zarathos is, i.e., not very much really... and Daimon's dad ain't just Mephisto, it's a slew of other demons...
:D

Mephisto is "a" Satan." As is Lucifer, Satanish, Thog and Marduk Kurios,( the demon who sired Daimon and Satana Hellstrom ) are all members of the Six Fingered Hand who claim to be the actual Satan. Besides, the whole Faustian metaphor that Quesada wanted only works based on the fact that Mephisto is "a" if not "the" Satan.

[Kurt Busiek]

The only good run of what some people seem to consider the original Avengers I ever saw was when Kurt Busiek took over, or, what would it be, "Busiek's Superbudies" Captain America, Iron Man, two New Warriors and Triathlon?

Was there even a single issue where that was the line-up?

kdb

[pez dispenser]

I said it before, and i'll say it again, quality doesnt equal sales and vice versa. Quesada brought Marvel back from the brink, and the titles are selling, but that doesnt mean they are any good.


Doesn't mean they're bad either.
Hell, I'd put titles like Daredevil, X-Factor, Criminal, Iron Fist and Powers up against anything out right now.

[pez dispenser]

Dude, but do you have any idea how these rants full of bile we see in these boards actually keep this industry from having more fans?
Who in their right mind would willingly be part of something whose fanbase can spew such hatred?
That's why my stance has always been thus : read only what you like, don't mouth off on what you don't.
Nothing positive can come of that.


What?
You mean comic book fans sometimes help perpetuate their own negative stereotypes???

I'll be damned.....

[MaSaKaRi]

Doesn't mean they're bad either.
Hell, I'd put titles like Daredevil, X-Factor, Criminal, Iron Fist and Powers up against anything out right now.
Yes, like everything, there's great titles and bad titles. My point is that just because Marvel is selling much better than DC and recovered under JoeQ, doesnt mean Marvel is soooo hot, like a lot of guys like to say these days. A huge lot of what sold is utter crap, and just shock value gimmicks. In fact, the "great success" of Civil War or House of M just proves my point, since most of that stuff was (to me) utter crap. The real good stuff from Marvel has been mostly un-event/not-too-involved stuff (like some of the titles you mentioned), or the "secondary events" like Annihilation.

But if you factor that most of Marvel's sales are from what i consider to be flawed or just plain crappy stories, it's easy to see why i don't like Marvel so much these days.

Change will always be met with resistance. The real problem with OMD / BND is the carelessness in regards to the character that the creators (and specially JoeQ) showed - this was no evolution, it was the opposite, a de-evolution of the character, and everything that has happened since the marriage. Really, "we don't need to explain it, it's magic"? Are you %$&%%$&/ kidding me? JoeQ just took a dump on all the fans just by using that kind of logic, and it seems a lot of you like to be crapped on.

Well, i don't, and that's why i haven't and won't touch BND, and Spiderman ever again, unless someone fixes this mess. I respect the characters, the history, the creators that came before, too much to just go out and buy BND because "it's fun".

[pez dispenser]

But if you factor that most of Marvel's sales are from what i consider to be flawed or just plain crappy stories, it's easy to see why i don't like Marvel so much these days.



Interestingly enough, I feel the same way you do.....about the DCU.

To each their own, I guess.

[SDaddy]

I call BS on the "I drew it so no other artist would be ruined by OMD". Why'd you talk JMS into keeping his name on the final issue, then? And can you name me an artist who was just the "art monkey" on a story where it being universally reviled hurt them? Stinks of spin done just to try to find a way to come out looking like a saint when its a sinner you be.

[Lord Stark]

I call BS on the "I drew it so no other artist would be ruined by OMD". Why'd you talk JMS into keeping his name on the final issue, then? And can you name me an artist who was just the "art monkey" on a story where it being universally reviled hurt them? Stinks of spin done just to try to find a way to come out looking like a saint when its a sinner you be.

Steven Butler or Tom Lyle come to mind...

[greeneclipse]

Steven Butler or Tom Lyle come to mind...

Both of whom drew some the best Spider-Man art the character ever had, Butler especially. Why he's not a bigger player in the industry, I'll never know.

[SuperginraiX]

When your gut is telling you something will be controversial, for God's sake - DON'T DO IT.

Bwahahaha...

And 90% of comics produced disappear. :D



Someone else may have already said this, I'm not looking through 10 pages to find it. <_<

[Lord Stark]

Both of whom drew some the best Spider-Man art the character ever had, Butler especially. Why he's not a bigger player in the industry, I'll never know.

Because they were reviled for their part in the Clone Saga.
I must really be in the minority of those that had great fun reading the whole mess... not only was there that amazing Ben Reilly mini with art JRJR, but something that gave me Sienkiewicz inks over 'Our Pal' Sal's pencil was golden to me.

[Coming Curse]

Ok, that was GL Rebirth not the Sinestro Corps, completely different stories. And Blackest Night isn't even out yet, and his evil deeds weren't retconned. They still happened they address them in the book. Unlike Brand New Day Where everything actually never did happen. And I know you'll go back and say well the heroes like him now. But Batman still distrusts him, and he got the crap beat out of him by the other lanterns when he returned to OA. Did you really not read this story?


There are a number of different complaints I am hearing about OMD.

1. It goes against the idea of change and progressive plot and character development. It is just a way to return Spidey to an earlier status quo.

2. It is disrespectful because all the Spidey comics from the past 20 years are do longer canon or "did not happen"

3. The magic explanation is too vague and the implications of Mephisto's spell are completely unclear or possibly even contradictory.

4. It is out of character for Peter to make a "deal with the devil".

I will acknowledge that the whole Rebirth thing did a better job than OMD in terms of laying out the implications of the retcon. People could read their old GL issues and be assured that those stories "actually happened" albeit with the qualification that Parallax was manipulating Hal "behind the scenes" if you will. I agree that this is different than Spider-Man situation where plot threads such as the unmasking were simply dropped completely.
I brought up the Parallax thing because I think that it is relevant to complaint (1). Rebirth was written to get Hal from where he was at the time back into a situation resembling his pre-Emerald Twilight status quo where he was the Green Lantern of Earth(not the Spectre). No matter how bad you thought Emerald Twilight was or whatever, this was definitely a way of returning Hal to an earlier status quo. Whenever I am reading a DC comic and a hero does something that is not "heroic" I start to wonder if it is going to be explained away later as mind control or whatever. There is never anything to stop a later writer from coming along and retroactively explaining the actions as the result of mind control.


This is a melodramatic overexaggeration of what actually happened. Superboy's wall punches were used to explain why things were suddenly getting strange in the DCU. Things like Identity Crisis Maxwell Lord going evil, OMAC project, Jason Todd coming back from the dead etc. All pre-planned for the wall punches. And the entire history wasn't retconned there would be no Justice Society if that were true, or Kingdom Come x-over.



I think that the similarities between OMD and Infinite Crises should be more compelling for people worrying about (2) and (3). People are saying that I am "overstating" IC or that it really didn't change that much. It was used to bring Jason Todd back from the dead. I think that's pretty significant. How do we know else isn't really dead? As far as I can tell DC never really explained the full ramifications of the continuity changes and just left it in the air. As far as I can tell its like a get out of jail free card where they can go back and contradict whatever pre-IC stories they want to whenever its convenient. I think we are supposed to assume that all the old stories took place right up until one of the new books contradict them. This sounds a lot like the "it's magic, we don't have to explain it" mentality that people are angry at Joe Quesada for.
In fact, check this out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continuity_changes_during_Infinite_Crisi s

Deceased prior to Infinite Crisis, these characters reappeared as if they never died:

Francine Langstrom - the wife of Man-Bat
Lynx
Magpie
Reactron
Ventriloquist and Scarface

This stuff isn't all "pre-planned." It seems like they are just gonna keep changeing past continuity and brining back dead characters until the next crisis rolls around. Hence my comments about how all pre-Infinite Crisis DC books are just as non-canonical as the Spider-Man books effected by OMD.




"If you don't like America you can get out!" There's lots of well-written mainstream superhero comics. It's just that DC is putting most of them out now.


I am not telling people to "get out." People are coming on this board saying that they are dropping all their Marvel titles because Marvel doesn't "respect continuity" or whatever. I am just pointing out that DC has arguably even less respect for continuity which my comments about Infinite Crisis hopefully demonstrated. Hence, these people probably will want to steer clear of the "big 2" publishers. And if sales are any indication most people would disagree that DC is putting out more well-written stories than Marvel.


Do me a favor, go out and buy any official handbook to the Marvel Universe. Look up Mephisto and read his known aliases. "Lucifer, Satan, Belzzabub, the devil" He even looks like the devil, he commands demons, and he steals souls. Its clear Marvel doesn't read their own comics. His son Damien Hellstrom's comic was called Hellstrom Son of Satan! biblical Mythos even say Mephisto is another name of the devil.



And finally that's an adage used to describe lots of villains. That they are worse than the devil. And Thanos when in posession of the Infinity Gauntlet was a bigger threat than Mephisto because he was omnipotent and even Mephisto has his limits. But where as Thanos is a fictional character, the "devil" is believed to be real in certain religious settings. which is why parents might have a problem with their child's hero making a deal with someone who is described in their Sunday School as the root of evil.

Mephisto is obviously meant to be a stand-in for the devil but Marvel wisely decided to distance him from the "real" devil of the Bible in order to avoid exactly this type of controversy. It is absurd to treat the Marvel character "Mephisto" as the actual biblical Satan. Like I said, that would imply that Thanos,for example, is even more evil than Satan which is silly and ridiculous.

[Bathawk]

[QUOTE=Lord Stark]

Mephisto is "a" Satan." As is Lucifer, Satanish, Thog and Marduk Kurios,( the demon who sired Daimon and Satana Hellstrom ) are all members of the Six Fingered Hand who claim to be the actual Satan. Besides, the whole Faustian metaphor that Quesada wanted only works based on the fact that Mephisto is "a" if not "the" Satan.

small geek moment, in the Hellcat limited series awhile back it was revealed Daimon Hellstrom is the son of satannish

"he's not satan, he's just satan.....ish"

[X-punged]

Doesn't mean they're bad either.
Hell, I'd put titles like Daredevil, X-Factor, Criminal, Iron Fist and Powers up against anything out right now.

But none of these titles are Marvel's big sellers.
Other than X-factor, none were even in the top forty.
So by your reasoning shouldn't these be higher in sales or are they inferior comics compared to Hulk or Ultimates 3?
Because those are the books that are putting Marvel on the top of the sales charts.

[AnalSurprise]

Dude, but do you have any idea how these rants full of bile we see in these boards actually keep this industry from having more fans?

Please explain how that logic works, considering you have to be a comic book fan to frequent Newsarama (and comic book message boards in general) in the first place.

I'm not a soccer fan. As such, I don't frequent soccer boards. So whatever bile might exist on those forums isn't what's keeping me from being a fan, now is it?

I agree that ranting is mostly good for self-therapy, and otherwise does little to help the industry. But it's not keeping anyone from becoming a fan -- on the contrary, buzz of any kind (even the negative) is going to attract attention; much more than virtual silence would've.

/AS