Controversial Spider-Man Opinions

[Android 17]

The last of this sounds eerily similar to the 90s TAS series. Hopefully we get a continuation like X-Men 97.

After all the live action movies and animated series over the last two decades with high school Spidey, I would welcome a grown up continuation of the 90s TAS.

[Daibhidh]

And regardless: “If editorial interference is acceptable for the wedding, then it must be acceptable for OMD” is an “affirming the consequence” logical fallacy

I think affirming the consequence is a different logical fallacy. It is an invalid logical argument. The logically sound argument is, "If editorial interference is acceptable for the wedding, then it may be acceptable for OMD." That is, there's nothing intrinsically wrong with editorial interference. But that doesn't mean all editorial interference is equally well-judged.

On the one hand, we have Stan Lee and Jim Shooter, who between them were editors-in-chief on just about all the standard candidates for best Marvel run of all time. (Kirby's FF, Ditko's Spider-man, Romita sr's Spider-man, Claremont's X-Men, Simonson's Thor, Miller's Daredevil - the only real exception is David's Hulk.) When later editorial revert to factory settings they mean a status quo that existed under either Lee or Shooter. Shooter was the writer on the original Secret Wars, a story that is frankly much better than it had any right to be.
I think you'd be pushed to say that the editorial team behind OMD have anything like that degree of presumption of competence.

[Daibhidh]

And IMHO, Stan was only doing it to bring a spark to the newspaper comic strip.

I don't think the editorial team behind OMD have any ground to stand on when it comes to altering the comics to fit a wider-selling continuity. (I believe the newspaper strips had a much higher circulation even at the time.) One difference between altering the comics to match the status quo in the newspaper strips and altering the comics to match the status quo in the films is that the newspaper strips continued to be an ongoing continuity with high exposure for another thirty years, whereas the films were soon replaced by a different set of films with a different continuity.

[Daibhidh]

deleted post.

[Kaitou D. Kid]

There were no fans "demanding" it.

The letter pages at that time were not filled with correspondence talking about "When will Peter & MJ get married?" "Please make that happen NOW!"

Marvel revealed their plan, following what Stan was doing in the strip, to the fanbase, and yes, some were excited for it. But it wasn't Marvel filling a demand.

And IMHO, Stan was only doing it to bring a spark to the newspaper comic strip.

Guess I'll just have to keep posting the evidence - third time in this thread, but hey, that's okay!

"So there we were on this panel and someone asked whether Spider-Man and Mary Jane were ever going to get married. Stan said it was up to me, but that he thought they should. He turned to face me and asked me, extra politely, if they could get married. The audience was screaming."

https://www.google.co.in/books/editi...J?hl=en&gbpv=0

[Garlador]

There were no fans "demanding" it.

The letter pages at that time were not filled with correspondence talking about "When will Peter & MJ get married?" "Please make that happen NOW!"

Marvel revealed their plan, following what Stan was doing in the strip, to the fanbase, and yes, some were excited for it. But it wasn't Marvel filling a demand.

And IMHO, Stan was only doing it to bring a spark to the newspaper comic strip.

I see others have already responded, but I’ll echo that this belief that there was no consistent fan demand for the marriage is factually wrong. I was reading the letter columns in the books throughout the 70s and early 80s that had repeated letters printed asking explicitly for it. A few were saying it was what should happen with Peter in letters printed in the 60s even. When it was brought up at a comic panel, the whole room erupted in cheers. Quite recently, someone brought it up again at a panel (I believe it was C2E2). The report was as follows.

“Asked the audience if they preferred Peter and MJ married in the comics (Cheers and Applause from the crowd in the panel)”

Then there was the overwhelming positive response to the “Meet the Parkers” reveal for USM which had more than 38x the engagement on Twitter (4.7 MILLION views and shares) than Gang War’s simultaneous reveal (122k views and shares).

There is much more documented evidence and data showing this isn’t some small fringe group of fans, but a recurring demand that has existed almost a half-century.

That’s not even touching the claims that folks like Stan, Romita Sr, and others had saying it was always planned that Peter would get married eventually and the many creatives who are on record saying it was a good thing that IMPROVED the book.

[wleakr]

Guess I'll just have to keep posting the evidence - third time in this thread, but hey, that's okay!

"So there we were on this panel and someone asked whether Spider-Man and Mary Jane were ever going to get married. Stan said it was up to me, but that he thought they should. He turned to face me and asked me, extra politely, if they could get married. The audience was screaming."

https://www.google.co.in/books/editi...J?hl=en&gbpv=0

This is a clear example of the "cherry picking" and "wishful thinking" fallacies. I've fell for these plenty of times myself!

Someone asking a question at a panel, especially at that point in time where Stan Lee is a part of it, is ONLY going to draw applause to that type of question in that environment.

And, yes, I'm sure the question was submitted periodically via letter and even printed at times.

But that is not indicative of an overwhelming demand. It most likely would've been done a lot sooner if it were. And would've been done first and foremost in the comic.

Instead of WAITING for Stan to do it in the strip.

[godisawesome]

I have to say again that OMD is just so bad as a story itself that it exposed how hypocritical and regressive the editorial philosophy behind it was - tying a genuine drop in quality and lack of ambition in 90% of most follow-up work specifically to the story.

OMD relies so much on bad character writing, tone deaf approaches to women, so much "Deus Angst Machina," and such a causal disregard for quality that JMS later testified he was half-rebelling while making it. It also ends on an open-ended note that neuters the possibility of it being a tragedy and makes it an incomplete story - completely unintentional on Quesada's part, but he and his followers on this point don't care about those sort of details.

Stuff like Wells's current run follows in those footsteps, causing a great deal of "own-goals", and it's noticeable that the most successful, franchise-expanding story post-OMD is the one where they removed Peter and replaced him with Otto - because it's the only time they've actually been ambitious with Spider-Man himself, and they refuse to be ambitious with Peter.

In contrast, the way No Way Home effected a similar outcome was far more fluid, detailed, and intelligent - and thus why it's possible (albeit maybe unlikely) that the MCU Spider-Man *could* be permanently split from his MJ by magic, but without nearly as much hatred from the audience to the story, and it's also a genuinely ambitious story in its effect on the character and setting (very much unlike OMD, since JMS wanted to do that and Quesada didn't), and could just be portrayed as a tragedy if they want to leave it that way.

That's largely because the MCU is still ambitious with its characters and has more intelligent overseers, while OMD is a suffocatingly "scared" move by an insecure editorial.

[Tuck]

I think you'd be pushed to say that the editorial team behind OMD have anything like that degree of presumption of competence.

Honestly, Quesada is probably the best EIC Marvel has had after Lee and Shooter. It's just that this one unpopular move hangs over his tenure.

[godisawesome]

Honestly, Quesada is probably the best EIC Marvel has had after Lee and Shooter. It's just that this one unpopular move hangs over his tenure.

That's definitely true compared to Dan Didio when their tenures overlapped - Quesada usually played the role of more a management executive rather than the sort of "Dictator of IP" that Didio wanted to be, and rarely approached the kind of publicly known story interference that Didio repeatedly sought. The one major time Quesada did play that type of role was OMD, and even their he actually "descended" a bit to get his own hands dirty doing the art.

He can also probably claim accurately that he had predecessors trying to do the same thing he was, he just went further to get it done, and his successors have followed in their footsteps.

That's part of the reason I tend to think that the OMD status quo is really about making it easier to write interchangeable stories with interchangeable love interests forever and ever, rather than any actual conviction about the character - that's much more of a practical if "un-sexy" reason to dislike the marriage, since so many writers are well versed in "the pursuit" of a love one but not in the progress of a monogamous relationship.

[Xix25]

This is a clear example of the "cherry picking" and "wishful thinking" fallacies. I've fell for these plenty of times myself!

Someone asking a question at a panel, especially at that point in time where Stan Lee is a part of it, is ONLY going to draw applause to that type of question in that environment.

And, yes, I'm sure the question was submitted periodically via letter and even printed at times.

But that is not indicative of an overwhelming demand. It most likely would've been done a lot sooner if it were. And would've been done first and foremost in the comic.

Instead of WAITING for Stan to do it in the strip.

I don't think lying about what people are saying is conducive to the conversation. It would be very nice if you could stop this behaviour someday.

[Kaitou D. Kid]

This is a clear example of the "cherry picking" and "wishful thinking" fallacies. I've fell for these plenty of times myself!

Someone asking a question at a panel, especially at that point in time where Stan Lee is a part of it, is ONLY going to draw applause to that type of question in that environment.

And, yes, I'm sure the question was submitted periodically via letter and even printed at times.

But that is not indicative of an overwhelming demand. It most likely would've been done a lot sooner if it were. And would've been done first and foremost in the comic.

Instead of WAITING for Stan to do it in the strip.

It's in line with other piece of information and evidence have - like the fact that Peter and MJ were always the most popylar couple, that MJ coming back in Stern's run got even more hype than the Hobgoblin mystery at the time (per the newsletters), and that fans at the time by-and-large were in favor of the marriage (and still are).

All evidence points to what the majority consensus is.

[Kaitou D. Kid]

Honestly, Quesada is probably the best EIC Marvel has had after Lee and Shooter. It's just that this one unpopular move hangs over his tenure.

Ironically, if it wasn't for Sins Past and OMD, Quesada might have been remembered as one of the best Spider-Man EIC's.

The 2000-2007 era was full of great stuff (JMS, Bendis, Paul Jenkins, Blue, To Have and To Hold, Marvel Knights, Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane, Marvel Adventures, etc.).

[wleakr]

I don't think lying about what people are saying is conducive to the conversation. It would be very nice if you could stop this behaviour someday.

It would be very nice if you could specify what I have lied about.

[Daibhidh]

Honestly, Quesada is probably the best EIC Marvel has had after Lee and Shooter. It's just that this one unpopular move hangs over his tenure.

That and Civil War, and No More Mutants.