Top Ten Times Marvel Destroyed It's Own History: Spider-Man Rankings

[Revolutionary_Jack]

Especially considerating that both the Clone Saga and OMD had changes that were explained in the last stories of the Clone Saga and the One Moment in Time story.

As Tony Stark demonstrated clearly in Homecoming...when you screw the pooch, nobody is going to care about the part where you take the puppies home and care about it because the metaphor by itself doesn't last after that colorful an opening.

When you do a big story about how 20 years of continuity didn't happen and in the course of that story have events like the death of Aunt May and Peter and MJ having a miscarriage that ends up not having any consequences and is largely downplayed and ignored later on...nobody is going to care about the rest.

When you try and undo 20 years of stories and 810 issues' worth of content in a piece of trash 4 part story, nobody is going to care.

OMIT did explained the changes done in OMD (Why Peter and Mary Jane did not get married and went to have instead a commited relationship,

Which didn't make any damn sense. It literally makes no sense that Mary Jane would enter a committed relationship with the man who humiliated her by leaving her at the altar. It makes no sense that Aunt May would tolerate this based on what we see of her in ASM Annual #21 and the entire history of her relationship with Peter and Mary Jane.

So saying that OMD is the story that "destroyed" the most the Marvel history is a hyperbole...

OMD did not go far enough. To truly get rid of the marriage you need to go George Lucas and re-edit and re do, redraw all the stories in the marriage which are widely available and remain in print...and which Marvel Editors keep inserting references in captions (see this issue and so on).

The Clone Saga told us that the Peter Parker who met the Kid Who Collected Spider-Man was a clone, the one who fought Juggernaut, Firelord, and Venom were clones. The one who romanced Felicia Hardy and wed Mary Jane were clones.

OMD is telling us that the Peter and Mary Jane of Kraven's Last Hunt, the Venom Saga, the Jonathan Caesar trilogy, JMD's entire Spectacular Run, the Clone Saga, JMS', Paul Jenkins' run, Tom Beland's Web of Romance, Marvel Knights Spider-Man, Spider-Man: Blue and of course ''To Have and to Hold'' weren't married.

To which I say, sincerely, f--k you. The Post-OMD Continuity depends on the knowledge of the marriage being a thing which happened. And the fact that this new continuity was created by Quesada and Slott in a writer's room with no organic ties to the Spider-Man of AF#15. It has no internal legitimacy.

[comicscollector]

As Tony Stark demonstrated clearly in Homecoming...when you screw the pooch, nobody is going to care about the part where you take the puppies home and care about it because the metaphor by itself doesn't last after that colorful an opening.

When you do a big story about how 20 years of continuity didn't happen and in the course of that story have events like the death of Aunt May and Peter and MJ having a miscarriage that ends up not having any consequences and is largely downplayed and ignored later on...nobody is going to care about the rest.

When you try and undo 20 years of stories and 810 issues' worth of content in a piece of trash 4 part story, nobody is going to care.

20 years of stories were not undo,all the stories hapened all the same but instead of Peter and Mary Jane being married they were in a commited relationship.
Thats different from Marvel undoing twenty years of stories.

Which didn't make any damn sense. It literally makes no sense that Mary Jane would enter a committed relationship with the man who humiliated her by leaving her at the altar. It makes no sense that Aunt May would tolerate this based on what we see of her in ASM Annual #21 and the entire history of her relationship with Peter and Mary Jane.

It made sense.Peter Parker had proposed to Mary Jane in the stories and the first time Mary Jane declined the proposal.I don´t see why Mary Jane would see Peter Parker as being ocupied as being Spider-Man doing heroic acts as being a humilation to her.

OMD did not go far enough. To truly get rid of the marriage you need to go George Lucas and re-edit and re do, redraw all the stories in the marriage which are widely available and remain in print...and which Marvel Editors keep inserting references in captions (see this issue and so on).

The Clone Saga told us that the Peter Parker who met the Kid Who Collected Spider-Man was a clone, the one who fought Juggernaut, Firelord, and Venom were clones. The one who romanced Felicia Hardy and wed Mary Jane were clones.

OMD is telling us that the Peter and Mary Jane of Kraven's Last Hunt, the Venom Saga, the Jonathan Caesar trilogy, JMD's entire Spectacular Run, the Clone Saga, JMS', Paul Jenkins' run, Tom Beland's Web of Romance, Marvel Knights Spider-Man, Spider-Man: Blue and of course ''To Have and to Hold'' weren't married.

To which I say, sincerely, f--k you. The Post-OMD Continuity depends on the knowledge of the marriage being a thing which happened. And the fact that this new continuity was created by Quesada and Slott in a writer's room with no organic ties to the Spider-Man of AF#15. It has no internal legitimacy.

And all the stories hapened the same,the retcon of changing Peter and Mary Jane being in a commited relationship do not negate all the previous stories.It just changes a elemento of older stories to another one.That´s what a retcon is.And Marvel stories had them ever since the 60´s.(At least the list mentions that)
So to me as a reader that retcon was not something that bothered me in the least,because changes done in the stories are a common thing.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

20 years of stories were not undo,all the stories hapened all the same but instead of Peter and Mary Jane being married they were in a commited relationship.

A committed relationship is not the same thing as a marriage. Peter Parker being married and committed was a fundamental part of many of the stories I have mentioned. The entire logic and emotional center of that stories is lost otherwise. Kraven's Last Hunt as J. M. DeMatteis repeatedly said works because it has a newlywed Spider-Man.

And all the stories hapened the same,

The Spider-Man in ''The Kid Who Collected Spider-Man'' being a clone violates and upends the spirit and the entire emotional logic of that story. Peter and MJ not being married similarly violates and upends the spirit and the entire emotional logic of the stories I have mentioned.


Please respond to this argument. If you repeat the same Quesada-Slott party line I won't respond again.

All you are saying is parroting what Quesada and Slott have stated. To quote a much better story, "I've heard it before and it wasn't funny the first time." I know what Quesada and Slott have stated, I don't believe a word of it. It literally makes no damn sense.

[Inversed]

A committed relationship is not the same thing as a marriage. Peter Parker being married and committed was a fundamental part of many of the stories I have mentioned. The entire logic and emotional center of that stories is lost otherwise. Kraven's Last Hunt as J. M. DeMatteis repeatedly said works because it has a newlywed Spider-Man.

Plus, remember Kraven's Last Hunt happens almost immediately after the wedding, so technically if you're looking at what happened in OMIT and how badly MJ reacted to him missing the wedding, don't you think she would've reacted even more hysterically so soon afterwards?

Also I agree, To Have And To Hold doesn't work, at least no where near as well, without them being married.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

Also I agree, To Have And To Hold doesn't work, at least no where near as well, without them being married.

"He's my husband, you're just some dude."

“Maybe the rest of the world thinks marriage is something people do between other marriages, but it means something to me. You’re my partner and my husband and I love you.”

— Mary Jane Watson, "To Have and to Hold", (Sensational Spider-Man Annual #1), written by Matt Fraction

The entire con job that is OMD and OMIT amounts to gaslighting readers. Telling people that the marriage is the same as a committed relationship. It basically insults the intelligence of the audience. This attitude might have worked Pre-Internet and so on (the entire "illusion of change" concept was created for and depended on the oblivion of the monthly comics and fanzine and other oral histories), but it doesn't anymore.

[comicscollector]

A committed relationship is not the same thing as a marriage. Peter Parker being married and committed was a fundamental part of many of the stories I have mentioned. The entire logic and emotional center of that stories is lost otherwise. Kraven's Last Hunt as J. M. DeMatteis repeatedly said works because it has a newlywed Spider-Man.



The Spider-Man in ''The Kid Who Collected Spider-Man'' being a clone violates and upends the spirit and the entire emotional logic of that story. Peter and MJ not being married similarly violates and upends the spirit and the entire emotional logic of the stories I have mentioned.


Please respond to this argument. If you repeat the same Quesada-Slott party line I won't respond again.

All you are saying is parroting what Quesada and Slott have stated. To quote a much better story, "I've heard it before and it wasn't funny the first time." I know what Quesada and Slott have stated, I don't believe a word of it. It literally makes no damn sense.

All i am saying is what is in continuity.Dunno how i could better explain the marvel stories that not by the comments of the comic book writers and the oficial continuity.
I had no issues with the retcon of OMD (A rather small retcon considerating the One Moment in Time story as well) but your milage may vary.
I did not liked the Clone Saga and other people liked that story and even had no issue with Ben Reilly being the real Peter Parker.Thats the thing with fictional stories.Opinions about them vary.

[DT Winslow]

It’s an opinion, Jack. It’s a shame you cannot understand that some people do not agree with you. You don’t have to agree but you do have to understand that others have these opinions. Hell, you don’t have to respect the opinions themselves, but you should respect the people who hold them as people and learn to agree to disagree.

[WebSlingWonder]

Hey guys: let's leave it be. We just established a peace on this topic to agree to disagree. There's no need to rile it back up.
Please leave Jack alone.

[Miles To Go]

Again, not every story happened. MJ's pregnancy has never been brought up since OMD and was intended by OMIT to have never been attempted.

I'm beginning to look at the Spider-Man franchise from 2007 onwards in much the same light as Doctor Who's situation from 1989 to 2005, when it had fallen out of favour with the BBC and had been "rested" in it's then-present form (MJ's speech to Peter at the end of OMD before the timeline change can be considered the equivalent of Sylvestor McCoy's ending speech from "Survival") the franchise was kept quite active in those gaps through alternative mediums. Novels, comic strips, audios and home video, but there was not one definitive representation of what had come before...and for Spider-Man, there still isn't.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

...

I accept people having opinions and so on. All I am doing is debating and challenging points of view, especially when I feel that posters missed the actual point. The only justification for a retcon is if it tells a good story. Nobody, and I mean nobody, not even Joe Quesada, has ever defended One More Day as a good story. Not the Clone Saga either. So since you don't have a good story, you are stuck defending the retcon from a corporate perspective. Which is valid and fair. I mean it's something that can be challenged and so on but those are reasonable arguments. If you say that for you Spider-Man is Spider-Man and that him being in a relationship or the romance is take-it-or-leave-it than that's fine too. But if you are saying that OMD and OMIT plugged holes and so on or that the retcons didn't destroy history and so on...well them's fighting words.

In the case of the Clone Saga, you are saying that the real Spider-Man is AF#15 to ASM #149. You are saying that ASM#150 to around ASM#380 or so, the entirety of Spectacular Spider-Man and Web of Spider-Man, the entire run of Roger Stern, Bill Mantlo, Tom Defalco, Jim Owsley, PAD, JMD, Michelinie, Todd MacFarlane is negligible and unimportant and that it literally doesn't matter if the Spider-Man of that story is a clone. That these guys are so terrible and poor and inconsistent at writing Spider-Man that obviously the guy they wrote was all a clone and the real Spider-Man (Lee-Ditko, Lee-Romita, Conway) is something that Terry Kavanagh and a bunch of others in a writer's room have a right to now claim and redeem.

Believe me the whole excuse that "continuity wasn't changed, all the stories happened" was used by the writers of the Clone Saga too. All the stories happened there it just happened to the clone, but what defined them was that it happened to the Peter Parker of AF#15. No matter what spin you put on that, you have destroyed the history and integrity of your character and its history, you have basically insulted a huge host of writers who worked on the title before you and you have insulted the fans who liked those stories and so on. At the end of the day, it's an absolutely valid argument: if most people would not prefer that the Peter Parker of ''The Kid Who Collected Spider-Man" be a clone (which is what the Clone Saga would have done had that stuck), why should they ask or expect that fans should buy that the marriage did not happen in ''Kraven's Last Hunt'' or ''To Have and to Hold''? Those are preconditions for enjoying the projected Post-Clone Saga status-quo where Ben Reilly would have been Spider-Man full time. They are also preconditions for enjoying Post-OMD. For a reader who knew those earlier stories, they would now have to read a status-quo where basically those stories happened in some vague and unexplained way without the marriage. I mean this is more radical than the Clone Saga because you are altering and distorting the stories rather than just changing one part of it. You are altering characterizations, the nature of relationships, the entire emotional center of these stories...and telling people to grin and bear it.

Again if Marvel are serious about this, I mean it...go big or go home. Go Lucas. Go back and alter the 20 years of stories in all 616 titles, some 810 issues with the married Spider-Man. Promote and make a big deal. 810 issues of Spider-Man as you never saw them before.

That's what "Marvel Destroyed Its Own History" and the Clone Saga and OMD amounts to. In the case of retcons there are ones like Alan Moore's Swamp Thing and Ed Brubaker's Winter Soldier that make changes to the history and continuity but what they do is put in a new story that transforms our understanding of earlier stories and so on. Clone Saga and OMD on the other hand are subtractive retcons...they rob and take away essential parts of the stories and characters that many earlier writers and readers had worked on, and the basic entitled smugness and consumer-unfriendly message of BND and Dan Slott is somehow these guys are automatically entitled to claims of writing the most relatable version of Spider-Man. To which I again say, sincerely, f--k you. To Marvel, and Marvel alone.

[WebLurker]

You could get away with 616 Regent being the same, or at least similar, Regent as RYV since it seems to be implied that 616 Regent never existed until after Secret Wars so either he was displaced into the Prime universe ala Miles, or he had some kind of duplicate created that was his own being, but still subconsciously remembered some of RYV Regent's experiences.

Maybe?

Also it is interesting that despite Regent's tech and businesses are still mentioned and brought up in the RYV series, he himself has never been mentioned or heard from since the mini.

Presumably he's still in the slammer?

Which is why it probably would've made more sense to have Regent be the only one who has the deja vu moment when fighting Peter & MJ, since it would allow for a more blatant reference/continuation from the RYV mini, while also not distracting from Peter & MJ obviously not having those memories.

I guess...

[Kurt Busiek]

It was Kurt Buseik who came up with that. He was a fan who didn't like the Dark Phoenix and felt it ruined the story (as this fan letter he wrote confirmed: https://imgur.com/xrWq7Of).

No, what I didn't like was Jean dying. My problems (at the time) with the Dark Phoenix story were more about plotting issues than in the existence of Dark Phoenix.

Buseik is another of those fanatics who believe Peter should never have left high school.

Nope. Never had a problem with Peter graduating from high school.

So you had bad practices coming in as Silver Age nostalgics and so on became set and hardened against changes,

I didn't start reading until the Bronze Age, but I'm fond of good comics, whether they're from the Golden Age, the Silver Age, the Bronze Age, the 80s, the 2000s, today...

kdb

[Revolutionary_Jack]

...

I had no idea when commenting online that the actual living Kurt Busiek would respond but ignorance of the internet is no excuse. I am sorry, for my sake since this is my doing, that it came to pass that way. While I do have my disagreements and disapproval about some of the stories and decisions you have been part of, Mr. Busiek, I also want to say that I consider you a writer of immense talent and ability, and I especially like Thunderbolts. And Untold Tales #16 was the first 616 Spider-Man comic I read.

[WebSlingWonder]

No, what I didn't like was Jean dying. My problems (at the time) with the Dark Phoenix story were more about plotting issues than in the existence of Dark Phoenix.



Nope. Never had a problem with Peter graduating from high school.



I didn't start reading until the Bronze Age, but I'm fond of good comics, whether they're from the Golden Age, the Silver Age, the Bronze Age, the 80s, the 2000s, today...

kdb

Kurt Busiek?! Oh my goodness, I am a huge fan! But you probably get that so often.

[WebSlingWonder]

I had no idea when commenting online that the actual living Kurt Busiek would respond but ignorance of the internet is no excuse. I am sorry, for my sake since this is my doing, that it came to pass that way. While I do have my disagreements and disapproval about some of the stories and decisions you have been part of, Mr. Busiek, I also want to say that I consider you a writer of immense talent and ability, and I especially like Thunderbolts. And Untold Tales #16 was the first 616 Spider-Man comic I read.

You'd be very surprised who comes by these boards! We've even had appearances by Dan Slott and Roger "Uncle Rog" Stern!