Sins Past vs. One More Day.

[Lee]

Eh, I feel Kelly, Stern and Slott were the only ones putting an effort in.

You can judge how a product turned out, but how can you determine that several writers didn't put any effort into it? Have the writers said anything to this effect?

[Inversed]

Yeah, JMS said later that he was okay with the marriage and wanted it to continue. He only agreed to OMD as a favor to Quesada, and to find some way to close it in a way that gave his stories and run some impact. It didn't work out for him needless to say.

I've said this before, but if they really wanted OMD to feel more impactful, beyond just a lazy status quo change excuse, it should've been ABOUT Peter's relationship with MJ and Aunt May.

If I were to sum up JMS' run in a nutshell, it would be an exploration of the weird and mythical side of Spider-Man, and his relationship with the two most important women in his life. There's a reason why those 3 are consistently the focus. So if you're so desperate not to do a split up story and HAVE to use a semi-cosmic reset button, at least make the story you're telling feel somewhat impactful and actually mean something, rather than just complicated filler.

[boots]

gotta love how when a story goes off the rails, creatives just start blaming each other. i suppose it works

with doom being more moral than peter...that's a stretch. maybe more capable, but morality has little to do with it.

i would say the bigger problem is that peter's resolution (win/lose) with skinny-red-pantyhose-man was predetermined via editorial mandate rather than told for the sake of an interesting story (similar to ben reilly losing to the green goblin. there's no real in-universe justification for it). it's an 'ends justifies the means' type narrative, which makes little sense in the heroic context.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

I've said this before, but if they really wanted OMD to feel more impactful, beyond just a lazy status quo change excuse, it should've been ABOUT Peter's relationship with MJ and Aunt May.

If I were to sum up JMS' run in a nutshell, it would be an exploration of the weird and mythical side of Spider-Man, and his relationship with the two most important women in his life. There's a reason why those 3 are consistently the focus. So if you're so desperate not to do a split up story and HAVE to use a semi-cosmic reset button, at least make the story you're telling feel somewhat impactful and actually mean something, rather than just complicated filler.

The whole mythical side that JMS introduced was mostly an element of magical realism, i.e. it's just an elaboration and clarification of Peter's mundane everyday life, and not a total overturning of it. That was what his stories mostly focused on. The whole Spider-Totem stuff was all about the cosmic nature and symbolism of the spiders, i.e. the little guy, the animals that defy and trick, and scrap through. Compare that to the Clone Saga where it turns out that for a series of stories, an entire conspiracy and series of bizarre instances happens and revolves around Peter and you have arcane clones which as a concept introduces and features ideas (i.e. are clones people, are they copies of existing people or are they separate individuals) that took Peter further away from his genre. So there's a way to treat and integrate new and unfamiliar stuff into Spider-Man's milieu and JMS did that brilliantly. Even Dan Slott noted that JMS' sense of the everyday, like when Peter walks a building and passes a guy eating popcorn at a balcony, little details like that which showed in a lot of his stories, was something he liked. I think the New Avengers era really threw a wrench into that, and the main novelty there was seeing how Peter related to MJ and May in Avengers Tower. Then Back in Black was a great comeback and to me the real conclusion of his run. That fight with Kingpin is one for the ages.

But I really don't know any version of OMD that could have worked because the direction and attitude behind it is regressive and a total violation of the core of Spider-Man. The idea that Peter Parker shouldn't grow up or appeal primarily to who Marvel thinks is the target audience and so on was something that early readers and writers of Spider-Man would have scoffed at. Peter Parker was seen and identified by his readership in the L-D era as a kid who matures, who grows up, who ages, and while the rate of aging and maturity might be in slower motion than it started out, it still did happen and continued to do so.

Spider-Man was also the realistic corner of the Marvel Universe. Until the Clone Saga, things that happened in Spider-Man stuck. Characters who died stayed dead, continuity and serial progression was respected and honored, the status-quo from one writing team and so on carried over to another. The Clone Saga destroyed all of those norms for good...stuff like Aunt May dying and that being treated in an instant-classic story, and then being vandalized and undone in a spiteful manner by John Byrne, would have been unthinkable before. The Clone Saga told readers that the Spider-Man of the last 20 years at the time was a clone.

OMD is the Clone Saga only it pulled off its heist, and succeeded because the executive and marketing weren't in total disarray. And again you have a story, and concept that violates the norms and everything the character, setting and story stood for. As Steve Ditko said in another context:

Stan's synopsis for the Green Goblin had a movie crew, on location, finding an Egyptian-like sarcophagus. Inside was an ancient, mythological demon, the Green Goblin. He naturally came to life. On my own, I changed Stan's mythological demon into a human villain...I rejected Stan's idea...A mythological demon made the whole Peter Parker/Spider-Man world a place where nothing is metaphysically impossible.

-- Steve Ditko, co-creator of Spider-Man, (THE COMICS v12 #7 [2001] - "A Mini-History Part 1 -"The Green Goblin"), describing the origins of the Green Goblin and why magical concepts were antithetical to Spider-Man's story.

[Kevinroc]

I've said this before, but if they really wanted OMD to feel more impactful, beyond just a lazy status quo change excuse, it should've been ABOUT Peter's relationship with MJ and Aunt May.

If I were to sum up JMS' run in a nutshell, it would be an exploration of the weird and mythical side of Spider-Man, and his relationship with the two most important women in his life. There's a reason why those 3 are consistently the focus. So if you're so desperate not to do a split up story and HAVE to use a semi-cosmic reset button, at least make the story you're telling feel somewhat impactful and actually mean something, rather than just complicated filler.

OMD, at its heart, is supposed to be a break-up story. A heart breaking tale of two people in love forcibly separated.

But it fails at that. MJ doesn't even become important to the narrative itself until Mephisto appears more than halfway through it. It spends more time selling Peter's desperation, and making some of the Marvel Universe's biggest names completely useless, than it spends on the relationship that should have been front and center the entire way through. And instead of being this heartbreaking choice, Peter basically guilt trips MJ into making the deal, so Marvel could blame the woman for anything untoward.

It's a vile, disgusting story. Not just the worst Spider-Man stories ever told. But one of the worst things Marvel has ever published. In my opinion, the only thing that tops OMD are stories like "Carol Danvers goes off to live happily ever after with her rapist with the Avengers blessings" and "of course Falcon was a pimp. He's black, ain't he?" (And yes, I know they retconned "Snap" Wilson. Doesn't change the fact that they published that crap in the first place.)

[Mister Mets]

Build some machine that allows Peter to enter her consciousness and commune and reshape it and bring her out of the coma.

I mean people fall into comas and they do come out. So it's not some big line that's being crossed like curing AIDS or schizophrenia would be.

Curing AIDS would be simpler, since you can come up with a sci-fi process that takes care of it in a way that modern medicine can't.

Communing and reshaping consciousness would be harder, due to the questions of how exactly someone would go about doing that.

We saw Reed Richards and the rest of the Fantastic Four miniaturize themselves to remove an otherwise inoperable brain tumor from Willie Lumpkin (Fantastic Four #606). So yeah, they do have options that most would not have.

Doom also has access to a time machine (and "Doomlocks" to actually travel back in time instead of creating an alternate universe). So he has options that others would not have.

There was still a tangible process involved in the removal of the tumor, even if it involved sci-fi elements.

[SuperiorIronman]

Curing AIDS would be simpler, since you can come up with a sci-fi process that takes care of it in a way that modern medicine can't.

Communing and reshaping consciousness would be harder, due to the questions of how exactly someone would go about doing that.


There was still a tangible process involved in the removal of the tumor, even if it involved sci-fi elements.

Why would that be harder to reshape somebodies mind in the Marvel universe? Clone Conspiracy for all its faults doesn't have people questioning how Ben Reilly managed to regenerate entire brains or recover what was lost with his clones. Part of Peter was left behind in both the Proto-clone and his own body when Otto purged it.

Red Onslaught flipped people's moralities by messing with their mind.

Venom transfers memories host to host to enable people to use it

Ultron's brain is the product of Hank Pym's as well as his extended family having minds copied and reshaped from existing individuals

Psylocke supplanted someone else

Doctor Doom literally discovered how to and used the ability to swap bodies to evade death

Just use some technobabble and comic book science. We don't need hard science for certain things given that Spider-man himself is not 100% factual. When in universe characters actually can reshape minds, or transfer them or swap them into new bodies I fail to see how nobody could do anything. Didn't the Jackal also have a pod used to heal him as well as turn him into that 90's Joker rip off?

[Revolutionary_Jack]

Curing AIDS would be simpler, since you can come up with a sci-fi process that takes care of it in a way that modern medicine can't.

And the same is hard to do for a bullet wound which causes blood loss and trauma that sends patient into a coma?

You said, "There is also the problem of what it means for stories in which someone is sick if Reed Richards has much more advanced medical technology than the modern world, and is able to save anyone who is sick."

That argument is usually used and lampshaded to avoid getting into the thorny issues of characters solving diseases in comics that are still deadly in the real world.

Communing and reshaping consciousness would be harder, due to the questions of how exactly someone would go about doing that.

I find it strange that a fan of Dan Slott is saying this. Slott has said in interviews that he doesn't care for actual science and goes for super-science in Marvel comics. That lack of interest in real science probably did hamper his run.

He said repeatedly that he goes and uses Pym Particles and other stuff.

So why exactly is it hard to accept that Reed Richards wouldn't be able to fix her from a coma. It's not like Kingpin's assassin shot her with a special magic bullet designed by Galactus, the Molecule Man, Kang the Conqueror with Infinity Stones.

[Mister Mets]

Why would that be harder to reshape somebodies mind in the Marvel universe? Clone Conspiracy for all its faults doesn't have people questioning how Ben Reilly managed to regenerate entire brains or recover what was lost with his clones. Part of Peter was left behind in both the Proto-clone and his own body when Otto purged it.

Red Onslaught flipped people's moralities by messing with their mind.

Venom transfers memories host to host to enable people to use it

Ultron's brain is the product of Hank Pym's as well as his extended family having minds copied and reshaped from existing individuals

Psylocke supplanted someone else

Doctor Doom literally discovered how to and used the ability to swap bodies to evade death

Just use some technobabble and comic book science. We don't need hard science for certain things given that Spider-man himself is not 100% factual. When in universe characters actually can reshape minds, or transfer them or swap them into new bodies I fail to see how nobody could do anything. Didn't the Jackal also have a pod used to heal him as well as turn him into that 90's Joker rip off?

The criticism seems to be rooted in hard science, so the explanations about the solutions that were so obvious that the failure to address it is a problem of the story have to be rooted in hard science as well.

And the same is hard to do for a bullet wound which causes blood loss and trauma that sends patient into a coma?

You said, "There is also the problem of what it means for stories in which someone is sick if Reed Richards has much more advanced medical technology than the modern world, and is able to save anyone who is sick."

That argument is usually used and lampshaded to avoid getting into the thorny issues of characters solving diseases in comics that are still deadly in the real world.



I find it strange that a fan of Dan Slott is saying this. Slott has said in interviews that he doesn't care for actual science and goes for super-science in Marvel comics. That lack of interest in real science probably did hamper his run.

He said repeatedly that he goes and uses Pym Particles and other stuff.

So why exactly is it hard to accept that Reed Richards wouldn't be able to fix her from a coma. It's not like Kingpin's assassin shot her with a special magic bullet designed by Galactus, the Molecule Man, Kang the Conqueror with Infinity Stones.

I do accept that Reed wouldn't be able to fix her from a coma. That's my point.

It would be hard to fix a coma. You could imagine the process by which the AIDS virus could be eliminated in a sci-fi story (IE- microscopic robots destroying AIDS-infected cells) in a way that isn't plausible in the real world. You would still need a specific process to fix a coma.

As for comic book science and Slott's views, liking Slott's work doesn't mean that I have to agree with every aspect of it, or every aspect of his philosophy on writing.

Comic book science is more about wonder than about pessimism, so it seems out of place as an explanation for going after a story. There would still have to be some limits.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

The criticism seems to be rooted in hard science, so the explanations about the solutions that were so obvious that the failure to address it is a problem of the story have to be rooted in hard science as well.

That's an extreme judgment. I think we are being fair and relative in assessing issues with the story. If the story is going for a magical solution rooted in comics' logic than it's fair to ask why the rest of the comic is not playing fair by the comics' logic since doing so brings to light Spider-Man having other options.

[Fearless]

This could obviously go either way but for me I thought Sins Past was a worse read and as far as character treatment, I do think it treats Gwen Stacy worse than even Peter is treated in One More Day. One More Day is annoying, but Sins Past is disgusting for me.

[Kevinroc]

There was still a tangible process involved in the removal of the tumor, even if it involved sci-fi elements.

Mephisto literally uses his demon magic and we got no explanation for what he did for 4 years. (And don't even get me started on OMIT.)

The criticism seems to be rooted in hard science, so the explanations about the solutions that were so obvious that the failure to address it is a problem of the story have to be rooted in hard science as well.

I do accept that Reed wouldn't be able to fix her from a coma. That's my point.

It would be hard to fix a coma. You could imagine the process by which the AIDS virus could be eliminated in a sci-fi story (IE- microscopic robots destroying AIDS-infected cells) in a way that isn't plausible in the real world. You would still need a specific process to fix a coma.

As for comic book science and Slott's views, liking Slott's work doesn't mean that I have to agree with every aspect of it, or every aspect of his philosophy on writing.

Comic book science is more about wonder than about pessimism, so it seems out of place as an explanation for going after a story. There would still have to be some limits.

The problem is that they solved the problem with demon magic. It's as ridiculous as it gets. It's a deus (diablous) ex machina of the highest order.

There are a lot of super hero stories about overcoming impossible odds. The deck is stacked against the protagonist(s). There are also a lot of super hero stories about heroes coming to grips with their limitations. Despite their extraordinary abilities, they can't stop some event and they have to accept that.

OMD tried to do both, and it executed this idea terribly.

[Scott Taylor]

Personally I think any one of the superheroes Peter spoke with could have healed Aunt May by throwing a brick at her. A magical, "we don't have to explain it," healing brick. Covered in magic red pigeon poop.

There ya go. A logic, comic based explanation.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

Personally I think any one of the superheroes Peter spoke with could have healed Aunt May by throwing a brick at her. A magical, "we don't have to explain it," healing brick. Covered in magic red pigeon poop.

There ya go. A logic, comic based explanation.

The absurd part of OMIT is that the guy who threw the brick at Spider-Man was just random fat guy thug Eddie and not Mephisto's avatar who magically guided said brick to target or whatnot. And Quesada kept defending the absurdity of that scene. I mean a brick is heavy and can't be thrown from ground to air that way, certainly not that kind. It definitely calls to mind Killer Croc from Almost Got 'Im, "Spider-Man got hit by a brick." *beat* "A really fat brick thrown from ground to air by an average schlub and not some olympic level discus dude".

Superhero comics are a thin line where you have regular and superhero physics interacting all the time. Sometimes it's done so well and so logically that it fits, other times it doesn't fit. It falls apart. Spider-Man with his Spider-Sense, super-strength, super-endurance who lifted a ton of machinery and so on, getting knocked out by a brick and falling unconscious on a city street in New York with a fat guy on top of him, unattended is absurd. It's right up there with that digusting crap of Deathstroke versus the Justice League in INFINITE CRISIS, which completely killed any interest that character ever had for me.

But more than anything, all this depends on a sense of occasion. Take The Night Gwen Stacy Died. Depending on how you look at it, Gwen either died because the fall from a great height without parachute killed her before Spider-Man got to her or the whiplash from the web did it. Now Spider-Man saved many people in same situations before and after the same way as did many other heroes in other comics. So in a sense Conway and others cheated to have Gwen die but again the occasion and impact and theme of the story, i.e. the hero's big defeat and failure, the parodying of the hero coming just in time to save the girl tied to the tracks...makes it work. Something is communicated there.

Whereas OMD and OMIT has no sense of occasion, communicates nothing. And the stuff about Aunt May's death, or Peter being hit by a brick, has an entirely cynical and hollow sense about what it's trying to do. And that cynicism shows in how poorly its executed.

[Zeitgeist]

Not an expert, but my understanding is that Negative was the only one of those characters to have any kind of staying power. The others were either forgotten or remembered as examples of BND's failings.

(Anyone else better plugged into the situation care to clarify or refute?)

Norah Winters was used in the Osborn miniseries I believe and has just reared her head again in the current books. Another BND character who just had a huge spotlight was Yuri Watanabe/Wraith, who was a prominent side character in Spider-Man PS4 along with Mr. Negative and Screwball.