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  1. #1
    Spectacular Member Nerdman3000's Avatar
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    Default Spider-Man: Life Story #1

    Fantastic first issue. Can't say enough just how amazing this first issue is honestly.

  2. #2
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    I just read the first issue meself. It's off to a good start. It has some interesting ideas and concepts...and while Zdarsky might be more Pro-Gwen for my liking, he's at least Pro-Cap and Anti-Tony so that's a plus. The first issue covers and deals with elements that the Lee-Ditko and Lee-Romita comics touched on and so there's clever inversions and twists in parts, and riffs in others.

    And man he's addressed one of the most glaring problems and issues in the entire Lee-Romita and Early Conway eras too. I feel validation.

  3. #3

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    I thought it was okay but it could be any alternative universe Spidey at this point. I think it'll get more interesting when he starts to age

  4. #4
    Uncanny Member Digifiend's Avatar
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    The Avengers line up in 1966-7 was Captain America, Hawkeye, Goliath, Wasp, Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver. Cap must've left the team considering this issue's ending. Of course, later lineups will be more drastically altered. I wonder if we'll see that?
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  5. #5
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    To be honest, as cool as that ending was, I'm not sure if focusing so much on marvel heroes was right. I think this should be entirely about Spider-Man and his supporting cast, and ideally they should not have acknowledged other heroes.

  6. #6

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    hmm.. so will the debut of select villains be delayed until certain decades here? Curious. We'll see how it turns out.

  7. #7
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    Quote Originally Posted by Hypestyle View Post
    hmm.. so will the debut of select villains be delayed until certain decades here? Curious. We'll see how it turns out.
    Lee-Ditko is canon since that era had real-time aging and progression so Zdarsky is going off script with the Romita era. Basically Issue #1 features and alludes to many bits and pieces across the entire early Lee-Romita era. I am talking first 14 issues or so.

    The first issue implies and alludes to many lee-ditko rogues.

  8. #8
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    Quote Originally Posted by Revolutionary_Jack View Post
    To be honest, as cool as that ending was, I'm not sure if focusing so much on marvel heroes was right. I think this should be entirely about Spider-Man and his supporting cast, and ideally they should not have acknowledged other heroes.

    I’m not sure why you think that. I thought it added a lot of layers by having other heroes involved in the real world politics happening. And the ending was great. I’m sure that thread will be picked up down the line, it probably wasn’t just random.
    This reminds me of that ‘Marvels’ mini by Busiek and Alex Ross that came out in the 90s. That was also real time, iirc.

  9. #9
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    Quote Originally Posted by HypnoHustler View Post
    I’m not sure why you think that. I thought it added a lot of layers by having other heroes involved in the real world politics happening. And the ending was great. I’m sure that thread will be picked up down the line, it probably wasn’t just random.
    This reminds me of that ‘Marvels’ mini by Busiek and Alex Ross that came out in the 90s. That was also real time, iirc.
    For one thing this is an AU so you don't need to do other Marvel heroes as a rule. For another thing, you lose out by not giving attention to other parts of Peter's cast.

    Zdarsky based on the first issue and solicitations for later issues is trying to place Spider-Man in a cold war or historical context but I don't know how a New York superhero can actually touch on that. And in any case you lose out by not dealing with local history and so on.

    Stuff like Pop Art, Velvet Underground, the gay rights movement which began in Stonewall in Greenwich Village near ESU, and the AIDS epidemic, the New York Blackout, the Giuliani era, mob and street fights, 9/11, Occupy and so on, among other things, happened in New York. You could deal with that, more comprehensively than stuff happening in other parts of the world. And putting Peter's cast and group in that background makes more sense.

  10. #10
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    But I mean, the Vietnam war was pervasive in the American consciousness at this time. It was all people talked about. My mom lost a number of classmates in highschool from it. So it definitely mattered, perhaps more than those other events you mentioned. And Cap and Iron-Man were directly involved with the ‘Nam story that played out. And Cap’s words on joining ‘Nam influenced Peter’s thinking about it. I don’t think it distracted from the story, but to each their own.

  11. #11
    Astonishing Member David Walton's Avatar
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    I think Zdarsky's choices worked. Obviously, with a story like this, there's so much stuff to be explored that would never fit in a six-issue mini, and plenty of different choices could have been made that may or may not have worked equally well.

    But I judge the comic that's actually in hand, and man, it's great! I feel like things will get better as the series progresses too.

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    I liked the comic and I liked the scenes in context. It worked.I liked that both Flash and Cap are telling Spider-Man in essence, "They also serve, who stand and wait". So that might work.

    But the Cold War isn't the only important thing that happened and Zdarsky is digging that well for later issues based on solicitations. I'm more interested in how Gwen and Mary Jane intersect with the rise of feminism and so on, and dealing with MJ's status as the first real character rooted in contemporary society.

    Anyway, that's just me. I am not always right and if the execution is good it won't bother me.

    Go out and read this, is all I am saying to everyone. I am actually promoting this on the Marvel Comics Cap appreciation thread, and I think I sent more customers there because Cap fans will love this comic.

  13. #13
    Astonishing Member David Walton's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Revolutionary_Jack View Post
    I liked the comic and I liked the scenes in context. It worked.I liked that both Flash and Cap are telling Spider-Man in essence, "They also serve, who stand and wait". So that might work.

    But the Cold War isn't the only important thing that happened and Zdarsky is digging that well for later issues based on solicitations. I'm more interested in how Gwen and Mary Jane intersect with the rise of feminism and so on, and dealing with MJ's status as the first real character rooted in contemporary society.

    Anyway, that's just me. I am not always right and if the execution is good it won't bother me.

    Go out and read this, is all I am saying to everyone. I am actually promoting this on the Marvel Comics Cap appreciation thread, and I think I sent more customers there because Cap fans will love this comic.
    Well said. Glad you were able to spread the word about this issue.

    Speaking of Cap, I feel like if this is successful we'll see other heroes get the same LIFE STORY treatment, similar to the Loeb/Sale 'color' minis that covered the early years of Marvel heroes. So I wonder if Zdarsky is teasing that possibility with developments concerning other heroes, but without getting into too much detail.

  14. #14
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    I don’t know how I feel about the focus on social issues as I feel they rely a lot on hindsight.

    I remember this one episode of Quantum Leap where the MC, Sam, was posing as a fallout shelter salesman during the Cold War. Sam, being from the future, knew that the consumer would just be wasting their money, so he tries to dissuade her by saying “they won’t come.” The woman being a holocaust survivor has a minor breakdown and doesn’t believe him. This scene was especially powerful for me because it showed how much Sam took being from the future for granted.

    It’s sort of like how Jameson isn’t always wrong for suspecting Spider-Man since the general public really doesn’t know anything about him.

  15. #15
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    Quote Originally Posted by PCN24454 View Post
    I don’t know how I feel about the focus on social issues as I feel they rely a lot on hindsight.
    That's a big problem with any attempt to do history. Do you do the past as it was then, or do you impose the perspective of the present back then? Each approach has advantages and disadvantages. In the first case you can sort of reproduce or inhabit that world, or recreate it, while in the second you can use your present view to shine a light on stuff that people back then wouldn't have talked about or would not have been touched in the same way. Or you can be Alan Moore and do both at the same time. Moore is a genius of using actual history and period and doing the past as it was then, while also using a present day to shine light on stuff that the given era would not have paid attention or dealt with in the same way.

    In the case of Life Story, Zdarsky can either do the 60s Marvel era as it was back then, or he can bring his present view to the situation and character. I think he's done the latter, safe to say, and it's probably for the best since that serves the story he's doing.

    So in that level it's interesting,

    spoilers:
    Stuff like Captain America for instance, admitting that he has doubts about the rightness of the Vietnam War and then going renegade and protecting Vietnamese and others from war criminals on both sides. Yeah, that would not have been published by Marvel in the '60s. The closest you got was Cap vs. Nixon in the Englehart years and even that was all done with metaphors and off-screen panels.
    end of spoilers

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