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  1. #16
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    I had thought about sitting this one out or just waiting for the trade but, boy, I'm very happy I couldn't resist picking up this first issue.

    Very, very well done. Dzarsky has been on fire lately and this first issue does an expert job of setting the tone for the series. I'm in for the rest of it, for sure.

  2. #17
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    Quote Originally Posted by Revolutionary_Jack View Post
    For one thing this is an AU so you don't need to do other Marvel heroes as a rule.
    Why would anyone write an alt-history of the MU only to pretend that the rest of the MU doesn't exist? Spider-Man has always been part of a larger tapestry.

    Showing how that larger tapestry is diverges from the one that we're familiar with in this alt-reality is a key appeal to this project.

    Quote Originally Posted by Revolutionary_Jack View Post
    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.
    Very easily. You could have a superhero in Pittsburgh and still be able to touch on the Cold War and other historical events. It's not as though every American citizen isn't affected by what's going on in the world.

    Quote Originally Posted by Revolutionary_Jack View Post
    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.
    Dzarsky surely has no intention of delving into every single important cultural movement that was centered in NYC. That would be impossible. This is a series that is touching on the real world over the course of sixty years, not serving as a comprehensive deep dive into every aspect of it.

    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.
    Well, yes, of course. Any time we look back at a point of time in history, we naturally have to look at it through a modern day prism.

    But there's nothing in this issue that people didn't or couldn't have felt at the time. And it's hardly a political diatribe. The pro and anti war arguments are balanced throughout.

  3. #18
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    Quote Originally Posted by Prof. Warren View Post
    Why would anyone write an alt-history of the MU only to pretend that the rest of the MU doesn't exist? Spider-Man has always been part of a larger tapestry.
    If you compare this to Ed Piskor's X:Men - Grand Design. That comic does acknowledge the MU but they are all relegated to background and barely have appearances (maybe a panel or two at best...Peter shows up off-screen when Jameson asks him to get pictures of the X-Men, their balloons are over a panel showing a Bugle headline). So I was hoping you could have that. By contrast in Life Story #1, Captain America is easily the scene stealer and coolest guy there ever was and ever will be. Which is great, since I'm a big Cap fan, and a bigger fan of Peter aligning himself with Steve Rogers rather than Iron Man (shown in his accurate-to-60s cold warrior phase here)...but I still think this should be the story of Peter and his supporting cast, and his rogues (in that order) first and foremost just like Grand Design is the story of X-Men and mutantkind first and foremost.

    Having said that, re-reading the issue, I feel more positive about it. And the Norman scenes are great and the way that's resolved finally acknowledges the real reason why Gwen died which I've discussed before so that's great.

    Very easily. You could have a superhero in Pittsburgh and still be able to touch on the Cold War and other historical events. It's not as though every American citizen isn't affected by what's going on in the world.
    Yes, but they are all affected in selected ways and in selected periods. If you are going to use an AU to deal with stuff that comics of an earlier era didn't touch on or not in the way you could do now (taking the stance on Vietnam that Zdarsky does here in #1 would be unthinkable for any mainstream publisher back in the 60s, as Stan Lee himself told readers in the Bullpen), then not having Peter deal with LGBT rights is a bigger lacuna. Peter is at ESU in Greenwich Village not far from Stonewall, and even then that was a famous gayborhood, so Peter and his cast should have been aware of that side of life, and have some gay members in the supporting cast. But that was never acknowledged. Then you have the AIDS crisis which showed up in the 80s and had a big impact in New York, and also especially the fashion industry in New York . Mary Jane's wedding outfit was designed by Willi Smith, an African-American LGBT designer who died of AIDS just two months before the annual was published, and whose last work was that wedding dress. And MJ being a model in that time means many of her co-workers, and some designers she worked with would have either gotten the disease or died and so on.

    And of course dealing with how New York was bankrupt, but cheap and cool and hip and later got gentrified and expensive is a story arc you can use Peter and his cast to tackle with, since class and rent and other stuff is a consistent issue in Spider-Man stories in those eras and later.

    But there's nothing in this issue that people didn't or couldn't have felt at the time. And it's hardly a political diatribe. The pro and anti war arguments are balanced throughout.
    When Lee-Romita represented Vietnam war and uncontroversially showed Flash Thompson being shipped off overseas in ASM#47, a scene alluded to by Zdarsky but wonderfully and poignantly inverted here, they were reflecting the time more accurately. The Vietnam War was originally popular and the anti-war movement was small, and fringe in 1966 and 1967...the way Zdarsky shows people debating it is not entirely accurate to that particular year. It's more a late 60s thing than one in 1966.

    I like how Zdarsky did it. And of course the whole Flash Thompson saying that Spider-Man can be a hero to New Yorkers and doesn't have to go overseas is a great riposte to the Garth Ennis school and that entire noxious group of people who miss all subtlety and nuance in dealing with issues like this.

  4. #19
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    Quote Originally Posted by Revolutionary_Jack View Post
    Yes, but they are all affected in selected ways and in selected periods. If you are going to use an AU to deal with stuff that comics of an earlier era didn't touch on or not in the way you could do now (taking the stance on Vietnam that Zdarsky does here in #1 would be unthinkable for any mainstream publisher back in the 60s, as Stan Lee himself told readers in the Bullpen), then not having Peter deal with LGBT rights is a bigger lacuna. Peter is at ESU in Greenwich Village not far from Stonewall, and even then that was a famous gayborhood, so Peter and his cast should have been aware of that side of life, and have some gay members in the supporting cast. But that was never acknowledged. Then you have the AIDS crisis which showed up in the 80s and had a big impact in New York, and also especially the fashion industry in New York . Mary Jane's wedding outfit was designed by Willi Smith, an African-American LGBT designer who died of AIDS just two months before the annual was published, and whose last work was that wedding dress. And MJ being a model in that time means many of her co-workers, and some designers she worked with would have either gotten the disease or died and so on.
    Well, we have to remember - the main hook of this is "What if Spider-Man (and the rest of the MU) progressed in real time?"

    It's not "What if we could go back on explicitly comment on every single social issue in ways that we couldn't during the original publication?"

    The changing tides of society and historical benchmarks will play a part in this but it's not the primary focus.

    I'm sure Dzarsky will weave in as much as he can but I don't think he's going to go too deep on any issues. Covering sixty decades in six issues and still tell a Spider-Man story wouldn't allow for it.

    Quote Originally Posted by Revolutionary_Jack View Post
    When Lee-Romita represented Vietnam war and uncontroversially showed Flash Thompson being shipped off overseas in ASM#47, a scene alluded to by Zdarsky but wonderfully and poignantly inverted here, they were reflecting the time more accurately. The Vietnam War was originally popular and the anti-war movement was small, and fringe in 1966 and 1967...the way Zdarsky shows people debating it is not entirely accurate to that particular year. It's more a late 60s thing than one in 1966.

    I like how Zdarsky did it. And of course the whole Flash Thompson saying that Spider-Man can be a hero to New Yorkers and doesn't have to go overseas is a great riposte to the Garth Ennis school and that entire noxious group of people who miss all subtlety and nuance in dealing with issues like this.
    I think Dzarsky handled things very well here. As much as Marvel in the '60s addressed the issues of the day, obviously there was only so far they felt comfortable going into certain debates. Dzarsky revisits the era with just enough frankness to be a touch beyond what was done then but yet he isn't so provocative that reading this doesn't feel like a tantalizing taste of an alternate MU that legitimately could have been, with Bagley's classic stylings giving it all the ring of authenticity.
    Last edited by Prof. Warren; 03-20-2019 at 06:18 PM.

  5. #20
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    Okay....not getting into all of the minute details of this miniseries...but as a fan and a reader, I loved this one. The writing was strong and punchy, and the artwork was amazing. And that last page, spoilers:
    Gwen finding out Pete was Spider-Man
    end of spoilers, is a game changer for not just the history, but also the rest of the series. So excited to see what the next issue has to bring!

  6. #21
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    For those who are curious for comparison. Here's Peter saying goodbye to Flash in ASM#47 for reference on how Zdarsky reinterpreted it.

    ASM 47.jpg

    Peter's reference to "the good guys" i.e. America vis-a-vis Vietnam states pretty clearly that Peter Parker supported America's involvement in Vietnam in the 60s.

  7. #22
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    Quote Originally Posted by Revolutionary_Jack View Post
    ASM 47.jpg

    Peter's reference to "the good guys" i.e. America vis-a-vis Vietnam states pretty clearly that Peter Parker supported America's involvement in Vietnam in the 60s.
    That's quite a stretch. I think it's just Peter having come to regard his old high school tormentor as a "good guy", now that they've matured past their rivalry. It's not expressing an endorsement of America's involvement in Vietnam, just a hope that a friend doesn't become a casualty of war.

  8. #23
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    Quote Originally Posted by Revolutionary_Jack View Post
    For those who are curious for comparison. Here's Peter saying goodbye to Flash in ASM#47 for reference on how Zdarsky reinterpreted it.

    ASM 47.jpg

    Peter's reference to "the good guys" i.e. America vis-a-vis Vietnam states pretty clearly that Peter Parker supported America's involvement in Vietnam in the 60s.
    I remember Peter having an internal monologue on at least one occasion about being unsure about his thoughts on the war in the Lee issues. They're pretty simplistic in a lot of ways, but they were actually pretty decent given both the style at the time, and that the stories were being done by middle-aged men.

  9. #24
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    I had mixed feelings about how this was gonna work when it was first announced but I’m really liking what I’ve seen so far

  10. #25
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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 really loved the issue, but I also agree with you here. It would have been nice to see a tighter focus on Peter's supporting cast rather than less related characters. The Cap cameo midway through the book was perfect, in that sense.
    "Anyone can win a fight when the odds are easy! It's when the going's tough - when there seems to be no chance - that's when it counts!" - Spider-Man

  11. #26
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    It was really nice.

  12. #27
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    Quote Originally Posted by Revolutionary_Jack View Post
    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.
    Which is? There’s quite a few modern spins and clarifications about old stories he gives, but I’m curious what you’re specifically referring to here.

  13. #28
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    Quote Originally Posted by HypnoHustler View Post
    Which is? There’s quite a few modern spins and clarifications about old stories he gives, but I’m curious what you’re specifically referring to here.
    It's always bothered me that everyone says that Peter's responsible for Gwen's death because of that absurd neck snap/fall debate...to me the real issue is...

    spoilers:
    Peter let Norman Osborn/Goblin lapse back to civilian life. This guy was a gangster, and a guy who tried to kill him multiple times often giving little care about collateral damage. He learned his secret identity. And when he lapses into amnesia, Peter's decision is to...get close to his son, and allow Norman access to himself, his friends, and everyone he knows? That's not responsible. Peter endangered everyone he knew by that decision. Now okay to some extent, that decision can be understood and even pardoned. Like obviously initially it seemed that Norman had reformed and had become a good dad to Harry (although again letting a guy with obvious mental problems close to your best friend without warning or informing him is what we call "enabling"), but then the drug issue happened and Norman relapsed and while Peter contained that then, after that there's no excuse. Peter's duty as a friend, companion, nephew, and human being was to report Norman, to warn everyone about the danger they were in being close to a guy like that and put them on notice. By sparing Norman, Peter put a time bomb in the lives of his friends.

    So here Zdarsky has Peter do that. He turns Norman in, amnesiac lame Dad or no. As Cap tells him, you have to follow your heart and do the right thing. For Cap that is going over and defending Vietnamese against American soldiers if necessary, for Peter, it's potentially upsetting and ruining his friendship with Harry and possibly damaging Norman's "redemption". Sure that might still blow up in his face but at least now you get a sense of real tragic inevitability and character dimensions and not because of melodrama where the whole back and forth often distracts you from the fact that Peter in the L-R era was a sh--ty boyfriend to Gwen, a poor friend to Harry, and in a civic sense, guilty of "failure to report a crime"
    end of spoilers

  14. #29
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    Quote Originally Posted by Revolutionary_Jack View Post
    It's always bothered me that everyone says that Peter's responsible for Gwen's death because of that absurd neck snap/fall debate...to me the real issue is...

    spoilers:
    Peter let Norman Osborn/Goblin lapse back to civilian life. This guy was a gangster, and a guy who tried to kill him multiple times often giving little care about collateral damage. He learned his secret identity. And when he lapses into amnesia, Peter's decision is to...get close to his son, and allow Norman access to himself, his friends, and everyone he knows? That's not responsible. Peter endangered everyone he knew by that decision. Now okay to some extent, that decision can be understood and even pardoned. Like obviously initially it seemed that Norman had reformed and had become a good dad to Harry (although again letting a guy with obvious mental problems close to your best friend without warning or informing him is what we call "enabling"), but then the drug issue happened and Norman relapsed and while Peter contained that then, after that there's no excuse. Peter's duty as a friend, companion, nephew, and human being was to report Norman, to warn everyone about the danger they were in being close to a guy like that and put them on notice. By sparing Norman, Peter put a time bomb in the lives of his friends.

    So here Zdarsky has Peter do that. He turns Norman in, amnesiac lame Dad or no. As Cap tells him, you have to follow your heart and do the right thing. For Cap that is going over and defending Vietnamese against American soldiers if necessary, for Peter, it's potentially upsetting and ruining his friendship with Harry and possibly damaging Norman's "redemption". Sure that might still blow up in his face but at least now you get a sense of real tragic inevitability and character dimensions and not because of melodrama where the whole back and forth often distracts you from the fact that Peter in the L-R era was a sh--ty boyfriend to Gwen, a poor friend to Harry, and in a civic sense, guilty of "failure to report a crime"
    end of spoilers
    I'm glad that you mentioned that. People often get so obsessed with the minor details that they can often forget the big picture. That being said, it goes into what I said about hindsight earlier. We know that sparing Norman was the wrong choice, but at the time there was nothing to suggest that Norman would ever regain his memories. I honestly though Lee was dropping the character at the time. While I'm glad that Peter turned him in, I can't really blame him for not doing it in the original timeline.

  15. #30
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    Looking back I didn’t realize how much of a missed opportunity it was for Captain Stacy to not appear in the comic. I hope he shows up later.

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