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  1. #46
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    Quote Originally Posted by Vortex85 View Post
    A lot of Peter’s moodiness and abandonment of MJ reminds me of the “I am the Spider” period in the 90s. It definitely is not out of character for Peter to act this way but it’s a shame when he has kids. However, I feel a lot of it could be blamed on the symbiote affecting his mind and clouding is judgement. I think if we had 2 issues per decade this could have been more clearly established to make Peters behavior a victim to the symbiote as opposed to being his fault completely.
    I don't think this comic presents is as the symbiotes affecting his mind though. For one thing, as his conversation with Reed goes, he is choosing to use the Symbiote despite knowing it's alive (when originally the first thing Peter does on finding out is ejecting it and then using the cloth version of the costume). He puts MJ in a difficult situation of (as far as she knows) potentially killing her husband and father of her children. He ejects the symbiote in that fight with MJ when she calls out that its addictive, and then goes to blow off air abandoning MJ and the kids. Then he gets buried by Kraven, the symbiote then activates and MJ chases after him with that scanner to find her husband becoming a Venom monster (and Venom's first appearance in comics is terrifying the bejezus out of MJ and the trauma of that leading MJ to insist immediately that Peter never wear the black costume again and go back to red-and-blue). Then after it ejects and loses the symbiote, Peter passively accepts MJ leaving with the kids. Peter also says to Reed that he uses the suit because it helps him but then adds, "to stay relevant" which means that this is about some kind of early mid-life crisis more than anything.

    The evidence is clear. Life Story Peter is an *******, plain and simple. It was building up from Issue #1 like him starting that needless argument with Flash to get a rise at him, him laying out at Reed Richards and insulting him for Sue leaving him, and now here. It's not about doing what's right for his family, or doing right as a superhero, he's just a passive-agressive prick. That interpretation of Peter is certainly valid, and being openly presented that way rather than the crappy both-ways-excuses that OMD-OMIT tried to do it is better.

  2. #47
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    Quote Originally Posted by Revolutionary_Jack View Post
    I don't think this comic presents is as the symbiotes affecting his mind though. For one thing, as his conversation with Reed goes, he is choosing to use the Symbiote despite knowing it's alive (when originally the first thing Peter does on finding out is ejecting it and then using the cloth version of the costume). He puts MJ in a difficult situation of (as far as she knows) potentially killing her husband and father of her children. He ejects the symbiote in that fight with MJ when she calls out that its addictive, and then goes to blow off air abandoning MJ and the kids. Then he gets buried by Kraven, the symbiote then activates and MJ chases after him with that scanner to find her husband becoming a Venom monster (and Venom's first appearance in comics is terrifying the bejezus out of MJ and the trauma of that leading MJ to insist immediately that Peter never wear the black costume again and go back to red-and-blue). Then after it ejects and loses the symbiote, Peter passively accepts MJ leaving with the kids. Peter also says to Reed that he uses the suit because it helps him but then adds, "to stay relevant" which means that this is about some kind of early mid-life crisis more than anything.

    The evidence is clear. Life Story Peter is an *******, plain and simple. It was building up from Issue #1 like him starting that needless argument with Flash to get a rise at him, him laying out at Reed Richards and insulting him for Sue leaving him, and now here. It's not about doing what's right for his family, or doing right as a superhero, he's just a passive-agressive prick. That interpretation of Peter is certainly valid, and being openly presented that way rather than the crappy both-ways-excuses that OMD-OMIT tried to do it is better.
    The only things I liked about the story is the art and the way MJ is written. I am tired of seeing Peter looking like a loser in order to save Aunt May. This is a prime issue ( among many) that I had with OMD, and I have the same issue here. It is time that Aunt May join Uncle Ben and Captain Stacy in Heaven, and like them, never come back. Maybe then, Peter can grow up.
    Last edited by NC_Yankee; 05-16-2019 at 07:39 AM.

  3. #48
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    Quote Originally Posted by NC_Yankee View Post
    The only things I liked about the story is the art and the way MJ is written. I am tired of seeing Peter looking like a loser in order to save Aunt May. This is a prime issue ( among many) that I had with OMD, and I have the same issue here. It is time that Aunt May join Uncle Ben and Captain Stacy in Heaven, and like them, never come back. Maybe then, Peter can grow up.
    Hell, newspaper strip Peter was perfectly willing to let Aunt May go and marry The Mole Man. He's had weirder ideas about her ongoing happiness than this.

  4. #49
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    Quote Originally Posted by boots View Post
    right, having yet to read, i don’t have the context

    but i can empathise with not wanting to stick someone in aged care unless its palliative
    Then take care of them yourself and don’t expect your wife to do it just because she’s the wife. Especially when your wife is caring for two babies under a year old.

    I’ve watched loved ones fall prey to dementia and become a danger to themselves and everyone else in the household. Just one example: my grandfather got up at 2 AM while everyone was sleeping, decided it was time for breakfast, turned the gas range (hob) to high, put an empty pot on the flames, and went back to sleep.

    Luckily my grandmother woke up and smelled the burning before the damage went further than a ruined pot. We found him professional care shortly after.

    At the care facility, he decided his bed was an engineering puzzle (he was a brilliant theoretical mathematician with a Ph.d) and he took the entire thing apart and then rebuilt it in an incredibly dangerous manner. Thankfully there were staff there to stop him from injuring himself.

    Dementia is a disease, it needs treatment and round the clock care.

    So fine, don’t provide professional senior care - but then you better be prepared to give it yourself.

    And asking a sleep deprived new mother of twins to do it is the height of selfish a$$hattery.

  5. #50
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    I think Aunt May is an awesome character and I had no problems with JMS' Aunt May and I think her getting shot was a sad thing because she was unconscious for most of the end of the run, which meant that JMS never got to do a proper farewell to his version of Aunt May which to me is the last time she, among others, was written like a character rather than an editorially mandated infantilizing machine. I don't think that means that May has to die and so on, or there's no place for seniors in Spider-Man stories (I mean that would include Robbie and Jameson, as much as May). Post-OMD, there were huge problems for the writers. The main suspense with May was how would she react if and when she found out Peter was Spider-Man. JMS showed us how that went, and those stories still happened even if they erased memories of Peter's identity. Erik Larsen pointed this out that you can't do "May can't take it if she learned Peter's secret" after 7 years showing that May was okay with that. So mostly they had to find a way to put her on the side, and so they introduced a Mr. Aunt May in her life and then widow her again, a replay of the Nathan Lubensky thing in the Bronze Age (going from engagement to marriage). Then when you added in new supporting characters, you had stuff like May becoming a bigot or ableist towards Anna Maria Marconi and other such stuff. That kind of stuff only subtracts the emotional importance in Peter's life, since it undermines her status as this big moral influence on his values. And Post-OMD among audiences, makes May's role in the titles as an obstacle to stop Peter from growing up, as imposed and mandated by Marvel, unmistakable, and that again subtracts her emotional connection to the audience. Nobody is seriously invested in Aunt May emotionally among the readership and that's thanks to OMD. I mean the response in PS4 with May dying there wasn't sadness or anything but more "Wow you actually got to do it, awesome my dude!".

    Peter being worried about Aunt May's health and so on was a beat that was very important in the Lee-Ditko years and to be honest, it worked best in that period when Peter is in high school going to college and still reeling emotionally over Uncle Ben's death and his guilt and regret about that. If you read the Lee-Romita years, May is actually not in the stories all that much. Peter's with the scene with Harry, Gwen, MJ and so on. George Stacy becomes the important older character in the story, as does Jameson and Robbie. She returns in the Conway years, mainly as a confidant for MJ, and that carries in the Wein era, which near the end brings back the May is sick subplot which had a punch then because Wein had actually shown May as an energetic older woman, someone involved in elder's rights, and also voicing pro-civil rights views. So it felt surprising to see someone so vigorous suddenly lapse back to sickness. But after that, writers hardly ever used that or resorted to it a great deal. That's partly why ASM#400 had that impact, it was expected that okay Aunt May hasn't been this sick for a while but she'll still get out of it, and then she died and that was intended to stick and to last. Then those cowards undid it and JMS did all he could to salvage it before the onset of a new and more successful reign of cowardice.

    From a narrative standpoint as far as Peter's and May's overall character arc went in 616, that pretty much ended when Peter got married. For May, Peter got married to the girl she believed was right for him since ASM #15, and she got to see him settled. For Peter, Mary Jane, his wife, now became the most important person in his life, and the emotional center of the Spider-Man stories shifted away from May to Mary Jane, and more or less remained the case even after OMD. That's also the case in Life Story #3, and the emotional center in the later stories will be Peter's children.

  6. #51
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    Oh man I really didn't expect Mephisto to appear in this issue saying "I want your marriage"

    Would have been so much better had they broken up over really difficult issue like trying to raise kids while being a superhero and dealing with an elderly mom who is losing it. Thats much, much more realistic.

    Oh wait, thats how it did happen? Awesome. Suck my balls, Renew Your Vows and OMD!
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  7. #52
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    Quote Originally Posted by Scott Taylor View Post
    Suck my balls, Renew Your Vows and OMD!
    Stay classy

    Mr and Mrs Spider-Man, Spider-Girl, and Renew Your Vows have way more dignity and respect for the characters than this. This is but a puddle compared to the vast oceans of alternatives where Peter and MJ make it work...and they can be just as "real" and relatable as this. Certainly more inspirational too.
    Last edited by Miles To Go; 05-16-2019 at 10:24 AM.

  8. #53
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    I'm expecting #4 to touch on the Black Cat relationship. (She'll probably be much younger than Peter in this story.)

  9. #54
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    Quote Originally Posted by Kevinroc View Post
    I'm expecting #4 to touch on the Black Cat relationship. (She'll probably be much younger than Peter in this story.)
    A reversal of Ultimate then, where Felicia was older than Peter

  10. #55
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    I don't get why Peter thinks he's getting old in this issue. I mean, by the counts, he must have 37 years in this issue; and I don't think that turns him into an old man.

  11. #56
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    Quote Originally Posted by Ursalink View Post
    I don't get why Peter thinks he's getting old in this issue. I mean, by the counts, he must have 37 years in this issue; and I don't think that turns him into an old man.
    I mean, yeah he's only 37 but add on the fact that he's been doing Super Heroics for 22 years and you can imagine how that would physically age him even more.

    Quote Originally Posted by Kevinroc View Post
    I'm expecting #4 to touch on the Black Cat relationship. (She'll probably be much younger than Peter in this story.)
    If that's the case and then Zub decide to play up Felicia's daddy issues, the subtext is probably going to get really uncomfortable.
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  12. #57
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    Quote Originally Posted by Ursalink View Post
    I don't get why Peter thinks he's getting old in this issue. I mean, by the counts, he must have 37 years in this issue; and I don't think that turns him into an old man.
    In professional sports, 37 is actually pretty much well past retirement, and that's a common reference for superhero stamina/physical levels. I mean proportional strength of the spider and all that, so Peter's still tougher and stronger than normal folk, but if he's not immortal and has a body capable of aging then he should be experience wear and tear around that time.

    The main motivation I think here is mid-life crisis. Peter's about to become a father and so on. So he's worried that he's not young anymore and he feels he needs to be powerful and capable to protect people and so on. It's not far from Anakin Skywalker in Revenge of the Sith, where part of the reason he gets attracted to Palpatine is that he's becoming a father at a young age (also of fraternal twins I might add, and I wonder if that was a reference that Zdarsky had in mind), and isn't comfortable with that responsibility so he seeks some kind of external validation or barring that greater power to help him handle that. Here instead of the dark side it's the Venom Symbiote suit.

  13. #58
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    Quote Originally Posted by CrimsonEchidna View Post
    If that's the case and then Zub decide to play up Felicia's daddy issues, the subtext is probably going to get really uncomfortable.
    (Zdarsky.)

    I would expect the relationship will be portrayed as a really unhealthy one.

  14. #59
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    Quote Originally Posted by Kevinroc View Post
    (Zdarsky.)

    I would expect the relationship will be portrayed as a really unhealthy one.
    In Roger Stern's "The Daydreamers" (ASM#246), Felicia imagined Peter behind the mask to be the actor Cary Grant from To Catch A Thief, and Cary Grant was 51 when he appeared in that film and romanced Grace Kelly (in her mid-20s when she made that film). So it's got a deep cut to the lore if they decide to have a Spider-Man in his 50s romancing Black Cat in her 20s.

    I said somewhere that I can't imagine Felicia Hardy as a teenager. By the same token I really can't imagine her aging the way I can imagine Peter, MJ, and the other members of Spider-Man's cast aging. Mostly because we have seen them age across stories and develop and change in 616.

  15. #60
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    Quote Originally Posted by Miles To Go View Post
    Stay classy

    Mr and Mrs Spider-Man, Spider-Girl, and Renew Your Vows have way more dignity and respect for the characters than this. This is but a puddle compared to the vast oceans of alternatives where Peter and MJ make it work...and they can be just as "real" and relatable as this. Certainly more inspirational too.
    Haha my apologies, Drifted a little there ...

    There is more respect but perhaps less thought. Peter and MJ in Spider-Girl were much more like responsible parents than they have been in Renew Your Vows. I realize Annie was a handful but having MJ go all girl power and insist that she and Annie fight alongside Peter was pure fan service fanfic BS. No way thats a responsible way to parent! So I just couldn't get behind that series. It was amusing as a short story on Doom's Battleworld but as an ongoing, it just was too screwy and rahrah for me.
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