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  1. #61
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    I liked the movie... granted it DRAGGED before Mysterio’s true reveal (I’ve found Peter’s classmates in the MCU boring as hell), but I will say that Mysterio is definitely true to character and I felt he was the best part of the movie (with Vulture they had to borrow from Norman Osborn). The first illusion fight was AMAZING.

    Also, it really looks like we are NOT going to get a movie where the villain doesn’t know who Peter Parker is, let alone not know that he’s Spider-Man.

    One gripe I have is that even in death, Tony Stark has a major influence on the narrative. What other Spider-Man villain will be connected to Stark in SOME way? Otto Octavius was Tony’s college room mate? Norman Osborn had his company bought out by Stark? Rhino is a disgruntled bodyguard? Kraven went on a hunting expedition with Tony during his pre Iron Man days?

  2. #62
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    Quote Originally Posted by Mistah K88 View Post
    Kraven went on a hunting expedition with Tony during his pre Iron Man days?
    Tony Stark was more or less Don Jr. in his pre-IM days, so I can see that.

    I actually wouldn't have minded if they were so insistent about connecting to Tony Stark that they bring to Spider-Man the best character from the Iron Man movies -- Trevor Slattery (Ben Kingsley) "the acTOR" or the False Mandarin.

    I think if they made Slattery into Mysterio or Chameleon it would have been better. Spider-Man villains across the board have a strong sense of camp to them. Camp in the Raul Julia Bison sense, and I didn't get that from Gyllenhaal at all. Among young actors today, Robert Pattinson evokes that camp quality but alas DC got to him. Ben Kingsley's Slattery totally had that, and he should have been in these movies. Heck why not say that Trevor Slattery is fake...his real name is Roderick Kingsley and you can restore the camp quality the Hobgoblin originally had which Stern and later writers removed. And you know hack actor turning into a villain is better than perfume seller lucking himself into reversing Goblin's formula.

  3. #63
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    Quote Originally Posted by Revolutionary_Jack View Post
    No it isn't warped and quit using words like that. Acting as if I am some kind of crazy person because you disagree with my point of view. I don't always understand or follow your logic (or that of other posters) either, so I simply pick and choose what to respond to. You can do the same.
    When your take on a movie is "the hero is a no good creep and the villains are blameless victims of circumstances!" which is exactly what you keep doubling down on....I think it can be safely said that your reading of the movie is...flawed.

    Quote Originally Posted by Revolutionary_Jack View Post
    You can have legitimate issues and those legitimate issues would still not be enough to justify acts of violence. Tony Stark fired Beck and took his work and passed it as his own. That said, it doesn't surprise me that someone with Disney/Marvel's history of stiffing creators does a story like that and make you side with the corporation because the guy complaining about credit is a nutcase but that's because that's the extreme cop-out such plots and stories have always followed.
    Point being, Beck isn't justified. Tony isn't responsible for what Beck chooses to do.

    Quote Originally Posted by Revolutionary_Jack View Post
    It actually is.
    It isn't. You're taking two separate words that have meaning and trying to create a phrase out of them that isn't an actual thing.

    Quote Originally Posted by Revolutionary_Jack View Post
    Robert Downey Jr. is Disney-Marvel's highest paid actor and star of the first film of the MCU. So when Sony brought Spider-Man to Disney, the story became about Downey's stardom and image because in Sony's eyes, it meant MCU's biggest star and mascot with Spider-Man, and the decision to make Spider-Man and Iron Man subfranchise. If instead of Iron Man, you had Captain America out of the gate or Thor, it would be those characters that Spider-Man interacts more with in those movies.
    We'll never know, will we? You're talking about the what ifs of a world that doesn't exist.

    Would Steve Rogers have been a mentor figure to Peter in a world in which Cap kicked off the MCU?

    Possibly. But who knows?

    The reasons for Downey Jr. mentoring Holland's Spider-Man are not just about the fact that Tony was the face of the MCU.

    It's about the obvious chemistry that Downey Jr and Holland had. If you see that happening on screen, of course as filmmakers you're going to build on that and keep it going. It just makes sense.

    Also, within the story there's more of an obvious connection between two science nerds. They just obvious fit together in a way that Steve and Peter or Thor and Peter never would. So I think no matter what, Tony and Peter would always get paired up.

    Quote Originally Posted by Revolutionary_Jack View Post
    Adrian Toomes was a honest law-abiding citizen with no criminal record until Tony Stark and Damage Control shut down his entirely legal, bought-and-paid-for salvage contract. If not for the latter, he would have continued being the former. In the case of Mysterio, Stark fired him for being "unstable" (because we all know that Tony Stark is a "very stable genius") and then kept his stuff and renamed it without any hint as to what Mysterio was like before that, but more or less him not having a criminal record either. So those are two civilians who became radicalized into villains by Tony's actions. If you think Jameson is responsible for the Scorpion, which he is, I don't see how Tony Stark isn't responsible for these guys.
    Adrian and Beck both had bad breaks happen to them. Tony was either directly or indirectly responsible for those bad breaks. But he wasn't aware of the impact they might have. In both cases, Adrian and Beck's next steps were on them as individuals. Everyone who has crap happen to them, everyone who suffers disappointments or frustrations or set backs, isn't entitled to become a criminal because life didn't go the way they wanted it to.

    Jameson funded the Scorpion. He paid to have him created with the sole purpose of having him go out and destroy Spider-Man. He admits this. There's no ambiguity here.

    Quote Originally Posted by Revolutionary_Jack View Post
    In dramatic terms, Peter is on a hero's journey, and Tony Stark is his mentor. In any hero's journey, the hero has to surpass the mentor in someway or the other. That's how it works. The way to do it, is give the mentor some flaw or error in judgment that the hero sees and then calls him out on. In Star Wars, Obi-Wan's flaw and error was lying to Luke about Darth Vader, and Luke surpassed Obi-Wan by redeeming his father when Kenobi thought he was lost. In the MCU, Spider-Man isn't allowed to surpass his mentor (because said mentor, Iron Man, is played by their biggest actor and is a hero in his own right, and whatever bouts of self-deprecation Tony undergoes, you can't have the narrative with newcomer Tom Holland surpassing Robert Downey Jr.) so that means he's constantly stuck in a frustrating loop, where you have the setup to give Peter that moment, but the actual catharsis never comes. There are ways to dodge this, give Peter a different superhero partner and so on. Or simply bring Uncle Ben, which removes Peter entirely from the hero's journey model altogether and takes the story in a more active and satisfying place.
    Peter was already on his hero's journey before he even met Tony.

    His relationship to Tony isn't just about surpassing him as a mentor, it's about their friendship and Tony's belief in Peter. How it affected Peter and how he chooses to carry on after Tony's passing.

    Quote Originally Posted by Revolutionary_Jack View Post
    As editor of Daily Bugle, you could say that his job as editor is to do that. And he's a crusading journalist/editor. And you know, it's not up to Spider-Man to bring anybody to justice either. Jameson is acting like a vigilante, well so is Spider-Man.
    The difference being that Spider-Man is actually out using his power to protect innocents while Jameson is using his wealth and position to pursue a personal vendetta.

    Quote Originally Posted by Revolutionary_Jack View Post
    When you fund a guy for a heroic purpose, bringing a vigilante to justice someone actively hunted and chased by the law, then that guy goes rogue and becomes a supervillain. Jameson didn't go in thinking he was making a supervillain and didn't actively do it. He has responsibility for that sure.
    Jameson did not create the Scorpion for a "heroic purpose." He created him to get rid of Spider-Man, for purely personal, petty reasons. It's in the actual issue which I quoted from earlier. He hated Spider-Man and wanted to create someone who could crush him on a public stage. That's not heroic.

    Quote Originally Posted by Revolutionary_Jack View Post
    That's Jameson thinking out loud and wondering if that's the case. Jameson has moments of self-reflection and so on but that comes and goes and changes. Other writers have given different explanations.
    Jameson has been softened as time has gone on. He eventually became a curmudgeonly but basically good thorn in Spidey's side. But that was not the case for a long time. His feelings of jealousy towards Spider-Man were certainly authentic at the time and his creation of the Scorpion was right on the heels of his private admission.

    Quote Originally Posted by Revolutionary_Jack View Post
    Have you read the Dan Slott She-Hulk issue with Spidey suing Jameson in court? The entire case never goes forward because Jameson's lawyer points out that Spidey created Venom and Carnage who killed people in the hundreds, and when they cite Peter as a "star witness" they bring up the fact that Peter occassionally touched up photographs back in the day (which wasn't uncommon back in the day, a lot of professional photographers did that then, so long as what they did reflected the general truth). So the entire case got thrown out. There's no legal case Spider-Man can make against Jameson. Morally, Jameson is responsible for Scorpion but moral responsibility isn't the same as legal responsibility. Legally, Spider-Man isn't responsible for Ben's death, but morally he is. And again, Jameson's defining characteristic isn't creating supervillains. On the whole, Jameson's good outweighs his bad.
    "Have you read the issue where Jameson's high priced lawyers weasel him out of responsibility for his crimes?"

    You're missing what Slott is actually saying in this issue. Getting JJJ off in court on a bs defense isn't a vindication of Jonah, it's an indictment of how the rich seldom pay for their crimes in America (or elsewhere for that matter). Slott isn't saying that Jonah is innocent, he's saying he did wrong but he's going to get off anyway because, well, that's what people like Jonah pay their lawyers for.

    And trying to equate Peter not stopping the burglar with Jameson pressing a scientist to create a superpowered villain after being warned of the dangers doesn't wash in any way. One is a matter inaction, of Peter failing to get involved in which unforeseen consequences are suffered. The other is a matter of Jonah deliberately making a bad decision in the face of being cautioned not to. Even if everything had gone right with the creation of the Scorpion (or at least according to plan), Jonah still would have been in the wrong.

  4. #64
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    Quote Originally Posted by Revolutionary_Jack View Post
    If this is addressed to me, there are no "levels" to fandom. Anyone starting out now is the same as anyone who's been here since 1962. I most certainly am not. I most certainly can enjoy stuff, and am not miserable. I actually enjoy discussing stuff here on CBR and other places.



    No it isn't warped and quit using words like that. Acting as if I am some kind of crazy person because you disagree with my point of view. I don't always understand or follow your logic (or that of other posters) either, so I simply pick and choose what to respond to. You can do the same.



    You can have legitimate issues and those legitimate issues would still not be enough to justify acts of violence. Tony Stark fired Beck and took his work and passed it as his own. That said, it doesn't surprise me that someone with Disney/Marvel's history of stiffing creators does a story like that and make you side with the corporation because the guy complaining about credit is a nutcase but that's because that's the extreme cop-out such plots and stories have always followed.



    It actually is. Robert Downey Jr. is Disney-Marvel's highest paid actor and star of the first film of the MCU. So when Sony brought Spider-Man to Disney, the story became about Downey's stardom and image because in Sony's eyes, it meant MCU's biggest star and mascot with Spider-Man, and the decision to make Spider-Man and Iron Man subfranchise. If instead of Iron Man, you had Captain America out of the gate or Thor, it would be those characters that Spider-Man interacts more with in those movies.



    Adrian Toomes was a honest law-abiding citizen with no criminal record until Tony Stark and Damage Control shut down his entirely legal, bought-and-paid-for salvage contract. If not for the latter, he would have continued being the former. In the case of Mysterio, Stark fired him for being "unstable" (because we all know that Tony Stark is a "very stable genius") and then kept his stuff and renamed it without any hint as to what Mysterio was like before that, but more or less him not having a criminal record either. So those are two civilians who became radicalized into villains by Tony's actions. If you think Jameson is responsible for the Scorpion, which he is, I don't see how Tony Stark isn't responsible for these guys.



    In dramatic terms, Peter is on a hero's journey, and Tony Stark is his mentor. In any hero's journey, the hero has to surpass the mentor in someway or the other. That's how it works. The way to do it, is give the mentor some flaw or error in judgment that the hero sees and then calls him out on. In Star Wars, Obi-Wan's flaw and error was lying to Luke about Darth Vader, and Luke surpassed Obi-Wan by redeeming his father when Kenobi thought he was lost. In the MCU, Spider-Man isn't allowed to surpass his mentor (because said mentor, Iron Man, is played by their biggest actor and is a hero in his own right, and whatever bouts of self-deprecation Tony undergoes, you can't have the narrative with newcomer Tom Holland surpassing Robert Downey Jr.) so that means he's constantly stuck in a frustrating loop, where you have the setup to give Peter that moment, but the actual catharsis never comes. There are ways to dodge this, give Peter a different superhero partner and so on. Or simply bring Uncle Ben, which removes Peter entirely from the hero's journey model altogether and takes the story in a more active and satisfying place.



    As editor of Daily Bugle, you could say that his job as editor is to do that. And he's a crusading journalist/editor. And you know, it's not up to Spider-Man to bring anybody to justice either. Jameson is acting like a vigilante, well so is Spider-Man.



    When you fund a guy for a heroic purpose, bringing a vigilante to justice someone actively hunted and chased by the law, then that guy goes rogue and becomes a supervillain. Jameson didn't go in thinking he was making a supervillain and didn't actively do it. He has responsibility for that sure.



    That's Jameson thinking out loud and wondering if that's the case. Jameson has moments of self-reflection and so on but that comes and goes and changes. Other writers have given different explanations.



    Have you read the Dan Slott She-Hulk issue with Spidey suing Jameson in court? The entire case never goes forward because Jameson's lawyer points out that Spidey created Venom and Carnage who killed people in the hundreds, and when they cite Peter as a "star witness" they bring up the fact that Peter occassionally touched up photographs back in the day (which wasn't uncommon back in the day, a lot of professional photographers did that then, so long as what they did reflected the general truth). So the entire case got thrown out. There's no legal case Spider-Man can make against Jameson. Morally, Jameson is responsible for Scorpion but moral responsibility isn't the same as legal responsibility. Legally, Spider-Man isn't responsible for Ben's death, but morally he is. And again, Jameson's defining characteristic isn't creating supervillains. On the whole, Jameson's good outweighs his bad.

    And in any case, to bring this back on topic...I don't think comparing Jameson to Alex Jones is truthful to the character or good story. Jameson always prints what he believes to be the truth. And when presented with hard evidence that's not so, he puts his opinions under editorial. That's a consistent feature of his characterization. Jameson, as Roger Stern showed, always prints the truth. You can't equate that character with Alex Jones.
    The main reason the case didn't go forward in the She-Hulk issue was that they started suing Peter Parker for all the things he did against Spider-Man. That led to Spider-Man deciding to settle.

    From the brief appearance Jonah has some of the trappings of Alex Jones. He's a middle-aged guy with a controversial primarily online show. But he could be a more honest version of Jones.
    Sincerely,
    Thomas Mets

  5. #65
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    Quote Originally Posted by Prof. Warren View Post
    When your take on a movie is "the hero is a no good creep and the villains are blameless victims of circumstances!" which is exactly what you keep doubling down on....I think it can be safely said that your reading of the movie is...flawed.
    The whole logic of giving a villain a sympathetic motivation or origin is to get the reader to identify with the villain in some way. Otherwise, they could have just started HOMECOMING with Vulture eating babies and doing that throughout. Emotionally, you are meant to relate to the Vulture. If all you get out of that is that Vulture is still some black hat guy then Sony/Marvel have wasted their time giving sympathetic motivations, which might well be true and valid since these stories never carry that forward and give actual payoff for that.

    We'll never know, will we? You're talking about the what ifs of a world that doesn't exist.
    By doing so, I am highlighting the contingent and external elements that go into it. There's stuff on screen that doesn't really exist for story reasons or makes sense in terms of characterization. This is true for any movie.

    Adrian and Beck both had bad breaks happen to them. Tony was either directly or indirectly responsible for those bad breaks. But he wasn't aware of the impact they might have.
    As Linkara said in another context, "It doesn't matter if you intended on it or not, it happened! Crying out "you didn't mean to" is irrelevant. You did it—and you keep doing it!"

    The difference being that Spider-Man is actually out using his power to protect innocents while Jameson is using his wealth and position to pursue a personal vendetta.
    That's how it looks to readers with privileged access to Spider-Man's thoughts, but it doesn't necessarily look that way to someone on the outside. I am sure that a lot of people would have legit issues with Spider-Man being an unauthorized creepy vigilante who treats the city as his personal jungle-gym, and people have to spend every day hoping he doesn't have a breakdown and kill people. I mean small children find him creepy on account of the whole spiders thing as Tom Taylor's FNSM#1 proved. IN the MCU for instance, Jameson would be right about Spider-Man being a menace. This is a guy who defaced a national monument in the first movie and nearly killed an entire ferry's worth of passengers.

    Jameson has been softened as time has gone on. He eventually became a curmudgeonly but basically good thorn in Spidey's side. But that was not the case for a long time.
    Even in the Lee-Ditko era, Jameson is shown having a kind side. Read the first issues of ASM where Jameson initially is quite nice to Peter and even praises his photography, that changes when Peter becomes tardy and doesn't deliver and so on. As readers, you weren't ever intended to see Jameson as a bad guy or a bad person. Certainly not Stan Lee.

    You're missing what Slott is actually saying in this issue.
    Maybe I am missing what Slott later explained online was his intent. Not the first time he miscommunicated or failed to execute his actual story plot. In the actual comic, Spider-Man decided to sue Jameson in court, She-Hulk represented him and he didn't put a good case or cover his base and instead gets a cheap gag of trying to accuse Jameson of being a racist. I personally thought that gag was cheap, I mean after all Spider-Man's girlfriend Gwen Stacy worked for an actual white supremacist and yet Peter always thinks Gwendy was a great person, whereas Jameson has consistently supported civil rights and also mutant rights. "I believe everyone's equal...except that menace Spider-Man, we must burn him on the stake, but we must never fall into mob mentality and persecute minorities...but we must support human rights for everyone...except Spider-Man, he's not human". That's kind of who Jameson is and certainly how Lee saw him. And also Bendis, and Zdarsky, and Roger Stern. You know the better Spider-Man writers.

    Slott isn't saying that Jonah is innocent, he's saying he did wrong but he's going to get off anyway because, well, that's what people like Jonah pay their lawyers for.
    That kind of story works against a character like Kingpin but not Jameson. In the actual story, Spider-Man just doesn't have a good case against Jameson. The stuff about Spider-Man being responsible for Venom and Carnage would be true and valid in the eyes of anyone who has lost family to them...and it's a valid defense any lawyer would use. At the end of the day, Spider-Man caused more people to die by bringing that symbiote costume from Battleworld than Jameson ever did with his shenanigans...if I was Jameson's lawyer, that's what I would think. And look, Peter had a good lawyer on his side...Jennifer Walters. He still didn't have a good counter to that.

  6. #66
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    spoilers:
    Yeah this was REALLY good:

    -Tom Holland continues to be great he's just so freaking likeable.

    -Mysterio was great and Jake Gyllenhaal gave a great performance. MCU Spidey films are 2 for 2 when it comes to effective villains so far.

    -The rest of the cast was solid. Especially Zendaya, I loved her and Tom's dynamic. If I didn't already know that these two were super-close IRL (be it romantic or not), I'd still believe it just by seeing them here because they play off of each other so well. Also Happy Hogan was fun here as well.

    -The action and Mysterio scenes were great.

    -Really great to see JK Simmons back, and that he seems to be playing a different kind of JJJ than he did in the Raimi films.

    -The idea of Peter's secret ID being public, at least temporarily, is potentially interesting. And I assume the Nick Fury/Maria Hill thing is set up for Captain Marvel 2 probably.

    -Etc.

    Yeah this was awesome.
    end of spoilers

  7. #67
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    Quote Originally Posted by Revolutionary_Jack View Post
    The whole logic of giving a villain a sympathetic motivation or origin is to get the reader to identify with the villain in some way. Otherwise, they could have just started HOMECOMING with Vulture eating babies and doing that throughout.
    You know that a character doesn't have to be pure evil to be considered a villain, right?

    Most villains do actually have a level of sympathy to them.

    That doesn't mean we're supposed to feel that they're justified in their actions, only that we have an understanding of their motives.

    Quote Originally Posted by Revolutionary_Jack View Post
    Emotionally, you are meant to relate to the Vulture. If all you get out of that is that Vulture is still some black hat guy then Sony/Marvel have wasted their time giving sympathetic motivations, which might well be true and valid since these stories never carry that forward and give actual payoff for that.
    Again, understanding why the Vulture was driven to crime and believing he was right to do so are two different things.

    All kinds of people suffer setbacks in life. All kinds of people feel like they got a raw deal. It doesn't mean they were then entitled to become criminals.

    The Vulture is not pure evil. But he is, certainly, a bad guy who made his own choices in life.

    Quote Originally Posted by Revolutionary_Jack View Post
    By doing so, I am highlighting the contingent and external elements that go into it. There's stuff on screen that doesn't really exist for story reasons or makes sense in terms of characterization. This is true for any movie.
    You're highlighting nothing. You're making assumptions about a situation that never existed.

    Anyone's guess as to what might have been had Iron Man not been the first movie in the MCU is empty speculation.

    For all we know, had IM not been first out of the gate, the whole thing might have collapsed early on. Who knows? Nobody.

    Quote Originally Posted by Revolutionary_Jack View Post
    As Linkara said in another context, "It doesn't matter if you intended on it or not, it happened! Crying out "you didn't mean to" is irrelevant. You did it—and you keep doing it!"
    Again, Adrian and Beck can't blame Tony for their actions.

    If you feel that someone wronged you, it's not a free pass for you to get back at society any way you see fit.

    Quote Originally Posted by Revolutionary_Jack View Post
    That's how it looks to readers with privileged access to Spider-Man's thoughts, but it doesn't necessarily look that way to someone on the outside.
    There is no one on the outside. We're all privileged readers. This is a work of fiction. These aren't real people.

    Quote Originally Posted by Revolutionary_Jack View Post
    I am sure that a lot of people would have legit issues with Spider-Man being an unauthorized creepy vigilante who treats the city as his personal jungle-gym, and people have to spend every day hoping he doesn't have a breakdown and kill people.
    If Spider-Man was real, I'm sure lot of people would have legit issues with him.

    But he isn't. No one in the Marvel Universe actually exists to have feelings about anything.

    All we know is what's on the page and what's been purposefully put there by the creators.

    We don't have to imagine about people spending every day hoping Spider-Man doesn't have a breakdown and kill people. No such people exists unless there is a story that is told from their specific perspective.

    Quote Originally Posted by Revolutionary_Jack View Post
    IN the MCU for instance, Jameson would be right about Spider-Man being a menace. This is a guy who defaced a national monument in the first movie and nearly killed an entire ferry's worth of passengers.
    In the MCU, Jameson would certainly be able to raise valid points against Spider-Man. I expect we'll see that happen in the next movie.

    Quote Originally Posted by Revolutionary_Jack View Post
    Even in the Lee-Ditko era, Jameson is shown having a kind side. Read the first issues of ASM where Jameson initially is quite nice to Peter and even praises his photography, that changes when Peter becomes tardy and doesn't deliver and so on. As readers, you weren't ever intended to see Jameson as a bad guy or a bad person. Certainly not Stan Lee.
    We weren't intended to see Jameson as irredeemably bad but we were supposed to see him as jealous, petty, and small-minded. He had his moments of generosity and decency but his irrational hatred of Spider-Man typically brought out the worst in him.

    Quote Originally Posted by Revolutionary_Jack View Post
    Maybe I am missing what Slott later explained online was his intent. Not the first time he miscommunicated or failed to execute his actual story plot.
    Or he communicated it just fine, you just failed to understand it.

    That also seems believable to me.

    Quote Originally Posted by Revolutionary_Jack View Post
    In the actual comic, Spider-Man decided to sue Jameson in court, She-Hulk represented him and he didn't put a good case or cover his base and instead gets a cheap gag of trying to accuse Jameson of being a racist. I personally thought that gag was cheap, I mean after all Spider-Man's girlfriend Gwen Stacy worked for an actual white supremacist and yet Peter always thinks Gwendy was a great person, whereas Jameson has consistently supported civil rights and also mutant rights. "I believe everyone's equal...except that menace Spider-Man, we must burn him on the stake, but we must never fall into mob mentality and persecute minorities...but we must support human rights for everyone...except Spider-Man, he's not human". That's kind of who Jameson is and certainly how Lee saw him. And also Bendis, and Zdarsky, and Roger Stern. You know the better Spider-Man writers.
    The fact that Jameson isn't a bigot doesn't make him a saint. He consistently used his position and wealth to bully Spider-Man and turn public opinion against him - when he wasn't actually trying to find ways to physically attack him.

    As for Gwen working for a white supremacist, it's not as though Gwen knew that about Bullit going in. She was oblivious about that side of him. Also, she was grieving the death of her father - who, for all she knew, Spider-Man had murdered. It's not like she was in a great place, emotionally.

    Quote Originally Posted by Revolutionary_Jack View Post
    That kind of story works against a character like Kingpin but not Jameson. In the actual story, Spider-Man just doesn't have a good case against Jameson. The stuff about Spider-Man being responsible for Venom and Carnage would be true and valid in the eyes of anyone who has lost family to them...and it's a valid defense any lawyer would use. At the end of the day, Spider-Man caused more people to die by bringing that symbiote costume from Battleworld than Jameson ever did with his shenanigans...if I was Jameson's lawyer, that's what I would think. And look, Peter had a good lawyer on his side...Jennifer Walters. He still didn't have a good counter to that.
    This is just a ridiculous angle - you're trying to say that Peter was responsible for the unforeseen outcome of bringing the symbiote to Earth, even though he had no reason to think it was a danger and could have never anticipated the long range damage that it would cause - to both himself and others. But Jameson - who intentionally worked to put dangerous, lawless individuals into society for the sole purpose of hunting down and attacking (potentially killing) someone that he had a personal vendetta against - bears little, if any, responsibility for his actions. Within the stories, he admits that he isn't even doing the wrong thing for the right reasons - he's just being a hateful a**hole. And it's just for the fact that his plans keep screwing up that he never succeeds against Spider-Man.

    Bottom line, trying to take the position that villains like Vulture and Mysterio are nothing but helpless victims of Tony Stark's careless ways and that Tony is the real monster here and that, in the comics, JJJ is just a good guy at heart with just a tiny blind spot when it comes to Spider-Man and, really, Peter bears some of the blame for things that Jonah's done because he goaded him at times, is all just silly. It's just taking an argumentative stance for its own sake.

  8. #68
    Astonishing Member kingaliencracker's Avatar
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    I'm going to agree with the minority here and say that I thought it was just okay. For me, the Raimi films (well, the first two anyway) reign supreme as the definitive film version of Peter Parker/Spider-Man. While they certainly weren't perfect adaptations, I thought they captured the true essence of what makes Spider-Man great - an epic story contained within Peter's own universe of characters and relevance.

    The Webb films were just too inconsistent, the only saving grace being the chemistry between Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone.

    With the MCU version, it's not even the hero worship of Tony Stark that bothers me as much as the fact that the villains of the films - Vulture and Mysterio - are really seeking revenge on Tony Stark, with Spider-Man just getting in the way. It just doesn't feel right to me even in the context of the MCU. I also thought a large group of former Stark Industries employees going along with the deaths of several innocent people as well as the destruction of London was...morbid and not very well explained. As much as I hate being that guy, I'd rather Mysterio have been a disgraced former special effects guru seeking revenge on Spider-Man, and everything taking place in New York.

    Having said that, the performances were top-notch and I loved the way Mysterio used the holograms to toy with Peter's sense of reality, as he does in the comics.

    Overall, I'd give it a B-. Not the worst Spider-Man movie but I was expecting a lot more.

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    CURSES!!! For once, I hoped to see a Spider-Man's version without J Jonah Jameson in his life!

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    Quote Originally Posted by Ursalink View Post
    CURSES!!! For once, I hoped to see a Spider-Man's version without J Jonah Jameson in his life!
    Um...why? Isn't he integral to Spider-Man?

  11. #71
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    Quote Originally Posted by Prof. Warren View Post
    This is just a ridiculous angle - you're trying to say that Peter was responsible for the unforeseen outcome of bringing the symbiote to Earth,
    He brought a technology he didn't understand, knew nothing about, from an alien piece of technology to Earth. He should have had some degree of skepticism as a scientist about how that worked and so on, whether it was too good to be true. In Peter's defense, when the suit acted up he went to the Fantastic Four and tried to fix it, so that's to his credit, and of course the suit proved more survivable than he anticipated. But still, at the end of the day, he brought Venom and Carnage to Earth. That's on him. The equivalent of that in real-life are inspectors who neglected the stuff that happened at Chernobyl. Nobody intended the Chernobyl incident to happen, but we don't let anyone there off the hook because they didn't intend it.

    But Jameson - who intentionally worked to put dangerous, lawless individuals into society
    Mac Gargan was a private investigator with no criminal record when he started. Jameson had no reason to think he was a bad dude all along. It's part of the irony that the guy Jameson thought was decent turned out bad, whereas Frederick Foswell, the reporter-turned-gangster got a second chance and ultimately turned out to be decent.

    JJJ is just a good guy at heart with just a tiny blind spot when it comes to Spider-Man and, really, Peter bears some of the blame for things that Jonah's done because he goaded him at times, is all just silly.
    No it isn't. Jameson exists to remind Spider-Man and the readers that it's not entirely abouxt Peter. He's the embodiment of Peter's bad conscience. Because at the end of the day, whether it's the stopped clock being right or because of underlying themes, there was a time in his life where Peter was the self-centered, glory-seeking, selfish menace that Jameson accused him of being...he was that guy on the night he let the Burglar go. Chip Zdarsky's My Dinner with Jonah brought that up. Jameson said that he actually saw Spider-Man in his days as a TV performer and was in the audience and that's why he always believed Spider-Man is a fraud. Of course that story is weakened because Zdarsky neglected or forgot that Peter was partially responsible for the Spider-Slayers so Spider-Man's response about Jameson creating the Spider-Slayers feels wasted. On a literal level, Jameson seems unfair. On a deeper level, Jameson is there to remind Spider-Man of the person he well could have been and ensures that Spider-Man will always have to prove himself better. On an actual plot level, you can't feel bad for Jameson because he makes the books interesting. He ensures that Spider-Man never gets comfortable with victory.

    Jameson isn't a bad guy or a villain. Trying to say otherwise is a case of someone fatally misreading the character and story, and the intent of several of Spider-Man's best writers. It also creates a much more shallow and childish story than the one that exists.

    It's just taking an argumentative stance for its own sake.
    This thing started because I had issues with framing Jameson as Alex Jones because of what Alex Jones represents. I feel it's a silly, clickbaity and reductionist approach taken by the MCU in treating a very complex and nuanced character. You responded with Jameson creating supervillains, so I would say you are being argumentative because again Jameson creating supervillains (and actually just Scorpion, so its supervillain singular, since Peter helped him with the Spider-Slayers) is secondary to him being presented as Alex Jones. Within the Marvel Universe, Jameson is a good competent journalist/editor. Alex Jones has never been that. Jameson did a lot of good in his early life before Spider-Man arrived and so on and it's because of that many characters in-universe like May and Gwen and others believe in his editorialized view that Spider-Man is a menace. Bendis himself showed that side of Jameson in The Pulse and his Jessica Jones series and also in USM. Jameson is a decent, capable, and conscientious journalist who just has this huge blind spot.
    Last edited by Revolutionary_Jack; 07-04-2019 at 10:43 PM.

  12. #72
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    Quote Originally Posted by Revolutionary_Jack View Post
    He brought a technology he didn't understand, knew nothing about, from an alien piece of technology to Earth. He should have had some degree of skepticism as a scientist about how that worked and so on, whether it was too good to be true. In Peter's defense, when the suit acted up he went to the Fantastic Four and tried to fix it, so that's to his credit, and of course the suit proved more survivable than he anticipated. But still, at the end of the day, he brought Venom and Carnage to Earth. That's on him. The equivalent of that in real-life are inspectors who neglected the stuff that happened at Chernobyl. Nobody intended the Chernobyl incident to happen, but we don't let anyone there off the hook because they didn't intend it.
    FFS, the lengths you want to go to to paint a hero as a bad guy are fu*king laughable.

    Peter bringing the symbiote to Earth is on the level of nuclear inspectors in Chernobyl, whose actual job it was to keep an eye on safety? Really? That's an opinion you want to go with?

    First, in real world terms, Marvel wanted Peter to have a cool new suit. The symboite was the in-story vehicle to make that happen.

    It was only later that other story possibilities presented itself with the suit. Where things later went with Venom and Carnage, was not something that was planned when Secret Wars was being written. So no writer could have given Peter reason to be so cautious about the symbiote at the time. It's not like it was an actual thing that was dangerous, it was only later that writers thought to take it in that direction.

    That's quite a bit different than nuclear inspectors in the real world inspecting an actual nuclear power plant and not doing an adequate job.

    Quote Originally Posted by Revolutionary_Jack View Post
    Mac Gargan was a private investigator with no criminal record when he started. Jameson had no reason to think he was a bad dude all along. It's part of the irony that the guy Jameson thought was decent turned out bad, whereas Frederick Foswell, the reporter-turned-gangster got a second chance and ultimately turned out to be decent.
    Whether Gargan was a sh*t or a prince, Jameson had no business making him into the Scorpion. Especially by means of a method that Jameson is warned is dangerous and could have unpredictable results.

    Quote Originally Posted by Revolutionary_Jack View Post
    No it isn't. Jameson exists to remind Spider-Man and the readers that it's not entirely abouxt Peter. He's the embodiment of Peter's bad conscience. Because at the end of the day, whether it's the stopped clock being right or because of underlying themes, there was a time in his life where Peter was the self-centered, glory-seeking, selfish menace that Jameson accused him of being...he was that guy on the night he let the Burglar go. Chip Zdarsky's My Dinner with Jonah brought that up. Jameson said that he actually saw Spider-Man in his days as a TV performer and was in the audience and that's why he always believed Spider-Man is a fraud. Of course that story is weakened because Zdarsky neglected or forgot that Peter was partially responsible for the Spider-Slayers so Spider-Man's response about Jameson creating the Spider-Slayers feels wasted. On a literal level, Jameson seems unfair. On a deeper level, Jameson is there to remind Spider-Man of the person he well could have been and ensures that Spider-Man will always have to prove himself better. On an actual plot level, you can't feel bad for Jameson because he makes the books interesting. He ensures that Spider-Man never gets comfortable with victory.
    Peter wasn't partially responsible for the Spider-Slayers. If you want to hang on to that idea, go ahead. But it's flat out wrong.

    Just to be clear - because someone is goaded doesn't permit them to commit a criminal act. It does not absolve them of wrongdoing.

    Jonah is a grown man. If he can be so easily goaded into a crime by a smart alack teenager, what does that say about him?

    Quote Originally Posted by Revolutionary_Jack View Post
    Jameson isn't a bad guy or a villain. Trying to say otherwise is a case of someone fatally misreading the character and story, and the intent of several of Spider-Man's best writers. It also creates a much more shallow and childish story than the one that exists.
    Jonah is a complex character. No one is saying he isn't. But it'd be wrong to completely ignore the fact that he's served an antagonistic role at many times over the years and that he has, on more than a few occasions, been the bad guy.

    Quote Originally Posted by Revolutionary_Jack View Post
    This thing started because I had issues with framing Jameson as Alex Jones because of what Alex Jones represents. I feel it's a silly, clickbaity and reductionist approach taken by the MCU in treating a very complex and nuanced character.
    If anybody thinks that's the actual approach that anyone at Marvel is taking towards Jonah in the new movies, they're crazy.

    JJJ is not, in any way, going to be an Alex Jones type. He just isn't. It's ridiculous on anyone's part to think that he would be.

    We've seen him for, what, about ten seconds tops at this point? And he's reacting to a very convincing video that paints a very bad picture of Spider-Man.

    You don't have to be a crackpot conspiracy theorist to buy what Mysterio's selling so there's no reason to see Jonah in a bad light.

    I expect that we'll see Jonah come to his senses once the truth is revealed. After all, that's exactly what happened in the comics when Mysterio came on to the scene as a good guy and Jonah got behind him 100% and backed his efforts to run Spider-Man out of town only to have egg on his face by the end of it.

    Quote Originally Posted by Revolutionary_Jack View Post
    You responded with Jameson creating supervillains, so I would say you are being argumentative because again Jameson creating supervillains (and actually just Scorpion, so its supervillain singular, since Peter helped him with the Spider-Slayers) is secondary to him being presented as Alex Jones. Within the Marvel Universe, Jameson is a good competent journalist/editor. Alex Jones has never been that. Jameson did a lot of good in his early life before Spider-Man arrived and so on and it's because of that many characters in-universe like May and Gwen and others believe in his editorialized view that Spider-Man is a menace. Bendis himself showed that side of Jameson in The Pulse and his Jessica Jones series and also in USM. Jameson is a decent, capable, and conscientious journalist who just has this huge blind spot.
    The fact that you are so eager to completely whitewash and gloss over any misstep that Jonah has taken in the comics over the years - and he's taken a few - while bending over backwards to paint actual heroes as bad guys is, well, just frankly weird. There's really nothing more to say about it. Jonah's done his share of good, yes, and his characterization has been softened over the years but to simply try and paint him as a white knight of journalism without acknowledging his numerous missteps and serious character flaws would be wrong.

    But just to make it clear, Jameson is not going to be an Alex Jones type in the new movies. No one has to worry about that.

    And if anyone says, "well, you don't know that for sure!" I would say, yes, anyone with a brain does know that. No one at Marvel thinks it's a great idea to model JJJ after one of the most reviled figures in modern journalism. This is what's called common sense. JK Simmons is not going to come back to reprise this character with the thought that, well, he's going to be pure garbage now.

    So, just to reiterate, Jonah is not an Alex Jones type. Not in the movies, not in the comics, not any place.

  13. #73
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    I am quite disappointed that MCU intends to convince people that Peter will be the next iron man. There is a scene in the movie where Happy thought of iron man when he saw Peter and so did the audiences. It makes me uncomfortable cause I believe that making spider-man behave like iron man is definitely murdering the character. Spider-Man is just Spider-Man.

    I really hope that there is nothing related to iron man any more in the next spider-man movie and Uncle Ben can be mentioned.

  14. #74
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    Quote Originally Posted by FeliciaSpidey View Post
    I am quite disappointed that MCU intends to convince people that Peter will be the next iron man. There is a scene in the movie where Happy thought of iron man when he saw Peter and so did the audiences. It makes me uncomfortable cause I believe that making spider-man behave like iron man is definitely murdering the character. Spider-Man is just Spider-Man.

    I really hope that there is nothing related to iron man any more in the next spider-man movie and Uncle Ben can be mentioned.
    I feel that they are getting away from that though. Happy specifically told Peter, "You aren't Iron Man" I believe that at the end we truly saw Peter step up to become his own hero and not Iron Man.
    AKA FlashFreak
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    DC: The Flash (Jay & Wally), Starman- Jack Knight, Stargirl, & Shazam!.
    MARVEL: Daredevil, Spider-Man (Peter Parker), & Doctor Strange.

    Current Pulls: Not a thing!

  15. #75
    I'm at least a C-Lister! exile001's Avatar
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    MYSTERIO WAS GODDAMNED AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I went to see a movie in which Mysterio was properly portrayed, and that is exactly what I got.

    I have a real affinity for a villain that's just... Well, kinda lame. Like, all the pieces are there for a truly great villain, but something just misses the mark and he becomes a joke (or just a D-list recurring nobody). This has, for years, been the case with Mysterio, and I love him all the more for it. My first exposure to him was the Spider-man cartoon in the 90's, and my brain was just like "what the hell is that costume and voice and why is he now my favourite character in this show?!?"

    The guy looks ludicrous, but in all the right ways. His motivations are pretty weak, but he just keeps doing his thing anyway. His threat level is mid-lower level, but he tries again and again never getting close to succeeding (with one or two exceptions, maybe). In short, Mysterio has always been one of my "guys", and I'll buy any comics with him in.

    It takes something special, like Guardian Devil, for all that potential to finally be realised... and EVEN THEN the point is made that he can't beat his arch-foe so attacks Daredevil (pretending like they are arch-foes), that his plan was done-to-death and, if not for Kingpin, wouldn't have even got off the ground. It was beautiful. Also, it gave me one of my favourite comic covers of all time! I'm not sure if this was the idea, but I swear he is giving a double-thumbs up and would have a big goofy grin if we could see his face.

    1710597-daredevil__1998__2nd_series__07.jpg

    The one thing I was worried about from the trailers was that in the movie, Mysterio would have powers but be faking the Elementals. I jumped for joy inside when it was revealed that EVERYTHING was fake! THAT is true Mysterio right there!

    Say what you will about this iteration of Spider-man, but the villains are among the best in ANY superhero movie. And Mysterio if fricking awesome!

    Also, Flash reading online about Morrie Bench and his origin when the fake Water Elemental appeared was hilarious!
    "Has Sariel summoned you here, Azrael? Have you come to witness the miracle of your brethren arriving on Earth?"

    "I WILL MIX THE ASHES OF YOUR BONES WITH SALT AND USE THEM TO ENSURE THE EARTH THE TEMPLARS TILLED NEVER BEARS FRUIT AGAIN!"

    "*sigh* I hoped it was for the miracle."

    Dan Watters' Azrael was incredible, a constant delight and perhaps too good for this world (but not the Forth). For the love of St. Dumas, DC, give us more!!!

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