Spot on. I think it was in the back of the Alpha 2099 one-shot (or perhaps an interview) that the big reason for revisiting 2099 as a whole (apart from being 80 years away/anniversary thing) is that the world created was based on creators ideas of a possible future and that some of the technology is outdated. I think they compared it to The Jetsons in that we still haven't got flying cars or jetpacks. So they definitely feel they are "updating" certain concepts such as technology etc.
The original Spider-Man 2099 and Doom 2099 were definitely the best of the original bunch. They were both must haves for me back when they were ongoing. Miguel is probably my favorite Spider-Man other than Pete. The way he got his powers is different, he's got interesting variations from Peter in both powers and character, and it helps that Peter David was the original creator.
Last edited by Somecrazyaussie; 12-07-2019 at 04:42 AM.
You never know, with advances in science and medicine, there might be quite a few more centenarians around that time then now. There's definitely going to be some fans who read Spider-Man 2099 as kids who live out to see 2099. There will be op-eds about how the "year 3000" turned out to be different from how people saw it.
To be honest, if a year 3000 transpires and it's still relatively status-quo to today then that's pretty optimistic since it implies that the climate crisis, one way or another would be solved by then. On the other hand, if Marvel still publishes Spider-Man comics by then, it also means that the characters would not have fallen into public domain by then, which is a big defeat for consumer and anti-trust laws. Spider-Man is now run by Disney which is unusually cunning in subverting and extending laws to keep their IP from falling into public domain. Who knows maybe public domain is annulled by then?
I think Spider-Girl makes the best sense as a future because it's not tied to any particular decade or aesthetic. It's just 20-25 years plus from Spider-Man's current status-quo.I think Marvel is trying to have its cake and eat it here. With multiple futures now in play, they can switch to this one, but have the others out there "just in case."
2099 just never really felt like Marvel 616 in the future to me. Even back then in the '90s. I have nothing against Spider-Man 2099 and Doom 2099 it's just that reading those stories I never really felt that was continuous to the Marvel Universe in any sense. It just felt so different and alien and remote, even in the case of Doom 2099 where the conceit was that the Doom in that story is in fact 616 Prime Doom in the future, only now society has gotten so warped and out of control, that Doctor Doom is a legit good guy and un-ironic hero to the masses. Warren Ellis wrote the hell out of that and ran with the idea of Doom as a revolutionary. Whereas Spider-Girl really did feel continuous to 616. Mostly because, we saw the actual 616 characters there and their actions having an effect.
Oops yeah. You are right. My bad. For some reason I thought 2099 was actually 2999 and missed the zero there.
It's funny 901 years is about the distance between our time and say late-medieval Arthurian legends, the Arabian Nights, and other Chivalric stuff. It's also the distance between us and the time the Norse Myth was first put down in books.I'm not sure why people in the year 3000 would be looking back 901 years to see how how the year 3000 differed from their expectations.
So 901 years, maybe Spider-Man and other Marvel heroes and stories will be seen similarly, who knows?
Avoiding political and religious issues like Climate Change and The Book of Revelation and centering on issues like Spider-Man and "Public Domain" I can say Spider-Man ( Pete) will likely be around when the year 2099 happens. Why? Great characters do not die. Hamlet and Sherlock Holmes are still with us over a Century after they were first introduced. Ars far as Public Domain, companies like Disney will likely have the opportunity to use characters even after 75 years ( when books, movies, etc enter the Public Domain). ex: AT&T ( parent company of DC and Warner Bros) is still using Batman and Superman and they came out more then 75 years ago.
-- Billy Batson Captain Marvel was the biggest superhero of the 1940s. He was the star of a highly popular movie serial. He sold more comics than Superman in that time, easily. As such, comics Readers in the 1940s were pretty sure Billy Batson Captain Marvel would be around forever, that he would be the greatest superhero of all time forever and ever. Today he's a marginal character. Sure he had a successful movie this year but it didn't set the world on fire like Joker did.
-- Comics readers in the 1940s and 1950s were also pretty sure that superhero comics were dead and yesterday's news, that EC Comics and other crime and horror comics, as well as humor comics like Little Lulu and Carl Barks' Donald Duck were here to stay. I mean Carl Barks' Uncle Scrooge comics was the biggest selling comics of the 1950s.
The point is, in the words of Yoda, "Always in motion the Force is". We really can't predict the future, what unexpected and sudden thing can happen.
It can well happen that Spider-Man will be some forgotten character by the 2080s and 2090s. Right now it seems unlikely, but again keep in mind that a lot of ubiquitous artifacts of popular culture, of widely successful popular culture can become niche and have become niche.
That's because Disney bullied legislators with Mickey Mouse laws ensure that IPs from 1924 don't enter the public domain:Ars far as Public Domain, companies like Disney will likely have the opportunity to use characters even after 75 years ( when books, movies, etc enter the Public Domain). ex: AT&T ( parent company of DC and Warner Bros) is still using Batman and Superman and they came out more then 75 years ago.
https://priceonomics.com/how-mickey-...public-domain/
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/...public-domain/
It's looking now like Mickey Mouse or at least the Steamboat Willie B+W Mickey will fall into public domain but I expect Disney already working over-time to create a new copyright extension especially since so much more is at stake for them now. In the 2030s, Superman, Batman, Joker, Namor, Captain America, Bucky, Red Skull are set to enter the public domain. In the 2060s, it will be the Lee-Kirby-Ditko that faces that, in the 2070s it will be Star Wars. So basically Disney's current war-chest depends on IP that is set to expire in the living memory of several current fans.
And other studios, given that they also depend on IP and so on will also seek to extend deadlines because WB will not want Superman and Batman and Wonder Woman out of their hands, nor will they want LOTR to enter the public domain as will happen in the 2030s and 2040s (actually they might want that, since the Tolkien estate has barred them from taking on additional Tolkien stuff like Silmarillion).
Going back to the technology and society issue, we're in the year in which the original Blade Runner was set (2019) and the next year, in less than a month from today, will literally be the same year that the tabletop RPG Cyberpunk 2020 was set --- which will also be the year that its videogame sequel Cyberpunk 2077 debuts. While 2099 might not exactly feel contiguous to the present-day Marvel Universe, given a lot of the more recent developments since the 2099 line's heyday, I can somewhat honestly see future human society going down the path that leads to that point.
According to 2099's original finale, Manifest Destiny, what ended the Heroic Age of the late 20th or early 21st century wasn't some horrific catastrophe --- though that might have played some role in the background --- but instead all-too-human flaws of corruption, distrust, and infighting. In light of events like the Civil Wars, World War Hulk, Dark Reign, the Vs. X-Men storylines, Time Runs Out, and even Secret Empire, all of which took place over the last decade or so in real time, it is a lot more plausible now than it would have been in the 1990s for the superhero community to fall apart in the future thanks to continual internal strife and conflict. In fact, 2099 Alpha indicated that what motivated Doom to take out the superheroes and erase their existence from human memory and history in the new version of 2099 was yet another superhero Civil War, so that's another point for my argument.
On a more societal level, we have amoral, or downright evil, megacorps like Roxxon that can get away with all sorts of atrocities, including selling out the entire planet Earth and human race to Malekith and his forces in exchange for being able to plunder the rest of the Ten Realms for even greater wealth and power, because they control so much of society, culture, and even government and politics already, and 2099 shows that megacorps like that will eventually outright own the world and everyone in it. In a nutshell, 2099 isn't that improbable within the context of the present MU.
The spider is always on the hunt.
They instantly dated it once they slapped 2099 on it. If they had kept it vague, it might have been a bit better. But I am a firm believer that dates shouldn't be used in comics. If something is set in the past, all you need to do is put Years Ago or The Future. Although, Marvel does handle it better than DC does.
I also don't think Marvel had decided whether it was the true future or not. They initially hinted that it was with Doom who, as you said, was presented as the 616 original. Doom had also gone missing in the Fantastic Four book around the same time when everybody though he and Reed had died. But then they turned around and revealed that it wasn't. Then you had Hulk 2099 popping up in the main Hulk book and then when Miguel met Peter.
Spider-girl benefitted because, despite being in the future, it was still close enough to the familiar landscape of the present. Also helped because you could do cameos and whatnot.