How would you feel if OMD had more serious consequences for Peter?

[davew128]

There's something really disturbing about that.

What is so disturbing about it. Her surrogate son is about to make a deal with the literal devil which end his marriage and happiness in order to save her life. You can't picture a mother making that call?

[PCN24454]

What is so disturbing about it. Her surrogate son is about to make a deal with the literal devil which end his marriage and happiness in order to save her life. You can't picture a mother making that call?

And the moral thing is to let your mother die when you're the one who got her killed in the first place?

That would just be Peter being selfish.

[Noronha]

And the moral thing is to let your mother die when you're the one who got her killed in the first place?

That would just be Peter being selfish.

Peter’s not the one that got her killed...kingpin was.

[evolutionaryFan]

Peter’s not the one that got her killed...kingpin was.

Reading about Kingpin in OMIT really triggered me... He's a really, really vile character.

[Huntsman Spider]

And the moral thing is to let your mother die when you're the one who got her killed in the first place?

That would just be Peter being selfish.

Peter’s not the one that got her killed...kingpin was.

Kingpin ordered the sniper, yeah, but he wouldn't have had the piece of information he needed to go after Peter's loved ones specifically if Peter hadn't told the world he was Spider-Man at Tony Stark's urging (with some dashes of emotional blackmail) near the beginning of Civil War, the same Tony Stark who then did stuff like imprison violators of the SHRA for life in the Negative Zone with no trial or hearing in court and create a cyborg clone of Thor that went off the rails and killed Bill Foster/Goliath, which was too much for Peter's conscience to endure and forced him to break away from Tony, even if that left him and his loved ones unprotected from all the enemies he'd made over the years.

[Noronha]

Kingpin ordered the sniper, yeah, but he wouldn't have had the piece of information he needed to go after Peter's loved ones specifically if Peter hadn't told the world he was Spider-Man at Tony Stark's urging (with some dashes of emotional blackmail) near the beginning of Civil War, the same Tony Stark who then did stuff like imprison violators of the SHRA for life in the Negative Zone with no trial or hearing in court and create a cyborg clone of Thor that went off the rails and killed Bill Foster/Goliath, which was too much for Peter's conscience to endure and forced him to break away from Tony, even if that left him and his loved ones unprotected from all the enemies he'd made over the years.

Pretty sure that he consulted May and MJ on what to do on both occasions and on both they gave him their blessing.
It wasn't an easy situation, there wasn't an easy solution, the only way he could've prevented putting their lives at risk would've been retiring form being SM and that wasn't an option.

By that line of thought Peter´s responsible for everything bad that happened since he put on the costume as it was his decision to fight crime and make powerful enemies.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

By that line of thought Peter´s responsible for everything bad that happened since he put on the costume as it was his decision to fight crime and make powerful enemies.

It's important to note that when the idea for OMD was concieved, it was done without any idea for CIVIL WAR and the secret identity reveal. The latter was a late-minute addition and improvisation. Matt Singer talks about this in his book on Spider-Man. He interviewed Millar and he said that when he broke down CIVIL WAR Peter's identity reveal wasn't a part of the original idea or up for discussion. Tom Brevoort suggested the idea to Millar pointing out that Spider-Man was going to have a major reboot in a year's time so they could create a new status-quo upset that would be undone very quickly.

So the issue of Peter's guilt i.e. him exposing his identity and that leading to Aunt May's near death, that was never a part of the original story. So in other words, originally the story would have had Aunt May somehow getting shot, then leading immediately to the deal with May bleeding on death's floor. JMS in interviews said (he didn't like breaking up the marriage but he was willing to be a company man and do the story as best as possible) that he felt that one of the many insurmountable weaknesses of the story from a dramatic perspective was that the story had Aunt May shot and then on deathbed for several issues and only then you had OMD. The reason was that Marvel wanted to pad out the story, they wanted a story with Spider-Man in a black suit to serve as a sorta tie-in to Spider-Man 3, and they wanted more issues of lead-time so JMS stretched and padded it out and the result was actually some really great stories that otherwise might not have gotten told (It's ironic that the greatest stories made possible by OMD are the ones right before it -- Back in Black "To Have and to Hold", RAS' 'the Book of Peter').

So dramatically and character-wise, OMD is about nothing**. It was never concieved as a story spinning directly out of decisions and actions made by Peter. The original plot was Aunt May to somehow get shot in a plot contrivance made to directly lead Peter to make the deal. The new version story-wise spins out of the decision of Peter to side with Tony Stark out of personal loyalty, but then to morally side with Steve Rogers but even then Kingpin hadn't appeared in that run at that moment and for him to suddenly be the first-on-the-block to make an example of Spider-Man feels very contrived. We got a great boss fight out of it and the best Spider-Man Kingpin story ever by a country-mile, but that was incidental.

[** Not addressed to you specifically, but generally to the smart-alecks and wiseguys of this thread, don't @me with the Seinfeld references which was also a show about nothing. Spare me the fake sophistication.]

[RJT]

It's important to note that when the idea for OMD was concieved, it was done without any idea for CIVIL WAR and the secret identity reveal. The latter was a late-minute addition and improvisation. Matt Singer talks about this in his book on Spider-Man. He interviewed Millar and he said that when he broke down CIVIL WAR Peter's identity reveal wasn't a part of the original idea or up for discussion. Tom Brevoort suggested the idea to Millar pointing out that Spider-Man was going to have a major reboot in a year's time so they could create a new status-quo upset that would be undone very quickly.

So the issue of Peter's guilt i.e. him exposing his identity and that leading to Aunt May's near death, that was never a part of the original story. So in other words, originally the story would have had Aunt May somehow getting shot, then leading immediately to the deal with May bleeding on death's floor. JMS in interviews said (he didn't like breaking up the marriage but he was willing to be a company man and do the story as best as possible) that he felt that one of the many insurmountable weaknesses of the story from a dramatic perspective was that the story had Aunt May shot and then on deathbed for several issues and only then you had OMD. The reason was that Marvel wanted to pad out the story, they wanted a story with Spider-Man in a black suit to serve as a sorta tie-in to Spider-Man 3, and they wanted more issues of lead-time so JMS stretched and padded it out and the result was actually some really great stories that otherwise might not have gotten told (It's ironic that the greatest stories made possible by OMD are the ones right before it -- Back in Black "To Have and to Hold", RAS' 'the Book of Peter').

So dramatically and character-wise, OMD is about nothing**. It was never concieved as a story spinning directly out of decisions and actions made by Peter. The original plot was Aunt May to somehow get shot in a plot contrivance made to directly lead Peter to make the deal. The new version story-wise spins out of the decision of Peter to side with Tony Stark out of personal loyalty, but then to morally side with Steve Rogers but even then Kingpin hadn't appeared in that run at that moment and for him to suddenly be the first-on-the-block to make an example of Spider-Man feels very contrived. We got a great boss fight out of it and the best Spider-Man Kingpin story ever by a country-mile, but that was incidental.

[** Not addressed to you specifically, but generally to the smart-alecks and wiseguys of this thread, don't @me with the Seinfeld references which was also a show about nothing. Spare me the fake sophistication.]

I don’t think it’s fair ball to say that the events of Civil War being a late addition to the plot changes what is actually in the printed comic book. By that logic, Kraven’s Last Hunt isn’t a Spider-Man story because DeMatteis initially conceived it as a Wonder Man story, then later a Batman story, and even once he had the idea to use it for Spider-Man, Kraven wasn’t originally going to be the villain. So you can’t use behind the scenes “what if’s” to critique the story. Talk about what’s actually in the book, critique that.

[Noronha]

I don’t think it’s fair ball to say that the events of Civil War being a late addition to the plot changes what is actually in the printed comic book. By that logic, Kraven’s Last Hunt isn’t a Spider-Man story because DeMatteis initially conceived it as a Wonder Man story, then later a Batman story, and even once he had the idea to use it for Spider-Man, Kraven wasn’t originally going to be the villain. So you can’t use behind the scenes “what if’s” to critique the story. Talk about what’s actually in the book, critique that.

True, yet by that line of thought I still maintain, it was Kingpin that got her killed not Peter.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

I don’t think it’s fair ball to say that the events of Civil War being a late addition to the plot changes what is actually in the printed comic book.

In the context of the thread, we were talking about Peter's guilt. Posters before were talking about the inciting moment of OMD, Kingpin ordering a hit on Spider-Man after he revealed his identity and then Aunt May getting shot, and many here wonder if Peter's truly to blame for OMD coming out and so on. So in that context bringing up the behind the scenes stuff is important because OMD was a contrivance inserted on top of the existing story not an organic development from the story.

By that logic, Kraven’s Last Hunt isn’t a Spider-Man story because DeMatteis initially conceived it as a Wonder Man story, then later a Batman story, and even once he had the idea to use it for Spider-Man, Kraven wasn’t originally going to be the villain. So you can’t use behind the scenes “what if’s” to critique the story. Talk about what’s actually in the book, critique that.

All stories aren't created equal. This isn't something you can be totally democratic about. A great story like Kraven's Last Hunt doesn't have the same value nor will it be treated as having the same value as a story that isn't great.

OMD is a story that has no internal value with itself, it's not written with the conviction that KLH is, it's not written with the thought and care that Dematteis wrote. It's simply not a good story. A story that's not good can only be explained or understood, if at all, in terms of what the people behind it wanted out of it and how they put it together.

Youe example of KLH simply indicates that under similar contingent circumstances someone could write a great story, but it doesn't prove nor does it claim that OMD has done such a thing.

[Kaitou D. Kid]

Even in the context of the story, I never bought that Peter is fully responsible for what happened to May because they made the decision as a family. Peter initially didn't want to unmask, but MJ and May convinced him to. And even after that, Peter still decided to sneak away last minute until May caught him and more-or-less guilt tripped him into doing it by calling him irresponsible. I'm not saying that Peter isn't culpable and that it's all May/MJ's fault, just that they're all about equally responsible for the fallout.

In fact, I think one of the ways we can immediately tell that OMD wasn't written by JMS is because OMD Peter is all of a sudden back to his younger mentality of blaming himself for everything and MJ at no point comforts him by bringing up that they made the decision as a family. Neither of those sound in character for JMS' Peter and MJ.

[PCN24454]

Even in the context of the story, I never bought that Peter is fully responsible for what happened to May because they made the decision as a family. Peter initially didn't want to unmask, but MJ and May convinced him to. And even after that, Peter still decided to sneak away last minute until May caught him and more-or-less guilt tripped him into doing it by calling him irresponsible. I'm not saying that Peter isn't culpable and that it's all May/MJ's fault, just that they're all about equally responsible for the fallout.

In fact, I think one of the ways we can immediately tell that OMD wasn't written by JMS is because OMD Peter is all of a sudden back to his younger mentality of blaming himself for everything and MJ at no point comforts him by bringing up that they made the decision as a family. Neither of those sound in character for JMS' Peter and MJ.

You sure about that? JMS MJ and May have always just been sounding boards for Peter's ideas with very little character to themselves. Their presence there arguably didn't matter beyond giving Peter a reason to take the deal.

[Kaitou D. Kid]

You sure about that? JMS MJ and May have always just been sounding boards for Peter's ideas with very little character to themselves. Their presence there arguably didn't matter beyond giving Peter a reason to take the deal.

You'll have to be more specific about this, as I don't know what you are referring to.

[Noronha]

You'll have to be more specific about this, as I don't know what you are referring to.

Yeah, I must've read a different run by JMS.
His May had more character development, relevance and overall personality in one issue than the 40 years prior to it.
It took him one issue to do what others seemed incapable of doing (JDM´s ASM #400 not withstanding).

[PCN24454]

Yeah, I must've read a different run by JMS.
His May had more character development, relevance and overall personality in one issue than the 40 years prior to it.
It took him one issue to do what others seemed incapable of doing (JDM´s ASM #400 not withstanding).

That feels more like plot contrivance to me as he couldn't even have Peter be the one to tell her his secret. That shows that the narrative is playing out the story for him.

Suddenly, May's chatting up with the other Avengers and Stark's butler.