All-Star Superman and Brand New Day

[Mister Mets]

In the old board, Stephanie Garrelie had an insightful comment about Brand New Day, and the post One More Day Spider-Man. I wanted to quote it before it gets lost to the ether.

As long as you choose to ignore OMD, BND is a good read. As far as i'm concerned i read it as if we got only the illusion of change since 1985. So no problem.

OMD poses some moral problems that should be adressed later, but no matter how crappy the Joe Q stuff was, or the fact that this EIC made all he could to make a reboot inavoidable during the last 7 years, that change nothing to the quality of the new stories.

You can read Dan Slott's BND as if it was the Marv Wolfman or the Roger Stern Spider-man with 2008 refs. It works.

I liked the marriage, and i even think that it would have been a good thing for Peter & MJ to have kids, but very few writers did write the marriage well. Michelinie, De Matteis, maybe one or two others, but thats all. Most of the writers didn't like the marriage, and you always work better when you like what you're working on.
I'll add to that the fact that the continuity became very problematic after the end of the Michelinie run. We got punisherish Spidey, the death of Aunt May, the Clone saga, the resurection of Norman, and lot of other things that were not good. But the real problem is that around this time, say 1993, too many people became aware of the real identity of Pete. Joe Q made it worse, first with the Spidey/Wolvie MK series and Shield plot ripped off Simonson's Thor run (" i know your secret ID because i'm a spy and thats my work to know stuff like that"), and then with all the "events" that you know. Joe Q Made it worse (on purpose i'ld say), but he didn't start it.
So yes greenlighting stuff like Sin Past, and even more the change he forced on it, Civil War, etc... were manipulation to make the reboot inavoidable.

And he didn't like the marriage. And i & many fans liked the said marriage. And i'm not very happy to see it go away. But i think that it opens doors that were closed, not because the marriage was a bad thing but because most of the writers didn't know what to do with it.
I don't like how the reboot was done. That was silly. That was out of character & didn't made sense on many levels.

But Brand New Day isn't OMD. It's good traditional Spider-Man stories, taking place in the 2008 reality. It is well writen, and well draw. The Jackpot stuff looks like an idioty, but thats the only wrong point, and even that could lead to some good stuff. We'll see.

The sooner Joe Q will resign as EIC, the better it will be for the characters, but even if he was wrong in how he did the reboot, even if he spoiled the characters on purpose to make the reboot a necessity, he was right to do the reboot.
I'll miss the mariage, and hope that MJ will be back as Peter's girlfriend, but Brand New Day is a good Spider-Man storyline, and deserve your attention.

There's one and only one reason to skip Brand New day: The hope that Joe Q will be fired if the sales drop.
Other than that, Brand New Day is the best Amazing Spider-Man story in years.

It reminded me of Grant Morrison's approach to All-Star Superman.

When I introduced the series in an interview online, I suggested that All Star Superman could be read as the adventures of the ‘original’ Pre-Crisis on Infinite Earths Superman, returning after 20 plus years of adventures we never got to see because we were watching John Byrne‘s New Superman on the other channel. If ‘Whatever Happened To The Man of Tomorrow?’ and the Byrne reboot had never happened, where would that guy be now?

This was more to provide a sense, probably limited and ill-considered, of what the tone of the book might be like. I never intended All Star Superman as a direct continuation of the Weisinger or Julius Schwartz-era Superman stories. The idea was always to create another new version of Superman using all my favorite elements of past stories, not something ‘Age’ specific.

I like the idea of the current comics of showing what it would be like if Marvel had always stuck to an illusion of change approach.

[RD!]

I loved the marriage and believed that seeing Peter grow was the core appeal of Spider-Man.
It neeeded a reboot but the marriage could have easily stayed.
However this approach is one I adopt myself. BND is a better read if you pretend it's a new series, not a continuation of AF15 Peter. That doesn't excuse the problems of the BND era though. Big Time is when things improved and the book got better.

[Scott Taylor]

Many writers over the years wrote beautiful Spider-Man stories that happened during the marriage or even relied on the marriage for extra emotional weight. But the fact that the marriage is gone now does not devalue those stories or somehow reduce them. The writers and artists and team that made those stories still get to keep their pride of authorship in spite of OMD or anything else.

That said, some of the worst Spider-Man character decisions were made either because a) an editor wanted to get rid of the marriage or b) because an editor wanted to ruin the character so all of us would welcome a reboot. They should have just, in the words of Elsa, "Let It Go." I think it was kind of obsessive. But its all water under the bridge now.

Maybe one day a brave and talented editor or writer will come back and right the yuck of Civil War and OMD for good. And you know what, afterwards the fans will still enjoy Spider-man stories if they are well-done just as they are doing now. But in the meantime, I am not going to let the past dictate whether or not I read and enjoy the present.

[Doc Ock]

I like the idea of the current comics of showing what it would be like if Marvel had always stuck to an illusion of change approach.

Great food for thought here.

After returning recently to ASM, I read BND all in one chunk - and I thought it was great fun. Not all of it gold, but a pretty good quality. Solid Spider-Man stories that weren't bogged down by the questionable stories of previous years. To me, BND included some of the best single issues, or two part Spidey stories, I had ever read. Then, happily, Big Time reinstated ASM as a truly great title.

I also caught up on OMD, OMIT, etc. Bad stories. Terrible ideas. Pretty insulting.

But I think readers are at liberty to simple ignore those stories. While I love ASM's rich history of stories, I think readers tend to do their own retconning when wading through 50 years of comics.

We don't bear every single ASM issue of the past 50 years in mind when we read. We keep a lot in mind, but not everything - it's not possible.

Furthermore, most readers can understand the comics at a meta-textual level. We are aware when an editorial interference results in a bad story.

So, we are at liberty to simply dismiss the story. That's how I approach OMD. I ignore it.

When I read a new issue, and MJ is involved, I don't think, "Hey, there's MJ, she and Peter made a pact with Mephisto to magically change history and it was out of character, morally questionable, lame and it ruined my childhood."

I think, "There's Peter's ex-wife. A shame they got divorced."

[toddx77]

I didn't mind Brand New Day as a story and thought the writing was pretty good, plus getting 3 issues a month was amazing and didn't hurt. The problem I had with it though was nothing really carried over from the JMS run. I loved the JMS run and everything he did to Peter to make him grow. I loved how Peter became a science teacher at his old high school, I loved how he and MJ got back together, I liked how May learned he was Spider-Man, the biological powers from the other were cool, and the unmasking was something I didn't see coming. So I was really looking forward to seeing all these changes continue into the Brand New Day era post Civil War. So when One More Day just wiped everything away and completely undid the JMS run I was outraged because it was like what was the point of the last 6 years of issues? At first it was hard to remember that this was the same Peter who we saw married, working as a school teacher, and had a known identity just a month ago when part 4 of One More Day came out. I also hated how he was always broke and had the worst luck, even though that was a normal trait back in the say.

[LASERlips]

Many writers over the years wrote beautiful Spider-Man stories that happened during the marriage or even relied on the marriage for extra emotional weight. But the fact that the marriage is gone now does not devalue those stories or somehow reduce them. The writers and artists and team that made those stories still get to keep their pride of authorship in spite of OMD or anything else.

That said, some of the worst Spider-Man character decisions were made either because a) an editor wanted to get rid of the marriage or b) because an editor wanted to ruin the character so all of us would welcome a reboot. They should have just, in the words of Elsa, "Let It Go." I think it was kind of obsessive. But its all water under the bridge now.

Maybe one day a brave and talented editor or writer will come back and right the yuck of Civil War and OMD for good. And you know what, afterwards the fans will still enjoy Spider-man stories if they are well-done just as they are doing now. But in the meantime, I am not going to let the past dictate whether or not I read and enjoy the present.

On the other hand, none of the good stuff that follows actually required Peter to not be married. People were pleased because we got some solid Spider-Man stories again. But Peter's marital status had nothing to do with it. Hell, Carlie was widely hated! It's all so silly, if editorial wanted the marriage gone so bad, they should have just taken an 'everyman' route--like divorce, rather than character assassination.

By the way, BND, OMD, Big Time, Superior, none of these deserve to be uttered in the same sentence/paragraph/thread/essay/thesis as All-Star Superman.

[Scott Taylor]

On the other hand, none of the good stuff that follows actually required Peter to not be married.

I agree. Definitely. Every single one of those stories could have been done with a married Spider-Man, employing minor tweaks. Michelle Gonzales probably wouldn't have happened at all, but I seriously doubt anyone would be worse off for it.