Is there any way Wells can turn the negative fan reception around?

[PCN24454]

Nobody wrote Aunt May and Mary Jane better than JMS. Nobody. I really miss the voice JMS gave Peter, May and MJ. That was JMS' strongest strength of his run on TASM.

Not Bendis, not DeMatteis, not literally anyone else?

[PCN24454]

I severely doubt that in a world where Spencer leaves Harry alone, BND is somehow more liked.



By the way, if MJ is that much like Peter, that's further proof that they're perfectly compatible.

Being the same doesn’t make someone more compatible; just redundant. It means that she doesn’t add any value to Peter’s life like this. That’s why JMS MJ and Aunt May have such weak characterization. They’re just sounding boards for Peter.

[TinkerSpider]

No that was Spencer when he made Harry evil again.

How the what now?

How did that hurt BND? If anything, it would make people think more fondly about it because they miss that Harry.

Are you sure you’ve read the comics?

Being the same doesn’t make someone more compatible; just redundant. It means that she doesn’t add any value to Peter’s life like this. That’s why JMS MJ and Aunt May have such weak characterization. They’re just sounding boards for Peter.

The Aunt May and MJ scene is right here on the page for easy reading. Give it a try. Because you couldn’t be further off the mark.

[PCN24454]

How the what now?

How did that hurt BND? If anything, it would make people think more fondly about it because they miss that Harry.

Are you sure you’ve read the comics?

It’s one of the things that made the comics meaningless. Harry was finally able to break away from his father and not perpetuate the cycle of abuse that he was headed down.

Instead, he turns into a demon. It’s basically “Peter’s parents are robots” again.

[TinkerSpider]

It’s one of the things that made the comics meaningless. Harry was finally able to break away from his father and not perpetuate the cycle of abuse that he was headed down.

That doesn’t hurt BND. It would hurt Spencer if that’s how people feel.

And BND destroyed JMD’s Death of Harry story, which is an actual classic and did show Harry breaking the cycle. So from that POV, Spencer only set the story straight again.

Harry didn’t turn into a demon. Harry, before he reformed and repented - and was actually responsible for the robot parents - also created the AI. The AI is your “demon.” But Harry died a hero in JMD’s story, always did. And the BND Harry - who from one POV never should have existed - died a clone.

Spencer’s story isn’t my favorite - it was obviously a last minute swerve for some reason - but it didn’t hurt the character of the original Harry. In fact, it gave him back his heroic death.

[Batman Begins 2005]

Not Bendis, not DeMatteis, not literally anyone else?

Good names but I still prefer JMS.

[charliehustle415]

And you need to remember every one of us was a "young reader" once, and not every one of us was raised on a man baby like you were. I was a kid when Peter stopped being a bachelor, and was all the better for it.



This book didn't attract younger readers. The sales demonstrate so.

You can speak to your own experiences with the books, but you cannot speak for your generation. They didn't care then, and they sure as hell don't care now.

I cannot, but you can? Okay sure.

It's interesting that the same 3-4 posters are adamant that no one likes Brand New Day, I can't have a good faith discussion when a discussion cannot be had.

Enjoy the echo chamber.

[Zeitgeist]

You say that and yet you argue the case for the 'positive' reviews of the book from shills, so you're just as likely to read more into what you'd like to hear than concede that there's a majority that don't like it.

What makes posters here who've bought the book and stated they enjoyed it "shills"? That's a strange position to have when pre-empting "buy it and see for yourself". If I enjoy it, do I become a shill?

[Matt Rat]

... still doesn't mean I don't think the "Pro-marriage" crowd is right though.

We've been right for 15 years and have been continuously vindicated, and still get what we want, so...

No that was Spencer when he made Harry evil again.

Spencer didn't make Harry 'evil' again

Spencer used Harry's evil AI, which in turn was being operated by Mephisto, the real Harry's soul was being tormented in hell, a victim of his father's dealings with the devil. The post-OMD Harry remained a good guy until his tragic end at the hands of the Kindred, who were the Stacy twins who merely posed as Harry.

Nothing from Harry's arc in BND was invalidated by any of this other than the revelation he wasn't the real Harry. At the end of the story, Harry's soul was liberated from Mephisto and allowed to pass to heaven.

This feels like a false dichotomy because MJ isn’t (or really shouldn’t be) a part of Spider-Man’s plot.

Mephisto broke them up because they will have a daughter that will defeat him. Sounds to me like she is of vital importance to an even bigger story.

Without her, Spider-Man has no plot, as without her, nothing works. Exact lines from Peter's own mouth.

I have seen a lot of new readers who disagree.

I've also talked with readers who grew up on BND who admit it's aged terribly and they've since gone back and read back issues where Peter was married and they want to go back to that era. So again BND might be passable to an unassuming rookie as an 'introduction entry' into Spider-Man, it is not what ultimately sustains the character in many of their eyes as they age.

[ARkadelphia]

MJ and May have a discussion about the kinds of roles MJ gets. (It's really a meta discussion about MJ's role within the narrative.)

Aunt May? I thought that was Andy Warhol.

[Mister Mets]

It's been made abundantly clear that Marvel needs to find something that works because a sizable portion of the audience isn't happy.

Is it possible to make a significant chunk of the audience consistently happy?

Members of the audience often want different things. The largest happy audience might occur during a brief moment of time when different readers all think they're going to get what they want, although some are bound to be disappointed.

"The Bechdel Test, or Bechdel-Wallace Test, sometimes called the Mo Movie Measure or Bechdel Rule is a simple test which names the following three criteria: (1) it has to have at least two women in it, who (2) who talk to each other, about (3) something besides a man."

That's why the Bechdel Test is so telling - it's so simple, yet so many pieces of media fail it.

(also, I think they prefer flight attendant these days, LOL)

But here, have another JMS scene:

Attachment 128478 Attachment 128479

The most common variation of the Bechdel test is that there should be two named female characters in a story who talk about something other than a name.

It's a bit different in the context of comics where single issues represent a different time frame than a two hour movie. Amazing Spider-Man Volume 2 #38 ("The Conversation") probably doesn't pass the Bechdel test because it's a conversation between two people. The September Eleven issue probably doesn't pass it because it's one big monologue.

[PCN24454]

That doesn’t hurt BND. It would hurt Spencer if that’s how people feel.

And BND destroyed JMD’s Death of Harry story, which is an actual classic and did show Harry breaking the cycle. So from that POV, Spencer only set the story straight again.

Harry didn’t turn into a demon. Harry, before he reformed and repented - and was actually responsible for the robot parents - also created the AI. The AI is your “demon.” But Harry died a hero in JMD’s story, always did. And the BND Harry - who from one POV never should have existed - died a clone.

Spencer’s story isn’t my favorite - it was obviously a last minute swerve for some reason - but it didn’t hurt the character of the original Harry. In fact, it gave him back his heroic death.

The fact that Harry died at the end of that story is proof that Harry didn’t break anything but himself. It didn’t accomplish anything. That’s why I’m not bothered to see it go. It was just weak last minute redemption.

[KC]

There are obviously new readers who started with BND and enjoyed it, but if it were true that it brought in a lot of new readers like Quesada wanted, we would have seen BND age better as time went on. It's been 15 years and it hasn't.

If anything, Wells' run has retroactively hurt that era and vision even more.

It hasn't aged well in your opinion, but there is no evidence of that statement being objectively true, or whether BND brought in a lot of new readers or not TBH.

[KC]

I've also talked with readers who grew up on BND who admit it's aged terribly and they've since gone back and read back issues where Peter was married and they want to go back to that era. So again BND might be passable to an unassuming rookie as an 'introduction entry' into Spider-Man, it is not what ultimately sustains the character in many of their eyes as they age.

And I have spoken to a lot of new readers with the complete opposite perspective, who prefer BND and an unmarried Peter. It is ultimately a YMMV thing and there are many people who are far from "unassuming rookies" who feel that BND sustains the character fine, just like the other way around. YMMV, many fans are of either opinion.

[Kevinroc]

Is it possible to make a significant chunk of the audience consistently happy?

Members of the audience often want different things. The largest happy audience might occur during a brief moment of time when different readers all think they're going to get what they want, although some are bound to be disappointed.

I don't think brushing aside fan backlash by saying that the entire audience will never be happy is the right way to look at what's happening. Isn't it also possible that Wells just made a mistake with his run? Wells is also human, and just as capable of error as everyone else.