Originally Posted by
Xenon
I had an epiphany a couple of issues ago where the short version was that Shed was really everything we needed to know about Zeb Wells and I think over time that has just proven more true. To be clear, I mean that as a writer, not as a person, sometimes people just have drastically different writing styles and interests than they do as people, and this is neither the time nor place to judge a man. But a writer, well, that's exactly in our wheelhouse.
What I mean by Shed is everything we needed to know is just that Shed is a story that's about the writer making choices. There is no light in Shed. It's the darkest possible outcome of the Lizard story. It's not out of character or "bad", per se, because the Lizard has attempted to do terrible things several times before, he's always just been held off by Spider-Man or just barely by Connors himself. Shed is the story where he loses that battle, and the darkness wins. The only thing the story is missing is Curt's suicide at the end, which is the only realistic outcome to that situation, for the darkness to be complete. It's not a story that's wrong, but it's a choice. It's a choice to indulge in that bleakness and dark world view. The bad guys will win. Love is transactional and temporary. You can never truly conquer your demons. There are whole series where this is the outlook, and some people enjoy them, and that's their right, for sure. But personally I find it completely unenjoyable. But sometimes the darkness has to win. Not every story has a happy ending, and it's valid that this is how the Lizard's story would end. There's a story that people don't refernce much from like the 80s I think where this kid is being chased throughout the city because he has dangerous powers. Spider-Man fights off his attackers and defends the kid, but eventually he fails. The kid is killed and no one cares, because it's a justifiable kill. And yet Peter is just left devastated by the whole affair. Even if justified it still feels wrong and tragic to him, because he has this outlook that he can fix everything and everything can work out. It's not a bad story though. It's just the devil taking his due. So sometimes those stories are ok. But you would hope that a writer has more tricks than just the one, and it's become quite apparent that Wells just doesn't. This run is just the darkness winning over and over. Of course MJ "moves on", love is meaningless and transactional. Of course he lets Tombstone walk away, there is no triumphing over evil. Of course Norman must save him from his sins, the evil is not overcomable by anyone, for it is the strongest thing there is. It's a bad fit for Spidey. And it's repetitiveness has gotten stale.