Bringing Back a Married Spider-Man - The Official Appeal - The Discord is Live!

[Garlador]

I found this interesting snippet the other day and I don't know where to share it, so I figured a thread about the marriage would probably do:

Attachment 135198

From a Tobey Maguire interview in The Wizard Mega Movie Issue, 2007 (just before Spider-Man 3). Fans were calling on Marvel to dissolve the marriage?! That's the first I've heard of this!

Ah, Wizard Magazine. That brings me back.

Honestly, I wouldn’t put too much stock into Wizard’s claims. They were openly shills for Marvel, with agreements in place to promote certain storylines and agendas. Wizard even had exclusive, in-continuity Spider-Man comics. 2007 was a tough year for them, their former editor-in-chief had just been fired, and they were trying harder than ever to sustain themselves with exclusive interviews and tie-ins. Unfortunately, they folded less than three years later.

In 1997, Wizard was even running articles demanding that Peter and MJ divorce, that Peter needs to be de-aged, and that he should never have a child. It… was quite the stance, and seems almost identical to the Quesada and Brevoort and other interviews they conducted.


Honestly, their entire "How to Fix Spider-Man" article from that era basically panned out completely - "make him poor," "make him single", "bring back Aunt May", "make him feel younger", etc.

Editorial basically followed their advice (or wrote it themselves...) and here we are today with a large portion of fans complaining that they broke the book and characters just to return to and stagnate in the same "glory days" so many were happy to leave behind.

[Digifiend]

Bad news marriage fans. The newspaper strip never stopped having them married, but went into reprints a few years ago. Today Comics Kingdom failed to publish a strip - has it been dropped completely?
The strip's page, which should've been showing today's edition: https://comicskingdom.com/amazing-spider-man
Newest strip, which is from yesterday: https://comicskingdom.com/amazing-spider-man/2023-10-21

[wleakr]

Bad news marriage fans. The newspaper strip never stopped having them married, but went into reprints a few years ago. Today Comics Kingdom failed to publish a strip - has it been dropped completely?
The strip's page, which should've been showing today's edition: https://comicskingdom.com/amazing-spider-man
Newest strip, which is from yesterday: https://comicskingdom.com/amazing-spider-man/2023-10-21

Wouldn't call this "bad news". It's just news.

Until you posted this, I didn't even know this still existed, as reprints or otherwise. Doubt I'm the only one. Don't see the value added in comic strips anymore, at least from a "business that needs to make money" perspective.

When I actually had a newspaper in my hand, it was definitely a must to check out my favs. That was MANY YEARS ago!

[Garlador]

Bad news marriage fans. The newspaper strip never stopped having them married, but went into reprints a few years ago. Today Comics Kingdom failed to publish a strip - has it been dropped completely?
The strip's page, which should've been showing today's edition: https://comicskingdom.com/amazing-spider-man
Newest strip, which is from yesterday: https://comicskingdom.com/amazing-spider-man/2023-10-21

I remain shocked that Marvel hasn't done a proper collection of the newspaper strips for readers yet.

[Digifiend]

Wouldn't call this "bad news". It's just news.

Until you posted this, I didn't even know this still existed, as reprints or otherwise. Doubt I'm the only one. Don't see the value added in comic strips anymore, at least from a "business that needs to make money" perspective.

When I actually had a newspaper in my hand, it was definitely a must to check out my favs. That was MANY YEARS ago!

Washington Post has confirmed that the strip has now been completely axed.

[Garlador]

Washington Post has confirmed that the strip has now been completely axed.

Replaced with “Flash Gordon”.

Still, end of an era, not just for the longest-running Spider-Man marriage.


Even without new stories following Stan’s death, it’s still nice to know his strips ended with the characters happy and strong together.

[godisawesome]

Ah, Wizard Magazine. That brings me back.

Honestly, I wouldn’t put too much stock into Wizard’s claims. They were openly shills for Marvel, with agreements in place to promote certain storylines and agendas. Wizard even had exclusive, in-continuity Spider-Man comics. 2007 was a tough year for them, their former editor-in-chief had just been fired, and they were trying harder than ever to sustain themselves with exclusive interviews and tie-ins. Unfortunately, they folded less than three years later.

In 1997, Wizard was even running articles demanding that Peter and MJ divorce, that Peter needs to be de-aged, and that he should never have a child. It… was quite the stance, and seems almost identical to the Quesada and Brevoort and other interviews they conducted.


Honestly, their entire "How to Fix Spider-Man" article from that era basically panned out completely - "make him poor," "make him single", "bring back Aunt May", "make him feel younger", etc.

Editorial basically followed their advice (or wrote it themselves...) and here we are today with a large portion of fans complaining that they broke the book and characters just to return to and stagnate in the same "glory days" so many were happy to leave behind.

It's interesting to contrast how the message Wizard was trying to send (whether on their own or on behalf of Marvel) was of a vocal group of Spider-Man fans calling for an end to the marriage, while after OMD, the messaging pretty quickly became that the fans who supported it were a "silent" majority, because it was clear the most vocal part was against OMD.

[JustLuke]

No, which is why I'm cautiously optimistic.

With the Discord live, things are moving pretty fast. IF this book is what we hope it is, then it'll be paramount to get our messaging on-point and unified, letting Marvel know exactly what we're doing, why we're doing it, and what our requested outcome is. Our support may be contingent on those factors.

https://twitter.com/SpiderMan/status...51146855039173 Guys...I think we won.

[Digifiend]

As one married Spider-Man dies, another is born!

[WebLurker]

https://twitter.com/SpiderMan/status...51146855039173 Guys...I think we won.

Guess we'll have to wait and see if we're told what the creative process was for the series and what the actual execution will be, but it encouraging.

[Mister Mets]

Garlador, I thought you misinterpreted Slott's comments about finding a married Spider-man to support, but it seems much more likely that this may have been part of his work promoting a title that he obviously knew was coming.

So this makes the idea of picking which married Spider-Man to back much easier.

This may be a very different dynamic, if this is the story of a married guy in his late 30s getting bitten by a radioactive spider, though if it's a hit it obviously makes stories of a married Spider-Man who has been around for 20 years more commercially appealing so it seems like a win-win for fans of a married Spider-Man.

Great talents are getting together for a highly promoted story about Peter Parker as a family man. If it sells okay, it could easily last for years. And maybe it'll influence the other titles, as well as the depictions of Spider-Man in the media.

This might keep Marvel from recasting Tom Holland and Zendaya for the next twenty years, which could cement the idea that the important thing about Spider-Man is his growth, rather than his youth.

[Garlador]

Garlador, I thought you misinterpreted Slott's comments about finding a married Spider-man to support, but it seems much more likely that this may have been part of his work promoting a title that he obviously knew was coming.

So this makes the idea of picking which married Spider-Man to back much easier.

This may be a very different dynamic, if this is the story of a married guy in his late 30s getting bitten by a radioactive spider, though if it's a hit it obviously makes stories of a married Spider-Man who has been around for 20 years more commercially appealing so it seems like a win-win for fans of a married Spider-Man.

Great talents are getting together for a highly promoted story about Peter Parker as a family man. If it sells okay, it could easily last for years. And maybe it'll influence the other titles, as well as the depictions of Spider-Man in the media.

This might keep Marvel from recasting Tom Holland and Zendaya for the next twenty years, which could cement the idea that the important thing about Spider-Man is his growth, rather than his youth.

All of this is very much at the forefront of my thoughts and the community response. I'm excited, and, yeah, Slott may have primed us for it, which just works out for everyone's benefit.

With all respect to "Spider-Girl", the overwhelmingly positive response to Ultimate Spider-Man's relaunch has absolutely created a fervor that's impossible to ignore. We're absolutely switching gears here to support Ultimate Spider-Man. If it's what we anticipate, it's a slamdunk title to endorse or support.

I recall the interviews Marvel had when the original Ultimate Spider-Man launched and it changed their entire approach to the character and how they wrote and marketed him, including in the 616. If this has a similar impact, we'll be seeing some exciting developments across the comics and other media for years to come.

[Mister Mets]

All of this is very much at the forefront of my thoughts and the community response. I'm excited, and, yeah, Slott may have primed us for it, which just works out for everyone's benefit.

With all respect to "Spider-Girl", the overwhelmingly positive response to Ultimate Spider-Man's relaunch has absolutely created a fervor that's impossible to ignore. We're absolutely switching gears here to support Ultimate Spider-Man. If it's what we anticipate, it's a slamdunk title to endorse or support.

I recall the interviews Marvel had when the original Ultimate Spider-Man launched and it changed their entire approach to the character and how they wrote and marketed him, including in the 616. If this has a similar impact, we'll be seeing some exciting developments across the comics and other media for years to come.

I do also think rising tides lift all boats.

If this sells as well as the Slott/ Bagley Spider-Man did, it could encourage revivals of projects like Spider-Girl.

[Mercwmouth12]

I do also think rising tides lift all boats.

If this sells as well as the Slott/ Bagley Spider-Man did, it could encourage revivals of projects like Spider-Girl.

Why would it encourage projects like spider girl? At the moment it's just to be another story told that could lead to success and anything if leads to remains to be seen at the moment

[KurtW95]

It's kind of stupid that they don't put Miles back in his universe instead of pretending he's just as Spider-Man as Peter.