Preview: Jackpot #1

[MisterTorgo]

I mean, the only reason to care about Paul and the kids is because MJ cared about them, but without that emotional investment or explanation for why (since she was inexplicably stuck with both) it's hard to really care as the audience, especially with the haphazard execution. The same is true for MJ becoming a Superhero.

Everything just feels so contrived, artificial, and forced.

Which makes outside editorial defenses of the goings on feel insulting, as if intent excuses shoddy work.

[MisterTorgo]

There is no "working through" genocide.

People really need to read Hannah Arendt.

Oh absolutely agreed. I'm just reaching for something, anything that could have been used to try to justify creative decisions. And admittedly failing.

[Frontier]

I keep going back to that moment where Peter as the Spider That Gobbles was about to kill Paul and he was all "you do what you gotta do" almost like he accepted that he was deserving of death for one reason or another.

That's Francine Frye as Electro.

As in a supervillain MJ already defeated without powers, just using her personality and brains. Of all the illogical choices to make for a Chamberpot villain, that's way up there because it automatically invites comparison to a much, much better story.

I'm going to laugh if she ends up beating Francine again without the watch showing she really doesn't need powers .

Too bad this issue is only a one-shot yet it had to a have a fill in artist, looking at the names listed. Wonder why?

I think it's more of an artistic assistant than a real fill-in otherwise they'd be listed as doing separate pages.

[TinkerSpider]

I think it's more of an artistic assistant than a real fill-in otherwise they'd be listed as doing separate pages.

Looked at his Twitter - seems he did do pages?

https://x.com/ericgapstur/status/172...158239897?s=46

https://x.com/ericgapstur/status/172...951310820?s=46

[Frontier]

Looked at his Twitter - seems he did do pages.

https://x.com/ericgapstur/status/172...158239897?s=46

https://x.com/ericgapstur/status/172...951310820?s=46

This makes me wonder how rushed out this one-shot was. It was initially advertised as a mini unless the plan was always for that to be the Black Cat team-up series.

[Hurricane Billy]

There is no "working through" genocide, IMO.

People really should read Hannah Arendt, if they haven't already. It was required reading at my high school.

Which is why of all the many inexplicable story choices made in this run, that ones takes the cake. Who gives "aiding and abetting genocide" to a character's backstory and then expects that to make the character sympathetic?!?! Having MJ compare Paul feeling bad he helped to murder an entire world - billions of lives, with a modern New York destroyed by Rabin depicted on the page - to Peter feeling guilty over letting the burglar go, and that scene is played straight, to indicate she's being sincere and speaking of her volition, is one of the worst lines of dialogue ever put into a character's mouth.

Amen. Completely agreed across the board.

[Coop]

They are 100% going to explicitly walk back the genocide assistance and have Paul have "helped" his father altruisticaly survived or some nonsense

[Kevinroc]

They are 100% going to explicitly walk back the genocide assistance and have Paul have "helped" his father altruisticaly survived or some nonsense

This post implies they actually care about Paul. They don't. Paul is just a means to an ends. Paul's time is almost up.

They also keep lessening the description for MJ and Paul's relationship. Remember when they were "mysteriously married" and now he's just her "partner" (which, yes, can be used to denote a romantic relationship, but also it can not be that. It's certainly more ambiguous than Paul being "married" to her). Wouldn't shock me if they end up describing him as MJ's "trauma buddy whom she actually hates" in a future issue.

[MisterTorgo]

This post implies they actually care about Paul. They don't. Paul is just a means to an ends. Paul's time is almost up.

They also keep lessening the description for MJ and Paul's relationship. Remember when they were "mysteriously married" and now he's just her "partner" (which, yes, can be used to denote a romantic relationship, but also it can not be that. It's certainly more ambiguous than Paul being "married" to her). Wouldn't shock me if they end up describing him as MJ's "trauma buddy whom she actually hates" in a future issue.

It's really strange. It has to be that they're adjusting to the extreme backlash because if they were walking back the relationship descriptors on purpose, surely there would have been something on-panel to draw attention to it, yeah? Coupled with the constant lack of even physical contact between them, I assume it's just as way to play it safe until the (hopefully) inevitable Paul exodus.

[Kevinroc]

It's really strange. It has to be that they're adjusting to the extreme backlash because if they were walking back the relationship descriptors on purpose, surely there would have been something on-panel to draw attention to it, yeah? Coupled with the constant lack of even physical contact between them, I assume it's just as way to play it safe until the (hopefully) inevitable Paul exodus.

I think they wanted to keep the exact nature of their relationship ambiguous but that Wells always wanted to write Peter and MJ getting back together as the ending. It's very Spider-Man 2, and the people at Marvel all seem to love Spider-Man 2. It was even in Brevoort's Spider-Man manifesto.

But they really screwed up the execution of... well... everything...

[Frontier]

They are 100% going to explicitly walk back the genocide assistance and have Paul have "helped" his father altruisticaly survived or some nonsense

I think in Marvel's eye the saving grace of Paul is that he had no idea what he was going along with until it was too late.

This post implies they actually care about Paul. They don't. Paul is just a means to an ends. Paul's time is almost up.

They also keep lessening the description for MJ and Paul's relationship. Remember when they were "mysteriously married" and now he's just her "partner" (which, yes, can be used to denote a romantic relationship, but also it can not be that. It's certainly more ambiguous than Paul being "married" to her). Wouldn't shock me if they end up describing him as MJ's "trauma buddy whom she actually hates" in a future issue.

Even the trade recap of Dead Language says they're married even though that was a mis-print .

[Kevinroc]

Even the trade recap of Dead Language says they're married even though that was a mis-print .

Changing things in the trade? That costs money.

[TinkerSpider]

I think they wanted to keep the exact nature of their relationship ambiguous but that Wells always wanted to write Peter and MJ getting back together as the ending. It's very Spider-Man 2, and the people at Marvel all seem to love Spider-Man 2. It was even in Brevoort's Spider-Man manifesto.

But they really screwed up the execution of... well... everything...

Lowe wouldn't have slipped and said MJ and Paul were married - and he took responsibility for making that mistake - if their relationship was originally meant to be ambiguous. And we know that was an old BND idea, to have MJ show up for the first time after OMD married to someone else with kids. If they're going for Spider-Man 2, MJ and John were engaged, after all.

It seems obvious they decided to back off from establishing Paul and MJ are married, although they still haven't made it clear (whether afraid to or just can't be bothered, who knows) just what the state of the relationship is between Paul and MJ on the page, with recaps being the only real clues - but maybe this one-shot is finally more illuminating. I will say "partner" to me means committed romantic life parter in this context. But we have no idea how the Spider-office is using it, or if "partner" won't also be walked back.

Screwing up the execution nails this run.

I think in Marvel's eye the saving grace of Paul is that he had no idea what he was going along with until it was too late.

That excuse didn't fly at Nuremburg...

And let's say Marvel believes that. But why, for the love of anything and everything that is holy, would you even saddle a character with helping to kill all life on a planet? Why even create that association?! And then have MJ compare it favorably to Peter's guilt over not stopping the burglar?!?! Which also implies Paul DID know what he was doing, as Peter knew full well he was letting the burglar go. It is such an inexplicable, incomprehensible story choice.

[Tuck]

Maybe Paul can genocide 616. It's used up; let's just have a clean break.

[Frontier]

Lowe wouldn't have slipped and said MJ and Paul were married - and he took responsibility for making that mistake - if their relationship was originally meant to be ambiguous. And we know that was an old BND idea, to have MJ show up for the first time after OMD married to someone else with kids. If they're going for Spider-Man 2, MJ and John were engaged, after all.

It seems obvious they decided to back off from establishing Paul and MJ are married, although they still haven't made it clear (whether afraid to or just can't be bothered, who knows) just what the state of the relationship is between Paul and MJ on the page, with recaps being the only real clues - but maybe this one-shot is finally more illuminating. I will say "partner" to me means committed romantic life parter in this context. But we have no idea how the Spider-office is using it, or if "partner" won't also be walked back.

Screwing up the execution nails this run.

I mean, they've gotten as explicit as they can about it, they live together, they sleep in the same bed, they do couple-y things, the only saving grace is they aren't super overt about it which doesn't make it any better.