Discussion with Tom Brevoort on Spider-Man marriage

[ishikabe]

Of course. I'll never understand people who keep reading/watching stuff they obviously hate. Life's too short, and there's too much good stuff out there.

That's 100% true, even in comics. You don't have to find a new hobby. There are plenty of awesome comics out there that aren't stuck in the Superhero mud like Marvel and DC. "oh no we have reinvent." over and over and over.

[mlazic]

Not really much a revelation this had pretty much been his view since 2007. Tom has been very consistent in what he believes is best forcSpider-Man. I don't see why Marvel would undo OMD now, sales are the best they've been in years so what's the incentive to go back?

[oldschool]

Not really much a revelation this had pretty much been his view since 2007. Tom has been very consistent in what he believes is best forcSpider-Man. I don't see why Marvel would undo OMD now, sales are the best they've been in years so what's the incentive to go back?

Agreed but if RYV shows large enough sales why not consider a new title post-SW set in that universe (or another) where Pete and MJ are married with Annie? And let's not believe that Marvel will really have just one universe to tell stories in post-SW….

[neonrideraryeh]

I agree with the marriage staying gone. I want Spidey to have lots of different love interests over the coming years and see what kind of stuff works. There are so many characters that fans ship him with and I'd like to see Marvel try those rather than stick with just Mary-Jane forever. In an industry where comics don't really include a non-hero supporting cast as much anymore, it feels like the time of the Mary-Jane kind of character is over. There is a struggle for them to find reasons to include her. I think a super-powered love interest would be more interesting and easier for the writers to include. Not everybody ships him with MJ and a non-married Spider-Man is Marvel showing that he can be with any of those characters, giving those fans hope that it could be their wanted character chosen. They spent 20 years or something with the marriage and are probably happy it's gone so they can have their own ships. But people tend to ignore this side, assuming that literally every Spidey fan wants the marriage and that it's Marvel vs the Fans, when it's more complex than that really. Plus, it's not taking away the marriage that was the real problem for people. It was the circumstances they did it by with Mephisto and whatever.
tl;dr I'm glad the marriage is gone. It didn't work for Spider-Man to have just a single love interest for eternity.

[Cmbmool]

While I'm sad that the marriage isn't returning, isn't there anyway for Marvel to get rid of the Mephistopheles problem and still lose the marriage ?

[Vanguard-01]

Whelp. Guess I won't be buying anything Spider-related.

No problem. I've done without for seven years. I can easily go another seven. Or seventy-seven .

Marvel doesn't want my money? Fine. They don't deserve it.

[oldschool]

While I'm sad that the marriage isn't returning, isn't there anyway for Marvel to get rid of the Mephistopheles problem and still lose the marriage ?

There doesn't seem to be any reason for them to do so. While I agree the Mephisto deal was probably the worst imaginable way to get Peter single again, what's done is done and revisiting the methods used when he has been single since 8 years now seems pointless.

[Mister Mets]

Posting the links I found in case anyone's interested in the specifics of what Brevoort said.

http://brevoortformspring.tumblr.com...-youth-i-never

You say that Spider-Man is about youth. I never saw him that way, to me he's about responsibility. So the more responsibility you give him, the better the character. Worrying about your Aunt is okay but worrying about your wife and child is a much stronger motivation.

I don’t really want to repeat all of the same arguments that everybody had back in 2007. Nothing has changed since then.

But let me ask you this: if Spider-Man is about responsibility, then how can he continue to be Spider-Man if he has a child? Surely his greatest responsibility is to that child.

http://brevoortformspring.tumblr.com...r-man-is-about

"But let me ask you this: if Spider-Man is about responsibility, then how can he continue to be Spider-Man if he has a child? Surely his greatest responsibility is to that child." TB / Dang, Tom, I guess cops and soldiers should not have families then, right? Even for you this is an amazingly facile argument to make.

A couple of people have thrown up this argument. But it doesn’t wash, because we’re talking about Peter Parker here.

Cops and soldiers are beyond a doubt heroic, but they are not driven to do what they do exclusively out of a sense of responsibility (or, really, guilt) as Peter Parker is. For them, being a cop, being a soldier is a vocation. Not so for Peter Parker. As Spider-Man, Peter operates outside the law to do what he thinks is right. It’s a calling–and one that is often at the expense of his vocation (whatever it happens to be at any given time.)

And should Peter get killed or crippled while running around outside the confines of the law and enforcing his own personal brand of justice, what happens to that child? Peter lost his Uncle Ben–can he allow the possibility of his own child having to cope with the same kind of loss solely because of his own sense of guilt?

I don’t think so. That’s not the Peter Parker I know.

If Peter wanted to be a cop, or a soldier, then he could easily become one, especially with his powers and his scientific background. But he doesn’t. He continues to operate on his own, because becoming Spider-Man was ultimately a childish decision, a selfish decision, about personal atonement.

Once you become a parent, your child becomes the center of your world. (For those who are arguing this, I’m guessing that you don’t have children–or hoping, at any rate.) At that point, Peter cannot in good conscience put his own wants and desires ahead of the welfare of his child. he cannot be Spider-man if there is any possibility that doing so will cause pain to his offspring.

As some have said, there are plenty of other super heroes. And no matter how much Spider-Man does, people still die, tragedies still happen. We want to see Peter fight on because that is the story that we enjoy–but given this set of circumstances, it doesn’t make any sense for him to do so. Once Spider-Man brings another life into the world, his greatest responsibility is to that life.

http://brevoortformspring.tumblr.com...debate-further

MrB, let me incite the Spider-Man debate further (I can't resist). You say that Spider-San is about youth. I agree. However, the character is almost 30, so does it really make sense to still talk about youth? Aren't new characters such as Miles or Kamala more fit to tell a coming-of-age story? Peter Parker went through a specific evolution during these years, wouldn't it make more sense to embrace what the character has become instead of trying to make it as it was 50 years ago? Thks Francesco

Again, to use a parallel argument, isn’t is about time that Batman got over the deaths of his parents? Plus, he keeps fighting the same villains over and over again–shouldn’t he do something new? Like battle aliens?

Every series is, at its core, about something. And while that’s not the be-all and end-all of a given series (and while that something can occasionally change over time) that underlying premise is the engine that drives that series, that makes it work, that makes it relatable to a wide audience.

Spider-Man is the greatest teen property ever created. It is no coincidence that every time Peter’s story is adapted to other mediums, he is a student, whether in High School or College. And I would bet all the money in my pocket that this is where he’ll be in the upcoming new film as well. Why? Because that’s where the character resonates the best.

It’s understandable that long-time readers long for the characters to grow up with them–I had a friend years ago who was so frustrated by this that he swore to stop reading Spider-Man as soon as he became older than Peter. But while this is understandable, it’s also selfish.

Spider-Man belongs to all generations, not just one generation.

So, yes, the Hulk is going to lose control of his temper, Batman is going to venture out into the night looking for vengeance on the man who gunned down his parents, and Spider-Man is going to grapple with growing up. Because that’s what these characters exist to do–what they do best.

If Stan Lee had known that Spider-Man was going to run for more than a few years, he’d have never had him graduate from High School. And, knowing this, Ultimate Peter Parker spent a decade in High School, and would still be there had he not, you know, died.

[Vanguard-01]

Yup. Typical Brevoort/Quesada drivel that basically translates to "I don't like it and screw you if you do."

Man, they sure make it easy for me to turn my back on a franchise that I used to love.

[Mister Mets]

I had an interesting discussion with Tom Brevoort on Twitter tonight. Basically guys, OMD isn't getting undone, Peter and MJ are never getting married again. Marvel aint intersted.

Tom admitted that he understood I was invested in the marriage because thats how I grew up reading the character, so I replied that it means he knows a married Spidey could work for future generations because thats how they could also encounter the character, and he responed yes, but the future numbers who are still invested in it will dwindle to nothing. Ouch, cruel!

He is dead set on Spidey being youthful and is dead set on the marriage being something that "crippled" the book. Something that Marvel is unified on. So forget it, move on, it ain't happening. He even compared the marriage repeatedly as a bad idea, on the level of Batman fighting aliens. It's crazy how he could think that. Especially after what JMS did for it.

Also, he actually even said he thought marrying Spidey in a movie would kill the franchise, LOL! Seriously! It's a sad day but I can finally forget about my dream of seeing it happen in the movies. If Marvel is behind them and they are informing studios on how to go about things, we can expect them avoid marriage like the plague. Marvel obviously hated it with a passion and never want the world to know about it. So sad to see such a huge legacy so near and dear to the hearts of Spidey fans for 2 decades thrown away like trash.

Goodnight guys. Over and out.

Where did Brevoort say the items in bold?

[BlitheringToot]

I'm not coming back to Spider-Man post-"Renew Your Vows" either. "Superior" lured me back and was a great ride, but everything after that has been more of the same old bland "BND" stuff. I miss MJ. I miss Aunt May actually being a sharp old cookie (like she was when JMS wrote her). I miss Peter as a high school teacher.

I'll still read the other Spider-books ("2099" was great. "Scarlet Spider" was great. "Venom" was great ... and yet they're all gone now), but I'm pretty well burnt out on Peter Parker. Which is a shame, because not so long ago he was my favorite.

[Vanguard-01]

I didn't really expect Renew Your Vows to bring back the marriage, because I have no faith in Marvel's willingness to give me anything that I want, comics-wise.

I haven't touched a comic with "Spider" in the title for seven or eight years. I won't until the marriage is back and Peter even vaguely resembles the character with which I grew up again.

So, this isn't "Goodbye" for me. It's just more of the same. Marvel continues to show me they don't want my money, and I'm only too happy to go on not giving it to them.

I feel your pain Thor8607. Let's just keep on ignoring this crap until someone in Marvel comes along with an interest in giving us what we want.

[Vortex85]

Posting the links I found in case anyone's interested in the specifics of what Brevoort said.

http://brevoortformspring.tumblr.com...-youth-i-never



http://brevoortformspring.tumblr.com...r-man-is-about



http://brevoortformspring.tumblr.com...debate-further

I spoke with him on Twitter. Those tumblr posts were not mine or my conversation with him. I've never used tumblr before.

[Vortex85]

Where did Brevoort say the items in bold?

See my twitter. I use the same username there.

[Dan Slott]

I haven't touched a comic with "Spider" in the title for seven or eight years.

I feel your pain Thor8607. Let's just keep on ignoring this crap until someone in Marvel comes along with an interest in giving us what we want.

I completely understand and whole heartedly agree with your right as a consumer to not purchase-- or even pay attention to-- a product that doesn't interest or appeal to you. That's totally fair and valid.

But if you "haven't touched a comic with 'Spider' in the title for 8 years", I will call you on labeling it "crap" when you have no first hand knowledge of hundreds of issues of that product. Ignoring something is fine-- but with that comes a firsthand ignorance of its merits for good-or-ill. You can't completely avert your gaze at something and objectively criticize it at the same time. One goes hand in hand with the other. That's common sense.