Was the marriage good for Spider-Man ?

[Scott Taylor]

Off topic but if anyone wants that MJ poster, let me know. My alt-LCS is selling it for five bucks, its hung on their wall for years.

[dragonmp93]

ha y'know...swimsuit specials seemed as normal as an annual back in the day. am i the only one who looks back now and thinks "weird"?

Well, not saying that you are alone in that, but no, in my case.

[Lee]

I love how this is framed as what the WRITERS want over the audience that, you know, buys the damn things.

I was talking about writers because the discussion was of story telling possibilities and limitations. The audience doesn't write the comics. I feel like you're responding just for the sake of responding.

If the writers don't want to write certain characters, they should move on to something else.

Every Spider-Man writer from now until the end of eternity should want to write Mary Jane into almost every issue? Why? Should Marvel turn down a strong pitch from a hot creative team if Mary Jane doesn't feature into it heavily?

[Metamorphosis]

I was talking about writers because the discussion was of story telling possibilities and limitations. The audience doesn't write the comics.

But the writers also aren't the target customer. Why does this discussion always devolve into what might limit a hypothetical writer? They make up stuff for a living.

Every Spider-Man writer from now until the end of eternity should want to write Mary Jane into almost every issue? Why? Should Marvel turn down a strong pitch from a hot creative team if Mary Jane doesn't feature into it heavily?

Not what I said, merely what you're extrapolating from what I said.

Conversely--what if "a strong pitch from a hot creative team" heavily involves them being married? Should Marvel turn that down as well?

[SpideyCeo]

Nope, cuz at the end of the day peter is pure superhero cheese and only good single adventuerer.

[SilverSpider]

It was both good an bad. It was good because it gave Spider-Man a stable family. It was bad because as a constant it limited storytelling options.
I would like Peter to remember OMD again.
I don't want it just retconned though.

[Grim Ghost]

It was certainly bad for me. I dropped the book soon after the marriage.

When you are making decisions based around what Stan Lee was doing in the newspaper comic at the time (I love Stan Lee but the newspaper comic has always been pretty terrible and it's own weird thing) then it won't lead to much good. That was the ONLY reason Spider-Man was married, to tie into that as a publicity stunt.

I'm of the opinion that many people who can't let the marriage go came onto the book during the Todd McFarlane/Larsen/Bagley days so that represents "their" Spider-Man. And that's fine, but for a lot of us who were around before then it was a jarringly bad move that came out of nowhere.

[Alan2099]

Conversely--what if "a strong pitch from a hot creative team" heavily involves them being married? Should Marvel turn that down as well?

If they don't feel it's right for the character or the direction they want to go in, then sure. They've turned people down before, they'll continue to do so. Just because a hot team has an idea doesn't mean it's something that's going to work.

Of course they can also just make it a non-continuity mini series or something to that effect.

[Mister Mets]

14 stories on the "Best Spider-Man Stories Ever Told" CBR list prove what you say to be wrong.

If there was a dip in quality, it could also be chalked up to a down turn in storytelling quality industry-wide at the time, same as post-OMD Spider-Man comic sales being chalked up to a down turn in the sales from the industry.



I think you're reaching too much here.

They were still married, regardless. If anything, it shows that good Spider-Man work can still be done with MJ not a focal point or appearing in every issue.

Other than Peter's kooky and hot neighbor that he took out a few times (which came to nothing outside of what Jenkins penned), there was nothing in the stories you mentioned that couldn't have been done with a married Spider-Man.

14 out of 50 stories isn't a great showing for a period that listed 20 out of 50 years, especially given the advantages comics from the marriage period have (they've been around long enough to be considered classics, but are recent enough to not be as dated).

But the writers also aren't the target customer. Why does this discussion always devolve into what might limit a hypothetical writer? They make up stuff for a living.



Not what I said, merely what you're extrapolating from what I said.

Conversely--what if "a strong pitch from a hot creative team" heavily involves them being married? Should Marvel turn that down as well?

The hot team's not going to be around forever, so Marvel would have to take into account what comes next.

[Metamorphosis]

14 out of 50 stories isn't a great showing for a period that listed 20 out of 50 years, especially given the advantages comics from the marriage period have (they've been around long enough to be considered classics, but are recent enough to not be as dated).

For a list of the 50 Best Spidey stories EVER, with all the material that entails (and allowing for alt-universe stuff like Ultimate, which had three showings), it's quite good actually.

The post-OMD years haven't had that good of a "batting average" comparatively in ten years of accelerated-release material, the belief that jettisoning the marriage would lead to better stories notwithstanding.

Plenty of stuff that could be considered "dated" on there as well, which is an irrelevant concern on a fan-voted and polled list. You're trying to move the goalposts.

The hot team's not going to be around forever, so Marvel would have to take into account what comes next.

The one claim that continues to not be debunked here is that Marvel is doing anything with Spider-Man that couldn't also be done with a married Peter Parker, besides involving him in dead-end flings readers know won't go anywhere.

[Lee]

It was certainly bad for me. I dropped the book soon after the marriage.

When you are making decisions based around what Stan Lee was doing in the newspaper comic at the time (I love Stan Lee but the newspaper comic has always been pretty terrible and it's own weird thing) then it won't lead to much good. That was the ONLY reason Spider-Man was married, to tie into that as a publicity stunt.

I'm of the opinion that many people who can't let the marriage go came onto the book during the Todd McFarlane/Larsen/Bagley days so that represents "their" Spider-Man. And that's fine, but for a lot of us who were around before then it was a jarringly bad move that came out of nowhere.

I was thinking the same thing the other day. I totally get the nostalgia angle, but it does seem to almost exclusively come from fans who started when they were already married, whilst fans who were around when it actually happened mostly seemed to dislike the sudden shift in direction.

With the benefit of hindsight, they'd have saved themselves a lot of trouble in the long term if they annulled the marriage a year or so later. I have to wonder if they might have done just that, if they weren't riding the highs of Todd McFarlane and Venom.

[boots]

Well, not saying that you are alone in that, but no, in my case.

i'm just trying to imagine swimsuit specials from other properties: TMNT with a bikini clad april o'neil in the sewer and well oiled green flesh lounging about on beach chairs.

[WebLurker]

I'm of the opinion that many people who can't let the marriage go came onto the book during the Todd McFarlane/Larsen/Bagley days so that represents "their" Spider-Man.

Not all of us. I came on through old trade paperbacks of the Ultimate comics in the mid-2000s. Never touched ASM in my life.

And that's fine, but for a lot of us who were around before then it was a jarringly bad move that came out of nowhere.

And that's exactly why we're not letting OMD go; for you, it might be course correction of a mistake, for us Marvel is trying to rewrite the source code of the franchise. A little like retconning X-Men so that Wolverine is a peace-loving hippie. It might create story-telling fodder, but no one would ever mistake it for what the character is really like.

[Lee]

Wait, if you've never read Amazing Spider-Man in your life, why are you invested in the marital status of its protagonist?

[WebLurker]

Wait, if you've never read Amazing Spider-Man in your life, why are you invested in the marital status of its protagonist?

Because the original movies and the Ultimate comics were my gateways into the franchise. That's the stuff that defined what I think Spider-Man is supposed to be.