Tom DeFalco On His "Unlikely" Involvement With Further MC2/Spider-Girl Plans

[Mister Mets]

It's not a happy occurrence, but DeFalco had a great run, and his work's been dated since the 90s.

[CentralPower]

I always liked the concept of the "Spider-Girl" and the backdrop better than the execution. (Having a series that rests on the premise of the main characters aging and being replaced is good. Having that series, with its implied time-progression, written in a painfully dated way is a problem. It could be okay if there was some indication that the dated writing was a choice, not a stylistic default for the writers.)

I think it would be good for Spider-Girl to have a new, younger or relatively more "modern," writer or creative team with the right sensibilities to take over from DeFalco and Frenz, though I don't think Marvel cares enough about Spider-Girl as a property to give that kind of chance...

"Spider-Gwen" and "Renew Your Vows" are covering that territory now, and doing a better job of it.

[Miles To Go]

I think my favorite response to dated criticism came from a commentary Glen A. Larson did with David Hasselhoff

What's dated about it other than you?

[CentralPower]

Yes, I am older, and I expect better from comics now than I did 25 years ago.

[Miles To Go]

Yes, I am older, and I expect better from comics now than I did 25 years ago.

Wasn't really directing that comment at you, just unfortunate you posted the same time I did.

Point still stands though. The material does'nt age, you do, and thus, if you allow yourself, you readjust your taste and standards to fit what you get from comics in a modern climate.

That doesn't mean the material is bad.

I have never understood the specific definition of dated when the stories and situations in the SG books I've read feel just as fresh and relevant to me. Seems a bit elitist...and in some cases, hypocritical considering recent Marvel material has the tendency to date far worse and a lot sooner.

[CentralPower]

Ah, sorry, I thought you were responding to me specifically.

DeFalco has a dated writing style. And, he lacks new ideas.

In terms of style, compare comics from the bronze age. Gruenwald, Michelinie and Hama wrote in different ways. DeFalco is closest to Gruenwald, the most obviously "bronzey" of the group. At this point, even Hama (who was years ahead of his contemporaries in terms of technical skill) is falling behind. DeFalco's stories, and how he tells them, are very simple. That worked for the bronze age because even adult fans were trained to not expect much more. (Better comics were well and good. But, one did not simply expect them as a matter of habit.) But, it does not work in 2017. If nothing else, I can only read so many simple stories before I have effectively read them all.

DeFalco also does not seem to have ideas beyond "here are the characters doing stuff". If somebody is going to do that, they need to be more readable. (Bendis is not an idea man. But, he is very readable.)


Modern comics (and Marvel is guilty of this) tend to become dated when they try to go for "ripped from the headlines" style realism. Comics have a long shelf-life is hard when writers are making specific references to candidates, officials or current events. (What you think of the issues is irrelevant. Ask how well the comics will age.)

To use a DC example, "Red Son" works and will work for some time because Millar was writing about the moral hazard, a topic that has been around for years. But, Ewing or Spencer using Trump-riffs are going to be as painfully dated as Michael Jackson and Atari references.

[Lee]

In interviews Tom DeFalco and Ron Frenz have been very open about how influenced Spider-Girl was by 1960s-1980s Marvel comics, because they were the kind of super-hero stories they enjoyed reading.

[CentralPower]

The problem is that comics published after the millennium should not read like something form the 80s. The dialogue and explication reads stiffly, and says little beyond "this is what the character is thinking and saying".

I am not saying that "Spider-Girl" needs to be dark. I am saying that it should not read with the technical sophistication of an Archie book.

[WeirdSpider]

Personally I prefer DeFalco's writing style over the writing style of many of today's writers.

[WebLurker]

Personally I prefer DeFalco's writing style over the writing style of many of today's writers.

How's that?

[Spider-Chan]

Wasn't really directing that comment at you, just unfortunate you posted the same time I did.

Point still stands though. The material does'nt age, you do, and thus, if you allow yourself, you readjust your taste and standards to fit what you get from comics in a modern climate.

That doesn't mean the material is bad.

I have never understood the specific definition of dated when the stories and situations in the SG books I've read feel just as fresh and relevant to me. Seems a bit elitist...and in some cases, hypocritical considering recent Marvel material has the tendency to date far worse and a lot sooner.

Here's the thing: if you are a new reader and your first comics were comics written around this time, it would be a turn-off trying to read some old-stuff. And that's the problem with DeFalco's SG. Even if it was purposely done as a homage, to a new reader is going to be hard to get, and even if they like the first few issues, they will procrastinate to continue.

Now, I see dated by two main factors. One thing is dated by setting and other by style. Most modern comics feel dated or you can tell a mile away that they are going to feel really dated in months away (see: Champions, America, Spider-Gwen) mostly because the themes and references they make are going to be irrelevant by the time the trade comes (the "punch nazis" discussion in America felt dated when the issue was published!). Sometimes is the characters, mostly teenagers, that are written by a old guy and making them sound like... not teenagers. Others feel dated because the style of writing makes them a chore to read if you're not used to it. Spider-Girl mostly falls under the later category. The themes it handles are still relevant, and once you get used to the style is a fun read, but it involves a new reader getting used to it to begin with. And his teenagers are often realistic, buuut there's definitely the occasional moment were you roll your eyes.

Let's look at Renew Your Vows. That's written by Gerry Conway, a contemporary of DeFalco. Both were born around the same time (Conway '52, DeFalco '50), and both started their careers in the 70's. And yet, you read RYV and it doesn't feel dated at all. It has relevant themes, a current setting, and it stands with all the others modern comics. It's easy for any reader to jump at the start of a new arc and it's a fun read that doesn't require you to be familiarized with older comics to get into it. It features a well written realistic young character and keeps introducing more. That's how I would say you should do a Spider-Girl relaunch.

[WeirdSpider]

How's that?

Today's comics are written with the fact that they're going to be rereleased in trade form. As a result today's comic plots are dragged out to ridiculous lengths.

Personally I think that the industry as a whole would be healthily if it returned to the old way of writing comics.

[gwangung]

Today's comics are written with the fact that they're going to be rereleased in trade form. As a result today's comic plots are dragged out to ridiculous lengths.

Personally I think that the industry as a whole would be healthily if it returned to the old way of writing comics.

Well, not quite. Current comics are written with the direct market in mind, where readers do not expect a complete story in one place, and are trained to come back again and again to get the rest of the story, whether it's three months long or eight months long. It's a style that's evolved to fit its environment, which is both the direct market and the bookstore trade.

[WebLurker]

Today's comics are written with the fact that they're going to be rereleased in trade form. As a result today's comic plots are dragged out to ridiculous lengths.

Personally I think that the industry as a whole would be healthily if it returned to the old way of writing comics.

I like the trades. 99.99% of the comics I read are in trades. Also, I'd rather have a more in-depth story than one that's more cursory. Now, that's not to say that variety of lengths isn't good too, but for my money, shorter and single issue stories tend to feel more rushed and shallow.

Now, my introduction to reading comics was Brian Michael Bendis's stuff, so your mileage may vary.

[Chris Lang]

Personally I think that MC2/Spider-Girl should stay dead. I just think that sadly Spider-Verse just did too much damage to MC2/Spider-Girl.

As far as I'm concerned, the story involving April/Mayhem going back in time to save Mayday was the last Spider-Girl story.

I've been avoiding Spider-Verse. It sounds like enough damage was done to make it impossible to continue the series as we knew it unless you say it happened to a different variant of the MC-2 universe or something like that. And I'm afraid Marvel's too afraid of being accused of 'copping out' for that.

The fact is, with each passing year, Spider-Girl becomes less 'relevant' to Spider-Man continuity. It diverges off and takes a different path from stories that were published back in 1998. In this world, Aunt May stayed dead (as opposed to being returned with one of the most ridiculous explanations since Bobby Ewing's return on Dallas), Phil Urich remained a good guy, Avengers Disassembled and the events afterward never happened, and so on. The 'possible future of Marvel' ship sailed a long time ago.

It's no big deal to people like us, who were there since the beginning. We know and accept that it's an alternate reality, and a lot has changed in the 616 Marvel universe since the point it diverges. Its relevancy to 616 Marvel doesn't matter to us (and for those of us who suffer from 'event fatigue', we like it BECAUSE it's in its own separate world where, up until Spider-Verse, its stories wouldn't be derailed by some big event comic). The problem is, all this makes it harder for it to find new readers every year. People are likely to be confused by just how different the MC-2 world is from the universe depicted in other Marvel comics.

As much as I've enjoyed Spider-Girl (in fact I've enjoyed it more than most of the 616 Marvel books of the 2000s), I knew that its final permanent cancellation was inevitable.