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  1. #211
    Better than YOU! Alan2099's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Revolutionary_Jack View Post
    Dr. Doom defeated Mephisto and freed his mother's innocent soul from damnation. He undid a deal and pact his mother made with Discount Satan. That is directly comparable to Peter Parker becoming conned by Mephisto into screwing up the most important and precious thing in his life.

    How is that remotely comparable to Green Goblin murdering Gwen Stacy.

    Please explain this to me.
    You're the one putting forth the idea that if you are able to defeat somebody you're moral superior.

    Of course the Dr. Doom/Spider-man comparison doesn't work either as Doom had to defeat Mephisto to get what he wanted while Spider-man was given a deal to get what he wanted and he and Mary Jane Both agreed to it.

    If you want to start arguing somebody is morally superior because they beat somebody else, keep in mind that Thanos conned Mephisto while one story arc had Mephisto claims the souls of Invisible Woman, Jean Grey, and Rogue? Is Thanos the morally superior character?
    Last edited by Conn Seanery; 04-09-2019 at 03:15 PM.

  2. #212
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    Quote Originally Posted by Revolutionary_Jack View Post
    Dr. Doom defeated Mephisto and freed his mother's innocent soul from damnation. He undid a deal and pact his mother made with Discount Satan. That is directly comparable to Peter Parker becoming conned by Mephisto into screwing up the most important and precious thing in his life.

    How is that remotely comparable to Green Goblin murdering Gwen Stacy.

    Please explain this to me.
    While getting rid of the marriage was annoying, who actually wants to deal with the death of their loved ones? I think the reason why I'm annoyed by these sorts of arguments is because people seemed like they were looking through "shipping goggles" which is annoying. The deal not only was to restore Aunt May but to restore Peter's secret. That's probably why I'm not as harsh on Peter as I would've been otherwise.

    If Peter hadn't taken the deal, there's no guarantee that he would've been able to fix anything. His secret was out. He was a wanted criminal. Peter and MJ would be the happiest couple on the run. The "best" thing in his life was already ruined.

    If Mephisto wanted to kill MJ or maybe himself, Peter would've definitely said no, but here we are.
    Last edited by Conn Seanery; 04-09-2019 at 03:15 PM.

  3. #213
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    Quote Originally Posted by PCN24454 View Post
    While getting rid of the marriage was annoying, who actually wants to deal with the death of their loved ones? I think the reason why I'm annoyed by these sorts of arguments is because people seemed like they were looking through "shipping goggles" which is annoying. The deal not only was to restore Aunt May but to restore Peter's secret. That's probably why I'm not as harsh on Peter as I would've been otherwise.

    If Peter hadn't taken the deal, there's no guarantee that he would've been able to fix anything. His secret was out. He was a wanted criminal. Peter and MJ would be the happiest couple on the run. The "best" thing in his life was already ruined.

    If Mephisto wanted to kill MJ or maybe himself, Peter would've definitely said no, but here we are.
    If this was real life, I'd absolutely agree with you that Peter was up against it and maybe felt he had no choice, sure. I think the problem most have (despite not being particularly enamored by the marriage, I agree with the marriage fans here) is that all of those decisions/occurrences were essentially editorially mandated to put Peter in the position to "take the deal" - the unmasking, Aunt May's shooting, all of it were part of the story that culminated in OMD*. OMD didn't happen in a vacuum, nor was it the logical consequence of reasonable decisions made by Peter and MJ. In that sense, at least, it's of a piece with what came before.

    While I often find canned wisdom mostly useless, I always did like "Begin with the end in mind" - time travel, Mephisto, death, were never going to be particularly satisfying ways to end their marriage. Marvel never should have attempted to end the marriage until they had the "right**" story to do it. OMD had any number of dumb and unsatisfying aspects to it, but I find myself most vexed by some at Marvel's desire to make Mephisto a Spider-man foil. It's a mostly nonsense idea that has borne nothing of interest except weird insinuation that the Spiders matter to a lord of hell.


    *One notes that there were multiple ideas thrown out for how to put all the genies back in the bottle (one of JMS's included time travel to un-die Gwen and Harry, for example), but the idea was to destroy Peter's life enough that he'd have to make whatever last decision was before him that would, among other things, un-marry him.

    **I will grant that many would believe there is no right way to do it, which I think is entirely fair, but I would hope that they would grant that it's quite possible a better story would have made the end of the marriage somewhat less contentious.
    Blue text denotes sarcasm

  4. #214
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    Quote Originally Posted by Alan2099 View Post
    You're the one putting forth the idea that if you are able to defeat somebody you're moral superior.
    Actually that is Dan Slott, not me.

    Defeating Mephisto, which in Triumph and Torment is releasing a damned soul out of his hold, is in that context a moral victory. And that's how it has been established before. If Spider-Man loses and submits to Mephisto, he has suffered a moral defeat. And that diminishes him below Dr. Doom. That's because Mephisto is that kind of character, he has been established that way. If you lose to Satan or the Devil or Mephisto, you lose for all time, whereas if you lose to Kraven or Dr. Doom, you can, provided you survive, get back on your feet and try again.

    Quote Originally Posted by bob/.schoonover View Post
    While I often find canned wisdom mostly useless, I always did like "Begin with the end in mind" - time travel, Mephisto, death, were never going to be particularly satisfying ways to end their marriage. Marvel never should have attempted to end the marriage until they had the "right**" story to do it. OMD had any number of dumb and unsatisfying aspects to it, but I find myself most vexed by some at Marvel's desire to make Mephisto a Spider-man foil. It's a mostly nonsense idea that has borne nothing of interest except weird insinuation that the Spiders matter to a lord of hell.
    That I agree with. Theoretically you could have done things in such a way that people who liked the Spider-Marriage would feel that their emotional investment was rewarded, respected, and treated well, and that allows them to approach BND or whatnot with some kind of good faith.

    But the way they did it, made that impossible, as is Quesada and other people's attempt to basically denigrate the marriage, lie and make crap about it, and basically try and rewrite history which amounts to insulting consumers essentially. It basically became a form of gatekeeping.

    My personal feeling is that if they went with JMS' idea and basically brought back Gwen and Harry and make the Lee-Romita era a permanent status-quo that might have worked. For one thing the Lee-Romita era is charismatic, and the BND era is far less so than the JMS era that preceded it. One failure traded in favor of another. And again instead of Aunt May (who's been at deathbed so often that there's no more emotion to be gotten out of it), you have Gwen back and that means that later you could after a while have Peter and MJ date without the baggage of her death. That would have been new and refreshing. And I could have gotten behind that.
    Last edited by Revolutionary_Jack; 04-09-2019 at 10:58 AM.

  5. #215
    Better than YOU! Alan2099's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Revolutionary_Jack View Post
    Actually that is Dan Slott, not me.
    No. That's still you.

    Defeating Mephisto, which in Triumph and Torment is releasing a damned soul out of his hold, is in that context a moral victory. And that's how it has been established before. If Spider-Man loses and submits to Mephisto, he has suffered a moral defeat. And that diminishes him below Dr. Doom.
    Yes. It is a moral victory and Spider-man suffered a moral defeat.

    That does not make it the entire sum of the character's moral standings. If you want to look at the characters histories you'll find that Dr. Doom has repeatedly done much worse than Spider-man ever has. Likewise Spider-man tends to do the right thing more often than not. I'm not sure how you're not able to see this. A person making one morally questionable choice isn't near as bad as a person that has dedicated his life to evil.

  6. #216
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    Quote Originally Posted by Alan2099 View Post
    I'm not sure how you're not able to see this. A person making one morally questionable choice isn't near as bad as a person that has dedicated his life to evil.
    If it was the Living Tribunal, or whatever, that might work, but not against Mephisto. Mephisto is the Devil and Satan, and let's not weasel out of that. His entire history is established that way. He was treated that way in Triumph and Torment, which is not a story that can be diminished or downplayed since it's Roger Stern's masterpiece and one of the best Marvel tales. In any story about the Devil, right from the Book of Job, to Jesus rejecting all of the devil's temptations, to the Faust tale, and beyond...if you lose to the Devil once, you lose for all time. You have suffered a moral lapse that cannot be undone or washed away. You are damned. When you are damned, you don't get do-overs. That's the entire logic and purpose in any story where you have the Devil or a character who is the Devil. I say this as an atheist mind you. Even if you treat that as a story and remove the religious connotations, you still get the logic of the Devil and what losing to the devil, i.e submitting to it on its terms. You can lose to Kraven, to Red Skull, to Thanos, and you aren't morally diminished just for losing to them no more than the Judeans of that time were for losing to the Romans. But against the Devil, you are trading something irrevocable and permanent. The good that Job and Jesus did would not have counted for anything if they had succumbed to the Devil.

    In the case of Cynthia von Doom. She was a good Romani and mother and so on, and as far as we know just used magic to defend her people from oppression. But she made a mistake and she was damned and had to be rescued. And we know she's a good person because even after getting salvation she expresses disappointment in Victor. So if Cynthia is damned, then so is Peter.
    Last edited by Revolutionary_Jack; 04-09-2019 at 11:09 AM.

  7. #217
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    Quote Originally Posted by bob/.schoonover View Post
    If this was real life, I'd absolutely agree with you that Peter was up against it and maybe felt he had no choice, sure. I think the problem most have (despite not being particularly enamored by the marriage, I agree with the marriage fans here) is that all of those decisions/occurrences were essentially editorially mandated to put Peter in the position to "take the deal" - the unmasking, Aunt May's shooting, all of it were part of the story that culminated in OMD*. OMD didn't happen in a vacuum, nor was it the logical consequence of reasonable decisions made by Peter and MJ. In that sense, at least, it's of a piece with what came before.

    While I often find canned wisdom mostly useless, I always did like "Begin with the end in mind" - time travel, Mephisto, death, were never going to be particularly satisfying ways to end their marriage. Marvel never should have attempted to end the marriage until they had the "right**" story to do it. OMD had any number of dumb and unsatisfying aspects to it, but I find myself most vexed by some at Marvel's desire to make Mephisto a Spider-man foil. It's a mostly nonsense idea that has borne nothing of interest except weird insinuation that the Spiders matter to a lord of hell.


    *One notes that there were multiple ideas thrown out for how to put all the genies back in the bottle (one of JMS's included time travel to un-die Gwen and Harry, for example), but the idea was to destroy Peter's life enough that he'd have to make whatever last decision was before him that would, among other things, un-marry him.

    **I will grant that many would believe there is no right way to do it, which I think is entirely fair, but I would hope that they would grant that it's quite possible a better story would have made the end of the marriage somewhat less contentious.
    My entire point was Marvel had the right to do whatever they wanted with Peter and the rest of the supporting cast, but they chose an way to end the marraige that simply was bad storytelling. I mentioned ASM 121 ( Death Of Gwen), but you can talk about ASM 248 ( The kid who.collects Spider-Man) or the death of Jean DeWollf PPSSM 107-110) as orher tragic stories that were well done, but they made a bad decision and when Dan Slott, wrote the book, continued to justify OMD no matter what the readers thought ( like what they did with the Clone Saga that almost bankrupted Marvel). Maybe with a new writter ( Spencer) and a teenage Spider-Man in Miles, ( so man child Pete is not needed) we can get the Pete and MJ
    most of us want.

  8. #218
    Better than YOU! Alan2099's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Revolutionary_Jack View Post
    . In any story about the Devil, right from the Book of Job, to Jesus rejecting all of the devil's temptations, to the Faust tale, and beyond...if you lose to the Devil once, you lose for all time. You have suffered a moral lapse that cannot be undone or washed away. You are damned. When you are damned, you don't get do-overs.
    You can underline it all you want to. That doesn't make it true.

    If it did, we'd be complaining about how... Silver Surfer, Thor, the Fantastic Four, The X-men, X-factor, the Avengers, Ghost Rider, and many other characters have all been dammned for eternity.

    Even your examples don't work as Goethe's Faust has Faust being redeemed at the end. You seem to be under the assumption that redemption isn't possible. Where did you get that idea from?

  9. #219
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    Quote Originally Posted by Alan2099 View Post
    You can underline it all you want to. That doesn't make it true.

    If it did, we'd be complaining about how... Silver Surfer, Thor, the Fantastic Four, The X-men, X-factor, the Avengers, Ghost Rider, and many other characters have all been dammned for eternity.

    Even your examples don't work as Goethe's Faust has Faust being redeemed at the end. You seem to be under the assumption that redemption isn't possible. Where did you get that idea from?
    There are two unforgivable sins. 1: Suicide. 2: Hating God from the bottom of your heart, so redemption is possible ( although I THINK there are certain kinds of people that their actions are so bad it will be hard for them to get to heaven even if they ask for forgiveness...For example: Al Capone went to Mass and got forgiven on Sunday, but had people killed on Monday. That said, the rules that apply to real people do not apply to fictional characters. In comics almost anyone except characters like Red Skull or Carnage can be forgiven ( see Peter forgiving Doc Ock as an example.

  10. #220
    The Superior One Celgress's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Revolutionary_Jack View Post
    ....And Mary Jane herself is basically the emotional center and optimistic figure of the entire story, a symbol of positivity which she has been from the very beginning. There's nobody else who carries that much weight. Gwen Stacy was never that, and removing her arguably made the books lighter, since she was a sad-sack when she was still alive and made Peter feel bad anyway, and in death she does that too.
    I'm tired of people saying Gwen Stacy deserved to die because she was a bad character who was unworthy of Peter Parker. I'm also tired of people saying Felicia is a Catwoman ripoff who never really cared about Peter anyway. If you prefer one pairing over another fine but there is no need to throw other possible mates for Peter under the bus to prop up one's own perceived golden girl. We get it Saint Mary Jane is perfect no one else could possibly ever measure up.
    "So you've come to the end now alive but dead inside."

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    Quote Originally Posted by Alan2099 View Post
    If it did, we'd be complaining about how... Silver Surfer, Thor, the Fantastic Four, The X-men, X-factor, the Avengers, Ghost Rider, and many other characters have all been dammned for eternity.
    Aside from Johnny Blaze, did they all sign a deal with Mephisto and didn't wriggle their way out of that, and undid that deal?

    Even your examples don't work as Goethe's Faust has Faust being redeemed at the end.
    Goethe's Faust is an unusual one-of-a-kind book. All earlier versions of the faust myth, whether it's the English play Dr. Faustus by Marlowe, the puppet theatre versions of Faust which inspired Goethe and so on ended with damnation as did the original source myth. Goethe's version rests on the premise of undermining any and all moral foundations and going towards something relative...whereas a superhero universe doesn't rest on that.

    In superhero comics, you do have good and evil and moral premises and foundations. Mephisto is so evil that Dr. Doom is a hero next to him. He has been consistently shown that way. In the Faust play by Goethe, Mephistopheles is more sympathetic and likable than Dr. Faustus, and we as readers as did other critics are supposed to be appalled that Faustus got "redeemed" without showing any remorse or any redemption for his actions.

    Where did you get that idea from?
    Until the deal with Mephisto is undone, and the Pre-OMD status-quo isn't acknowledged, retained and kept as it is, as long as Spider-Man doesn't remember, he is morally compromised.

    Quote Originally Posted by Celgress View Post
    ...
    I never said Gwen Stacy deserved to die. All I said was that Conway, Romita Sr. and a number of fans at the time (including female readers) agreed with that. And I am fully in favor of bringing her back. I even said I'd be okay with OMD if they did bring her back.

    But, I am sorry if this discussion upset you. I respect your views on the forum.

  12. #222
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    Quote Originally Posted by Celgress View Post
    I'm tired of people saying Gwen Stacy deserved to die because she was a bad character who was unworthy of Peter Parker. I'm also tired of people saying Felicia is a Catwoman ripoff who never really cared about Peter anyway. If you prefer one pairing over another fine but there is no need to throw other possible mates for Peter under the bus to prop up one's own perceived golden girl. We get it Saint Mary Jane is perfect no one else could possibly ever measure up.
    I am.on the MJ is right for Pete ( and maybe number one on.that list). But the reason is simple: She is the only one who can handle both Peter Parker and Spider-Man. Gwen could not handle Spider-Man ( she blamed him for her father's dearh), and Felicia was no fan of Peter. Tbe only other person i would give a chance to handle BOTH Pete and Spider-Man would be Michelle González because of her toughness and fiery personality.

  13. #223
    The Superior One Celgress's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by NC_Yankee View Post
    ....Tbe only other person i would give a chance to handle BOTH Pete and Spider-Man would be Michelle González because of her oughness and fiery personality.
    MJ Lite it is. Sorry I could not resist.

    I don't mind people having preferences, however, I stringently object to tearing the preferences of others down to build your own preferences up. A small but vocal portion of the fanbase has seemingly made it their mission to attack any other possibility than Peter/MJ for life.
    "So you've come to the end now alive but dead inside."

  14. #224
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    [QUOTE=Celgress;4297908]MJ Lite it is. Sorry I could not resist.

    I don't mind people having preferences, however, I stringently object to tearing the preferences of others down to build your own preferences up. A small but vocal portion of the fanbase has seemingly made it their mission to attack any other possibility than Peter/MJ for life.[/QUO
    The comparison between MJ and Michelle is fair and accurate ( slthough MJ is better looking). If you look at extraordinary people ( and having Super-Powers like Spider-Man certainly qualifies), they need someone who is tough enough mentally to handle it ( and MJ and Michelle qualify). Through in the fact that Pete lacks self confidence ( which is a reason why he uses humor so much and has never been a leader), makes the need for a strong woman by him even more necessary.
    As far as MJ versus the other Parker Women, it is not a "Small but vocal minority." According to Ranker 75% ( a large majority) chose MJ over 19 others. Although I disagree with some on the list ( I never considered Liz Allen, Cissy Underwood, Rogue, Emma Frost, Jean DeWolff, Marcy Kane, Glory Grant or Anna-Maria Marconi ( who I really like) a Parker g/f)).

  15. #225
    The Superior One Celgress's Avatar
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    I don't mean those who choose MJ over the other love interests rather those who constantly run down the minority (according to your cited source) who pick someone else. Frankly, the shipping hostility in this fandom is some of the worst I have ever witnessed anywhere. Perhaps the negativity is caused by OMD, who knows. When I half-jokingly suggested an AU version of Peter could be gay or bi, thus precluding an MJ pairing in that universe, I was shocked at the amount of vitriol I received. The experience opened my eyes to a nasty reality in our fandom. I am no longer as tolerant of such behavior as I once was.

    Edit - I tried to quote your message but it was a mess in my re-post.
    Last edited by Celgress; 04-09-2019 at 03:49 PM.
    "So you've come to the end now alive but dead inside."

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