Julia Carpenter: Spider-Woman II/Arachne/Madame Web Appreciation 2022

[seccruz]

In chronological order of the images, you can check out what Rachel used to collect her Halloween candy.

OMG! I hadn't noticed! It was a fun add to the piece!

[bat22]

OMG! I hadn't noticed! It was a fun add to the piece!

Like classic Spider-Man, I could picture Julia just making it to Rachel's trick-or-treat gathering, with an impromptu container for her treats. And maybe for a fish bowl later on.

[seccruz]

Like classic Spider-Man, I could picture Julia just making it to Rachel's trick-or-treat gathering, with an impromptu container for her treats. And maybe for a fish bowl later on.

With Lady Mysterio being all: Gimme back my helmet, dammit! I need it for crime!

[bat22]

Speaking of crime, is Julia being a party to one or somehow still on the side of the angels? That is the question posed by artist redgvicente's mix-up in this commission.

[seccruz]

Speaking of crime, is Julia being a party to one or somehow still on the side of the angels? That is the question posed by artist redgvicente's mix-up in this commission.

She's the current Madame Web, tasked with keeping the Spiders alive in the multiverse. She should be a bigger player, but is sadly not...

[bat22]

She's the current Madame Web, tasked with keeping the Spiders alive in the multiverse. She should be a bigger player, but is sadly not...

Sorry! I know and agree with that part. My last post just failed to keep the image on. Fixed now!

[Lukmendes]

I wonder if Mattie interacted with the greater MCU the way that Jessica and Julia did. While it's important for a character to stand on her own, it never hurts to get her brand out there to other heroes' fans.

She only somewhat did, she was mostly in her own comic, showed up a few times in ASM and had crossovers with it (Both were written by Byrne at the time), showed up in Contest of Champions II which she quickly lost (That comic was likely a popularity contest, since Natasha defeated Wonder Man), was in Alias where Jessica Jones saved her from some some human traffic **** I think, and then was part of some "The Loners" team, which only lasted for 5 issues, after this she showed up in ASM for Grim Hunt.

I just had a fantasy of a "Charlie's Angels" tritagonist book with Jess, Julia, and Mattie; maybe more of an arachnic "Birds of Prey" with the girl spiders these days.

That could be fun, though difficult with Mattie being a corpse :P.

Being Cass's granddaughter, she does have more potential than most Spidey villainesses.

Having more potential than Spidey's usual villainesses ain't saying much anyways, most of 'em are fairly gimmicky.

I'd say that the ones with the most potential to stand out are Charlotte, Spider-Queen, and Calypso.

Sasha and Ana also have alright potential, but they're derivatives of Kraven, but more bloodthirsty, and while Sasha and Ana could fill a spot that lacked Kraven's other sons failed to fulfill, after Kraven was resurrected, Marvel chose to kill Sasha off and just, make Ana not do much... Anyways, those other three have some things that can stand out more, too bad two out of them are dead lol.

Simultaneous activity shouldn't be a hindrance, if we could have the likes of USAgent, Beta Ray Bill, and War Machine despite the presence elsewhere of Cap, Thor, and Iron Man. Plus Jess and Jules had all those differences.

USAgent, Beta Ray Bill and War Machine do tend to struggle with appearances at times because the original stays around unfortunately, Bill in particular is hardly around.

So yeah, intentional or not, sharing screen time can be a hindrance, and it's potentially an even bigger one with characters like Spider-Women who struggle real hard to have a comic.

I never thought we'd see Barry back as the ongoing Flash protagonist. It was a return not many if any were clamoring for since Wally was such a good successor. Though I guess that's how it would be for those wanting Julia back as Spider-Woman or Arachne, when others are used to seeing her as Madame Web; whenever she manages to turn up, but maybe this upcoming MW movie will make her more dynamic again, taking her out of the trenchcoat and back into spandex.

Barry was an annoying case of toxic nostalgia, DiDio detests legacy characters, and Geoff Johns is a Barry fanboy, so this deadly combination caused Barry to come back at Wally's expense.

And yes, somehow DiDio doesn't realize the irony that Barry himself is a legacy character to Jay Garrick, and he also wanted a bunch of legacy characters in his G5 idea, so it seems that he wants to be the one making legacies lol.

Either way, I'd say that Julia getting into spandex back could only potentially screw Jessica if they make her get the Spider-Woman title back, which I don't see it happening, considering that Marvel is pretty okay with Spidey and Miles sharing the same code name.

It would be pretty silly if she were to get Spider-Woman again though, Arachne is fine, and it's even a codename she wanted to use originally anyways:



(Avengers West Coast#84)



(Spider-Woman#2 vol 2).

I'd blame that on creative teams who don't care enough about consistency or researching characters' histories. But today's writers seem content to be willfully ignorant as they push their fan fic while hoping for work on film and television.

It doesn't help that editors don't do their thing too, or push for stupid fanfictions as well, since I did hear that the reason why Emma went evil for a while was because the editor was a Cyke/Jean shipper lol.

Even the TMNT hit a drought in popularity. Those cartoons eventually end, and not every new creative team in Marvel is going to care for a derivative like Spider-Gwen.

Sure, and I'm not saying characters will be popular forever (After all, Captain Marvel, that is, Billy Batson, was more popular than Superman once upon a time), just that if Gwen loses her popularity, it'd take a while because she quickly became a known name and is still being used, if she loses popularity it'll take at least a few years.

But if that foreboding and vagueness are what her powers amount to, then it begs the question of why she should keep appearing when she's being a consistently unhelpful support character (LR aside).

Characters may get stuck in specific roles even if they logically should outgrow 'em or shouldn't be into them at all just because they were written like this for a while.

Bette Kane on the DC side has something similar, she was the first Batgirl (Was spelled Bat-Girl), but Barbara outclasses her in popularity, and from what I hear, at some point, Bette's role was to be just a punching bag, and she became one just because with no one making an effort to remove her from it.

If that's really something that happened with Bette, Julia is in a similar situation with the Madame Web stuff, and it doesn't help that the writer who uses her the most is Slott, who defined her in this stagnant role to begin with (He wasn't the one who made her Madame Web, since he wasn't involved with Grim Hunt, and the idea of Grim Hunt was clearly to put her in a supportive role, but Slott is the one who used her the most afterwards and made it clear she specifically stays in supportive roles), and it doesn't help that Julia's moment of action in Spencer's run doesn't put much emphasis that she's not avoiding to fight anymore, since the one who did most of the heavy lifting of the .LR issues of Last Remains was Strange... And fact that Slott went back to using Julia in this new Spider-Verse story means she'll likely just have a supportive role again.

Hopefully the Madame Web movie, regardless if it's gonna have Julia or Cassandra as the main character, it does something to allow Julia to do more **** if Julia is in the movie at all lol.

I'll just say that gay Psylocke is about as eye-rolling to me as gay Iceman and "bisexual" Tim Drake.

I haven't checked out Tim's situation yet, but Iceman's, oh boy, it's incredible and a bit infuriating Bendis wrote that, editors allowed it, and they got paid for it.

Like, even if I ignore how shitty it is of Jean to invade someone's privacy and tell him he's gay, and also ignore how stupid it is for Jean to dismiss what Bobby himself thinks about it and insist he's gay, the whole thing is just a very awkward speedrun at "Hey, you're gay now Bobby", it's incredible, in a baffling way lol.

In chronological order of the images, you can check out what Rachel used to collect her Halloween candy. =D

I did briefly wonder why a bowl was shaped like that, but I didn't make a connection with any Mysterio lol.

I seem to recall her being called a teenager in the Omega Flight series, but that aging felt sped-up to me from her appearances in Avengers West Coast and Force Works. She's still pre-teen AFAIC.

That would be some speedrun in that case, 'cause Ms. Marvel#6 vol 2 says she's 9, and the Marvel Comics Presents vol 2's last issue came out two years later lol.

But either way, she's probably on her teens now, considering the way she looks when she shows up in ASM after Grim Hunt, and Julia even let her travel by train alone:

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachmen...64/unknown.png



(ASM#695)

A while before that it's said she's having tests too:

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachmen...06/unknown.png

(ASM#689).

So yeah, it seems I was wrong in thinking she was still a kid before, looks like she skipped a few years quickly, classic of Marvel's kids lol.

[bat22]

So yeah, it seems I was wrong in thinking she was still a kid before, looks like she skipped a few years quickly, classic of Marvel's kids lol.

With how Marvel (and DC) handles its pre-adult characters' ages, Jessica's kid will be Rachel's college room mate before we know it.

[bat22]

She only somewhat did, she was mostly in her own comic, showed up a few times in ASM and had crossovers with it (Both were written by Byrne at the time), showed up in Contest of Champions II which she quickly lost (That comic was likely a popularity contest, since Natasha defeated Wonder Man), was in Alias where Jessica Jones saved her from some some human traffic **** I think, and then was part of some "The Loners" team, which only lasted for 5 issues, after this she showed up in ASM for Grim Hunt.

It was kinda strange seeing Mattie burst on the scene since Jessica was finally brought out of Spider-Woman limbo by Julia. Maybe Byrne wanted to star his own OC so she could go the distance and he'd benefit from some royalties?

That could be fun, though difficult with Mattie being a corpse :P.

I was mostly thinking of the "young 'uns" like Gwen, Arana, and Silk. I guess that could make Julia "Charlie" and Jessica "Bosley".

Having more potential than Spidey's usual villainesses ain't saying much anyways, most of 'em are fairly gimmicky.

I'd say that the ones with the most potential to stand out are Charlotte, Spider-Queen, and Calypso.

I'm surprised by how many of his male namesakes have been gender-bent.

Sasha and Ana also have alright potential, but they're derivatives of Kraven, but more bloodthirsty, and while Sasha and Ana could fill a spot that lacked Kraven's other sons failed to fulfill, after Kraven was resurrected, Marvel chose to kill Sasha off and just, make Ana not do much... Anyways, those other three have some things that can stand out more, too bad two out of them are dead lol.

I'll take your word on that. My knowledge of everything Kraven is pretty much based around the 90s cartoon.

USAgent, Beta Ray Bill and War Machine do tend to struggle with appearances at times because the original stays around unfortunately, Bill in particular is hardly around.

So yeah, intentional or not, sharing screen time can be a hindrance, and it's potentially an even bigger one with characters like Spider-Women who struggle real hard to have a comic.

It may be a challenge but it's not impossible given the number of simultaneous Green Lanterns and how fans still follow them. At least the fans that haven't been driven away.

Barry was an annoying case of toxic nostalgia, DiDio detests legacy characters, and Geoff Johns is a Barry fanboy, so this deadly combination caused Barry to come back at Wally's expense.

And yes, somehow DiDio doesn't realize the irony that Barry himself is a legacy character to Jay Garrick, and he also wanted a bunch of legacy characters in his G5 idea, so it seems that he wants to be the one making legacies lol.

Either way, I'd say that Julia getting into spandex back could only potentially screw Jessica if they make her get the Spider-Woman title back, which I don't see it happening, considering that Marvel is pretty okay with Spidey and Miles sharing the same code name.

It would be pretty silly if she were to get Spider-Woman again though, Arachne is fine, and it's even a codename she wanted to use originally anyways

Jay and Barry are another example of same-named, same-powered heroes co-existing. In Barry's case, while his return wasn't in demand, his staying power since then shows the possibility of the same happening for Julia whether as Spider-Woman or Arachne.

It doesn't help that editors don't do their thing too, or push for stupid fanfictions as well, since I did hear that the reason why Emma went evil for a while was because the editor was a Cyke/Jean shipper lol.

I can't be too mad at that, being a Cyke/Jean shipper myself! But meddling editors makes me think of Sana Amanat in her never-ending quest to make Kamala Khan a legend.

Sure, and I'm not saying characters will be popular forever (After all, Captain Marvel, that is, Billy Batson, was more popular than Superman once upon a time), just that if Gwen loses her popularity, it'd take a while because she quickly became a known name and is still being used, if she loses popularity it'll take at least a few years.

If Barry can regain his ground despite Wally, who has much more support than Gwen...

Characters may get stuck in specific roles even if they logically should outgrow 'em or shouldn't be into them at all just because they were written like this for a while.

Bette Kane on the DC side has something similar, she was the first Batgirl (Was spelled Bat-Girl), but Barbara outclasses her in popularity, and from what I hear, at some point, Bette's role was to be just a punching bag, and she became one just because with no one making an effort to remove her from it.

If that's really something that happened with Bette, Julia is in a similar situation with the Madame Web stuff, and it doesn't help that the writer who uses her the most is Slott, who defined her in this stagnant role to begin with (He wasn't the one who made her Madame Web, since he wasn't involved with Grim Hunt, and the idea of Grim Hunt was clearly to put her in a supportive role, but Slott is the one who used her the most afterwards and made it clear she specifically stays in supportive roles), and it doesn't help that Julia's moment of action in Spencer's run doesn't put much emphasis that she's not avoiding to fight anymore, since the one who did most of the heavy lifting of the .LR issues of Last Remains was Strange... And fact that Slott went back to using Julia in this new Spider-Verse story means she'll likely just have a supportive role again.

Hopefully the Madame Web movie, regardless if it's gonna have Julia or Cassandra as the main character, it does something to allow Julia to do more **** if Julia is in the movie at all lol.

The Madame Web role is a contradiction, Julia being so powerful compared to Spidey but kept in the background like the Sorceress being restricted to Castle Grayskull (which isn't a fair comparison because Sorceress still got a lot of attention and wasn't always in need of rescuing).

I haven't checked out Tim's situation yet, but Iceman's, oh boy, it's incredible and a bit infuriating Bendis wrote that, editors allowed it, and they got paid for it.

Like, even if I ignore how shitty it is of Jean to invade someone's privacy and tell him he's gay, and also ignore how stupid it is for Jean to dismiss what Bobby himself thinks about it and insist he's gay, the whole thing is just a very awkward speedrun at "Hey, you're gay now Bobby", it's incredible, in a baffling way lol.

Not just gay, the irony of him being called Iceman when he became FLAMING gay.

That would be some speedrun in that case, 'cause Ms. Marvel#6 vol 2 says she's 9, and the Marvel Comics Presents vol 2's last issue came out two years later lol.

But either way, she's probably on her teens now, considering the way she looks when she shows up in ASM after Grim Hunt, and Julia even let her travel by train alone.

So yeah, it seems I was wrong in thinking she was still a kid before, looks like she skipped a few years quickly, classic of Marvel's kids lol.

Looks like what was said about Stature being dramatically aged up, which still doesn't mean much to me since I hold modern storytelling in the Big Two with such eye-rolling contempt.

[Lukmendes]

With how Marvel (and DC) handles its pre-adult characters' ages, Jessica's kid will be Rachel's college room mate before we know it.

Probably, MJ has a niece who aged at least 5 years offscreen lol.

It was kinda strange seeing Mattie burst on the scene since Jessica was finally brought out of Spider-Woman limbo by Julia. Maybe Byrne wanted to star his own OC so she could go the distance and he'd benefit from some royalties?

I don't remember that story really establishing Jessica as having her powers back, and I think her appearances between Spectacular Annual 1996 and Charlotte stealing her's and Jessica's powers didn't say anything about her having her powers back.

Although that annual could make it look like it was the case, but Jessica herself makes no comments about it, nor does anyone else.

I was mostly thinking of the "young 'uns" like Gwen, Arana, and Silk. I guess that could make Julia "Charlie" and Jessica "Bosley".

Cindy is as old as Spidey, while she's not "old", she's not on the same age category as Anya and Gwen lol.

I'm surprised by how many of his male namesakes have been gender-bent.

Attempts to bring new versions of characters tend to have that happen.

Best one of all is "Lady Stilt-Man" lol.

It may be a challenge but it's not impossible given the number of simultaneous Green Lanterns and how fans still follow them. At least the fans that haven't been driven away.

GLs also struggle with this, specially with DC introducing more GLs from Earth, and Earth Green Lanterns tend to get more screen time.

DC does that far better than Marvel, but there are definitely plenty of issues, hell, Kyle for a while became a White Lantern, and then he fucked off to outside of the multiverse or somethin', that was a glorified limbo...

Jay and Barry are another example of same-named, same-powered heroes co-existing. In Barry's case, while his return wasn't in demand, his staying power since then shows the possibility of the same happening for Julia whether as Spider-Woman or Arachne.

Jay is strictly a supporting character, he's either hanging around the Flash family or JSA.

A more accurate comparison would be Barry and Wally since they are both main characters, and when one is around, the other loses main character status, right now Wally is the main character and Barry does other stuff.

But again, the stuff with Barry that made him return isn't really comparable, 'cause Barry got really, really wanked, he gets the benefit of arguably being the super-hero who started silver age, and stayed around until he got killed, and then toxic nostalgia brought him back, and he had plenty of wanks to be relevant at the expense of the rest of the Flash Family.

I can't be too mad at that, being a Cyke/Jean shipper myself! But meddling editors makes me think of Sana Amanat in her never-ending quest to make Kamala Khan a legend.

Honestly, even if that's something that favors you, it's better to not support such decisions, because if Cyke/Jean get support by having Emma get fucked over, if this kind of bad fanfiction is allowed, then someone who decides to screw over Cyke/Jean in similar ways, or maybe even worse ways, could be allowed too.

I think a reason why comic books have these ridiculous drops of writing quality is that this "I'll write something poorly to fix what was broken" is allowed, and the problem is that what is considered "broken" may not be actually broken to begin with... That's what got One More Day on the Spidey side lol.

If Barry can regain his ground despite Wally, who has much more support than Gwen...

DiDio's hate boner for Wally is legendary man.

The closest thing to the way Wally was destroyed for the sake of Barry is either Charlotte's own introduction having Jessica and Julia being depowered for Mattie's sake (and Julia definitely got the short end of the stick with that, since she disappeared from Mattie's comic and didn't do much even when she was around, and at least Jessica stuck around to help), or Grim Hunt, meanwhile Wally, who was the Flash franchise's main character, was sidelined and humiliated, and outright deleted from existence for years.

The Madame Web role is a contradiction, Julia being so powerful compared to Spidey but kept in the background like the Sorceress being restricted to Castle Grayskull (which isn't a fair comparison because Sorceress still got a lot of attention and wasn't always in need of rescuing).

Yep, even if they don't want to use what was that "peak Madame Web Julia" scene where she kept up with Spidey (Which, again, is no small feat considering how much Spidey kicks ass whenever he bothers using it), the combination of her powers are at least potentially comparatively flexible, but she hardly gets to even fight, so she's just a more mobile and useless Cassandra, and the longer she's on that role, the less likely it'll be for it to be reversed.

Not just gay, the irony of him being called Iceman when he became FLAMING gay.

I do tend to hear that gays may do that, as a way to finally be able to express themselves after years of being repressed and whatever, so even if written poorly the idea of it has basis on reality at the very least.

Looks like what was said about Stature being dramatically aged up, which still doesn't mean much to me since I hold modern storytelling in the Big Two with such eye-rolling contempt.

To be fair, even when it was "good", the way kids aged up was always bad, Kitty has aged really slowly (I hear that she celebrated her 14th in 1983, then celebrated her 15th in 1989), then aged fast in just a few years to reach 18, so modern comics being worse in quality or not, kids sometimes aged as slowly as they could, or did a speedrun lol.

And hell, speaking of Kitty, the original plan was for her to not even age originally, editorial wanted her to be the eternal kid, but Claremont fought back against that, so back then the way characters aged or didn't was a mess too...

[bat22]

I don't remember that story really establishing Jessica as having her powers back, and I think her appearances between Spectacular Annual 1996 and Charlotte stealing her's and Jessica's powers didn't say anything about her having her powers back.

Although that annual could make it look like it was the case, but Jessica herself makes no comments about it, nor does anyone else.

Since Jessica was brought back in her costume, and Julia asked if she wanted the name back, it seemed to me that she was poised for a comeback until Charlotte and Mattie came on the scene.

GLs also struggle with this, specially with DC introducing more GLs from Earth, and Earth Green Lanterns tend to get more screen time.

DC does that far better than Marvel, but there are definitely plenty of issues, hell, Kyle for a while became a White Lantern, and then he fucked off to outside of the multiverse or somethin', that was a glorified limbo...

Hardly ever a fan of Kyle's. Not so much the character than for what befell the Silver Age breed for him to be considered special, instead of just casting a spotlight on him while it could be assumed that the Corps was doing its thing out in the universe.

Jay is strictly a supporting character, he's either hanging around the Flash family or JSA.

But he was quite active during the JSA run while Wally was doing his thing in the Flash and JLA titles.

Honestly, even if that's something that favors you, it's better to not support such decisions, because if Cyke/Jean get support by having Emma get fucked over, if this kind of bad fanfiction is allowed, then someone who decides to screw over Cyke/Jean in similar ways, or maybe even worse ways, could be allowed too.

I think that depends on your reaction to Cyke getting with Emma during Morrison's run. It won over some fans but Jean Summers may be equivalent to Sue Richards to probably more X-fans.

I think a reason why comic books have these ridiculous drops of writing quality is that this "I'll write something poorly to fix what was broken" is allowed, and the problem is that what is considered "broken" may not be actually broken to begin with... That's what got One More Day on the Spidey side lol.

Speaking as a casual and mostly ign'ant Spidey fan, I think Petey is screwed. All this grandiosity with the "Great Web" and primal threats are a distraction from him going nowhere as a stand-alone character. His marriage to MJ was an institution, and fatherhood could have revitalized it, but then you get setbacks like the missing baby and nullified marriage. Which pisses me off when Julia/Rachel is treated as getting older but age isn't as stressed on Peter. Like freaking Batman and his ever-growing number of maturing Robins.

I do tend to hear that gays may do that, as a way to finally be able to express themselves after years of being repressed and whatever, so even if written poorly the idea of it has basis on reality at the very least.

For that to happen, we'd have to have seen at least an inkling of repression in Bobbie over the years. From his series, this was less a case of Bobbie shifting from pie to strudel; he got a real personality shift possibly from being writer Sina Grace's avatar.

To be fair, even when it was "good", the way kids aged up was always bad, Kitty has aged really slowly (I hear that she celebrated her 14th in 1983, then celebrated her 15th in 1989), then aged fast in just a few years to reach 18, so modern comics being worse in quality or not, kids sometimes aged as slowly as they could, or did a speedrun lol.

And hell, speaking of Kitty, the original plan was for her to not even age originally, editorial wanted her to be the eternal kid, but Claremont fought back against that, so back then the way characters aged or didn't was a mess too...

Claremont's a legend but even legends have misses, like an idea for Mystique being Nightcrawler's father (though I'm not sure how serious he was about it). That concept might thrill "progressives" today but I can't see Mystique having that much control over her biology - she's a shapeshifter, a pretender - short of being a true hermaphrodite.

[Lukmendes]

Since Jessica was brought back in her costume, and Julia asked if she wanted the name back, it seemed to me that she was poised for a comeback until Charlotte and Mattie came on the scene.

I'd say that's still a maybe, 'cause Jessica doesn't answer that lol.

Originally the story was supposed to continue in Spider-Man Team-Up, but the comic was cancelled, and then Jessica and Julia showed up in separate comics until Charlotte started her attack.

Hardly ever a fan of Kyle's. Not so much the character than for what befell the Silver Age breed for him to be considered special, instead of just casting a spotlight on him while it could be assumed that the Corps was doing its thing out in the universe.

Yeah the whole thing was weird, perhaps the corps were fucked over just to show how unredeemable Hal is, but yeah, it just made Kyle as a replacement look worse instead.

But he was quite active during the JSA run while Wally was doing his thing in the Flash and JLA titles.

Yeah but I'm pretty sure Flashes don't tend to do much on JLA, and then him being deleted, urgh...

I think that depends on your reaction to Cyke getting with Emma during Morrison's run.

Well, Emma got together with him when he was in therapy and convinced him that having sex was a way to heal, at worst she's a rapist, and at best she's using a position of power to manipulate someone while also not having a license as a therapist, and the story not really commenting how bad this is, yeah... Depending on how you view it Cyke can look like a piece of **** too, but regardless Emma looks bad lol.

I still don't think that bad writing should be used to "fix" bad writing though, again, this kind of attitude is what allows garbage to be normalized, trying to make something good out of a bad story can be the way to go, well, as long as it's done properly, Spencer on ASM tried to make something good out of OMD, and, it didn't work.

It won over some fans but Jean Summers may be equivalent to Sue Richards to probably more X-fans.

I have seen people comparing her relationship with Cyke to be like Reed's is with Sue's, meaning, boring lol.

Haven't seen enough to judge, but back in Lee/Kirby run it was boring, 'cause Cyke and Jean were really boring there, but considering that Jean and Cyke improved afterwards as characters, the relationship itself likely improved, but I'd have to read more to see.

Speaking as a casual and mostly ign'ant Spidey fan, I think Petey is screwed. All this grandiosity with the "Great Web" and primal threats are a distraction from him going nowhere as a stand-alone character. His marriage to MJ was an institution, and fatherhood could have revitalized it, but then you get setbacks like the missing baby and nullified marriage.

Spidey now is like Simpsons yeah, a franchise zombie, and honestly, while a lot of fans like to parrot that he has to get back together with MJ and maybe have a kid for his stories to improve, I don't agree with that at all.

Like I prefer Spidey with MJ, but I also understand writing enough that the problem with ASM is a lack of respect for the character, and Marvel using the Simpsons writing style of coming up with dumb gimmicks to pretend they're talented, having him get together with MJ could be a way to fix it, but her presence could also make no difference and he still gets the same kind of bad writing, Marvel needs to respect his character and ways of telling stories first, MJ being around is only a possible way to fix it, but not a guarantee, specially with how MJ is definitely not immune to being written poorly.

Which pisses me off when Julia/Rachel is treated as getting older but age isn't as stressed on Peter. Like freaking Batman and his ever-growing number of maturing Robins.

How much characters age is a mess, like, I remember a recent interview on the X-Men side where a writer said that Cyke should be on his 30's, but the editor, Jordan White said he should be around 27 lol.

There's also this interview saying that Johnny from F4 is on his early 20's:

https://www.cbr.com/fantastic-four-r...rth-interview/

"He's been a guy who's had to learn responsibility a lot in the past, and my take is -- fine, he's learned it! He's now a slightly more responsible fire guy in his early 20s"

So Johnny has been there since the beginning of the modern age, which started the nonsensical sliding time scale, the same time scale that advanced in real time for the first years, and that Marvel insists on saying "only" 14 years have passed, and in those 14 years, Johnny, who was at his youngers 14 when F4#1 came out, is on his early 20s.

So yeah, it's stupid, characters age at different rates, and how old characters are depends on the writer and even what editorial is thinking at the time, Julia logically should be on her 40's, maybe even 50's, but if Marvel decides to say she's on her 30's I wouldn't be surprised lol.

This is a problem that got worse (Specially with Spidey), but it's worth pointing out how old writers share the mentality of how stuff shouldn't change, Gerry Conway points out on twitter that Spidey shouldn't have aged out of high school for example, and Conway is someone who wrote Spidey after Lee stopped, and he wrote Spidey when he was young enough to actually understand 60's/70's youth, and he wrote Spidey as a college student and a married man, and he still says Spidey shouldn't have aged out of high school, yeah...

For that to happen, we'd have to have seen at least an inkling of repression in Bobbie over the years. From his series, this was less a case of Bobbie shifting from pie to strudel; he got a real personality shift possibly from being writer Sina Grace's avatar.

There are comics published afterwards that imply he's been repressing that for a while, I'm pretty sure a Pride issue did that, but yeah, that kinda cheapens it if you're just doing it after the fact lol.

On his defense though, I think a few stories in the 90's implied a few times he's either gay or bisexual, but they didn't do much with it.

Not that it'd make the way he was forced to come out any less laughably bad, but hey, companies rather clearly don't understand these things, and they hire people who either don't understand these things or suck too much as writers to properly put that on paper (And I'm not even getting into how editorial interference could be a problem, or the lack of it being a problem too), but basically, it's an all around awkward situation.

Claremont's a legend but even legends have misses, like an idea for Mystique being Nightcrawler's father (though I'm not sure how serious he was about it).

There was this idea that Rachel's parent is only Jean and Phoenix nonsense allowed that to happen, so I would be more surprised if it wasn't legit, Claremont's women very much want to **** each other, Mystique just has more ways of doing it lol.

That concept might thrill "progressives" today but I can't see Mystique having that much control over her biology - she's a shapeshifter, a pretender - short of being a true hermaphrodite.

I don't see what's so far fetched about that, Claremont did like weird applications to powers to the point he even made Uncanny X-Men Annual#11, which had Wolverine spitting blood into some crystal, and that allows him to regenerate his entire body, although he points out there that this is only possible because it had "sufficient power" to do so, and Wolverine basically became a god there, he still points out it happened because the genetic data on his DNA allowed that to happen.

It's worth keeping in mind that Claremont doesn't like Wolverine's healing factor being super strong, and that situation was a one off, but it still has the weird application of "If Wolverine is super charged he can regenerate his entire body".

There's also the nonsense Jean got once she became Phoenix, since Phoenix wasn't a separate entity from Jean originally, she just got new powers out of nowhere, instead of the already very strong combination of telepathy and telekinesis.

So yeah, since characters can do weird applications of their powers under Claremont (And that is even what allowed Kitty to have a rather flexible way of using her powers instead of being just a gimmicky character), or even pull new powers from their asses at random, again, I don't see what's so far fetched about Mystique getting a functional penis with her powers.

[bat22]

So yeah, it's stupid, characters age at different rates, and how old characters are depends on the writer and even what editorial is thinking at the time, Julia logically should be on her 40's, maybe even 50's, but if Marvel decides to say she's on her 30's I wouldn't be surprised lol.

Which is why I'm against aging up Rachel. There's only so young a mother Julia could've been when she gave birth. Because Peter doesn't play by the same rules, I'd hate for Julia to wind up like Money Penny in the James Bond films, quite a catch in Dr. No but a senior figure by View to a Kill.

There was this idea that Rachel's parent is only Jean and Phoenix nonsense allowed that to happen, so I would be more surprised if it wasn't legit, Claremont's women very much want to **** each other, Mystique just has more ways of doing it lol.

I don't see what's so far fetched about that, Claremont did like weird applications to powers to the point he even made Uncanny X-Men Annual#11, which had Wolverine spitting blood into some crystal, and that allows him to regenerate his entire body, although he points out there that this is only possible because it had "sufficient power" to do so, and Wolverine basically became a god there, he still points out it happened because the genetic data on his DNA allowed that to happen.

It's worth keeping in mind that Claremont doesn't like Wolverine's healing factor being super strong, and that situation was a one off, but it still has the weird application of "If Wolverine is super charged he can regenerate his entire body".

There's also the nonsense Jean got once she became Phoenix, since Phoenix wasn't a separate entity from Jean originally, she just got new powers out of nowhere, instead of the already very strong combination of telepathy and telekinesis.

So yeah, since characters can do weird applications of their powers under Claremont (And that is even what allowed Kitty to have a rather flexible way of using her powers instead of being just a gimmicky character), or even pull new powers from their asses at random, again, I don't see what's so far fetched about Mystique getting a functional penis with her powers.

I can see the poetry behind the concept. A phoenix dies and is resurrected, so it could have been with Jean; though something like that would take her from mutant to mystical.

I've got that Annual! I'm not too bothered by it since the resurrection of Logan in a fresh new body is attributed to basically magic. I'll have to refresh myself on Jean's extra powers, though they may have been sufficiently explained away when the Phoenix entity was conceived.

With Raven's shapechanging abilities, imagination is the limit when she and Irene are behind closed doors. But, minus the aid of a magical stone or an interstellar force of nature, I just don't see Mystique's female body creating semen any more than it can a precious metal or industrial gas.

[Lukmendes]

Which is why I'm against aging up Rachel. There's only so young a mother Julia could've been when she gave birth. Because Peter doesn't play by the same rules, I'd hate for Julia to wind up like Money Penny in the James Bond films, quite a catch in Dr. No but a senior figure by View to a Kill.

You lost me with the references lol.

Either way, it is worth pointing out that while characters who started young, Marvel struggles in letting them be over 30, a character who started old is allowed to grow older.

On the X-Men side, we have Xavier who started as an adult, while he's not as old as he looks, he is at least over 40.

Moira is another example since like Xavier she has an adult son, and recently I learned that she's actually on her 50s.



(House of X#2).

Life 10 is the one showing that, since it says she's 52 when "House of X" starts.

So anyways, Julia as someone who debutted looking older, and not long after it's revealed she has a daughter, the chances of her being said to be less than 40 are small, though not impossible.

Thinking of it, was Julia's age ever said? Wiki says nothing about it.

I can see the poetry behind the concept. A phoenix dies and is resurrected, so it could have been with Jean; though something like that would take her from mutant to mystical.

I've got that Annual! I'm not too bothered by it since the resurrection of Logan in a fresh new body is attributed to basically magic.

The thing is that it's not just magic, Wolverine talks in a way that says "If my blood gets super charged I can regenerate myself completely", and while the super charging is a godlike power in that case, it still leaves the possibility of his power regenerating him a lot more because of this application, though, again, since you can't just find something to power him up like that, it's at least not common in any way, but it's not attributed to just "It's only this magic crystal", likely because this makes the moment more unique to Wolverine, not something anyone else can just do.

I'll have to refresh myself on Jean's extra powers, though they may have been sufficiently explained away when the Phoenix entity was conceived.

Just her sudden power up alone was a sudden asspull to guarantee her survival and new powers lol.

While maybe it got explained, it's only after Jean's resurrection/return that Phoenix explicitly was made into a cosmic being.

Then there's a mess about whether or not Jean is Phoenix, Claremont very much says it's the case, other writers are more divisive.

With Raven's shapechanging abilities, imagination is the limit when she and Irene are behind closed doors. But, minus the aid of a magical stone or an interstellar force of nature, I just don't see Mystique's female body creating semen any more than it can a precious metal or industrial gas.

We're talking about the same guy who had Rachel believe herself to be a dinosaur 'cause of some villain doing brainwashing on, and she changed her body into a dinosaur using her telekinesis:



(Uncanny X-Men#457).

So yeah, Claremont does stuff that stretches logic like this, I really don't see how Mystique impregnating Destiny would be that far fetched lol.

Oh also, since I didn't see it being posted here, a variation cover had Julia as Spider-Woman:

[seccruz]

You lost me with the references lol.

Either way, it is worth pointing out that while characters who started young, Marvel struggles in letting them be over 30, a character who started old is allowed to grow older.

On the X-Men side, we have Xavier who started as an adult, while he's not as old as he looks, he is at least over 40.

Moira is another example since like Xavier she has an adult son, and recently I learned that she's actually on her 50s.



(House of X#2).

Life 10 is the one showing that, since it says she's 52 when "House of X" starts.

So anyways, Julia as someone who debutted looking older, and not long after it's revealed she has a daughter, the chances of her being said to be less than 40 are small, though not impossible.

Thinking of it, was Julia's age ever said? Wiki says nothing about it.



The thing is that it's not just magic, Wolverine talks in a way that says "If my blood gets super charged I can regenerate myself completely", and while the super charging is a godlike power in that case, it still leaves the possibility of his power regenerating him a lot more because of this application, though, again, since you can't just find something to power him up like that, it's at least not common in any way, but it's not attributed to just "It's only this magic crystal", likely because this makes the moment more unique to Wolverine, not something anyone else can just do.



Just her sudden power up alone was a sudden asspull to guarantee her survival and new powers lol.

While maybe it got explained, it's only after Jean's resurrection/return that Phoenix explicitly was made into a cosmic being.

Then there's a mess about whether or not Jean is Phoenix, Claremont very much says it's the case, other writers are more divisive.



We're talking about the same guy who had Rachel believe herself to be a dinosaur 'cause of some villain doing brainwashing on, and she changed her body into a dinosaur using her telekinesis:



(Uncanny X-Men#457).

So yeah, Claremont does stuff that stretches logic like this, I really don't see how Mystique impregnating Destiny would be that far fetched lol.

Oh also, since I didn't see it being posted here, a variation cover had Julia as Spider-Woman:

I love that cover! Would love to see a return of that costume when Julia gets sick of acting in the sidelines...