I have made my liking of comic books known on the pages of this blog in the past, mostly Marvel comics and in particular Spiderman comics (though I have been reading New Avengers, Mighty Avengers, Thunderbolts, Captain America and Moon Knight to name a few others). That being said, something has happened recently that has recently that may cut back my book buying severely.
Comic books tend to run in story arcs, that being most stories are longer than one book and the fallout from one book slips into others. I have blogged in the past about one such storyline called "Civil War", which affected many of the Marvel books. To give you a brief rundown on what happened, a group of superheroes, The New Warriors, used their abilities to make a reality TV show, where they would apprehend villians and the results would be broadcast on live TV. During one such mission, they encountered some villians and through the course of trying to bring them in, one villian by the name of Nitro, whose ability it is to make things explode, fires off an explosion that kills approximately 600 children and some of The New Warriors.
The fallout from this tragedy (if a work of fiction can be called such, but its my blog, I get to choose the words) was the imposition of the Super Hero Registration Act, where all people that had powers had to be registered with the government. It became an argument of the security of the public versus the civil liberties of those with special abilities and it split the super hero community pretty much down the middle, with Iron Man taking the pro registration side and Captain America leading the side of the non registered. One of the first things that led people to joining the side of the government was that Spiderman unmasked for the world to see that he was in fact Peter Parker. Through the course of the Civil War, Peter would change his mind about registration and switch sides to fight alongside Captain America, after seeing that non registered super heroes were being locked up by the government without benefit of trial, and that some villians had taken the opportunity of the registration act to switch sides and work for the government in hunting down people who used to put them in jail.
A final battle between the sides would be played out in the streets of New York, and it appears that the side against registration was winning when Captain American looked around and saw the damage that was being done by super heroes fighting each other, both in property damage and how it was putting the public at risk, at which point he surrendered, leaving those that oppose registration very much an underground rag tag group.
One of the things that happened as a result of this storyline was the death of Captain America, who was shot while entering the courthouse to stand trial for his role in the Civil War. Another, less publicized thing that happened (I say that because the death of Captain America actually made the news) was that the Kingpin put out a hit on Peter Parker, who the world now knew was Spiderman. Peter, his wife Mary Jane and his Aunt May had all been living on the run from the law, seeing as how by opposing registration, Peter was a wanted criminal. Well, the Kingpin's hitman located the Parkers and when Peter came back to the hotel they were staying in, attempted to shoot Peter, but his spidersense kicked in and he was able to avoid the bullet that while missing him, would end up hitting his Aunt May.
The shot would prove nearly fatal to May, and leave her on life support in the hospital will little to no chance of recovering. This course of events would lead to a story arc titled "One More Day", where Spiderman would seek help from people, some friends and some now enemies because of the SHRA in an effort to save May's life. He would seek out Tony Stark (Iron Man) who helped, albeit reluctantly, by assisting in paying for May's hospital care, though the doctors at the hospital warned that it was just a matter of time until she passed. He then sought out Doctor Strange, in hopes the master of the mysitic arts may know of a way of saving May, but he couldn't help either. It was at this point that Mephisto enters the scene. For those that don't know, Mephisto is a devil like being that inhabits the Marvel Universe and has the ability to take souls if bargains are struck. He offers Spiderman a deal, he will save May, in return Peter has to give up his marriage to Mary Jane (unlike the movies, the pair have been married in the comic for 20 years now, though it wouldn't be twenty years comic time, otherwise he would be much older, alas I digress). After talking it over, Peter and Mary Jane agree to the deal and May's life is spared, and the marriage of Peter and Mary Jane is wiped from the books (as is also everyone's knowledge of Peter as Spiderman, even though he unmasked on TV).
Why would this irk me you may ask? Because it means that for the last 20 years I have been pissing money away on a book only to find it didn't happen. Fans of the old show Dallas know what I am talking about, how Bobby died, the show started tanking in the ratings, the next season there is Bobby in the shower, Pam had dreamt the entire last season and the viewer had just wasted a year of their lives following it. Multiply that by a factor of 20, and add the fact that unlike the TV show, you have to buy comic books, therefore there is a financial investment in the storyline as well, and all Marvel Comics has to say is, thanks for the money, here's a big f@@@ you for ya.
They are trotting out "Brand New Day" as the newest story arc, in it the marriage never happened, Peter and MJ dated but split up and MJ now lives in Hollywood, and Peter is jobless and still living with his aunt, despite the fact he has to be in his 30s by now. If the people at Marvel wanted to split up the Parker marriage (the editor in chief, Joe Quesada is on record of never liking it) they could have done better than a magic trick and wiped out 20 years of book continuity to do so. Maybe this story idea will catch on (though the online stuff I have been reading tends to make me think, not so much) but all this has done for me is guarantee I will not buy another Spiderman comic book, because in 20 years, who knows, it may be made irrelevant as well.
When I saw that article I immediately thought of you. I hate writers that do this almost as much as tv show producers that replace a character with another actor/actress and you are supposed to not notice. C'mon get rid of the character properly will ya!
ReplyDeleteI don't mind the ending of the marriage per se, at least I am not nearly as against it as some people online are, but it could have been handled in a much better fashion than a magic trick and to say the last 20 years of comic books didn't happen. If they wanted to end the marriage,whether permenantly or temporarily, they could have let Aunt May die (how long is she going to live anyway) and had Peter's guilt over the decision (did he do it for selfish reasons?) be the underlying tension in their marriage. Instead they went for the quick fix and said, you know all of that stuff you read about in the last 20 years, that didn't really happen. It would be akin to waitying patiently for all of the Harry Potter books and then in the last chapter of the last book finding out that it really was just some dumb kid playing a computer game and everything you read about was a ruse. Not only does this affect the Spiderman comic books, but books like The New Avengers, of which Spiderman was one, living in the Avengers HQ with his wife and aunt, apparently now all of the members forgot about that entirely, because it didn't happen. It is just lazy writing, pure and simple.
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