Marvel Be Damned

Marvel Comics are trying to compete with DC with how badly they can debase and ruin their great characters. Here’s a review of a recent Spiderman comic that reveals the depths of stupidity the company has fallen to.

SPIDER-MAN: REIGN #3: And now it’s time for this week’s “I seriously can’t believe that Marvel did that” moment. I’m very surprised that I’ve not seen more online outrage about the reveal, this issue, of what killed Mary Jane: Spider-Man’s cum. And for all of you who think I’m joking, here’s the dialogue from the book itself: “Oh God, I’m sorry! The doctors didn’t understand how it happened! How you had been poisoned by radioactivity! How your body slowly became riddled with cancer! I did. I was… I am filled with radioactive blood. And not just blood. Every fluid. Touching me… loving me… Loving me killed you!”

Aside from the fact that it’s a rip off of an old Larry Niven joke story about Superman, it reveals the levels of desperateness they will go to to get a comic noticed. But not all notice is good.

This is why I don’t read that many comics anymore. And I used to read a stack every week. I’m sure the sales of comics are largely based on this kind of crappy writing, as much as the price.

Eww. That’s like someone taking the “Mallrats” joke of Superman killing Lois Lane by having sex with her (“Only Wonder Woman has a strong enough uterus to hold his kid”)and thinking that would be a great idea for a story. Years ago I used to buy almost exclusively Marvel books and now, hardly ever. They’ve screwed up just about every character they’ve got.

Posted by Paul T  on  02/12  at  05:25 PM

Great, just what we needed, more “realism” in “comics.”

Realistically, if Peter Parker were “filled with radioactive blood,” he’d have died long ago.

Let’s face it, “radioactivity” was just a buzzword in the early 60s - an easy way to “explain” Parker’s powers - a means to an end.  There is nothing remotely realistic about it.  I didn’t care when I first read Spider-Man’s origin in the summer after fourth grade, and I don’t care now.

Of course, a bunch of aging fanboyz DO care.  This kind of stuff is written for THEM.

Some of us have long since wandered away from comics and haven’t looked back.  Most people haven’t even looked into comics.  Period.

Would better writing bring them back?  It might bring back some of the old-timers who wouldn’t mind their favorite 45+-year-old franchises rehashed *well* for the zillionth time.  But the general public?  Nah.

The superhero era is gone.  We don’t live in the 40s and 60s anymore.  Kids don’t need the fantasy.  They want ... other things.  And the insistence of middle-aged fanboyz on making future generations just like them will lead nowhere.

Somewhere out there are eighty-year-olds pining for the return of the pulps.  Or radio shows.  They too wait in vain.

Blake Bell puts it bluntly:

http://www.bestofmostof.com/index070207.htm

There will never be a “gateway comic.”

Certainly not the superhero kind.

But that doesn’t mean comics are dead.  Far from it.  Just look at the comics section of a bookstore.  I’m not talking about superhero TPBs here.

The medium lives.  People haven’t become allergic to pictures and words.  The content will change, and that’s something the fanboyz don’t want to face.

That is something you not only face, but understand, because you create that content.  Your comics can go beyond capes and cowls.

Posted by Amritas  on  02/12  at  05:33 PM

I think price and distribution is the problem with comic books.  If Marvel were to reissue the original Spider-Man comic book — the Stan Lee/Steve Ditko classics — with medium quality printing at convenience stores like in the old days, they would sell a million copies.

Because of the Spider-Man movies I see kids with Spider-Man shirts who I know have never read the comic books. But they would.  In all the Spider-Man cross promotion the one thing they have screwed up is not pushing the comic book.

I bought reissues of those stories when I was a kid in the 80s without realizing they were 20 years old.  Kids of today are no different.

Posted by  on  02/12  at  07:45 PM

Good post Ameritas.  That blog pretty much summed it up.

Personaly, Alan Moore’s watchmen destroyed that whole genre for me. After Dark Night Returns, I was never been able to look back.  However, like most people who still read comics, it opened up whole new doors as far as what could be done in the medium.

Also, does anyone remember how weird some of the marvel comics got?  Some of the plots were so strange that I cant even put into words a synopsys. Some of the real oddball spidermans (which were the nuttiest) I could never wrap my mind except to finish off the serious and go, WTF? They were like a Will Bourrughs herione trip. Except radioactive.

Seriously, looking back…This is far from the strangest thing they have ever tried to pull off.  However, it does rank pretty high on the WTF meter.

Posted by  on  02/13  at  07:51 AM

I don’t know for what people love this comics, I know just a few of them whome I respect. The others have really stupid jokes!

Posted by JC  on  02/13  at  10:13 AM

Yeah, I read the first issue of this series, it wasn’t very good.  The author stated that it’s his take on The Dark Knight Returns, but with Spider-Man.  The only problem is, most dark stories don’t work for Spider-Man. (although Kraven’s Last Hunt is an exception).

Posted by  on  02/13  at  10:19 AM

I read an interview with the writer/artist where he said if you love Spiderman you shouldn’t read this book because I’m going to take away everything he loves and not give it back.

Why?

There’s no point to a story like that, if there is it’s nothing but an exercise in depression. Especially when the methods used are as lame as the one mentioned above.

Posted by James Hudnall  on  02/13  at  10:30 AM

Geese…the further we delve into the background of this story, the more incredulous is becomes. 

Isn’t there any more QC at MC these days?

Shouldn’t someone have stopped and re-evaluated this months ago?

Posted by  on  02/13  at  11:10 AM

Nah.

Thank Joe Quesada for the crappiness that Marvel has sunk to…

That and the fact that no such thing as on-time shipping really exists as Marvel anymore.

DC really isn’t better, either. 

In DC’s case, their big mistake is Dan DiDio who doesn’t know when to quit with curdled crap like “Infinite Crisis” and “Identity Crisis.”  Most of the change and carnage brought upon DC by DiDio and executioners like Geoff Johns just wasn’t necessary.  Not a lot of bright lights or nice thinking there.

The situations at both companies won’t get better any time soon until the head jokers in charge of these travesties are let go or go on to Hollywood to wreck something else.  It also depends on readers being smarter and NOT buying every damn comic just to fill every hole in their collection.

A lot of the people buying this stuff are pretty depraved, too.  It sickens me to read the feedbacks on the web forums sometimes…

Posted by  on  02/13  at  12:56 PM

When Amritas related the news to me via private e-mail, this is an excerpt from my reply to him:

“Like I said, Marvel is taken over by ex-high school bullies, who want to jump on a classic property long ridiculed by a cynical public, so that only they would like it (let alone adults in general).”

Same can be said of DC Comics, only THEY have some redeemable exceptions (DC: THE NEW FRONTIER).  Superboy savagely slaughtering the League of Superheroes isn’t any better.  Both companies are run by a bunch of adolescent morons (Beavis & Butt-Heads) who think the shortcomings of beloved heroes is cool and/or fun.  This kind of crap is the reason I don’t even read newer superhero comics anymore.  I’m better off reading an issue of MAD Magazine for this kind of crap.

In their attempt to “legitimize” superheroes, they fail miserably yet again.

Posted by John Cassidy  on  02/14  at  01:51 PM

I couldn’t have said it better, sir! I grew up on both Marvel and DC and am appalled at how crappy their writing has gotten lately.
To be fair, the writing back in the days wasn’t great either but it was much better than today’s writing.
Take for example, the Spiderman books: Instead of giving us exciting characters and storylines, Marvel has decided to overly glorify the Lex-Luthorized version of Norman Osborn and give us lame, forgettable characters such as Morlun, Gabe, Sarah, Ezekiel and Charles Weederman. If Marvel had been smart they would have used the original Hobgoblin as one of Spiderman and Norman’s greatest enemy.
Truth be told, I’m not surprised when DC does stuff like this but Marvel seems to be following in their footsteps, much to their detriment.
Hopefully, some creative and talented writers will soon bring back the true Marvel and DC and get rid of these pale imitaions of them.

Posted by  on  02/19  at  02:50 PM
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