With the conclusion of the J. Michael Straczynski swansong on the Amazing Spider-Man title entitled One More Day Marvel has boldly pushed the reset/retcon button on its most beloved character, Peter Parker, a.k.a. Spider-Man, in a plot twist so thin and threadbare that the issue can be summarized in one sentence.
Essentially, both Peter Parker and Mary Jane after a few pages of agonizing and soul-searching give in to Mephisto (Marvel's version of Satan) and agree to give up the very existence of their marriage in exchange for saving the dying Aunt May's life. As a result, Spider-Man continuity is so radically reset that not only are Peter and Mary Jane not married nor have they ever been married, but inexplicably, Harry Osborn, who died in the most poignant manner imaginable in 1993, is alive.
I have been a Spider-Man fan since reading The Kid Who Collects Spider-Man over twenty years ago, and began collecting intermittently in 1988, collecting whole runs of the series in the early 2000s, and I can say, categorically, that I simply cannot remember being more disappointed with a Spider-Man story in my life.
This story is essentially undoing 90 percent of the stories I collected just so Joe Quesada can fulfill his dream of having Spider-Man "unmarried." I don't even want to dwell on how bad this idea is because right now I have so much else going on my life that quite frankly, the best way to deal with this is simply to drop Amazing Spider-Man altogether...but not before posting my two-cents on this storytelling debacle.
The funny thing about this story is how JMS seems to be fighting Joe Quesada every step of the way on how the whole thing turns out. His dialogue (which may not even entirely be his in my opinion considering that the weird "ah-heeeh," "ah-huuuh" speech tics used exclusively by Paul Jenkins somehow found their way into the script) in its most moving moment, talks about how the love that brought them together is stronger than any force that would strive to undo it, stronger than God or the devil...or, in the subtext, than Joe Quesada.
I foresee JMS leaving Marvel not too far down the line. He's always spoken out against micro-management of his writing, and with this having been rammed down his throat, as well as the Sins Past storyline which he had originally conceived as a way to have Peter's children come back to try and kill him, but which was rewritten to have NORMAN OSBORN sire children by GWEN STACY, he may well have been pushed past his breaking point, or just up to its brink.
What makes me even sadder is how this is, in my opinion, one of the best-illustrated Spider-Man stories EVER. Quesada pulls out all of the stops as an artist and channels, even while maintaining his own distinct style, Romita Sr., Todd McFarlane and some of the best artists of 45 years of Spider-Man's history. I'll always have a special place in my heart for John Romita Jr. as the best Spider-Man artist ever but in terms of sheer draftsmanship Joe is just in a class of his own. I guess it goes to show how profoundly Joe believes in the agenda he's pushing in this story, to the extent that he is credited as co-writer and is, I believe, responsible for the last eight or nine pages of the script which, incidentally, is godawful.
I honestly hope Spider-Man fans the world over let Joe Quesada know exactly how they feel about his selfish and rather heavy handed attempt to dictate how Spider-Man should be presented as a character. Unmarrying Spider-Man is one thing, but retconning dead characters into the mix? Joe has crossed even more lines than people were dreading he would.
If there's any consolation I can derive from this, it's that there seems to be lot of room for yet another "reset" down the line, even without a whole lot of retconning. To use an analogy, it seems to have been designed as a knot that can be untied with a single tug, such that if the reaction of fandom is to well and truly reject this new status quo, it will unravel even more quickly than Peter's replacement by Ben Reilly during the infamous Clone Saga. Anyway, anything done magically in the Marvel U is fairly easily undone...I hope.
Until then, well, if I buy comic books, they won't be those starring Spider-Man. Steve McNiven of Civil War may...and only just may...keep me on board for three issues, but I'm not coming back unless and until the mess of One More Day is definitively undone.
No comments:
Post a Comment