Amazing Spider-Man #654

[cyberghostface]

So Alistar Smythe wants revenge on Jonah for the death of his father...

Comments

[freezer]

NGL: I didn't realize Marla was still around.

[meatwhichdreams]

Yep. You gotcherself a textbook fridging right there.

[shadowpsykie]

at least he's not blaming spider-man....

i know... i know... its... thats so not enough....i wanna say this was a heroic act... and it was... the act itself was very heroic.... but now what? what was the purpose? to get Jonah to be a better person? to furhter a man's story...

can i just look at this as marla being heroic and not as fridging moment? i mean she did have initiative...

i don;t know...

[nezchan]

Spidey's next line should be "Hey, I've got an easy way to get her back! Worked for me!"

[cuntfucius]

LMFAO Oh my god, she even gave the inspiring last words before she was ~taken away~

[stillanerd]

To be fair, this death is well put together and I can see some ramifications that will occur because of this. Unfortunately, outside of long-time, die-hard Spider-Man fans, Marla Jameson really wasn't that big of a supporting character in spite of the fact that she's married to one of the more recognizable and important characters in the Spider-Man comics, who is also his antagonist to boot. And yet we're now supposed to care about Marla's death despite the fact she's historically had long stretches of barely being in the comic, including during "Brand New Day" when she and Jonah were separated? Heck, how many readers, save for long time Spider-Man fans, even know that she's actually Jameson's second wife? And of course, you know we're going to get issues of Peter feeling really guilty and responsible for what happened because she was the one who helped give him his new job, even though she barely knew the woman.

Also, her death seems to follow a similar pattern that Dan Slott did with Roderick Kingsley--bring back a character from relative obscurity just to kill that character off. The only difference being that at least Marla was at least still the comics (albeit barely), was around in Big Time long enough to have some significant character interaction, and didn't actually go out like a chump.

[filthysize]

On the bright side, that's some very nice work by Caselli.

[silverzeo]

.... WOW!

[turtlefu]

A Woman dies, spouting wisdom so that a man can change and grow for the better?
Fuck you, Dan Slott. You have no excuse.

[ian_karkull]

Should I know who this is and should I care? Aside from the hilarous (and disturbing) mental image that apparently, J. Jonah Jameson was shacking it up with a much, much younger woman?
Computer says no.

[alexanderlucard]

Sigh. I saw the cute lil' fridge and I was like "CarlieCarlieCarlieCarlie!" But alas no...

[stillanerd]

Here's something else I just realized--it's pretty evident were going to see Peter, Jonah, and other members of the supporting cast react to Marla's death and feel so shaken by the news for quite a few issues, and yet when comes to Mattie Franklin's death in The Grim Hunt--who was essentially Jonah and Marla's adopted daughter--we STILL have yet see the various characters, including Jonah, react to her death and Marvel has pretty much admitted they're not going to follow-up on that. And Mattie was a character who had her own series for crying out loud!

[big_daddy_d]

So Smythe now looks like..a spider themed version of Scorpion.

[golden_orange]

Wow. That's one conveniently timed rainstorm.

Ha

[mambalev]

So they basically killed her to put Jonah back to how he was before OMD undid his reaction to Spidey's unmasking...

So you know when he stopped blaming and hating, without having to have his wife be fridged.

[lissa_quon]

Wow...hunh...uhm...in other news...thats a very happy fridge you got there. I think I'mma gonna steal it for future uses.

[mistervader]

On the one hand, it's a great character moment. On the other, it took another woman's death to do it.

If JJSr got the axe, I might feel slightly better about it. Just slightly.

[schala_kid]

You know what bothers me a lot, like a lot? That Mattie also died, and she was Marla's niece and no one not even Dan Slott the writer of Grim Hunt, even fucking noticed or bothered to make a reference!

Anyway, Marla I hardly knew ye! I even thought you were John Jameson's mom, but I fucking hate what they did to you.

[sinisterlink]

So one of the main things I'm getting from the Spider-Man comics after OMD is that they really don't like happy relationships. The whole thing started with splitting up MJ and Peter, a couple who Mephisto outright said had a perfect and pure love, which was why he wanted it. Then we had a story that showed how The Rhino had basically retired from crime and gotten married to a woman who was awesome and who he was madly in love with, who of course got killed by the end of that arc. And now we have Marla being killed for no real reason. Won't be long till Jonah senior gets thrown under a bus or something. Can't wait! -_-

[goggle_kid]

You know... I'm as big a critic of comic writers over-relying on death scenes as anyone.

But this actually strikes me as fairly well done.

[fifthie]

Deaths like this always just read like so much noise, anymore.

Killing Gwen Stacy at least takes moxie. Killing J. Jonah's barely mentioned wife is like... why even?