Entry tags:

char: carlie cooper, creator: dan slott, creator: marcos martin, creator: michael lark, title: amazing spider-man

In today's post about the latest issue of Amazing Spider-Man, cuntfucius points out that, if you ignore how hard they're trying to sell her, Carlie has potential. I'd been meaning to post from these issues anyway, so here are a few pages from before Carlie was the Designated Girlfriend, when she's actually pretty decent.


At the start of the post-OMD Amazing Spider-Man books, Carlie was just one character out of a couple of dozen who were phased into the book over the course of a couple of years. Some were returning members of Peter's old supporting cast, who'd been neglected or ignored by JMS, like Glory Grant or Betty Brant; some were brand-new characters, like Yuri Watanabe or Vin and Michelle Gonzalez. Carlie began her run as a police contact for Spidey.

The three-part story "Mysterioso," in Amazing #618-#620, is one of the high points of the post-"One More Day" era, with great art by Marcos Martin. Mysterio has been making a lucrative living on the side by faking mobsters' deaths, and now that Mr. Negative is making heavy inroads into the Maggia's New York territory, all those big-name mob guys are coming out of "retirement" to put the Maggia back on top. This includes Carlie's late father, Ray, who reappears at the same time.




Ouch.

A couple of issues later, the story's been wrapped up. Mysterio's plans got foiled, as they do, but Ray Cooper didn't get picked up with the rest of the Maggia. While Peter's off getting punched through buildings by Mr. Negative, Carlie wraps things up on her own.





They're pushing Carlie way, way too hard in ASM right now, but in these slightly earlier issues, when she's just one member of a large supporting cast, this is a pretty good moment for her.

After this, Carlie doesn't show up at all for a good half-dozen issues, until she and Peter have a not-date in the first chapter of "Shed."

The lesson I'm taking away from all of this, which I figure Slott would do well to remember, is that the harder you try to get your readers to like a character, the less they actually will.