Amazing Spider-Man #24

[cyberghostface]

 

Comments

[buttz]

What a completely broken line of titles of the Spider-Man books have become.

[nyadnar17]

I just laughed so hard when I saw this.

Man someone is REALLY salty May Parker made it into the Spiderverse movies.

we truly live in a society.

[scorntx]

Not normally a fan of Romita Jr's artwork, but that's not a bad hairstyle for MJ he's got going there.

[zachbeacon]

I will always be amused by the editorial line that having kids makes Peter "old" when Harry has had a kid the entire time I've been reading Spider-Man.

Looking forward to the 2040 story that retcons these two away like Gwen's kids. I'm sure Marvel editorial will be stringing readers along with a OMD reversal "any day now"

Sony will be on it's second Spider-Girl movie reboot by then.

[cyberghostface]

It really is funny how one of the best-received versions of the character is one that Marvel has been adamant should not exist.

[laughing_tree]

Oh boy, I’m sure the online reaction to that last page will be eminently well reasoned and demonstrate proper perspective and not be the least bit overly vitriolic.

[zachbeacon]

"it's a preference, not a mandate"

-One of the editors that maintains the mandate (aka Akira)

[nyadnar17]

On reddit at least its been hilarious. Paul posting is something I only recently discovered.

[starwolf_oakley]

I remember thinking whatever Peter did caused a history change.
So Mary Jane was married to Paul and had been for “years.”
Turns out I was half right. Only with time dilation instead of changing history.
Comic books are weird.

[phantomfo]

Not only is Normie a kid, but he's apparently a tween hero of his own now. So Pete's friends and high school classmates can have kids, but that won't reflect on him.

[tcampbell1000]

Aren't they JUST?

[numeronone]

[numeronone]

Not sure I'm following, where is May mentioend in these scans? Genuinely curious.

[zachbeacon]

Just found https://twitter.com/PaulJustPaul15


I'm sure this Paul will have just as much staying power as the other unpopular Paul JRJR drew. I mean we all remember Paul, Jill, and Arthur Stacy from a pervious attempt to torpedo Peter and MJ's relationship, right?

(I actually kind of liked Arthur. His kids OTOH...)

[numeronone]

Reddit is also being uncharacteristically level-headed about this, refusing to take the bait Lowe and Wells are doleing out and pointing out that at least since One More Day, editorial's attitude has been to act as though the point of Spider-Man stories is to generate outrage.

[zachbeacon]

No, it's a matter of Marvel insisting that THIS is the Spider-Man people want (Joe Q and OMD get the blame for it but it's been a problem since at least the stupid retcon where Norman had Aunt May, not Baby May) while the most popular version of Peter now is in the Sony Spiderverse movies.

[angelophile]

Well, those kids look terrifying.

[tcampbell1000]

You know, "One More Day" gets a lot of grief, but there've been a few other Peter/MJ breakup stories over the years...and they've pretty much all been bad.* And I don't think this is because Peter and MJ are just meant to be. I've certainly enjoyed Spidey stories where MJ was not involved in his life at all!

I think it's because it's very, very hard to write a no-fault breakup that feels both emotionally true and compellingly interesting. Breakups rarely make most people into their best selves: we get hurt, so we lash out, or else we get extra depressed for a while. But Marvel cares way too much about you liking both characters to make either of them believably bitter. And no matter how old they should be, the genre's always going to push them to look and act like young adults, so their outgrowing the relationship never feels quite...right.

So instead of any of that, you get over-the-top madness like selling the marriage to the devil, or losing out to time dilation, or Peter being "revealed" to be not the real Peter, or MJ being made to forget Peter and him just being too self-destructive to remind her, or that bit in Ruins where MJ gets killed by Peter's theme song, or whatever.

I don't know about you, but I find I'm a happier reader when I just try to enjoy whatever the current status quo is and ignore the spider-leaps of logic taken to get to it.

*The best of them was probably that time in the 1970s when--depending on how you feel about retcons--she either didn't know Peter was Spider-Man and just got tired of his constant absences and excuses like Gwen did before her, or else she did know and got tired of his constant lying to her and disregard for his own life and safety. Both are believable breakup stories, both put MJ and Peter in understandable positions, and both stopped being viable as soon as MJ started getting built up as someone who could handle a superhero marriage. It still wasn't great...watching a hero ruin his happiness by passively clinging to old habits is not as much fun as it sounds like. But at least it was believably human.

I'm not counting "Divorced Disaster Peter Parker" from the Spider-Verse films, always a delight, because his actual breakup with Mary Jane was painted in the broadest possible strokes and they're basically back together by the end of the first film anyway.

[deh_tommy]

Their point is that MARVEL editorial insists on keeping Spider-Man in a stagnant state of stasis where things must largely stay the same and character relationships have to practically fight tooth and nail to progress in any meaningful way (unless it’s soap opera drama to keep the status quo in check), meanwhile pretty much every other Spider-Man story right now is getting critical acclaim for treating Peter like an adult and letting his world grow and change in meaningful ways, using Peter B. Parker as an example.

[deh_tommy]

I was pretty ambivalent about Paul-posting because I was convinced there had to be something deeper going on until now. Part of me still is, but man is it tempting to give in to the madness after reading this.

[numeronone]

I do understand and wholeheartedly agree with that. I just...don't follow the thread of logic from any part of this issue to "Mad that a cool techie May was in the Spider-Verse movie".

Unless the implication is the writer is setting up Norman as a more suitable candidate for the role of "one-person pit crew"? But that seems a bit of a stretch.

I'll wait for nyadnar to explain, I guess.

[deh_tommy]

Come to think of it, Spider-Man as a whole across all his current media is in a pretty good spot right now outside of the core Amazing book.

ROT13 warning

[deh_tommy]

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[laughing_tree]

"But Marvel cares way too much about you liking both characters to make either of them believably bitter."

I honestly feels one of the biggest problems with the character is that it's somehow become this big thing that he's supposed to be some moral paragon. That's he's a Great Guy. Wasn't there even a Bendis Avengers arc that revealed he was a human with a perfect soul or something? It feels like the character's real world popularity leaking into the stories.

So much of the energy of those early stories comes from the fact that he could be petty.

[deh_tommy]

There’s something that feels a little gross to me about this premise. It’s not like it’d be unrealistic that two folks would fall in love when it’s nothing but the two of them and next tono hope of undoing the situation, but... I don’t know, I can’t find the right words.