Amazing Spider-Man #608 preview: Yes, it's a nitpick ...

[box_in_the_box.insanejournal.com]

... But it perfectly illustrates the complaints that I've been making about NuSpidey all along:

Yes, of course, a clever quick-thinker like Peter Parker could NEVER have simultaneously accomplished his goals of capturing the criminal AND retrieving the stolen property at the same time ... UNLESS, perhaps, he were to invent some TOOL, inspired by ACTUAL spiders, that could ENSNARE his enemies, so that they stayed STUCK in one place, even as he attended to other matters.

I know it sounds corny, but maybe he could call this device a "WEB-SHOOTER."

I mean, COME THE FUCK ON, "BRAIN TRUST." YOU GUYS AREN'T EVEN TRYING TO SHOW THAT PETER HIMSELF HAS A BRAIN ANYMORE (or, worse yet, you actually ARE, and stuff like THIS represents the limits of YOUR OWN imaginations).

The rest of the six-page preview here:

Comments

[daningram.insanejournal.com]

I know people screw up, but I am always confused at how often writers will make their characters idiots just so the audience can relate.

Ocean's 11, Burn Notice, the Bourne series, Batman are all widely popular and all have protagnogists who are very capable.

Just seems like a poor man's way to get sympathy.

[majingojira.insanejournal.com]

It is.

No, really. I've taken Screenwriting courses, we discuse the abuse of this AT LENGTH.

[blakeyrat.insanejournal.com]

Could be worse. Could be like the newspaper strip where he frequently gets hit in the head by bricks (http://joshreads.com/?p=989#spidey) and/or (http://joshreads.com/?p=721#spidey) butlers (http://joshreads.com/?p=4585)

[stig.insanejournal.com]

...That is pretty pathetic.

[comicoz.insanejournal.com]

In fairness, Spidey states only his butt is webbed in the attached image. Do you really want him shooting webs from his butt? Would make that whole swinging around town thing less romantic.

[neuhallidae.insanejournal.com]

Desperately ignoring the stupidity here, who the hell is the chick in the suit? My brain says prior character for some reason, but I can't place her.

[cyberghostface.insanejournal.com]

http://www.marvunapp.com/Appendix5/screwballsp.htm

[hyperactivator.insanejournal.com]

Oh! I know this trope! It's called the idiot ball!

[sandoz_iscariot.insanejournal.com]

DO NOT TAUNT HAPPY FUN IDIOT BALL

[jarodrussell.insanejournal.com]

YOU GUYS AREN'T EVEN TRYING TO SHOW THAT PETER HIMSELF HAS A BRAIN ANYMORE...

[Insert Iron Man rant here.]

tl;dr: Brains am bad.

[box_in_the_box.insanejournal.com]

Dude ... don't take this the wrong way ... but your rant about Iron Man as lobotomy porn on your LJ?

I agreed with it, but its imagery SQUICKED ME THE FUCK OUT.

[jarodrussell.insanejournal.com]

Another question, regarding that last panel: why doesn't Peter start a blog? As Spider-Man he can get really juicy photos that no one else is going to be able to get, during fights no one will ever know about, that he can't sell to the Bugle. Why not throw up a Wordpress site, post the photos he can't sell, rake in Google Ads and Project Wonderful revenue, and bootstrap his own super-hero tabloid engine? By now "Peter Parker" has to be an synonymous with heroes as "Rick Jones," even after BND, so I doubt explaining how he got the photos would be very hard.

[box_in_the_box.insanejournal.com]

LOL EXPECTING BND PETER TO APPLY THE INTELLIGENCE THAT HE SUPPOSEDLY HAS TO SOLVING HIS OWN PROBLEMS IN A CREATIVE AND REALISTIC WAY

DOUBLE-LOL AT EXPECTING ANYONE AT MARVEL TO HAVE THE FIRST FUCKING CLUE ABOUT NEW MEDIA (Screwball has 18 MILLION subscribers, when World of Warcraft only has 12 MILLION subscribers? Whoever let that pass needs to have their typing fingers broken for not doing their homework)

[thokstar.insanejournal.com]

Didn't Spidey's web-shooter get destroyed by Black Cat bad luck problems a couple of issues ago?

(I mean, yeah, he should build another one. But there is an in story reason for this.)

[jarodrussell.insanejournal.com]

If his web shooter was destroyed, how is it that he's swinging away on a web line?

[sherkahn.insanejournal.com]

I can't believe he didn't just web her up against the wall, like he's done SO many other times with other opponents.

I give up. NuSpidey is incompetent.

Give me back the true Spiderman.

And what is UP with that guy's HEAD on the left of the last panel? Is that Dickhead, Hammerhead's brother?

AND NOW I SHALL PLAY THE PART OF STEVE WACKER:

[box_in_the_box.insanejournal.com]

I can't believe he didn't just web her up against the wall, like he's done SO many other times with other opponents.

I give up. NuSpidey is incompetent.

OH I GET IT YOU JUST WANT SPIDER-MAN TO BE A PERFECT PARAGON OF VIRTUE RIGHT?

WELL EXCUSE ME MISTER LOOKS-DOWN-HIS-NOSE-AT-NORMAL-PEOPLE ELITIST BUT I PREFER A CHARACTER WHO'S FLAWED BECAUSE I CAN RELATE TO HIM BETTER

AND YES PAST PORTRAYALS OF PETER MAY HAVE SHOWN HIM ACTING MORE INTELLIGENTLY THAN THIS BUT THAT'S BECAUSE SPIDER-MAN WAS WRITTEN WRONG FOR SO MANY YEARS THAT YOU PEOPLE DON'T REALIZE HOW HE SHOULD BE

ALLOW ME TO CLOSE WITH A PASSIVE-AGGRESSIVE DIG AT YOU FOR EITHER NOT BEING ENOUGH OF A "REAL FAN" OR BEING TOO MUCH OF A "FANBOY" WHICH I WILL PRETEND IS A JOKE EVEN THOUGH IT'S A GENUINE SIGN OF HOW MUCH I HATE YOU ALL PERSONALLY

[thanekos.insanejournal.com]

it's especially weird when you consider one of the post-BND stories had him pulling a device that he invented in a previous story to track gliders of the Osborn make by their exhaust.

so he can invent shit like that in his basement. but he doesn't know how to do e-mails. sure, okay.

[damar148.insanejournal.com]

Is that the same parkour chick he somehow failed to catch up to during a chase in a earlier comic?

[box_in_the_box.insanejournal.com]

Yes, because faddish real-life martial art being wielded by a total newcomer >>>>>> ACTUAL FUCKING SUPER-POWERS BEING WIELDED BY SOMEONE WITH MORE THAN A DECADE OF EXPERIENCE IN THE FIELD.

[zegim.insanejournal.com]

Oh, c'mon.

First they treat using the Spider Sense to escape from danger as something unexpected that Peter isn't aware he has or something, and now this.

Criminals hanging, tangled in Spider-man's web is an iconic image of the character, it's not like it is an obscure thing.

Damn.

[retro_nouveau.insanejournal.com]

Newsprint always shows yesterday's news, so just buy the pics and put them on daily.bugle.com. At least you'll deny Screwball from being the exclusive source of original images.

Peter doesn't have a webbed butt, he has webbed pits. Unless -- no! I don't want to know.

Those tiny little eyepieces will take some time to not look strange.

[box_in_the_box.insanejournal.com]

LOL EXPECTING MARVEL TO KNOW HOW ACTUAL NEWSPAPERS OPERATE IN THE 21ST CENTURY

[va1tyr.insanejournal.com]

There are two ways to make your villains look clever. One is to think up clever things for them to do, so your readers blink and go wow, that's clever! This is hard. (see Grand Admiral Thrawn)

The other is to make your heroes stupid. This is super-easy, and doesn't really work. (See above)

[rustedone.insanejournal.com]

Major geekpoints for using one of the most brilliant fictional villains ever as an example.

And yes, thinking is hard. Sadly people seem to be a-okay without it these days.

WHY WHY WHY CAN'T I JUST IGNORE THIS BULLSHIT???

[aaron_bourque.insanejournal.com]

Publishing yesterday's news?

At a newspaper??

Isn't that what all newspapers ever have always done???

JESUS

[hybrid2.insanejournal.com]

But she's just a girl who can move around fast with no powers. and HE have the equivalent speed,strengt and agility of a spider.
Why would she be a chalenge to him?
And why do he let her go to go catch papers??!!

And there's the web thing.

[freeman333.insanejournal.com]

Ugh. Even leaving aside the incompetency of the writing (in the sense of a character suddenly forgetting to apply one of their main gimmicks for the past forty years), I'm just stunned by the badness of the writing, in the sense of words on paper. "Just my good old friend...GRAVITY!" Ba-dum-ching! Get it? Because she threw the papers around, and gravity carried them down towards the center of the earth! Get it?

Also: "It's all over the net. It's gone viral." Yes, that's what viral means. Thank you. Way to use your under-thirty net-speak vocabulary word for the day, folks.

Also: I don't even want to comment on the "with great power...comes pains in my webbed butt!" Oh, wait, I just did. Well, it sucks. That's not clever. That's just dumb.

I admit I'm not one of those Spider-Fans who's interested in venting vitriol over the BND status quo. Yes, I think it's a terrible idea, and like most terrible ideas in comics (see also: Clone Saga) it will hang around until people are sick enough of it that the new creative team decides to throw it out and pretend it never happened. Just a matter of time. But I have to say, with a few exceptions (I was relatively pleased with most of the New Improved Hammerhead origin, and the American Son arc was kind of neat) I've found the overall writing on the post-BND comics to be absolutely sub-par. Do I think I could do a better job? ...Actually, yeah, I might be able to pull off something at least a notch or two above this level of quality. At least I know what fucking "viral" means, and I wouldn't consider a parkour-using webcaster to be such a hip! new! cool! idea that I would randomly turn her into a fit opponent for Spider-Man.

Anyway. I keep reading the comics, because I love the idea of Spider-Man, even if the comics themselves seem to have moved pretty far afield from that idea. But after that obnoxious, poorly conceived clusterfuck of racism and misogyny that was the Michelle fiasco, I have to admit they wouldn't have to do much more to chase me off for the immediate future. When Peter gets a talking, skateboard-riding, hippie surfer dog sidekick, I may have to take a brief sabbatical.

[kingrockwell]

"It's all over the net. It's gone viral."
Is it just me or did Ben Urich (that's Ben Urich right?) just pull a Superdictionary definition? Is that what they're trying to do with Nupidey these days, teach new words to frat boys?

[steve_dash_o.insanejournal.com]

I think you've been reading Spider-Man longer than I, Box, but in the stories I've read -- the first six or so Essentials, and everything modern starting when JMS came on board -- there has always been a mixture of Peter doing really smart things and doing stupid things / screwing up.

This, of course, doesn't mean that a mixture like that is the "Right" way of writing Spider-Man, but it really makes me wonder why you would get so bent out of shape about it. Have you been complaining about this for years and I'm only now paying attention? Is there a "true" era of Spider-Man you can point two where he doesn't make mistakes? Or, is there some basis on which you are judging some screw-ups to be okay and others to be garbage? Because this seems par for the course to me. I don't especially like it when fictional characters suddenly become stupid for the sake of narrative convenience, but it's such a widespread phenomenon that I usually just sigh and move on.

[box_in_the_box.insanejournal.com]

He was NOT making mistakes like FORGETTING THAT HE HAD WEBSHOOTERS when JMS was writing him, so THAT example is ABSOLUTELY untrue, and the fact that you have to go all the way back to the ESSENTIALS volumes to try and defend this tells me a LOT about your view of the character, because HE WAS JUST STARTING OUT back then, whereas now, BY MARVEL'S OWN ADMISSION, he STILL has at least a solid DECADE of in-story experience under his belt, and guess what? During COUNTLESS stories that have appeared in that interval of 30 YEARS since the Essentials, he's been VASTLY smarter than this. If, as a man in your mid-20s, you're making basic mistakes that are at least as dumb as, if not even DUMBER than, the mistakes that you made when you were in your mid-teens? You're a fucking failure, and as dumb and as arrogant as the younger versions of Peter could indeed be, in both 616 and Ultimate, they've STILL been smarter, more capable, more responsible and more decent than the utterly worthless douchebag that Peter has been since the end of OMD. I get bent out of shape because, as opposed to any other era besides the Byrne-and-Mackie reboot, Spider-Man has almost ALWAYS failed since the start of "Brand New Day," at virtually EVERYTHING that he's done, both in and out of costume, to the point that Jonah's criticisms of him as a "menace" are 100-percent correct in current continuity. Yes, Spider-Man has made mistakes before, but NEVER to this degree, one after the other after the other ...

I don't especially like it when fictional characters suddenly become stupid for the sake of narrative convenience, but it's such a widespread phenomenon that I usually just sigh and move on.

I have never had any ounce of tolerance for it in any medium, ever. If it's the ONLY way that a writer can think of to move a story forward, then they're being either stupid or lazy, and either way, they should feel ASHAMED of themselves. CHARACTER should dictate plot, and NOT the other way around.

And I love how, in each of your reply posts, you always try to present it like I'm an isolated crazy and absolutely nobody else is seeing this, when in point of fact, even a number of people who otherwise WANT to be supportive of the new status quo are STILL agreeing with me on these points, however much they might not want to do so.

[pyrotwilight.insanejournal.com]

Screwballs one of the what...two things I actually liked about BND?

I just want to see them use her well. Give her a story, I like the streaming at all times angle but I'd like to know why she does it etc...

I think I'm thoroughly thoroughly disgusted by the Spiderbooks right now save for Anti-Venom's mini (ye's he's the other thing I liked about BND), with any luck he'll stay away from the actual Spider title though unlikely that'd be.

(Side rant here. If you force Mayday's title to be a backup of another title at least keep it coming out regularly! It's been how many months since Spiderman family came out? And how long until the Spiderman's Web finally comes out?)

[ashtoreth.insanejournal.com]

Those of us who digitally subscribe get to read her monthly (and I do consider that as well as access to the ton of old comics Marvel has scanned well worth the five dollars) could scan the pages (copy + paste in MSpaint + save), but it's against the subscriber's agreement. Doing it anyway before the print version shows up would be a dead giveaway.

It's bugging me that only those already paying can read it, and it doesn't ever seem to be previewed--however, nonsubscribers can read the first 4 pages if they go look it up. But without advertising or word of mouth like us, how're new readers gonna know to go find it?