Amazing Spider-Man #31

[lordultimus]

Comments

[shadowpsykie]

Damnit Peter you know better than to say that!

[zachbeacon]

This whole fling felt like a consolation prize anyway. First Slott and co gave us some of the absolute worst love interests for a decade. Then Spencer strung people along for 70+ issues with a Peter/MJ reconciliation that was undone as soon as he left. Then we got Black Cat; the Silver Medal of Spider-Man love interests.

[windleopard2]

Then Spencer strung people along for 70+ issues with a Peter/MJ reconciliation that was undone as soon as he left.

How was Spencer stringing people along? MJ and Peter did reconcile during his run.

Then we got Black Cat; the Silver Medal of Spider-Man love interests.

Doesn't silver have more tensile strength than gold?

Jokes aside, Peter and Felicia's relationship is the least aggravating thing in this run.

[tcampbell1000]

Sometimes I think shipping has more to do with comic nerds' sense of order--"a place for everything and everything in its place"--than an honest interest in relationships and how they work.

As I've said before, I'm not particularly an MJ partisan or anti-partisan. And I don't think there was any problem, at the pitch level, with characters like Mockingbird, Carlie Cooper, and Anna Maria Marconi. ("Absolute worst love interests?" I don't see Lucy Lane ANYWHERE in that roster!)

[windleopard2]

Sometimes I think shipping has more to do with comic nerds' sense of order--"a place for everything and everything in its place"--than an honest interest in relationships and how they work.

I certainly wouldn't say the writing of relationships in this run was motivated by an honest interest in relationships and how they work.

And I don't think there was any problem, at the pitch level, with characters like Mockingbird, Carlie Cooper, and Anna Maria Marconi. ("Absolute worst love interests?" I don't see Lucy Lane ANYWHERE in that roster!)

Well, the execution of how those characters were written in those relationships left much to be desired. Especially Carlie.

[tcampbell1000]

Oh, sure. I mean, fan-logic is a problem on both sides of the pipeline after a while: most of the people writing superheroes now were at least fans of them once.

[zachbeacon]

Mockingbird - I mean, I guess she makes more sense than Captain Marvel. It's telling when the writer that introduced the relationship decides it's a bad idea, though (see also: Silk)

Carlie Cooper - Is just another Gwen clone. Like Jill. Or the actual Gwen Clone.

Anna Maria Marconi - Anna wasn't really Peter's love interest. Solid character though.

Norah - She seemed like she might be fun right up until the implied racism.

Michelle -ACAB

Lucy Lane - is just generally at bad person. But I'm not aware of her crossing paths with Peter in any DC/Marvel crossovers and I'd like to think he'd have the sense to run in the other direction of his Spider-Sense is functioning correctly.

Who am I missing?

[zachbeacon]

Honestly I thought the thing in that post I'd get the most pushback for is implying Felicia is a better love interest than Gwen.

(Which she is)

People didn't really start to rally behind the Spencer run until it was revealed Peter plans to propose. MJ is then written out of the series for a while so she can have her own mini.

A lot of the stuff with Strange and Bug Guy* imply there's going to be an outright reversal of OMD.

Neither of these things happen. Sure Peter and MJ are dating again at the end but marriage seems off the table.

*(Speaking of dragging things out, they took so long to give Zombie Harry a name that I refuse to use it. It my mind he'll always be "Bug Guy")

[tcampbell1000]

Having debated a lot of other stuff here, I feel obliged to chime in with one agreement: Felicia is a better love interest than Gwen. And MJ does deserve the top spot.

I'll asterisk it a little, though: it's not a totally fair competition. MJ and Felicia have had decades more development. Stan Lee insisted that he always ended up finding Mary Jane more interesting than Gwen, but looking back at those early stories, Gwen has way more internal conflict and a richer inner life. It was only after she died (and Gerry Conway took over) that Mary Jane started showing more dimensions than "the party girl who's totally fun, dad!" And Felicia likewise took a little while to emerge as a character in her own right, not just "We have Selina Kyle at home."

[windleopard2]

Honestly I thought the thing in that post I'd get the most pushback for is implying Felicia is a better love interest than Gwen.

(Which she is)

I don't think this would get you much, if any pushback at all. Gwen is still a very contentious character.

[cyberghostface]

Spencer at least was clearly playing off the idea that OMD would be reversed to string fans along only to make it just about Harry at the end.

[windleopard2]

That seems more of an issue with editorial than Spencer.

[lbd_nytetrayn]

...can they at least be friends with benefits? 😿

[deh_tommy]

One day, Felicia, Peter and MJ will realise they all love each other and live happily ever after in a wonderful throuple.

[windleopard2]

I think the only way that will happen is either in an elseworld or if Spider-Man and all related characters become public domain.

Until then, there's always fanfiction. 😊

[cainofdreaming]

Can they be friends with benefits with Torch?

[mastermahan]

So, accepting your partner for who they are rather than trying to change them is... bad?

[tcampbell1000]

In fairness to this idea, it is hard to imagine Peter and Felicia making a life together without occupying at least adjacent squares on the alignment chart. Even so, I half agree with you--surely fighting all the time about it wouldn't be great for them? At the very least, it seems like there's more than one way to look at this issue and the other points of view aren't being given a fair hearing.

[windleopard2]

Did Felicia even steal anything in this run?

[scorntx]

Does the reader's time count?

[windleopard2]

I think Paul is a lot more guilty of that.

[tcampbell1000]

You know what I miss? I miss changes to Spider-Man's relationship status that had any kind of freakin' buildup.

It's time to get Spidey and MJ back to coupledom? Cool, she can just materialize in his apartment Star-Trek-style at the end of a new #1 issue. Time to split them up? FLASH-FORWARD, they're no longer speaking and MJ has a new family. How about the Black Cat? Boom, they're instantly dating. Oh, time to end that? Okay, Felicia can have a single conversation with the Beetle about when fighting with your partner shows they care...and break up with Peter a few pages later.

I mean, Robbie and Janice's marriage seems like a jaw-droppingly, mind-bogglingly terrible idea. And yet their relationship feels far more real than anything Peter's entered into since at least Carlie Cooper, because they don't call it quits the moment a trouble spot appears, and they don't rush into anything without talking it over, either. (MIles Morales is also doing pretty well in that regard.)

I'll give Wells some credit for finding a reason for this breakup that didn't come COMPLETELY out of nowhere and felt true to the characters in the moment. But this wasn't exactly foreshadowed, either. There was no scene that said, "Uh-oh, this could be trouble on the horizon, can these crazy kids make it work?" They just went from seeming fine to splitsville, poof.

It's all just switch-flipping lately...Mary Jane on/off, Black Cat on/off...and it makes it hard to emotionally invest.

[blues32]

Excellent, excellent. Now we just need to make Paul return to his home dimension or something and we're sorted. Trick him into saying, "Sselesu Luap".

[sinisterlink]

I know that they aren’t by the same writers, but it’s pretty funny to me that these scans have Felicia going on about wanting a relationship when just a few months ago we got the pride story of her trying to hook up with some goddess and saying that her and Pete’s relationship was “just for fun”.

[deh_tommy]

This book is bloody awful. Between this, that page with Kraven and Spider-Man flippantly joking about visiting dying children, I’m half-convinced editorial is holding Zeb Wells hostage on this book.