Radioactive Spider-Gwen #1

[history79]

Comments

[punisher007]

Oh crap, whenever Harry starts talking about "power," or trying to "stop/fix" things, it usually ends up going REALLY badly.

[panelsarewindows]

Huh, Peter is alot creepier than I thought he would be in this. I haven't really been keeping up, but I thought it was supposed to be a role reversal, and Peter would be the perfect 'dude in distress' character like Gwen is (or at least is often portrayed as). Although I admit I think it's more interesting when you redo more, like they seem to be doing here, than just repeating things before with different characters.

[punisher007]

Agreed. Just turning Peter into 616 Gwen, but male, would be really boring to me. This is much more interesting.

[liliaeth]

Well keeping in mind that this is written by people who don't have a high opinion of Peter Parker in the first place. As has been shown by the way Slottt's been allowed to ruin Peter's character since BND first started. To them, Peter is just some loser, so making him creepy if he hadn't gotten his powers, is just an extension of that. They've shown in the past that they have the same low opinion of MJ.

[locuatico]

One interesting reading of Peter's character from the original story is that you could read his dialogue pre-spider bite as him being one step away from a breakdown and getting revenge on everyone in school.

[silverhammerman]

This was written by Jason Latour, I have seen nothing in his past works to suggest that he doesn't like Peter Parker.

I'm agreed with locuatico on this one; if you actually go back and reread the origin, Peter Parker is a weird angry misanthrope, and it's not hard to see that character becoming like the version up above. Not just because he doesn't have his powers, but because he's just a kid. Even in the original comics Spidey's kind of a self centered jerk (in a way that feels completely honest to the teenage experience) right up until Romita takes over from Ditko, so his character development is pretty long term.

[halloweenjack]

I think it was Erik Larsen (in Savage Dragon or maybe another Image book) who had a villain who was a Parkeresque nerd who just straight-up murdered the jocks who picked on him in school after getting his powers. You also get a bit of that with Luther Sloan, which is a send-up of the Charles Atlas ads that used to be in comics. There's also the Stephen King novel Christine, although I don't think that Arnie consciously commands the car to kill his tormentors.

[cyberghostface]

Slott doesn't have a low opinion of either Pete or MJ. I don't know how you could look at 'Renew Your Vows' and not see how -- when he's not shackled by the status quo -- he feels about the latter for starters.

[yvonmukluk]

Although he's apparently willing to credit the high sales almost to himself/Kubert's art/it being a Secret Wars tie-in (which probably contributed, yes). Apparently being the first Spider-Marriage story as a 'main' book in years had nothing to do with it. At all.

[cyberghostface]

He's credited fans of the Spider-Marriage on his Twitter, maybe you missed that.

[kates]

I'm sure this is a lovely issue but I couldn't stop laughing over Connors's ridiculous mustache.

[sagrada]

He looks like a Gilded Age tycoon.

[tigerkaya]

meh.

[stubbleupdate]

You are Hannibal Tabu and I claim my five pounds

[tigerkaya]

I have no idea who that is, but enjoy your five pounds, so go nuts.

[yvonmukluk]

It honestly feels more and more like this book is drifting away from what made it so striking and original in the first place, especially since they're dragging multiverse nonsense into it when that was never why people liked it.

[silverhammerman]

I think this issue was fine, but the stuff coming up with the Web Warriors series and Spider-Gwen visiting Jessica Drew in the 616 universe definitely has me raising an eyebrow. Because I've said it before, but one of the things that really makes Spider-Gwen work as a concept is her isolation; she gets her own universe/story and doesn't have to be defined as "Spidey's ex-girlfriend who also has spider-powers" or just one of the myriad Spider-Folks running around now. It seems to me that the more Marvel tries to push her into the mainstream universe the more of that appeal and distinctiveness will fade.