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One of my favorite G.I. Joe characters as a kid was Roadblock. When I watched the Rocky movies I loved Apollo Creed. My brother introduced me to Marvel’s Iron Man, and I took a liking to James Rhodes. My favorite football player was Marcus Allen. Likewise, I loved G.I. Joe’s Flint, Rocky’s “Italian Stallion,” Iron Man’s Tony Stark, and the New York Yankees’ Don Mattingly. My “heroes” weren’t heroes because they were black or white — they were heroes because they were just “cool.” These days, the politically correct, race-obsessed clowns at Marvel can’t have that. Instead, they have taken a page out of the pre-civil rights era mentality and started creating, for all intents and purposes, a “separate but equal” superhero class.
Here is what Brian Michael Bendis told the New York Daily News on Sunday regarding Marvel’s decision to make Miles Morales the new Spider-Man:
“Our message has to be it’s not Spider-Man with an asterisk, it’s the real Spider-Man for kids of color, for adults of color and everybody else.”
Here is the message Marvel is sending: If a superhero is a white man, then he isn’t for “everybody.” If the superhero is black, then he is for black children, for black adults, and, ummm, “everybody” else — once those first two groups are creatively coddled (usually by liberal white men).
If you think it’s weird to essentially make a separate-but-equal superhero class, then Marvel’s creative teams will probably label you a racist.
To see just how race-warped the minds of these creators are, one needs to only examine Bendis’ next statement:
The enormity of Miles Morales’ place in comic book history didn’t really hit Bendis, a father who has two kids of color among his four children, until recently. His 4-year-old adopted African-American daughter found a Miles Morales Spidey mask in the toy aisle of a department store, put it on and said, “Look daddy, I’m Spider-Man!” he recalls.
“I started crying in the middle of the aisle,” says Bendis. “I realized my kids are going to grow up in a world that has a multi-racial Spider-Man, and an African American Captain America and a female Thor.”
If “Douglas Jr.” put on a “War Machine” mask and said, “Look dad, I’m War Machine!” I would not correct my son and tell him that he was white/asian and couldn’t be James Rhodes. I would not start crying tears of joy because a half-white, half-asian Ernst child was pretending to be a black man. I would only start crying because he liked a character who was in the Air Force instead of an Army guy like Steve Rogers. (I’m joking about the Air Force making me cry. Sort of.)
Decades ago kids played “Cowboys and Indians.” They played “Cops and Robbers.” Fast forward in time and they pretend to be Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, but yet guys like Brian Michael Bendis want us to believe that little children spend odd amounts of time arguing over a superhero’s race.
Many kids of color who when they were playing superheroes with their friends, their friends wouldn’t let them be Batman or Superman because they don’t look like those heroes but they could be Spider-Man because anyone could be under that mask.
What? What neighborhood did Mr. Bendis grow up in, where little white kids were telling black friends they could pretend to have been bitten by a radioactive spider, but they couldn’t pretend to look like Steve Rogers?
What neighborhood did Mr. Bendis grow up in, where a white kid’s imagination allowed him to be a green ninja turtle, but not James Rhodes?
Marvel’s “House of Ideas” is really the “House of Political Correctness” — and it’s not really a house. It’s more like an insane asylum where the race-obsessed inmates are in charge.
Miles Morales is a cool character. I have no doubt that he will have many heart-stopping adventures in the post-Secret Wars Marvel Universe. The problem is that these days it is somehow problematic if popular superheroes are straight white men.
If Marvel’s sales decline in its separate-but-equal universe, then there is no doubt that “racist” and “sexist” white men will be blamed for not embracing She-Thor and suddenly-gay Iceman. Marvel employees can take all the racial palliatives they want, but the truth is much more biting: the creative process does not reward writers whose every move is determined by a complex algorithm of racial calculus mixed with politically correct engineering.
With each passing day, Marvel becomes more and more a shell of its former self. That is why people try out books like “Peter Panzerfaust,” “Deadly Class,” “The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys,” and any number of other books that do not have “Marvel” on the cover.
Indeed, this generation of kids will have a more diverse set of Marvel heroes. It’s just a shame that those Marvel heroes are directed by political activists masquerading as comic book writers.
Douglas Ernst Blog 
I am playing the wait and see game, with Peter in the movies I find it hard to believe that this will be long term. I think this is just another phase in the Marvel shock marketing tactic.
True. It would make zero sense to not have Peter Parker swinging around the comic book New York City when the next movie comes out, but at the same time we have to take what the creators say seriously. These quotes by Bendis are incredibly telling. These guys are obsessed with race, which is not conducive to good storytelling. Every decision is seen through some weird set of race goggles that determines what they can and can’t do creatively.
Ditto. I remember after Steve Rogers was killed off. Marvel kept claiming Bucky was there to stay as Captain America and a few days later, the Cap movie was announced. I’m pretty sure every fan in the country knew what that meant. I still say She-Thor will be gone by the time “Thor 3” hits theaters.
Reblogged this on Aussiedlerbetreuung und Behinderten – Fragen.
GREAT stuff, Doug. My own thoughts are here: http://colossus.mu.nu/archives/357449.php
Thanks, Hube. And thanks for a.) sharing your take, and b.) the hat tip.
As you said: “According to Bendis’s logic, it’s perfectly OK for Doug to have liked all the minorities he mentioned. However, if Doug were black, Stallone, Stark, Mattingly, et. al. would all have to have asterisks after their names — because Doug would not be able to relate to them.”
This stunt strikes me as a very poor imitation of the Iron Man storyline where Rhodey wore the armor for a while.* There, it made sense; it was like what you said about the creative process. I really wouldn’t be surprised if it started out with someone on the creative team said “Hey, wouldn’t this be a cool idea?” But Rhodey had been around for almost 50 issues up to that point (and in the actual universe, not one of Marvel’s many offshoots). The creative team put in the work–building on an established friendship and character traits (not to mention having Tony hit rock bottom and claw his way back to the top). They didn’t go with lazy stunts like “random woman gets the hammer” or “I read your mind, Bobby, and found out you were so secretly gay that you didn’t even know” or “lets throw all our minority characters onto a team.” In all honesty, I could’ve gotten behind She-Thor, Gay Iceman, and so forth if the writers had been willing to try to make it work, but they don’t. They just wanna make the change and get the plaudits from the Left (many of whom, I suspect, don’t even read the comics) rather than do the work that’s required for true memorable stories.
“Rhodey as Iron Man” shows how much effort creators from 30 years ago were willing to put into their work; this stunt shows how creatively bankrupt and lazy today’s creators are. If sales go down (as happened to Slott’s beloved “Superior Spider-Man”), Miles suddenly won’t have an enormous place in comic book history.
* I suppose you could also say that this stunt is a poor imitation of Ben Reilly replacing Peter as Spider-Man for a while. Y’know, that’s the true mark of a bad idea right there: making someone think “The Clone Saga did this and probably did it better.”
This is a great comment, SpiderTerry. Like you said, creators used to put in the proper time and effort to build up a character. They set the stage for events to occur so when they were ready for the big reveal it all made sense. Writers today use cheap short cuts because all that matters is the end result (e.g., Iceman is now gay). It doesn’t matter if it’s crappy writing because we’re all supposed to just be happy that Iceman is ironically in love with Johnny Storm in a relationship that can never be (or whatever other lame story that follows the sudden sexuality-switch).
I noticed from the background that Parker Industries is up and running again, which tellingly enough enforces the idea that “hey, you know that story where they made you buy into it collapsing? Yeah, those were months well spent emptying your wallet…ta da, those issues amounted to nothing”
One would hope that a company that was going to specialize in building maximum security prisons for super-powered criminals would have insurance up the wazoo. Given that Dan Slott is writing the character, however, Peter probably did away with proper insurance for Parker Industries once he was back in his own body. 😉
I thought you’d write about this, I was surprised you hadn’t yet when I saw it.
There’s a weird undercurrent where it’s not good enough for a minority/female/gay character simply to exist and be their own person, and gain or lose fans as the fans decide, they have to actually replace the white male characters with these others. I have a couple of theories about this, not sure which explains it.
1. They want their minority/female/gay characters to be the most popular ones, because they wish their audience was made up of the kind of people who would really want to read about these characters. (It’s like the old joke, “If the government doesn’t like the people, why not dissolve them and elect a new people?”) When they introduce these characters, people don’t tend to be that interested, largely because you either write a character who happens to be in one of those categories, in which case you don’t get to browbeat the reader into thinking what you want him to think and defeating the purpose for the writer, and the character may be popular or not based on many factors; or you write a character totally defined by this element, thus making a boring/annoying character. Thus, since they can’t get people to buy books starring the characters they want them to buy, they replace the characters they actually do want to buy books about with these other characters. That way they can say “our biggest selling book stars a black/Hispanic guy!”
2. They think that race/sex relations are zero-sum, so in order for other people to advance, white males must lose. You see this a lot with feminism, it’s not enough to start their own organization, they demand to be let into the male one. They don’t just want to have something, they want other people not to have it. They don’t just want to have a popular black character, they also want Captain America and Spider-Man not to be white, they want to “take them away” from white males (as though white males thought in those terms).
Finally, I find the way they approach this to be weird. For one thing there’s no reason why Miles and Peter can’t work side-by-side; it’s not like there haven’t been multiple Spider-Men at once, even recently (Scarlet Spider ended a year or two ago, I think). There’s no reason to replace one with the other, other than for the reasons Bendis gave, so we can say “the REAL Spider-Man is black/Hispanic” (since presumably one would have to have a different superhero name for them to work side-by-side, and obviously it would be Miles since he’s had the name a shorter time). This is putting politics over storytelling; obviously people still want to read about Peter, even if they may also want to read about Miles.
It’s even weirder with Falcon becoming Captain America. This implies that Falcon, who I always thought of as not a sidekick but an ally of Cap, was really a sidekick all along. I mean, if Stark couldn’t be Iron Man, would Rhodey get promoted to Iron Man? Would Luke Cage get promoted to Iron Fist if Danny Rand got taken out? Can’t two characters work together, and one be more popular, without it being a competition, without one being “better” than the other, without his identity being the “superior” one?
Alright, I didn’t know about Rhodey being Iron Man for a while as spiderterry84 mentioned, though I should’ve suspected that happened at some point. I guess the point is that it was probably a stopgap to help Tony or handle some particular situation, i.e. an actual story, and not a political thing so people could say “the real Iron Man is black now!” I doubt it was handled as a “promotion” for Rhodey, like he was just waiting in the wings to move up to the big leagues, as I always thought of War Machine as a significantly different character. I always thought of War Machine as having the armor and role that he wanted. But what do I know, I felt that way about Falcon too.
I saw the story when I woke up this morning on Crawlspace, but then I went out to lunch with my wife, ran some errands, etc. I started writing it once we got back. 🙂
“They think that race/sex relations are zero-sum, so in order for other people to advance, white males must lose.”
Boom. The “zero-sum” game comment is spot on. As I said in previous blog posts, these individuals are all about exacting some sort of weird racial revenge. There is a creative restitution that must be paid in there mind, so it becomes, “Now let’s see how you like it not having Peter Parker or Captain America be white!” Huh? What?! I never saw my heroes through a racial View-Master, Marvel. Sorry. I’ll be just fine if Peter Parker isn’t Spider-Man, but I’m still going to call you out on your psycho identity politics.
Like you said, there’s no reason why the two can’t exist side-by-side. They can both be “Spider-Man,” and most people in that universe would just know that there are two of them. It’s actually rather insulting for Marvel to take shortcuts to try and have a minority superhero icon. “Look at how awesome we are. We made Spider-Man a minority just for youuuuuuuuu. Like us. Love us. Pleeeeeeease.”
These creators lament things like “white privilege,” but for some odd reason they’re not willing to step down and let black guys take their place in the industry. How long has Dan Slott been writing ASM? How many years? Tsk. Tsk. Mr. Social Justice Warrior could have lobbied his bosses to have the keys to the Spider-Man car turned over to a minority, but he held on to them mighty tight. Telling.
There’s also this idea that whatever white people have was preexisting, just floating out there and some white person grabbed it, depriving a minority of it. They act as though there was always such a thing as “Spider-Man,” and a white person happened to grab the mantle first. But that simply isn’t true. Peter Parker predates Spider-Man — he’s the first thing we see. The character Peter Parker is what Spider-Man is built on, its foundation. Now of course, you can have an alternate legacy version of that character, or even a different take on the character. But those version wouldn’t exist without the original.
The idea seems to be that there would always have been a “Spider-Man,” and that he might just as well have been Miles Morales all along, except that evil racist writers wouldn’t allow it back then. But that’s not true; Peter Parker has been a crucial part of the character from the beginning. Whatever Miles is, he’s a different person, one who may not have been as popular as Peter had he been the original, in which case we’d never have all these alternate versions. “Spider-Man” isn’t a natural resource that went to one group but could’ve gone to another, he’s a character who became popular because of the particular stories and writing and personality. There didn’t have to be such a character, and if there was he didn’t have to be immensely popular.
There’s no reason why a black character can’t create a popular legacy in the same way. There’s nothing special about white characters that makes them able to create a following and have popularity. Falcon and War Machine are good characters that people care about, who have had their own series at different times. If they killed off Rhodey I could see them having a legacy War Machine. Heck, I think they have a legacy Power Man right now.
It’s a common left-wing trope that whatever exists is treated like it was always there, rather than having been created painstakingly from the ground up by a creative person. I’m tired of this identity politics stuff getting in the way of good stories. Create a great character who’s black or female or whatever and I’ll be interested. I loved the old Jamie Reyes Blue Beetle, for example. Just don’t replace a character I care about with somebody less interesting (and Miles is much less interesting) just so you can put out a press release and get a pat on the head from people who don’t even read comics in the first place.
Just don’t replace a character I care about with somebody less interesting (and Miles is much less interesting) just so you can put out a press release and get a pat on the head from people who don’t even read comics in the first place.
I agree. I touched on this very point when I wrote on She-Thor.
Observations like yours and mine are not looked upon too kindly on websites that will do anything to curry favor with the creators. The truth hurts, which is why so many comments have to go down the Memory Hole or moderators get ban-happy.
I have but two words:
spider… GIRL
But no, that gets canceled.
I’m beginning to think Marvel just REALLY hates Parkers for some reason.
If you have a superhero who is white, straight, comes from a well-adjusted family in a decent neighborhood, etc., then that superhero cannot relate to “everybody.” If you have a problem with your favorite character getting canned in favor of the politically correct flavor of the month, then ipso facto you must be racist.
That’s another thing I have against Slott now. He couldn’t just recruit Spider-Girl, he had to make sure to casually murder her family as he did it. Just to make sure she doesn’t get a happy ending. Just to screw over anyone who was glad that even if they couldn’t read about her anymore, at least everything worked out in the end.
For the sake of a tiny, insignificant amount of extra drama he had to kill off her parents (Peter and Mary Jane can’t be married in any universe! I must erase the evidence that they can have great stories while married!). What a jerk.
That has been my problem with Marvel for quite some time: When it comes to anything Spider-Man related, its creators are rather mean and vindictive. When it comes to Peter and M.J., they were nasty in the press and on message boards, they threw jabs and low blows into the comics, and they went out of their way to twist the knife whenever possible. The promotional material for SSM #9 actually used anger as a vehicle to promote sales. The creators sought to divide Spider-Man fans instead of unite them behind really cool stories.
When Marvel was essentially taken over by wannabe political activists who get a thrill out of fawning press, they began to see their own fans as adversaries. If you disagree with their politics, then you’re somehow a rotten person. All of this is exacerbated by their presence on Twitter. The creators often have thin skin to begin with, but then when you push back on their politics they completely melt down.
Marvel creators today have an absurd notion of wanting to interfere with long established iconic characters.
Hijacking popular beloved characters, stripping them of their singular original personality traits and calling it progress, is farcical. They had no hand in the original creation of the character.
Marvel successfully introduced an entire universe of new characters in the early sixties after 20 or so years of DC market dominance. Marvel were pioneers in establishing characters like Black Panther and Falcon in the 60’s, Luke Cage, Blade, Misty Knight and Storm in the 70’s.
Just off the top of my head, characters such as: Bishop, Photon, Brother Voodoo, Cloak, Deathlok. I’m sure there are others. Why don’t Marvel promote them?
The original Marvel creators had the audacity to tackle social issues such as the civil rights movement, drug addiction, international war and politics. Today it’s a WWE style template with a PC agenda on race, gender and sexuality. It’s all about a certain perception rather than the plausibility of great story-telling.
Surely with today’s marketing prowess and global exposure through social media, Marvel can create and promote new characters, which in time readers could embrace.
The identity politics just proves a lack of talent and a lazy unwillingness to create and market new original characters.
When I was a kid I really liked Deathlok. I always thought that Marvel failed to see his true potential. Just as Blade seemingly came out of nowhere when it hit theaters, I always felt like the right Deathlok movie could launch a franchise.
Deathlok is a supporting character on Agents of SHIELD.
I heard about that. I don’t watch Agents of SHIELD, but I almost checked it out for that very reason! 🙂
“I realized my kids are going to grow up in a world where unique minority super hero properties never become iconic because we won’t let them be.” Fixed that for you, Mr. Bendis…
Zing! 🙂
Bendis’ comments are ridiculous. So black people apparently can’t “relate” to white superheroes? The Main Event seems to be a big comic book fan, and doesn’t care what the heroes look like. Back when I was working at McDonald’s, a black co-worker of mine was a HUGE Spider-Man and Captain America fan. And I don’t know what universe Bendis grew up in, but I’ve never seen a white kid tell a black kid they can’t be Superman, or Captain America. I wouldn’t be surprised if that anecdote was completely fabricated, to be honest, to help Marvel further their PC agenda. And you know detractors will be called “racist” if they don’t agree 100% with Marvel’s “braintrust.”
And I hate that term “people of color.” To me, it’s just “colored people” spelled backwards. You can’t just change the words around and pretend it’s alright, but then again liberals are masters at changing the definitions of words and phrases.
I went to a pretty diverse high school growing up just outside Chicago. I remember talking about superheroes with a lot of kids, but not once did we ever get into weird racial conversations. Luke Cage was cool because he was Luke Cage — not because he was black. Spider-Man was cool because of his jokes, and no one ever concentrated on what it meant that he was white. It stinks that these creators find ways to politicize everything. We seemingly can’t even write a Spider-Man comic book anymore without first holding ten conference calls to figure out how activists will interpret everything a character says.
I reached out to The Main Event and he was kind enough to respond.
Note: You can see the second tweet by clicking the link above.
I’ve read the first three trades of “Ultimate Comics: Miles Morales” and really enjoyed the character and I personally like him better than modern-day Peter Parker, but Bendis getting all racial obsessed isn’t really that good. I liked Miles because he was a cool and relatable character (heck, I’m a white kid and I can relate to him), not because he was Black.
I feel like a lot of what Marvel is doing right now is ruining their business. Trying to add diversity, trying to retcon decades old knowledge just so the comics and movies line up, being disrespectful to some of their biggest characters, unnecessary deaths and resurrections, etc. I’ve always liked DC a bit more, but recently I’ve been liking DC a lot more. The only reasons I’m still really looking at Marvel anymore is the movies and the X-Men.
Marvel is even screwing over X-Men fans because of its issues with Fox over the movies. I heard Marvel denies that, but I don’t think anyone believes them.
I don’t. And what they did to Fantastic Four is just sad and childish
I was reading the press release for Doctor Strange (the third “All-New Marvel” title announced), which sees Stephen brandishing bow’n’arrow and shields, what made it more absurd was a part of the release said that Strange “wasn’t Bart Simpson”.
It’s like they’re aware everything coming out of their mouths is nonsense.
Bendis….
This is going to be long…I
I honestly think Bendis got into Marvel to destroy it, he probably thinks that Marvel represents “White People’s Stuff” and he wanted to ruin it. Look at Bendis’s Avengers run. The online “fans” see the Avengers as “The White Male Patriarchy” team, and the X-Men as the “Cool, hip Minority” team. No doubt Bendis saw things that way as well, based on what he did with the Avengers. The Avengers has certain standards and Bendis threw them out of the window at the same time bashing them.
– Spider-Man couldn’t be an Avenger because he didn’t want to tell his identity, Wolverine because Steve Rogers didn’t want him and plus the X-Men are independent. This is important because the Avengers are facilitated by the GOVERNMENT and they need to know who they have on the team. Until Obama came along, the government was filled by “White Male Patriarchy”.
– “Fans”/Bendis see the Avengers as being the “privileged” heroes because of their government connection. But they don’t understand that the Avengers are “Earths Mightiest Heroes”, they get called in for everything BIG, so it makes sense for governments to facilitate them, they save the WHOLE WORLD. You know how liberals are always going on about “White/White Male Privilege”?
You can find more parallels if you really think about it.
Look at what he did with the characters:
Scarlet Witch – He made her do what she did, because she thought she was crazy for her relationship with Vision, but her relationship with him showed what the potential for LOVE could be and it made for an unique character situation and development. So do Liberals hate love? Wanda Maximoff is Eastern European as well…
Vision – He said something to the effect that Vision was a “walking, talking, can opener that was in love with the crazy lady (Scarlet Witch)”. But the point of Vision was to show that you can overcome what you think you are to be something better . So do Liberals think that it isn’t worth trying in life? You should just give up
Hawkeye – Bendis had it out for Hawkeye because he feels like he’s some kind of “Typical Privileged White Male” character. He killed his twice during the run and totally changed his character because of some stupid point he was trying to make how the Avengers are “Privileged” and now they have to “understand” how teams like the X-Men feel. But this is stupid because the X-Men are an independent team that mostly deal with mutants and are trying to change society, and the Avengers protect society. They don’t have the same goals, so why should the Avengers be brought down a peg? Plus Bendis wants to make Hawkeye look like he is only on the team because he is a “Typical White Guy”, which is crap because Hawkeye, along with Scarlet Witch, Black Widow, Wonder Man, Vision, and Quicksilver show that you can be better than what you are if you want to, and they all have earned their keep. So is he saying that White people don’t have to work at things and they just get them and that they are holding everyone else back?
To Be Continued…
PART 2!
Okay, so Bendis trashes the traditional (aka “Typical White Male Favorite) characters, so who does he push?
Luke Cage. Is there anything wrong with Luke being pushed? NO. The problem is Bendis’s PORTRAYAL of Cage.
Bendis set the character of Luke Cage back and made him into a BLACK MALE STEREOTYPE.
When Cage was created, he was a Blaxploitation character, but they MOVED him away from it to the point in which he had his own corporation. Bendis turned him back into what the character EVOLVED from. Do Liberals really want Black people to move up in America? Do they really think all that much of Blacks? Let’s look at Cage:
– No costume: Luke doesn’t wear a costume. Why is that okay for a Black male character? This is supposed to be a SUPER HERO, he is supposed to have a DISTINCTIVE look to show that. What was Bendis saying there? That because he’s Black he isn’t a real hero? Or that because he is Black that is distinctive enough? Would he do this for a White character in the same situation?
– Jessica Jones: He has Luke and Jessica to hook up. Honestly, in universe, Luke is WAY out of her league. There is a stereotype of Black men going after “trashy” White women. Is that what Bendis was thinking?
– Sex: There was a issue in which an older, overweight White female character insinuated that her and Luke Cage had sex in front of Jessica, and Cage just stands there and doesn’t get upset or tell her to apologize to his wife. There is a stereotype of Black men going after fat White women, and there is another one of Black men aren’t man enough to be in a relationship. What was Bendis thinking about with that scene?
– The Avengers: Luke Cage has been on the Fantastic Four and the Defenders before. But why is it that when he is put in the comic and the focus is on him, why does the Avengers become this street level team and they have to hide out in the inner city? Is he trying to say that Black people belong in the ghetto or something? The Defenders had characters like Silver Surfer and Hulk and the Fantastic Four are all over the place, so why do the Avengers have to become street level when he is on it now?
Hmmm…If Bendis is a liberal and liberals are about helping minorities, why did he write Luke Cage the way he did?
To Be Continued.
Bendis is interesting to me because I think he’s a pretty smart guy. Unlike Dan Slott, however, he’s able to add layers and nuance to his worth that essentially obfuscates his political agenda. Subtlety is not Dan Slott’s strong point, so when he inserts weird political statements and ideas they stick out like a sore thumb.
I can appreciate stories by Bendis because I think he’s often a very strong writer. Dan Slott often jumps into the deep end without his water-wings and it’s soon apparent that he can’t swim.
I think that Volume 3 of ASM could have epic if Dan Slott had used that opportunity to bring back Doc Ock from where Superior Spider-Man left off by having Anna Maria as the main focus of the story. Learning to Crawl was such a waste of time in my opinion because were it not for that, ASM would have had over 24 issues prior to SW. With that said, Slott could have used Anna Maria as a plot device to bring back Otto, as well as a back story describing that his body was in a secret area of Parker Industries. What could have been ideal was for the living Brain to download Otto’s mind into Anna Maria’s body form which she would attempt to clone a new body from cells of the dead original. The last 3-4 issues of ASM(vol. 3) could had featured the return of Dr. Octopus and an epic confrontation with Spider-Man. But he wasted that opportunity with the 6-part Black Cat crime boss nonsense and Electro, as well as Learning to Crawl and the Spider-Verse, which he should have kept to himself if he didn’t want Peter Parker as the lead character.
I really didn’t have any problems with Slott’s initial run on ASM. But it would appear that his heart was with Superior Spider-Man and Dr. Ock. If I had had the chance to work with Marvel’s House of Ideas, I would have suggested to Dan Slott that after the end of Superior Spider-Man, just focus on the next 24 issues as a story arc to bring back Otto Octavius. No Spider-Verse. No Black Cat and Electro crime boss storyline, and no Spider-Verse storyline. I think that Slott has stretched himself so thin that he’s stressed out from writing ASM.
“I think that Slott has stretched himself so thin that he’s stressed out from writing ASM.”
I think that is a fair assessment. Everything leading up to Spider-Verse was pretty uninspired. Spider-Verse itself was not only incredibly convoluted, but you basically had to get all the side-stories. Important events happened outside ASM, which was a bad move on Marvel’s part. I’m not sure how Marvel could have Secret Wars planned so far in advance, and yet Dan Slott couldn’t really put together a fitting “end” to that chapter of ASM. The book went out on a flat note.
Ever since the Ends of the Earth storyline, most of Slott’s storyarcs has ended on a letdown, including Superior Spider-Man.
I would agree. The funny thing is, almost every other issue was billed as “The story that will change Peter Parker foreverrrrrrrr! The story that will ripple through the Marvel Universe for time eternal!” 🙂
I think the deal with this push for diversity is to basically only change the skin color/sex of the characters and just tell the same basic stories over and over again, and Marvel hopes that more minority readers will just jump on and buy them to replace the “Entitled White Male” audience that are upset by this. Marvel and DC think that this will save them, and liberals are excited for this.
Let’s be honest. Comic books sold in the past and were so popular because they were CHEAP and AVAILABLE EVERYWHERE. Comics stopped selling when they got TOO EXPENSIVE, TOO HARD TO GET and started to be written around concepts/events/shock writing instead of being written around CHARACTERS and CONTINUITY. Marvel/DC and liberals think that comics aren’t selling because they are too White. Well, why is it that “Too White Marvel/DC” were selling when they were CHEAP and AVAILABLE EVERYWHERE?
I went online to buy some digital comics, you first have to have a special app and then they are charging FULL COVER PRICE for a download! I went online because I don’t feel like going back and forth to the comic shop anymore and I don’t want to do a discount mail subscription service because I don’t see much that I’m interested in. Let’s not forget how I didn’t know which series to buy because of all the relaunching, so I didn’t even bother. I’m in my 30’s and I started reading as a child. If I can’t be buggered to go through with this, what makes you think new readers will, especially YOUNGER READERS?!
So lets see, Marvel/DC is full of writers who don’t care about characters and continuity (those are the MAIN DRAW of superhero comics), they nickel and dime you to death, relaunch every 2 months (check out A-Force, it is relaunching after 2 issues), keep raising prices without increasing content, go on the internet and and talk junk to fans, and just throw things at the wall to see what will stick/repeat the same things over and over, and they think RACE/SEX CHANGING to get a pat on the head will save them?!
A-HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
These people take themselves WAY TOO SERIOUSLY. They make comic books.
I think that Marvel/DC overestimate the need for diversity. The real diversity is integrating characters like Tigra and Jennifer Walters into the pages of Spider-Man and interacting with Peter Parker in the normal human guise since Tigra is a Police Officer who could have easily took Carlie Cooper’s place as Crime Scene Investigator while Jennifer Walters(in her human form) could work for Parker Industries as Peter’s Patent and Intellectual Attorney. Both Greer and Jennifer have the potential to be very close friends with Peter Parker. This is a good example of diversity is because your are creating a story with characters that the audience has not seen before by using their characters in ways that expands on their interaction with Spidey.Marvel used to do this in the 1970’s and 1980’s….
“This is a good example of diversity is because your are creating a story with characters that the audience has not seen before by using their characters in ways that expands on their interaction with Spidey.Marvel used to do this in the 1970’s and 1980’s…”
Once again someone on my blog is using common sense and reason. You are definitely not Marvel material, my friend. Why use existing minority characters…elevate their profile, etc. when you can just annoy long-time readers by creatively knee-capping Peter Parker? 😉
I have ways of using non-Spidey created villains like The Abomination who could be be Peter’s worst nightmare. Or bring in Nimrod and Lady Deathstrike into the mix.
Anything up with you Doug? You’ve been deathly quiet the last couple of days
A little update on the All-New Marvel line-up. None of the Spider-writers are changing. Slott is still on ASM, and it seems like business as usual with P.I up and running and Peter now more of a suave Tony Stark wannabe with a new Spider-Mobile. Also Jessica Drew will be looking after a baby while being a hero, rather than Peter.
Thanks for asking, Zariusii. Last weekend was my aunt and uncle’s 50th wedding anniversary, so I was out of town for that and visiting with relatives. Aside from that I took off some time from blogging to read two books that were on my “to do” list. Tonight I need to join my wife at an event her workplace is hosting, so it looks my next shot at blogging will be tomorrow.
I saw the news on Slott. So now we have another relaunch? Yeesh. That’s sort of embarrassing. Maybe Mr. Slott could kill off Peter one more time and then bring him back to end his run on ASM. Anything for a sales boost, I guess. 😉
Oh good, my well wishes to your aunt and uncle. So many years of great responsibility to one another…at least somebody managed that on their 50th, ha.
🙂
http://www.mtv.com/news/2199978/amazing-spider-man-marvel-dan-slott/?utm=share_twitter
This ought to be the basis for your blog tommorow
You know me too well! Haha. 🙂 Look at that ridiculous picture of Peter with two women hanging on his arm like he was Tony Stark… Sigh.
Good God, does Slott EVER get an original idea? Peter Parker now = Tony Stark, and does that Spider-mobile remind you of anything? Any-ahemNolan’sBatmobile-thing?
Hube, I think you’re going to like my latest blog post.
I think this list covers exactly why Marvel/Disney can’t (and won’t) make Movie Spidey Miles Morales anytime soon:
http://whatculture.com/film/8-reasons-why-miles-morales-shouldnt-be-the-movie-spider-man-yet.php
If Marvel made a movie with Miles and it looked cool, then I would gladly see it. At the end of the day, however, Hollywood is almost always about making money. If a studio’s internal polling and research indicates that a solid return on a $100 million Miles Morales investment isn’t likely, then money men are not going to produce the film. There could be any number of reasons — non-racist reasons — for not making such a film, but SJWs will refuse to believe it.
Marvel Pub is run by a group of Social Justice Warriors. That’s more than half of what’s wrong with the magazines these days.
Actually, I kind of get why BMB is saying. I’m black and when I want to cosplay I always have second thoughts because of my skin color. Like I felt I couldn’t dress as Spider-man or Batman because I was black and it would look awkward. I don’t understand why these characters are black or women now but my problem with a female thor is that it’s a gimmick that won’t last forever, just like Black Captain America won’t last forever. Who knows? Maybe Miles won’t last forever either, he’ll probably become some different Spider-man with a new name or just flat out become a villain later on.
A black friend of mine from Washington, D.C. recently told me he wishes there were more black superheroes. I’m totally on board with that. However, as your love for Spider-Man demonstrates, you related to him not because he was white — but because what he stood for resonated with you.
If I were to cosplay as an Asian character, then it might feel a little awkward, but I would never say that said character was made only for Asian people. I have no problem adding new and diverse characters to the Marvel Universe, but it seems weird to me to turn Thor into a woman just to say, “See, now women have a She-Thor they can look up to!”
That kind of “diversity” seems cheap, forced and a bit insulting to me.