Bendis launches Spider-Man with a bang: Miles a fun read in opener

30 comments

1. I do find it sad that this is clearly a political plot from the editorial as much as just writers having their way, so don’t be surprised WHEN Bendis does go socio-political in this series just because he can. They want want to phase out Marvel’s old guard, sorry, WHITE guard of characters and so they piss on fans by giving them s**t writers who will INTENTIONALLY put them in the ground (like with new Steve Rogers: Captain America, he is dealing with the cliche HYDRA while Falcon-Cap keeps the shield and deals with CURRENT issues… SMH…) and the same s**t here with the Spider-Men. Those panels you showed? THAT’S F***ING PETER PARKER! THEY’RE NOT EVEN TRYING TO HIDE IT ANYMORE! MILES MORALES IS A BLACK PETER PARKER! And Peter Parker? RICH BRUCE WAYNE REJECT that lost his wife to TONY F**KING STARK. If that’s not taking an explosive diarrhea dump on the Marvel fanbase, then NOTHING is.

   And people wonder why I only buy back issues or focus on the MCU when it comes to Marvel…

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   1. I think in the hands of a lesser writer, Spider-Man would be incredibly lame. Bendis’ caliber of work is definitely going to lift this book, and the day he leaves it’s probably going to tank. The only hope is that he stays on for a long time. I disagree with his politics, but I will tip my hat to his ability to craft a good tale. The panels I showed don’t particularly convey the nuances to the character. When he isn’t busy fighting crime, it’s obvious that Miles is a very different kind of teenager than Peter ever was.

      With that said, I will admit that I have a problem with how Marvel has treated Steve Rogers and Peter Parker. I’ve said before that it is pathetic for Marvel to claim it tackles the biggest issues facing the modern world, but yet we’ve never seen Cap take part in black-ops in Afghanistan, Iraq or Syria.

      When will Ms. Marvel take down an ISIS-inspired terror plot in New Jersey or New York? I won’t hold my breath.

2. sorry for the double post btw, moderation tripped me up.

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   1. No problem. Usually the first time someone posts I need to give it the green light, and then from there on it it’s good unless they use links. I’d have to check settings, but I’m assuming yours may have been flagged for language. I inserted a few asterisks into your previous post and published it.

      I’m okay with taking the gloves off with criticism, but I’d just ask that you try and refrain from expletives as much as possible. I’ve found that certain language is a recipe for unproductive conversations, etc.

   2. squirellywrath69,
      I think I agree with Doug, here. Now, I don’t think Miles as Spider-Man was ever a good idea in the first place, BUT, from what I’ve read of “Ultimate Spider-Man” (both the Peter and Miles) era, I agree that Bendis is a good writer; the Miles stuff I’ve read is actually pretty well-written. While the protagonist isn’t as good as Peter was, Bendis treated the new material with the same care he did with the Peter era. So, I think it’s safe to give him the benefit of the doubt that he’ll continue to bring his A-game to the new Miles comics and regardless of what he does, it’ll be with the intention of writing the best stories possible.

      “And people wonder why I only buy back issues or focus on the MCU when it comes to Marvel…”

      You and me both! About the only thing we consumers can do is vote with our wallets, so let’s do that. Since comics (and their tie-in) are meant for enjoyment, let’s not let bad decisions and stories ruin the stuff we do like. While I find Marvel’s destruction of the Peter Parker character painful, I’m trying to focus on the comics/movies/whatever I do like. If Marvel publishes a new RYV, great, I’ll be there. If not, USM will still be there and will be still as good as the day it first came to print.

      Besides, these characters have survived every bad thing in the past, they’ll survive this. (And, for “Spider-Man” fans, it sounds like the new movies will be following the authentic version of the character, not the Iron Man clone, so I don’t think we should be worried about the real Peter Parker getting lost just yet.)

3. There have been interviews plastered all over comic sites following publication of this where Bendis has said Miles relationship with the in-universe media will play a big role in defining him…most notably, they’re going to make a meal out of the fact Miles will be recognized as a black Spider-Man in the story (due to battle damage on his costume revealing his skin colour). I hope Bendis is careful with where he takes it.

   As for the demon…that was Blackheart, the son of Mephisto. Bendis often occasionally taking jabs at OMD in his Spider-Man work and here he is at it again.

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   1. “There have been interviews plastered all over comic sites following publication of this where Bendis has said Miles relationship with the in-universe media will play a big role in defining him. … I hope Bendis is careful with where he takes it.”

      If he starts doing stupid things, I will certainly be writing about it. It’s 2016. There are other plenty of minority superheroes. What does he think cable news would say? “We’re totally cool with aliens, spirits, and other black superheroes protecting us…but we’re not so sure about this new Spider-Man.”

      What? Huh?

4. I’ve got a couple of questions regarding the comic. First of all, you indicate that Miles is an interesting character in this comic. One of my chief complaints about the “Ultimate Miles” comics was that Miles was a boring character who was only interesting when interacting with other characters (such as when he talks to friends Ganke and Mary Jane about whether he should tell his girlfriend about his Spider-Man gig in “Miles Morales: The Ultimate Spider-Man: #1 — and even in that case, the only character insights we really get are for the friends, not Miles himself).

   Second question: Has Bendis addressed how Miles fits into the new 616 world yet? I’ve had trouble figuring out if Miles remembers that he’s a refugee from a gutted universe, or if his memories have altered to think that he’s “always” been there.

   I’m not even sure that Miles really fits into 616 Marvel in the first place. I can’t think of a good origin for his powers, since Miles couldn’t have been bitten by the same spider in this timeline (and trying to create an alternate version would strain credibility even more than the original comic did). Also, Miles’ defining trait is that he is Peter’s replacement. Since Peter is not only alive but also active as Spider-Man in 616 (albeit bearing no resemblance to the actual character, save in name only), why would Miles take up the Spider-Man identity in the first place?

   There are ways that it could work, but at the end of the day, the trouble of putting Miles into 616 doesn’t seem to be worth the effort and fudging. I’d’ve voted to simply keep Miles in the “Ultimate” universe and continue that line, even if Ultimate Spider-Man was the only active title. That was the world that Miles was designed for. As far as I know, the series was still selling, so how would creating a new reboot make things better? I’m pretty sure that the people who want to read about Miles are already onboard, and moving him to 616 isn’t going to make him more appealing a protagonist. (And Marvel could’ve still done that and had their “Secret Wars” reboot. Since the rebooted comics still have the multiverse, it’s not like there was ever going to be a streamlining of everything into one single world.)

   “Bendis often occasionally taking jabs at OMD in his Spider-Man work and here he is at it again.”

   Nice to hear that. I kind of assumed that Bendis was at least sympathetic to the Peter/Mary Jane relationship given how he handled it in “Ultimate Spider-Man” (pretty much arguing that they were going to be partners for life, and showing why that was). On the other hand a writer with enough skill could’ve done the same thing despite objecting to this foundational piece of the Spider-Man mythos, as Dan Slott did in RYV. Even if official policy doesn’t change any time soon, I feel a little better about Bendis being in charge of 616 Mary Jane for the time being, if he is indeed positive about the pre-“One More Day” era.

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   1. Sorry, I forgot to add the question I was making in my first point. I didn’t find Miles that interesting in his original comic series, so I was wondering if you (or other readers, for that matter) think that he’s more interesting in this series, or if it’s more of an issue of: “if you like the character before, you’ll like him now; if you didn’t like him before, it’s just more of the same”?

   2. Sorry, I forgot to add the question I was making in my first point.

      No problem. Ha. See my other reply for the answer.

   3. “I’ve got a couple of questions regarding the comic. First of all, you indicate that Miles is an interesting character in this comic. One of my chief complaints about the “Ultimate Miles” comics was that Miles was a boring character…”

      There was no question in that paragraph. 🙂 I’m supposing you’re asking why I think he’s interesting. Like I said, I never gave Marvel’s Ultimate Comics a read. They didn’t interest me. Given that Miles is essentially new to me, this issue only had to successfully address the bullet points I mentioned in the review. Bendis did that, so for now that’s enough to get me to keep reading.

      Second question: Has Bendis addressed how Miles fits into the new 616 world yet?

      No. I suppose at some point in time this will have to be addressed, but it was not mentioned in this issue.

5. While I’m not Bendis’ biggest fan, I do like that he seems to get Spider-Man, unlike say Dan Slott and seems to abhor the OMD crap Marvel has forced on everyone. I did enjoy “Secret War” immensely, and “Secret Warriors” (on which the current Agents of Shield season is based) is pretty good, though it’s written primarily by Johnathan Hickman and only the first story arc was written by Bendis.

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6. For those that want the marriage back I found this petition it’s very near its target.

   https://www.change.org/p/marvel-entertainment-please-bring-back-spider-man-s-marriage-to-mary-jane-permanently-by-december-2017

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   1. Yeah, I’ve seen that before. I’m considering signing it myself. Not so much because I think that it’ll make a difference; I’m pretty sure everything Marvel is making these days is dictated by what they want or think should be done, regardless of the complaints from their customers. I’d sign it more to make a statement for Marvel or whoever reads those things: “I’m a Spider-Man fan and I oppose what you’ve done with the characters.”

7. So apparently feminist interviewers labeling Killgrave the embodiment of white male privilege isn’t enough for superhero TV. Supergirl so far is a good show the first couple episodes were weak but it improved in no small part due to the pressence of Martian Manhunter regardless the need to push liberalism is far stronger in this show than DC’s others almost every episode has to have a liberal lens message or comment somewhere Maxwell Lord the main villain is a Lex Luthor light who gasp thinks private industry can do more for americans than a government nanny state, Instead of wanting to conquer or claim earth fof themselves the other Kryptonians are simply misguided ecoterrorist that don’t want mankind to destroy the world with those nasty emmisions “white male privilege” is taken as a given and whined about at least twice but finally and this is the worst. A recent episode is all immigration themed of course we are talking about extraterrestrials entering earth without man’s knowledge. I’m fine with Superman or Supergirl touching this topic or even supporting a liberal view it’s appropriate for their characters much the same I wouldn’t mind if Clark looked Hispanic to represent the largest demographic of modern immigrants but the episode flew off the rails. First the female politician that opposed aliens was clearly by the writers as z means to invoke/attack the caricature of Donald Trump that exist in their heads for example she mentions building a dome over the US to keep the aliens out. Much worse however was the presentation of Martians White Martians are presented as evil having commited genocide wiping out with fire the green martians after rounding them up like the Nazi’s for no reason while I’m not a DC reader i’m familiar enough with the cartoons to know that the green martians were wiped out a completely different alien species and that the more monstrous white martians were a minority oppressed by the green martians. Furthermore Martian Manhunter’s niece herself white is the child of a green martian and a white martian. But unfortunately we live in an age where political correctness forbids even white skinned Martians whatever their nature in the source material from being portrayed as any less evil than the the Nazi’s.

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   1. what exactly does Supergirl have to do with Miles Morales? And even if it had ANY relation, the White Martians were treated as parasites that wanted to consume everything and merely absorbed the martian traits from the Green martians and then were rebooted into a different subspecies of Martian, so both cartoon versions are technically accurate. The White Martians are always meant to be an invading evil force from the get go with a sympathetic backstory, but no amount of sympathy condones evil and genocide.

      This is about Miles Morales being marketed and written to be a superior product to Peter Parker because they want to shove the original white male heroes out the door and give us PC versions of the same character, but without having to earn the right to wear the mantle in a way that feels organic like in years long since gone by like John Stewart or Rhodey. The closest they got was Ms. Marvel’s Kamala Khan, but that’s one out of at least a dozen race/gender bent heroes done properly and yet if we address how poor their attempts to make long time readers (not TV viewers, READERS) care about the ethnic characters over the characters we grew up with for decades who were also white for decades yet people STILL were able to relate to despite being white anyways, and one of those means to do that is to make the white heroes have very sh***y plots, stories, and just bad direction so we would clamor to a good story and force us to care about characters we don’t really have any interest in. And that is sick and why readers have left IN DROVES and prefer the TV shows, regardless of the overt feminist agenda on Supergirl because that suddenly becomes tolerable in the face of the filth and politics that both Marvel AND DC (though Marvel’s far more guilty of this trend) alike.

   2. “what exactly does Supergirl have to do with Miles Morales?”

      Yeah, I don’t see the connection between “Supergirl” and “Spider-Man” either. I don’t even see the feminist argument holding much water. Online, stuff gets easily labeled. “Avengers: Age of Ultron” and “Jurassic World” are sexist, “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” is anti-white (or something), “Supergirl” is offensively feminist.

      Try watching the stuff. It’s either exaggerations, subjective interpretations, misinterpretations, or just plain wrong. (And as far as the White Martians thing goes, DC is constantly changing and rebooting stuff, that there’s no definitive version of any of their stuff beyond one or two rules. So, while I can understand people preferring one version over another, there’s no authoritative take on anything DC.)

      “This is about Miles Morales being marketed and written to be a superior product to Peter Parker because they want to shove the original white male heroes out the door and give us PC versions of the same character…”

      No, I don’t think so. While I’m not 100% sure the exacts of Miles creation (e.g. did they come up with Miles, then decide to write out Ultimate Peter, or did they know from the beginning that Peter was going to die and created Miles in response to that), I do remember that the original Ultimate Miles comics were very respectful to the Peter Parker Spider-Man. Heck, the defining thing about Miles Ultimate Spider-Man career was that he was trying to live up to the original.

      The decision to bring Miles into Marvel 616 (yeah, we’re still calling it that), was made primarily because the Miles character has his fans. Furthermore, Miles isn’t replacing the Peter Parker Spider-Man comics, they’re coexisting, just like they always have. Besides, different people are writing the 616 Peter and Miles comics. The only reason it may appear that Marvel is trying to make Miles seem better is simply because Brian Michael Bendis is writing better material than Dan Slott is (or at least stuff closer to the core Spider-Man mythos). In other words, it’s an illusion.

      “…force us to care about characters we don’t really have any interest in.”

      At the end of the day, different people will prefer different characters over others. I’m a Peter Parker Spider-Man fan, not a Miles Morales Spider-Man fan. I also like the MCU movies, DC movies not so much, and could care less about Deadpool. That’s all subjective. It’s got nothing to do with the quality of the material we’re not invested in. I’m not a Miles fan, but I’m not denying that what I’ve read of it is a well-written superhero comic.

      “And that is sick and why readers have left IN DROVES and prefer the TV shows, regardless of the overt feminist agenda on Supergirl because that suddenly becomes tolerable in the face of the filth and politics that both Marvel AND DC (though Marvel’s far more guilty of this trend) alike.”

      There’s nothing inherently wrong about creating replacement characters, even if we disagree with ones work and don’t (Marvel’s may not work as well as DC’s, since DC tends toward the legacy superhero more). At the end of the day, any replacement character is only as good as that character is written. The ethnic background of the original and the replacement are irrelevant in this simple test.

   3. @Weblurker

      “Heck, the defining thing about Miles Ultimate Spider-Man career was that he was trying to live up to the original.”

      That is the problem: Morales is basically Peter Parker. His personality trait beyond being a replacement is he has a snarky sense of humor, he’s shy without his mask, and he’s a nerd smarter than half the people in a given room dealing with powers he is not use to. The only other trait you can throw on the fire is “Oh yeah I’m also a black/latino,” whose major story arcs are basically adaptations of Peter Parker stories that weren’t done, or done properly, in the Ultimate Universe at that point, or they were Avengers stories that just happened to take place in his own book. He isn’t like John Stewart or Rhodey whose millitary backgrounds IMMEDIATELY struck them as a different sort of character to be Green Lantern or Rhodey or heck even Sam Wilson as Captain America, all of whom are clearly different (though given Steve is back as Cap and fighting a cliched idea like HYDRA while Sam deals with “modern” issues is another bad omen…)

      “That’s all subjective. It’s got nothing to do with the quality of the material we’re not invested in. ”

      That’s EXACTLY what it is: Give the characters fans care about bad material so they will leave the book so they can jump ship to another character they WANT you to care about and he has better material that if you closed your eyes and imagined Peter Parker in (not hard considering Morales basically IS a teenage Peter Parker for the 21st century,) then you would. It’s like this in all forms of media. Take pro wrestling: If fans are cheering for somebody the promoters in the back don’t like or want to be cheered, they will give him shit material and get his ass beat every week until you stop cheering for them so you can go back to cheering for who they DO want you to cheer for. Again, I come back to Captain America: Steve Rogers is back, but he doesn’t get his shield and he is fighting HYDRA again off in somewheres-ville, aka. walking cliche, while Sam Wilson as Cap not only keeps the shield, his story gets to tackle innovative ideas that had yet to be done that readers might want to check out to see how they do. The same thing is happening here with Spider-Man, and we aren’t talking about She-Thor because that was a disaster and a bastardization.

      In fact that’s the whole point of one of Doug’s earlier articles: We’ve entered an era of “separate but equal superheroes,” aka segregation, only in a metaphorical reverse: Instead of whites get all the clean bathrooms, bus spots, seats, drinking fountains, churches, education, restaurants, housing, and etc, the non-white/male crowd gets basically a turd dressed up as “cool” and the intellectual equivalent of a Big Mac: All flash, no substance and is actually very bad for you. The ethnic group, however, gets the fancy fancy.

      The irony of it all? The shit comics STILL, at least for now, sell more because fans want Peter Parker, they want Steve Rogers, because THOSE are Spider-Man and Captain America. But much like WCW in the Monday Night Wars, they do so out of habit and eventually habit will give way especially when they use these underhanded editorial tactics and social media buzz (which is ruled by the extreme “educated (not really)” left, especially on Tumblr) and then Peter Parker’s a distant memory, same with Steve Rogers, just like Jay Garrick and Alan Scott before them.

      Doesn’t make it right, and it never will be. While you may be right about a character being only as good as it is written, when you see through the marketing ploy and the editorial decisions behind it, it suddenly goes from a progressive idea, to an embittered one, especially when the people in charge are also other white people who, ironically, haven’t really hired many women OR ethnic writers and artists unless it was publicized as a stunt to say “HEY LOOK YOU GUYZZZZ, WE GOT A CHICK WORKING HERE!” and that, in it of itself is pretty demeaning to the woman because you prop her up based on her gender and not her work ethic? I argue DC is far more guilty of THAT particular stunt, but when a reader can feel the politics going into making a book, it’s no wonder people buy independent or do what I do and have begun to write our own comics where the focus is NOT on one’s gender or ethnicity or sexuality or whatever (the going norm) and is instead back on heroes versus villains each with lives outside the capes, where things like all of the above are not treated as a political stunt, but as if they were always there.

8. Supergirl has nothing to do with Miles my post wasn’t entirely relevant I was just whining because I like both Martian Manhunter and Ms. Martian but as I’m ignorant of the comics the show really upset me I did not think that it made sense to portray the white martians like that when John’s sister married one in the other versions and assumed that the portrayal of the subspecies was inverted because of liberals warped PC lens. Either way it reduces the chances of Megan showing up later perhaps as a sidekick which’s a shame because given the lack of crossover with Flash and Arrow crossover they should milk the martians for all they’re worth.

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   1. Yeah, it’s a bummer when stuff is changed and you don’t like the change. I’m behind on the “Supergirl” show (I watch it online through the CBS website), so I haven’t got to the episode you’re talking about, but I’ll be looking forward to it, since I like that iteration of Hank Henshaw/Martian Manhunter. I’m inclined to guess that making the two Martian cultures enemies was to streamline the story for people like me who are semi-aware of these characters so we could follow it, not for PC purposes.

      They could bring in Ms. Martian into the show with a different background (as I understand it, there are a few characters on the show that have been rejigged a little or a lot), or just establish that there are white Martians that have moral principles and she happens to be one of them. However, given that “Henshaw’s” background seems to be setting him up as the lone survivor of Mars (he says as much in “Human For a Day”), it’s a good possibility that Ms. Martian simply doesn’t fit into the story they’re trying to tell with “Supergirl” the TV show. I don’t blame anyone for missing their favorite characters in an adaptation of any source material, but we have to take what they give us and decide if it’s worth it for us to see it for what it is.

      As I understand it, they will be making a crossover episode with the “Flash” TV show. It’s unclear if they’re going to do it by assuming that “Supergirl” and “Flash” take place in the same world or have one visit from a parallel universe (I think the latter would make more sense, given the world-building “Supergirl” has had so far). So, hey, it sounds like there’s going to be some nifty stuff to look forward to, Martians or no Martians.

9. I guess I’m just spoiled by the greater narrative consistency of Marvel that has yet to reboot and expected far too much from DC. I can see them going full last son of Mars but I think they should no better after all it was the last son of Krypton mentality that removed Kara from continuity for many years.

   As you’ve asked about The Real Clone Saga a few times and haven’t received an answer here’s my take.

   The 90’s clone saga lasted over a hundred issues half of which in no way contributed to the plot, it was also crippled by editorial mandates and too many cooks that wanted different outcomes. The Real Clone Saga tells the story as it was originally meant to be told with all the problematic parts ommited. The story and art are fantastic but the writer’s were a little overzealous in course correction the story is told in a breezy six issues when even stretching it just to seven would be better as the original concept was meant to be told in nine issues (one double sized) nevertheless it’s great, differs from the 90’s with a surprising twist (as Editorial changed the mastermind of the saga to Norman in the 90’s) and a happy ending.

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   1. Hey, thanks for the “Clone Saga” comment. I actually ended up reading the thing myself already. Wish it was a little more decompressed myself, and I think there were a few places where the authors assumed that the readers had at least a workbook knowledge of the original version, but, hey, it was a fun read and it’s nice to see that there’s another place where some of the pre-2007 ASM comics can be put without “needing” to read them as Peter and MJ not married.

   2. I think that’s exactly what they were counting on with the “notebook” fans…Tom and Mackie must be aware of the Life of Reily blog.

10. Okay, squirellywrath69, I don’t agree with everything you put there.

    “Morales is basically Peter Parker.”

    I’m going to have to agree and disagree with you here (man, defending a character I think is overrated! Here goes…). As a character, I agree that Miles is far less interesting than Peter was and that the Spider-Man part of Miles isn’t written differently enough.

    However, Miles, as flawed in concept and execution as he is, is not quite the Peter clone you think. For example, in civilian life, he tends to be polite to a fault and is a far more quiet person than Peter was. His motivations for being Spider-Man are completely different. He also wasn’t a social outcast, never really had to deal with his superhero persona being persecuted by the public (was generally embraced in fact), never wanted superpowers in the first place (he was freaked out when he first discovered them, while Peter was excited about his), didn’t excel in science class, and had to deal with betrayals from people he trusted far more than Peter ever did.

    Miles is blander than Peter was, and never brought anything to the table to justify his replacing the Ultimate Spider-Man, BUT Bendis at least made the attempt to make Miles his own character and the comics as good as he could make them. At the end of the day, contrary to what Slott may think, we don’t read Spider-Man for Spider-Man. We read it for the person under that mask. Bends got this, and if we don’t like the new character he put under that mask, it’s not his fault. It’s just our subjective opinion.

    “…whose major story arcs are basically adaptations of Peter Parker stories that weren’t done, or done properly, in the Ultimate Universe at that point, or they were Avengers stories that just happened to take place in his own book.

    Really? Any examples? I don’t remember that many Miles stories, but I happen to know that Miles’s first supervillian was a member of his own family trying to exploit him, had to deal with his mother being killed by Venom and being briefly abandoned by his father when being outed as Spider-Man. One of his rogue’s gallery was a Mexican crime lord (“the Scorpion”). Also, As far as I know, those stories have few, if any analogues, to Peter’s. Besides, Miles’ story is still going.

    “That’s EXACTLY what it is: Give the characters fans care about bad material so they will leave the book so they can jump ship to another character they WANT you to care about and he has better material that if you closed your eyes and imagined Peter Parker in (not hard considering Morales basically IS a teenage Peter Parker for the 21st century,) then you would.”

    While I’m sure that happens sometimes, that’s exactly what I was saying is NOT happening here. To the best of my knowledge, Ultimate Peter was planned to be killed off before they had decided on a replacement. In other words, there was always going to be a replacement. It just happened to be one of a different ethnicity.

    I doubt that the current 616 Peter Parker comics are being made bad just to get people jonesing on Miles because of these four points.

    First reason: The problems with 616 Spider-Man can be traced before Miles was even created. Everything wrong with 616 Spider-Man now can either be traced to either “One More Day” or Slott’s writing decisions to further divorce Peter from the core things that make Spider-Man Spider-Man. So, Peter being written badly today has nothing to do with Miles, it’s just Marvel continuing the job they started back in ’07.

    Second reason: Miles was not written to be the “better” Spider-Man. Read the actual comics. Miles is never touted as being the better Spider-Man, Peter is. Miles is just trying to live up to his predecessor. In the Ultimate universe, after being presumed dead, Peter basically had the same reputation that Captain America has; the best of the best. While it remains to be seen how Miles is handled in 616, it’s ostensibly a continuation of the original material, so there’s no reason to assume that that’s going to change.

    Third reason: Brian Michael Bendis is writing the Miles comics. Look at his track record. Bendis is one of the best modern-day Spider-Man writers, certainly better than Slott. Compare Bendis’s best story (I’m going to say the “Learning Curve” story arc, although the Ultimate “Clone Saga” and “Legacy” are also standouts) with Slott’s best (“Renew Your Vows”). While Slott proved he could write really good versions of Peter and Mary Jane if he wished, Bendis wrote better superhero stories (the Regent is the weak link in Slott’s magnum opus) and writes characterization better (USM #13 is a frequent pick for best USM comic ever, despite the fact that it’s just Peter and MJ having a conversation).

    So, Bendis’s Spider-Man work is probably going to be better than Slott’s, but since Bendis was working on the franchise before Slott entered the picture, and is continuing the same series, this is not a sudden decision to make people hate Peter. Bends is simply doing what he was doing from the beginning.

    Fourth reason: Slott is writing the 616 Spider-Man comics. Look how Slott flies off the handle when he get flak over his Spider-Man stuff. His attitude toward his critics is (to quote Molly Hayes from “Runaways” ): “Why aren’t you awesomed by me?!” The guy wants to be one of the great Spider-Man scribes of all time and writes with that intent. It’s possible that he could’ve even done it, too; RYV has its flaws, but the characters are spot on. The problem is that Slott makes terrible creative decisions. That’s something he’s always done, long before the Miles comic. So, Slott’s not trying to make Miles look better than Peter (not that I could imagine him willing to), he’s just doing what he’s always done.

    It’s an unfortunate situation, but it’s mostly happenstance. For it all to be a conspiracy to get people to like Miles, Marvel would’ve needed to start long before they could’ve known they’d need to do it, and it doesn’t explain why they’ve given us good Peter comics in the midst of it all (e.g. the Peter-era “Ultimate,” “The Real Clone Saga,” “Renew Your Vows,” etc.)

    “Doesn’t make it right, and it never will be. While you may be right about a character being only as good as it is written, when you see through the marketing ploy and the editorial decisions behind it, it suddenly goes from a progressive idea, to an embittered one…”

    Look, replacement superhero characters have been around for a long time. Beyond the fact that any reader isn’t going to like their favorite character changing, why has it suddenly become bad? Take this as an example: The female Thor is not the first Thor replacement. Off the top of my head, there was Beta Ray Bill, Eric Masterson, the frog Thor, and another female Asgardian who’s name I can’t recall.

    So, Thor has had a history to having other people take his place. Why the complaining now? Was it the writing of the character? No, I recall complaints being registered before the first comic was even written. Was it about the original Thor not being Thor? Some of them, sure? That’s fair, but being unhappy that your favorite character is not in a comic (or using a specific identity) has no bearing on the quality of the craftsmanship of the actual comic in question (I could care less about Superman, but that has no effect on the fact that there are good Superman comics out there.

    The complaint in this case seemed to be that a woman was taking over a male superhero. There’s a word for that: Sexism. Very few people asked if the female Thor was a well-written character and/or had a good comic. I haven’t been following it, so I don’t know, but that’s the main prism that objective criticism should be made through in regards to the comic. If her into comic was badly written, then it was a bad comic. That doesn’t dictate that nothing good will come out of it.

    This may not be your intent, but your argument seems to boil down to: “It’s wrong to replace white characters with non-white characters.” What the heck? How is that not racist? (Racism is discrimination based on racial background, regardless of who’s doing it.) At the end of the day, good characters are good characters and bad characters are bad ones, ethnicities being irrelevant. For example Wally West and Hal Jordan were replacement characters that earned their keep. Miles Morales, Kamala Khan, and the others deserve the same chance to have their comics viewed subjectively as replacements stories like would be done for a white character replacing a white character, not through a PC-whistle-blower.

    I think the problem with many of the so-called PC changes is that the writing to introduce them is weak, ties itself into pretzels to work, or may be trying something that doesn’t work in the franchise. That’s not a character problem, that’s a writing problem. We pick out favorite comics and characters for a variety of reasons, not all of them the same. For some readers, Miles is “their” Spider-Man, and they find the idea of someone else wearing the mask as painful as me (and others) find having a Peter-less Spider-Man.

    But, to bring it full circle, let’s say that some changes are made only to be PC (in a bad way) and are intended to make the readers hate the original. Miles isn’t one of them. The fact that he’s a black Latino American replacing a white superhero is coincidental. He has never been used to make people hate Peter Parker. The fact that the Miles comics are better than the Peter comics is the coincidence of a good writer continuing a good series while a bad writer is continuing a bad series. You may not care for Miles personally (I don’t), but this is simply a case of a “Spider-Man” comic book that doesn’t appeal to a specific subset of the fanbase. Nothing more and nothing less.

    Reply

    1. “He also wasn’t a social outcast, never really had to deal with his superhero persona being persecuted by the public (was generally embraced in fact), never wanted superpowers in the first place (he was freaked out when he first discovered them, while Peter was excited about his)”

       Not at first he wasn’t. Peter was scared of his own powers just like Miles both in Ultimate AND 616, but much like Miles, once he gained his sense of self, embraced it. And no, even Miles was persecuted by the public, Peter’s clone, SHIELD, and everybody for daring to wear the mask, and only became accepted when 90% of all then existing superheroes (which admittedly wasn’t many to begin with after Ultimatum) all became Ultimates.

       “Miles was not written to be the “better” Spider-Man.”

       Not “in-universe” but who is creatively running the characters. That is what I have been talking about, not the stories themselves or the characters, but he who controls the whip.

       “Marvel would’ve needed to start long before they could’ve known they’d need to do it, and it doesn’t explain why they’ve given us good Peter comics in the midst of it all (e.g. the Peter-era “Ultimate,” “The Real Clone Saga,” “Renew Your Vows,” etc.)”

       In the comic book industry, story arcs, marketing campaigns, editorial summits, and entire things are done YEARS in advance so that way they can even be put to print. It takes a long time to make a comic book (speaking from experience here) let alone making arcs with other comics, wrangling creative teams, and so on and so forth. The Peter-era Ultimate began LONG before Miles Morales was even a thought, but by the time he was one, all roads went there. As soon as he hit newstands, a cursory glance at tumblr, and after a pat on the back they go “ya know what? Let’s do this to everybody!” Sure enough, we got She-Thor, Falcon-Cap, Kamala Khan, Asian-Hulk, and more. One hill turn leads into another, but that is also why Dan Slott, who in fact had to be defended routinely by Stephen Wacker to DO SSM from within the Marvel offices, wrote the stories leading up to SSM as he did: Sh*t-to-mediocre so that way when SSM came along, it came off as a fresh idea, even though it was a steaming pile of horse manure.

       The problem with this formula is that you don’t see the feedback until your plans are already into development. DC is slowly starting to grasp this and scrambled to make a photoshop image for “Rebirth” because DCYou failed so miserably. Marvel is selling better, but to to readers. When they talk about “sales” they are actually talking about how many books comic book shops all around the world will buy. So of that 100 000 books bought, you’d be lucky to have about 60% of that actually be purchased, which is barely more than half. So when worldwide, only 60 thousand readers are reading a sh*t book like ASM, and Miles Morales books only sell around the 30K mark, we reach a problem here. Yet when the marketing is said and done, Marvel’s choice is clear: Buy Miles Morales. All the Peter books? They market one if you’re generous because Sony (wisely) wants to stick true to Peter Parker and because of Marvel’s good relationship with Sony, Peter gets spotlight by extension (even though Marvel’s editorial clearly wants Miles in place.)

       “The female Thor is not the first Thor replacement. Off the top of my head, there was Beta Ray Bill, Eric Masterson, the frog Thor, and another female Asgardian who’s name I can’t recall.”

       1. Beta Ray Bill never called himself Thor.
       2. Eric Masterson was the avatar of Thor in the same way Donald Blake was before him. Doesn’t count. He just became a hero called Thunderstrike after he stopped being the avatar. Shortly after that, Thor stopped needing avatars and just became Thor on his own.
       3. Frog Thor was still Thor just transfigured into a Frog.
       4. Thor-Girl, Valkyrie, Angela, Sif were all distinct characters with those exact names while Thor remained as Thor. Thor is not a code name, it is he himself, so for the writers to basically insult reader’s intelligence with that abortion of a comic book, most damning being issue 1 and then burying it with meta commentary when she fought the Absorbing Man was basically saying to fans: “TOUGH SHIT!”
       5. The She-Thor book sucks. Like really bad. When it’s not cramming the Girl Power angle down your throat, it does rehashes of stories that would have been no different had Thor himself be swinging the hammer. That’s not me being sexist, that’s just calling a bad story for what it is.

       “What the heck? How is that not racist? (Racism is discrimination based on racial background, regardless of who’s doing it.) At the end of the day, good characters are good characters and bad characters are bad ones, ethnicities being irrelevant. For example Wally West and Hal Jordan were replacement characters that earned their keep. Miles Morales, Kamala Khan, and the others deserve the same chance to have their comics viewed subjectively as replacements stories like would be done for a white character replacing a white character, not through a PC-whistle-blower.”

       As I stated above, James Rhodes and John Stewart, black men, EARNED their keep with character arcs and stories that had nothing to do with them being Lanterns before they became Iron Man and Green Lantern. And even during that, they both admitted it was a temporary arrangement, giving the mantles back, before resuming heroic careers of their own a few years later, with John Stewart becoming another Green Lantern in case Hal or Guy went down for the count and then growing to be one of two Lanterns worthy of defending Earth as Hal’s equal a la the “sidekick yet not a sidekick” route, and Rhodey became War Machine, though occasionally would step up as Iron Man as needed. These allowed fans of all walks of life to accept the characters and grow as heroes both in and out of the suits, not get thrust with a legacy role. Hal Jordan was a complete reboot with absolutely no reference or ties to the previous Green Lantern, Alan Scott, same with Barry Allen (oh and btw, Flash and GL had not been around as characters in publication for nearly a decade at that point, so completely different situation.) and Wally West spent nearly 20 years as Kid Flash before he became the Flash. We weren’t given this murky compromise of “uh, yeah, old whitey is still around, but we’re shoving him in the background, so look at these new guys!” Ummm, no, fans know what they like and don’t want to be told differently, thank you very much. That is also racism. Using the racism card against racism is just racism regardless of whose doing it, to use your own words against you.

       “But, to bring it full circle, let’s say that some changes are made only to be PC (in a bad way) and are intended to make the readers hate the original. Miles isn’t one of them. The fact that he’s a black Latino American replacing a white superhero is coincidental. He has never been used to make people hate Peter Parker. The fact that the Miles comics are better than the Peter comics is the coincidence of a good writer continuing a good series while a bad writer is continuing a bad series.”

       You’re right: Kamala Khan is not; Miles Morales is. He was created because Obama said his favourite superhero was Spider-Man growing up so they went “HA! Let’s make a black Spider-Man! Who cares, we got a black president! Kill Peter Parker! Oh wait, Slott’s already doing that in SSM. Fine! Kill ULTIMATE Peter Parker! Nobody will care about that!” (hint: They did, and sales tanked even when the stories were subpar.) Kamala Khan is probably the only character they’ve gotten right that fans care about, but her sales don’t necessarily reflect her marketing unless you believed in Tumblr. But as I’ve said, above as well, she too gets a pass because they DID write her organically (there had not been a Ms. Marvel in several years and only her name is the same and is inspired by Danvers in the same way ol’ Barry Allen was back in the day) and not shoved her down the throats of people like Miles Morales (and I’m not necessarily talking about when he debuted in Ultimate, though that’s also an issue in it of itself since we never met the character until he just magically showed up. I am talking about NOW that there are two Spider-Men in the same universe with Miles filling the classic Spidey role of street level Avenger while we get Iron Spider corporate sleeze and bad writing for Peter Parker. And yes, Slott and Bendis meet regularly since they both work on Spider-Man so you know this is a creative/corporate decision.

       “Bendis at least made the attempt to make Miles his own character and the comics as good as he could make them.”

       Bendis, as you’ve also said, just knows how to write Spider-Man. Slott’s being a control freak with Peter, so he writes Miles. I can easily replace all of Miles’ artwork with Peter Parker and it would still be the same story, word for word. When I can do that, we got a problem.

       “Really? Any examples? I don’t remember that many Miles stories, but I happen to know that Miles’s first supervillian was a member of his own family trying to exploit him, had to deal with his mother being killed by Venom and being briefly abandoned by his father when being outed as Spider-Man.”

       Spider-Man No More; Night of the Prowler (the basic premise was still the same, even if the character relations were different.) And his mother killed by Venom was a rehash of another Ultimate Spider-Man story: The Death of Gwen Stacey, killed by Carnage in pretty much the same way as well as when Aunt May discovered Peter was Spider-Man and left for a period of time before the famous issue “The Talk” where she began to support Peter’s activities much like Miles’ father did. And all of his other Ultimate Universe stories were Avengers stories, so I don’t really count them as Miles stories with one exception being Cloak and Dagger (which went down in a modern update of the same way tthat Peter met Cloak and Dagger…) The only story that was truly original was whenever Jessica, SHIELD, or when Peter himself, having come back from the dead, decided to kick the piss out of Miles for ripping Peter off and the only reason he continued being Spider-Man was because Peter Spider-Man No More’d himself and drove off into the sunset with Mary Jane, otherwise Peter throughout that story fully intended giving Miles the axe and just being Spidey himself again. Sorry, but when your original material is literally “we hate you, f**k off,” while the rest of the stories are rehashes and Avengers stories, we got a serious problem.

       I’m sorry, but Morales started a trend of racebending that has gone too far at the Marvel side that a person’s gender, sexuality, and ethnicity has overtaken plot, complex villains, character growth, and many times simple logic. Even good stories read as basically “wait, couldn’t they have just had Peter/Thor/Steve/Bruce do that?” and the marketing department clearly wants you to care about the diverse heroes first, the classics second because I can’t log into ANY Marvel video game or website without having a sale and image of one of the new heroes just cramming the screen instead of the characters I and many other players play as while online (which are actually NOT the diversity replacements as a matter of fact.) and frankly, as Doug has shown, it makes me SICK that we’ve entered an era of “separate but equal superheroes,” So we go from Golden Age, to Silver Age, to Bronze Age, to Dark Age, to Modern Age, to Post-Modern Age, to PC Age.

    2. “So we go from Golden Age, to Silver Age, to Bronze Age, to Dark Age, to Modern Age, to Post-Modern Age, to PC Age.”

       Well said. I’m not sure how anybody can deny at this point the extent to which Marvel elevates diversity for the sake of diversity over sound storytelling. Their creators talk about it all the time and we can see how it’s playing out on the page. Time and time again it is so obvious what the logical editorial decision would be if they wanted to find a proper balance between becoming more diverse while honoring the legacy characters — and then they take the politically correct route.

    3. the worst problem is when the MCU can do a better job of promoting and marketing the already existing lineup of diverse heroes and heroines, and we’re behind on a Black Widow movie. That’s terrible! Marvel has an already diverse lineup that with the right promotion and marketing would sell just as good as Peter Parker. Look at the X-Men, a team comprised of men and women from literally all walks of life, and white people are just part of the painting, not the focus. They CAN do it, and in fact once Iron Man became a box office smash, the Avengers went from B-list sales superteam to a TRUE contender to the Justice League that they were always written and meant to be (even though sales and publicly, they weren’t even close in popularity.)

       So really, turning Falcon into Cap was unnecessary, but they did it anyways. The story itself has actually been good so not many are ticked about that, but they did get ticked when they found out Steve was back as Cap and unlike Bucky Cap going back to Winter Soldier, Falcon-Cap stays, even though he by right would no longer need to be Captain America because as stated for DECADES, Steve Rogers is Captain America. He’s had many stand ins, but there is only one. THAT is why people have their hackles up.

       It is really not that hard to make new ethnic superheroes, and it isn’t that hard to market them if you have the right team, which they’ve shown time and again. But when the focus is to be as derivative as possible because “fans know Spider-Man so they will buy this!” instead of branching off and being new, it’s no wonder comic readers are going independent and superhero fans mostly just know superheroes from the cartoons and movies and TV shows these days as opposed to the comics: THERE’S NOTHING TO THEM! Just politics!

    4. “Not at first he wasn’t. Peter was scared of his own powers just like Miles both in Ultimate AND 616, but much like Miles, once he gained his sense of self, embraced it.”

       I can’t speak for 616, but I have a copy of the first USM trade paperback. While I’ll concede that there are some growing pains, Peter acclimates to it all pretty quickly and is pretty happy about it all. As I recall, Miles is really freaked out by it and basically lives in denial for a whole year. Yeah, they eventually both embraced it, but Peter was far less reluctant.

       “And no, even Miles was persecuted by the public, Peter’s clone, SHIELD, and everybody for daring to wear the mask…”

       Sorry, I was thinking about the general public’s perception of the character.

       “‘Miles was not written to be the “better” Spider-Man.’
       “Not “in-universe” but who is creatively running the characters. That is what I have been talking about, not the stories themselves or the characters, but he who controls the whip.”
       My point exactly. Whatever the rest of Marvel are doing, Bendis, the guy who created Miles in the first place, has a track record that indicates he’s not involved in smearing Peter Parker.

       “In the comic book industry, story arcs, marketing campaigns, editorial summits, and entire things are done YEARS in advance…”

       Okay, but there are a lot of projects going on at one. USM Peter Parker began in 2000, the OMD era began in 2007, and USM Miles began in 2011. While there may have been some overlap, it’s highly improbable that they were all connected into one massive scheme to get people to want to read a non-Peter Parker Spider-Man comic book. In fact, when USM #1 came out, it was unknown if Marvel would even stay in business, much less what they would be writing ten years down the road.

       “The Peter-era Ultimate began LONG before Miles Morales was even a thought, but by the time he was one, all roads went there.”

       You didn’t get this though: THEY DECIDED TO CREATE THE MILES CHARACTER AFTER THEY DECIDED TO KILL ULTIMATE PETER, NOT BEFORE. They started on the road, not knowing the destination. Also, for what it’s worth, the “Death of Spider-Man Prelude” comics could easily have skipped the death and just continued Peter’s story. The only real piece of housecleaning that might have been used to prepare for the change was having Peter and MJ reconcile before he died (and even that is unlikely, given that the Peter/MJ relationship alway was the emotional core of USM).

       “Marvel’s choice is clear: Buy Miles Morales. All the Peter books? They market one if you’re generous because Sony (wisely) wants to stick true to Peter Parker and because of Marvel’s good relationship with Sony, Peter gets spotlight by extension (even though Marvel’s editorial clearly wants Miles in place.)”

       Where did they say that? Yes, they’re marketing the new Miles comics, just like they’re marketing all the new titles they come up with. But maybe you’re right that they want readers to forget about Peter. That must be why they created a new series about Peter (“Spidey”), chose to devote their lead Spider-Man writer to writing a Peter-centric comic for “Secret Wars” (“Renew Your Vows”), and gave Peter key roles in Secret Wars tie-in like “Civil War” and “Spider-Island,” and are still writing ASM as a regular. If anything, Marvel wants both Peter and Miles, and obviously not just Miles alone.

       (Also, 616 “Spider-Man” was cut down to one ongoing series after “One More Day,” which had nothing to do with the Ultimate comics or Miles, much less Sony.)

       “5. The She-Thor book sucks. Like really bad. When it’s not cramming the Girl Power angle down your throat, it does rehashes of stories that would have been no different had Thor himself be swinging the hammer. That’s not me being sexist, that’s just calling a bad story for what it is.”

       In regards to your Thor comments, I’ll freely admit all I know about Thor comes from the MCU and any trivia I’ve picked up. Okay, I wouldn’t blame anyone for being annoyed that they calling the Jane Foster Thor just “Thor” instead of “Thora” or something. However, semantics aside, this is just another replacement character. It’s been done before, it’ll probably happen again. Why is this inherently bad, when it’s not that much different than the others? What was so different about the other replacement Thors beyond the name?

       You say the new Thor is badly-written. Okay, that’s a fair criticism.

       “As I stated above, James Rhodes and John Stewart, black men, EARNED their keep with character arcs and stories that had nothing to do with them being Lanterns before they became Iron Man and Green Lantern. And even during that, they both admitted it was a temporary arrangement,”

       That’s the best way to do it, but when they don’t, you have to take what you get. If the comics are able to overcome a bad beginning and be good, anyways, so what if they started out shaky. Every series has their rough patches. Have any of the new legacy characters earn their keep, regardless of how well they were introduced?

       “Hal Jordan was a complete reboot with absolutely no reference or ties to the previous Green Lantern, Alan Scott, same with Barry Allen (oh and btw, Flash and GL had not been around as characters in publication for nearly a decade at that point, so completely different situation.) and Wally West spent nearly 20 years as Kid Flash before he became the Flash. We weren’t given this murky compromise of ‘uh, yeah, old whitey is still around, but we’re shoving him in the background, so look at these new guys!’”

       If Marvel really wanted to replace Peter, they would’ve written him out the way they did when they wanted Ben Riley to take center stage.

       “Ummm, no, fans know what they like and don’t want to be told differently, thank you very much.”

       Agreed. And yours truly likes reading about the Peter Parker Spider-Man and no subsittues, and as long as that can be done, I’m okay with fans of other versions having material about their Spider-Man.

       “You’re right: Kamala Khan is not; Miles Morales is.”

       That’s not what I said, what I meant was that neither Miles or Kamala were PC-only changes.

       “ He was created because Obama said his favourite superhero was Spider-Man growing up so they went “HA! Let’s make a black Spider-Man!

       Um, no. While Miles dual heritage was partially inspired by Pres. Obama, the main inspiration for Miles was actor Donald Glover, who had worn a Spider-Man shirt on a TV show he was working on and had expressed interest in auditioning to play Peter Parker in the Mark Webb movies. And, as I’ve said before, Ultimate Peter dying was always in the cards. The replacement could’ve been white, or Asian American, or whatever. They just happened to create a new character with black ancestry. So, I’m going to say this once and for all: THE IDEA OF A BLACK SPIDER-MAN CAME AFTER PETER WAS SCRIPTED TO DIE, NOT BEFORE!

       “…and not shoved her down the throats of people like Miles Morales…”

       The fact that there were online fans who wanted the next Spider-Man movie to be a Miles one suggests that the character does have a real fanbase and wasn’t forced on the fans the way Cindy Moon was. That said, I will concede that Miles has become the face of USM, to the point where Ultimate Peter seems a bit forgotten. On the other hand, Ultimate Peter and the real 616 Peter (the pre-OMD version) are not that different (which makes for easy crossover for readers, but harder for marketing).

       “Slott’s being a control freak with Peter, so he [Bendis] writes Miles.”

       Miles was Bedis’s creation. It makes sense that he would continue it, regardless of who was writing 616 Peter.

       “I am talking about NOW that there are two Spider-Men in the same universe with Miles filling the classic Spidey role of street level Avenger while we get Iron Spider corporate sleeze and bad writing for Peter Parker. And yes, Slott and Bendis meet regularly since they both work on Spider-Man so you know this is a creative/corporate decision.”

       Oh, how will we survive having two Spider-Men in the same world! It’s never happened before. Except for Ben Reily. Oh, and Kaine. Wait, don’t forget Mattie Franklin and Anara. Sarcasm aside, this’s hardly anything new. It’s worked before, it could work again.

       Frankly, I AM worried that Marvel will use the Miles comic to justify keeping Peter as the Iron Man clone. However, it doesn’t make any sense that they would want to sabotage one comic in favor of another; that’s a loss of revenue. Besides, everything wrong with 616 Spider-Man predates Miles anyways, so a more likely explanation is that they want to keep that status quo for whatever reason, and NOT because they want Miles to be the new face of Spider-Man. Remember how Slott is always shilling how his comics sell a lot? Evidently he’s not the only one who believes it.

       Frankly, you’re really sounding paranoid here. If they really wanted a Miles Spider-Man only, they could just cancel all the Peter comics and put the money they spend producing them elsewhere. Use common sense.

       “And his mother killed by Venom was a rehash of another Ultimate Spider-Man story: The Death of Gwen Stacey, killed by Carnage in pretty much the same way as well…”

       Um no, “The Death of Gwen Stacy” was remixed in the “Legacy” trade paperback and had Green Goblin almost killing Mary Jane, no Venom. If you’re referring to Ultimate Gwen’s death in the “Carnage arc, the answer’s still no. I have a copy of “USM: Carnage.” I should know. Gwen was killed by Carnage in a freak incident when it wandered to Peter’s house, something Peter unreasonably blamed himself for. Rio Morales was killed protecting her son.

       “…and the only reason he continued being Spider-Man was because Peter Spider-Man No More’d himself and drove off into the sunset with Mary Jane, otherwise Peter throughout that story fully intended giving Miles the axe and just being Spidey himself again.

       No, in that story, Peter and MJ were planning to run away together after they reunited. (Peter explains that he wanted to recover his web shooters because they were the last connection he had to his father and let the rest of the world think he was still dead. Later, when they leave for good, MJ confirms that Peter publicly revealing himself wasn’t part of their plan.)

       It’s not explicitly stated, but you can read between the lines enough to work out that Peter and MJ were well aware that, after all the close calls, breakups, reunions, and deaths, they had gotten each other back again against the odds, and they were not going to waste this additional second chance for the world.

       “Sorry, but when your original material is literally “we hate you, f**k off,” while the rest of the stories are rehashes and Avengers stories, we got a serious problem.”

       The early issues had Miles earning the support he got (which is actually a good story for a legacy superhero). If you would care to check, the Peter returns story ended with him apologizing to Miles and giving him permission to continue the Spider-Man legacy. The latter in particular is actually very affirming of both Peter and Miles.

       Also, arguing that USM Miles just ripped off classic Spider-Man stuff isn’t a good idea. USM was always about remixing stuff from the Spider-Man mythos from day one. That was the whole point of the Ultimate brand. What made USM great was how they reimagined the mythos. Where the “rip-off” Miles stories actually bad stories? If they weren’t, so what if they were derived from other sources. The “Ultimate Clone Saga” is generally well remembered despite being a remake, but, by your reasoning, we should be criticizing it for not being an original story. (When the new Miles stuff begins recycling the old stories, then we’ll talk.)

       “I’m sorry, but Morales started a trend of racebending that has gone too far at the Marvel side that a person’s gender, sexuality, and ethnicity has overtaken plot, complex villains, character growth, and many times simple logic.”

       That has nothing to do with whether Ultimate Spider-Man should’ve been turned into a legacy character or not, much less if the Miles stories were good or not. The fact that other series made bad creative decisions utilizing similar ideas is irrelevant to any discussion about the quality of the Miles comics.

       I’m finding this a hard topic to explain, since I feel like these replacement characters are judged guilty until proven innocent, and even when the reasons behind their creation are not the best, they’re still judged before they’ve even had a chance to prove themselves. So, while I agree that replacing a superhero identity just to have a new character in the role is probably not a good idea, we won’t know the full ramifications until the series has run for awhile. Besides, this is comics. Eventually, these changes will be undone. Small confront in the present, I understand, but the archetypes aren’t going anywhere.

       One reason I’m more interested in how the actual stories turn out is because that’s what’s going to outlast the management. Years down the road, when people read it, they won’t know what was going behind the scenes, and just read it for what it is.

       And, at the end of the day, that’s the point of any comic: To tell a story to entertain readers. If we’re getting this worked up over creative differences, maybe we’re taking this too seriously.

       To summarize, here’s how I see it. There’s nothing inherently wrong with creating a replacement superhero of a different ethnicity. The problems arise when they try to replace a superhero who can’t be removed from his persona (like Peter Parker), and when the new character isn’t created well (either because they just want to make a new character without planning ahead or don’t bother to define the character beyond ethnic background).

       (Agree that a Black Widow movie is a great idea.

       Frankly, although I’ve been arguing in favor of giving replacement characters a chance, I’m not really a fan of the legacy superhero idea, unless it’s built into the concept or there’s a clear line of succession. I’m also really tired of the random shakeups. If I’m going to pick up a comic, I want to read about my favorite characters doing their own thing. So, please, instead of “All New, All Different,” what about some “All Old, All Original” Marvel. It’s been long overdue.)

    5. “Okay, but there are a lot of projects going on at one. USM Peter Parker began in 2000, the OMD era began in 2007, and USM Miles began in 2011. While there may have been some overlap, it’s highly improbable that they were all connected into one massive scheme to get people to want to read a non-Peter Parker Spider-Man comic book. In fact, when USM #1 came out, it was unknown if Marvel would even stay in business, much less what they would be writing ten years down the road.”

       You’d think that, but preparations for One More Day began as far back as 2004, as Civil War was also in creation production roughly around the same time to shake things up in light of the new stream of Marvel films to make the comics relevant and meaningful again. A full 3 years before it saw the light of day. Miles Morales debuted in 2011, which means he had to have been made in 2008, which was right around the time of Ultimatum, ie. where they killed the Ultimate Universe in swaths. The idea was to always go that route anyways, but Ultimate Spider-Man sold too well to just kill him outright. They have to wait until lulls before a status quo change shakes it up. Why did they do this? Obama said his favourite was Spidey, so if it was good for Obama, it was gonna ride the wave of popularity. While his conception might not have been an agenda, the FALLOUT of his debut WAS. Miles Morales sparked a trend that came into full fruition when some genius in the office said “PUT HIM IN REGULAR MARVEL!” considering his was pretty much the last and only Ultimate title left much like Spider-Girl before him for the MC2 Universe, except she didn’t get brought in and was replaced with Spider-Gwen, who debuted in 2015, and when did Emma Stone debut as Gwen Stacy? 2012. Miles Morales opened a genie to a bottle that kicked off a legion of PC over Substance. You can’t talk about tough subjects without “trigger” warnings, even WITH a PC protagonist. You can’t talk about things that are thought provoking or challenge you because that would upset people or stand on more than a few toes. Also no, even the public hated Miles Morales and found him to be in pretty bad taste to call himself Spidey shortly after Peter’s death.

       “You didn’t get this though: THEY DECIDED TO CREATE THE MILES CHARACTER AFTER THEY DECIDED TO KILL ULTIMATE PETER, NOT BEFORE. They started on the road, not knowing the destination. Also, for what it’s worth, the “Death of Spider-Man Prelude” comics could easily have skipped the death and just continued Peter’s story. The only real piece of housecleaning that might have been used to prepare for the change was having Peter and MJ reconcile before he died (and even that is unlikely, given that the Peter/MJ relationship alway was the emotional core of USM).”

       Sorry, but no. Ultimatum was the intention of being the end to the Ultimate Universe, however the most popular titles of the pack managed to hang on and survive, most notably Ultimate Spider-Man. SALES kept him alive. Miles came afterwards as sales began to decline after Ultimatum and Obama’s seal of approval. The idea to kill off Peter Parker in Ultimate Marvel had been around since at least 2006 as OMD’s follow up would attempt (and fail) to go back to Peter’s roots with only one Spider-Man title released weekly, but that also meant they needed to get rid of Ultimate Peter, or at least wanted to for a while to once again drive the wedge between who Peter Parker is, and what he isn’t. In their view, anything to do with Peter and Mary Jane was a blight and needed to go (such as Amazing Spider-Girl) and that still holds water to this day in their view if you believed Dan Slott’s “Mary Jane is Anti-Marvel” tripe.

       “Where did they say that? Yes, they’re marketing the new Miles comics, just like they’re marketing all the new titles they come up with. But maybe you’re right that they want readers to forget about Peter. That must be why they created a new series about Peter (“Spidey”), chose to devote their lead Spider-Man writer to writing a Peter-centric comic for “Secret Wars” (“Renew Your Vows”), and gave Peter key roles in Secret Wars tie-in like “Civil War” and “Spider-Island,” and are still writing ASM as a regular. If anything, Marvel wants both Peter and Miles, and obviously not just Miles alone.”

       Do you really need everything to be literal? LOOK AT THE MARKETING CAMPAIGN. Marketing extends beyond comics, and into other media. Ultimate Spider-Man Season 3 was all about the NON-Peter Parker Spideys to tie in with Spider-Verse, Marvel’s Future Fight game for the past year has been nothing but Miles Morales, Spider-Gwen, Silk, Asian Hulk, and so on. Spider-Man Unlimited also jumped on this bandwagon as did Marvel’s Contest of Champions. Spidey and Renew Your Vows were introduced when? Right around the same time Sony began to work with Marvel, which means months, even a year’s worth of negotiations (despite what the Sony Hack would have you believe) and those books would have been in development alongside the last Spider-Man duology of films. EVERYTHING Marvel COMICS does ties back to their movies when it comes to their original cast of characters because movies and TV make the most money and are willing to go places the comics flatly won’t. So what do they do? In their butthurt, they mandate the X-Men get marginalized in favor of the Inhumans (and only keep them in print because of strong sales,) basically remove the concept of the Fantastic Four from existence too (with Secret Wars), remove both teams from ALL Marvel merchandise they can possibly edit, and market new things. OH LOOK! They’re marketing other things they already have because they can’t use others! WHAT A CONCEPT! Once again, ASM, like the X-Men, stays afloat due to one thing: THE ALMIGHTY DOLLAR. Whether it reaches the public or not, ASM is still one of Marvel’s best selling titles. Always has, always will be. Sony is using Peter Parker for the movies, so to line up with the MCU, Peter scrapes by with the skin of his teeth, but that marketing campaign is as determined as ever to make sure you wish he was gone in favor of a shiny new toy!

       “In regards to your Thor comments, I’ll freely admit all I know about Thor comes from the MCU and any trivia I’ve picked up. Okay, I wouldn’t blame anyone for being annoyed that they calling the Jane Foster Thor just “Thor” instead of “Thora” or something. However, semantics aside, this is just another replacement character. It’s been done before, it’ll probably happen again. Why is this inherently bad, when it’s not that much different than the others? What was so different about the other replacement Thors beyond the name?
       You say the new Thor is badly-written. Okay, that’s a fair criticism.”

       The entire reason the book sucks so hard is BECAUSE it is literally BUILT on the idea of “Thor’s got tits now! Progressive!” That’s horrendous and NOT a reason one should be writing a comic book under. If entire books are literally just “I’m a gay, tri-racial, transgender with Asperger’s and superpowers!” and that’s it, which btw nearly EVERY book afflicted by racebending suffers at one point or another in one capacity or another and to varying degrees of severity (She-Thor, Ms. Marvel, Iceman suddenly being gay despite no prior history indicating otherwise despite a few very VERY bad pop culture jokes here and there, and Batwoman and Catwoman over at DC,) oh and btw I have Asperger’s, so technically I just insulted myself with that comment. And then you pepper in the occasional story with bad guys that by the time you get to the end, you are asking “wait, why didn’t they just write this with regular Thor? Especially since he’s still IN the book? It’s not like Thor’s dead, he just suddenly can’t lift his hammer anymore and gets mopey and stops being Thor in contrast to his many MANY counterparts that have been unworthy before and yet that didn’t stop them from being Thor and Odin created Mjolnir and has the Odinforce yet because he represent the Patriarchy, we’re going to ignore that HE CAN BEND REALITY with his powers and suddenly he comes off as a Men’s Rights Activist with his wife looking at him with an awkward silence of judgment, despite the fact she was never meant to carry the Odinforce for very long due to a previous arc in Thor, and yet turns around and goes “sorry, Patriarchy, all the power is mine! Oh and to top it off, I am fixing the inscription of Thor’s hammer to say ‘If SHE be worthy’ because fuck you Patriarchy!” and then 2 issues later we get a strip of the Absorbing Man basically being the entire comments section who has proven time and again they DO NOT WANT this idea, and because he’s a bad guy, he’s an internet troll that needs to be put down, which She-Thor then proceeds to do with his wife going “I am so sorry, he gets like this. You go girl! Arrest me!” WHAT!? WHAT!? And it doesn’t stop there. It just tumbles down the rabbit hole.

       “chose to devote their lead Spider-Man writer to writing a Peter-centric comic for “Secret Wars” (“Renew Your Vows”), and gave Peter key roles in Secret Wars tie-in like “Civil War” and “Spider-Island,” and are still writing ASM as a regular. ”

       1. Editors ghost write a lot of material these days and Renew Your Vows, even down to the marketing, was clearly meant to be a rebuff to fans to say “Hey, shut up! We can give you comics you want! Suck our asses!” Especially when we know Slott considers the concept of Mary Jane to be “anti-Marvel,” so we know that was editor mandated because his REAL premise behind it was to introduce Regent, NOT Peter and Mary Jane. You can almost feel the editor’s hand on the pages. And given Mary Jane went off to fuck Iron Man these days, this was clearly meant to draw in readers in the short term because their shitstorm was going to continue. Same thing happened with DC’s Convergence, and the exact same results happened, except Secret Wars had a tighter narrative in its main story and focused on characters people CARED about rather than ones they didn’t and served to reboot the universe where Convergence did not.
       2. Civil War has Spidey as a focus in its original story. Why would he not be there if that section of Battleworld (which took literally every story ever told by Marvel and shoved them onto one planet,) was based on Civil War?
       3. Same with Spider-Island. Also, Slott wasn’t writing this take on it so of course writers were excited they got to use Peter Parker.

       “Um, no. While Miles dual heritage was partially inspired by Pres. Obama, the main inspiration for Miles was actor Donald Glover, who had worn a Spider-Man shirt on a TV show he was working on and had expressed interest in auditioning to play Peter Parker in the Mark Webb movies. And, as I’ve said before, Ultimate Peter dying was always in the cards. The replacement could’ve been white, or Asian American, or whatever. They just happened to create a new character with black ancestry. So, I’m going to say this once and for all: THE IDEA OF A BLACK SPIDER-MAN CAME AFTER PETER WAS SCRIPTED TO DIE, NOT BEFORE!”

       Again, given how comics are made, you’d be wrong. The decision to push it to phase 2 was made AFTER the Donald Glover incident, which justified Marvel to double down on a black Spider-Man and they used the media storm to jump in and get cheap publicity and go “yeah, don’t worry, WE’re the good guys! Check this shit out!”

       “To summarize, here’s how I see it. There’s nothing inherently wrong with creating a replacement superhero of a different ethnicity. The problems arise when they try to replace a superhero who can’t be removed from his persona (like Peter Parker), and when the new character isn’t created well (either because they just want to make a new character without planning ahead or don’t bother to define the character beyond ethnic background).”

       Then why are you even arguing with me when that’s been my point the entire time? NONE of the PC Age superheroes EARNED their mantles. NOBODY! Rhodey did, John Stewart did, heck a arguments can be made for Falcon and Kamala had they too not been caught in this foaming PC frenzy. But the few that did became their own heroes and didn’t need to rely on their white counterpart to excel, not even John Stewart, who broke out and became so popular that to many, he WAS a generation’s Green Lantern. But then you have ALL of the Milestone heroes and a few of the Wildstorm heroes, who folded into DC, and they are all original heroes, none more popular than STATIC SHOCK! HE was a black superhero! He was fresh! He was NEW! He was in with the times, HE EVEN GOT HIS OWN ANIMATED SERIES that lasted for YEARS and he’s earmarked for a movie or TV series! SPAWN was a black superhero! And we all know how popular Spawn is!

       Closing point on Static: His creator, Dwayne McDuffie, a black man, said it best:

       “I will be happy when I see the day a white kid cosplays as Static; because it shows that one’s skin colour is meaningless.”

       For decades, we had white superheroes, it is true. But people of EVERY ethnicity related to them anyways. What Marvel, and scum lords like Dan Slott, are trying to basically tell you is this: “YOU CAN’T BE SPIDER-MAN! HE’S WHITE! So here’s YOUR Spider-Man! The PEOPLE’S SPIDER-MAN! Peter Parker represents the Patriarchy! He is corporate! He is EEEEEVIL!”

       Thanks Marvel, you really showed your true colors. No wonder a lot of your creative staff begged for jobs in the MCU; at least their heads, while stricter, at least know what works in a story and what SHOULD be marketed and what SHOULD NOT. DC isn’t much better, but people are more willing to tear them to shreds when they fuck it up so they walk as if they are walking in a minefield ever since the New 52 began and are run by sexual predators. Go figure!

11. You’d think that, but preparations for One More Day began as far back as 2004, as Civil War was also in creation production roughly around the same time…Miles Morales debuted in 2011, which means he had to have been made in 2008, which was right around the time of Ultimatum, ie. where they killed the Ultimate Universe in swaths.

    Possibly, but is there any hard evidence to link Miles’ creation to OMD or “Civil War?” The point of the former two was to re-create Peter as Marvel thought he should be. And if they were going to just replace Ultimate Peter after “Ultimatum” (which I understood was meant to be a soft reboot of the Ultimate universe, not an ending), why bother bringing Peter back for one more year? It could’ve been to give him a grand finale (if so, they made the right call), but there’s no buildup to Miles. So, what was the point of the post-“Ultimatum” Peter Parker stories?

    This also begs the question, why bring Peter back for the USM “Revival” story? Marvel had already sent him off and the only people who benefited were Peter fans, who got to see the character given the ending that that the series had been building up to (in regards to his personal life).

    “The idea was to always go that route anyways, but Ultimate Spider-Man sold too well to just kill him outright.”

    If you’re suggesting that USM was invented exclusively for Miles’s sake, I think you’re dead wrong. And USM did kill Peter outright (twice). And each time, the retcon that he was still alive didn’t benefit the Miles agenda at all. And, as I’ve said before, nowhere in the writing of USM (the series that Miles are created for) was Miles elevated above Peter. And if you’re right about USM’s sale, why didn’t they bring Peter back as the regular Spider-Man if Miles wasn’t selling as well.

    “Do you really need everything to be literal?”

    Do you need assume that a cigar is never a cigar?

    “While his conception might not have been an agenda, the FALLOUT of his debut WAS.”

    So, why are you so hard on Miles then? By your reasoning, “Star Wars” was a bad movie, since it popularized the blockbuster, which now dominates the theaters with shallow popcorn entertainment. It’s the same principle.

    “‘…his was pretty much the last and only Ultimate title left much like Spider-Girl before him for the MC2 Universe, except she didn’t get brought in and was replaced with Spider-Gwen, who debuted in 2015, and when did Emma Stone debut as Gwen Stacy? 2012.

    Mayday was incorporated in to “Spider-Verse,” had her own short stories in the “Secret Wars” “Spider-Island,” and is one of the leads in the current “Web Warriors” series. Even though the evidence strongly suggests that the current Mayday is an alternate universe version of the original, the character is still active.

    Spider-Gwen was given a series because of the reception the character got when announced. In this article (http://www.spiderfan.org/rave/02586.html), one reader makes the case that it was a last-minute decision to make an ongoing series and fans liked the IDEA of Spider-Gwen more than anything else. Was it partially a response to Emma Stone’s Gwen? I could believe that, however it’s too early to tell how much of an impact those movies will have on Gwen, given that they’re not exactly being remembered that fondly in light of the MCU reboot. (In fact, if that article if found is accurate, Spider-Gwen has little resemblance to Stone’s Gwen, who was a paper-thin, botched adaptation of Ultimate Mary Jane in the first place.)

    “Also no, even the public hated Miles Morales and found him to be in pretty bad taste to call himself Spidey shortly after Peter’s death.”

    Are we talking about the real-life readership or the Marvel world public here? My knowledge of post-Ultimatum Marvel is a little fuzzy, but I recall Miles winning over the public far quicker than Peter did. And in real life, the character found his own niche pretty quickly too, although not like Ultimate Peter, who was pretty much an instant success, if I recall.

    “The idea to kill off Peter Parker in Ultimate Marvel had been around since at least 2006 as OMD’s follow up would attempt (and fail) to go back to Peter’s roots with only one Spider-Man title released weekly, but that also meant they needed to get rid of Ultimate Peter, or at least wanted to for a while to once again drive the wedge between who Peter Parker is, and what he isn’t.”

    Why would returning Peter to his roots with OMD (despite the fact that the character had never left his roots until OMD and Slott arrived) be needed for Miles? Ultimate Marvel has nothing to do with 616 Marvel beyond being a remake and had never followed any 616 changes. For perspective, USM picked up the Peter/MJ relationship in the midst of the attempts to get rid of it in 616 and never let it go, even when the rest of Marvel did.

    “In their view, anything to do with Peter and Mary Jane was a blight and needed to go (such as Amazing Spider-Girl) and that still holds water to this day in their view if you believed Dan Slott’s “Mary Jane is Anti-Marvel” tripe.”

    Probably true. However, “Spider-Girl” has been indicated to be an alternate timeline from the original series, USM made it clear from beginning to end that Ultimate Peter and MJ never fell out of love with each other and actually wound up eloping (at the height of the pro-Miles and anti-MJ era, too), the newspaper comics only briefly re-introduced a single Spider-Man (and presented them as flashbacks stories, too), and RYV put Peter and MJ front and center, and even made the case that they were better together than apart.

    I agree that Marvel’s dislike of the paring is very odd (especially given that the Spider-Man mythos is now solidified with it being as key to the story as Peter’s uncle dying), but it hung around long after the trigger was pulled, and that can’t be only because it’s not a fan-popular decision.

    “Ultimate Spider-Man Season 3 was all about the NON-Peter Parker Spideys to tie in with Spider-Verse…”

    The series had Peter meeting these different characters, so he was still front and center. The spider-team I think you’re referring to is made up of Spider-Man 2099 (not Peter), Spider-Girl (a female version of Peter, not Mayday or Annie, sad to say), Spider-Man Noir (an alternate Peter), Spider-Ham (another alternate Peter), Spyder-Knight (still another Peter), Miles, and Peter himself as the leader. So, of the team, Peter was not only the central figure, but five sevenths of the team are versions of him. So, it was about Peter after all (I saw some of those; in those meetings Peter is the one who helps the guest character overcome a problem).

    “…Marvel’s Future Fight game for the past year has been nothing but Miles Morales, Spider-Gwen, Silk, Asian Hulk, and so on. Spider-Man Unlimited also jumped on this bandwagon as did Marvel’s Contest of Champions.”

    I don’t have the gear to play these games, sad to say, but I understand that SM: Unlimited cutscenes show Peter as the de facto leader of the different Spiders have him in a committed relationship with MJ. Besides, SM: Unlimited is based on the idea of throwing different versions of Spider-Man and his analogues together, so of course the other versions will play a major role. Besides, mobile games are a small part of the franchise, not the main focus of the franchise.

    “Spidey and Renew Your Vows were introduced when? Right around the same time Sony began to work with Marvel…and those books would have been in development alongside the last Spider-Man duology of films.”

    Except that the ASM movies were about a teenage Peter dating Gwen and brooding about his parents. Zero relevance to RYV. I could believe that “Spidey” is being written for the audiences of the MCU movies, given that both feature a teenage Peter. RYV, however, is about a family man Peter, which is nothing like the plan for the MCU. We don’t even know who the leading lady will be. It could be MJ, but it could be not. It even remains to be seen whether the MCU movies will even try and tackle adapting the Peter/MJ marriage in the first place (it’d be really cool if they did). Besides, if Marvel doesn’t want MJ around, why produce material about her?

    “… EVERYTHING Marvel COMICS does ties back to their movies when it comes to their original cast of characters because movies and TV make the most money and are willing to go places the comics flatly won’t.”

    Except for Thor, who is a woman taking on godhood instead of a male alien mistaken for a god. And the Maximoffs, who are Inhumans mistaken for mutants, instead of humans given superpowers through HYDRA experiments with an Infinity Stone (if the MCU Maximoffs were Inhumans, they would’ve gotten their powers through Teregen, not an Infinity Stone). And Jarvis, who’s a human instead of an AI program turned into the Vision. And Peter himself, who’s an Iron Man wannabe instead of a normal kid from Queens.

    The current Marvel comics are changing things and making them quite different from the movies, with no care about what the films do. The MCU Spider-Man reboot was unexpected, since it happened when ASM2 didn’t do as well as Sony wished. If it had worked, Sony would’ve built a Spider-Man Cinematic Universe instead of collaborating with Marvel on the MCU. That franchise could’ve been grandfathered into the MCU, but we’ll never know.

    “Once again, ASM, like the X-Men, stays afloat due to one thing: THE ALMIGHTY DOLLAR.”

    That’s the only reason anything stays afloat, Miles, Peter, even the Avengers. Your just stating a truism, not making an argument.

    “…Sony is using Peter Parker for the movies, so to line up with the MCU…”

    As I pointed out before, the comics don’t care about aligning with the MCU (which is more interested in filtering the classic 616 material through the ascetics and world building of the Ultimate stuff — hence why the Avengers are like the Ultimates, but characters like Captan America and Black Widow are based on the 616 versions). If Marvel was keeping Peter around only to mesh with the MCU, wouldn’t they have either A.) returned him to his middle-class life and/or de-aged him into a teenager?

    As far as I know, Peter was always going to be the MCU Spider-Man and there are no plans to put Miles in the MCU. As far as marketing goes, Peter is basically dominates the Spider-Man toy output, has had more exposure in “Secret Wars,” and is more popular than Miles is.

    “…Peter scrapes by with the skin of his teeth, but that marketing campaign is as determined as ever to make sure you wish he was gone in favor of a shiny new toy!”

    So, all that Peter-centric “Ultimate Spider-Man” merchandise means nothing? The current Spider-Man cartoon stars Peter? Classic Spider-Man is hardly hurting for exposure in non-comic materials.

    Besides, you keep bringing up that Miles is being heavily marketed. Well, he is being incorporated into the new continuity, so of course it would be big news. We’re also assuming that he’ll stick around long-term. Something his fans forget is that if Miles is A.) a “C” list superhero, at best, and B.) If he been created to replace 616 Peter, it wouldn’t have lasted. The only reason the stunt worked was because it wasn’t the “real” Spider-Man.

    As far as Thor goes, I think you made a fair case why that doesn’t work. I’m going to agree with you and leave it at that.

    In regards to your counterpoints about “Secret Wars”:

    “Editors ghost write a lot of material these days and Renew Your Vows, even down to the marketing, was clearly meant to be a rebuff to fans to say ‘Hey, shut up! We can give you comics you want!’”

    Do we know for a fact that Slott did not write RYV? Since every ASM comic had been making the case that the Peter/MJ relationship didn’t work (despite all evidence to the contrary), why would they want to write a pro-marriage comic now? Marvel has never cared about what fans though about the OMD comics, RYV doesn’t support the Sony movies and undermines Marvel’s preferred version of Peter. Yeah, RYV was marketed to the pro-marriage fans as the comic they would want to read, but that’s the way all the “Secret Wars” comics were marketed: “Remember those great comic books? Read this to go back to them. (Never herd of them? Come on and enjoy the craziness of it all.)”

    A ghost writer could explain why the RYV characterizations are accurate, unlike Slott’s normal stuff, but why put Slott’s name on it? It’s got nothing to do with Slott’s version of the characters, it bred mistrust from the target audience, and having a different author listed wouldn’t’ve raised any red flags. There’s also the fact that RYV has a lot of Easter eggs to Slott’s Spider-Man comics (like the “Superior Foes…” gang getting cameos) and the writing also has some of Slott’s trademark flaws (a weak villain and a too-quick wrap-up). The evidence that Slott is the real writer, even if was was given guidelines from his bosses, seems stronger.

    “Especially when we know Slott considers the concept of Mary Jane to be “anti-Marvel,” so we know that was editor mandated because his REAL premise behind it was to introduce Regent, NOT Peter and Mary Jane. You can almost feel the editor’s hand on the pages.”

    Are you basing this on the assumption that Slott would never write a pro-Peter/MJ comic? While I think he has a tin ear when it comes to Spider-Man, Slott does like to experiment with Peter’s status quo, so I think it’s plausible that he may have been interested in taking a crack at that version of the character for a single mini-series. (Not saying that’s what happened, but it could’ve).

    And how was the real premise to introduce Regent? A.) Regent is not the central focus of the story. RYV centers squarely on the Parker family. Regent is only a plot device to further their story. B.) Regent didn’t need the RYV story to be introduced (he could’ve been introduced in the post-“Secret Wars” era with no trouble), while the Parkers needed RYV in order to tell their story. Regent could’ve been given a dry run in RYV, but that had to be a perk, at best. C.) Regent’s character in RYV is tied to the “Secret Wars” premise. While his 616 version could be still whacked out and trying to overthrow “god Doom,” more likely he’ll have a brand new agenda. Which means he as less to do with RYV, and so his intro there only gets his name and ugly metal suit some publicity, at best.

    Because of these points, I’m skeptical that Regent was the central point of the comic. All the publicity was centered on Peter and MJ being married in an ASM comic again, with the bonus that they were parents, and that was the central story of the comic . If RYV was only a test-bed for Regent, you’d think they would be hyping up the fact that you’d be getting to see a brand-new villain, who’s introduction would last long after RYV#5 was published and that he’d have played a bigger role.

    If you’re saying there are places where it’s obvious that Slott’s work was rewritten or he was restrained, point them out and I’ll examine them myself, but I’m not convinced yet. (For what it’s worth, before the comic was released, Slott claimed that RYV was his idea. While he has a reputation for lying online, it is possible that he was telling the truth. It makes more sense than Marvel forcing him to write a Spider-Man story based on a version they hate, wish never existed, and have been trying to distance themselves from.)

    And given Mary Jane went off to [bleep] Iron Man these days, this was clearly meant to draw in readers in the short term because their [bleep] was going to continue.

    Thus far, MJ and and Iron Man haven’t been set up as an item and even been furthered from that endgame. Unless that happens, I think Bendis has earned the benefit of the doubt that he won’t screw MJ up so far. (Having MJ in Iron Man comics doesn’t do either brand any favors, but we have to see how this plays out.

    After the RYV teaser was flowing around for awhile and the story synopsis was announced, Marvel was upfront that it was not going to be the permanent future of Spider-Man. While they may have hoped that readers might given the Iron Man clone Spider-Man comics a shot, we knew going in that it was a standalone from square one.

    The only thing RYV created was demand for was more RYV. Marvel’s idiocy at not capitalizing on the fact that RYV is the most popular ASM comic in the OMD era is astounding, but the future remains to be seen. As you’ve said before, comics take time to produce, so we’ll have to see what the current or future Marvel staff choose to make of RYV going forward.

    “Civil War has Spidey as a focus in its original story. Why would he not be there if that section of Battleworld (which took literally every story ever told by Marvel and shoved them onto one planet,) was based on Civil War?”

    The central characters in “Civil War” were Captain America and Iron Man and the registration conflict. Spider-Man could have been written out (or have another character take his place) and the overall story wouldn’t change, esp. since Spider-Man was included to create the justification for OMD.

    “Civil Wars” mark two was also another story with Peter being MJ’s husband and them having a daughter (albeit a brand new character). It also ended showing Peter having a family was a good thing and we should be happy that the family was going to heal after the conflict was resolved. Since OMD wanted to retcon Peter as having never been married during the original “Civil War,” why include it here if Marvel wants us to forget about the marriage or remember it as a disaster? I’ll concede the Spider-Island point, but if Marvel wants us to forget Peter and the marriage (both of which they don’t need for the Sony MCU movies), they sure made it an important part of “Secret Wars.”

    “Again, given how comics are made, you’d be wrong. The decision to push it to phase 2 was made AFTER the Donald Glover incident, which justified Marvel to double down on a black Spider-Man and they used the media storm to jump in and get cheap publicity and go ‘yeah, don’t worry, WE’re the good guys! Check this [blee] out!’”

    I’m not privy to the inner workings of Marvel, but do we know for a fact that Miles was created only for diversity and not for other reasons, like the had come to the end of ideas for a teenage Peter and Marvel refused let him grow up? Why are we so quickly assuming the worst? When Ultimate X-Men created a new Wolverine, I don’t recall his existence being questioned so closely.

    “Then why are you even arguing with me when that’s been my point the entire time? NONE of the PC Age superheroes EARNED their mantles. NOBODY!”

    First of all, I think I’ve been articulating myself badly here. Second of all, you’re hardly giving the “PC Age superheroes” a chance. (You did try the female Thor and found it not to your liking, so I’m not counting that). Your central premise, as it come across, is that it swapping out one of these characters is wrong, and the series will never be good. Maybe the set-up was flawed, but read the frakking things before making a judgement call. Do they earn it during the course of the series?

    And why, if they’re making replacements anyways, is making the comic book world more diverse, a bad thing? You view this as inherently bad (or at least come across that way), while I’m saying, take it on a case-by-case basis. Does it work for this specific comic and how is the comic handled? For example, the female Thor replacement works in theory, since alternate Thors are part of the established brand, but the execution and story are bad. Miles doesn’t work, since Peter can’t be replaced as Spider-Man, but the actual stories are decent teenage superhero comics. It’s not as simple as you’re advocating.

    In this whole discussion, you’ve never answered the question: “Are the Miles comics good?” You go on about how he started a trend, how bad it is that other characters are getting replaced. how Marvel wants make us hate Peter. You’re constructing a conspiracy theory out of this that hangs together on circumstantial evidnce. At one point, you argued that Marvel wants us to forget about MJ being Peter’s wife, and then turned around and said that Marvel was the reason that RYV was pro-marriage.

    Are some of your points true? Possibly. But you haven’t given a solid why. Peter Parker is Marvel’s most profitable character, and despite the missteps he’s endured in recent years, is still front and center on Marvel’s output, partially when it undermines OMD and the current comics.

    Your assuming that Miles’ increased presence is because Marvel is pushing him on us, and not because, say, there are people that want more of him? Your central argument is that Peter is being written badly and Miles is being written well, so Marvel must be trying to get us to hate Peter.

    I don’t see how that makes sense. Slott’s default arguments in favor of his Spider-Man work are A.) They’re selling well and B.) he gets lots of messages from fans who love his take and hope it never ends. He’s probably grossly exaggerating (and does bully fans who prefer the real Peter Parker), but if he and Marvel think that the OMD Peter sells and has fans, of course they’re going to continue it. For what it’s worth, I’m under the impression that the current Peter isn’t intended to be “evil.” It’s not true to the character, but the bits and pieces I’ve seen suggest that Slott is merely laboring under the delusion that he’s making the Peter comics better than the ever were.

    “For decades, we had white superheroes, it is true. But people of EVERY ethnicity related to them anyways.”

    And we can’t do the same with non-white characters today? If race truly doesn’t matter when it comes to these characters, why are we complaining that Miles was written as a black/Latino character? Because it’s PC for no other reason? The comic itself is good and has fans of all backgrounds. We may disagree with the creative decisions made (and I’m not saying that every time a character could be replaced, they automatically should), but that has no bearing on the quality of the actual material.

    I think that, in part, I’m sick of fanbases. Of the entitlement, the refusal to accept any new ideas, the vitriol between them and other fans and the people who make the stuff, the focus on the negatives instead of the positives, the suspicion that every replacement character has an ulterior motive behind them, and the assumption that we’re never wrong.
    And I’m saying this to myself as much as anyone. I’ve never believed in the “if you don’t like X, you’re not a real fan,” and I think it’s perfectly fair to makes your feelings clear if you dislike something, but when there’s no room for compromise, no room to accept other ideas, and no room to coexist, then why are we fans in the first place? Why do we have to say that Miles should not exist with Peter, when he’ll be the latest in a bunch of spin-off Spider characters? Why do our preferences have to be the only ones that can be used? (And, yeah, I still oppose all the post-OMD Spider-Man material and wish that Ultimate Peter was still starring in an ongoing, but I don’t think the fans the stuff I dislike should be denied their comics of choice; I just wish that they still made the stuff I want to read).

    And to cap it off, I’m sick of disliking the decisions made about a set of characters that mean a lot to me. If others are able to find value in the franchise at this point, good for you. Just wake me up when the MCU movies come out. That’s the only thing this Spider-Man fan has to look forward to.

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