Creator of the Soulfinder graphic novel series.
It’s here — The Amazing Spider-Man: Renew Your Vows. There is much to say on this issue (and I may do up a full re-write in the near future), but my latest YouTube review should suffice for now. Check it out and let me know what you think of Gerry Conway’s and Ryan Stegman’s work in the comments section below.
Finally — finally — the throngs of fans who hated One More Day get the Peter Parker they deserve. Huzzah!
Marvel’s big Spider-Man event for the fall has dropped a doozy on Peter Parker fans with Dead No More: The Clone Conspiracy #2. It appears as though Peter Parker is responsible for causing a zombie apocalypse in at least one dozen universes. Fans of the character should rightfully be annoyed if — I repeat, “if” — it turns out that it truly is the hero who is seduced by The Jackal’s New U technology and he unleashes hell on earth.
Here is what you need to know for DNM #2:
From a pure storytelling perspective, there is nothing wrong with what Dan Slott is doing. In fact, this latest twist actually elevates DNM’s quality above and beyond what I was expecting early on. The problem, however, will come if it turns out that “the” Peter Parker is responsible for countless zombie wastelands instead of Jackal.
Here is the bottom line:
Given Dan Slott’s history with The Amazing Spider-Man, I am not confident that his final “twist” for DNM will be one that honors the legacy of Peter Parker. I hope I am wrong.
Anyway, did you read DNM #2? If so, then let me know what you think in the comments section below. Don’t forget to check my latest YouTube review and subscribe if that format is up your alley.
The Amazing Spider-Man #20 has arrived, which means readers get the return of Doctor Octopus in his original body and the “death” of Peter Parker — again. Yes, you read that right, Dan Slott has essentially “killed” Peter Parker for a third time.
Here is what you need to know for ASM#20:
Just to make sure that everyone understands what is going on, Peter Parker “died” in ASM #700, he was “killed” again for all intents and purposes during Superior Spider-Man #9, and now “executed” in ASM #20. But — and this is a big but — it could very well turn out that this “real” Peter Parker was in fact a “memory fragment” left behind by the “real” Peter Parker as he returned to his body in ASM #700.
Confused? Don’t feel bad about it.
The problem with the original Clone Saga was that it broke one of the most common sense rules for storytellers — don’t break your readers’ trust. That doesn’t mean that authors can’t have twists and turns; it means that readers should never feel duped or misled.
No one wants to believe that the Peter Parker (i.e., hero) they’ve been reading about for days, weeks, months, or years is just a “memory fragment” or a “clone” or a “reanimation.” People sink a lot of money and time into a character, so it becomes bothersome if a writer does the equivalent of, “And then I woke up” on his audience. That is something that high school creative writing classes teach, so it is bizarre that Marvel writer Dan Slott would mine that “reanimation” well throughout Clone Conspiracy.
So who is the “real” Peter Parker? Who is the fake? Are any of them real? Readers are supposed to be thrilled with the prospect that the last couple of years have really just been one big fake-out, but human nature does not work that way.
People do not like to be lied to. It’s one thing to play games with supporting characters, but it is a whole different “can of clones” when the protagonist is disrespectfully jerked around.
There is much more to say, but in this instance I think I’ll cut it short and ask you to share your thoughts in the comments section below. And please make sure to watch my latest YouTube video on ASM #20 and subscribe for regular comic book reviews.
Marvel’s release of Dead No More: The Clone Conspiracy this week brought with it an obligatory round of promotional interviews. Therefore, it was reasonable to conclude that writer Dan Slott of The Amazing Spider-Man would say something to prove how he fundamentally misunderstands Peter Parker. A recent interview with The Hollywood Reporter was all it took, as he said his favorite Spider-Man “villain” is, in fact, Peter Parker.
Regular readers of this blog remember how an October 2015 entry — Dan Slott: Peter Parker’s love for Mary Jane is ‘anti-Marvel’ — was accused of being taken “out of context,” despite the fact that full context (and an hour-long embedded YouTube video) was provided. Therefore, your friendly neighborhood blogger will preemptively draw attention to the fact that I am linking to the full Hollywood Reporter interview, asking you to read it in its entirety, and going out of my way to provide full context.
THR’s Graeme McMillan and Mr. Slott had the following exchange:
Graeme McMillan: You have fans complaining that you don’t “know” Spider-Man.
Dan Slott: Despite the fact that I’ve written one out of every five issues of Amazing Spider-Man, which is kind of scary. But, to me, the fun of it is, at his basic core, even if you strip away ‘with great power must come great responsibility,’ what makes Peter Parker this character that resonates with all of us is that he’s really the first character who’s you. He’s the guy you know. He’s not a wealthy billionaire playboy, he’s not an alien from another planet, he’s not a god from a pantheon. He’s the guy down the block who trips and falls, who screws up in every way that you screw up. All the self-destructive traits that you have, and your friends have, he has. People say to me, ‘Who’s your favorite Spider-Man villain?’ and my answer is Peter Parker, because no-one can mess up Spider-Man’s life like Peter Parker can.
One of those fans who “complains” that Dan Peter’s-love-for-MJ-is-anti-Marvel Slott does not “know” Spider-Man (or, rather, Peter Parker) is right here, so let us begin.
Words mean something. The words we use have consequences. There is great power in words, and with that comes great responsibility. Therefore, it stands to reason that being imprecise or flippant with a word like ‘villain’ can lead to terrible results — even if we have good intentions.
Mr. Slott says “no-one can mess up Spider-Man’s life like Peter can,” but we know that his rogue’s gallery is filled with homicidal monsters, megalomaniacs with a desire for genocide, at at least one literal demon who successfully severed the bond between he and his soulmate, Mary Jane.
Question: Why on earth would a writer pretend that “villain” is synonymous with “fallible human being”?
Answer: Because a writer like Dan Slott is the kind of person who publicly admits he wants a hero like Peter Parker making deals with a devil. Heroes do not consciously make deals with devils — villains do. If Peter Parker is described as a guy who tries his best but isn’t perfect, then Mr. Slott’s vision cannot be realized. The language needs to change. Readers need to be convinced that their hero is simultaneously a villain, and that it’s acceptable.
That is perverse. That is sick. That is naked moral relativism, and it is propagated by a man who mistakes writing a character for a long time with doing it well (i.e., Saying, “I’ve written one of every five issues of Amazing Spider-Man,” in response to charges of not knowing Peter Parker).
Let us return to his THR interview:
Dan Slott: The Jackal has expanded his science. He’s not getting it from a blood sample, he’s getting it from a corpse. It’s all the memories, all the way up to your death —
Graeme McMillan: So they’re complete copies.
Dan Slott: Yes! They remember everything, all the way up to that last moment. It’s less a clone — I wanted to brand them, and the Jackal brands them, ‘re-animates.’ It’s different than a clone, it’s better than a clone. And in that moment, the Jackal becomes the ultimate devil you can make a deal with. He becomes the person who says, ‘If you’ve lost anyone, I can give them back to you. Whatever person you’ve loved or lost, or maybe someone who tormented you and lost, I can bring them back to you.’
Ignore the fact that clones would know that they are clones and immediately branch off into a completely different life-path than his or her progenitor. What matters here is that Mr. Slott a.) attaches a very specific word — ‘villain’ — to the hero, and b.) admits that he wants said hero/villain making deals with an “ultimate devil.”
If you are a long-time reader of The Amazing Spider-Man, look at Mr. Slott’s track record and ask yourself if he was being glib or if he says what he means and means what he says. It is this blogger’s contention that when he says Peter Parker is a villain, he means it. And he gets away with it because many people who are repulsed by such a premise buy ASM out of their life-long love for the character.
Things will only change when enough readers vote with their wallet. (Exacerbating the problem are access-addicted comic book websites that are terrified of offering legitimate criticism, but I digress.)
Anyway, I’d love to hear your thoughts on the “villainous” Peter Parker and the writer behind his reign of terror. Let me know what you think in the comments section below.
Update: Dan Slott is now unblocking people on Twitter who discuss this blog post, and then trying to hide behind some weird excuse that Stan Lee would have called Peter Parker a “villain.” You can’t make this up. Classic! (Hat tip to reader JB for the catch.)
Marvel’s big Spider-Man event of the year has finally arrived with Dead No More: The Clone Conspiracy #1. Readers who lived through the 90s wondered why writer Dan Slott would dig up the still-rotting corpse of The Clone Saga, and DNM #1 seems to confirm their worst fears. Recycled plastic usually has a weird quality to it that fails to match the original, and recycled stories are the same way.
Here is what you need to know for DNM #1:
DNM #1 also features a story by Dan Slott titled The Night I Died, which tweaks elements of 1973’s The Amazing Spider-Man #122 to include a semi-conscious Gwen finding out that Peter Parker was Spider-Man just before her death. She cries while thinking of Peter as “the man who helped kill dad.”
Gwen is then “reanimated” by Miles Warren, aka The Jackal, and introduced to her father as a means of convincing her to become a “business partner.”
The problem with mixing clone stories and The Amazing Spider-Man, besides the fact that they have been done to death (no pun intended) — and badly done — is that a writer is tasked with covering the very nature of existence, consciousness, and the soul. Even unintelligent readers seem to inherently understand that the writer is entering into serious territory, so if the tale isn’t handled right it crumbles under its own weight.
Let’s put it another way: Even clones in real life would know that they are clones (i.e., see the panel of Gwen Stacy realizing what has happened before grabbing a knife to slit her own throat). Readers are the same way. Why should they care about Gwen Clone?
They shouldn’t — unless it is done well.
And there’s the rub. On Dan Slott’s watch, Peter Parker “died” and came back to life. The character has not had a single moment of honest reflection on his own death (or whatever it was, since it was never clear) since the series relaunched. Human beings — flesh and blood with thoughts and emotions and hopes and dreams — would be shaken to their core if they died and were brought back to life. Not Dan Slott’s Peter Parker.
Therefore, it stands to reason that if Mr. Slott does not even apply basic human reactions to the protagonist of the series then he will not do so in a meaningful way with clones.
DNM #1 appears to set up all sorts of twists and turns for Peter Parker in the next couple of months. That is the good news.
The bad news is this: Like most conspiracies, the people who weave them usually lose their audience in an incoherent mess that unravels with the least bit of scrutiny. Before you plunk down $4.99 for this book, consider Mr. Slott’s track record and then ask yourself if he seems up to the task.
Editor’s Note:
Regular readers of this blog remember the time when I accurately predicted Dan Slott’s “Arachno-Rockets.” It appears as though your friendly neighborhood blogger has another notch on the belt after having asked in February when “single-cell Spider-tracers” would arrive. DNM #1 does not quite give us a single-celled tracer, but it is “microscopic, sub-dermal.” Given that the function is essentially the same, we’ll consider that a win.
The last two issues of The Amazing Spider-Man have seen the strongest writing on the book in months, which is odd given that its main character — Peter Parker — was relegated to the sidelines. He is back in ASM #19 and, seemingly like clockwork, the book has taken an embarrassing turn. Ham-fisted attempts to prove that he’s a snake-bitten loser abound, and tears flow because the guy with 10,000 specialized web cartridges couldn’t remember that Cartridge Seven contained “quick-drying web-cement” (as seen in ASM #6).
Here is what you need to know for ASM #19:
Perhaps the two best ways to describe ASM #19 is “forced” and “convoluted.” Characters behave in ways that are downright weird to advance the plot, and Peter is shoe-horned into situations show the tension that his secret identity imposes upon his personal life.
What makes this issues climax fall flat is the fact that for well over a year Dan Slott has pulled out numerous inventions out of Peter Parker’s butt, but for no apparent his reason his technological butt-magic disappears in ASM #19. He literally held up an entire building with web fluid in ASM #6, but now — when he really needs it — the proven technology is not even mentioned.
Heck, Spider-Man even had “web-foam” literally spin off his back on voice command in ASM #9, which protected him as he entered earth’s atmosphere. Are readers supposed to believe he wouldn’t wrap a precious family heirloom in it? Thanks for making Peter look like a total doofus, Dan Slott.
In short, you may enjoy ASM #19 if you watch bad soap operas. Readers have hospital death scenes, people coming back from the dead, a lot of tears and hackneyed writing. Tune in next month for more Mighty Marvel Mayhem, true believers, when Peter Parker needs his “acid-webbing” to save the day, but then decides not to use it!
Brian Michael Bendis’ Civil War II #5 hit stores this week, and someone must have slipped something in his drink because he dedicated the entire issue to a massive brawl between Team Stark and Team Danvers. Is that a good thing? A bad thing? You’ll have to check out my latest YouTube video to find out.
After you’re done watching, let me know what you think in the comments section below — particularly you’re thoughts on the Inhuman Ulysses’ latest vision.
The Amazing Spider-Man #18 is an issue that has been building since the end of Spider-Verse in February 2015, so it stands to reason that writer Dan Slott would put extra care into the product. Still, it seems undeniable that this Doctor Octopus-centric tale possesses the most energy the creator has brought to the title in months. Fans of The Superior Spider-Man will be thrilled with the flashbacks and the loose ends that are tied up, while others will be left wondering, “Why can’t the book have this much life on a regular basis?”
Here is what you need to know about ASM #18:
Does that sound like a mouthful? If so, that’s because it is — there was a lot going on in ASM #18. To Mr. Slott’s credit, he organized his thoughts about as well as could be expected with the plot threads at hand.
As was said earlier, fans of SSM will enjoy this issue. There really isn’t too much to ding it on aside from the fact that once again people must act like morons to move the plot forward.
“Please, he won’t hurt me. He never would. Don’t ask me how I know. I just do. Trust me!” Anna says while trying to convince Peter to get closer to a rampaging Living Brain — but it might as well have been Dan Slott speaking to the readers.
Translation: “Don’t ask too many questions. I don’t. Trust me!”
And Dan is right: If you just want a “wacky” adventure and don’t have a desire to think too hard, then this issue is a fun read. Don’t ask why Anna and Peter give the equivalent of, “Huh. That was weird,” after Living Brain’s meltdown. Don’t ask questions about the nature of life and if humans have a soul, and don’t ask how Otto literally had Peter’s entire life beamed into his mind and didn’t change one bit.
“But Doug!” you say, “Didn’t Otto die to save Anna in Superior Spider-Man #30? Doesn’t that count?”
Answer: No, because readers were given no reason to believe Otto had changed in the previous 29 issues. It just happened.
Regardless, as already mentioned, ASM #18 is worth buying for anyone who has been eager to see the series once again focus on Doctor Octopus. It is rather intriguing to think about a man who cannot have the woman he loves because he is trapped inside an “inferior” body, and the villain’s plans to resurrect himself are a good tie-in to Dead No More.
If you plan on buying Dead No More, then ASM #18 is worth picking up this weekend. If not, then you still might want to give it a read. The author seldom is capable of packing pathos, organized thought, enthusiasm, and action into a single issue of ASM, and it might be months before such a feat is witnessed again.
Related:
Dan Slott’s Spider-Verse Epilogue: Wrap-up oddly more exciting than main story
This blog asked the following question roughly four months ago: Did Marvel learn from the mistakes of Civil War I? The answer to that question is a resounding “no,” and Civil War II: The Accused #1 further highlights that unfortunate point. As was the case with Christos Gage’s work on The Amazing Spider-Man and even Brian Michael Bendis’ on Spider-Man, fairly impressive writing is undermined by the story’s weak foundation.
Marc Guggenheim does an admirable job showing Matt Murdock’s role in the project, but editorial mandates will give many readers heartburn. In short, Marvel has planted the seeds for Civil War III. Sigh.
Here is what you need to know for CWII: The Accused #1:
The key bullet point here is the last one because people in the Marvel Universe would believe that a living and highly unpredictable nuclear weapon should be dead — especially after years of witnessing his destructive capabilities firsthand.
The government does not need to execute a successful conspiracy to launch Superhuman Registration Act II because the sound rationale for it never disappeared after it failed the first time.
CWII: The Accused #1 makes the case (no pun intended), that nefarious forces need a conviction to persuade the public that it is time for SRA II, which is laughable. The only reason why some readers do not get the absurdity is because Marvel turned Tony Stark into a psychotic warmonger in Civil War I.
If you want to see Mr. Guggenheim do the best he can with the shoddy hand he has been dealt, then check out CWII: The Accused. If you are tired of seeing heroes fighting heroes — and one side always being portrayed as cartoonish goons — then hold onto your cash. Amazing Spider-Man: Renew Your Vows is looking like a must-read.
New York City is home to the Museum of Modern Art and scores of creators who would do just about anything to get into its exhibits. Therefore, it makes sense that on a long enough timeline Marvel would have a Banksy-esque villain running around the city who would literally kill to get name recognition. The question on this blogger’s mind however, is this: Can a villain ever truly be cool if he wears suspenders?
All joking aside, Charles Soule’s “Dark Art” continues its slow burn in Daredevil #11. When readers last left off, Blindspot had been lured to a Bronx building that contained a mural painted in blood. Daredevil concluded that over 100 people likely died during the project’s creation. DD #11 furthers the plot along and reveals the individual deemed “Vincent Van Gore” by the city’s tabloids.
Here is what you need to know about DD #11:
Mr. Soule packs a lot of material into DD #11, but the slower pacing never hampers the book. If this were a story by Brian Michael Bendis, for example, it would be reasonable to believe that the payoff would come about 12 months from now — or never. But it’s Charles Soule, and up until this point his writing has been solid.
Perhaps one of the most impressive things about DD #11 isn’t the David Fincher-like murder mystery (think Se7en), but the fact that he is working a politically motivated D.A.’s office into the tale. The last thing I expected to see in a Marvel book in 2016 was an author who makes the case that city officials use a never-ending maze of laws and regulations to attack everyday citizens. In this instance the target of their rage happens to be a shameless jerk, but the underlying point is incredibly important. It is nice to see that Mr. Soule, unlike many of his peers, is capable of thinking outside petty partisan boxes.
While it is a bit silly to think a man would not be forced to turn over a blood mural to the police, there really is not too much to complain about at this point. My wife says it sounds like Mr. Soule was inspired by an old episode of Criminal Minds, but until he reaches Slottian levels of “homage” (i.e., Dr. Who), I will forgive him.
Conclusion: Daredevil continues to roll as it nears one dozen issues. It’s just a huge shame that Mr. Soule continues to go with Bendis’ stupid decision to turn Matt Murdock into a “lapsed Catholic.” That move fundamentally changes the character — in a negative way — for reasons I will cover in an upcoming blog post.
Editor’s note: A primer on my upcoming Daredevil post can be found here: ‘Daredevil Season 2 trailer: Good men grapple with rotten culture.’
Related:
Daredevil #10: ‘Dark Art’ starts strong, but Soule drops ball on basic Catholicism
Douglas Ernst Blog 