Tag: Peter Parker

Renew Your Vows #2: Dan Slott hits a rare home run, proves Tom Brevoort’s ‘medicine’ was poison

July 9, 2015July 10, 2015by Douglas Ernst47 Comments

Baseball fans know just how fun it is to watch a pitcher hit a home run. Likewise, comic fans can stand up and cheer because Dan Slott, despite going 0-25 in his last 25 at bats, finally knocked one out of the park with issue #2 of Renew Your Vows. He bumped his batting average up to .038 with one home run. He also managed to expose once and for all how Tom Brevoort’s “medicine” (i.e., his comments on the decision to end Peter Parker’s marriage to MJ) was in fact poison.

A lot of people joked about Annie’s name when it was first revealed, likening it to a cheap take on “Little Orphan Annie” because of her red hair, but after reading issue #2 of Renew Your Vows it is hard not think of her like a super-powered Anne Frank.

Just as the Frank family had to go into hiding during World War II, so too must the Parker family. An evil dictator with a penchant for genetic testing once controlled Germany and sought subjects on whom he could experiment; likewise, Regent hunts down a minority group — superheroes — and kills or experiments on them. If all of this was on accident, then Dan Slott stumbled onto a powerful accident. If the parallels were purposeful, then at least with this issue he did an stellar job.

On almost every level, the second issue of Renew Your Vows works.

Peter struggles with nightmares linked with having killed Eddie Brock (Venom), just as any cop or soldier might.
The dialogue between the entire family is touching and emotional.
Peter springs into action and acts like a true hero. He exudes grit and determination.
Mary Jane becomes the mother everyone knows she would have been — if it weren’t for Tom Brevoort’s “medicine.”
Annie is intriguing, and her reactions to Peter’s heroics touch anyone who once watched their own parents come through in a difficult situation.

All of this begs the question: Why has Marvel denied readers these kinds of stories — for years? Why has Marvel pretended like readers could not relate to a married Peter Parker when this issue proves them incredibly wrong?

Yes, it’s true: Dan Slott wrote an issue of The Amazing Spider-Man that is, for all intents and purposes, flawless.

It is inexplicable that fans have had to deal with man-child Peter Parker, the death of Peter Parker, and “Please-help-me-Silk-and-Anna-Maria” Peter Parker when Dan Slott could have been writing about Peter Parker the grown man, who is trying to raise his super-powered daughter with a strong woman by his side.

Come out for a curtain call and tip your hat, Dan Slott. You earned it. But as you return to the dugout, I highly suggest telling your team manager that he should stop administering his preferred “medicine.”

Dan Slott’s paranoia hits new high: ASM screenshots now invalid if used on feared Douglas Ernst blog

July 4, 2015July 5, 2015by Douglas Ernst94 Comments

Marvel’s Dan Slott has taken his fear of this very blog to a whole new level. Criticism of The Amazing Spider-Man is now illegitimate if screenshots taken from this blog accompany said feedback. A reader pointed me to recent Comic Book Resources discussion where the writer expertly used his favorite red herring and “poison the well” fallacies.

A user commented:

What are people going to remember about “the best selling comic in 2012, 2013, or 2014”?

– Will it be SlOtto shooting an unarmed man in the face, while his peers and allies stood around drooling on themselves like idiots? (Because, you know, Spider-man always fought crime with guns and a lust for criminal execution like the Punisher, except for the 50 years of stories where didn’t, and there’s nothing weird about that).

– Will it be Peter running around in his web-diaper, in a literal on-panel representation of the painfully regressed man-child he’s become in the dumbed-down, lowest common denominator, post-One More Day comic continuity?

– Will it be Peter claiming “wow Sanjani is so right and I’m wrong” as (SlOtto’s) his company crumbles, and he has to be saved from a villian by the likes of Anna Maria and Clash (a character we’re supposed to care about since he was shoehorned into yet another unneeded reinterpreting of Spider-man’s origin)?

– Will it be this glorious, gag-inducing panel?

Dan Slott’s response:

HA! Look at that link! You pulled that image from “dougernst.files.wordpress.com” Wow! You went all the way to crazy town for that one. You chew over your Spidey-bile with Mr. I-Think-Spider-Man-Should-Kill-North-Koreans? Seriously… wow. Your posts make SO much more sense now.

I thought I was talking to a potentially reasonable person… but if that’s where you dredge up your “intellectual ammo” …you’re a lost cause. Sorry. But good day, sir.

The commenter handled Mr. Slott like a true professional.

No idea what you’re on about here, man, unless you’re trying to get this thread flagged by the NSA. But way to dodge. YOU wrote the panel, so you must find nothing icky / silly / ridiculous about Peter and Silk addressing each other and lolling around together like an old married couple. But it’s all just another day in the silly Slott-Verse for us and Spidey.

See, I’m discussing content, where you keep dissembling and trying to spin off the topic, so much so that Mets could freely thread drift your posts.

Dan. Slott. Nailed. To. The. Wall.

Let us speak of intellectual ammunition, shall we? Dan Slott was blasted away by this young man with an intellectual .50 Caliber Machine Gun. As bits and pieces of Dan’s fragile ego exploded off his psyche, he looked for anything that might save him and found some cover just in time — a link to douglasernstblog.com. Dan Slott’s go-to survival technique when faced with punishing critiques is to bring up this blog and then distort things I said — in 2012.

Here is where it gets fun. Consider Dan Slott’s retort to this young man: “If that’s where you dredge up your ‘intellectual ammo’ …you’re a lost cause.”

Let us pretend this individual did get his intellectual ammunition here. If that is the case, then it is obvious that he is using the kind of nuclear weapons from 2012 that are still reverberating in Dan Slott’s mind three years after detonation. The shock waves from what I’ve said continue to bounce around in Slott’s skull for years, and yet he still strangely attempts to convince others that my reviews of his work are without merit.

I wrote a post in 2012 where I said it was ridiculous that Dan Slott’s Peter Parker would be faced with a possible extinction-level event and — when every single second could mean the death of six billion people — he thought it was a wise decision to berate his teammates about the sanctity of North Korea’s gulag overseers. While billions of lives hung in the balance and time was of the essence, Dan Slott’s Peter Parker decided to harangue Black Widow over how she navigated an army of North Korean torturers. Kudos!

Years later, Marvel’s ASM scribe is still so emotionally scarred by the drubbing he gets here that he has to frame the debate as if I want Peter Parker to snap the necks of emaciated North Korean women living in rural villages outside Pyongyang. Perhaps if Dan Slott actually read comics like Guy Delisle’s “Pyongyang,” (It’s a good bet that he probably isn’t going to make time for books like “Escape from Camp 14”), then he’d know just how foolish he comes across on CBR message boards.

Exit question: If I showed up to defend myself over at CBR and I did so tactfully, then how long would it take before Dan Slott’s moderator buddies banned me anyway?

Dan Slott: Peter Parker should be like Tony Stark or Bruce Wayne — and perhaps boink Shanghai women

June 30, 2015July 1, 2015by Douglas Ernst49 Comments

Marvel has a “new” idea for Peter Parker: Make him sort of like Tony Stark and Bruce Wayne — and have him stuck in love triangles because Dan Slott liked that as a kid.

MTV reported Tuesday:

Move over, Stark Industries: Spider-Man is in charge this time.

“Peter Parker has stepped up,” Slott told MTV News over the phone. “He’s grown. He’s become the Peter Parker we’ve always hoped he was going to be. This company, with Peter’s inventions and Peter’s gumption has gone to new heights.” …

“He’s operating with Parker industries in not just New York, but also Shanghai and San Francisco and London,” Slott said. “He’s going to be a far more global Spider-Man, and with that is going to come all new global threats. Things that will really test Spider-Man like never before. …

“One of the things I always loved was there was always a triangle,” Slott said. “There’s all these characters who are vying for Pete’s attention and I think you’re going to get back to that. You’re going to see all kinds of different characters we know and care about.”

Take a look at Marvel’s promotional material for its upcoming relaunch of The Amazing Spider-Man (yes, fans get another Slottian relaunch): Nothing says “Peter Parker” than James Bond-ish attire and two casino-bimbo wannabes latched onto his arms. Spider-Man even gets his own Nolan-inspired Bat-Spider Mobile…

If Peter Parker has grown up, then why is he still stuck in endless love triangles? Did he grow up into the “Peter Parker we’ve always hoped” he would be, or did he merely pupate into some weird version of himself consistent with Dan Slott’s childhood fantasies?

Here are the different versions of Peter Parker given to fans by Mr. Slott over the years:

Dumbed-down Peter Parker, who acts like a novice superhero when he’s had years of experience.
Dead Peter Parker.
Ghost Peter Parker, whose impotence is only forgotten with time because Doctor Octopus randomly gave the hero his life back.
Where’s Waldo Peter Parker, who became lost in a sea of spider-men during Spider-Verse.
Peter Stark-Wayne-Parker, who perhaps gets to boink women in Shanghai love triangles.

Was Peter Parker always destined to be a jet-setting CEO who flies from New York to London to Shanghai, or was he more likely to lead a life of quiet research conducted by men like Reed Richards? Was Peter Parker always destined for expensive love-triangle tribulations of the world’s billionaire elites, or was he more likely to settle down with a good woman by his side like, again, Reed Richards?

If Dan Slott were a violinist, he would be a third-string musician who weirdly wormed himself into a first chair. His “ear” for ASM indicates that while he understands the “harmonies” and “melodies” that make Spider-Man a winning character, his handling of Peter Parker is almost always off pitch.

The next volume of The Amazing Spider-Man already sounds like a disaster waiting to happen.

Wired’s Angela Watercutter bashes Tom Holland as Peter Parker — because he’s white

June 23, 2015June 24, 2015by Douglas Ernst28 Comments

Sony Pictures and Marvel Studios announced this afternoon that actor Tom Holland would be the next actor to play Spider-Man on the big screen. Wired’s Angel Watercutter was ready within hours to bash the decision because…he’s white.

Ms. Watercutter said Tuesday for her piece ‘Your New Spider-Man Is a…Fresh-Faced White Dude. Great’:

When Marvel and Sony announced Spider-Man’s inclusion in the Marvel Cinematic Universe earlier this year, fans got excited that we could see a fresh take on the character, rather than just another fresh-faced white dude. (No offense to fresh-faced white dudes.) In particular, the studio had a chance to shift gears and make the new cinematic Spider-Man not Peter Parker, but Miles Morales—the half-black, half-Latino teenager who wears the Spidey suit in the Ultimate Comics: Spider-Man. The prospect of that was virtually nil (though Morales is taking over as the web-slinger in the comics), but there was still a shot that Peter Parker could be re-imagined.

As for Watts, he’s the latest in a series of young and relatively unknown directors to take on a Marvel property. Sure, Joss Whedon and Kenneth Branagh are big deals, but folks like Thor: The Dark World’s Alan Taylor or Joe and Anthony Russo, who will likely direct Holland in his Parker introduction in Captain America: Civil War, were mostly TV directors before joining Marvel. Those directors have all done good work in the MCU, and there’s no reason to believe Watts won’t as well, but if you were expecting this new Spider-Man flick to be directed by a big-name director (or a woman, or a non-white person), that’s not going to happen this time around.

Just as Brian Michael Bendis believes that white superheroes cannot be for “everybody,” Ms. Watercutter seems to define “fresh take” as “anything but a white guy playing a character who has been white since his inception.” And by “fans” who were excited, she really means “fans who subscribe to Angela Watercutter’s race-obsessed worldview.”

Ms. Watercolor is so obsessed with race that she even laments that the next Spider-Man movie is being directed by a white man. How sad is it when a woman can’t look at anything unless she’s wearing a racial View-Master while simultaneously taking on the role of racial bean counter. “Are there too many white people in this story? Why are there so many white people? Is this justified? If I think it’s justified, then is it truly justified — or is that just my white privilege talking? Raceraceraceraceracerace!”

If you think this is an isolated mindset, then think again. It was only a few months ago that Dan Slott weirdly started referencing Jim Crow laws when fans said that Peter Parker should remain white for his cinematic appearances. It was just days ago that Gawker’s Sam Biddle said “Spider-Man is a fucking dork” because he is a straight white male who does not do drugs or have sex as a high school teenager.

The ideal Peter Parker for Wired and Gawker writers is apparently a popular gay black woman who does copious amounts of drugs while engaging in teen orgies. Classic.

Maybe instead of being bitten by a radioactive spider, Peter (or was it Pam?) could snort an arachnid up her nose like a line of cocaine. Maybe that would take away the “fucking dork” status. (If you write for Gawker, then you have to swear because that somehow makes your arguments more valid.)

The one bright spot in all of this is that Stan Lee is speaking up.

Newsarama reported June 22:

“I wouldn’t mind, if Peter Parker had originally been black, a Latino, an Indian or anything else, that he stay that way. But we originally made him white. I don’t see any reason to change that. …

I think the world has a place for gay superheroes, certainly. But again, I don’t see any reason to change the sexual proclivities of a character once they’ve already been established. I have no problem with creating new, homosexual superheroes. It has nothing to do with being anti-gay, or anti-black, or anti-Latino, or anything like that. Latino characters should stay Latino. The Black Panther should certainly not be Swiss. I just see no reason to change that which has already been established when it’s so easy to add new characters. I say create new characters the way you want to. Hell, I’ll do it myself.”

But hey, what does Stan Lee know? Until he’s a gay black heroin addict his authority on all things Peter Parker is pretty much zero.

Miles Morales now Spider-Man ‘for kids of color’: Marvel enters era of Separate but Equal superheroes

June 21, 2015June 21, 2015by Douglas Ernst57 Comments

One of my favorite G.I. Joe characters as a kid was Roadblock. When I watched the Rocky movies I loved Apollo Creed. My brother introduced me to Marvel’s Iron Man, and I took a liking to James Rhodes. My favorite football player was Marcus Allen. Likewise, I loved G.I. Joe’s Flint, Rocky’s “Italian Stallion,” Iron Man’s Tony Stark, and the New York Yankees’ Don Mattingly. My “heroes” weren’t heroes because they were black or white — they were heroes because they were just “cool.” These days, the politically correct, race-obsessed clowns at Marvel can’t have that. Instead, they have taken a page out of the pre-civil rights era mentality and started creating, for all intents and purposes, a “separate but equal” superhero class.

Here is what Brian Michael Bendis told the New York Daily News on Sunday regarding Marvel’s decision to make Miles Morales the new Spider-Man:

“Our message has to be it’s not Spider-Man with an asterisk, it’s the real Spider-Man for kids of color, for adults of color and everybody else.”

Here is the message Marvel is sending: If a superhero is a white man, then he isn’t for “everybody.” If the superhero is black, then he is for black children, for black adults, and, ummm, “everybody” else — once those first two groups are creatively coddled (usually by liberal white men).

If you think it’s weird to essentially make a separate-but-equal superhero class, then Marvel’s creative teams will probably label you a racist.

To see just how race-warped the minds of these creators are, one needs to only examine Bendis’ next statement:

The enormity of Miles Morales’ place in comic book history didn’t really hit Bendis, a father who has two kids of color among his four children, until recently. His 4-year-old adopted African-American daughter found a Miles Morales Spidey mask in the toy aisle of a department store, put it on and said, “Look daddy, I’m Spider-Man!” he recalls.

“I started crying in the middle of the aisle,” says Bendis. “I realized my kids are going to grow up in a world that has a multi-racial Spider-Man, and an African American Captain America and a female Thor.”

If “Douglas Jr.” put on a “War Machine” mask and said, “Look dad, I’m War Machine!” I would not correct my son and tell him that he was white/asian and couldn’t be James Rhodes. I would not start crying tears of joy because a half-white, half-asian Ernst child was pretending to be a black man. I would only start crying because he liked a character who was in the Air Force instead of an Army guy like Steve Rogers. (I’m joking about the Air Force making me cry. Sort of.)

Decades ago kids played “Cowboys and Indians.” They played “Cops and Robbers.” Fast forward in time and they pretend to be Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, but yet guys like Brian Michael Bendis want us to believe that little children spend odd amounts of time arguing over a superhero’s race.

Many kids of color who when they were playing superheroes with their friends, their friends wouldn’t let them be Batman or Superman because they don’t look like those heroes but they could be Spider-Man because anyone could be under that mask.

What? What neighborhood did Mr. Bendis grow up in, where little white kids were telling black friends they could pretend to have been bitten by a radioactive spider, but they couldn’t pretend to look like Steve Rogers?

What neighborhood did Mr. Bendis grow up in, where a white kid’s imagination allowed him to be a green ninja turtle, but not James Rhodes?

Marvel’s “House of Ideas” is really the “House of Political Correctness” — and it’s not really a house. It’s more like an insane asylum where the race-obsessed inmates are in charge.

Miles Morales is a cool character. I have no doubt that he will have many heart-stopping adventures in the post-Secret Wars Marvel Universe. The problem is that these days it is somehow problematic if popular superheroes are straight white men.

If Marvel’s sales decline in its separate-but-equal universe, then there is no doubt that “racist” and “sexist” white men will be blamed for not embracing She-Thor and suddenly-gay Iceman. Marvel employees can take all the racial palliatives they want, but the truth is much more biting: the creative process does not reward writers whose every move is determined by a complex algorithm of racial calculus mixed with politically correct engineering.

With each passing day, Marvel becomes more and more a shell of its former self. That is why people try out books like “Peter Panzerfaust,” “Deadly Class,” “The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys,” and any number of other books that do not have “Marvel” on the cover.

Indeed, this generation of kids will have a more diverse set of Marvel heroes. It’s just a shame that those Marvel heroes are directed by political activists masquerading as comic book writers.

Dan Slott stalks online critics he blocks on Twitter — while telling fans that said critics are ‘crazy’

June 4, 2015June 5, 2015by Douglas Ernst77 Comments

Marvel writer Dan Slott has a reputation for weird behavior online. There was the time he stalked The Main Event. There was the time he searched out a random woman to troll on Twitter and made jokes about the quality of her life. He has now taken it to the next level. Dan Slott is simultaneously stalking Twitter accounts he has blocked while telling his fans that the people he is stalking are “crazy.” The Amazing Spider-Man writer cannot get me out of his head, which is why this tweet went up yesterday after my review of Renew Your Vows was posted. Here is what Mr. Slott did: Even though he has blocked my account and the account of Twitter user “Doctor Bizarre,” he obviously found Bizarre’s link to my review and concluded that we are, in fact, the same person. The implication is that I am so “crazy” that I start dummy accounts for the sole purpose of “hating” Dan Slott — even though my ASM reviews stick almost exclusively to his fundamental misunderstanding of Peter Parker as a character.

Where are the Dan Slott fat jokes? Where are the Dan Slott Danny Devito jokes? That’s right — they don’t exist in my writing because I don’t “hate” anyone. And if I were inclined to create dummy accounts, then it would be because Twitter recently blocked me after I complained it did nothing (yes, nothing) to the Islamic radical apologist who threatened to kill me.

Sadly, Dan Slott can not separate in his mind the difference between criticizing a man’s creative work and criticism of the man.

Here is the truth: Years ago I was struggling to make ends meet while trying to get my career started in Washington, D.C. I was contacted, in many ways out of the blue, by a man who runs a website called “Molotov Softball: Weird News for Weirder Times.” This man said he liked my work and offered to pay me just for allowing him to link to my blog. I jokingly asked him if he was Rumpelstiltskin or a guardian angel. (I never got a straight answer, so he may come knocking for a child one day.)

Long story short, this man eventually asked me if I had any creative friends who would be willing to write “weird” pieces under the pen name “Doctor Bizarre.” Those pieces would supplement another writer, whose pen name is Penny Franklin. Molotov Softball got a new contributor soon afterward.

Is Doctor Bizarre an old Army buddy or relative of mine? Am I Doctor Bizarre? Is he really my mysterious benefactor (who I still haven’t met in person and have no idea what he looks like — although his checks always clear)? I wish I could tell you, but the bottom line is that it doesn’t matter because Dan Slott is the one acting like a crazy person. Again: he blocks people on Twitter, stalks them, and then makes things up to his Twitter followers to gain praise and sympathy.

“Hate”? Where is the hate? Look through Doctor Bizarre’s Twitter feed or read his blog and find any posts that are personally directed at Dan Slott. You will not find them because they do not exist. The blog contains zero references to Dan Slott — again, zero — and the Twitter feed randomly shares links my work here — never personal opinions or “hate.” Dan Slott acts like a troubled man and makes up “hate” out of thin air to receive retweets and “favorites” on his Twitter account.

I have seen Dan Slott use the same tactic on different comic websites. If a user is banned and he suspects someone else of being that banned individual, he will relentlessly harp on the point. Why? Because all he has are personal attacks. He will call people like me “crazy” from afar so his minions lick his ego-wounds, but he won’t come here and actually debate my work on the merits. The few times he did engage me on different websites, he intellectually got his clock cleaned and had to beg the moderator to shut everything down. Ask him about the time he deleted an epic YouTube conversation because he looked like a raving lunatic.

Now, since I’m tired of Dan Slott acting like anyone who goes by a pseudonym online needs to be “exposed” by thin-skinned Marvel writers, I will explain why this is an utterly moronic move on his part. I will use my own life as an example. I encourage regular readers who go by an alias to add their two cents in the comments section.

I currently work for a newspaper.

My writing is seen by many people. People associate me, for the most part, with work on national security matters. If there is a breaking story on the Islamic State group, Vladimir Putin, Kim Jong-un, or cool military technology, then there is a good chance that I am writing on it. Do I want to mix tweets on Dan Slott’s Renew Your Vows in with my work on Sunni radical terrorist groups? No. I do not. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that sometimes there needs to be a line of demarcation between an individual’s personal and professional life.

Since I’m assuming that makes sense to the vast majority of readers, I will now move on to exposing Dan Slott’s utter hypocrisy for all the world to see. How interesting is it that Dan Slott likens Twitter to “talking outside,” but yet he seeks to keep his own conversations private from anyone who is inclined to call him out on his “BS”? Again, I cannot stress this enough: Dan Slott blocks accounts and then weirdly reads the accounts that he has blocked. This is the man who puts words in Peter Parker’s mouth. This is the man who actually holds creative clout at Marvel.

Congratulations, Marvel — you employ a man who blocks accounts, stalks said accounts, and then calls the owners of those accounts “crazy.”

If there is a colleague who cares about Dan Slott, then that person will pull him off to the side and tell him that his regular behavior, usually around 1:00 a.m., is not healthy. It is not productive. And it is certainly not professional.

Update: You can’t make this up. At 1:04 a.m., prime Dan Slott weird behavior time, he reads this blog post and then takes to Twitter to say that his previous stalking had nothing — nothing — to do with me, despite his long history of reading this very blog every time a review of his work goes up.

Best case scenario: “Hey guys, I wasn’t stalking Douglas Ernst yesterday — I was stalking another guy. But…reading Douglas Ernst’s blog just now at 1:00 a.m. (i.e., the guy I blocked on Twitter) means nothing. It’s not stalking. Seriously. Trust me.”

Dan Slott needs Damage Control for his damage control.

Update II: In the comments section below, I spoke with Carl about why Dan Slott would continue to read my work even after blocking my Twitter feed. The short answer can be found by tapping into my WordPress stats, which show me where people are coming from. Today, for instance, I had people coming over from Tumblr — “Walloping Web Snappers!” was one such account. Dan Slott knows that this happens often. That is why he will continue to read my reviews as long as he is on ASM.

Renew Your Vows: Dan Slott opts to divorce Peter Parker fans with tale of ‘stupid red and blue suit’

June 3, 2015June 4, 2015by Douglas Ernst34 Comments

Dan Slott was given a golden opportunity to use The Amazing Spider-Man #1: Renew Your Vows to build bridges with Peter Parker fans. Instead, he opted for divorce. Fans who have waited years to see Peter and MJ back together finally got their wish, but unfortunately it was granted by the same guy who saw nothing wrong with turning the character into an afterthought in his own book.

Imagine you’re a fan of Peter Parker. You’ve patiently piled up a mountain of lackluster stories while waiting for another glimpse into the married life he once had. Finally, when Renew Your Vows hits, you open it up and the first thing you get is MJ nagging Peter not to fix his web shooters at the table. You turn to the second page to see a sullen Peter complain about changing diapers. Pensive and sad faces abound on the third page. The reader is told that Peter has “wedded bliss,” even though the evidence doesn’t back that up. Dan Slott then takes the action out of the apartment, and the next time MJ is seen she’s being held hostage by venom. No build up — he just escaped from Ryker’s Island penitentiary.

Question: Why should anyone care about an alternate universe MJ that they’ve “known” for all of three pages when those three pages have done nothing to show younger readers why the couple is so good together?

Answer: They shouldn’t.

A few pages are then allotted to MJ attempting to keep her daughter safe — as any sane mother would do in the same situation —and alternate universe Peter Parker ultimately ends up killing venom. “I did what I had to do,” is all he says before MJ can finish asking if Eddie Brock is dead.

Fans of Peter Parker are apparently supposed to have their minds blown that their hero — even an alternate universe version of the original — would ever be placed in a situation where he might have to kill a man. Correction: A psychopathic madman whose body has fused with an alien symbiote.

The only people this may be shocking to is Dan Slott of the infamous “No one dies” mantra, and those who think a man can be a hero and never — never, never, never — have to make such a difficult choice.

Newsflash: Cops are heroes and sometimes they have to kill. Soldiers are heroes and sometimes they have to kill. Spider-Man is a heroic character, and it makes sense that on a long enough timeline he may — despite his best efforts to avoid it — have to take a (likely super-powered) life to save others.

Only in the mind of Dan Slott would having to do what real heroes do every single day constitute the “death” of Spider-Man.

“That was the day The Avengers died. That every last hero died. Even Spider-Man. It just looked like him standing there. But that was just me. Peter Parker. A dad in a stupid red and blue suit,” the hero thinks while reflecting on his actions and The Avengers’ battle with Regent (aka: lame villain introduced for Secret Wars).

One word: Pathetic.

On the last page it gets worse. Peter says “It’s not a perfect world. But, I look after me and mine. And that’s good enough.”

Imagine a world where cops, firemen, soldiers, doctors and many other kind souls all had the “I look after me and mine” mentality of a married Peter Parker (written by Dan Slott). What would that world look like? It would look like a pretty scary place, which is why no one who fundamentally understands Peter Parker would put those words in his mouth.

If you own The Amazing Spider-Man #1: Renew Your Vows, then I suggest looking through the issue for all the times Peter really looks happy. Try and find a wide smile on his face. You’ll see four — all from pictures hanging on his apartment wall — and he’s not even smiling in his wedding picture. He has a look on his face that says, “Here. I’m married. You got the shot you wanted. Can we move on?” It’s a small detail, but one worth noticing.

Marvel gave fans what they were thirsting for, but its creative team made sure to spike the product with something bitter. Although it should come as no surprise at this point, it really is quite stunning how Marvel uses every opportunity to mend fences with Peter Parker fans to spit in their faces instead.

Exit question: Why does Mr. Slott have a sick fetish with killing Peter Parker, whether it’s outright killing the 616 version, killing off 616’s ghost/memory fragment/soul/whatever he was, killing off countless other versions in Spider-Verse, and now doing so symbolically in Renew Your Vows?

Exit question II: Why is Mr. Slott asking if Renew Your Vows brought back readers? For years Marvel has told us that the number of fans who stayed away from the book post OMD was marginal at best. When guys like me talked about a significant number of fans who were sitting on the sidelines, we were scoffed at. Yet now, suddenly, those numbers are enough to warrant a sales pitch to catch up on “Big Time” and “SSM”? Interesting.

Dan Slott’s Peter Parker: Spineless whipping boy for supporting female cast

May 7, 2015May 7, 2015by Douglas Ernst34 Comments

The 18th issue of The Amazing Spider-Man features Parker Industries collapsing into a smouldering pile of rubble. This is fitting because the character’s credibility now exists as sad and twisted wreckage under Dan Slott’s direction. Leading into Spider-Verse, the most memorable moment was the time Peter had to be saved by Silk and nursed back to health by Anna Maria. During Spider-Verse he became a Where’s Waldo-ish character in his own book. Now, as Renew Your Vows closes in, he becomes a spineless whipping boy for Anna and Sajani.

Perhaps other Spider-Man fans can chime in, but when did Anna Maria become Peter Parker’s mom, who is often written as if she should have a halo around her head? “Anna’s covering my butt…literally. She thought of everything. Again,” Peter says to himself after the supporting cast member saves him from Ghost. Not only is Ms. Marconi saintly and wise, but she has the inner strength to save the suddenly-hapless Spider-Man from his own incompetence — during battle.

Perhaps worst of all is the way the book’s hero — and company CEO — just sits there and takes the bizarre rantings of the horribly-written Sajani. At what point do fans corner Dan Slott and force him to admit that he’s turned Peter Parker into an impotent clown in order to highlight Anna Maria’s awesomeness? When do they ask him why he feels the need to shoehorn “girl power” messages into The Amazing Spider-Man instead of just telling solid stories?

Silk, although locked away for most of her life, is Peter’s equal or a better when it comes to the superhero business.
Anna Maria Marconi is the voice of reason, a source of strength, and an anchor that keeps Peter grounded.
Sajani pushes CEO-Parker around like he’s some low-level employee who is on thin ice for constantly screwing up.
Black Cat is a megalomaniac super-villain who can orchestrate a Spider-Man beat-down and near-unmasking for a national television audience.

Over and over and over again throughout Dan Slott’s run, Peter Parker is marginalized in his own title — and yet Marvel wants fans to believe that he loves the character. The reboot should have been called The Sensational Silk, Spider-Verse gave fans the inspirational Uncle Ben speech delivered by Doctor Octopus, and now ASM #18 presents the hero more like an immature kid who could barely tie his own shoes, let alone stop a super-villain or run a business.

If you are short on cash this month, then do not buy this book. It is so bad that you may find yourself wishing Marvel uses Secret Wars to erase most of Peter Parker’s history.

Nick Lowe tries out Marvel’s ‘permission to leave’ business model

April 5, 2015April 7, 2015by Douglas Ernst34 Comments

Marvel Senior Editor Nick Lowe is the type of guy who dresses up as the pope on Halloween because he’s scared to death of what would happen if he pranced around the office as an imam or Mohammed. Marvel Senior Editor Nick Lowe is the type of guy who dresses as the pope for Halloween because Dan Slott would probably not find it funny to see his editor mock Orthodox Jew rabbis on Halloween. Marvel Senior Editor Nick Lowe is also the kind of guy who needlessly burns bridges with loyal Marvel customers in the Letters to the Editor section of The Amazing Spider-Man.

It’s no secret that Marvel has run its Letters to the Editor section like something out of the Kim Jong-un School of Journalism for quite some time. Issue #17 of The Amazing Spider-Man continues that trend, although 1 out of 9 letters actually provides a critique of Dan Slott’s work.

Here is an excerpt from a letter sent in by Ryan Knight of New Port Richey, Florida:

Can you please offer your readers some kind of idea when Dan will be off the book? He’s written more Spider-Man than anyone with the exception of Stan Lee … and Brian Michael Bendis. I understand that his work is accessible for many casual readers with little to no frame of reference, but even many of his strongest supporters believed he should have left when Superior ended. …

I am sick of Marvel “Events” and so-called story arcs (look up the word story arc in the dictionary. You Marvel folks will see it’s different froma multi-part look at the Tablet Arc in Stan Lee’s run or the Jackal Arc in Conway’s if you want a clue.) screaming for attention, it just betrays how corrupt and lame some corners of the universe are. …

How often do we get one-issue stories? Two-parters? Character studies? Slice of life? Of yeah, Slott is a self-confessed plotter by nature. Howard Mackie’s run is downright readable in comparison to most of Slott’s work. History won’t remember the BND/Big Time/Superior/Relaunch era fondly at all.

Mr. Knight is not too happy with the current direction of the book. However, it’s obvious that he’s been reading Spider-Man for years. He’s a loyal Marvel customer. He has stuck through the book through thick and thin. Say what you want about the tone of his email, but he’s clearly sunk loads of cash into Marvel, and by extension Nick Lowe’s and Dan Slott’s bank accounts.

One would think that Mr. Lowe would be grateful for such customer loyalty and, even in the face of hard-nosed criticism, respond in a professional manner. Mr. I-dress-up-as-the-pope-because-I’m-scared-to-dress-up-as-Mohammed Lowe chose the “We don’t need you” route instead.

Nick Lowe responded:

Hi, Ryan. Sorry you don’t like Dan’s run, but you certainly seem to know it very well. If you’re a Gerry Conway fan, definitely pick up Amazing Spider-Man #16.1, on sale now. It’s the first part of a five-parter (sorry). Pains me that you’re so unhappy, so take this as permission to leave the book behind. I’m a big fan of Dan’s work and won’t be replacing him any time soon, providing we’re still publishing Spider-Man after Secret Wars.

In the mind of Nick Lowe, Marvel’s faux pope, it is a mortal sin to question the direction of The Amazing Spider-Man, even if you’re someone who has been religiously buying the book for decades. Question Dan “deus ex machina” Slott’s work, and you must be excommunicated from the Church of Marvel.

If you’re like me, then you long ago realized that Marvel decided on a business model that involves needlessly lashing out at paying customers. If you’re like me, then perhaps you’ve become much more discerning in which books you buy each month — if any — from the company.

The next time you see Nick Lowe at a Comic Con, ask him when he’s going to be Mohammed for Halloween, and then let him know what you think about Marvel’s “permission to leave” business model.

Hi, My name is Nick Lowe. I think it's a good idea to tell loyal Marvel customers to take a hike when they disagree with the direction of a book. I also dress up as the pope as a joke on Halloween because I know Catholics turn the other cheek. Dressing up as an imam or Mohammed as a joke would actually require me to display courage, so I won't do that. — Hi, My name is Nick Lowe. I think it’s a good idea to tell loyal Marvel customers to take a hike when they disagree with the direction of a book. I also dress up as the pope on Halloween because I know Catholics turn the other cheek. Dressing up as an imam or Mohammed as a joke would actually require me to display courage, so I won’t do that.

Dan Slott’s Spider-Verse Epilogue: Wrap-up oddly more exciting than main story

February 25, 2015February 26, 2015by Douglas Ernst15 Comments

Dan Slott is an interesting guy — when he’s not trolling random women on Twitter or casting countless Peter Parker fans as racist rubes, he’s making the epilogue to his big Spider-Verse tale more exciting than the main story. In some weird way, the constraints imposed upon the writer by his epilogue — he had to wrap up countless loose ends and couldn’t engage in superfluous Spider-Ham jokes — forced him to put forth a tighter product. The result is, oddly enough, the most satisfying issue of The Amazing Spider-Man in months.

The good thing for Dan Slott with an epilogue like this is a.) there is no real need for characterization — readers are essentially told, “Hey, this is where are heroes ended up,” and b.) it provides the author with an easy opportunity in terms of providing fans with some “feel good” closure. With no defenders in his way, Dan Slott managed to sink a layup at the buzzer. He still lost the game…but at least he made his last shot.

With that said, Spider-Man fans might be disappointed when the thrill of seeing Peter Parker crack Doc Ock with a left hook wears off. As Peter Parker stands above Otto, the villain unmistakably telegraphs the vehicle that will carry him to revenge. Otto tells his hologram girlfriend “Now, Anna, as we discussed.” Was Peter Parker deaf, or did he just shrug his shoulders and say “What was that was all about? Eh, probably nothing.”

Another bizarre instance occurs when Karn reveals that the nuclear wasteland the Inheritors have been imprisoned on “fortunately” has a bunker “teeming” with spiders. What are the chances? It’s almost like Master Weaver giving the heroes a scroll with “everything” they need to succeed, or Silk conveniently teleporting to the planet and finding the bunker to begin with. Dan Slott’s Peter Parker is big on the “no one dies” mantra, but he’s apparently okay with the “shut you in a bunker and force you to live on spiders for all eternity,” verdict as well. Under normal circumstances such a panel could be laughed off, but since the writer has invested so much in “no one dies” during his tenure, it should not be ignored.

If you’ve purchased the rest of Spider-Verse and were thinking about skipping the epilogue, then you may want to reconsider. Dan Slott may have oversold the book when he promised “Big Things” (shocker, I know), but it’s still one of his better efforts in quite some time. If nothing else, Spider-Verse: Epilogue shows that Marvel might get tighter stories out of its scribe if it puts more constraints on him.