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Tweak says, "Hail to the King, baby."

cyberghostface (cyberghostface) wrote in scans_daily,
@ 2009-04-23 18:43:00

Entry tags:

char: j. jonah jameson sr., char: may parker, char: spider-man/peter parker, publisher: marvel comics, title: amazing spider-man

Last two pages from Amazing Spider-Man #592

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Re: Everyone mocks me as a conspiracy theorist when I point this out ...

rabican
2009-04-24 11:27 pm UTC (link)

I think Reign was more about Peter being a poor little old guy, or something. The OMD cover was a tad bizarre. And the radioactive spider-sperm I most definitely grant you. I mean, wtf, Quesada keeps talking the talk about how Spider-Man needs to be for the kiddies and then he lets that get past editorial. Then again, I'd say his entire reign has been a bit passive aggressively woman unfriendly - I don't want to speak for my entire gender, but ugh, the very idea of getting sick from - ugh ugh ugh.

May I point out that your rule34 commissions show a certain fascination for this subject? *ducks*</strike>

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Re: Everyone mocks me as a conspiracy theorist when I point this out ...

box_in_the_box
2009-04-24 11:33 pm UTC (link)

May I point out that your rule34 commissions show a certain fascination for this subject? *ducks*

My Rule 34 commissions are in fact a REACTION to Quesada's obsession. The first one was back when Peter and MJ were separated, during JMS's run, and even back then, Quesada kept whining about how much he wished he could split up Peter and MJ, and the joke was, "Geez, Quesada's so desperate to break up Peter and MJ that he'll resort to having MJ tell Peter that she's dumping him because he has a tiny dick." Little did I know that I was actually PSYCHICALLY PREDICTING the sort of stuff that Quesada would eventually see fit to PUBLISH IN THE COMICS.

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	Re: Everyone mocks me as a conspiracy theorist when I point this out ... cyberghostface 2009-04-25 10:15 am UTC (link)
	Spider-Man: Reign was intended for a more adult audience. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	Re: Everyone mocks me as a conspiracy theorist when I point this out ... rabican 2009-04-25 03:10 pm UTC (link)
	Yes, but Quesada has made a point in the past of saying that Spider-Man is a character for the kiddies, which is why there will never be a Spider-Man MAX story and why the Marvel Knights Spider-Man title was toned down and eventually canceled, etc, etc. And then, radioactive spider-sperm, eh? Right. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

Re: Everyone mocks me as a conspiracy theorist when I point this out ...

cyberghostface
2009-04-25 04:12 pm UTC (link)

I can't (and won't) speak for Joey Q, but its not hypocritical IMO to consider Spider-Man to be a kids character but still have an 'adult' alternative for an older audience--I.E. a miniseries that most kids will never see or want to read in the first place. It is hypocritical, however, to market a title like ASM to children and then include risque material like this, but thats another matter entirely.

From what I heard, Reign was basically a passion project for Kaare Andrews as opposed to anything else. And I know the idea of "radioactive spider-sperm" sounds funny when you take it out of context, but Kaare Andrews dealt with it fairly maturely in the Reign miniseries. The mini was a bit pretentious, but overall I thought it was solid.

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Re: Everyone mocks me as a conspiracy theorist when I point this out ...

rabican
2009-04-25 09:18 pm UTC (link)

I can't (and won't) speak for Joey Q, but its not hypocritical IMO to consider Spider-Man to be a kids character but still have an 'adult' alternative for an older audience--I.E. a miniseries that most kids will never see or want to read in the first place.

Sure, but my point is that's not what he was saying. As for a "miniseries that most kids will never see," I found it just two days ago in the "teen graphic novels" section of my usually quite excellent library. If it's out there, kids will find it. And their parents will even hand it to them, thinking, "Oh, it's Spider-Man, it must be for them!"

Now, personally I think Spider-Man should be perfectly available for mature storylines, but I think we'll have to disagree on the notion that Kaare Andrews dealt maturely with the concept of Mary Jane Watson dying of cancer from her husband's irradiated semen. There may or may not be a way to handle that with grace, but he couldn't even write down the words - he just had Peter bleat melodramatically about "loving her to death." It was all very virgin/whore dichotomy.

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Re: Everyone mocks me as a conspiracy theorist when I point this out ...

cyberghostface
2009-04-25 09:46 pm UTC (link)

I'm not saying that it's impossible for kids to find or that libraries won't carry it--just that Marvel probably hasn't made as accessible to them as stuff like Ultimate Spider-Man or the 'core' titles like Amazing, and that most kids probably wouldn't even want to read the series. If a kid were to try reading it, they'd probably be bored before they finished the first issue.

Yeah, the "loving you to death" WAS melodramatic--like I said, the series is prentetious at times--but I still don't get the "Huh huh, radioactive spider-cum, huh huh heh heh" mentality that the internet seems to have with this. Its not like Garth Ennis wrote it. And the subplot with Pete dealing with the loss of his wife and the loneliness he felt (such as the dinner scene) was dealt with maturity.

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Re: Everyone mocks me as a conspiracy theorist when I point this out ...

rabican
2009-04-25 10:15 pm UTC (link)

The series was and is completely accessible, at the discretion of end distributors like comic shop owners and librarians, none of whom work for Marvel. There were two printings of the first issue. It's not as though they were sealed in plastic or anything. Whether or not young readers would enjoy Reign is pretty much irrelevant - again, my point is not that I, personally, think that it should have been, but that Joe Quesada has repeatedly made linewide editorial mandates on the supposed grounds of "think of the children," but said mandates have no consistency whatsoever. Wolverine can't smoke anymore, in any title, because that's a bad example, but he can dice people into little bits. Spider-Man couldn't get divorced from MJ to solve the marriage "problem," but he could make a deal with the devil.

I think people have a "heh heh heh" reaction to it because it's exactly the kind of thing that Garth Ennis would write, honestly. The idea is impossible to take seriously.

I will grant that the mourning subplot had its moments, but then there were the times when MJ zombie climbed out of her grave and tried to strangle him and ... what? I don't think Andrews quite knew what mood he was shooting for.

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