InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "CHARLIEEEEE"

neuhallidae (neuhallidae) wrote in scans_daily,
@ 2009-08-07 13:09:00

Entry tags:

char: colossus/piotr rasputin, char: cyclops/scott summers, char: mr. fantastic/reed richards, char: nightcrawler/kurt wagner, char: professor x/charles xavier, char: rogue/anna marie, char: spider-man/peter parker, char: storm/ororo munroe, char: wolverine/logan/james howlett, creator: jim shooter, group: x-men, publisher: marvel comics

I forget who, but someone asked for scans of when Spidey owned the entire X-Men team, so here you go. The cover and three pages from issue three of the Secret Wars crossover.

Then, one issue later in scans I ain't got, Wasp hands them (and Magneto) a similarly embarrassing short fight (Wolverine, I think, even calls it such) when she escapes from Magneto's base (before spending the rest of the crossover being comically inept or dead). One almost gets the impression Shooter doesn't like them much.

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skalja
2009-08-08 04:23 pm UTC (link)

No, they've done storylines about how very, very smart he is before -- it's just that they're rarely, er ... very smart? Like the one where he number-dropped his IQ and it was higher than actually possible, when the writer could have spent two minutes on Wikipedia to come up with something plausible. Or the big 600, where we're basically supposed to take the fact that Spidey wrestled Ock's "control New York with MY MIND" machine with his brain as proof that he is smarter. Admittedly that was fairly cool, but ... a) why was that proof of intelligence? b) we weren't really shown the struggle, we were told about it.

Compare this to JMS' run. JMS isn't a scientist and you can tell, but you can also tell how important he thinks it is to show that Peter's a scientist, and to show what being a scientist means, both in fact and in philosophy. Peter researches solutions to answers he doesn't know and looks up things he's never seen (the "what's a spider-wasp?" moment was classic). He enjoys tinkering, and he becomes a teacher so he can try to pass on a love of the sciences to the next generation. (His speeches about the JOY OF SCIENCE are almost OOCly eloquent for Peter, who is snappy but not usually so poetic, but then he accidentally orders The Joy of Cooking as the class textbook, so I can let it slide.) In fact he teaches even when he's not teaching -- there's a great one-shot issue in which he defeats a knock-off Shocker villain by dumping him into a swimming pool and letting the ensuing literal shock waves pound him into submission while he stands by the side and explains the physical processes involved to the pool attendant.

JMS made it really freaking badass to be a nerd.

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lynxara
2009-08-08 05:22 pm UTC (link)

Well, they'll depict him being smart when it lets him win a fight or save the day.

What I mean is more that the current Spider-Office clearly dislikes writing Peter as an especially smart, bookish, or inventive person once the suit goes off.

BND has its virtues and faults, like every run, but what really has struck me about it is how ineffectual Peter Parker is when he's not in the costume.

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skalja
2009-08-08 06:26 pm UTC (link)

Oh, yes, excellent point. Peter used to be a competent individual who kept being stymied by a combination of his priorities being elsewhere, and amusingly bad luck. Whereas in BND, things go wrong and we're apparently supposed to feel bad for him -- and once or twice, okay, it is actually bad luck or his responsibilities or both, like the Microverse thing -- but mostly you kinda just sit there and go, "Hey Peter, if you used your brain for two minutes, your overwhelming problems wouldn't be half so bad. Stop whining, whiner."

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	lynxara 2009-08-08 07:12 pm UTC (link)
	Yeah, that's it exactly. It would bother me less if BND wasn't an explicit experiment in creating superhero books more by committee than in previous years. Obviously strong creators in BND will end up writing strong Spider-Man stories, but the whole point of an editorial-driven approach is to reduce reliance on strong creators. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

skalja
2009-08-08 07:28 pm UTC (link)

The thing is, even the strong creators are crazy uneven -- Mark Waid wrote my favorite story since the reboot (read: The only story that I have actually enjoyed without any qualifications, and guess what? It had basically no BND elements in it whatsoever! Argh), the subway drama that introduced JJJsr, and then has followed it with a bunch of lame ducks. Dan Slott has been, to my mind, consistently lame, but I rather liked the Microverse story. Etc.

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	lynxara 2009-08-08 07:37 pm UTC (link)
	I've quite liked all of the Waid issues consistently, save for when he's paired with a poor artist. (I don't bother reading comics I find to be poorly-drawn, regardless of authorship.) Slott I've consistently disliked. (Reply to this) (Parent)

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