InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "I put on my robe & wizard hat."

cyberghostface (cyberghostface) wrote in scans_daily,
@ 2009-08-16 17:31:00

Entry tags:

creator: brian michael bendis, title: ultimate comics spider-man

Ultimate Comics Spider-Man #1

So it's six months after Loebimatum, New York has been rebuilt, and Peter is now working at a fast food joint.

There's a couple of big stuff in the issue (someone moves in with Peter, but I won't tell you who), and...

No, Aunt May's not walking in on the hanky panky, she's calling from downstairs.

And later...

*sighs* It really annoys me when writers do this--to give credibility to the new Mary Sue villain/hero (in case you don't recognize him, this is Ultimate Mysterio), they have him take out the preexisting old one to make him look 'badass'. Especially when the preexisting villain is far more interesting than the new one. Bendis has done this a number of times in the past, with the Hood and Sentry sticking out in my memory the most.

I can only hope that this is a red herring on Bendis's part. He told me on his messageboard that the Kingpin was one of his favorite characters to write, and IMO, he's definitely one of the characters that Bendis writes best. Maybe this will be a callback to his Daredevil run where gangster Sammy Silke orchestrated a Caesar-style coup on him and left Kingpin to die in a puddle of his blood. Kingpin later came back and crushed Silke's head like a watermelon.

(Read comments) - (Post a new comment)

Re: Petes with Gwen?

steverodgers5
2009-08-17 07:11 pm UTC (link)

People were getting upset about MJ and Pete in Ultimate continuity, suddenly not being together, and directly comparing it to OMD/BND. Read the comments above, that's where the 616 comparison is first mentioned. I certainly didn't bring up BND first. My comment was a kind of 'playing devils' advocate' response to that. (Not a perfect analogy I'll grant you, but the bad pun was too much to resist!..:) )

At worst it was a tongue in cheek snarky conjecture on whether we would start to see the same over the top reactions to Ultimate Spiderman as have happened to the 616 direction..

Though I would hope not, since most criticisms about BND always fall back on the deal with the devil aspect, so I'm hoping that we won't see that with this comic. As that really would expose a lot of hypocrisy..

Personally, I cannot wait to see Marvel finally follow up on the Mephisto nonsense, have the deal undone, and then have MJ and Pete decide to go their seperate ways, as I would bet good money that that's the long term game plan Marevl has there. As it'll be very interesting to see what the reactions are once that happens, and people no longer have the whole 'devil crutch' to fall back on..

And that, is why I'm fascinated by the reactions to this Ultimate story, as it seems to be doing a 'natural' split of Pete and MJ. Something which many folks have been saying should have happened with BND. My whole point is that this shouldn't be attracting the same time of reactions, and the part of me that actually has y'know a little bit of faith in human nature is hoping that that will prove to be the case, and that we will be spared the same over the top reactions..But we shall see..

Plus I think I should point out, that making a comparison about one Pete/MJ split in a Spiderman comic book, and another Pete/MJ split in a Spiderman comic book, and the reactions to both by comparison, not exactly what I would call 'unrelated'..

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

Re: Petes with Gwen?

cyberghostface
2009-08-17 07:33 pm UTC (link)

It wasn't just the fact that Pete and MJ split that bothered people--it was the fact that it was a blatant editorial mandate on Joey Q's part, the fact that they made a deal with the devil of the Marvel universe, and that a large chunk of Spider-Man continuity had been retconned in the process. And the criticisms of BND aren't exclusive to Peter playing Faust--the characterization of Peter in the subsequent issues, as well as the poor quality of the stories themselves have all been targets.

As I've said NUMEROUS times, even if the marriage was restored, I probably wouldn't pick up the series because the quality has been mediocre at best. You seem to be under the impression that our only problem is Joey Q's erasing of the marriage, but IMO that's just the tip of the iceberg.

And I still don't think the BND comparisions are valid, considering that Pete has already broken up with MJ twice in the title and dated another girl the second time. That, and the two were never married, continuity wasn't erased/altered, it wasn't the result of a hamfisted editorial mandate, etc, etc, etc...

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

Re: Petes with Gwen?

steverodgers5
2009-08-17 08:05 pm UTC (link)

Oh well fair enough then. If it's the quality of the individual issues that's not to your taste. Then that's a different matter altogether.
I personally, for the most part, have really been enjoying them. So we'll just have to agree to disagree there..'Different strokes for Different Folks' and all that..

It's just when you see the whole, 'Peter made a deal with the devil, thus everything he ever does now must be wrong..' type attitude, raise it's head time and time again, it gets's hard to dismiss it as not being the whole crux of most people's criticisms..

I mean I personally hate that the marriage history is retconned. Two of my all time favourite Spiderman stories are the Amazing Spiderman Wedding Annual and the Spectacular Spiderman 'Honeymoon' annual, and it bothers the hell out of me that these are now not supposed to happened! (Though I would argue that stories like Kraven's Last Hunt could have more or less happened the same way, with Pete just moving in with MJ..)

I do prefer Pete out of the marriage to MJ, but I really wish they'd done it in a more mature way. Hopefully this break up with MJ in Ultimate comics will be handled a bit more sensitivly, since it has as you pointed out none of the baggage that came off of OMD.

As for the whole editorial mandate thing, it is the way of things..I'm sure things wre going on like that back in Shooter's day too, or heck even Stan's, we just weren't as 'in on it' as we are in this internet age..

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

Re: Petes with Gwen?

cyberghostface
2009-08-17 08:47 pm UTC (link)

There have been some occasions where I have praised BND. For example, I find Mr. Negative to be interesting from what I've seen of him, and I though Dematteis' Harry story in Family was fantastic. So while I abhor the current status quo and how it got there, if a story's good I can judge it on its own merits and distance it from everything else.

And a lot of the stuff that I don't like has nothing to do with MJ or the marriage--the return of Harry (except for the aforementioned Dematteis story), Menace, the new Doctor Octopus, Jonah's father romancing May, etc.

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

Well that's nice to hear..

steverodgers5
2009-08-18 08:24 pm UTC (link)

Yeah, I kind of feel the same way about Mr Negative. I was intrigued a little by the character, but it's starting to sem like a missed opportunity. (Although hopefully after the current miniseries, they'll maybe find a better way to explore the character..)

And I love most of Dematteis work. To me he is one of the all time greats..(I will always love Kraven's last hunt, and I really liked how he ended harry's character in Spectacular, so it's taken me a while to get used to having Harry back. But having said that, I did enjoy American son..)

I actually don't mind Aunt may with Jonah senior. It's nice to see the old lady get some happyness, and a life of her own outside of Peter. (Though I wish it had been with Jarvis..Damn those Skrulls!)

(Reply to this) (Parent)

(Read comments) -