spider-man one more day

[Ajax]

OMG They are making Mary Jane into a superhero named "Jackpot"!  :doh:

Read #4 and look at the picture of Jackpot. Plus it's an obvious ref to her first words to Peter.

[GhostMachine]

I'm hoping there's a serious backlash to this, sales on the Spider books tank very quickly, and it leads to OMD being undone and Quesada either being reigned in by the higher ups so he can't pull off garbage like this again or outright fired.

Joe Q I've always thought was a decent artist and an acceptable (ie, not good but not bad, either) writer, but he's easily the worst EIC Marvel has had.

And before anyone chimes in with "no, Bill Jemas was worse", let me just say "Wrong. Jemas was an outsider who ended up in the business and possibly a fanboy who didn't really have a clue what he was doing. Joe Q is an established comics professional and apparent mega fanboy and should know better."

The ONLY things that needed fixing were Peter's identity being made public (and that was apparently sort of handled already in New Avengers, I think?) and Sins Past being undone. The totem thing is easily ignored, and any idiot could undo Sins Past (ie, the kids are either clones (yeah, right - the stink from the Clone Saga still hasn't faded enough for Marvel to go there) or were created in a test tube using DNA purloined from Gwen when she was still alive (sort of how DC explained Damien in Batman #666) and Norman lied about the affair with Gwen to further torment Peter).

The thread about OMD over at Byrne Robotics is already up to 30 pages, and I think maybe only one or two posters have said anything good about. John Byrne (but his opinion doesn't count to some fans, since they seem to think he's Satan), Howard Mackie and Glenn Greenberg have all made negative comments about it; mostly geared toward how it involves heroic characters making a deal with the devil, but also about how it pretty much screws up 20+ years of continuity. (Glenn Greenberg worked on Spider-Man during the Clone Saga, so if he says this stuff stinks!.....)

[zuludelta]

From Rich Johnston's Lying In the Gutters:

[Outcast]

OMG They are making Mary Jane into a superhero named "Jackpot"!  :doh:

Read #4 and look at the picture of Jackpot. Plus it's an obvious ref to her first words to Peter.

Hey, I think it's pretty cool to have Mary Jane as Jackpot. I'm really curious about her powers and abilities. :P

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jackpot_(Marvel_Comics)

And it would seem from Zulu's comic strip that Mephisto really likes this whole divorce thing. :lol:

[tommyboy]

I like Dan Slott.
I liked reading the first issue.
I like that organic webshooters are gone, and his publicly known identity gone.
But everything else I'm not keen on.
Now, I stopped expecting a stable, coherent continuity in Marvel comics back around Avengers Disassembled, (and it's loss isn't the end of the world, just confusing).
But I really cannot understand the "new reality".
What happened in Civil War? Who's side was Peter on? How does him not being married to MJ make Aunt May NOT get shot? If Mephisto can wave a hand and remake reality for the whole world, what does that say about God in the marvel Universe? How are we, the reader, supposed to know what has happened and what has not? Who is dead and who alive? What is the point of reading any given comic if tomorrow Wanda or Mephisto can make it not have happened?
Back in the sixties and seventies, Marvel fans derided DC comics for it's lack of continuity and "imaginary" stories, and DC's mind boggling, impossible-to-understand universe. Strange how things have turned around. Now Marvel should have "not a dream, not a hoax, not an imaginary story" plastered over most of its comics...

[zuludelta]

But I really cannot understand the "new reality".
What happened in Civil War? Who's side was Peter on? How does him not being married to MJ make Aunt May NOT get shot? If Mephisto can wave a hand and remake reality for the whole world, what does that say about God in the marvel Universe? How are we, the reader, supposed to know what has happened and what has not? Who is dead and who alive? What is the point of reading any given comic if tomorrow Wanda or Mephisto can make it not have happened?
Back in the sixties and seventies, Marvel fans derided DC comics for it's lack of continuity and "imaginary" stories, and DC's mind boggling, impossible-to-understand universe. Strange how things have turned around. Now Marvel should have "not a dream, not a hoax, not an imaginary story" plastered over most of its comics...

Yeah, the "wave of Mephisto's hand" has the potential to become the kind of industry joke that the "Superboy-Prime retcon punch" was a year ago. Maybe Marvel and DC can have a crossover where Superboy- >excuse me< Superman-Prime (was the name change explained away as a retcon punch too? Did Superboy-Prime punch his way into Superman-hood?) and Mephisto high five each other and cause all time and space to collapse in on itself  :P

Still, I'm not so much bothered by the decision to have Mephisto magic away the marriage as I was by the execution of it on paper (I didn't really care about the Spidey cast status quo one way or another). It was about as excessively melodramatic as you can get in a genre built on melodrama. I mean check out this particular steaming nugget, where Mephisto explains why he's so hell-bent (ha ha) on the conditions of the deal being the break-up of Peter and MJ's marriage:

"It's because yours is the rarest love of all. Pure, unconditional and made holy in the eyes of He who I hate most. A love like yours comes about but once in a millennia and to take that away from Him...to deny Him...is a victory like none other imaginable."

So let me get this straight: Mephisto has the power to go back in time and change history, and the best thing he can come up with to spite (a) God is to break-up somebody's marriage? And if the love being "made holy in the eyes of He who I hate most" was such a big deal, couldn't he have settled for a church-approved annulment of their vows instead of going through all the trouble of changing the fabric of reality? Also, didn't Marvel go to great pains in the past few years to distance Mephisto away from the Judeo-Christian devil? Isn't the official line now is that he's supposed to be an extra-dimensional being who just happens to rule a realm that bears an uncanny similarity to the Christian concept of hell? So how come he's suddenly all about getting back at God?

Of course, all those complaints about the story's resolution would have been rendered largely irrelevant if the writing was good (I was actually interested in seeing how they'd pull it off, and giving the creative team every benefit of the doubt), but as it was, the dialogue was just laughably bad. The art was great, though, Quesada really went crazy with the detail... I'd love to see him on a crime/noir book.

[Previsionary]

Unlike a few of you, I've never seen Joe as a great or even good writer, but I haven't read much by him either. I just see him as an artist that has made some good decisions as EiC, but it's being overshadowed by all the bad stuff he's done in the past 3-4 years and his attitude towards fans in general.

Anyway, Brand New Day isn't looking all that great to me:

[spoiler]

• Opening page, Jonah and Peter kissing. No, I'm kidding. It's only cpr with a detailed note about how Jonah *tastes*...like cigars and coffee, you dirty people.
• Peter's old guilt with may is instantly replaced with new guilt for giving Jonah a heart attack. Yay, newness!
• Not only is that guilt replaced, it's doubled. He feels guilty for letting the spidey-mugger escape with his wallet and mechanical web shooter (which the mugger uses for his crimes later on).
• Speaking of wallet, the mugger makes a note about stealing the wallet from "spider-man" and he can learn his identity by opening the wallet. An identity tease...already?
• Reference to Swing shift (by Dan slott. I believe it came out on free comic book day) and ASM 68-75 [what a large jump between new continuity and old...]. IMO, that kinda eliminates the purpose of making it new reader friendly if they have to go look through old continuity to connect a reference. Not a big deal though and it doesn't really affect the story.

[/spoiler]

So, it's a little too much teasing at old continuity for me. If you're trying to bring in new readers and OMD was this large stepping stone to get rid of stuff you didn't like, then make use of it and don't keep playing with a reader's heart string. I'm pretty sure JJJ won't die, but even playing with the possibility that Peter will have his old guilt replaced with newer fresh guilt for something he directly did just seems kinda...moot, especially 2 issues in. Revisiting the [updated] mugger story isn't my idea of fresh either and I'm just hoping that gets resolved soon and doesn't end up with someone close to Peter dying or being shot (and I can totally see that being Mephisto's dastardly plan and ironic). So all in all, BND is leaving me with a meh feeling even with me ignoring OMD and I still don't see what erasing the marriage allowed them more freedom to do. In fact, this is a challenge to anyone that cares to answer it, what story can't anyone tell with Peter being married beyond Pete going wild and dating every woman he meets?


*Note: I'm over the marriage thing and I didn't really care all that much about it to begin with, but I just don't see how he's written into a corner by just *being* married. MJ, when she was around, was treated as just a supporting character that offered Pete perspective/another POV. She's rarely been written as anything more and her personality/feistiness was toned down quite a lot. I think she was going through a Gwen syndrome sometimes minus all the crying. Also, please don't use the aging theory. I find it slightly ridiculous because how many of you read a comic and go, "Spider-man is 30 years old in this issue!"? Not only that but, most of marvel's heroes started at teens and they're all older now. De-aging spidey just makes him look...odd since his peers aren't getting any younger...yet. *looks at Jubilee*

Also, Zulu, I think my comic link is better. Yours features mephisto and for all you know, you don't remember reading it even though you just read it. It's magic and I don't have to explain beyond that. Perhaps you were married and now you don't remember it and you were de-aged a bit. You don't know do you? DO YOU!

...What was I talking about? :rolleyes: :D ;)

[Podmark]

So I gave BND a try, and honestly the first issue is decent, but some stuff definitely distracted. History is a bit wonky, but the thing that bugs me is stuff like Peter apparently having no job experience and no money. I think they went too far on the "bad luck/underdog" thing. I liked Peter being a teacher, it was a good role for him. I'd probably have gave him some apartment maybe with Harry rather than sticking with Aunt May. The old doting Aunt May bugs me, I prefer one thats a little more active or modern. So yeah I just thing they went too far. But I do like having Harry and a supporting cast back.

I have no plans currently to get the next one, I just was curious and my store still had copies yesterday.

[Previsionary]

Well, I find this article on the web somewhere and I figured it'd be a good read for anyone who cared about what the creators thought about the women in pete's life.

[Protomorph]

If Jonah didn't have a heart attack and die from learning that Parker is Spidey, I don't think he'd get that upset at Pete just being arrogant.

FWIW, I do know how to undo BND. Explain that Spidey's stories are no longer on the 616 world, and that he was transported to an alternate reality, and 616 Spidey and MJ have gone missing while Aunt May dies. I mean, isn't Mephisto a lord of lies to rival Loki?

Then send in the Exiles to save them. And reveal that 616 Spidey was replaced with a skrull. Why not?