Straczynski thinks OMD sucks - Page 3

It's not that no one ever knew Peter Parker was Spiderman, it's that all those who did know now have forgotten. With this reset every photo, video footage or memory of Peter Parker and Spiderman was erased and no one cares one iota that it was done. Iron Man's armor, which has recording capabilities was erased. Shield's mainframe was erased. Professor Xavier's memory was changed. All the past events still happened but the major change is Marvel has a world of characters, all of whom know they have missing memory, and none of them care. This happening while there's some hysteria about a Skrull invasion not getting a mention anywhere is the major crime.

Oh, that and Harry Osborn's not dead.

Don't the New Avengers sit around with their masks off and spew out bendis dialogue every issue?

His new interaction with the New Avengers has yet to be chronicled but in the BND issue, which I proudly say I did not buy, it's been months since there's been a Spiderman appreance. It's just another instance of the mass memories being altered. No one remembers the Peter Parer Spiderman working with the New Avengers. I guess they'll have to do a story as to how this unknown Spiderman gets his way into the New Avengers, a fairly paranoid group of New Avengers at that.

Which is even more pointless than OMD

Everytime I read Joe Quesada say "Soap opera" I want to punch him in his stupid fat fuck head.

It's obviously a slow news day though as someone finally took his frantic calls to newspapers trying to once again get some retarded shit he did in comics on the front page.

How many times did he say "soap opera"? I'm starting to keep a tally.

The store I go to had both BND and Hulk as 100% returnable books. I still didn't buy them.

Hulk was not much fun, sadly I did buy that. There's no way I'm buying a single issue of BND. The only tempting thing is the art, but I didn't like the preview and the whole thing is just beyond ridiculous.

As weak as the first issue of BND was, it's still better than most of the Straczynski garbage I remember reading. So Mission accomplished I guess! Amazing is slightly less awful than it once was!

Why should they be freaking out about their memories being fucked with if they have no idea it's happened? Literally nobody aside from Mephisto has any idea. He's the devil. Shouldn't he be powerful enough to do such a thing? There's plenty of things to complain about in all of this, but this isn't one of them.

Also, aggresively bland is definitely the way to describe Brand New Day. It's also how I felt about the Sweeny Todd movie, oddly enough. Both in the same week. What a shitty week.

EDIT: The Venom thing doesn't make sense, that's true, but Eddie Brock is pretty much out of the picture now and the symbiote's on Scorpion anyway.

Oh, but it is the thing to complain about because it the excuse for everything new in BND. Everyone has forgotten Peter Parker unmasked at a White House press conference on National Televsion.

Joe Q. has stated that people remember Spiderman taking off his mask but do not remember who is underneath. You think that Tony Stark isn't a bit worried that an unregistered superhero could unmask and then somehow memory wipe everything and everyone into forgetting? He is in charge of registering such heroes. He just shrugs it off as a memory error in his system.
They all remember the impact Spiderman had unmasking during Civil War, because Marvel cannot remove that as it was so influencial.

He's also downplaying the Peter and MJ's marriage a lot if he thinks that an umarried couple make the same decisions as a married couple. There are probably a lot more plot problems created because decisions made by MJ and Peter as a couple would not have been made the same way as an unmarried couple. Hell that's why guys don't get married, so they can make decision for themselves.

It's just a very bad way to reset the character.

Mephisto rewrote reality for God's sake. Do you not think he could do it to a point where Tony Stark would not notice? It's not like the devil would have to go and rewrite a computer system when he could REWRITE ALL OF EXISTENCE. It is sloppy how they explained it, but once again we're dealing with a complete rewrite of the world as they know it. How can you accept that, but not how convenient it is? It's silly no matter what, so who cares? Once again, this whole thing is stupid and silly as hell, but this aspect is not what people should be complaining about.

I don't think anyone ever said it wasn't. And I mean that literally. Has anyone said this particular method was a good way to reset him, or have they just defended the idea of resetting him? Also, has anyone LIKED this story? Not asking you specifically, slagar. Just making a general question.

Hey....it's magic, we don't have to explain it

Doug Henning agrees with you.

So in exchange for keeping alive my aunt who has been knocking on death's door for so long they've gone ahead and given her a key, I lose the last, oh, ten years of my life? Okay, deal.

What a fucking auntie's boy.

Unfortunately, yeah, they can say that...or they can put together several really awkward and pretty useless stories that explain in detail how it all works. I'd rather they just move on and try to tell some good, and at least partially new, stories.

Once again, this whole turn of events is god-awful, but at least we get Dan Slott writing Spider-man out of it. Hopefully later issues will be an improvement, 'cause man that first one was about as boring as could be.

I guess the pro-BND people are just "glass half full" people because the whole OMD fiasco taints any possible good thing coming out of this debacle.

And yes, the 1st BND issue does not look promising. It almost seemed like some practical joke too, reminding you at every corner about the "new status" quo in the worst possible ways.

I'd say that's pretty much it because I haven't seen anybody actually say they liked One More day.


I'm hoping that in later issues when they get past this whole "Exciting new world!" bullshit, a more distinct style will take hold. It's obvious the first several issues will be "Look how shocking and different this all is!" before the book gets its bearings again.

I wouldn't say I'm in the "Pro-OMD" camp, but I think any argument about the story's merits (or lack of) are a wasted effort. Like all of these retcon events, it's not about telling a story ... it's about justifying an editorial decision. It doesn't much matter of Spider-Man makes a deal with the devil, rubs a cosmic cube the wrong way or whatever. It's all bullshit used to get the comic where the editors want it.

I'm not sure why something like this is even necessary. "Reality Changing Events" are an unfortunate part of the comic book subculture. Marvel has had a much better grasp on is continuity in the past, thanks to its policy of plausible deniability (like ignoring Reed Richards' service in World War II.)

Just tell your fucking story and quit trying to justify everything. Mind-numbing attention to detail has almost crippled DC.

Almost?

Jason Todd is alive because Superboy-Prime punched time.

Note that that sentence makes no sense whatsoever, and it's canon.

I wouldn't have bought that shit when I was five years old, so I've stopped buying it altogether.

There are still a handful of DC books that are unaffected by the Crisis mess. Most of them have cowboys on the cover, but they are out there.

So, guess what? I finally got around to reading the last issue of OMD yesterday, and it wasn't anywhere near as bad as I thought.

I gotta give credit where credit is due. Straczynski did about of good as a job making the editorial descision work, with the limitations he was given, as I think it's possible for someone to do. (Whether it stands on its own as a good comic, I can't say. I still need more perspective.) But reading it, it's pretty clear where he stands on the marriage, and not too difficult to read "Mephisto" as a critique of Joe Q and the retcon.

I still don't agree with the idea behind the retcon, but I have to admit that Straczynski handled it better than I was expecting.

I never had a problem with Straczynski's writing - yeah, the Gwen thing was a bit of a spit-take, but he made characters like Aunt May interesting again, he gave Mary Jane a personality; the Spider-Totem stuff was a nice slant on Spidey and even The Other storyline led to some decent potential for future storylines (I really wanted to see Spidey use his new powers, maybe even switch to "Spider" mode, and beat the ever lovin' shit out of the Goblin, but alas, I was denied).

I read OMD, and Straczynski did a fair to middiling job. The problem was Joe Q. - the whole storyline reeked of editorial sticking its nose in. Marvel did the same thing back during the Clone saga,; you'd think they'd know by now if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

See, I have had problems with Straczynski's writing. I didn't like the Gwen stuff, yeah, but I hated The Other with a passion. I mean, now that his run is wrapped up and all is said & done, what was the fucking point? Why did Peter have to die and be reborn? Why did he have augmented powers? Why did he have those stupid fucking stingers? Because, as far as I can tell, none of it mattered.

I get that there's going to be no continuity from run to run, that each new writer wipes the slate clean, to a certain extent. But Straczynski never did anything with those ideas in his own run. IIRC, there was one single issue where a shirtless Peter used the newly-spiderized hair on his body to sense where a breeze was coming from (God, typed out that looks even dumber than it was in the comic). Other than that, I don't remember any of the changes being meaningful in any way, shape, or form...and the same goes for the Gwen's kids storyline, the spider-totem stuff, and that whole "Travelling with Dr. Strange/learning that Peter is going to die in the future in a graveyard by Mary Jane's headstone" bullshit. It was so frustrating, and it felt like lazy, bad writing: all Setup, no Payoff. That's one of the reasons I was surprised by the last issue of OMD. I honestly didn't think Straczynski had it in him.

I believe "The Other" storyline was interrupted by Civil War and never really got back on track because of the whole "Back in Black" storyline, which the Editors expanded to a whole year, whereas JMS only had planed for it being an issue or two. It's hard to judge a writer's run when the Editors insist on changes authors never meant for their stories.

All of it is pointless anyway, this Brand New Day thing will get reset eventually.

I've got a friend who is reading ASM right now. He just told me Mary Jane is now a costumed superhero.

WTF? Why don't they bring back Golden Oldie while they're at it?

Well he barely wrote the last issue of OMD.

Anyways, I disagree with you. I dug most of his storylines because they mixed things up and the mystic shit at least made you think "What if the spider willingly gave those powers to Peter, not some random accident?". The Other I didn't dig so much because they killed him off for like an issue. It's like Spidey died, who cares? Then again it's better they resolve it than have it dragged out for no reason. But like what was said before, Straczynski never got the chance to properly resolve his own run. Also I just reaaallly liked his interpretation of Peter and Mary Jane. He made their marriage interesting without inserting some problem in it. So fuck Joe Q.

I know she was a hero in the Free Comic Book day issue they put out last year, but I thought that was a one shot thing.

I guess not. He just read the first issue of Brand New Day and said it's now part of the new continuity. Granted, I haven't read the book myself, but he was very clear about it ... he thinks the "superhero gig" was MJ's deal with Mephisto, because it would make sure she'd always cross paths with Peter.

Given Spider-Man's history, though, when Peter's friends played dress-up it was always as villains.

The character is named JACKPOT, and she's a model/superhero who may or may not be Mary Jane. Whoever she turns out to be, it's a really dumb idea.

The free comic book day comic "Singshift" is in the BND continuity. The events that happened in it are mentioned in the new issue of ASM.

There's a registered hero who is a redhead and likes to use the word Tiger currently in the Marel Universe. Her "identity" has yet to be revealed.

I thought "Jackpot" 's identity was that nerdy blonde chick who likes Peter.

I thought it was kinda obvious. You know, like the identity of the red hulk.

Yeah, I just read on Wikipedia that Swingshift happens after One More Day.

And adding to the Jackpot=Mary Jane theory is that she said that to Peter when they first met: "Face it, tiger - you just hit the Jackpot!"

Of course, with the new continuity, it's probably Eternity seeing to it that Peter and Mary Jane meet because their love is cosmically fated to save the universe or some such nonsense, so she becomes a super-hero too.

We don't really need a study to figure out who Jackpot is, I thought it was a given since day one.

I'm considering Jackpot the same way I did the announcement of the new Cap. I maintained it was Bucky because nobody else made any sense and it's what would make sense to the story. If it was anybody else, it would be way too out of left field. Same thing here, only it's much, much shittier. Jackpot COULD be somebody else, as it's so insanely obvious it's MJ they could be screwing with us, but such a device would be even worse than if it were her.

Helen Keller could've figured out who Jackpot is. Even with her being deaf, blind, and dead.

And at this stage of the game, Smeagol, I wouldn't put it past Joe Q. if he was screwing with us. Watch Jackpot turn out to be J. Jonah Jameson or something.

Well I just read Brand New Day and I have to say it was better than I had expected. I doubt that Jackpot is Mary Jane, it is probably grown up baby May through a time rift. Also, I like the interpretation of Peter and Harry, it's like the college days again. My fave part was Mr. Negative, who is surely going to be a villain not to be trifled with.

I think the ultimate goal of the new Spider-Man continuity will be to tell predictable stories with familiar characters, so my money's on Mary Jane.

Looks like Erik Larsen thinks OMD sucks, too.

Larsen loses me when he talks about how Superman and Lois getting married made for a less interesting status quo than in the past. Right, because Lois being a crazy stalker who's too stupid to figure out that Clark is Superman, and Superman being a massive dick who's always screwing with her, is a much better approach to the characters. Seriously, this is the first I'd ever heard anyone complain about *that* marriage. Superman as a stable family man makes perfect sense to me, personally...

You know, as many times as they played the "Spidey unmasked as Parker but nobody believes he's really Spidey" card in the past, I can't believe there wasn't a collective groan at the press conference.

I can see Larsen's point about Superman/Lois, same as I can see Marvel's position on Peter/Mary Jane: in both cases, the previous dynamics "worked," in the sense that a lot of readers accepted it, interesting stories were told, etc. Personally, I certainly wouldn't want Superman to get unmarried to Lois either, but then again, I'm not too big on how comics don't really tell finite stories. One reason I'm more into films than comics, I guess.

Yeah but...I don't give a shit about Superman.

Well his marriage anyway. They've never done anything interesting with it that I know of. In the films, anyone else wonder what Clark sees in such a shallow bitch?

It could be worse though...it could be the Flash books ever since Wally West returned. I didn't get why they killed off Bart. They weren't the best written books, but at least Bart was interesting and was never guilty enough to be killed. This whole family thing they have going now really isn't doing it for me.

What I would have done...

After switching sides during Civil War Black Costume Spider-Man is forced to turn himself in to the authorities after taking on the Kingpin. Aunt May's life is saved when Tony Stark spares no expense to do so. Peter Parker is sentenced to parole on the contingency that he fight alongside The Mighty Avengers as a registered hero. This isn't the right thing to do but considering that the safety of his loved ones is in question and they need the security that comes with being with the Pro-reg Avengers it is the RESPONSIBLE thing to do. We don't drag out Aunt May in the fucking hospital for almost a fucking year and instead the following happens in that year.

Shortly after one of the Illuminati is outed as a skrull we find out that Mary Jane is a skrull... she has been a skrull since her supposed return from the dead. The real Mary Jane died in that plane crash a few years ago and has been dead this entire time. We swear up and down that we will never bring Mary Jane back. Dead is dead. We aren't like those dumbasses at DC. We don't bring characters back to life like that. EVER. The Skrull has been manipulating Peter over the years and secretly brainwashed him into un-masking because this is benifical to the Skrulls somehow even though we always dodge giving a detailed explanation of exactly how it benefits the Skrull's war plan. Its really lame and stupid but I explain in an interview what Joe pitched for One More Day (the actual One More Day that we got...) so everyone accepts it and shuts the fuck up.

Stricken with grief over the loss of another true love and on the anniversary of Gwen Stacey's death Peter has a breakdown and takes on Norman Osborn in a knock down drag out fight to the death. Peter tries to kill Norman Osborn for raping Gwen Stacey. Not Peter as Spider-Man... Peter Parker tries to kill Norman as Peter in a rare and admittedly selfish act. Norman wins the fight but is stopped by Iron Man before he can kill Spider-man. Peter gets seriously fucked up beyond all recognition though. The Avengers save his life using technology that reverts him back to a pre-The Other physical status and those lame hand spikes are gone as well as his organic web shooters. He dusts off the old web shooters. He also no longer has that sticky back power because how the fuck would that ever be useful? It is revealed to Peter that Gwen was not raped by Norman Osborn. It was all a hoax. Osborn cloned those dumbass kids using Gwen's DNA and faked those letters. He also forced Mary Jane to lie and say that shit happened or he would rape and kill Aunt May or something. Spider-Man thinks Osborn is sent to prison but Tony Stark being the retarded douche pimple that he is just lets Norman go back to the Thunderbolts because Tony Stark is a stupid asshole like that. At some point Peter will find out that Norman is free and shit will go down. The suspense of this hangs over Tony's head or some gay shit like that.

Peter serves alongside The Mighty Avengers until after the The Secret Invasion Event is over. Peter finds out that Norman isn't dead and is super fucking pissed. In exchange for not making a big stinky deal over Norman not being dead and working for the government... Tony Stark tells the world that Peter Parker was never Spider-man... that it was all a big fucking fake out to protect the real Spider-Men... ala Dan Slott's Avengers: The Initiative.

Peter cashes in his favor with Loki and asks Loki to take away his love for Mary Jane... with magic... not his fucking memory of Mary Jane... his love for her. Magic is used. This allows him to be a swinging single without a long period of grief for Mary Jane while also allowing for an occasional sense of melancholy for what he has given up by having Loki take away such an important part of him with Magic. Magically Peter's love for Mary Jane is put in an amulet or something really pussy ass and sentimental like that. He is told that if he breaks it his love for her will come back. He carries it around for ONE MORE DAY before throwing it in the Ocean like that stupid old bitch in Titanic. One More Day is a one issue story. Joe Quesade wants to draw it. It takes an year to come out... but we do it in an annual that has a bunch of reprints of old Mary Jane centric classic issues and some source book type bullshit in it and charge 6.99 for it. So we tell the internet that the annual is very important and magical but continue on with the regular issues in the meantime. We swear that all will be explained in ONE MORE DAY and they should just focus on the now and not worry about Peter going around "macking" on other chicks and sort of not thinking about Mary Jane being dead or whatever. Everyone on the internet is all pissed until the Annual comes out and reveals what happened like a year ago and why Peter was "macking" on those other chicks or whatever. Joe Quesada skeets in his pants because I say magic like eight times in one paragraph. We allow him to go and change his pants and when he gets back he demands Harry Osborn be brought back to life.

Spider-man changes back to his old red and blue costume and is back to his solo unregistered single life style living with his Aunt May.

Harry Osborn just shows the fuck up one day. The Goblin serum brought him back a long ass fucking time ago and he's been in Europe for a long ass fucking time. He does not remember that he is the Goblin... why? Because it is a fucking comic book and you can get away with shit like that. Quesada vetos this and suggest we use more magic... he suggests Peter make a deal with Mephisto to bring back his crazy ass junkie friend that tried to kill him a shitload of times. I suggest that Harry make a deal with Mephisto to get out of hell and also make him forget that he was ever the Green Goblin instead of Peter making the dea;. Harry is sent back to earth and tells everybody he was in Europe the whole time because that's what he remembers but at night he turns into DemoGoblin and terrorized criminals like Ghost Rider. The story line goes on for fucking forever with everybody pretending that they don't know that Harry is the Goblin until we reveal that Harry is the Goblin but not before we truck out some new red herring characters to delay the reveal. Everyone on Superhero Hype and Newarama is disappointed to find out that they were right all along and Harry was this Goblin. The story culminates with Dr. Strange being called in to separate Harry from the demon. Harry is cured and the demon is exorcised back to hell... but in a last page epilogue it is hinted that the demon may still be inside Harry waiting just under the surface to break free. DUHN DUHN DUUUHNNN!!! This idea is so stupid AND disappoints fans causing tons of threads about how stupid the idea is AND IT EVEN involves the revamp of a shitty character from the nineties that just about everyone was more than happy to forget about so Joe Quesada skeets in his pants again... he goes and changes his pants again and we continue. It is decided that Paul Jenkins will helm a DemoGoblin mini-series drawn by Mike Deodato Jr. This storyline will probably be over before Joe Q is finished with One More Day so everyone calls me an asshole and claims I'm ruining Spider-Man by not having him properly mourn Mary Jane and keep the Black Costume and be all grim and gritty like they like... but Jason Meadows buys enough variant covers to keep sales up so I'm not fired off the book.

Brand New Day...

Mary Jane is discovered is a tube in some Skrull safe house in a volcano or some dumb shit like that. Everyone is really super pissed that I broke my promise and brought back Mary Jane. She comes back to Peter but he still doesn't feel the same love for her because Loki's spell is still in effect. Lots of gay soap opera ensues. Mary Jane loves Spider-Man but he sees her as more of a friend and is sort of in love with some new bitch or the Black Cat or something shitty like that... blah blah blah gay Mary Worth type horse-shit blah blah blah Betty and Veronica... blah blah blah Spider-Man is back to the John Romita Sr. status quo without any stupid retconning... only two found you in a tube or something retarded like that resurrections and one use of "magic" that was set up anyway. Still... I am fired from the book for "ruining" Harry Osborn as well as the relationship between Spider-Man and Mary Jane.


Dan Slott and those other cats take over after me and do basically what they are doing now without all that mind erasing magic shit bogging them down. Mary Jane can even be Jackpot if those fucktards in editorial really want. Freak the sugar snorter still sucks fucking cock and ruins all the issues not written by Dan Slott.

Damn... that was easy. I fucking rock.

My run on Spider-Man isn't particularly well liked by fans but everyone agrees that it was better than The Other and that it was nessecary to get to Brand New Day and they all agree that it was better than a retcon.

Dan Slott is forced by editorial to write the following storyline...

Mary Jane finds out about the amulet and tricks Namor into getting it from the bottom of the ocean so she gets it back and breaks it and gets back together with Peter. Aunt May is killed in a car accident.

Then Dan Slott leaves the book and Jeph Loeb takes over...

Peter and Mary Jane find out their baby isn't dead but was instead rapidly aged by Norman Osborn to be a villian. Peter and Mary Jane make a deal with the devil to save their baby but their marriage is erased, Mary Jane is made to believe that she was raped by Norman Osborn and the baby is his. The Devil also brings back Aunt May and Gwen Stacey for some reason. Jeph tells everyone that this story wasn't his idea and Joe Quesada forced him to write it.

And the cycle begins anew.

I needed two computers, a slide rule, and a live chicken to sacrifice to Jobu, to understand all that. Well done!

Yeah....

Can you think of way to do it WITHOUT having it at the new status quo?

The whole point of Spidey's new abilities was that he was becoming more spider than man. It was finding peace with himself that allowed him to co-exist with it. At the end of The Other, JMS poses the question...what survived? The man or the spider? I would've really liked to see the resolution to that storyline. I guess we'll never get to see the point JMS was going to make.

It would be even easier to do it without the creating a new status quo... but the point of my little exercise was to show how easy it would have been to give Joe Quesada what he wanted in almost the same amount of time while still doing it organically without a total retcon. And no matter how they spin it One More Day was a retcon.

The Other was what made me drop Spider-Man for good. I thought all that spider totem stuff represented everything that is wrong with superhero comic books. Stories like The Other and One More/Brand New Day are the reason why comic books will never be seen as anything other than entertainment for eccentric losers who refuse to grow up. I tried out Brand New Day and was bored shitless by the return to that Mary Worth crap so I've basically given up on Spider-Man for good. There is nothing that could be done with that character to get me to read the regular universe Spider-Man ever again. And unlike Joe Quesada I don't make bold proclamations and swear nerdy oaths like that one only to go back on them later and make excuses.

Anybody still following Brand New Day?

Nope.