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mrsspidermanmaryjanewatsonparker · 6 years

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Let’s debunk this shit.

First off...why should we, on the topic of Spider-Man, actually place stock by the guy who has in the past argued Sins Past is as, if not more, bad than One More Day when anyone with an ounce of knowledge of how writing craft works would realize this is abjectly false. As a story the flaws in Sins Past amount to it inserting something into the past that doesn’t fit at all. One More Day by contrast not only does this but needs to violently ignore 45 yrs of established characterization to even function and even then it fails since it needs to contradict its own narrative.

Oh and you know MovieBob is the guy who said ‘That Spec cartoon wasn’t as good as people make it out to be. People like it more for what it could be than what it was.’...WTF was he even watching.

But let’s dive into some more specifics of Bob’s argument.

“OMD ‘needed’ to happen.”

This is objectively untrue.

Let’s give the benefit of the doubt and say what Bob meant wasn’t so much that Spider-Man needed to make a deal with the Devil but rather it was necessary to get rid of Spider-Man’s marriage.

I can’t bring myself to do a 3000 word essay on why the latter alone is idiotic, sexist, myopic and utterly false but here is a cliffnotes version.

There are 2 fundamental problems with Bob’s line of thinking.

The 1st is that to end the marriage you needed to outright alter Spider-Man’s history via a soft DC style continuity reboot thus creating in a literal sense an alternate universe version of Spider-Man who’d just never been married in the first place.

Put simply Spider-Man’s marital status could’ve been ended in universe through numerous methods that avoided that. He could’ve gotten divorced. The US government as some kind of petty revenge upon Spider-Man turning on the Registration Act could’ve legally annulled his marriage along with certain other legal aspects of his life. There could’ve been a reveal that due to a legal loophole nobody realized at the time technically speaking Peter and MJ had never been married in the first place despite believing they were.

None of this would’ve fixed the most egregious contrivance of OMD and OMIT, that by simply never having been married magically this = Peter and MJ would break up. You still need to justify THAT separately which OMD didn’t even attempt to do. OMD in isolation erases their marriage but it doesn’t explain or justify why doing this would mean they are now no longer in a relationship. OMIT tried and miserably failed to do that because once again it required the abject ignoring of decades of established (and logical) characterization.

But what should we expect from the guy who in another video once said Superman would be a jerk if he married Lois Lane because of the stress and dangers it’d expose her to, specifically comparing it to real life people who’s jobs offer comparable examples. ‘Superman would never put Lois Lane through that’ said Bob (though I am paraphrasing I admit.

Why?

If REAL people do that then why WOULDN’T Superman OR Spider-Man do so?

It’s a line of thought which amounts to Bob saying those people shouldn’t have marital relationships. And that is gross.

The 2nd problem with Bob’s ‘it needed to happen’ assertion is the notion that CREATIVELY it was necessary for the health of Spider-Man.

Let’s ignore how creatively (and financially) Superman has been on the up and up since 2016 when he got his marriage BACK.

Instead let’s consider for a moment...why?

Why CREATIVLY does Spider-Man need to not be married to work? Why does he need to be single for his long term creative/financial health?

There is no answer because the truth is he isn’t. Spider-Man’s love life is relevant only in so far as the series follows his life and not being asexual romance is a part of that. At which point if you are arguing for his long term creative health he needs to be able to swap out the women he’s going to be romantically/sexually involved with why then does that not also apply to literally every other character connected to every other part of his life?

It doesn’t.

It’s a bullshit argument born of an ignorant lack of questioning. It’s born of “Well it’s got to be this way because it’s always been this way and it’s worked that way.” Ignoring how it doesn’t and how you know...Marvel comics itself exists off the back of saying “Maybe it doesn’t have to just be this way. I don’t like that way in fact, I like the idea of trying it this other way.”

Spider-Man being single keeps Spider-Man stunted and in a state of doomed to failure. It literally renders his love life redundant because every reader (and this applied before 1987 when he got married, but applies a thousand times more now) knows his romances will never amount to anything and that they are glorified Bond girls. And I’ll be honest the substance (such as there is) in the Bond movies NEVER lies with the Bond girls with the sole exceptions of those few movies where they tease you with the idea that he has deeper feelings for them.

Then you have the fact that marriage as a part of most people’s lives and a responsibility is outright tailor made for the character who’s core concept is entwined around the interconnected idea of responsibility and being a (relatively) normal person. It’s not different to him graduating from High school or moving out of Aunt May’s house or getting a job.

But let’s look at the franchise in the wake of OMD creatively and financially has it been doing better than before?

LOL NOPE!

In 2016 we had the Power Play arc. This arc was THE Spider-Man event of the year. It tied into the previous Spider event of 2015, Renew Your Vows by introducing the incredibly powerful villain Regent who’s powers were that he had the powers of EVERY other hero virtually and in RYV took over all of NYC following killing the X-Men and Avengers on his own. It guest starred fan favourite Miles Morales, the first substantial appearance of the character in Amazing Spider-Man since his migration into the 616 universe. It also guest starred lead character of the MCU and (then) Marvel comics poster boy Iron Man fresh from his hyped up run under Bendis, the biggest name in comics of the previous 20 years. It also teased the appearance of the newest team of Avengers, a brand that has been huge since 2012 for obvious reasons. Oh and it featured the return of another fan favourite Mary Jane who was once more being used to tease the possibility of her and Spider-Man’s romantic reunion which had been a surefire way of raising hype for a story since 2008 onwards. Oh and it was clearly a tie-in to the international blockbuster and critically acclaimed movie, Captain America: Civil War.

And of course you had much promotion from the Marvel hype machine, Dan Slott interviews and the usual variant cover artificial sales inflation gimmick that had become common to Marvel.

Safe to say that this story was a big, big deal and sure to sell well right?

Well....it actually sold less than a barely promoted, run-of-the-mill ASM arc from 2005 by J. Michael Straczynski that featured in the first issue Tony Stark sitting on a chair sans armour and beyond that no guest stars....oh and there were no variant covers....and btw Spider-Man was married in it

. ...Oh....

But hey what about some OTHER Spider-Man stories since OMD. Haven’t THEY been creatively enriching?

I mean we had classics like:

The Lizard ruins the interesting humanizing aspects of his character when he becomes a cannibalistic monster who eats his own son and maybe rapes someone

Black Cat’s characterization gets flushed down the toilet so she can be an indulgent juvenile sexual fantasy for Joe Kelly who believes Spider-Man is fundamentally a man child Black Cat’s characterization gets shot to shit again by her ripping off Catwoman by becoming a gangster, something she has never held aspiration for before and seems to want to get involved in now for no reason at all beyond being angry that Spider-Man imprisoned her and exposed her identity that wasn’t even secret in the first place

Dan Slott who likes Doc Ock more than he likes Peter Parker decides to say screw it and make Doc Ock Spider-Man thus invalidating the entire reason he was hired, which is to write about Peter Parker. He proceeds to make Doc Ock a villain sue and cause readers to wonder if he’s this smart and this dangerous he lost so many times in the past at all? Also he tries to rape Mary Jane in issue 2 and then succeeds in maybe raping Spider-Man himself in the same issue and definitely succeeds in raping the only dwarf character in Spider-Man’s canon.

Spider-Man becomes like Iron Man thus invalidating the entire point of his character and reasons people like to read about him.

A mystery surrounding the Green Goblin’s identity that turns out to be the twist that he was Norman Osborn all along meaning this was a pointless mystery the whole time.

Ben Reilly finally comes back after 20 years but doesn’t act even a little bit like the character people knew and loved causing people to wish he’d stayed dead

Betty Brant is physically assaulted and Spider-Man tracks down the assailant but when he finds him lets him go (thus enabling him to assault other innocent women) because Aunt May guilt tripped him by saying he was a jerk at age 15 for allowing her, a 50+ year old adult and his parental guardian, to cope with Uncle Ben’s death alone on the night of his death.

Fan favourite Mayday Parker has her character now defined by the death of her father invalidating the entire point of her character which was the ongoing relationship between herself and her Dad

Every spider person ever fights a bunch of one note cosmic vampires across alternate niverses who are variant action figures of another one note cosmic vampire villain. The story is utterly reparative and makes Spider-Man play second fiddle to all the other characters cramming for panel time.

I could go on but I won’t.

To count the creative successful and enriching Slott and the post-OMD Spider-Man stories is a far easier task than to count the ones which are for the most part mediocre-God forsakenly terrible and miss the whole point of the various characters involved (most of all you know SPIDER-MAN himself!) because the latter is the norm post-OMD.

Tellingly both volume 1 and volume 2 of Renew Your Vows a book BUILT around the concept of a married Spider-Man have (when judged appropriately given their out of continuity status) garnered perfectly respectable sales (especially in volume 1) prior to their recent time skip (an ill advised move regardless of what the series was about) and critical acclaim. And critical acclaim from people besides Marvel/Spider-Man sycophants like CBR who have vested financial interests in positively reviewing the stories.

In fact there is a very strong argument in favour of Slott being the single most creatively damaging Spider-Man writer in history. The list of things that need to be FIXED because of his idiocy and incompetence is vast.

Moving on to Bob’s other points:

“Peter and MJ being together was a dumb stunt when the did it in the first place”

If Bob had you know READ the stories leading into the wedding he’d know

a) That relationship and marriage was being built up since 1984 albeit with the initial intention being Peter stranded at the altar.

b) A stunt isn’t rendered invalid merely because it is a stunt. A Stunt can make sense and with the build up the wedding had this was one such example

“The marriage generated very few decent stories that wouldn’t have worked just as well without it”

Here is a list of a FEW decent or above stories which in some significant way make use of the Spider marriage between 1987-2007

Kraven’s Last Hunt

Venom

ASM #400

Revenge of the Green Goblin

A Death in the Family

ASM volume 2 #49-50

ASM volume 2 #51-54

Sensational Spider-Man volume 2 #32

Sensational Spider-Man Annual 2007, the only Eisner nominated Spider-Man story ever

Spider-Man unlimited volume 3 #2 Story 2: Making Contributions

Eleven Angry Men and One angry Woman

Parallel lives

Spider-Man: the Final Adventure

Web of Death

Revelations the end of the Clone Saga

Spectacular Spider-Man #241

Spectacular Spider-Man #242-245

ASM vol 2 #39

Ultimate Spider-Man Anthology book: Five Minutes

I Heart Marvel Web of Romance #1

Spectacular Spider-Man #199-200

Spectacular Spider-Man #250

The Tombstone arc

Peter Parker Spider-Man volume 2 #14

Marvel Knights Spider-Man #1-12

Hmmm...it’s almost like Bob sucks at mathematics and story evaluation or something. Then again he did say there was no problem with Luke Skywalker in Last Jedi so you know...I should know better.

Oh and btw the whole ‘those would’ve worked JUST as well without the marriage’ argument is a double edged sword since there are literally less than 20 Spider-Man stories post-OMD that WOULDN’T have worked with a married Spider-Man and only one of them is good...and only if you also take entirely in isolation of Spider-Man’s wider history. Every other story with tweaks could work AS if not MORE effectively with a married Spider-Man.

If the argument is there should be no elements in a story that do not actively contribute to it then shit....why should Spider-Man’s SINGLE status be in a book? Why should Aunt May, Jameson or shitton else be multiple stories across the decades of Spider-Man? Hell by this logic Aunt May or Betty Brant are superfluous to ASM annual #1 which inspired part of Spider-Man 2.

“The Spider Marriage left the franchise spinning it’s wheel for a very long time.”

This is another lie. After Peter and MJ got married there was precious little wheel spinning. Almost immediately we jumped into ongoing stories involving Betty Brant, Joe Robertson, Peter going to school again, MJ and Peter’s finances taking a hit when MJ lost her job, Jameson being impersonated by Chameleon, Black Cat dating Flash, Peter’s parents returning and THEN you got the Clone Saga FFS.

Following that we got Norman Osborn running the Daily Bugle followed by the true wheel spinning garbage of the Mackie/Byrne run which was bad BECAUSE they axed the marriage. Following that when JMS took over his wheel spun for maybe 5 months tops? The rest of the time he reconstructed Peter and MJ and Aunt May’s characters, thrust forward with his Spider totem storyline and then began the slow build up to OMD starting with Peter becoming and Avenger.

There were few months were NOTHING was really happening and the number of issues where that was the case owed much more to the fact that the writers needed to pad out FOUR monthly titles each month!

“By contrast BND and Slott’s run has been good”

By objective writing standards this is a fallacy and Bob is offering no proof to this. He just says ‘it’s been good’. Except Bob’s word isn’t proof unto itself despite how much he must like to think so.

“Peter and MJ are more interesting now”

This is the proof Bob is not a...I don’t want to say he isn’t true fan. I rarely use that term. It’s more that he...isn’t an informed fan.

Anyone who knows any legit shit about Spider-Man could tell you Spider-Man is far from more interesting now than he was prior to BND.

Pre-OMD Spider-Man was the sum of 45 years of experiences. A 30ish average guy who’d been through Hell and a lot of battles and survived them and coped with that pain. He was a competent hero and a flawed human being who was just trying to look out for the little guy and take care of his family.

MJ meanwhile was a woman who’d also lived through Hell but demonstrated sheer steel by surviving it in spite of having no powers to fall back on. She’d gone from a carefree party animal who was seemingly selfish, to a hero in her own right who had an endless well of inner strength.

In contrast post-OMD Peter Parker is a man-child fuck up who illegally invades foreign nations with his giant G.I. Joe action figures whilst often playing second fiddle in his own fucking book to whatever guest stars want to steal the limelight. And he’s not believable anymore. He isn’t a grounded guy who copes with the shit thrown at him. He’s the guy who just shrugs off being killed, having his body stolen and his life upended by his enemy and then losing a year of his life.

That isn’t more interesting unless you are arguing being a Saturday morning cartoon character is inherently more interesting than being....welll actually inherently more interesting than being a certain character Stan Lee and Steve Ditko invented in 1962.

Which Bob plainly isn’t arguing because he’s also listing MJ as ‘more interesting’....how?

MJ isn’t even IN the book regularly any more so HOW could she be more interesting. Worse when she WAS in the book she had 2 roles. Ship tease the fans by being Peter’s friend and confidant (i.e. something she used to do BEFORE BND) or being a blind idiot in Superior which is NOT more interesting.

So what the fuck is he talking about?

I don’t know WHAT he’s talking about. But when you make a statement like: ‘on balance this story that eviscerated and betrayed everything about who Spider-Man is and invalidates his motivation from now on because he sold out in the biggest way possible, was on balance worth it because we got t see Doc Ock as Spider-Man try to rape people’ I certainly from WHERE he is talking from.

And the sun don’t shine there son.

#moviebob #bob chipman #Spider-Man #peter Parker #One More Day #Brand New Day #MJ Watson #mjwatsonedit #mary jane watson #Mary Jane Watson Parker

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samanthaknopper-blog · 6 years

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3rd world problems :/

Money...its great when you have it... and a crazy stress bomb when you dont have it. My pay from april hasn’t arrived yet... it is almost 2 weeks late. That means i am almost 2 weeks late on paying the rent and i can’t buy groceries for the family. The company didn’t even contact us until 10 days after our pay was due to make some sort of pathetic explanation that they have to submit a lot of paper work to get the money to pay us... and i guess they didn’t do it on time? None of the teachers in the program got paid and every one is crazy mad. People are threatening to not work until we get paid.. i have about 20,000 peso left (10 bucks) to get the bus this week. They have just said we need to act professional and continue doing our job. I love how they try and make like we are the ones being unprofessional. They are the ones that have broken the contract agreements - not us.

They have said that the payments were made friday afternoon and we should have our money by now... but as if payments are made instantly and its a friday afternoon.. everyone knows it ain’t gonna appear until after 9am monday morning. So that has really added some stress to my life. Also because this week i need to start working at Colegio Panameriano 3 days a week in the arvo my transport costs are gonna double. I told Silvia intially i was just gonna get an uber from my school in Giron to Panamericano cause i need to get there quick. But she is like noooo its way to expensive ( which , yes it is) but i need to get there quick. She has organised for her and her bf to take turns taking me on their scooters and i can just pay them someone. She won’t give me a number to pay so i need to figure out how much is enough without being to cheap that it doesn’t cover their costs. It is only for 3 weeks so shouldn’t be to bad.. will just be much longer days.

Other problem at the moment is that because i am on a volunteer visa, Panamericano can’t legally justify having me on their payroll. So i have to wait to get paid in August and they will just called it a bonus to add to my normal pay i will be receiving. I have requested if possible they pay me the bonus at the beginning of the month as July i wont be receiving any money. They are quite accommodating so i am hoping they will say yes to that request.

I have been looking forward to the rest of the year and trying to plan financially... and it doesn’t not look super promising. I did a budget with Silvia last night and got most of the costs she pays in a normal month or should be paying and she is literally in the red every month 650,000 peso. That isn’t even counting the debts that she has...I am not sure if she had ever seen her financial situation like that in her face. I think it was slightly overwhelming for her. I said to her i can’t leave here and be stressed about her not surviving when i go. The only way she is staying afloat is that i pay the rent for the house. After we clear this other big debt, then she can apply for a better job, so i told her to start looking lol. It takes a long time to find a new job as everyone is super slow with communicating.

I was very stressed yesterday and feeling quite helpless. I am use to being on top of financial stuff but with unreliable payments i am basically at the mercy of the company. I feel terrible for the Aunt who owns the apartment, we were late last month and again this month. I don’t want her to think that she is being mucked around by me. Hopefully they pay us on time this month so she can get the rent at the proper time. I walked to the shop yesterday and bought a mcflurry on my credit card and just sat at the foodcourt and people watched... and to be honest i was holding back tears. it is a terrible feeling to feel helpless and not in control of your situation. I can only imagine the stress that Silvia is under and why she will cry when the next bill is due and she again cannot pay it. I am in the process of trying to find some casual work as some sort of a private english teacher so hopefully i can increase how much money i am coming in. I am also trying to save for my little random trips coming up. I leave for Aruba and Peru at the end of june and i feel like i may only be eating one meal a day while i am away lol. I also have a trip to Cuba in December and i am not sure how i will afford accomodation and food for that. But i guess it is better to just take one day at a time then think of all the potential hurdles i will have to get over in the next 35 weeks ( i’ve counted how long i have left lol)... 35 weeks is so long. But to be honest the weeks do fly by at a slow pace :/

All i can say is, appreciate your financial situation you are in... because this one sucks a lot... and I cannot wait to get back to Australia and have no worries about my next paycheck and not need to live pay check to paycheck.

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