Goodbye, Spider-Man?

[thehefner]

Via box_in_the_box: one comic fan eloquently explains why he's stopped reading his favorite character, Spider-Man.

Y'know... sometimes, I actually forget that I used to be a huge Spider-Man fan when I was a kid.



The very first comics I ever read were Issues 2 and 3 of The Untold Legend of the Batman (both prizes from the BATMAN breakfast cereal), and the second part of "A Lonely Place of Dying." These Batman comics featured Jim Aparo art, as well as Two-Face, so I think it's safe to say that those were a deeply formative experience for me at age eight-ish.

But the one other comic I vividly remember from childhood? The one that might have been my second, or even first ever comic? A digest-sized reprint AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #59, 60, and 61, a Lee/Romita story featuring the Kingpin brainwashing Captain Stacy.

That one... didn't stay with me. I'm not a hardcore Spider-Man fan, nor so I devote an inordinate amount of my time obsessing over Wilson Fisk's every appearance and iteration.

And yet, by the time I was in fifth grade and I actually started getting comics on a regular basis, Spider-Man was my book of choice. Part of it was that I did reach current Two-Face levels of obsession with Dr. Octopus, for whom I still have a very soft spot. But part of it was also just the quality of the Spider-Man comics at the time.

Unfortunately, I was getting into Spider-Man at one of the worst times: right on the cusp of the infamous Clone Saga. I jumped ship early on, becoming a hardcore DC fan with Batman and Green Lantern (Bring back Hal! Down with Ron Marz and Kevin Dooley! Kyle is only interesting when written by Grant Morrison, and even then, ehhh! Time to renew my H.E.A.T. membership!), and didn't get back into Spider-Man or even Marvel in general until J. Michael Straczynski's run.

Unfortunately, even my fond feelings towards that (imperfect) run are sullied by the knowledge that they led to "The Green Goblin impregnates Gwen Stacy, and their offspring fight Spider-Man." It was at that point where I'd already given up on Spider-Man, even before Civil War, One More Day, Brand New Day, and any of the crap since, all that way up to the camel-breaking straw in the above linked article, One Moment In Time.

For the most part, I don't care. All I can do is shrug and hope that the big wheel of comics will keep spinning until Joey Q no longer has his way and we can get truly great Spider-Man comics again.

But lately, I've decided to track down a bunch of those stories I loved from childhood. Namely, the ones written by J.M. DeMatteis. And over the past week, this author's work has single-handedly reminded me why I was a Spider-Man fan in the first place.

I've been thinking about going into why I love DeMatteis at length here, but honestly, I imagine only about three or four of you have even read this entry this far, so I dunno who's really care. Heck, since I imagine so few are reading this anyway, I'll sneak a confession in while I'm at it: I'm increasingly feeling like I have no outlets for my geekery, that I'm having a harder and harder time finding people who care, or even know what I'm talking about.

If I had it my way, man, J.M. DeMatteis' run on Spider-Man would be as well-known and celebrated as JMS', Mark Millar's, and even Stan Lee's! In a better world, "The Child Within" would be in print as a true Spider-Man classic, a worthy sequel to "Kraven's Last Hunt!" But it's not, and no one seems to know of it unless they read it upon first release. And we'll never see those stories reprinted now, since Harry's whole arc up to his death has been retconned out.

So after six or so years of apathy, I finally find myself getting pissed off about what they've done to Spidey. Not just the character, but his whole world of stories, particularly the ones that shaped me as a kid and can still move me today. The ones that few know about, and most others will never discover unless they scour the back issue bins like I did.

But if nothing else, at least I've found those stories again. And in doing so, I'm able to reread others that I've loved, like the Erik Larsen Sinister Six stories, or Gerry Conway's "Parallel Lives," and especially the work of DeMatteis. And in rereading them, I'm actually being reminded all over again just why this die-hard DC boy had such a soft spot for Spidey's world.

I'll just have to hold on to those memories until such time as I can actually enjoy current Spider-Man comics again. So unlike the article's author, I'm less "goodbye," and more "till we meet again, webslinger."

Comments

[kagome654.livejournal.com]

J.M. DeMatteis is pretty underrated, even considering the praise 'Kraven's Last Hunt' receives. I've heard his writing dismissed for being melodramatic and relying heavily on pop psychology, but I've always been immensely fond of his work. He is the reason Harry Osborn is was one of my favourite comic book supporting characters.

I'd post 'The Child Within' at scans daily, but my scanner has decided to crap out on me (plus I haven't looked into how to post images on dreamwidth). The story managed to succeed despite the presence of Vermin, which is rather impressive.

You're mean, stop picking on Kyle

[thehefner.livejournal.com]

Melodramatic, I can understand, but I feel like, damn, he writes melodrama better than most. Honestly, I think it's because of him that I love melodrama in my superhero comics, with characters hashing out confrontations over personal issues between fisticuffs and explosions.

Awww. I dunno if I'd have it in me to post all of "Child Within" myself, but I'm certainly considering it, along with "Funeral Arrangements," which actually made me care about the Vulture. Hell, he made me care about Vermin! I always thought his inclusion in "Kraven's Last Hunt" was the weakest, most out of place bit. But now, it fits into his whole grand plan, along with Harry's story. I'm now also looking into JMD's Captain America run, which introduced Vermin in the first place, to get the full story.

Sorry! I don't feel that way now. I was just trying to give voice to fourteen-year-old me at the time in a self-deprecating manner. No, I honestly like Kyle! ... Now! That Tomasi is writing him!

Honestly, I adore Tomasi's Kyle. I was totally flabbergasted to discover a Kyle fan on scans_daily the other day who haaaaaaaaaaaaates Tomasi's Kyle. I'm like, what?! Tomasi's Kyle is the first Kyle I've ever really related to, which I understand was always the main selling point to Kyle's intented creation in the first place!

[kagome654.livejournal.com]

I love me some melodrama too, which is why criticizing DeMatteis in such a way never really bothered me (my reaction typically being 'Yeah, so?').

I'm only teasing when it comes to Kyle, I gathered that was (mostly) young Hefner's anger.

I was totally flabbergasted to discover a Kyle fan on scans_daily the other day who haaaaaaaaaaaaates Tomasi's Kyle.

Weeeelll....I like Tomasi's Kyle, but I do find him a little less fun to read than early Kyle. I liked insecure, dorky and sometimes whiny Kyle. I guess my boy is all grown up, but sometimes I miss the old days *sniff*

I do agree that they initially tried way too hard to make Kyle cool and easy to relate to. 'He lives above a coffee shop! Isn't that hip (or whatever you kids are calling it these days...)!?'

[thehefner.livejournal.com]

I feel like melodrama is a bit of a dirty word too. But I'm not sure there's any other honest way to put stories like those. Which, I realize, are some of my very favorite types of superhero stories, when done well.

Aw, but I like a more mature Kyle who can see right through zombie!Jade's seductions and go toe-to-toe with Guy Gardner snark-wise. Really, as far as I was concerned back then, everything that Kyle was doing for everybody else was unnecessary for me because I already had Spider-Man and Jack Knight for those aspects.

I do agree that they initially tried way too hard to make Kyle cool and easy to relate to.

There was a brief period where I was referring to Kyle was "Poochie Parker." I thought this was the height of wit. To make matters worse, that was only about a year ago too.

[box-in-the-box.livejournal.com]

You've read The Life of Reilly, about the Clone Saga, yes?

What I would love is to see a similar account of OMD/BND/OMIT in a few years from now.

[thehefner.livejournal.com]

I haven't read that actually, and good lord, that's more reading than I'm comfortable doing via a screen. Hopefully he'll actually get a proper book published. Are there any particularly interesting tidbits behind the scenes that I should check out? Or is the whole thing just great, period?

Man, here's hoping we see that. I dunno if we will as long as Joey Q is in charge. I'd give it fifteen, twenty years before we might see something like that.

[box-in-the-box.livejournal.com]

Quesada has already been EiC for a decade, longer than any other Marvel EiC. He's living on borrowed time as it is.

And it's worth reading just for how much of a clusterfuck everything was behind the scenes. It's a prime example of how, whenever editorial claims to have a plan, they should not be trusted.

[thehefner.livejournal.com]

So are we just waiting for the Disney overlords to reach down from their magic kingdom in the sky to flick Quesada aside?

[box-in-the-box.livejournal.com]

Sooner or later, like all corporate owners of companies with senior staff members who were there before them, they're going to decide that they don't like the fact that he has seniority over them, especially since a younger EiC would be cheaper, or they're going to want someone more pliable to their wills, or they're going to say, "Holy shit, these comics' sales are plummeting are you're not doing shit to stop it!"

[calliopes_pen]

Unfortunately, I was getting into Spider-Man at one of the worst times: right on the cusp of the infamous Clone Saga.

That's when I started reading, too. First Spider-Man comic I picked up was when he was in jail because of Kaine for a murder he didn't commit. It had some sort of special cover. I lasted through the entirety of that mess, bought a ton of back issues, and finally stopped reading Spider-Man when Ben Reilly died.

Came back and tried again, only to pick up an issue where Spider-Man turned into a giant spider and gave birth to himself. I fled.

I tried one last time, only to hit the storyline with Gwen and Norman sleeping together, and suddenly having fully grown kids. I haven't been back since then, but I read scans of it on scans_daily.

(The last two might need to be switched, because I don't remember the order they were published in.)

[thehefner.livejournal.com]

Oh man, I know the issue you mean! I know the very cover! Wow, you got into it just as it was ramping up!

Man. It's still a strange thought to me that people could get into Spider-Man at such a point that Ben Reilly could be their Spidey.

Giant spider... gave birth to...? OH! Do you mean The Other? Man, THAT'S the other big storyline that encouraged me to jump ship, after I'd already gotten back into Spidey via the JMS run! Wow, you entirely bypassed the run that got me back into Spider-Man and jumped right back into another crappy era! Your timing just stinks! :)

Have you read "Kraven's Last Hunt"?

[calliopes_pen]

I think the cover involved him sitting on the wall of a jail cell? It was something like that, anyway.

Out of a twisted sense of nostalgia, I almost bought volume 1 of a giant trade paperback of The Clone Saga I saw at the bookstore the other day. It was easy to resist that.

Giant spider... gave birth to...? OH! Do you mean The Other? Man, THAT'S the other big storyline that encouraged me to jump ship, after I'd already gotten back into Spidey via the JMS run!

I think that's the one, yes.

Kraven's Last Hunt was one that was out of stock for a long stretch, whenever I wanted to find it. Right before I stopped reading Spider-Man, around the time one reliable comic book store closed without warning, I managed to locate it.

However, during the time of the Clone Saga, I think I bought ever single trade paperback they had out. Venom related, Spider-Man related. Every What If back issue with Spider-Man. Dozens of older issues of each series. Every issue of The Untold Tales of Spider-Man. Every special issue of Alpha and Omega during the height of the Clone Saga insanity. Even the humor issues where they told what to do with the clone if it died. (Car pool lane, coat rack...)

Even random guest appearances from other comics, just to keep track of it all.

I went to one of the trades for Ultimate Spider-Man recently, because I thought that might be slightly saner than the Clone Saga or The Other or the Green Goblin babies. First one I flipped through: "What? Gwen was killed by Carnage? Now Carnage is Gwen?!" Yes, I really do have rotten timing. *laughs*

[thehefner.livejournal.com]

Is this your cover?



As for Ultimate Spider-Man being saner, it actually is for the most part, I think. But honestly, I could never get into it, because right from the start, I was annoyed like whoa that the Green Goblin was turned into a hulk-like mutant goblin monster that throws fireballs. It got better once Norman got rolling, because Norman himself is always fun, and I know scales and pixie boots don't work anymore, but still... blah. It's just wrong.

[calliopes_pen]

No, it wasn't that one. I headed over to Mile High Comics to scan through all the covers of that time period. I think it was Spider-Man #57. He's sitting on a wall. The bars were part of some sort of special cover.
This cover.

ETA: I seem to recall finding and buying Amazing Spider-Man #400 at the same time, since it was laying beside it at the grocery store. However, I read Spider-Man #57 first.

[thehefner.livejournal.com]

Egad! Fail! Was it part of the same storyline?

[calliopes_pen]

According to Spider-Fan.org and Sam Ruby's website, it seems so. Amazing Spider-Man #400 was first, and continued into Spider-Man #57. The latter was a continuation of two storylines. It was part 1 of Aftershocks, and part 2 of The Parker Legacy.

[night-train-fm.livejournal.com]

I find OMD as headache-inducing as anyone else, but I've been keeping up with the post-OMD stuff since "American Son" and (generally) enjoying it (I'll have to look up "The Child Within" sometime).

Unfortunately, this means I got suckered into picking up two issues of OMIT. I have no-one to blame but myself.

On a happier note, Shattered Dimensions. 90s-series Spidey voices Noir Spidey and Spectacular Spidey voices Ultimate Spidey. I am so in.

[thehefner.livejournal.com]

I've been tempted to try, now and again, but the prospect of a single douchebag version of Peter isn't attractive. And I've been seriously turned off by the fact that they brought Kraven back (and killed off supporting characters to do so, a very old and tired meme in comics), and that the Lizard ate his own son to evolve and let loose the lizard rapey parts of other people's brains.

I just woke up after a long and eventful day, but hopefully, as you've been keeping up with the events in comics (I think?), you'll understand what I'm talking about.

Whaaa? It has 90's Spidey doing the voice? Man, I hated that cartoon for looking cheap, sounding cheap, and just generally feeling like a whole cheap compromise for Fox Kids censors in ways that the Batman show never was ("I must... have... plasma!!!"), but it's clearly embedded enough in my childhood for that news to give me a buzz of nostalgia. Neato!

[night-train-fm.livejournal.com]

You've just mentioned every reason I had for saying "generally", especially the bit about killing supporting characters in Grim Hunt, so I'll skip to the nostalgia.

I liked Spider-Man: TAS growing up, but even then I had to wonder why everyone from the Kingpin's guards to the cops had lasers. It's weird that they had to give so much ground to the censors when the Batman show (and the DCAU as a whole) never did.

Shattered Dimensions: You get to play as four different Spideys, and Mysterio is played by David Kaye...doing his Beast-Wars-Megatron voice. That's like 90s geekery critical mass.

[thehefner.livejournal.com]

And all to bring back Kraven! Kraven! Why the hell did we want to shit all over that story?

The censors at Fox Kids were ridiculous. I remember the Nightcrawler episode of X-Men, where German villagers all had laser canons.

[night-train-fm.livejournal.com]

"where German villagers all had laser cannons"

Wow, I must have blocked that part of it from my memory.

[philippos42.livejournal.com]

Wait! You were in H.E.A.T.? :considers defriending you, decides to read to the end of the post: Seriously, though, GL fandom scares me. Wonder Woman fans are all over the place, but more civil somehow; GL since "Emerald Twilight" is just a giant gaping wound.

Marc DeMatteis is OK. Check out his Greenberg the Vampire. Though I think I prefer '80's Spidey: early PAD (despite the offing of Jean DeWolff); the handful of Ann Nocenti stories; the arc where MJ revealed she knew Petey was Spider-Man (DeFalco); & then where he proposed (Michelinie, who unfortunately also wrote the first Venom story, boo hiss). I think the business of saying, "Oh good lord what are Marvel doing to Spidey now?" has been going on since before I got into it, maybe since Gerry Conway's run; not that that justifies the current snarl.

[thehefner.livejournal.com]

H.E.A.T. got a bad rep, mainly thanks to a Wizard article which made it look like they were the ones who were sending death threats to Ron Marz and whatnot. That wasn't true, and the article's author actually apologized for the error. To the best of my knowledge, none of those guys fit the profile of the psychos who did that.

That said, ugh, ALL of GL fandom at that point was (and to some degree still is) one of the angriest, most contentious fandoms out there. I take it that the "giant gaping wound" comment is in regards to Hal fans, but it definitely applied to Kyle fans too. And then there were Guy fans, who were pretty much ALL trolls!

It's why I stopped being involved in the fandom, particularly because, yeah, I knew at some point that Hal had to come back. But for a while, they were my first ever fandom community, and it was great to be a part of that, especially after not having any such geek outlet IRL.

Micheline made Venom, but he also made Doc Ock a badass magnificent bastard, so we're square on that count at least. I should check out more of his stuff.

[philippos42.livejournal.com]

Oh, I just avoid GL now, because it's a gaping wound for me.

I really wished Hal & Carol had been married off & retired back in the 1980's, & the book could be about John & various aliens. Instead we got Carol becoming (a very unsympathetic at that point) Star Sapphire again, then killing Katma; Arisia (creepily) aging herself up to mack on Hal; a bunch of GL's losing their rings for cockamamie reasons to make it the widowed John all-Hal-all-the-time show; then Coast City blowing up, Hal going nuts, blah blah blah.

Once it was about Kyle, I just wanted them to move on & stop talking about great Hal had been, since the lionization of Hal seemed to keep popping up in bits I thought were badly done, & he'd been losing his mind off & on for a while. I think he was actually getting back to OK after the Action Comics Weekly stuff ended, but then there was the betrayal of the Corps, & Arisia dying, & ...yeah.

If I had been editor, I probably would have had Mordru or somebody blip Hal out of existence. Maybe the whole Corps, make Kyle some guy who got Alan's ring; because DC didn't seem interested in playing the Corps as something in its own right. When was it last actually stable enough to survive one of its terrestrial members' bad moods?

[yaseen101.livejournal.com]

Great, now I'm inspired to do my own post which will basically a longer version of this comment.

Just yesterday a Spider-related incident inspired me to actually draw a cartoon strip of it;

Basically after finishing off buying everything Mom asked me to, I went to the Comic Section of the book store. Due to not wanting to burn out all the money she gave me and my desire to save something, picked up ‘Tintin & The Black Island*’ along with the Marvel Pocket Book which collects the Lee/Romita era and a few other early Spider-man comics. I walked around took a turn and had moment, I’m not sure how to describe it, it was akin to a hammer nailing a pin, I thought;

‘Do I really want to buy a comic book about a character who sold his marriage to the devil. Should I spend whatever limited cash I have to buy comics (and a very limited amount of comics at that)on a character that’s now being nothing short of ‘man whore/child’ and is now on the butt end of a groveling man-child’s wet fantatsy’.
(yes my head isn’t exactly the nicest place to be around)
I put the comic back on the shelf and bought the ‘Iron Man’ Pocket Book instead. I left the book store with the thoughts ‘Omg. We’ve reached that point now haven’t we?’ and ‘I should totally make this into a cartoon strip’.
My actual feelings were well…I don’t know I just didn’t *care*, I was in the same whimsical mode as I was when I went in as I came out.
Ok so let’s review:
At the beginning to the 00’s, I was around 11 or 12, I was a huge Batman fan, I would not read comics aside from the Bat-books and that’s *if* Bruce Wayne was in it and Batman was prominently in it (thankfully over the years that part of me had completely moved out) but there were two comics I would read that were my guilty pleasures; Spider-Girl and Ult. Spider-man.
The former I didn’t realize how much an impact it had on me when I read it as a kid and one of the few times I made a post of scans_daily it was a moderate good bye post when her series ended, which I spent at least 4 days obsessively putting together while having all the courtesy and social courtesy of an African Leopard at anyone who dared to disturb me.
The latter was one of those comics I would read over and over again and I would buy any issue of it I could find. My happiest comic book memory is when one of Mom’s friend gave me some comics as a present and one of them just happened to fill up a hole in my collection. Stretching further, I even admit to have loved the Byrne’s ‘Spider-man: Chapter One’ stuff.
At that time Spider-man was my favorite character to drawn, I was a DC boy and a Batman fan through and through but Spidey always had that special place in my heart. He was my favorite character to draw and my favorite one to imitate as a kid.
When I was about to make the jump to mainstream comics, OMD/BND happened and followed through this stupidity through box’s post and s_d.
And to drive this home?
Yesterday was literally the first time in FIVE YEARS that I got a chance to buy comics, not due to money or parental issues but because I could not buy it my home country due to lack of demand for it and it wasn’t until I moved to India that I finally found a place I could legitimately buy comics.
It seems that I’ve somehow subconsciously removed whatever love I had for the character. It’s depressing really. The only time I ever remember having *truly* felt like that void was filling up was when I watched Spectacular Spider-man with my sister and I was back to being 6 years old for a short while. Though now it’s ended and I’ve reverted to back to status quo to simply not-caring about Spider-man.
Jesus, even I didn’t realize how fucking depressing this is until I started typing this.
I will post that cartoon on s_d and on my lj (so box can comment) along with a few others I want to show off so badly.

*inappropriate rant; why are Tintin comics so FUCKING EXPENSIVE on this side of the globe?