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Thursday, August 28, 2008
Monday, August 25, 2008
A Brand New Day is losing it's polish, is it Gold or Dust
I want to point out something here. I grew up on Spider-Man, I learned to read from his comics, and now a college grad (finishing up that college thing ate up my time to post here) I have always loved Spider-Man. So when I hear about the good old days of Spider-Man, my thoughts don't run to the Stan Lee days, but rather to a time when Spider-Man was already married. As Spider-Fans my senior remember Spider-Man in High School with them or in college as they were, I remember him being a teacher through my high school and college years. I remember him dealing with 9/11 when Captain America wouldn't. The way I know Spider-Man is from the last 20 (well really more like 12, since I could buy comics consistently) years, and putting him back beyond that brings up a 'feeling' of Spider-Man that was from 30 years ago, for me that's a pre-fetus stage.
My initial shock in reaction to "One more Day" was more than enough to keep me away from the "Brand New Day" line. For months I was buying piles of comics, but I felt I was missing Spider-Man. Though to quell this, through fate, a hard cover of the first 6 issues of this "Brand New Day" ended up in my hot little hands.
So I back Tacked and have read up to the most recent issue, the Start of "New Ways to Die" which sucks because after reading most of this in a day I now have to wait for new issues. Though the best part of the Spider-Man relaunch is that the title is printed thrice monthly. So I don't have to wait long, unlike for every other book on the shelf, save Trinity. Unlike Trinity, ASM (Amazing Spider-Man for those of you that would like to win a No-Prize someday) is written like a TV show, with a group of writers rotating the head seat for an arc, and rotating artists as well, trying to keep one on an arc at a time. But with the Sub-plots it gets mingled, which is great for continuing readers, but kills the option of people picking up a random comic and not getting lost.
So, super the comics gets published a lot, but why? Well these Spider-stories are chock full of Web shooter cliffhangers, but more importantly there is a supporting cast! This is cool because he hasn't had one in years, except his now never-wife, MJ who has only made a brief appearance since the deal with the devil. Now that I've read this type of ASM, I see why people at Marvel Editorial have been trying to get rid of her for years, she kills the book. White Pete getting married he has little reason to go out, or find a job since his wife can be the bread winner. Also he didn't have any friends since apparently married people don't have friends. Now Pete has these, including his best friend.
That's right Harry is back, from beyond the grave, or not because apparently he never died, in passing he was still the Goblin at some point, but forgot. Plus Harry is now dating some really attractive chick that Pete is developing the hots for, but what superhero has time for dating right?
But the best stories still focus on the action, and not so much the drama, as hearing about the Paker Luck (which is more ironic than normal bad luck) can get stale, except when they played off it with "Par-Kour" luck when some crazy acrobatic/ parkour expert made a heist. Someone complained in the letter to the editor pages about the the sport being misrepresented but, I'm hoping they overlook it and bring that character back, she was cool! Breathed some life of the new century into the book, that is lacking among all this focus on the old type of Spidey. Which is one of my main complaints since this is suppose to be a "Brand New Day" why does it feel like too much has returned to the past?
But they have been fixing up this problem as they go along. While starting with Parker in his classic situation as a photographer at the Daily Bugle, Parker quicly gave JJJ a heart attack, brining in a new publisher, re-dubbing the paper the DB. This moved many of the newspaper cast from the DB, to Front Line, which ties into another part of Marvel. This is good because Spider-Man hasn't been a part of the Marvel universe leaving too many questions up for grab, that should be addressed in this new arc. What happened during the Civil War? What happened with the Goblins, Venom and many other classic ASM villains now that history has been rewritten.?
But while there are many questions up for grabs, this old time Spider-Fan is enjoying the ride.
My initial shock in reaction to "One more Day" was more than enough to keep me away from the "Brand New Day" line. For months I was buying piles of comics, but I felt I was missing Spider-Man. Though to quell this, through fate, a hard cover of the first 6 issues of this "Brand New Day" ended up in my hot little hands.
So I back Tacked and have read up to the most recent issue, the Start of "New Ways to Die" which sucks because after reading most of this in a day I now have to wait for new issues. Though the best part of the Spider-Man relaunch is that the title is printed thrice monthly. So I don't have to wait long, unlike for every other book on the shelf, save Trinity. Unlike Trinity, ASM (Amazing Spider-Man for those of you that would like to win a No-Prize someday) is written like a TV show, with a group of writers rotating the head seat for an arc, and rotating artists as well, trying to keep one on an arc at a time. But with the Sub-plots it gets mingled, which is great for continuing readers, but kills the option of people picking up a random comic and not getting lost.
So, super the comics gets published a lot, but why? Well these Spider-stories are chock full of Web shooter cliffhangers, but more importantly there is a supporting cast! This is cool because he hasn't had one in years, except his now never-wife, MJ who has only made a brief appearance since the deal with the devil. Now that I've read this type of ASM, I see why people at Marvel Editorial have been trying to get rid of her for years, she kills the book. White Pete getting married he has little reason to go out, or find a job since his wife can be the bread winner. Also he didn't have any friends since apparently married people don't have friends. Now Pete has these, including his best friend.
That's right Harry is back, from beyond the grave, or not because apparently he never died, in passing he was still the Goblin at some point, but forgot. Plus Harry is now dating some really attractive chick that Pete is developing the hots for, but what superhero has time for dating right?
But the best stories still focus on the action, and not so much the drama, as hearing about the Paker Luck (which is more ironic than normal bad luck) can get stale, except when they played off it with "Par-Kour" luck when some crazy acrobatic/ parkour expert made a heist. Someone complained in the letter to the editor pages about the the sport being misrepresented but, I'm hoping they overlook it and bring that character back, she was cool! Breathed some life of the new century into the book, that is lacking among all this focus on the old type of Spidey. Which is one of my main complaints since this is suppose to be a "Brand New Day" why does it feel like too much has returned to the past?
But they have been fixing up this problem as they go along. While starting with Parker in his classic situation as a photographer at the Daily Bugle, Parker quicly gave JJJ a heart attack, brining in a new publisher, re-dubbing the paper the DB. This moved many of the newspaper cast from the DB, to Front Line, which ties into another part of Marvel. This is good because Spider-Man hasn't been a part of the Marvel universe leaving too many questions up for grab, that should be addressed in this new arc. What happened during the Civil War? What happened with the Goblins, Venom and many other classic ASM villains now that history has been rewritten.?
But while there are many questions up for grabs, this old time Spider-Fan is enjoying the ride.
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