Tales of the Parodyverse - I remember that... although I may need some help on some of

Post By

Visionary

In Reply To

CrazySugarFreakBoy!

Member Since: Sun Jan 04, 2004
Posts: 1,235

Subj: I remember that... although I may need some help on some of these other ones...
Posted: Sat Jan 12, 2008 at 11:31:33 am EST

Reply Subj: Historic Epic Fail: Bill Jemas & Marvel get in "Trouble"
Posted: Sat Jan 12, 2008 at 04:52:49 am EST (Viewed 606 times)

> Working backwards through published history, here's the list I've come up with:

Gwen Stacy had consensual sex with Norman Osborn and gave birth to their hyper-age-accelerated children, whom Norman raised in Europe. Thus, Gwen was abducted by the Green Goblin because of their connection to one another, rather than because of her connection to Spider-Man.

Honestly, with this one and the Spider-totem thing, I don't understand why anyone has much sympathy for What's-his-Babylon-5-guy.

Aunt May tells Peter Parker that Uncle Ben had left the house the night he was killed by the burglar that Spider-Man had let go, because she and Ben had gotten into a fight. Thus, even after Peter tells May that he had let the burglar go, she considers herself just as responsible for Ben's death as Peter does.

This one loses me. One, I'm not sure what you're describing... and two, if I am getting the gist of it, I'm not sure why it would be such an awful revelation. Needless, perhaps, but not seemingly awful.

The radioactive spider that bit Peter Parker was actually acting on behalf of a magical "Spider-Totem," that chose Peter because he was picked on by his peers, which therefore made him "a predator."

Did the actual story have such creepy shades of Columbine as that summary suggests?

Spider-Man rescues Mary Jane Watson from a kidnapper who's been keeping her captive for months, ever since he'd been told that she supposedly died in a plane explosion.

What's hilarious to me in reading through this list is that they never learn. Here's a wild and crazy idea, Marvel... think ahead, or don't kill major characters.

Really, I think the best solution is to have someone who is actually fond of a character put them away on the shelf when it's decided they need to be removed from a book. Then they'll be packed away carefully, and usually with a story that makes fans eager to see their return down the line, rather than rolling their eyes at how lame the story was, and how the character will just be back anyway.

John Byrne's "Chapter One." All of it. 'Nuff said.

Indeed.

The "Aunt May" whom we thought we'd seen die in Amazing Spider-Man #400 was actually a "genetically modified actress" who was paid by Norman Osborn to die. No, really.

It could happen.

Ben Reilly is revealed as Peter Parker's clone, after it had previously been asserted that the Peter we'd known and read about for close to 20 years was the clone.

I'd forgive retcons that are used to fix major, mind-numbingly bad mistakes, but not if it's incredibly obvious that it's a mistake at the time you're making it. Then you're just an idiot for not leaving yourself a back door escape plan. Chalk this one up with Spidey's Civil War unmasking.

>
>

Peter Parker's secret agent parents, whom we'd been told were dead since Amazing Fantasy #15, turn out to have been overseas instead - and let me just add, that seems to happen a lot to people who know Spider-Man - except, no, wait, THEY WERE ROBOTS CREATED BY HARRY OSBORN ALL ALONG!!! DOUBLE-RETCON, BITCHES!!!

I groan every time I hear that Peter's parents were spies. That alone was a dumb decision, no matter who made it. Robot doubles really doesn't seem any worse, truth be told. (But, Harry Osborn made them? Huh.)

However, as much as most of the rest of these attempted retcons get talked about by the fans, there's one that's arguably at least as huge and as stupid as all the rest, that most of fandom seems to have forgotten about, and which (along with the "Clone Saga") proves the lie behind the current conventional wisdom that the fans will simply take whatever retcons Marvel attempts to foist upon Spider-Man.

> And just in case you can't do the math in your head - because apparently, neither could Jemas, Quesada, Millar or anyone else at Marvel, who contributed to or approved of this story - since Trouble sets May's age as 17, when Peter was born, that means that, in the original Stan Lee and Steve Ditko issues of Amazing Spider-Man, in which Peter himself was just about 17, the frail, wrinkled, white-haired old woman that you saw raising him as his aunt was supposedly, by NuMarvel's reckoning, 34 years old.

Heh... That I hadn't thought about. Really, it was another bad shock project from Jemas/Quesada/Millar, all three of whom have long held the belief that any attention is a wonderful thing. Their efforts to make controversy failed here though... I'd say surprisingly, but c'mon... look at the covers to these issues (photo covers designed by Quesada):

http://www.comicbookdb.com/title_covergallery.php?ID=870

They really thought those would sell? Really?