And I am right, by virtue of being me. 
> Well, there are almost always story conceits, and while everyone has a different tolerance level for them, you can always find reason to pick something apart.
|
The problem, in that case, is that it's this story itself that's not only deliberately calling attention to the problematic nature of its own conceits, but is also exacerbating them. As many issues as I had with Straczynski (and I was far from his biggest fan), if he had started a story like this, I'd suspect that it was being used to highlight the moral compromises of Peter's past behavior, as an excuse to get him going on a new track. However, since Tom Brevoort's "Spider-Manifesto" (no, really, that's what he called it) explicitly outlined what Marvel wants Spider-Man's status quo to be from now on - ie. forever fixed in a state of emulating the '70s and '80s stories in all aspects - I can say for a fact that this will not lead to any lessons learned, or bad behavior changed, for Peter.
> I'm not sure how this is an attempt to modernize Peter, as the photography job has almost always been an aspect of his character.
|
Marvel's press releases and creator interviews have gone out of their way to compare Peter's new method of practicing his photography to that of the more aggressive modern paparazzi who stalk celebrities, with one promotional blurb outright stating, "Who's the scummiest paparazzo in New York City? That's right; it's none other than Peter Parker!"
> I didn't read any of it, so I'm probably not one to talk, but while the science teacher idea seems to make a great deal of sense, it sounds like a horrible idea from a pure entertainment standpoint.
|
It certainly wasn't perfect (Straczynski wound up writing a couple of stories that read like ABC After-School Specials), but I found it one hell of a lot more interesting than anything I'd seen at the Daily Bugle in decades.
> It gives Peter a job that roots him in one spot for the entire day, with an extraordinarily limited sphere of influence.
|
So does almost any other job, which is why so many superheroes tend to do the majority of their superheroing between the hours of 5 p.m. to 9 a.m.
> Admittedly, he had some of that as a student, but if we're going to apply the realism brush to the photographer job, then it should have to apply to this one too... and teachers put in more of their day to school than students do.
|
Straczynski managed a partial patch on this one by making Peter a substitute teacher, which made his schedule slightly more erratic, while also emphasizing his money troubles. As for the realism, I guess my biggest problem here is that the current stories seem to want it both ways, in that they're portraying Peter's photojournalism in a more deliberately sleazy way in order to seem more "realistic," and yet, I guarantee you that, if they ever respond to anyone calling them out on it, they'll say, "Geez, it's a superhero story! Lighten up! It's not supposed to be realistic!" And in that sense, once again, this is a microcosm of everything that's wrong with Marvel (and DC) right now, because as with Civil War (and Identity Crisis), they want it both ways, so that they can be applauded for their "real-world relevance," without actually being judged by any standard of storytelling higher than that of your average Super Friends episode.
> Further more, it seems like it was a horrible choice for Peter to endanger his students, as he always seemed to have severely crazy psychopaths chasing after him.
|
I thought this was precisely what a secret identity was supposed to prevent, though? Because, you know, if dangerous people are going to target those around your civilian identity, regardless of whether they know that identity or not, then there's really no point in having a secret identity to begin with. Indeed, one of the things I hated about the ending of the first Spider-man movie was the idea that, even with a secret identity, Peter could never have a life of his own, as long as he was a superhero. What a horrible message to send to kids.
> Plus, by rooting the source of drama back in a classroom, it ups the coincidence factor necessary to tell stories. From Peter's younger days, one would think that a good 80% of the population of New York must suffer tragedies that lead them to become villains, heroes or just plain dead... especially since it happened to everyone Peter knew in High School.
|
The fact of the matter is, no matter what a superhero's primary setting is, it's going to seem hopelessly contrived, by modern storytelling standards, to have even a statistical majority of their enemies coming from that same place (in retrospect, setting up so many of his characters in New York City is probably one of the worst things that Stan Lee ever did, especially since he was knowingly tying them all together as a "shared universe" of characters from the start). Now, you can either hang a lampshade on this state of affairs (Buffy fought so many evil forces in Sunnydale because it was the site of the Hellmouth), or you can have your character go out looking for trouble, which pretty much renders their primary setting irrelevant from that standpoint anyway.
> Yes, a journalist career does harken back to Superman... but it's a well thought out choice for adventure comics, as the job puts the hero in the right place at the right time far more convincingly than most any other civilian occupation would.
|
The problem, though, is that there have already been so many superheroes who work as journalists, including the founder and most famous archetype of the entire superhero genre, that if any superhero other than Superman is going to be a journalist, he'd better have more of an individuated reason than, "Well, it seems to have worked out for so many other superheroes," because by resorting to that logic, you're actually giving me less reasons to read about that particular superhero, rather than more.
|
