Spoilers behind the cut.
Seriously, if you look at this and haven't read Amazing Spider-Man #512 the storyline will be spoiled for you. I can't even discuss it without spoiling it. You have been warned.
Okay, uhm... Is this for real? These guys seem to think this is for real. Are they right? Jeff Lester over at The Savage Critic is treating it like this is real and not a gigantic hoax. Is this an actual, honest to God J. Michael Straczynski storyline in Amazing Spider-Man?
To be honest, I haven't been reading Spider-Man faithfully for a long while now: the last Spider-Man book I bought was the trade paperbacks of Ultimate Spider-Man for the Mark Bagley art, and I stopped reading them for the Bendis writing. I'm not a Spidey fanatic: I'm not like the guys on that message board who are absolutely frothing at the mouth here. I'm not invested in Gwen Stacy, or the storyline involving her death at the hands of the Green Goblin, enough to get upset by this.
It does sound kind of moronic, though. I've always wondered that Norman Osborn got anyone to sleep with him in the first place in order to create Harry: if the story was really about how Harry was in fact an artificially-aged clone of Norman that came out messed up because the cloning process didn't work right, I could believe that a lot more readily than the idea that a middle-aged Norman Osborn could get someone to have sex with him without rohypnol or some Goblin version of it. Add in some teenaged kids born from the illicit union between Gwen and Norman and we're in full-bore lunacy land.
Part of me is thinking this has to be some kind of clone scam. It has to be J. Michael Straczynski poking fun at the Clone Saga in some sly fashion by having Norman have spent his time in Europe raising clones made with his DNA and that of Gwen. Maybe he even teamed up with the Jackal... he knows how to make clones and fast-age them, that might make some kind of insane sense.
What does it say about this comic book that I find the idea I just postulated as more plausible than the one supposedly being introduced in the book? Is it just me? Is this a great idea or just really dumb? Someone help me out. Like I said, I'm not tremendously emotionally invested in Spider-Man, never was, really. But if you just read my long Crisis post you'll have read what I said about Grant Morrison's run on Doom Patrol and how it went in a totally new direction without invalidating the past, and I think Straczynski had been on a pretty good track towards doing that up until now (I've been picking the book up here and there, was considering subscribing to it for his characterization of Peter Parker) with his having brought Aunt May into the fold, identity wise, and his working on Pete and Mary Jane's relationship. This, however... it just seems dumb, ultimately. It steals a lot of thunder from old storylines, makes you question the motivation of Mary Jane in her subsequent post-Gwen's death actions towards Peter, makes you wonder if Gwen was brain damaged in some fashion... I don't know, maybe I'm missing the genius here. I'm sure one of you can explain this to me so that I understand what a good idea this is, this total disregard of some thirty years of Spider-Man comic books that doesn't even make a whole lot of sense if you think about it for ten seconds.
I could be wrong though. Maybe it's a brilliant idea.
Posted by Matt Rossi at October 6, 2004 2:43 AM
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It's the Osborn hypno-hair. No woman can resist it.
And to be honest, I always figured Gwen was kinda brain-damaged anyway. Like most of the women in Spider-Man's life, if you go back and read the issues, you realize she was completely crazy.
Is this a great idea or just really dumb?
The idea as it currently stands is pretty dumb, but the story is on part four of five. I think the whole point of the story is that he's screwing with the readers to get them agitated over something that will turn out to be nothing.
No use getting upset about stuff like this until another writer starts basing stories on it. Then it's starting to become part of the canon.
Even I'm not old enough to have experienced the Goblin/GS storyline firsthand, but my adolescence WAS timed just right to experience it real-time through 'Marvel Tales' (which reprinted great swaths of not-that-old Amazing S-Man). I am invested in the original storyline and characters. I am also completely NOT invested in current comics, other than the blogsphere (which is kind of sad and voyeuristic in its own right, I suppose). Somewhere out there, a cogent observer much younger than myself noted "I am at a loss to identify who this storyline will appeal to." Younger readers won't have the personal investment to care, older ones that do will almost certainly be repelled. Y'know until it's all revealed to have been a chain-jerking excercise in part 5.
I think Matt's observations RE Morrison's Doom Patrol in the other thread are applicable to comics in general. Titles that respect their history either by polishing the gems from the past or at a minimum not crapping on them are inherently more rewarding in a serial medium.
The school of thought that says 'Writers telling a good story need not be bound by history' seems (to me) to be more suited to novelisations, Elseworlds limited series, and Tales of the Crypt anthologies than ongoing series. Soap Operas succeed BECAUSE if their historical vistas, not in spite of them.
Dear Lord, I think I just made an argument that the Clone Saga was superior to the current storyline.
The idea as it currently stands is pretty dumb, but the story is on part four of five. I think the whole point of the story is that he's screwing with the readers to get them agitated over something that will turn out to be nothing.
You know, that's about as dumb as the story idea itself, if it turns out to be what he's doing... but I suppose if that turns out to be what it is that people will gasp with relief, so it may well work out for JMS. Seems a bit insulting, but it's hard for me to get worked up about it.
Somewhere out there, a cogent observer much younger than myself noted "I am at a loss to identify who this storyline will appeal to." Younger readers won't have the personal investment to care, older ones that do will almost certainly be repelled. Y'know until it's all revealed to have been a chain-jerking excercise in part 5.
I have to think that it would be a hard thing to do away with. Even if it turns out to not be Gwen having had sex with Osborn, that makes MJ look at the very least like a dupe for having believed it for years (or for having it implanted in her subconscious by that guy who kidnapped her, who was really working for Osborn, who's just that big a prick... hey, look, I can weasel my way out of this just like a real comic book writer!) and it seems like the kind of thing that will drive readers away on a whole 'I don't trust the book anymore' sort of thing, the way the Clone Saga did.
I think Matt's observations RE Morrison's Doom Patrol in the other thread are applicable to comics in general. Titles that respect their history either by polishing the gems from the past or at a minimum not crapping on them are inherently more rewarding in a serial medium.
All I think that's necessary is the 'not crapping on them' part, honestly. You don't have to be continuity obsessed: if you don't like the era of the Rocket Racer and Stegron, simply don't reference them. The great thing about comics is that you can get away with that. I don't see it as 'being bound by history' to not go out of your way to dig it up for shock value or whatever.
You know, that's about as dumb as the story idea itself, if it turns out to be what he's doing... but I suppose if that turns out to be what it is that people will gasp with relief, so it may well work out for JMS. Seems a bit insulting, but it's hard for me to get worked up about it.
It's just not a "fair-play" mystery. Cliffhangers show up that are blatantly playing on the audience's expected reactions, but this happens all over the place like on the tv show 24. Way back in the early Claremont X-Men I remember there was an issue which ended with Nightcrawler exclaiming "Cyclops is dead!" while standing over Cyclops' body. Then the first page of the next issue has him exclaiming "Cyclops is alive!" Reads a little jarring in trade format. ;-)
The writer's tiff with Paul O'Brian at Usenet would make it seem that Straz. is serious about this. I seriously doubt some brialiant twist is coming.
Ralf, that bit with Cyclops' "death" in the middle of the original Hellfire Club story is one of my all-time favorite cheap serial stunts. :-) It's absoultely hilarious when you read one issue after the other.
Here's hoping Peter David ruthlessly mocks this storyline over in one of his titles as part of his feud with JMS. Now that would be a treat.
Peter David is feuding with JMS? Didn't they used to be in a cabal together?
I didn't know that had a feud. What happened, they get into a fight over which dork has the biggest army of rabid supporters? ;-)
It's a good-natured feud. (David sent JMS the Babylon Five teddy bear, which JMS put on the show specifically to have it thrown out an airlock. David then did a B5/parody thing on Space Cases...)
If you're looking for another creator to start dissing JMS over this story, you'd probably be better off stirring up Kurt Busiek, I'd think...
It's good natured? I thought David was genuinely angry over what JMS did with the bear since it was gift from David's wife.
Knowing David's personality, the 'feud' has probably gone down a few notches by now.