Spiderman's Marriage- Good or bad?

[manwithnoname]

idea: email Marvel your preference in their continued marriage. they'll know what their audience wants, but be succinct. posting here is great and all, but Marvel doesn't read what's in here. Direct feedback is best.

[manwithnoname]

RE: Clark & Lois' marriage
I don't find their marriage handled well or interesting at all. This is an example of a comic book marriage handled poorly.

Frulad, I think, mentioned about good or bad ideas depend on their execution. I agree. A great idea can be poorly executed, and thus deserve the graveyard.

[manwithnoname]

my perspective: spider-man's characters/stories have always had a lot of the romance genre infused with the superhero genre. throughout its publishing history, the character and/or titles have strayed, back & forth, from including the romance stuff.

i know i was skeptical of MJWatson & Peter getting married, but the writers in the 90's, I think, handled their marriage poorly; relying too heavily on soap opera tv dynamics. However, JMS' portrayal of their marriage has been great. They have a great marriage, though not perfect. No marriage is perfect. JMS' earlier run on Amazing did a better job of exploring a lot of the emotional fallout of Aunt May's learning of Peter's superhero identity. Many people disagreed with this. IMO, JMS's exection of this was great; it wasn't cut and dry. A lot of emotional stories came from that.

RE: Joe Q's interview
It did seem to me that he was hinting about having Peter become single again. I hope they stay married. Although some are directing hatred toward Joe Q for wanting a possible divorce (separation?) for MJ & Pete, I think what he's trying to say was trying to make the Marvel Universe Spider-Man character accessible to a younger readership; I do understand his reasoning on this; he's coming from a publishing aspect, that sometimes, contradicts what the older readership want.
Spider-Man is their flagship character, even more so than X-Men. What others have posted are still valid: Ultimate Spider-Man is an all-ages title that's accessible to new AND young readers. So, I don't understand the NEED to have MJ & Peter separate. But, I do understand Marvel, a corporation, wanting all of its titles accessible to a wider audience; reading the newspaper everyday, studies are showing a higher % of singles today than married couples. I'm single, but I enjoy their married stories.

Fact: a lot of readers came to love the Marvel Universe Spider-Man as young readers b/c we could relate to him.

Fact: any changes in their relationship will piss off a certain portion of readers, that's unavoidable.

Again, it depends on how they handle the relationship. It comes down to good stories/storytelling.

Marvel/Joe Q have a really tough decision to make. IMO, Marvel Universe Spider-Man stays married, catering to readers that have grown up w/ the character. Ultimate Spider-Man stays on course for which it was created for -- accessible for new/young readers.

[David Panzer]

It's one thing for a character to overdo changes, as ZD showed with "Electric Superman". It's another thing for a character that has been around for 40+ years to do the same, predictable stuff every issue. We don't need Spidey to be the AC/DC of Marvel.

[Jan]

I'm so sick of this shit. Both JMS and Quesada keep saying they want to "fix" Spider-Man.

Really? Can you point me to that quote from JMS? I recall his saying that characters need to grow and change but that doesn't mean that he thinks that there's anything wrong with them.

Jan

[Dr Maturin]

Well, a comic remaining stagnant is one thing, but overdoing it is another. You want an example of the latter?

http://www.intuitivewebdesigns.com/comics/graphics/superman/NewSuperman2.jpg

[Karachi Vyce]

I'm so sick of this shit. Both JMS and Quesada keep saying they want to "fix" Spider-Man.

THE CHARACTER ISN'T BROKEN, STOP TRYING TO FIX HIM.

You know, Marvel felt that they needed to reinvent Spider-Man to get new readers, and thus - Ultimate Spider-Man was born! Be goddamn satisfied with that. Screw around with THAT character if you want. Leave the regular Spider-Man the hell alone. And while you're at it, ditch the gay-ass armor.

I hear that in the next story arc, Peter Parker leaves and they bring in some new guy who looks like Bruce Boxleitner. You know, 'cause what's destroying Spiderman is Peter's weak jaw. And the fact that he wasn't in the movie TRON.

Then, they go to K'zahadum, where Bruce fights evil spiders. And also, Bill Mumy is in it.

It's about what I expect next from JMS.

[frulad]

Put me in the 'Good' column. In fact, let's do a poll.

Jan

Great idea.

(*goes off to kick myself for not thinking of the poll option....*)

[phazedout]

I'm coming from a JMS only perspective on this, having read the two hardback (best of) volumes 1 and 2, haven't got around to 3 yet. But I liked the whole separation thing, even when peter is busy beating the living cr*p out of Doc OC his primary concern is for MJ and Aant May. It's nice that he has divided loyalties there, given a choice, who would he save?
Phaze
on the "Hungry now and trying to up my av post could to 1 per day" ID

[Jan]

The brouhaha appears to stem from an interview in the latest issue of Wizard magazine. Somebody over on the moderated newsgroup butted two unrelated quotes together to try to show that JMS and Joe Q *intended* to end the Peter/MJ marriage. I was glad to see that the Newsarama interview made it clear that, while JQ doesn't care for the relationship, he understands that it would be worse to end it.

I dunno, what I remember from back when JQ refers to was a Betty & Veronica kind of rivalry between MJ and Gwen which I found annoying. I don't understand his point anyway. It's not as if there can't be plenty of opportunities for drama even in a happy marriage.

Put me in the 'Good' column. In fact, let's do a poll.

Jan

[frulad]

Over in Joe Quesada's "Joe Fridays" column at Newsarama, Marvel's EiC spends most of his space this week bad-mouthing Peter Parker's marriage, saying that it was a bad idea but it's a mistake that they'll have to live with.

There's plenty I find galling in his statements on so many levels, I'm not sure where to begin. Take this quote for example-

What happens is that we as creators forget that there are always new readers coming into comics, why shouldnÆt they experience Peter as we did when we discovered him.

So, basically, is JoeyQ is calling for characters to remain stagnant, never growing, changing or evolving? Does this man have no grasp of the principals of storytelling?

He also goes on to say that there's no real storytelling potential in the marriage, that's it's a deadend of sorts. I'm sorry, but that's a load of fertilizer. I am a firm believer that thyere is no such thing as a bad story idea, only bad execution. Just because one writer can't find a way to make a story work doesn't allow for the fact that another could make it work.

Also, isn't the whole theme of the character of Spiderman "With great power comes great responsibility"? Isn't marriage a huge responsibility in and of itself? It seems as if Spidey getting married is a natural progression in the evolution and exploration of the idea of responsibility.

JoeyQ states that a married Spiderman is as relateable to the readers? WTF!? Is he trying to say that his readership are bunch of unwashed slobs who don't have the chance of getting a date let alone a bride? Is he stereotyping his own readership? That's a pretty jerky thing to say.

Also, I found all his comments about how the marriage doiesn't work very insulting to the writers who have found interesting stories in the premise, including JMS. JMS's early work on the series, bringing the then-seperated Peter and MJ back together was some of the best writing I can recall on the characters in 20 years. (And his Aunt May stuff was fantastic too!)

I think Quesada is way off base on this one, and if this is how he things through all his storytelling decisions, it's no wonder that I only pick up about five or six Marvel titles a month versus the twelve to fifeteen DC titles.