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It was pretty good, except for Hammerhead, who is one of my least favorite Spider-villains ever. I think Stan Lee/early Gerry Conway really did badly by Gwen. (Or moreover, Peter acted like a jerk to her constantly to the point where I really felt sorry for her.) MJ's characterization was better. Spider-Mobile wasn't as funny as I expected. Len Wein's stories were less goofy but sometimes his narration is clunky. Oh, and Jonah gets really, really, really buffoon-like when Wein writes him.
I also watched a little bit of the new animated series but ... meh, I think other than old issues I don't know if I'm much into Spider-Man. For me, the magic is gone.
Also, I heard Steve Wacker say that anyone who didn't like the "Aunt May gets sick and Peter has to get her medicine" is too old for Spider-Man. I want to speak directly on that for a moment.
Here's the thing about Aunt May. I started watching the 90s show when I was 11 and I ALWAYS thought Aunt May was a drag. Mostly because I thought she was an idiot (more for her thinking well of Doc Ock than not knowing Peter was Spider-Man). She was written in the standard "Little Old Moron Lady" trope characterization which Stan Lee to some effect started. Which to some extent was okay. She was kind of a comedic plot device for the first couple of issues.
But if you write a character as a plot device and not as a fully realized human being, (which she has the potential to be, and has been under the pen of many writers), then you can't expect people to care when she's in trouble, because at this point she's a plot device, and often an annoying and comedic one. And you REALLY can't expect people to care when it's something like, "Oh my God! She needs medicine." We know Spider-Man will succeed and get her the medicine.
Now some of you may be thinking, "But we always know Spider-Man will succeed (unless he totally fucks up and makes a deal with the devil)! Doesn't that mean if we're bored with the Aunt May subplot then we're bored with the whole thing and should read something else?" No. Because the whole drama of Spider-Man fighting villains is learning HOW he defeats them. And with artists like Steve Ditko, who would draw very complex traps that Spider-Man would have to figure his way out of, this could be great stuff.
Aunt May being sick and Spider-Man needing to get her medicine is basically the same trap over and over and over and over again. In ASM #2, when Spider-Man had to figure out how to get out of the water tower when the walls were too wet to stick to and he was out of web-fluid, it was very clever. But if you did that EVERY ISSUE it would cease to be clever.
And if you do that same Aunt-May-is-Sick trap while insisting writers keep to the "Doddering Old Biddy" stereotype, it leads to resentment from the audience, who really want to get back to the "how will Spidey defeat Electro this time now that the chemical for his nonconductive webbing has suddenly become ineffective" or whatever that the audience REALLY wants to read. The same thing happened to a lesser degree to Mary Jane when she was sitting around the apartment in lingerie worrying about Peter. Although I think Mary Jane at least had fun (albiet shallow) characterization when Stan wrote her, and got a bit deeper with Gerry Conway, so people at least have their memories. Whereas with Aunt May, most of the memories are "please wear a sweater."
Anyway, I've always felt the whole weird shit Marvel editorial clings to as "the heart of Spider-Man": Aunt May getting sick, Peter worrying about grades, Peter worrying about rent was never anything to write home about. Especially grades/rent. If you read the original issues those things never seemed to be an actual plot point with a conflict and a resolution but something for the characters to fill word balloons with when they weren't fighting or talking about the supervillains on the news.
But to wrap up, if the audience doesn't have the intended reaction, usually the onus falls on the writer and editorial. I'm just saying. But of course it's much easier to throw up your hands and say, in the infamous words of Kevin Smith, "It's not FOR you."
Which is cool, but I still know bad storytelling when I see it.
Moving right along ... I'm letting this ruin my whole enjoyment of the comics medium far too much. So I ask you, anyone out there. Is there a trade I haven't read yet that I really should? I don't want to read superheroes at the moment. Not manga either. Goofy animals and funny stuff and teenage angst is okay, so long as it doesn't suck. Any ideas?
I also watched a little bit of the new animated series but ... meh, I think other than old issues I don't know if I'm much into Spider-Man. For me, the magic is gone.
Also, I heard Steve Wacker say that anyone who didn't like the "Aunt May gets sick and Peter has to get her medicine" is too old for Spider-Man. I want to speak directly on that for a moment.
Here's the thing about Aunt May. I started watching the 90s show when I was 11 and I ALWAYS thought Aunt May was a drag. Mostly because I thought she was an idiot (more for her thinking well of Doc Ock than not knowing Peter was Spider-Man). She was written in the standard "Little Old Moron Lady" trope characterization which Stan Lee to some effect started. Which to some extent was okay. She was kind of a comedic plot device for the first couple of issues.
But if you write a character as a plot device and not as a fully realized human being, (which she has the potential to be, and has been under the pen of many writers), then you can't expect people to care when she's in trouble, because at this point she's a plot device, and often an annoying and comedic one. And you REALLY can't expect people to care when it's something like, "Oh my God! She needs medicine." We know Spider-Man will succeed and get her the medicine.
Now some of you may be thinking, "But we always know Spider-Man will succeed (unless he totally fucks up and makes a deal with the devil)! Doesn't that mean if we're bored with the Aunt May subplot then we're bored with the whole thing and should read something else?" No. Because the whole drama of Spider-Man fighting villains is learning HOW he defeats them. And with artists like Steve Ditko, who would draw very complex traps that Spider-Man would have to figure his way out of, this could be great stuff.
Aunt May being sick and Spider-Man needing to get her medicine is basically the same trap over and over and over and over again. In ASM #2, when Spider-Man had to figure out how to get out of the water tower when the walls were too wet to stick to and he was out of web-fluid, it was very clever. But if you did that EVERY ISSUE it would cease to be clever.
And if you do that same Aunt-May-is-Sick trap while insisting writers keep to the "Doddering Old Biddy" stereotype, it leads to resentment from the audience, who really want to get back to the "how will Spidey defeat Electro this time now that the chemical for his nonconductive webbing has suddenly become ineffective" or whatever that the audience REALLY wants to read. The same thing happened to a lesser degree to Mary Jane when she was sitting around the apartment in lingerie worrying about Peter. Although I think Mary Jane at least had fun (albiet shallow) characterization when Stan wrote her, and got a bit deeper with Gerry Conway, so people at least have their memories. Whereas with Aunt May, most of the memories are "please wear a sweater."
Anyway, I've always felt the whole weird shit Marvel editorial clings to as "the heart of Spider-Man": Aunt May getting sick, Peter worrying about grades, Peter worrying about rent was never anything to write home about. Especially grades/rent. If you read the original issues those things never seemed to be an actual plot point with a conflict and a resolution but something for the characters to fill word balloons with when they weren't fighting or talking about the supervillains on the news.
But to wrap up, if the audience doesn't have the intended reaction, usually the onus falls on the writer and editorial. I'm just saying. But of course it's much easier to throw up your hands and say, in the infamous words of Kevin Smith, "It's not FOR you."
Which is cool, but I still know bad storytelling when I see it.
Moving right along ... I'm letting this ruin my whole enjoyment of the comics medium far too much. So I ask you, anyone out there. Is there a trade I haven't read yet that I really should? I don't want to read superheroes at the moment. Not manga either. Goofy animals and funny stuff and teenage angst is okay, so long as it doesn't suck. Any ideas?
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But yeah, for as "quaint" as the original stories were they were obviously the effort of imagination and hard work. I think Marvel just wants to have a button and push go for stories lately.
And you know, what little I did see of the episodes, I really did like Harry and Aunt May. Harry especially, because I feel like that characterization was truer to the original comic than any other re-visioning they've done lately. (Or BMD, for that matter.) I really hate when they go the "Flash-in-a-Sportscar" characterization, i.e. that wretched Mary Jane novel.
Aunt May also seems to have a nice new characterization and look, even though it was weird how she didn't have any wrinkles. Great hair. I think our vision of what it is to be an "older person" has changed since the '60s (recently my mother was watching a gangster movie and an Aunt-May-type lady said she was 55. My 55-year-old mother spent the rest of the day going, "What the hell? I'm not like that woman, am I?"). It's one thing for a depression-era couple to only have the male as a low-wage breadwinner (although the stereotype was probably just that -- my maternal grandmother made supplemental income during the Baby Boomer era; my grandfather was a bricklayer and she ran a beauty salon out of their house). I think now the idea that Aunt May would have no knowledge of the household's or her own affairs (perhaps if she'd had a living will, we wouldn't need OMD) strains credibility. Especially since Aunt May had a sort of a can-do "I'm not dead yet" mentality when she wasn't Doddering Old Biddy Stereotype 101.
I don't know. I like wise Aunt May who is a parent and lives every moment like its her last and still has an active love life. If she has to go back to being in the dark about Peter she should at least ... well, be dispensing wise advice. And maybe taking care of her health by herself. Keep her pills nearby and attend yoga classes and go to Red Hat Societies and all that.
Usually I don't like Steve Wackner. I heard someone say his quote about Aunt May from their post-podcast with him. Didn't make me want to listen to the whole interview.
And holy crap, after I posted that I realized how long it was. Sorry to yak your ear off.