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Post by sabongero on Jun 4, 2016 15:37:49 GMT -5
I do consider it sabotage, but at least in that case Editorial didn't walk over the work of the current creative team. So like "Sins past", it can also be considered "only" a very, very bad idea. (Although I believe Sins past did go against the writer's wishes, as he wanted Gwen's kids to be also Peter's children... something that made far more sense, considering we had access to Gwen's thought balloons during her alleged affair with Osborn). I consider it sabotage. Didn't Queseda decree something like "Readers will only identify with Spider-Man if he is a loser living in his aunt's basement"? Interesting to know what the EIC thinks about Marvel's readership. I'm surprised he also didn't decree that Reed Richards should become a high school dropout flipping burgers for minimum wage. After all, if reader's cannot identify with peter Parker being gainfully employed and happily married, then surely there is no way they could identify with a billionaire super genius who owns a skyscraper, right? Queseda committed company-wide sabotage by forcing his personal beliefs into every Marvel book. No one is the Marvel universe smokes. All married women who are not mothers must die, in order to make their husbands 'interesting'. And they must die, because divorce is wrong (but making a deal with a demon to eradicate your extremely happy marriage is fine). Presumably if he had ever become a vegetarian, he would have decreed that no Marvel character could eat meat. I know Logan/Wolverine liked to smoke the cigars, and remember seeing him smoke a lot in the older comic books. It's too bad even this regular habit of his has to stop just because of editorial. After all, he does have mutant healing powers.
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Post by Ozymandias on Jun 4, 2016 15:42:43 GMT -5
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Confessor
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Post by Confessor on Jun 5, 2016 6:20:51 GMT -5
Well, you have to squint a bit, sure...but it's not the first time that we've had to do that in Amazing Spider-Man...even back in the day! Just try fitting the events of Spectacular Spider-Man Magazine #2 into the events of concurrent issues of Amazing Spider-Man, I dare you! It can be done, of course, but not without splitting that mag up into tiny pieces to fit the events that occur in it around the issues of ASM that are set at the same time...and with a bit of squinting. There's also the fact that Gwen would've been pregnant with the twins when she was running around in the Savage Land in a Bikini (ASM #103-104) and she does not look pregnant in those comics. However, there are plenty of examples in the real world of young girls who unexpectedly fall pregnant and don't even know that they're pregnant until they start having labour contractions. I mean, it's a stretch, sure, but in a comic in which I'm expected to believe that a guy could get bitten by a radio-active spider and gain spider-like superpowers, I can suspend disbelief pretty far.
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Post by foxley on Jun 5, 2016 6:30:35 GMT -5
I consider it sabotage. Didn't Queseda decree something like "Readers will only identify with Spider-Man if he is a loser living in his aunt's basement"? Interesting to know what the EIC thinks about Marvel's readership. I'm surprised he also didn't decree that Reed Richards should become a high school dropout flipping burgers for minimum wage. After all, if reader's cannot identify with peter Parker being gainfully employed and happily married, then surely there is no way they could identify with a billionaire super genius who owns a skyscraper, right? Queseda committed company-wide sabotage by forcing his personal beliefs into every Marvel book. No one is the Marvel universe smokes. All married women who are not mothers must die, in order to make their husbands 'interesting'. And they must die, because divorce is wrong (but making a deal with a demon to eradicate your extremely happy marriage is fine). Presumably if he had ever become a vegetarian, he would have decreed that no Marvel character could eat meat. I know Logan/Wolverine liked to smoke the cigars, and remember seeing him smoke a lot in the older comic books. It's too bad even this regular habit of his has to stop just because of editorial. After all, he does have mutant healing powers. And it's not just heroes. Sure the Red Skull might be a megalomaniac Nazi responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths, but having him smoke? That's just beyond the pale.
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Post by Icctrombone on Jun 5, 2016 7:21:15 GMT -5
Well, you have to squint a bit, sure...but it's not the first time that we've had to do that in Amazing Spider-Man...even back in the day! Just try fitting the events of Spectacular Spider-Man Magazine #2 into the events of concurrent issues of Amazing Spider-Man, I dare you! It can be done, of course, but not without splitting that mag up into tiny pieces to fit the events that occur in it around the issues of ASM that are set at the same time...and with a bit of squinting. There's also the fact that Gwen would've been pregnant with the twins when she was running around in the Savage Land in a Bikini (ASM #103-104) and she does not look pregnant in those comics. However, there are plenty of examples in the real world of young girls who unexpectedly fall pregnant and don't even know that they're pregnant until they start having labour contractions. I mean, it's a stretch, sure, but in a comic in which I'm expected to believe that a guy could get bitten by a radio-active spider and gain spider-like superpowers, I can suspend disbelief pretty far. It doesn't have to fit. That's what a retcon is nowadays. It didn't happen the way it was published 30 years ago.
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Post by Icctrombone on Jun 5, 2016 7:24:18 GMT -5
The return of Bucky Barnes was another example of jamming in a event that couldn't have happened. In Avengers#56 and Annual #2, the whole story is started by the assemblers going back in time to witness Bucky being torn to shreds by the drone plane. 30 years later they want you to accept that it didn't happen.
Okay. I will.
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Post by Ozymandias on Jun 5, 2016 8:16:10 GMT -5
Well, you have to squint a bit, sure...but it's not the first time that we've had to do that in Amazing Spider-Man...even back in the day! Just try fitting the events of Spectacular Spider-Man Magazine #2 into the events of concurrent issues of Amazing Spider-Man, I dare you! It can be done, of course, but not without splitting that mag up into tiny pieces to fit the events that occur in it around the issues of ASM that are set at the same time...and with a bit of squinting. Funny you should mention fitting the events of Spectacular Spider-Man Magazine #2, in continuity, because I tried doing that, and expanding from the work done at Spiderfan.org, I got this reading order: - Amazing Spider-Man (Vol. 1) #66 1-5:3
- Spectacular Spider-Man Magazine #2 1-17:1
- Amazing Spider-Man (Vol. 1) #66 5:4-10:4
- Spectacular Spider-Man Magazine #2 17:2-20:2
- Amazing Spider-Man (Vol. 1) #66 10:5 - 14:3
- Spectacular Spider-Man Magazine #2 20:3 - 25:5
- Amazing Spider-Man (Vol. 1) #66 14:4-20
- Amazing Spider-Man (Vol. 1) #67
- Spectacular Spider-Man Magazine #2 26 - 58
A very convoluted reading order, which doesn't explain the fact that Harry was searching for his father, in ASM #65. If there's so much trouble, placing a single issue in continuity, imagine a story like Sins Past, which spans for months and includes a pregnancy and international travel. It can't be done.
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Jun 5, 2016 8:59:38 GMT -5
Well, you have to squint a bit, sure...but it's not the first time that we've had to do that in Amazing Spider-Man...even back in the day! Just try fitting the events of Spectacular Spider-Man Magazine #2 into the events of concurrent issues of Amazing Spider-Man, I dare you! It can be done, of course, but not without splitting that mag up into tiny pieces to fit the events that occur in it around the issues of ASM that are set at the same time...and with a bit of squinting. There's also the fact that Gwen would've been pregnant with the twins when she was running around in the Savage Land in a Bikini (ASM #103-104) and she does not look pregnant in those comics. However, there are plenty of examples in the real world of young girls who unexpectedly fall pregnant and don't even know that they're pregnant until they start having labour contractions. I mean, it's a stretch, sure, but in a comic in which I'm expected to believe that a guy could get bitten by a radio-active spider and gain spider-like superpowers, I can suspend disbelief pretty far. I don't mind making allowances for a stretched or compressed timeline in comics that tell stories covering several months... but with stories like Sins Past, what kills my suspension of disbelief is that we had access to several of Gwen's thought bubbles when she was supposed to be pregnant with Osborn's kids. Not one mention of what is arguably the single most important thing happening to the character at the time. That's just too much for me. Gwen pregnant with Peter's kids I could have gone along with, since she did think about how much she loved Peter.
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Post by Ozymandias on Jun 5, 2016 9:07:31 GMT -5
I don't mind making allowances for a stretched or compressed timeline in comics that tell stories covering several months... The big problem here, is that we're supposed to stretch a few days of Marvel Time into four months, of Marvel Time too. This construct is famous for the opposite, compression, but the conversion is always real time to Marvel Time. I can't think of a comparable event, as a precedent.
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Confessor
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Post by Confessor on Jun 5, 2016 11:05:18 GMT -5
Well, you have to squint a bit, sure...but it's not the first time that we've had to do that in Amazing Spider-Man...even back in the day! Just try fitting the events of Spectacular Spider-Man Magazine #2 into the events of concurrent issues of Amazing Spider-Man, I dare you! It can be done, of course, but not without splitting that mag up into tiny pieces to fit the events that occur in it around the issues of ASM that are set at the same time...and with a bit of squinting. Funny you should mention fitting the events of Spectacular Spider-Man Magazine #2, in continuity, because I tried doing that, and expanding from the work done at Spiderfan.org, I got this reading order: - Amazing Spider-Man (Vol. 1) #66 1-5:3
- Spectacular Spider-Man Magazine #2 1-17:1
- Amazing Spider-Man (Vol. 1) #66 5:4-10:4
- Spectacular Spider-Man Magazine #2 17:2-20:2
- Amazing Spider-Man (Vol. 1) #66 10:5 - 14:3
- Spectacular Spider-Man Magazine #2 20:3 - 25:5
- Amazing Spider-Man (Vol. 1) #66 14:4-20
- Amazing Spider-Man (Vol. 1) #67
- Spectacular Spider-Man Magazine #2 26 - 58
A very convoluted reading order, which doesn't explain the fact that Harry was searching for his father, in ASM #65. If there's so much trouble, placing a single issue in continuity, imagine a story like Sins Past, which spans for months and includes a pregnancy and international travel. It can't be done. Ha! Yeah, I've concocted a reading order for SSMM #2 as well -- that's why it came to mind so readily as something from the Silver Age that didn't really fit with the other stuff being published (I'll have to check to see if my timeline aligns with yours). But my point is, it doesn't really matter whether it fits or not. Fitting stuff exactly into the chronology or timeline was already a secondary concern versus telling a good story even back in the Silver Age, so it sure of hell isn't a big consideration in the 21st century. Plus, as icctrombone points out, Sins Past was a retcon and this is kinda how retcons are supposed to work. Just like with the inconsistencies in SSMM #2 or the fact that, based on the evidence in the comics themselves, Peter Parker became Spider-Man in the early '60s and yet is still only in his mid-20s in 2016, you just have to squint a little bit and these things are fine. Trying to concoct an accurate and workable timeline for a character who's been having adventures for the past 50+ years and yet has only aged about 10 years in that time is always gonna be something of a fool's errand. EDIT: Actually, I'd forgotten about Spectacular Spider-Man Magazine #1 too. If memory serves, that story appeared twice -- once in the 1968 ASM continuity, when the magazine was published, and then again in 1973, with some rejigging to tie it into then-current continuity. So, Spidey basically lived through the exact same events twice, months or a couple of years apart. How could that happen?! Yeah, like I say, I think squinting a little bit to make these things work is kind of essential when you read comics.
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Confessor
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Post by Confessor on Jun 5, 2016 11:25:03 GMT -5
I don't mind making allowances for a stretched or compressed timeline in comics that tell stories covering several months... but with stories like Sins Past, what kills my suspension of disbelief is that we had access to several of Gwen's thought bubbles when she was supposed to be pregnant with Osborn's kids. Not one mention of what is arguably the single most important thing happening to the character at the time. That's just too much for me. Isn't this one of the inherent problems with retcons of this nature though? Myself, I always reconcile it by just assuming that Gwen (or whichever might be involved in a given retcon) thought about it off-panel. We readers aren't privy to every single thought that these characters have, obviously. I'm guessing that you also didn't like the "Mary Jane knew that Peter was Spidey all along" retcon that Gerry Conway revealed in the Parallel Lives graphic novel either? Personally, I felt that retcon, while not really necessary at all, neatly explained why a stunning babe like MJ would've been interested in a dorky loser like Peter Parker in the first place.
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Post by Gene on Jun 5, 2016 11:41:28 GMT -5
Since I just picked it up yesterday, what about 1987's X-Men vs Avengers? Set during the period in which Magneto was a member of the X-Men, Roger Stern (What is it with this guy?) set out to tell a story that would have reverted the character to his previously villainous ways. After three issues, though, editorial decided to scrap Stern's ending and leave Magneto as he was. Tom DeFalco ended up writing the last issue and it reads like the ending to a totally different story.
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Post by Ozymandias on Jun 5, 2016 11:43:32 GMT -5
But my point is, it doesn't really matter whether it fits or not. Fitting stuff exactly into the chronology or timeline was already a secondary concern versus telling a good story even back in the Silver Age, so it sure of hell isn't a big consideration in the 21st century. Plus, as icctrombone points out, Sins Past was a retcon and this is kinda how retcons are supposed to work. Fitting it exactly should be possible, but sadly you do have to give that up, when reading stories pertaining to these big, fictional universes. Too many people working simultaneously with the same characters, for everything to play out nicely. But this? This does't even remotely fit. I can forgive a bad retcon involving modern affairs, but the fact that continuity has been increasingly screwed, over time, to the point that no one cares anymore, doesn't mean you can go back and mess with the Silver-Bronze Age. If you want to retcon that stuff, you have to do it correctly.
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Post by Ozymandias on Jun 5, 2016 11:45:27 GMT -5
I'm guessing that you also didn't like the "Mary Jane knew that Peter was Spidey all along" retcon that Gerry Conway revealed in the Parallel Lives graphic novel either? You bet.
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Post by Ozymandias on Jun 5, 2016 11:46:41 GMT -5
Roger Stern (What is it with this guy?) What do you mean?
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