Spiderman on Channel 4 News

[DavidXBrunt]

That's the malicious evil of my mate Mike that is. P.R. guru to the stars, decent bloke and at least once a Ghost on Most Haunted.

[Matt Timson]

Made me laugh...http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a204/xnemisis/Spidermansuit.jpg">

[Leigh S]

So...how does this work?  Whow much older is Spiderman?  Will he be younger?  will he be 21 years younger?  How do they manage time in these mental superhero universes?  Is current Spiderman teh same guy who had the same adventures as Ditkos spiderman?  

My head hurts.

[nofuture]

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[El Spurioso]

As I understood it (based on stuff I've seen on reviews/forums/whatnot, cos I ain't read the actual issues), Parker made a deal with Mephisto in order to save Aunt Thingy's life.  In exchange Mephisto didn't want Pete's soul, but "your marriage".  Basically he takes all of PP and MJ's memories which relate to being in love with each other, and changed reality (ka-pow!) so it never happened.  PP and MJ had discussed it all and mutually agreed to it, because "we'll find each other again."

Apparently Mephisto's agenda in all this is that there'll always be a tiny sliver of their souls which remembers the loss and feels contant pain, and *that's* what he's taking as his real payment.

Which is all a bit convoluted and, um... Plop.

But the upshot is that PP is now living with his Aunt again, still has a crush on MJ but thinks she doesn't know he exists, and continues to Spidey It Up.  His age -- no idea.  Is he still at school?

Also:  just before Mephisto did his thing MJ made her own appeal to him, on PP's behalf, to erase from reality all of the Unmasking Stuff as well.  She offered him "something more" in exchange, but I don't think we know what, yet.

So now people "have a vague memory of Spider-Man revealing his true identity in the recent past, but can't remember who was under the mask or what he looked like."

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..

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In other words: Toss.

[the shutdown man]

So, does that mean the rest of the civil war never happened as well? Cos wasn't Spidey's unmasking a pivotal part of that, or something.

If that's the case, I don't know if I can be arsed reading it now, knowing it's already been erased.

[Adrian Bamforth]

Sounds like I'm the only one who thinks it sounds like a good idea: It doesn't exactly draw in new readers if there's a 40 year long backstory to a character - doesn't make any sense if he's the same age, and all the well-known villains would surely have been defeated countless times until it's nothing like the original premise. I'm sure they must have done reboots before (which seems to me to be the only other option) though the problem with having a 'jumping on' point for new readers is that it's just as easily a 'jumping off' point for old readers. It would be a shame if some kids where drawn in by the films but then totally confused by the comic and its long and convoluted backstory, leaving middle-aged comic buffs as the sole redership.

It makes you appreciate the timeless quality of Judge Dredd as a strip as at least you don't have to contend with emotional development in the main character.

[El Spurioso]

To be fair, I think the majority of the outcry is coming not from the fans who don't want their beloved status-quo being fucked with (although there are of course plenty of those), but from those who think the specifics of the retcon are absolute guff.

It's one thing to take PP back to his Geeky Singledom days.  It's another to do it in a really flippant, bollocky way.  Fans tend to get a lot grumpier about their favourite characters being "treated with disrespect" than anything else.


Buuuuut like I said, I've not read any of it myself, so for all I know it was handled with tact and grace.  

[Byron Virgo]

Not being up on all this stuff, but isn't there some sort of 'Ultimate Spider-Cat' comic out there for newbies who want to read a 'classic' version of the character?

I think part of the reason people seem to het up about this big Spidey-thing (not that I've read it, mind) is that not only does it apparently discount just about every story since 1975 - wasted your money for the past twenty-five years, chaps! - but that it's done in this sort of half-arsed, Bobby-Ewing-stepping-out-the-shower manner that just smacks of either poor storytelling or else simple contempt for the reader (or possibly simply just another way of firing up the old hype machine).

"It makes you appreciate the timeless quality of Judge Dredd as a strip as at least you don't have to contend with emotional development in the main character."

But he has though, Ade - you can't really say that the character that first appeared in prog 2 is the same as the one that we see in this week's. Sure, he's not like a Marvel 2 dimensional character, but Wagner's trick has always been to make him slightly more than a one note figure (say 1.5 dimensions), which is probably why that strip's so hard for anyone else to write. And I think we'd all be pretty pissed off if someone suddenly came along and told us that the last fifteen years had all been a dream, and we were going all the way back to Mutie the Pig or whatever.

[TordelBack]

It's one thing to take PP back to his Geeky Singledom days. It's another to do it in a really flippant, bollocky way.

Absolutely - what I've read of the Bright New Day stuff is exactly the kind of Spiderman comic I'd enjoy, whereas what went on immediately before is tripe.  It's just... wasn't there a better way to get there?  The bare-faced cheek of the Byrne Superman re-boot was much more honest way to go (and allowed for the amazing "Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?" Mooreathon) but I suppose that's really what Ulitmate Spiderman represents.  

Thanks for explaining all that... plop... Si, I actually read the damn things and I couldn't work it out. This So now people "have a vague memory of Spider-Man revealing his true identity in the recent past, but can't remember who was under the mask or what he looked like." is the bit that threw me.  Having your cake and eating it too.  What weak crap.

BTW, I understand that Parker has left school, and is "an adult" now. More than can be said for the kook who came up with this stuff.