Drinkin’ The Retcon Punch- Episode One
Bland New Day
Marvel Editor-In-Chief Joe Quesada made no secret that he didn’t like Spider-Man being married. Fans couldn’t have imagined the steps he’d take to eradicate the Peter/MJ union, however. Spider-Man making a deal with the devil to erase history was a running joke because we knew the character would never do such a thing. We turned out to be more misguided than Doc Ock’s theories on fusion.
Spider-Man and/or MJ did agree to wipe their marriage out to save Aunt May’s life, even after she asked to die. I’m not going to argue semantics about which Parker uttered the fatal Faustian phrase. Marvel’s most iconic hero is involved in a deal with the devil to rewrite decades of continuity. The details of him getting there don’t absolve the character or the editorial team that thought this was a good idea of any guilt. That’s right, fans, an “It Didn’t Happen” story wrapped in a tasty “The Devil Made Me Do It” candy coating. Two horribly bad writing cliches in one neat little sales-stunt package.
Stories like this are the reason people who don’t read comics give for not reading them. I’m not the first writer to draw this comparison, but the whole thing brings to mind the “Bobby’s Death Was All A Dream” season of Dallas. Only those writers were trying to get out of the colossal mistake of killing off one of the show’s most popular characters. Outside Marvel’s offices, it’s a hard task to find anyone who thinks the Peter/MJ marriage was such a bad idea the comic equivalent of Satan had to end it.
Quesada said he could sign off on big ideas like Peter’s unmasking because he knew the company was going to undo it in a few months. Marvel’s EIC speaks about that as if it were indicative of good writing. What is the purpose of doing these huge crossover events if six months after they’re written, none of the major events will be acknowledged?
Most big stories including BND promise that “Nothing will ever be the same again!” Problem here is that everything is the same as it was - in 1970. Peter’s single, poor and living in May’s house eating wheatcakes. His web shooters run out of fluid, he whines constantly about the Parker luck and I’m reminded why Flash Thompson was stuffing Peter in lockers to begin with. This Peter Parker is a pain in the Spider-Tracer.
Quesada’s battle cry has been about returning to the days when Spidey was a fun book. I have no beef with that. Perhaps the most damning symbol of the “Grim and Gritty” virus that attacked comics in the 90s was Spidey’s transformation into a mirror of every other dark, brooding hero on the shelves. His life has always sucked but he’s always played the cards he was dealt with a smile. Peter Parker isn’t Bruce Wayne.
Spider-Man losing his way was no one’s fault other than Marvel. No one snuck into the corporate offices and turned the “angst-o-meter” up to 10. No one other than Marvel brass decided Spidey should revisit his “Black Costume Bad Boy” days not because it fit the character, but because they wanted to promote Venom’s appearance in Spider-Man 3. Marvel messed up this webhead’s bed and now no one wants to lie in it.
If Quesada wanted a lighter tone he could have laid the groundwork for that. If you want a lighter-themed book with banter, you don’t hire the writer from Babylon 5. A return to a shiny, happy Spidey didn’t require his wife to be retconned out of his life. You can change the tone of a book from one issue to the next. It might take some adjustment, but not nearly as much as deciding the last 30 years didn’t happen.
There are already rumors that BND is another alternate universe that Marvel will just write itself out of. Sadly, that’s about the best dedicated fans of these books can hope for. Thousands of loyal readers hoping that Marvel “Bobby Ewings” their way out of this soon tells all you need to know about this editorial direction.
Images courtesy of Marvel Comics
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1 opinion for Drinkin’ The Retcon Punch- Episode One
Supernatural Scooper J
Feb 10, 2008 at 6:11 pm
Welcome, Brian!
Crazy Retcon, indeed!
Spiderman has always been my favorite comic, but this is definitely going into crazy retcon territory. We’ve gone there in TV’s Supernatural, and it hasn’t been fun for the characters there. If they were to follow the Faustian problem faithfully, it definitely would not take the comic back to that happy place.
Cheers!
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