So, I was sitting at the coffee shop down the street on my lunch break last Saturday and I was crying.
I felt like an idiot, more so than when I wanted to hide a preview copy of Anita Blake in another book so I wouldn’t be caught with the shame of reading a book with a guy in a He-Man harness. No, now I actualy had tears in my eyes and had gotten a little choked up a bit over something I had I read in a Spider-Man comic. Come on, what kind of a girly girl was I?
Click and find out! WARNING: this post talks about the Sensational Spider-Man Annual, on shelves today. If you have not read it, go buy one (heck, buy two!), read, ENJOY, and come on back.
To be honest, Spider-Man has brought me nothing but a near regular diet frustration and astonishment through some major storylines that have taken our Friendly Neighborhood hero down some of the most harrowing tales I’d ever read. Eyeball bitten out, bounced back from the dead not once, but twice since Disassembling when his life changed from ordinary guy who teaches high school science (a stroke of genius there) to moving on up to Stark Tower and tossing his secret identity to the media. Not to mention having his ’secret wish’ revealed during House of M that he would rather have spent his life with Gwen Stacy rather than MJ and having Gwen Stacy’s kids that were born of a teenaged indiscretion with his worst enemy? Wow. Now, he’s hunted, his aunt’s on her death bed, his wife has to go into hiding and somehow, he’s still keeping up his job at Midtown High over in Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man.
Recent articles regarding ‘One More Day’, the next big highlighted Spider-Man tale, have promised to shake up the webslinger’s “status quo”, which really made me stop for a moment and look at what Spider-Man’s status quo even is right now. This would have been an easy question in 2001, but J. Michael Straczynski came out swinging against that very status quo from the start, questioning Peter Parker’s very origin by bringing in the notion of a “Spider Totem” and that the classic line of “bitten by a radioactive spider” was now part of a greater almost global mythos of animal totems. Uncle Ben even came back from an alternate universe over in Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man for a short time, keeping in line with Quesada’s proclamation that “anything is possible” in the Marvel Universe, but leaving very little solid ground to stand on. The only status quo left is the very soul of Peter Parker as a hero, someone who fights for the greater good and shoulders some great responsibility because it’s the Right Thing to Do.
This very fact was the reason I had a moment of sniffles at the coffee shop.
There’s just something about Marvel heroes that has a certain reverence for who they are before the mask goes on. There’s a reason why covers have read “Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man” and I’ve never seen an issue of “Clark Kent, Superman”. No knock against the Distinguished Competition, this is just a general observation about a different focus in story, a different color in our Fifth Color metaphor. Peter Parker really could be ‘Rock-Man’ or ‘Antelope-Man’ for all it mattered to his personality because he’s written as a hero with or without the costume. These days, he’s really been in ‘costume’ nearly day in and day out and there hasn’t been too much emphasis on his life outside the web-slinging world. It’s just crisis after crisis and, while I know that conflict is what makes a story real and not even I want to read the amazing adventures of Spider-Man living in a world of rainbows and sunshine, there comes a time when it just stops being relatable and veers into crying on every cover. Peter Parker’s life has never been simple or easy, but the guy always pulls through for job satisfaction.
Or, on the rare occasion, personal satisfaction, where the life outside the mask is pretty damned special. Where every Clone Sage or Maximum Carnage is worth it just for those “brief and fleeting moments where [his] life is totally awesome”. Again, we come back to my girly moment of weakness on my lunch break. You see, after what’s felt like just tragedy, misery, heartache, failure, hatred and death, one after the other, someone did what I’d been waiting to see for a long time. Spider-Man got his mustache ripped off.
Let me explain: on the stands after of today is the Spectacular Spider-Man Annual, written by Matt Fraction with art by Salvador Larocca. In this issue, two stories are told parallel on one another as Mary Jane gets nabbed in a SHIELD sting operation to get Spidey’s whereabouts and Peter Parker puts on a lumpy disguise and goes to turn himself in. He begs for help as he explains to the officer he arranged to meet in secret that he is ashamed of what he’s done with his life and how horrible he feels over what he’s made of Mary Jane and his dear Aunt’s life. He pleads his case by telling love stories, how much Mary Jane means to him and what an incredible dynamic woman she is. And that’s when the officer rips Peter’s fake mustache off and tells him to get a spine and protect this woman that means so much to him. He gives the guy a kick in the ass to go get ‘er, Tiger, and to not look back because this is entirely worth fighting for.
Mary Jane comes to the very same conclusion and after a daring rescue from a SHIELD arrest, she says as much to her husband directly and they freefall off something very tall in a graphic depiction of an act of faith. With great power comes great responsibility and when responsibility is taken in in great amounts, the more powerful and in control of their life one can become. Anything can happen in the Marvel Universe and with a great supporting cast and a strong core character, Spider-Man can take it all.
These are the moments I read comics for. Your millage may vary.
May 2nd, 2007 at 7:36 pm
You make an excellent point in regards to the question of ‘ol Web Head’s “status quo”. In today’s market of “Infinite Secret Identity Wars” and “Crisis Wars Week One” where the only objective seems to be “how inside-out and up-side down can we make our characters and their lives”; I hardly recognize, nor often relate to most of the “established” heroes any longer. Can they even be called heroes in many cases?
In my humble opinion, the end result of the constant “Civil Crisis” story arcs is a Marvel and DC Universe populated almost exclusively with anti-heroes or overly complex characters whose motives and purpose are unclear not only to themselves, but the reader as well. I like “mature”, evolving characters as much as the next fanboy, but the pace and scope of change has, in my still humble opinion, been excessive.
Spider-Man and the entire Marvel/DC Universe could use a little bit less “total-maximum-infinite-identity-carnage-wars” and a bit more “down-time” to focus on who they are, why they are, the people they love, the enemies they loath and the world they inhabit. At least for a year or two before someone resurrects “Medium Grey Phoenix” as a one-legged, alchoholic Buddist monk hell bent on destroying the space-time continuem in order to win back the love of Rocket Raccoon.
Sorry for the rant … you struck a chord.
Nice blog, by the way.
July 19th, 2007 at 3:45 pm
Despite all this confusion, I couldn’t be happier with where Spider-Man is headed since civil war. I mean there is plenty of potential there, and hopefully they wont screw it up. That being said, he’s a teacher, an avenger and somehow continues to make time for his friends when he should really be with his wife. So frankly despite some good moments in Sensational & Friendly, I’m glad Amazing will be the only book left. That way they can focus on the story at hand instead of having to make up a new one to fill a book.
I mean sure its just a comic book, but a story is a story and characters make the story. I mean you can’t help but like Peter Parker. I mean he isn’t rich, he isn’t an old fart, and he isn’t well respected. Yet he does what he does anyway. Anyway, enough of my rant, frankly I’m just glad that HOPEFULLY we wont see the Green Goblin anymore.
I don’t know about you, but I’m kind of sick of the guy, its so old hat. As for Aunt May, make up your mind on whether your going to kill her or not. I mean heck, this is the millionth time she’s clung to death or died or whatever isn’t it? Ah well, I shouldn’t complain, its a comic book after all. Still, I hate when a good story doesn’t live up to its potential.
July 19th, 2007 at 4:04 pm
One other thing, hopefully they wont be so wrapped up in bad guys to forget Peter Parker’s life. I mean the guy behind the mask is just as important to the story. Take Super-Man for example, without Clark he’s just a Super-Jerk who is pretty much immune from everything. Which is another reason I’ve always liked Spider-Man, he’s an underdog. Whether its Iron Man or anyone else, he’ll stand up and do the right thing.
Anyway, my point was that Peter Parker is important to the character development and always has been, and we really haven’t seen what the world or at least NY think of the Parkers. Especially the Stacy’s & the Osborn’s. I mean you don’t really know who your friends are till your out on your luck, and boy are they ever. Anyway, plenty of potential for a rousing good story there.