It’s been a weird new year for your friendly neighborhood web-slinger.
As we reported last week, Spider-Man’s status quo made a sudden left turn on New Year’s Eve, as Peter Parker and Mary Jane were watching television…
…And on January 1st, Peter wakes up at Aunt May’s house. No MJ in sight.
The next day, things got even more complicated, as Stan Lee and company confirmed the news: Peter Parker was now a single college student.
What happened? As we’ve learned this weekend: it’s a flashback. In Sunday‘s strip, we begin the story with, “In the days long before Peter and MJ were married…”
Now this has been done before in Marvel’s regular books, going back to John Byrne’s Spider-Man: Chapter One, as well as Kurt Busiek’s Untold Tales of Spider-Man. But in this case, the main point of interest is that Stan Lee, while adhering to Peter Parker’s current status, completely bypassed the path taken by the Marvel mothership.
So the real question now is: what do you think?
January 5th, 2009 at 4:19 pm
I guess this tells you how Stan the Man really feels about One more day.
January 5th, 2009 at 4:21 pm
Amount of interest in Spider-Man comic strip two weeks ago – about as high as interest in Mark Trail comic strip.
Amount of interest in Spider-Man comic strip today – well, higher, I can tell you that.
Success? sounds like it.
January 5th, 2009 at 4:30 pm
I think it’s bloody brilliant. an excellent way of having a college student Peter single without the idiotic deal with mephisto crap…
January 5th, 2009 at 4:33 pm
Good for Stan!
January 5th, 2009 at 4:39 pm
Way to go Stan, doing that George Lucas prequal thing.
January 5th, 2009 at 4:47 pm
Good, low-controversy choice… although Stan has the luxury of working on a strip that does not intersect with any other storyline.
January 5th, 2009 at 4:54 pm
Damn that Stan Lee! How dare he go and make a plot point work without pointlessly involving ME!
January 5th, 2009 at 5:14 pm
Well done, Stan. Crafty and well done.
January 5th, 2009 at 5:21 pm
I like this idea a lot. Honestly, the only reason they had to do the Mephisto thing was for the sake of the continuity of AMAZING SPIDER-MAN specifically and the Marvel Universe as a whole. With the newspaper strip, why would it matter? Just go back in time. Great idea!
January 5th, 2009 at 5:24 pm
“It’s great to know that some things never change!”
Is that last line a shot at Marvel? Or is it a reminder to fans/readers that while comics move forward…things really stay the same?
January 5th, 2009 at 5:45 pm
My biggest shock from this change of venue was.. “What? There’s still a newspaper strip?”
We don’t get it in Dallas.
January 5th, 2009 at 5:51 pm
Anybody who thinks Stan Lee gives two craps about Brand New Day beyond the fact that he’s pretty chummy with Joe Quesada and therefore probably okay with it/apathetic to it is completely deluding themselves.
January 5th, 2009 at 6:02 pm
I think the cross section of people who are uptight about comic book character continuity and people who still regularly get their comics from newspapers (or even news for that matter) are small enough that nobody outside of this blog noticed.
That said, I have no problem with it.
January 5th, 2009 at 6:37 pm
Mephisto Says:
January 5th, 2009 at 4:54 pm
Damn that Stan Lee! How dare he go and make a plot point work without pointlessly involving ME!
—–
I laughed.
January 5th, 2009 at 7:12 pm
What are the chances that Stan is actually still writing the strip? I mean, sure, it’s credited to him. But isn’t there most likely a ghost writer?
January 5th, 2009 at 7:26 pm
Shows what Stan thought of Marvel’s approach.
If it were so hot he would have followed their lead.
Of course, maybe the general public wouldn’t enjoy reading a newspaper strip where the “hero” willingly makes a deal with the Devil?
G.
January 5th, 2009 at 8:03 pm
I thought MJ made the deal, and not Peter…
January 5th, 2009 at 8:37 pm
Like I said in the other blog about this strip here at ‘Rama, flashback > retcon.
January 5th, 2009 at 10:14 pm
Stan is indeed The Man! I prefer this flashback thingee over the whole Mephisto thingee. I would even rather see a divorce (since that would be more realistic–I mean, at least that’s something the average joe can identify with).
January 5th, 2009 at 10:32 pm
What are the odds that Stan Lee has no idea the details behind One More Day, and only knows the gist: Peter and MJ are no longer married, and this is how he figured they implemented it in the comics?
Cause I doubt he still regularly reads Marvel Comics monthly.
January 5th, 2009 at 10:40 pm
Maybe Stan knows something we don’t. Maybe he’s waiting out BND and knows it’s days are numbered. Or at least waiting to see what happens. Maybe he knew this would generate controversy and did it for that reason. That would be my guess. Of course given how slow the newspaper comic is, Marvel will have a new EiC by the time this storyline gets resolved.
January 5th, 2009 at 10:43 pm
Congratulations to Stan!!!!
January 5th, 2009 at 10:54 pm
Bottom line, at any point in time Stan Lee can just say “The stories will not take place in the past anymore.” OMD/BND is SO much harder to fix.
I get the whole current continuity thing in comics, but no one is really messing with BND. New Avengers doesn’t go near it. Funny really.
January 5th, 2009 at 11:16 pm
Stan Lee just changed the status quo the only way he could. Covering OMD/BND in the daily strip would be impossible, just as going to flashbacks would have been impossible in the shared Marvel U.
In the end, it won’t matter. Unless Stan labels every strip from now on with some note that it’s flashback, eventually it will be forgotten and only the new status quo will remain.
The fact that Lee is even making the change speaks volumes of how adamant Marvel is about making this change.
January 6th, 2009 at 3:20 am
The newspaper strip did it the way it should’ve been done in the comics.
January 6th, 2009 at 3:30 am
is the comic strip thing permanent or just a temp flashback for a few weeks? has this been said?
and anyone over the age of 18 who is complaing about OMD/BND needs to get a life…. its all make believe who cares? and anyways ANYTHING ever done in any comic book ever can be undone in like one sentence if need be, its only stretched out to sell more books to those who are complaining
January 6th, 2009 at 3:47 am
That strip gave us the marriage; I have all the faith in the world it will give it back to us.
January 6th, 2009 at 6:09 am
It’s funny that people are taking this as proof of what Stan Lee really thinks of OMD/BND.
In the afterword to my One More Day TPB he says Joe Q and the bullpen deserve a medal for making Spidey single again…
January 6th, 2009 at 6:45 am
It makes sense that they would bring it in line with the comics. As a writer, I can appreciate some of the benefits of a single Spidey; as a reader I really don’t think any of the BND stories I’ve seen have really capitalized on those benefits.
I also think OMD was a truly terrible way to bring the change about.
However I dropped Spidey a while ago, so I don’t really care that much. It’s only Marvel anyway.
January 6th, 2009 at 8:31 am
We don’t get the newspaper strip in Ottawa. And the last time any paper put a non-humour strip on the comics page in this town, there was a protest campaign against the very idea of such a thing.
The victim of the protest?
Captain Canuck.
January 6th, 2009 at 9:16 am
Spider-Man: For Better or for Worse
by Stan Lee and Lynn Johnson
January 6th, 2009 at 10:19 am
@ Karl: I don’t care anymore about OMD/BND myself (I just stopped buying anything Spidey — ‘Nuff said) but it’s really disengenuous to come on to a comics blog and rip on people for caring about what happens in comics. I mean, why are you here then? Honestly, I’m pretty sure everyone here knows it’s make-beleive. So is scripted TV, but that didn’t stop fans from getting into an uproar over how The Sopranos ended. How is this any different? Or people getting in arms over their favorite sports team’s latest failures? I’m not seeing the difference.
For people who have faithfully followed Spidey for years and years, I can understand how it might upset them. It’s not nearly as important as wars happening all over the real world, or our current economic woes, or any number of problems the world is facing in 2009, but it matters to some. Are you saying that a comic book, movie, or TV show has never upset you? If so, good for you.
@ Steveo: You actually bought OMD in trade? Really? Wow. I’d have given you my floppies, gratis, had I known.
January 6th, 2009 at 10:35 am
Never understood “GET A LIFE” posts at ‘Rama. I hate to be the one to break it to you but the fact that you post in ‘Rama makes you a nerd by society’s standards, sorry.
There are those of us who are married, have been married, have children, have gone on to have high paying jobs or are involved in the comics / cartooning industry and so forth. You really can’t tell anything about anyone just by reading a few lines they wrote down here and if you stereotype, well you really aren’t any better than those who would call you a nerd just from posting at ‘Rama.
Some of us have been following Spidey’s adventures for 20 + years, so yes we get passionate about it here and there, the end. It’s no different then someone being upset when their favorite baseball team loses the world series. But society deems the later okay, go fig.
January 6th, 2009 at 11:28 am
————
# eric recla Says:
January 5th, 2009 at 5:45 pm
My biggest shock from this change of venue was.. “What? There’s still a newspaper strip?”
We don’t get it in Dallas.
————
That was my first response as well. There is still a Spider-man comic strip!?
I rarely read newspapers but the times I have I haven’t seen it.
Stan did a great with this. There was no need to undo the marriage, simply go the prequel route. However the Marvel Universe couldn’t do this due to it’s continuity issues (the massive downside of a shared universe).
January 6th, 2009 at 12:18 pm
Eh, I meant to say “up in arms” over The Sopranos and its ending. I wasn’t suggesting that people actually picked up arms and went on shooting sprees. Although, who knows? Maybe some fans did.
Kidding! Badda-bing, badda-bang!
January 6th, 2009 at 12:22 pm
Wait… the “arms” comment was over sports teams. Sheesh, I did not get enough sleep last night. Pardon me while I nap at my desk at work. Zzzzzzz……………
January 6th, 2009 at 1:07 pm
I’m surprised I haven’t seen mentioned anywhere on here yet that it was famously Stan Lee who decided to marry Peter and MJ; the actual comic books were forced to play catch-up in order to time their marriage with his.
Stan Lee is Marvel’s public persona; it’s his job to gush about what Marvel is doing now. Taking into account that Pete + MJ was his idea, I think considering this move a subtle comment and his own maneuver is perfectly reasonable.
January 6th, 2009 at 2:27 pm
Steveo, whatever. How much money do you think Quesada shoved toward Stan until he agreed to shut up and write a little blurb about how much he loves it?
As much as he enjoys his characters, Stan Lee will do nearly ANYTHING for money. I mean, for God’s sake, I put my Batman Returns blu-ray in the other day, and he’s there, on the special features, blathering about Batman. And that’s a DC character!
So, I definitely see this and him and Roy Thomas giving the finger to Joe Q and Marvel.
January 7th, 2009 at 9:06 am
Way to go Stan! Keeping them married but putting in the flashback stories here and there!!! Bravo! Way to give Joe Q the finger! No wonder they call you “The Man” Lee.