Stan Lee
One More Day Proves That Joe Quesada Does Not Understand Spider-Man
(I would say that if you haven’t read Amazing Spider-Man 545 yet, you should stop here until you do read it, but I actually recommend that you just don’t read it at all.)
But unlike some people, I am not going to call for his head. At least not completely. Other than the horrible Black Panther and Storm wedding, most of what he’s done outside of Spider-Man has been pretty good. I liked Civil War (for the most part). I love Astonishing X-Men. Grant Morrison’s X-Men was good, but not really for me. Planet Hulk was a ton of fun (I am behind and haven’t read WWH yet). But with all that in mind, let’s look at some of the Spider-Man stories that came about under his watch (some of which were his idea)
Sins Past
Spider-Totems
Ezekiel
One More Day
(I will admit that making Peter a science teacher was fun and I liked that)
He’s certainly trying. And I think the stories he’s given us have seemed great in his head. But the fact that they seemed like good ideas to him makes it even worse. The fact that he seems to really think these are all great ideas shows that he is severely lacking in any understanding of the character. If he was phoning it in, I’d probably be more willing to cut him some slack. And since he has made many statements defending OMD, let’s look at some of them.
First off, he insists that the marriage was a bad idea because free and single Peter is more interesting. First off, Peter is supposed to be the “everyman.” Stan Lee started the trend of maturing Peter Parker when he sent him off to college. Granted, that was largely due to John Romita drawing him less dorky, but it was still Stan “the Man” Lee who had Peter grow up. And part of growing up for most people is getting married. He says that there are no good stories to tell with married Peter. If that’s the case, he needs to hire better writers. It’s not our fault they’re not creative enough to come up with good stories that don’t involve manufactured romantic woes. Peter’s motto is “With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility.” Nothing involves more responsibility than maintaining a marriage and treating your wife with love and respect. There is much more responsibility involved in a marriage than in a dating relationship so play off of that. I am not anywhere near as creative as the people working at Marvel and I’ve already thought of a way to work that with the character.
But let’s assume for argument’s sake that the marriage had to end. This is the best he could come up with?
He claims that Peter and Mary Jane can’t get divorced. I’d actually agree with him on that one. It can work for some characters, but for Peter and Mary Jane it’s as bad an idea as it would be for Clark Kent and Lois Lane to get divorced. But if it’s a bad idea for Spider-Man to get divorced, why in the world is it a better idea for him to make a deal with the Devil? That’s some pretty bizarre logic there.
So his next claim is that you can’t kill Mary Jane because it will make Peter seem even older. This is ridiculous. There are plenty of young widows and widowers out there. When a young person is a widow(er), it doesn’t make them seem older, it makes them seem more tragic. When you meet someone who’s 25 years old and they tell you that they’re a widower because their spouse died of cancer at a young age, does it make them seem older? I would hope not. Does it make them seem tragic and even kind of interesting? It sure does. And that’s what Peter’s life has been built on – tragedy. Granted, piling one more tragedy on poor Peter might seem like too much. But that’s another reason to keep the marriage. It’s nice for Peter to have that one stable thing to fall back on.
So, we need to get rid of the marriage, but we can’t have them divorce and we can’t have MJ die. So what do we do? Have Peter willingly make a deal with the devil? If you insist on a pointless retcon, at least have it be something that makes sense. This is completely out of character for Peter. Remember “With great power comes great responsibility?” How responsible is it to make a deal with the devil? And let’s think about it. If the devil comes to you making a bargain for something, it’s obvious that whatever it is that he’s asking you to give up is something that’s important to him. Why would Peter give him what he wants just so that the old bat can live a few more years? May’s died before and Peter’s been fine. You’d think he’d be used to it by now. And would May want this? Isn’t it doing a disservice to his aunt that he loves so much to do something that she would undoubtedly be 100% opposed to? Could you picture her? “Hey May, the devil is offering to bring you back to life, but in order to do so, he has to take away my wife from me and pretend we never got married. Do you think you’d be fine with that?”
I think I better stop before I get too angry again. Unless Joe Q has a big Ace up his sleeve (and while I am not counting on it, I still wouldn’t be surprised if there was more to this story than it appears and the marriage is coming back – or maybe that’s just wishful thinking), I think this will be the next “Clone Saga” and may result in the end of his tenure as EIC. It’s a shame because (almost) everything he’s done has worked. Any takers for the job?
Kyle has been an avid Comic Book collector since 1981 and this is probably the most bone-headed story idea he’s seen. Spider-Man’s still a great character and you can track down his previous stories for cheap at CheapComicsNow [http://www.cheapcomicsnow.com]
About the Author
Stan Lee Cameos (Marvel Movies)
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