Comics are awesome.

[138 Scourge]

You know M.O.D.O.K.'s gonna be playable in Marvel vs. Capcom 3, right?

I've heard, yeah. And damn, between that and wanting to play God of War III, I might have to buy a newer system than my PS2.

So I read some of the comics that Dom sent along...

Spider-Man: The Clone Saga 1-6: I think Marvel's Spidey editorial team was thinking "Hey, people are pissy about the One More Day thing, how about we remind 'em what REALLY crappy Spider-events were about?". And so we get this series. It's supposed to be a "What the Clone Saga was supposed to be", and if so, it's still not a great idea, but this is a hell of a lot better than the original. Oddly, Peter and MJ keep baby May at the end, and Ben Reilly survives it. I have to wonder if that's something that was supposed to be there, or if DeFalco and Mackie decided "Screw it, this is basically non-continuity anyway" and changed that up. Anyway, surprisingly, not that bad.

And on the other hand..."Spider-Man 641: Chapter four of One Moment in Time": Okay, what the hell, guys. What the hell. So this is presumably intended to clear up some of the oddness behind the mechanics of "One More Day", and explain why nobody knows who Peter is now. Instead, it just makes it more complicated and, no kidding, even dumber. So now Spidey went to Doctor Strange instead of, or as well as, Mephisto? And then the whole...ugh, you know what? Never mind. I like most of what I've seen of "Brand New Day", and think Spidey's generally a good read nowadays, but how the current status quo got started was an incredibly dumb idea.

[Dominic]

DeFalco has said, (I forget where), that the 6 issue "Clone Saga" is part of M2.

But, that ending is more or less what was supposed to happen. MJ and Peter, (whichever Peter), were going to go off and raise their baby responsibly, leaving the Spiderman job to Ben.

Dom
-would have preferred that.

[138 Scourge]

Was Ben supposed to take on the "Peter Parker" identity? Because otherwise I couldn't see that lasting very long.

[Sparky Prime]

And on the other hand..."Spider-Man 641: Chapter four of One Moment in Time": Okay, what the hell, guys. What the hell. So this is presumably intended to clear up some of the oddness behind the mechanics of "One More Day", and explain why nobody knows who Peter is now. Instead, it just makes it more complicated and, no kidding, even dumber.

Can't say that I'm at all surprised. Trying to clean up his mess that was OMD, Quesada instead only digs the hole deeper... Clearly he shouldn't be writing stories for Spider-Man. Any mention of why the new powers (such as the organic webshooters) he used to have suddenly vanished after OMD?

[138 Scourge]

Nope, not a bit. But this is part four of four, so it might be covered elsewhere. This just has how eveyone's memory of Spidey's identity got erased.

[Onslaught Six]

Was Ben supposed to take on the "Peter Parker" identity? Because otherwise I couldn't see that lasting very long.

I don't think that was ever the plan, merely that Ben Reily would be the new Spider-Man.

There's a really detailed summary of the whole thing, from the editorial side, on this blog here:
http://lifeofreillyarchives.blogspot.com/

EDIT: It reads that, at one point, it was supposed to be that Ben Reily was actually the "original" Peter Parker, but it seems like the intent was never really to have Ben Reily go around using "Peter Parker" as his name.

Also, it's interesting to note about the death of Thunderstrike & War Machine's books as well as the 2099 thing. Basically some executive saying "These guys are doing the schtick of Thor/Iron Man/etc. better than the originals are doing themselves. Screw that, just make the originals closer to what we want them to be." Which, in theory, is a good idea, but it doesn't work in practice. There's a whole mess of stuff you could talk about regarding that...

[138 Scourge]

Was Ben supposed to take on the "Peter Parker" identity? Because otherwise I couldn't see that lasting very long.

I don't think that was ever the plan, merely that Ben Reily would be the new Spider-Man.

There's a really detailed summary of the whole thing, from the editorial side, on this blog here:
http://lifeofreillyarchives.blogspot.com/

EDIT: It reads that, at one point, it was supposed to be that Ben Reily was actually the "original" Peter Parker, but it seems like the intent was never really to have Ben Reily go around using "Peter Parker" as his name.

Also, it's interesting to note about the death of Thunderstrike & War Machine's books as well as the 2099 thing. Basically some executive saying "These guys are doing the schtick of Thor/Iron Man/etc. better than the originals are doing themselves. Screw that, just make the originals closer to what we want them to be." Which, in theory, is a good idea, but it doesn't work in practice. There's a whole mess of stuff you could talk about regarding that...

There is, yeah. I kind of agree with the exec in question, because why dilute things, you know? Okay, the 2099 books are kind of a different thing, because you've got entirely different people behind the masks, and often times the name and general appearance is the only thing they have in common with their namesakes. Ghost Rider's still a skull-faced guy on a motorcycle, but you'd never mistake the 2099 variety for the 70's or 90's guy.

But when you've got guys like USAgent, Thunderstrike, and War Machine running around, it's like, why mess with these guys when you've got the originals? Of course, you can do different things with the imitations than you can with the originals, look at, say, the Squadron Supreme as opposed to the Justice League. But in practice, I don't think they really ran with that like they could've. Of course, outside of reading about USAgent in the West Coast Avengers, I've never followed any of those guy's books because I thought they all looked silly, but still.

As for Reilly, I don't see any reason story-wise that him taking over as Spidey while Peter retires "couldn't" work, but people want to see "Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man". Still, had they gone that route, it could have been a kind of "reset" button...suddenly, Spider-Man's single again, trying to find his way in the world and meet new pals and gals, while Peter's still happily married. I just have a tough time picturing fans putting up with someone else in the Spider-Suit other than Peter, even if it is sort of the same guy.

[andersonh1]

Talking about someone else in the same suit... anyone see what's up and coming with Batman? I think Grant Morrison may finally have lost his mind here.

Bruce Wayne is returning as Batman, of course, but Dick Grayson will remain Batman as well. Meaning there's two of them running around. But more than that, there's a book coming out called "Batman, Inc.", and without having read any more than a few issue summaries, it appears as though there will be "Batmen" in various cities around the world, with Bruce Wayne running the whole enterprise.

As I said, I'm pre-judging the idea without reading it, but this just seems utterly absurd to me. I'm a big fan of Batman, and I think the character works best when he's at home in Gotham, hiding in the shadows and scaring the criminals to death. I can't see him running some worldwide enterprise, trying to control crime all over the planet when he's always been so narrowly focused on Gotham City.

[Dominic]

"Batman Inc" is conceptually sound. Bruce Wayne, being a millionaire would understand economies of scale and venture capital. Funding and supporting franchised heroes would amplify the good he could do and build a brand/legend. Of course, we know it will not stick.

As for Reilly, I don't see any reason story-wise that him taking over as Spidey while Peter retires "couldn't" work, but people want to see "Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man". Still, had they gone that route, it could have been a kind of "reset" button...suddenly, Spider-Man's single again, trying to find his way in the world and meet new pals and gals, while Peter's still happily married. I just have a tough time picturing fans putting up with someone else in the Spider-Suit other than Peter, even if it is sort of the same guy.

Marvel tried to split the bill on this, which is how they got in trouble. Had they simply said "Ben is the clone, and Peter is retiring" and run with it, readers would have gotten over it. Ben would have had the same appeal as Peter, (working man, everyday problems in addition to cape and mask issues), but less baggage. But, they wanted to split the difference, and say that Ben really was Peter and.....

It is similar to the problems with "One More Day" and "One Moment In Time". These are soft reboots intended to restore a character to the glory days, but add even more baggage, ensuring that nobody is happy.

The fact that Marvel's best books in the 90s were secondary and tertiary titles was not a problem unto itself. It makes sense that such titles would be creatively and editorially sound. The fact that Marvel would cancel them in favor of mainline books that not only sold well to begin with, but were institutionally incapable of being good for any length of time shows the kind of problems Marvel really had in the 90s.

[andersonh1]

"Batman Inc" is conceptually sound. Bruce Wayne, being a millionaire would understand economies of scale and venture capital. Funding and supporting franchised heroes would amplify the good he could do and build a brand/legend. Of course, we know it will not stick.

Hard to maintain a secret identity when you're essentially a CEO of a worldwide superhero network. I realize that Bruce isn't exactly the same character as he was when he began his Batman crusade, since he's become a part of the superhero community in general, especially with his Justice League membership. But the more high profile Batman becomes, the less effective the character is, in my opinion.

He becomes a man in a silly suit instead of someone hiding in the shadows, using his image to intimidate criminals.

I should probably be fair and take a wait and see approach, but the idea sounds like it's just incompatible with the character of Bruce Wayne/Batman.