The Spider-Man that's... what's a few steps back from Ultimate?

[seriousfic]

So the reviews are in of Amazing Spider-Man and I suppose I might have to a do a pros/cons review instead of my original plan, which was just to post a bunch of Willem Dafoe reaction gifs. So, here's something I can be really negative about: Ultimate Spider-Man.

I have a pretty lenient policy towards cartoons. I don't expect most of them to entertain me, just for the simple reason that they're not for me. I'm not going to go into Madagascar and post a review about how stupid it is: it's a series called Madagascar and the latest one is set in France. Plus, there's an entirely unrelated children's CGI movie about talking animals called Rio. See? Stupid.

But I do believe every genre has stories that transcend the target audience, so even if you don't like police procedurals, you can enjoy The Wire. Avatar, Adventure Time--that's good stuff, even by the standards of "painless watching for the parents inbetween toy commercials". And the last Spider-Man series, Spectacular Spider-Man, was really good, right up there with the classic Batman cartoons. It was released at the same time as Wolverine And The X-Men, which I thought was just kinda dumb. For some reason, they took Wolverine, who's cool because he's an outsider who tells authority to go suck it, and made him the authority figure. Also, for some reason people shipped Emma/Logan? Yeah. Let's move on.

So Spectacular Spider-Man was cancelled because of some weaselly contract thing, and instead of Marvel just getting the old creative team together and telling them "make a new cartoon, *wink*" (c'mon, it's Disney, they've been more underhanded. Remember when they told us that Alice In Wonderland was a movie and not a Hot Topic commercial?), they made this new cartoon to kinda-sorta tie-in with the movie and be based on the Ultimate comics.

And I gave it a few episodes, and I don't mean to offend you if you enjoyed it, but fuck. It's too dumb for me. There was an episode with Spider-Man fighting an energy monster and he was going to douse it with water and they actually had Spider-Man turn to the audience and go "Water and electricity are a bad combination!" or something. Like, really? You had to explain that? That's the level of faith you have in your audience? I mean, I know Spectacular Spider-Man was for kids too, but they didn't assume kid = retard. They had Shakespeare quotes, and sprawling storylines, complex characterization. I don't want to oversell it, but as an adaptation of the early Spider-Man comics (which were also meant for kids, let's remember) it was amazing.

Also, not to be that fan, but one of the Ultimate Spider-Man's conceits is that he's leading a team of fellow young superheroes. I guess it's kind of the New Warriors, since they were sorta the Outsiders to Spidey's Batman? No? No one remembers that? Forget it, Jake, it was the 90s. Anyway, a bit oddly, they're all more Daredevil characters than Spider-Man's. You've got the White Tiger, Luke Cage, and Iron Fist. And it just seems weird to have Muppet Babies versions of Cage and Danny. Iron Fist's origin is that he's trained really hard to be a martial arts master, so... that only took until he entered high school? When did he start? And Luke Cage was a street tough who was framed for a capital crime and underwent an experiment to get off death row. How does that work with a minor?

Well, it bugs me.

I guess the only thing really interesting about Ultimate Spider-Man is what it says about youth culture. It's funny, because when I was growing up, we had the Spider-Man with no punching, and it started off with Peter in college (it was meant to take off from the James Cameron Spider-Man that never materialized). They had him age, and graduate, even kinda get married (it was the 90s; things got complicated). Now, it seems like every Spider-Man adaptation is exploring the same ground. Spider-Man in high school. Norman Osborn as the Big Bad. Dr. Octopus is working for him (Ultimate takes this one step further and has Ock as Norman's henchman).

A little while ago, pictures came out of an Iron Patriot suit in Iron Man 3, and there was a bit of an online reaction going "oh no, now the Spider-Man movies can't do Iron Patriot!" And I don't think there's a real creative interest in ever getting to that point. Batman, they'll do whatever--have a film showing the end of the legend, have him join the JLA, do a cartoon with him as an established superhero, do a cartoon with him as a rookie, do a cartoon with him having crazy team-ups, do... whatever the hell this is.


"Hey, Bob, do we have any female minority characters that could be Batman's sidekick? Maybe an Asian? Maybe really good at kung-fu? One with a huge fanbase?" "Oh, yeah. You're talking about Katana!"

Spider-Man is always in high school, he's always fighting the Green Goblin... it's odd. It's like, he hasn't been a teen superhero since any of us have been born, but the corporate overfiends are entirely fixated on this, like, ten-year stretch of his history. Maybe this whole youth culture thing has gotten out of hand, when we lose interest in a character once they can buy beer.

Okay, two interesting things. Or one interesting thing and a criticism, if you prefer. For some reason, they take the Ultimate comics Mary-Jane, who has a Gwen Stacy/movieverse MJ kinda characterization, and make her an aspiring reporter? I kinda get it--they want to bring in the Daily Bugle guys, especially since they actually got J. K. Simmons to play Jameson, and since here Peter's ambition is to become a full-time superhero, they use MJ to bring that into play (although that hasn't happened yet, but I'm assuming). They also give MJ the "childhood friend!" relationship to Peter that Gwen had in Spectacular Spider-Man.

I'm going somewhere with this, I swear.

And I was already kinda side-eying Bendis when he made Ultimate!MJ Gwen and Ultimate!Gwen MJ. Maybe it would work a little better if they made Betty Brant the would-be journalist friend? The thing is... I get updating Gwen so she's basically Spider-Man's Lana Lang. Childhood friend, good at science, I get it. The original characterization is from a different time and they want to update a character who, let's remember, was so boring that the most interesting thing to do with her was killing her off, back before comics killed someone whenever the editor missed a nap.

But I find male characters always have a core personality that their adaptations reflect. Robin is kinda goofy but also kinda dark. Superman is always really nice and warm-hearted. Batman is always brooding and an asshole but we won't say so because the fanboys think it's cool.


"If I have a six-pack abs and a black belt, girls won't care that I'm a jerk to them, they'll want my bone!" - like, a fucking fifth-grader or something.

And this Spider-Man thing is the only situation I can think of where female characters are treated as so interchangeable. You wouldn't see an X-Men cartoon where Emma is a goody two-shoes and Jean is a morally ambiguous sex pest, would you? So why is this character named Mary-Jane? What is the core aspect of her personality? That she's a party girl? That she has a bad home life? That she knows Peter is Spider-Man?

Is it just that she's a redhead?

That's why this reporter thing sits bad with me, apart from the superhero/reporter pairing being such a cliche. The comics, pre-BND, were actually doing pretty right with Mary Jane. They were moving away from the supermodel career path--probably a good idea, since way too many idiots concerned fans were poking holes in that (and I can see a bit of an eye-roll at "oh, Peter's wife is a supermodel, she gets to stand around all day in a bikini and be really hot"). JMS transitioned here into being more of a struggling actress, which both made sense (there've been plenty of young models who became actors) and gave you more plots than just "MJ has a stalker, again!" And it lets the character grow and show wisdom, while still having the feast-or-famine financial difficulties you need for a continuing Spider-Man story. So if Ultimate Spider-Man made Mary-Jane a theater geek, I wouldn't be writing this article.

I just don't see the connection between Peter's childhood friend who longs to be a reporter, and someone introduces herself with "Face it, tiger, you just hit the jackpot." In a way, it feels almost back a slap in the face to what made the original Peter/MJ romance so interesting. "Oh, you liked that Peter's one true love was a flirty party girl who worked as a model and turned out to have hidden depths despite liking sex? Guess what! We're turning her into his virginal best friend who he slowly realizes he has feelings for, just like every other story has! Enjoy your traditional gender roles, motherfucka!"

Wow, this article ran long. But I think I still have space to take a shot at Hal Jordan.


"If I have a six-pack abs and fly planes, girls won't care that I'm a jerk to them, they'll want my bone! Two at once, even." - Geoff Johns.

ETA: I should probably update this for Fempop when the new movie comes out. I'm really interested in how Amazing Spider-Man is trying to capture the Twilight/Hunger Games female audience, so they're replacing Mary Jane with Gwen. I mean, c'mon, when you think vampire mom/bow-wielding revolutionary, who thinks "If you liked that, wait'll you get a load of GWEN STACY!"

Comments

[jlbarnett.livejournal.com]

feminists might not like this, but I feel like the core of MJ's character is she's the one Peter can rely on. No matter what the other people in his life think she'll be there for him. And it's not just "don't worry Peter, I won't let those mean jerks bother you," it's "I'll help you figure out if YOU did something wrong and need to make it right, or if they're just being idiots."

[seriousfic.livejournal.com]

It seems really reductive to say Mary-Jane's character core is that she's a good girlfriend. Part of what made her a good girlfriend was that she understood where Peter was coming from in leading dual lives and dealing with inner demons.

[jlbarnett.livejournal.com]

but I think she's that way even when she's not his girlfriend. She kind of fills(ed) the roll a lot of sidekicks do for heroes. And not just Robin type superhero sidekicks, but Watson for Holmes tpe sidekicks

[jlbarnett.livejournal.com]

all they see when they see MJ is "wife"

[colonel-green.livejournal.com]

Holy shit, is that Pyg from Grant Morrison's run in a children's cartoon?