Deal-breaker

[seriousfic]

You know, no matter how much I hear about Brand New Day, I just can't get into it. From what I hear, it's no great shakes to begin with, and even though Chris Sims says that Dan Slott is doing good stuff... the Mary-Jane stuff really is a deal-breaker for me.

Spider-Man 3 had no deal-breakers for me, although deus ex butler was a little much (I just handwave that as saying he didn't know about Harry being the New Goblin until he found Harry in the lab). Even after the dancing sequence, I was still engrossed in the story. I repeat, EVEN AFTER THE DISCO DANCING.

In JMS' run, mystical totem Spider-Man wasn't a deal-breaker for me, joining the New Avengers wasn't a deal-breaker for me, Goblin babies weren't a deal-breaker (although that story was just JMS being a wanker in every sense of the word)... the public unmasking was a bit of a deal-breaker, just because it was so contrary to who Spider-Man was that it was enough to make me stop reading until shit got put back together.

But this Mary-Jane thing? Deal-breaker. Big fucking deal-breaker. Because just the identification of Peter Parker as Peter Pan, a young schmuck everyman who is eternally single and eternally miserable, just so falls afield of my conception of the character. It's like hearing that Warren Ellis is doing a series about a Superman who saves people because he's being paid by the US government. That's just not Superman to me.

And even 9-to-5 Superman would be at least intriguing as a deviation from the norm, as a commentary on the real Superman. But this MJ-less Spider-Man is supposed to be taken as the real Spider-Man, as if the Spider-Man of the last several decades were some fever dream, a mutation, a perversion from what is right and true about Spider-Man that is at long last being cured by Quesada and his puppets. And, really, there's no other word for them at this point. The mandate can't be "tell cool stories about Spider-Man" because for me and for a significant portion of fandom, a story can't be cool with One More Day in its DNA. It'd be like reading a Batman story in which Batman randomly sets a hobo on fire and then goes to solve a Two-Face crime. No matter how good the story of him fighting Two-Face is, you can't forget that he set a hobo on fire for no reason. So the mandate is "tell stories about Spider-Man being a swinging bachelor." They don't have to be good, the fans don't have to like them, they just have to be about Spider-Man without a ring on his finger.

I'd really rather have cool stories. Because bringing Mary-Jane back and playing out her and Peter being wacky swingers again is... icky. Like, she's in a relationship with a new guy and he has to compete for her affections again, forced laughter. Dude. That's... really... really... fucking gross. Is there any way you can bring back the marriage and then not acknowledge "oh, by the way, while we were broken up we kinda cheated on each other." And not even by choice, because at least, at fucking least, willful adultery would have some drama to it. The details of it, how it came to happen, how they dealt with it, those at least would have some literary potential. This weird mix of mystical date rape and infidelity is like the old splinter in the mind's eye, a nigh-Lovecraftian core of darkness perverting any story it appears in. Reading a story about Peter with another woman or Mary-Jane with another man in this context is like reading a news article on trepanning... you're skimming it, trying to avoid the gory details, waiting until the bad part's over like a little child covering your eyes.

So if you were to import any given BND story into a different continuity, call it Spectacular Spider-Man or Marvel Adventures Spider-Man, it would automatically be revitalized by having this fun-sucking parasite pulled out of it. It's sorta a younger brother to the feeling you get watching a Roman Polanski movie, knowing that he fled a child molestation charge. Or the feeling you get watching a remake of a movie you liked and always comparing it to the original. It's just awkward and weird and uncomfortable and this forced glee, this Griswaldian tone of "AREN'T WE HAVING FUN! JUST LIKE THE OLD DAYS, HUH!? WEEEEEEEE!" that extends from everything from the attitude of the creators to the narrative itself (via those forced "you know, for kids" captions. Really, is there anything more pathetic than a bunch of fortysomething men trying to seem hip to the kids? Anything at all?) just adds to the horror of it.

So... not a fan.

Comments

[crazedwolf.livejournal.com]

In my opinion they are just trying too hard with BND. Way too hard. I'm still pretty convinced that MJ remembers everything which makes it all even worse. And I'm also convinced that Harry is not Harry but Mephisto. He just...he knows too much. I dunno, I can't explain it but something just doesn't sit right with me when it comes to Harry at all.

Goblin babies weren't a deal-breaker

What is this that you speak of? Goblin babies? -rocks back and forth pretending that 'Sins Past' doesn't exist-

So, basically...

[(Anonymous)]

...you're complaining about (and passing judgment on) something you've only heard about, but not read for yourself?

Re: So, basically...

[pendown.livejournal.com]

Have one shit sandwich. Apparently you need to eat it in order to tell that a turd between two slices of bread makes a bad sandwich. seriousfic and I aren't that stupid and aren't that lacking in imagination.

Re: So, basically...

[pokadotvelvet.livejournal.com]

I couldn't have put that better, myself. :)

Re: So, basically...

[(Anonymous)]

You don't know it's a turd. You don't know that there's even two slices of bread around it. You don't even know if it's a sandwich.
No one's saying that you're stupid or that you lack imagination.
I'm just saying, if you haven't read it, you don't know.

No one would ask Roger Ebert to review he hadn't read. Or had just seen the trailer to. Or had read what his friends had said about it.

You either know or you don't. And you don't know.

Re: So, basically...

[pendown.livejournal.com]

Except that I have seen the chef at work over CCTV. And he has put two lumps of bread together with various things between them including a great steaming turd freshly provided by a poodle. And put those on the tray to be delivered. And I've tracked that tray by CCTV to the waiter. Now it's just possible that the fumble-footed waiter is a member of the Magic Circle and has substituted the sandwich for something else - but on past form I doubt it. And I can see the flies hovering over the tray. I've no wish to let that thing any nearer me than I have to.

You fail, assclown.

[box-in-the-box.livejournal.com]

I've seen pages of its "best moments" at scans_daily. I've heard praise from people who like it. Based on the RECOMMENDATIONS of people who ENJOY it, and on seeing what are presented by its FANS as the BEST PARTS of it, I know it's total dogshit, because everything they LOVE about it is everything I HATE about it.

And what YOU'RE saying is that WE'RE not entitled to have an opinion on something WITHOUT PAYING MONEY FOR IT, and for that reason alone, no matter WHAT you're defending, you deserve to die in a fire.

And it's amazing how so many of the BND supporters seem to be anonymous troll-tards. Y HALO THAT MARVEL PLANTS.

Re: So, basically...

[seriousfic.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that's kinda my point. No matter how good BND is, the demon-break-up of Peter and Mary-Jane is a deal-breaker for me.

Of course, back in the old Haturz League days when CINO was on the radar, we had a saying. If you need to actually see a Catwoman movie about Patience Phillips, resurrected avatar of the goddess Bast brought back to life to fight an evil cosmetics corporation, to know it's bad... you're probably the sort of person who would enjoy a Catwoman movie about Patience Phillips.

Re: So, basically...

[(Anonymous)]

No. I'm the kind of person who enjoys a Spider-Man comic about Peter Parker. :)

(Which, BTW, I've read.)

Re: So, basically...

[seriousfic.livejournal.com]

I'd dispute whether someone who makes a deal with the devil to sacrifice his happy, loving marriage to his soulmate for a few more years with his perpetually-on-death's-door aunt out of misplaced guilt would qualify as Peter Parker. Maybe he's "Peter Parker" in the same way the Batman in All-Star Batman & Robin is "Batman."

Of course, ASSBAR is supposed to be funny...

Re: So, basically...

[seriousfic.livejournal.com]

By the way, I'm the last person who would condemn someone solely for anonymity, this being the Internet and all, but by posting anonymously you come off a little trollish and I think that contributes to the reaction your opinion receives. So even if you like BND, sign your name to that and I won't hold a grudge or anything.

Re: So, basically...

[pendown.livejournal.com]

So your Peter Parker is someone who will literally make a deal with the devil? That's not the Peter Parker I've read about.

Re: So, basically...

[seriousfic.livejournal.com]

Dude, got it covered. Don't wanna dogpile the poor guy. Here, have some lesbian porn with extra threesomeawosity.

Re: So, basically...

[pendown.livejournal.com]

Fair enough and thanks :-)

[wow-hazmat.livejournal.com]

I've read lots of BND while hanging out at the Books-A-Million next to my place of work. (There's no way in hell I'm paying money for it.) So I can very rightfully say that, yes, it pretty much is shit.

The plot with the snowstorm and the Aztec god was good. And there are little nuggets of not-shit here and there, but it's overall tainted by the deal-with-the-devil CRAP that was OMD, and even the stuff that's good doesn't need MJ out of the picture to have happened. Like that snowstorm plot. Did it require an unmarried Peter Parker? No it did not.

For a more eloquent review of BND and whatnot, though, I defer to the guy at SpideyKicksButt on his essay Bland New Day (http://spideykicksbutt.com/YearinReview/BlandNewDay.html).

(Oh, and check out his other essays (http://www.spideykicksbutt.com/SKBTableofContents.html) as well. It's good reading.

[lurkslikefox.livejournal.com]

God do I know that feeling. It would have annoyed me if they ended MJ and Peter's relationship, but that they did it in such a juvinile and stupid way... I could foam at the mouth, I really could.

I must say though, I kinda liked the public unmasking. But mostly because I would have loved to have been in the room when JJJ found out.