Great Power Brings Great Annoyability



The roll-out of this month's Spider-Man comics featuring a new narrative baseline designed to return the character to what Marvel perceives are core elements of his appeal -- single guy, no money, older relative for whom he feels responsible -- has led to a few feature articles worth noting like this interview with writer Dan Slott that practically shakes with Slott rubbing his hands together over the thought of penning Spider-Man's adventures or these kind of posts where people see a massive entertainment company placing a pop culture item in a big newspaper as something worth noting, or this parody comic that sees the controversial aspects as purposeful moves to generate publicity. You also see a lot of one-more-time running up and kicking the prone body of the plot mechanism that got Marvel there: Peter Parker making a deal with the devil.

I like Spider-Man comic books OK, and have great admiration for the extended initial, approximately 150-issue thematically cohesive and engaging run by Steve Ditko, Stan Lee, John Romita, Gerry Conway, Gil Kane and others -- particularly Ditko's work. That being said, I have no interest in tracking the latest permutations of the character's long-ago established function as a manipulable licensing totem. I get the attention. It's fun to play Monday Morning Quarterback with big pop-culture companies when they decide to do things like this, and to watch other people turn red in the face over the results, but it's tough to become invested in what at its heart is little more than a new actor being cast to play Ronald McDonald. I feel for those who are invested -- albeit with a healthy dose of "if this is a life problem for you, you must have a great life" -- but there are enough Spider-Man comic books out there for a lifetime's allotment of reading, and I'd like to suggest that maybe most of us have already experienced ours.
 
posted 7:00 am PST | Permalink
 

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