Frankly I' m a casual comic book reader at best. Throughout the years I checked out a couple of characters. I didn't use to consider myself as a "DC guy" , I simply thought I holded a a slight preference for DC over Marvel based on the simple fact that Batman was my favorite character, as many I watched Batman TAS as a kid, but still I had a good opinion of Marvel characters and I was a big fan of USM(even more now... ). Well enough about me. Just wanted to make clear where I come from.
As for DC/Marvel : We're now well into New 52 and at the eve of Marvel Now. Up now I thought Marvel did better than DC and by better I mean MUCH better. I mean : DC has a lot to learn from the marvel movie universe. The Ultimate universe is in my opinion one of the greatest things ever in superhero comics : it doesn't debase the characters as 616 is still available and as character REALLY die in the ultimate universe, it provides the kind of powerful storytelling that is impossible in classic superhero comics. When I read about Marvel NOW it seemed like a masterful stroke that made the new 52 look sloppy : it seemed like they had something very focused in mind with only a handful of books very much planned .In the other hand New 52 was more like make it edgier and sexier, throw a lot of them if see it it sticks, if it doesn't rinse and repeat with another book: third writer for superman, back on her legs babs still pales to everything before (her former batgirl self, the cain batgirl, the oracle persona) and simone has been sacked, hawkman continuity is now so radioactive that its half-life will outlast the extinction of the sun,etc...To top everything, DC announced the end of Hellblazer for Constantine , a corporate dick move which made clear their intent to kill off Vertigo , ironic considering this brand was truely the one thing even remotely edgy in traditional comic books. In spite of all those blunders everything wasn't bleak : the whole dark family is very enjoyable. DC is A LOT wiser when it comes to events. Small crossovers and "Family events" like Court of Owls and Rotworld keep things moving without jading the audience while Marvel thanks to their taste for flashy big events seems to be on the brink of apocalypse every otherweek. I was on the fence.
Then I read ASM 700.
No words would do justice to my reaction when I read THIS. Has the marvel guys completely lost their minds ? Then it made me think about DC and marvel and specifically the handling of their respective flagship character spiderman and batman. I remember when morrison took over the batman character I had a couple of hiccups like "wait it doesn't intend to do that ?" still it was different from what I expected but not going against the character. Dick taking up the cowl, Batman and son, Batman inc. 4 years later most of it stuck and everything had an influence. It changed the character, probably permanently considering how the sales went on. It clearly broke the mystic around bruce wayne/batman who used to be this one kind of a guy, the epitome of human perfection and a loner. He's more and more a leader, a father, a ressourceful patriarch with limited direct power (and snyder didn't miss this with his current "death of the family" with a joker grieving over this change and bent on destroying his allies thinking it will restore the previous batman). That the character experiences this kind of change from "Batgod Morrison" is all the more surprising, The character changed and the character grew. I'm inclined to think that it doesn't prevent coming back to the roots here and there, be it elseworld like batman earth one or a more focused book (like detective comics could be if it wanted). THAT is the construction of a character, I'm talking to you Marvel.
So Spiderman had one fuckfest of a storyline with the clone saga, then you come back at it with the whole civil war/OMD and now another one!?????? I mean how much drugs do you have to do, how desperate you are to imagine it's okay for a villain to take over a supehero ??? it goes against everything the genre stands for!!!!!! specifically the "friendly neighboorhood spiderman" which is not exactly the edgiest character by definition. And note that everytime you mess it up you simply erase. I'm under the impression that past gwen stacy death and peter parker growing from a complete dweeb to more of a charming nerd the character didn't experience any growth in f..... 700 issues !!!!! and you keep messing with his identity, the whole ben reilly/peter parker mess now this new superior spiderman so is it otto in peter parker body, otto with peter parker memories, some kind of merged idendity neither oto nor the former spiderman?you tell me. But this is not SF: this is no Dune, no Werewolf Principle. Likability and identification is the core of the superhero genre and you keep f.... with this. So I sincerely hope you have some kind of grand masterplan for this, because what you're doing lately is exactly the kind of thing that can kill a superhero character for real. You can't kill him in one stroke, not a character this popular. But you keep those brainwrecking storyline coming, those WTF moments happening with the regularity of a weird ass cuckoo clock, you keep erasing them like in some Mad Hatter kingdom and you will successfully make the character LAME INSIGNIFICANT AND IRRELEVANT.
As for me I will never consider myself a spiderman fan after something like this knowing the kind of s... you are able to pull off. It's out of question that I pick up a book like this and I definetely range with DC that might be amateurish sometimes but never raped the corpse of the character like you just did (and considering that Otto is moments away from banging MJ, just after condescending on his dead body and taking everything away from him it's barely a metaphor for once ).
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