I agree that the story is compelling enough to make up for the shitty art, but all i think about is how much more amazing it would be if only they had an artist who was halfway decent.

I'm not sure I agree that the Angel story is better than Buffy season 8, especially when the most recent Buffy appeared to hint at a tie-in with Fray and an ultimate resolution that, if true, seems to spell an end to the whole shebang. I think the difference is that we're finally catching up with what happened after Angel went off the air, whereas the same wasn't true of Buffy because we had Angel season 5 to throw up broad hints of what was happening (e.g. the Watcher's Council being reformed).

Just because Joe Quesada thinks there's more story potential in a single Peter Parker (i.e. he can kiss and have sex with other girls and...that's about it, really), he's forced a change that few people actually wanted. And to make matters worse, Peter is now a pathetic twentysomething loser that is living at home again (his Aunt's house) because Quesada thinks that makes him more "relatable" to readers.

Unfortunately for Marvel, most people that still read comics these days are married thirtysomething professionals because they're the only ones that can still afford comics at $3 (or more) per issue.

I. SWEAR. TO. GOD.-Stay THE FUCK out of the entire state of Florida Quesada, because this pole-smoker WILL be kidney and nut-punching you until you puke what's left your dyspeptic liver you obnoxious, judgemental, hypocritical greasy FUCK. GRRR-MOTHERFUCKING-AARGH indeed.....

Gods below, I beseech thee. Give me a troll to beat on until my rage (seriously I wanna HURT that fuck) subsides to only 'devastated downtown tokyo' levels instead of this nuclear cloud of rage that is making senior citizens near ne keel over (wait...I AM a Floridian, this is a GOOD thing when the old die, believe you me.)

So Spidey does still represent the average guy! Except that it wasn't an old Silver Surfer villain that reconned me, it was a magic tuba I found in the Lincoln bedroom.

Seriously, remember when Spidey was supposed to be a regular guy with problem who happened to have spider-power and fight maniacs? Most people end up in some type of long term romantic relationship ... granted, not most people who read comic books, but...Okay, rather than follow an average married schlub who takes out the garbage, changes diapers, doesn't make enough money and fights Octa-Goblins, we get bad fantasy.

Here's what Marvel won't and can't do: if they want a younger hero that readers in their late teens and early 20s can relate to (and forget about going any younger because kids as a species don't care about comics any more, why not create one? After all, comic book writers and artists are now called Creators, even though they mostly use characters at Marvel that were created by Jack Kirby, Stan Lee and Steve Ditko.

But what about creators rights, Buzz?

Glad you asked that, glad you asked that. What about 'em? Really, are most of the creator-owned crap characters really that valuable? Are they going to be around 5-10-15-2 years from now? Nope. Marvel should pay fairly, but pay somebody like Kirkman or Bendis to CREATE a new character. Not Ellis because, y'know the character would be just like Ellis and just like all the other Ellis characters. I'm talkin' six figures. Yeah, I know the character could potentially be worth more than six figures but that's usually a lot of wasted potential. Nobody is Jack Kirby circa 1964 these days.

Or pay guys like us considerably less than six figures. If Marvel ponied up $50,000 grand I'd sell 'em ownership of...The Blues. Yeah, the Blues. He's not into the Blues but he, uh, can turn into blue energy or something stupid like that. Sure, it'd probably tank in half an issue but Spider-Man would be as consistent, intelligent and enjoyable as a comic book should be.

Spider-Man is about a superhero with real problems. Well, all of us are going to have to face the death of a loved one, especially parents or parental figures. Both my parents are dead. I could relate to a Spidey who voiced that feeling of being all alone...greater in Pete's case because he doesn't have any siblings or even cousins or any other family that we know about. He's It. The top generation. After the grief, it's a strange feeling when that happens, especially since Pete is already an orphan who could have stopped the killer of his second father figure, etc.

The series will feature Pete/Spidey rooming with Elvis Presley (aka The Karatae King) and Robert E. Howard (aka the Barbarian). Together, these three stalwarts fight evil and moon over the maternal figures in their lives. Here's a preview:

SPIDEY: I just can't lose Aunt May. I can't think of myself or Mary Jane or the daughter we may or may not have depending on current continuity. If I have to choose my wife or Aunt May, it's not a choice.

(Electro nails Spidey with a power bolt)

ELECTRO:That's twisted, man.

Brawling with spoiled rich kid Bill Bixy, Elvis shakes his head.

ELVIS:I know exactly how ya feel, Pete. Nobody ever loved me like mah mamma.

BIXBY:But you had sex with a young Ann-Margret. I mean, have you seen VIVA LAS VEGAS? You make me sick. Don't make me sick. You wouldn't like me when I'm sick.

ROBERT:One has an obligation to the one who brought him into the world. Especially the one who gave birth to him.

THOTH AMON (zapping Robert with a mystic bolt):Is that why you stayed at home with Mama instead of marrying Novalyne Price? I mean, you killed yourself because you mother was dying and you died before her. No one has that kind of obligation. I shall conjure Prozac...

They're not creating the next Spider-Man.

So we're not getting the best stuff, which means that Marvel and DC don't get many new characters.

Vicious cycle.

I say, new characters don't have to be cultural icons. What's wrong with creating good comic characters? They have a run, maybe the book's cancelled, maybe it's relaunched, maybe the character ends up on team or as guest star, etc.

BKV's The Hood was a great character in a vastly underrated mini, and I understand he's now being used as a semi-major villain.

Hood is a good example. We're never going to see Hood Happy Meals. We're never going to line up for a Hood movie. But Marvel has an excellent character, for which the creator Mr. Vaughn and the artist (because Ditko was right: a comic book character is not created until he or she or it is drawn)should have received huge payments for the eternal rights.

Here's my problem with that: Namor isn't some virgin-or-tragically-undersexe d comic book geek/writer. I don't think the Prince of Atlantis with the Olympic swimmer's bod and the 'tude that chicks like probably has any trouble getting sex. This isn't some loser kid that a hot but psychotic high school teacher can seduce into killing her husband.

That's just dumb, and things like that are starting to show Millar aging as a writer. Aging but not maturing. It's supposed to be edgy but it's adolescent edgy. Adolescent edgy is cool for adolescents, but adults should know the difference.

I mean, if I'm in the ninth grade and the Nicole Kidman character says she'll do things to me and let me do things to her if I whack the Matt Dillon character, I'd have said, "Okay, let me get my smokes." Now, it's like:"You know, I've had lots of sex before and I'll have lots of sex again, so I'm going to say not so nice to know ya!"

Namor would probably say something like:"Susan, I have admired your charms in the past but it will take more to convince a Prince of the Blood to committ his Armies and endanger his people."

...as much as I dislike retconning, I would have probably retconned out the super-model angle for MJ. For me, that was where Spidey as a character junked Jaws. It passed from the enduring concept of regular guy with problems and powers to late '80s wish fulfillment.

Now, Iron Man should have had supermodels all over Stark International...

I'm not denying there's appeal in seeing your favorite characters grow and evolve, and I could probably handle a Peter and MJ who were presented as a struggling young couple in the city, which is how it should be. But that's about as far as I think it could and should go. Joe Quesada just talks in soundbites anyway (remember when the unmasking was being hyped as the biggest event in Spidey's history a year and a half ago?) but I happen to agree with some of what he's said recently. Spider-Man's a fictional character. There's only so far you can go before you lose what made him work in the first place. Personally, I think the character is fundamentally changed by having *anyone* to confide in, let alone a wife and kids. Not enough kids are reading comics? Well, having your best-known character who every kid in the world is crazy about bear no resemblance to his most popular versions (because that's all this is, another version -- all your copies of THE CLONE SAGA and THE OTHER are still there to be enjoyed) doesn't sound like a great way to fix that. I'm not really talking about Marvel's current actions - they seem pretty shitty, and making readers spend $9 a month is a sure way to ensure no kids at all pick up your books - but Spider-Man IS a young character, just like Batman lives alone in a scary manor and the FF are a family. Would a married guy with a family still feel that guilty and responsible and motivated to help complete strangers? New characters should be a priority, but I don't see why we should have to lose a great old character along with that.

http://tinyurl.com/3a7pca

And JMS on his falling out with Joey Q here: http://tinyurl.com/24tq8o . Pretty interesting stuff.

Aunt May's older than dirt and has died more times than a porn star's hair. IT'S TIME TO LET HER GO!

The character adds NOTHING to the comic anymore and keeps Peter from ever really growing beyond what he was back in the 60s!

And what does it say about Peter that he'd LITERALLY make a deal with the Devil himself and trade a lifetime with the woman he married and CLAIMS to love in order to cling onto his chronically sick and old "mommy figure?"

Aunt May should've died a long time ago, but instead, we're not only stuck with her, we lose Mary Jane, whose marriage to Spidey actually made him transition to actual adulthood.

What an idiotic and pointless decision. I'm SURE we'll get YEARS of brilliant storytelling out of the continuing lives of Peter and his Auntie May. >:P

They shouldn't have aged him much in the first place. The jump from high school to college seemed alright, but beyond that doesn't work too well. We have to suspend disbelief. "Yeah, I can buy the spider-powers but the guy's not getting any older than he was when I was 11." Well, we're not 11 any more and it's a comic.

That said, they did age him and they needed to shake up the book so they had him get married, as we all know. Okay. Most people do get married in some fashion. Somebody made MJ a super model. Not what I wanted but they could have had her be scarred just enough in an accident or something to do away with that.

Since they did all that, why not go with it? Yeah, Pete can't pay the mortgage and the kid is biting other kids in pre-school but Doc Ock has built secret reactors under the city. Have to defeat him and remember to get Spidey Jr. her vaccinations.

Realistic people with problems as superheroes. Comic readers are older now. The kids may not be coming back to comics.

Meanwhile, no one is creating anything new. They used to call themselves writers, artists and editors and they created things. Now, they use other people's characters and call themselves creators. They wail about creators rights. "I created that chick that Iron Man had sex with. I want my creators rights." No, bubbe, Jack Kirby and Stan Lee created things of value. Your creations probably won't be that valuable, so take the money and run.

I mean, it's not that hard. We need a young hero with problems. Meet PFC Lee Kirby, USMC. He's 20 years old, lost his legs in Iraq and somehow merged with a native spirit. We'll call him the Djinn. When Iraq war vets and Persian Americans start dying, the Djinn goes into action. He realizes that if he helped them, he can't turn anybody down. Marvel can have it for $50,000 grand because I just made it up off the top of my head and can do it all day. I can also do a concept sketch. Probably won't last a year in the shops, but if it does Marvel has a potential icon and $50 grand makes a nice addition to my Cayman Islands account. And I sign a thing saying I'm not going to cry if they make a bad DJINN III movie because I got $50 gs. And we get a young hero with problems and Spidey doesn't get a bad storyline.

"Thor" is okay, but a long way from Walt Simonson.

Maybe Spider-man will get good again.

But a lot of the accumulated continuity leaves a bad taste.

At the same time, Pete had the burden of being orphaned at an early age, then failing to apprehend the man who would kill Uncle Ben (but who wouldn't turn into the Sandman). With one finger, Spider-Man could have prevented Aunt May from being widowed. That was one cold blooded twist. Young Bruce Wayne couldn't have saved his parents in Crime Alley and we all buy him turning into a one man, bat themed SWAT team 15 years later. Batman, as much as we love him, plays to the child fear of losing Mommy and Daddy and being powerless in all of us. Spider-Man is about an adolescent screw up destroying yer whole life. Talk about yer pemanent record.

I quit reading Spidey, except for an occasional issue, long before Aunt May apparently died and came back (wasn't it some "actress" that the Goblin had portraying her? That wasn't SO long ago that it doesn't completely discredit the notion that new comics are smart and old comics were dumb. I mean, I think I'd know if the part of my Mom was suddenly played by Mary Tyler Moore). I've seen the wise, with it Aunt May and have to say I prefer the old one who would look at a newspaper and be frightened of Spider-Man and admire that nice Dr. Octopus "We musn't be prejudice against the poor man because of his misfortunate arms, dear. When I was in college, my Mom was nowhere near as old as Aunt May but she wouldn't let a pair of my punk friends, who were good guys, into our house but wanted me to hang out with her friend's preppy son who was the biggest drug dealer in town. I liked the ditzy Aunt May. Hip Aunt May was too much like the cool Hollywood senior citizen they spoof of the SIMPSONS sometimes, where Grandpa shows up on a motorcycle or Bart can't understand why old people don't ride motorcycles and sky dive like they do on TV.

An aged parent was a dumb maguffin, but Quesada has never been a great storyteller. Palmiotti is the better storyteller from the original Marvel Knights line that got Quesada his EIC gig. This OMD thang is sort of a Jim Shooter move, except that at least Quesada didn't have SO much hubris that he made a move like this early on. It's the sort of thing like: "Because I'm EIC, and I CAN do this, I will, even though I've never shown the kind of chops or had the track record to back this up." Say what you will about Stan Lee, he was a great editor and would have stood by JMS with much slighter modifications.

Finally, I disagree that Gwen and MJ were wish fulfillment, other than most young hetero dudes wish for girls. They looked great because Romita Sr. drew lots of romance comics at DC before Stan hired him back at Marvel. Pete was maturing himself in college, better integrating the two sides of his personality, and he wasn't locked into the rigid high school caste system. Gwen was actually on a science scholarship herself and had a lot in common with Pete. I could easily buy MJ knowing Pete was Spidey or at least sensing and being attracted to his hidden, dangerous side.

Ah, Millar! It's not sophistication. It's the comic geek idea of sophistication. The comic geek stunned to discover that Mom and Dad have sex, even with each other on occasion.

Again, I'm not really talking about what Marvel are doing at the moment. I haven't read it yet so I'll wait to pass judgement. But as a reader I want new generations to be able to enjoy great contemporary Spider-Man stories, featuring the best, iconic version of the character - and I want to be able to read some too. If continuity has to be violated to get there, I can handle that. It's not like continuity has meant much to Marvel for the past few years anyway.

Also, being a good parent means being stressed. They want ya to go here and do this at work, which provides the money to feed the child, but then you can't be there with the kid at certain times. Turn the volume up one louder for Spider-Man.

As far as the best, iconic version of Spidey, you can always read that in the Marvel Essentials. They cost less than most trades and ya get Ditko, Romita Sr. and Gil Kane on the art.

Finally, accepting how they've been or are doing things at Marvel violates the Iconic @$$hole. The Iconic @$$hole was often told:"Yes, stories are slower and decompressed for trade and talk to much, but we have to accept it because they tell us to."

If you've never seen an Iconic @$$hole laugh in someone's face, you're missing a rare and sickening treat!