Comic Book Resources

How long before someone mindwipes the world to forget the revelation? Hasn’t Tony Stark unmasked at least a dozen times, but people keep forgetting? I give this a year. Maybe less.

I made the prediction that Spidey would kill Iron Man in this issue and I almost wish I had been right. Peter revealing his identity is a dumb idea, his sense of responsibility to those he cares about is too high. With this in mind I make another prediction that to get out of this, the press conference will be revealed as a holographic illusion designed by Tony Stark as a test of Peter’s loyalties. This will be the turning point in which Peter sees Tony as a manipulative turd and switches sides.

I like it. I’m all for change to the status quo.

Now we just need Lois to have gotten knocked up from all the sex her and Clark kent have been having for the last year.

Mark Millar’s comment on his forum:

“I had a million big surprises already planned for MCW. There’s scenes coming up and twists on characters that will blow you away, I promise, but this one was entirely Joe Q. The idea worked well with the concept and, to be honest, I’d have had him on the other side, but the rationale they had was a good one and so I came up with the TV camera way of doing it. But the blame for this one lies with Joe essentially”

Comics, like Soap Operas, are all about the illusion of change. This is real change. This means that there are potentially really good, novel and interesting stories to come. Making Spider-Man an avatar of an ancient Spider-God or having Gwen hook up with the Goblin or cloning him is not real change. That is retcon.

REAL change is usually marriage, or a baby, or identity revealed. Or in the case of Wally West, making his identity SECRET, which also really changed the stories.

This is ‘Superman marrying Lois’ big, an act that fundamentally changes the kinds of stories they can tell. Kudos to Marvel for taking a real risk. ‘Donna Troy is Wonder Woman now’ is not a risk, sorry.

I am now interested in Spider-Man again, because there is real tension and a real resonance of this act within the world of Spider-Man. He has a huge cast of characters that will be shocked, fearful, happy, confused, etc. And it FITS THE CHARACTER. With great power comes great responsibility. Peter Parker must be held responsible if Spider-Man errs and hurts someone.

I now give 2-1 odds Mary Jane Watson is murdered within the next year as a result of this storyline. Stay away from refrigerators, tiger.

Can’t wait to see the reaction of one Mr. J. Jonah Jameson. Does Flash Thompson know yet? Whoo boy.

“to be honest, I’d have had him on the other side, but the rationale they had was a good one”

And what was that exactly?

Peter: “Guess I better reveal my identity to pay back Stark for making me this lame-ass costume.”

or maybe

Peter: “Screw Uncle Ben and his ‘with great power comes great responsibility’ shtick. I want to put my family in danger on PURPOSE so I can have a year or so of rescuing them all the while feeling miserable and regretful for making such a dumb decision! Time to whip this mask off!”

no, wait, I have it

Stark: “You should really reveal your identity, Peter.”

Peter: “Why?”

Stark: “Cause I said so beeatch!”

Peter (humbly): “Ok…” (shuffles off to press conference).

What exactly was the good reason Millar speaks of? Maybe it was explained already, but I’m not following this train wreck so maybe someone can fill me in.

How much can you fundamentally change a character before they become an entirely new one?

Is there a Spider-Man anymore?

I agree. Along with Bruce Wayne andClark Kent, Peter Parker was one of the most well-known alter-egos in all of entertainment. This fundamentally changes the mythos of Spider-Man. I had no problem with adding spikes and gliding, the hideous Iron Spidey costume or even killing off MJ, but this really changes what Spider-Man the Icon represents.

This better make for some damn good stories, or it will go down with the Clone Saga as one of the worst editorial decision in comics history.

Well…

I liked it.

All in all, I’m generally not a fan of secret identities. I don’t think it add much to most of the major superheroes and frequently turns the plot into an episode of “Three’s Company.” BUT, there are three superheroes to whom the secret ID is such an important element of their characters, that it simply cannot be changed without fundamentally making the characters into something that they are not. Superman, Batman, and Spider-Man need the secret identity for the concepts to work. The X-Men don’t need secret ids for the concept to work, Flash doesn’t, Green Arrow doesn’t, Wonder Woman doesn’t, Captain America doesn’t. In fact, relieving those characters of their secrets actually made their books better. But Spidey? Uh uh. Not gonna work.

Didn’t some editorial muckety muck say that Dr. Strange’s role in the the entire CW business was going to be one to watch?

He’ll wipe from the world’s population’s minds the knowledge of the identities of the unregistered, but possibly not the awareness that they once knew them. Cue fear/distrust, etc. This will probably somehow also screw with the Spider-Marriage. It’s either that, or Pete calls in the marker he has with Loki from earlier in JMS’s run.

I agree with Greg, but I think the lasting change coming from this is not what it appears to be on the surface. Click here.

Given that we know that Spider-man will be turning against Iron Man later in the series and that JMS and Joey Q have a mini planned around Spidey that’s supposed to (according to Joey Q’s words) “put the biggest genie in the MU back in the bottle” it could very well be a temp thing. Still doesn’t make the idea any less dumb though.

I dunno, I just think it’s sort of a sad statement on the status of the mainstream industry when both companies are reduced to constantly producing Enquirer style sensationalism in order to drum up enough temporary interest to band-aid long term hemoraging sales figures.

Here’s the thing: if you were working towards an end for these characters – for a Dark Knight Returns, an armageddon or apocalypse for Spider-Man, something that finishes up the character and wraps up his themes and plotlines – then radical deviations would be not only fine but expected. But that’s really not what they’re doing at all. This is an ongoing character in a monthly serial that’s planned to last as long as the company does. So radically altering the fundamental premise of the character is silly and stupid, because it diminishes the character’s core appeal.

Spider-Man is not Tony Stark or Captain America; he’s the quintessential everyman hero. He’s not a celebrity or a superstar or a goddamn Agent of SHIELD; he’s an ordinary slob who gets into fights with his wife and has trouble paying the bills and puts on his spider-costume because it’s the right thing to do. If the entire city knows he’s Spider-Man, that means he’s Spider-Man full time, recognized and loved and worshipped or hated based on his superhero identity, not based on the Peter Parker identity that’s been the foundation of the comic since day one. If Peter Parker is always treated as Spider-Man, then he isn’t really Peter Parker, and if he’s not Peter Parker then the heart and soul of the character is torn out.

At this point I think Marvel may have done so much damage to their core characters they may need a Crisis-style reboot to get them out of it.

I dunno, I just think it’s sort of a sad statement on the status of the mainstream industry when both companies are reduced to constantly producing Enquirer style sensationalism in order to drum up enough temporary interest to band-aid long term hemoraging sales figures.

Agreed.

Temporary or not temporary, it just seems so…desperate.

I actually don’t know what’s more desperate, the move itself or the “It makes sense for Peter to do this” after the fact stuff from the creators.

By the by, I am very pleased to hear that Millar didn’t come up with this idea. It didn’t seem like something he’d do.

ACtually, Peter unmasking didn’t upset me as much as his dis against Captain America on national TV. Since when did Peter become a mindless parrot of his boss…I mean “father figure.”

This is a guy who generally questions everything, and definitely should be on the Cap side of the equation. This just further feeds my suspicion that Mary Jane is not long for this world … or at least marriage.

I remember when it was a big deal that Captain America was Peter Parker’s hero. Aside from how he looked up to the example of his Uncle Ben, this was a famous person that he thought highly of. I recall at least one instance where Spidey was thinking about giving up (one of many times of course) and thought to himself “Cap wouldn’t give up!” And yet, JMS’ version of Spider-Man has him looking up to Tony Stark more than Cap. It does make sense after a fashion – Peter was always a science whiz – but his heroism over the years aligns more with Captain America’s general selflessness and sense of duty to his country, if not its government.

Joe Q has been making waves lately about how Peter marrying Mary Jane was a big mistake because it completely changed the kinds of stories you can tell with the character. Isn’t unmasking him going to change the kinds of stories you can tell? How is it better to reveal that Peter Parker has been lying to his employer, his friends, the public (remember the book “Webs” ?) for years and years? Actually, I don’t know why someone hasn’t figured it out yet, since Mary Jane Watson-Parker is a world-famous supermodel and sometime actress, who for some reason has been living in Avengers Tower for months …

*shrugs*

You know why they did this? So in ten years they can sell you another crossover undoing it.

what exactly about the “with great power comes great responsibility” angle doesn’t work for this change?

it IS an extension of that. a clever one. it’s a next step for the character that fits the event, has interesting ramifications/story potential, and just oodles of conflict.

plus, go check your long boxes. your 40+ years of stories with a secret id’ed spidey are still there.

jesus, I’m sick of the constant reactionary obsessive nostalgia among comics fans.

what exactly about the “with great power comes great responsibility” angle doesn’t work for this change?

That’s not all there is to Spider-Man. The most salient feature of the character is that he’s an everyman; the key effect of unmasking is that he no longer has an effective civilian identity (because everyone knows Peter Parker is a superhero) and thus loses his everyman status. So no, this isn’t a minor tweak like a costume change. Thematically, this is more drastic a shift than replacing Peter with Ben Reilly.

I’m not weeping extra-hard here, mind you – I haven’t bought a Spider-Man book regularly since the Clone Saga, so I parted with the mainstream Marvel variant a while ago – I’m just noting that Marvel once again has forgotten what makes its most popular characters work. In theory I like quite a few Marvel characters; in practice I only get three of their ongoings at this point, and one of those is Ultimates, which I’m dropping once Millar and Hitch leave the book.

Incidentally, I’d be very surprised if I wasn’t one of the youngest ones posting here, so ease up on the talk about “reactionary obsessive nostalgia,” old man.

Peter EVER doing this, I think, is silly.

However, as T alluded to earlier, there is a very realistic chance that this is designed strictly as a temporary thing that will be changed at the end of the series, after Peter realizes how stupid it was to have done this.

So I guess we have to give them some leeway, by tossing in “It COULD be temporary.”

But even temporary, I think the move is silly. Just a good deal LESS silly.

This is silly and meaningless, and the fact that it’s a “big event” is a sad commentary on comics. It’s a big event precisely because it only works if you’re already invested inthe character. In and of itself, it is not interesting any more than it would have been inherently interesting to see Barry Allen as he was written in the 1960s unmask himself.

Peter has a huge cast that will react to this, sure…a huge cast that next to none of the writers of the Spider-Man titles have actually bothered using in the last three or so years, in favor of “event” after “event.” And really, it’s a bore at this point. A new costume and a new sey of powers and a new origin and a new revelation about a writer-fetishized character’s love children and a new team membership and a new financial status quo have all added up to exactly nothing at all in terms of good, interesting stories.

They’ve been superficial exercises designed to generate buzz by setting the “change is good” would-be neofans against the “change is bad nostalgia-holic fans. And they’re so busy arguing with each other that neither camp seems to notice how contrived and shallow the changes really are, or the new core concept of Spider-Man they’ve led us to.

And what is that core concept? The same core concept of all of those Filmation superheroes of the 1960s, who had no civilian IDs, lived in super hi-tech headquarters and took orders from nebulously benevolent authority figures, while occasionally entering into stale banter with their generic non-erotic girlfriend and sidekick or wise mentor figure.

Oh, sure, it’s executed with much more talent and more sophisticated technioques, but isn’t that the current setup of a number of Marvel heroes now? Spider-Man and Johnny Storm are pretty much living the same lifestyle these days, for instance — they have their brilliant boss-man/father figure who owns the super-building in which they live along with their super-teammates, their maternal-role female relative is always there for them, and so on. Spider-Man has MJ, I suppose, for added texture, though she’s largely reverted to a sort of secondary May at this point.

And where will we go from here? Back to the old well. Villain-endangered supporting cast, media backlash, the whole downer from the high that are, for all intents and purposes, the Lee/Ditko and Lee/Romita Spider-Man’s burdens with a slight cosmetic overhaul for the 21st century.

And within a year or two, back to the old status quo all the boosters and nay-sayers tell us is forever gone now.

After all we’ve got movie tie-ins to consider here, people.

Anyone else remember when Spiderman used to be fun?

I was thinking about how much I missed reading Spiderman last night (due to my boycott of all things Marvel), but finding this out has really killed any enthusiasm for the books.
What are they going to do with him now? Send him back to how he was just before the clone saga where there was no Peter Parker, or Spiderman, just ‘The Spider’?

It’s sure is dumb and as someone has mention it goes pretty much against the Spiderman concept (it made me think of a crappy Superman storyline from the mid-90′s where Clark decides to kill “Clark Kent” and live as Superman forever and then Lois tell him to try to get a coffee as Superman and so he gets how dumb a move that would be). Now, I don’t think it’s gonna be a six-months change, one should have in mind that the people that run Marvel nowadays (Quesada, Bendis, JMS) hates secret IDs (one should point out that the only major change in status quo Marvel did in the last 5 years that didn’t get undone in twelve months was outing Matt Murdock, who is another carachter that actually needs a secret ID). Unless this bombs really heavilly, I can easily see it becoming status quo for 5-6 years till either someone come out with major story-line that needs secret Id Peter Parker or the main writer on Amazing Spider-man becomes so,eone that like to induge in nostalgia.

That’s not all there is to Spider-Man. The most salient feature of the character is that he’s an everyman; the key effect of unmasking is that he no longer has an effective civilian identity (because everyone knows Peter Parker is a superhero) and thus loses his everyman status. So no, this isn’t a minor tweak like a costume change. Thematically, this is more drastic a shift than replacing Peter with Ben Reilly.

i think peter still IS an everyman. his major changes in surroundings and lifestyle haven’t changed the core of his character. peter said it himself in the last issue of ASM–he’s still just a kid from the neighborhood, even if he is moving in totally different circles.

i guess i just see the throughline that’s brought us here, which is still peter parker, everyman, struggling with big decisions, making mistakes, trying to live up to his great power. again, look at the last issue of ASM–an action-free issue devoted entirely to peter’s decision to go public. the fact that the decision was difficult for him speaks directly to his relatable everyman status, and as we always have, we went on that journey with him as readers.

in fact, the testament to the strength of his character is that despite the radical shifts in his surroundings and situation in the past few years, he still IS the same peter parker, everyman.

The Scarlet Witch whispers, “No more Civil War,” and we’re back to ground zero again.

I don’t know, I kind of liked it, too.

I can’t remember the last time anyone did a story in which Spider-Man’s secret identity was put in jeopardy. (Ultimate Spidey aside.) It seems like all of his biggest bad guys already know it, and a lot of his friends & loved ones do, too.

If they’ve run out of stories to get out of his secret, why not try something different?

I just want to know how Jessica Jones will react, since she had a crush on Peter back in the day and, as far as I know, never found out…

The thing that surprised/pissed me off about the Daredevil thing was where Bendis ended it. So he ends up in prison annnnnnnnd… then what? That’s it? I’m able to take monumnetal screwing with Matt Murdock’s life since people have been doing it since Miller’s run, but even Miller provided some sense of closure and hope at the end of “Born Again.” This was just “Daredevil ends up in prison and I’m off to write Spider-Woman. See ya!”

The people who defend these kinds of shock storylines always repeat the perennial line, “It might make for a good story.” But when have these people done that? They break down their characters, but not to take them anywhere new or to build them up again into something more interesting. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred they break them down and then leave them like that because they don’t know what to do next. Maybe this is the hundredth time out of a hundred, but I’m not sticking around to find out.

I just wonder if the whole “Spidey’s Marriage to MJ is bad! Bad!” thing was a big fat red herring, just like his “Gonna kill off Speedball! Honest!” statements were.

I’m going to go out on a limb here, and suggest that maybe people are making too big of a deal about this. I mean, let’s face it, this is part two of a seven-part story, and everyone’s already lining up to discuss whether it was a) a crappy idea because it’s a permanent change and a bad one, or b) a crappy idea because it’s not a permanent change and thus a shameless stunt.

First, let me say that I agree with a) to a limited extent–if this is, indeed, intended to be a permanent alteration to the status quo of Spider-Man, then it’s a woefully misguided one that’ll be retconned away in a few years’ time. But I say that with the caveat that I don’t believe a) is true. I think that everyone concerned has more common sense than that, especially after seeing what happened the last time they tried to keep Spider-Man and ditch Peter’s personal life. (Hint: It starts with a “B” and ends with an “en Reilly was a bad idea.”)

Second–if it is a shameless stunt, it’s a freaking brilliant one! Everyone complains about drumming up publicity to get people to read comics like it’s some sort of mortal sin, but you know what? It’s exactly what they should be doing. I’d be ashamed of Marvel if they weren’t trying to hook new readers with shocks, plot twists, and crazy publicity stunts. The day comic books decide, “Let’s not do anything startling or unexpected, and certainly not anything that would cause people who don’t already read comics to pick up an issue,” that’s the day before the industry goes out of business. They used to do stuff like this all the time–go look at Silver Age comics covers, they all promised amazing, startling, blow-your-mind stories that would take the character in some impossible direction. Finding out how they avoid hitting the brick wall is part of the fun. They just can’t do it with the covers alone anymore, because comics aren’t sold at newsstands anymore.

It wasn’t like that at all – Bendis agreed this with Ed Brubacker as they co-plotted the transition between them. You can check this on Bendis site and also in the article he published in the last issue of DD he wrote.

Re: Spider Man unmasking etc…
It’s sad for comics that I can’t really care enough about this. The whole thing feels like self referential fluff. I read all this which is supposed to make me feel something about superheroes in a ‘real world’ (in itself a dubious idea, I mean why not ‘the Flintsones in the real world’?). And then I read Top Ten and all the stuff coming from Marvel seems boring, silly, pointless, and not entertaining or stimulating in any way.

So what as we say in business?

Superheroes can have secret identities, or not. Spider Man works weel with one but the most important thing is how well the book is done. In Top Ten, all the characters are super-cops with no secret identities and they’re still interesting and the stories work well. The old Spidey stories where he was desperately trying to hide his identity were good too. The trick is to do the book well and stay true to the spirit of the story. Making a comic about changing the story not good or fun or interesting or anything. Civil War is just product and nothing else. No core, no heart, no spirit.

Next Marvel will be publishing the minutes from their marketing meetings and charging for them:)

“Everyone complains about drumming up publicity to get people to read comics like it’s some sort of mortal sin, but you know what? It’s exactly what they should be doing.”

Except that it’s exactly what they shouldn’t be doing. Who ends up buying these stunt stories? It’s not the elusive New Reader (or the near-cryptozoological Young Reader). It’s more of the same Old Readers just switching over from 52 or One Year Later or whatever the industry Hype Of The Month is.

The comic book industry is dying because mostly because of the insularity of its structure. The direct market and everything it spawns – the scattered network of shady, out-of-the-way specialty shops, the mega-part crossovers, continuity so tight it priveleges readers who’ve been around for twenty years or more – is hostile to new readers. The people who read about Spider-Man unmasking in the LA Times or the New York Post aren’t going to think, “Oh boy! I have to run right out and find my local comic book store and buy a copy right away!” They’re going to file it away in the back of their minds as another interesting factoid and forget about it the next day. Who even knows where to find Civil War #2 who isn’t going to their local comic book shop once a week anyway?

The real proof that this stunt isn’t going to bring in new readers is that Joe Quesada doesn’t even expect it to. He insists that this is a long-term change, which means that for the first time the comic book version of the character will be significantly different than the movie version. And that’s because they’ve finally realized that the movies don’t really affect the comic sales all that much, and that’s because only comic book readers buy comic books.

What comics need to survive isn’t a series of publicity stunts like this, but a structural overhaul – a more decisive shift from comic shops to bookstores, and from singles to paperback format. Right now they’re too expensive, too insular, and too obscure – and their insularity encourages editors and publishers to pull stunts that drive the characters further and further from the tropes that made them popular in the first place.

Well, I’m certainly not going to argue that comics don’t need a structural overhaul (although I feel that they should be going for gas stations, grocery stores, and drugstores, and going for magazine-format books to supplement traditional comics and trades–bookstores are a part of the plan, but at some point, you’re going to need to hook readers the same way newsstand comics used to, and that means having comics readily available everywhere printed material is sold.)

But arguing against raising one’s public profile does seem to be slitting one’s own wrists. People do come into comic stores for stuff like this who wouldn’t have gone in otherwise…witness Superman #75, for example. Sure, a lot of those people didn’t stay, but that was because…well, 90s comics. Loathe ‘em or ignore ‘em, you can’t like them.

A case could be made that all the MJ stuff has been a red herring. Quesada also talked at length about wanting to kill Speedball, now the kid’s the sole survivor of the incident in CIVIL WAR #1.

Will this stick? I have no clue, but I don’t really care. This looks like an interesting plot complication for Spidey, I’ll see where it goes. As plot developments go it’s a nice one.

But then, my favorite comic book character got his brains blown out after 79 pages of reflecting on his “loser” status, so I can’t really be shocked or scandalized by anything like an unmasking.

Some of us in Manhattan didn’t even get the chance to appreciate the comic, as the motherfrickin’ New York Post PUBLISHED A STORY about Spidey’s unmasking! I couldn’t believe it. I nearly ripped the paper in half. I know DC has been getting a lot of newspaper stories recently, and Marvel probably just wants to catch up, but is it too much to ask that they send out their press release AFTER the comic comes out? I mean, COME ON!

“People do come into comic stores for stuff like this who wouldn’t have gone in otherwise…witness Superman #75, for example.”

Yeah, and Superman #75 kicked off the speculator boom that nearly destroyed the industry. That’s a great event to emulate right there.

The point is that if you want people outside your usual customer base to buy your product, you need to make it possible for people outside your customer base to find your product. In the 90s, Marvel and DC just tried to soak the same customers more and more until they got sick and dumped them altogether. The restructuring of the comics industry has to happen first; until you do that the publicity stunts are counterproductive.

A few years back, my non-comics-reading brother asked me “Didn’t they kill off Superman years ago?” He had absorbed the first wave of publicity about Superman’s death, not the much smaller one that followed about bringing Superman back to life. He never picked up the comic himself. In his mind, one of the most memorable and iconic figures in the world of comics – and one of the biggest reasons to actually buy a comic book – had been gone for a decade. So there you go: publicity.

“Some of us in Manhattan didn’t even get the chance to appreciate the comic, as the motherfrickin’ New York Post PUBLISHED A STORY about Spidey’s unmasking!”

You know, it is called a NEWS-paper. They’re supposed to publish it while it’s actually news. And while this may be a shock to some, newspapers do not require mandatory “spoiler warnings” before revealing the contents of a printed publication.

::sigh::

it was blatantly obvious they were going to do this from well before #1 even came out. still, at the end of the first issue i was hoping spiderman was about to pull some stunt. throw SOMETHING back in tonys face. at the very least, i was hoping he was just going to figuratively give the media a finger and take off. especially since he showed up in his old suit, as if he was throwing off all the influence tony had on him. i was giving marvel too much credit it appears. its turning into one of those things where they try to set up some suspense and a few surprises but even without the internet spoilers you see it coming miles away. its so sad that you can read this, and see a REALLY awesome way out of it (and ive heard a lot of ideas proposed on what could have been done. EASY stuff that could have been done) that would floor people, and this is the best that you get.

#37 – It would still be “news” the day after people get a chance to read it, just like the “news” of the deaths on Lost that the Post loves to report.

“People do come into comic stores for stuff like this who wouldn’t have gone in otherwise…witness Superman #75, for example.”

Except a large number of the people going in to buy it weren’t doing such to read it, but because they thought it would be worth money. And even if they had read it, they certainly didn’t stick around in the same numbers to see what happened next. So the sales it generated for one issue don’t really mean much to the industry in the long term. And what really hurt was that there WAS a slow groundswell of building interest that went away when everything became centered around who could do the bigger stunt and “would it put my kid through collage”.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with getting news coverage or publicity. There is, however, a huge difference between having a genuine interest/groundswell behind what you’re doing and frantically jumping up and down waving your arms screaming “Look at Me! Look at me!”. The former shows that there is a large number of people that this actually matters to beforehand and the latter is a sad, desperate cry for attention that’s probably not being given otherwise.

Here’s my question. Do you think Marvel and DC have lived up to their ends of the bargain in keeping the views of both sides of the conflict fair, balanced and impartial?

Could it be possible that the death of MJ will be the “anti-Stamford” in which all the heroes on Stark’s side realize what a terrible mistake registration was, and the end of the story is Dr. Strange “putting the genie back in the bottle”?

If you ask me, that’s where the story is going and if it gets things back to the status quo after all is said and done, most commenters here at least will be happy.

BTW, I’m not a huge Marvel fan (haven’t been since they scared me out of comics the first time in the 90s) but I’ve enjoyed the first two issues of CW. It’s tons better than Infinite Crisis, at least–but maybe that’s not saying much.

“Do you think Marvel and DC have lived up to their ends of the bargain in keeping the views of both sides of the conflict fair, balanced and impartial?”

From what I’ve seen, not at all – the pro-registration side are clearly the heavies (shooting kids, building concentration camps, attacking Captain America, etc.) But here’s my counter-question: how is “Civil War” an adequate metaphor for the kind of “War on Terror”/civil liberties issues Marvel is implicitly comparing it to? The Superhero Registration Act isn’t comparable to any of the various programs associated with the War on Terror (warrantless wiretaps, indefinite detention without due process, etc.); if anything it’s comparable to gun control laws and anti-vigiliante policies, which last I checked most liberals support. To that extent, the politics of “Civil War” are all screwed up: liberals aren’t opposed at all to making a guy with homemade superarmor register with the cops, and it has precisely squat to do with “current events” anyway.

I haven’t read any of the mainstream Spidey titles since the 80s (I was reading Ultimate Spider-Man for a while), so I don’t necessarily have the “big picture” in front of me, but I do think that the possibility for interesting stories exists here…it just remains to be seen where Marvel goes with it.

What bothers me is that it seems so obvious (to me, at least) that Spidey should be on the other side; his whole career has revolved around protecting his loved ones from any repercussions brought about by his superheroic identity. Sheesh, for the longest time he wouldn’t even tell Aunt May about his powers for fear that her heart couldn’t stand the strain!

Yes, I know that Aunt May knows about his powers now, but my point is that it just doesn’t add up: Peter’s concern for Aunt May and MJ, his adulation of Captain America, years of being persecuted by the same authorities he is now supporting…he should be on Cap’s side, fighting for the right to a secret identity! This whole thing seems out of character for him.

I think it’s really funny that no one wants to take responsibility for coming up with the idea of unmasking Spider-man in case things turn out badly from fans. First Mark Millar says it wasn’t his idea, but Joey Q and if you check out the new “New Joe Friday’s” at Newsarama Joe Q says Tom Brevoort is the one. Very funny stuff and it lokos like the uppity ups at marvel are scared about what might happen. The fear is probably justified though as it was a pretty ballsy move.

and about spidermans revealing his face , good to see how JJ Jameson falls on his face