Comic Book Resources

"Core concept" is a marketing word, like "brand." It's code for "what can the consumer expect when he/she picks up this product?" Another term for it is "Unique Selling Proposition." So, what has your character/title/product got that no one else has? All good characters/properties have something unique about them. I'm not against this either, I think you should focus on what's best about a character/title/whatever. Arbitrary changes in direction are just that; they show that the publisher/creative team has no real idea of what they're doing and are of zero importance or consequence.

I think of the core concept as the original pitch for the series. So Spider-Man's core concept is "insecure young super-hero who has to balance his personal life with his responsibility to save others." At that point, you argue that a married Spider-Man is contrary to the core concept since he no longer really has to worry about his love life but (as someone on this very blog perhaps) said before, good stories can still be written with a married Spidey, he just faces a different set of problems in his personal life. With the average age of comic-readers skewing older, the question is whether the reader wants to read about a hero being drug out to a party with his wife's co-workers or about a swinging single who is trying to hook up with a classmate. I don't think marriage necessarily violates the core concept of Spider-Man but I think his unmasking comes a lot closer. Spider-Man loses his unique appeal if he has nothing to balance. The fun was seeing him tugged in two directions at any one time (I need to make that date but...the Molten Man is loose!). If handled poorly, there will be no conflict of him having to be in two places at once. Instead of Jonah yelling for Parker, he'll just turn on the news and see his photographer is off fighting the Scorpion and assume there are some good pictures being taken. It kind of deflates the dramatic tension inherent in the character.

The core concept should not be malleable. It should be the first sentence in a character's bible, the one thing you have to understand about the character to write him or her. Every new creative team is going to put the character through some twists that make their run unique (hopefully without violating the core concept). Like Erik Larson said in one of his columns, the status quo will probably be maintained. By the end of Civil War (or after a couple of arcs to explore the ramifications of a public ID), Spider-Man will be back to a dual identity again (didn't this already happen to Daredevil in the not to distant past?). Editorial whim will change a few degrees in the bearing of the plot, but whoever popularized the character (in Spidey's case Stan Lee), set the course long ago and no one wants to screw with a proven success. Of course, that's just my opinion, I could be wrong.

Oh God, this is my fault, isn't it?

Anyway, the above two gents said it perfectly, so I don't have to say it imperfectly. The gist is-- Spidey being married doesn't affect his core concept. Spidey having a public identity does, because it destroys something central to his character, the secret identity.

The counterargument is that Peter still has that dilemma so long as he keeps trying to live a relatively normal life despite being unmasked.

Of course, Peter pretending that he can do that after unmasking would probably mean that he's either in deep denial or thoroughly delusional, so it's not a sustainable direction from my perspective.

His involvement with the Avengers, getting the super Spidey suit, etc. has not been entirely positive for him--Civil War happened immediately afterward, and I don't think things will be coming up roses for him after revealing his secret ID. Quesada's point was that he should always be in beleaguered and never "on top": married to a supermodel wife is something that billionaires do, not perennial losers. Whenever Spidey has won, there has always been a strong element of loss, ever since Uncle Ben got killed because he didn't stop the thief. At any rate, marriage in narrative stories is extremely difficult to keep interesting in general--it causes sitcoms to go bad. And, it's to Mary Jane, who was never a Lois Lane anyway; her existence has always orbited Spidey's, while LL at least has the Daily Planet.

What changes really matter? Just wait long enough and everything reverts.

Has MJ been a supermodel at all in the last ten years or so? They've established her as an actress these days, usually a struggling one, which I think works fine.

Maybe you answered your own question? Since you really can't really argue with "I thought it was a good idea", it gives the fans a lot less to argue about on the message boards, and as a result possibly can hurt a book's buzz...?

'Core concepts' give us more tangible footing, and lead to blogs just like this one. Everyone from Joseph Campbell to Grant Morrison has us thinking about super heroes on a deeper, mythological level. It's not enough anymore for a superhero to just be a character in a story. Now, he has to MEAN something. For the most part I think it's a good thing. But it comes with its hang ups.

Plus, even when people do start waxing philosophic about 'core concepts', I still think there's an understood 'In my opinion...' preceding it. Joey Q might be saying 'Marriage goes against the core concept of Spider-Man', but what he really means is 'IN MY OPINION, Marriage goes against the core concept of Spider-Man'. (Only, he's the EIC of Marvel comics and alas, we are not. ) I still don't take it as being all that objective, and I don't think it's intended to be.

In short, I think it's all semantics. Whether it was because of a 'core concept', or just a whimsical notion that struck you on the toilet that morning, it's all just ideas. And no matter what, there will always be fanboys disagreeing with each other.

It all stems from Marvel's soap-opera style continuity. DC heroes were more durable, since they weren't based on earth-shattering changes to the characters and their supporting cast. How many times has Aunt May been "dead"?
Spider-Man is supposed to change, so the character has drifted as writers have, bit by bit, written out the loser aspect of Spider-Man.

"DC heroes were more durable, since they weren’t based on earth-shattering changes to the characters and their supporting cast."

I find this to be pretty ironic, considering a certain DC character whose origin is quite literally derived from earth-shattering.

There seems to be a belief that there's no such thing as going too far and it's all okay as long as it equals sales.

Now, I'm not going to deny that it is a business, but I still think that's wrong. I think you can in fact go too far and when you do it's just not fun anymore. Not for an old reader or a new one. If the only way you can think of to get a story out of the concept is to rape the concept (wether it be metaphorically or in DC's case sometimes *literally*) or the only way to boost sales is to get peoples attention with "look how we tear down and violate icons this month!" Maybe it's time to put it to rest. Or at least the monthly mainline machine.

I'd rather have one or two good Spidey (or any of the big icons for that matter)stories a year that played ball with the concept rather than 50-100 tangled up in pretentious, cheapshock crossovers that get their milage out of taking a whiz on it.

Man, anybody remember when having heroes meeting each other and being in the same story was actually a fun thing?

Anyone else get the feeling that Joe Q is just making like Bush does before an invasion and trying to lay seeds now so that when he gets rid of MJ, people are all resigned and saying 'well it had to happen sooner or later, for the good of us all'?

Dikto Hands:"Quesada’s point was that he should always be in beleaguered and never “on top”: married to a supermodel wife is something that billionaires do, not perennial losers. Whenever Spidey has won, there has always been a strong element of loss, ever since Uncle Ben got killed because he didn’t stop the thief. At any rate, marriage in narrative stories is extremely difficult to keep interesting in general–it causes sitcoms to go bad."

Just don't make her a supermodel, knock her down a few notches.
I've met struggling actresses, and while most are good looking, they aren't nessecarily going to cause punch outs in bars.
Secret Identies are hard to keep intresting in a continuing narrative, but damn me, they did that as well, why not marriage?
Look at The Elongated Man and Sue Dibny - there was a superhero marriage that was intresting, and Sue did more than get kidnapped all the time.
You've just got to change how you write the characters a bit and you can do it.