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"This may be worse than Norman Osborn’s Oh-face, and I was pretty confident that would be hold the title of dumbest thing in any Spider-Man comic ever for a good long while."

Look at it this way - Joe Q always whines in his newsarama column that he wishes he could put the Mary Jane 'Genie back in the bottle' (meaning end the Spider marriage), as he thinks that a married Spiderman gives you less stories than a single one, but he can't see a way to end it without really damaging the character.
Fair enough perhaps, I disagree, but he thinks the single spiderman lends itself to more stories.

Yet this is the man who oversaw Aunt May learning Spidermans identity and every body in the MU finding out about it.

I would've thought the secret identity was more core to his concept than being single was (as he always seemed to have a girlfriend).

So when that's the kind of logic MArvel runs on, why would you be suprised by anything less?

Not that I disagree that this whole radioactive spider-sperm thing is offensive and gross, but I think it's interesting when that touches a nerve but Spider-Man killing and eating people -- as we've seen in Marvel Zombies -- doesn't really seem to impact readers in that way at all.

I know they're different things. Marvel Zombies is a dark comedy, Reign is at least ostensibly a drama, there's a sexual component involved, all this other stuff... but it still makes for an interesting contrast. I can't help but think that says something, even if I'm not sure quite what yet.

It doesn't seem that bad to me on first glance, because I kinda expect a gritty, realistic take on Spider-Man to have some dark twist on the radioactive origins of his powers. That said, Ellis did it far better and more subdued in Marvel Ruins.

I agree with Patrick, it's weird that with all the over-the-top and overly detailed violence that's been published in the past couple of years, it's the shot of Peter Parker's exposed penis and his radioactive sperm that really gets people up in arms. Zombies may not be the same thing, but people still got a big kick out of stuff that was the same, like the gore in Infinite Crisis. You could just chalk it up to the classic yarn about America favoring violence over sex, but in a niche genre like superhero comics, it really shows.

JLG said what I was going to say, except that bit about Ruins. I'm actually liking the story, and beyond a mild "Oh gross" followed by "Oh that's so sad" I didn't give the line a second thought.

For the record: I've always been sort of grossed out and puzzled by Marvel Zombies's popularity. I supposed people were fanning either over the creator, or enjoying it as over-the-top satire.

so does this mean his organic web fluid is radioactive too. think of all of that crap he just left lying around the city for kids to play with over the years. and all the criminals he tied up with it. did they all get cancer too?

is this going into dr. manhattan/watchmen territory now?

Well, no, because Dr. Manhattan didn't actually give anyone cancer. That was all part of the larger nefarious scheme.

Also, yes, yes, sex and violence, double-standard, but killing your wife by having sex with her is violent too in a more disturbing way. Your sperm is so powerful no mere mortal woman can withstand its might! Blergh. I think I've seen some hentai that used that same plot device.

...what is norman osbornes oh-face?

"…what is norman osbornes oh-face? "

It was the panel that showed his face when he came, while having sex with Gwen Stacy, in a somewhat recent (within last year, maybe two) issue of Amazing Spiderman.

From the first issue of "Reign" it read like The Dark Spider-Returns. So probably trying for a more DKR/grown-up audience.

But I agree that this doesn't work somehow for Spider-man. He's just not a good vehicle for stories that are THAT dark.

I really didn't like Queen Bee. Strangehaven was good. I'm still trying to find the issue of Teen Titans that Chynna drew, 'cause I'm still kind of a completist about her work.

Wasn't Joe gonna review Captain Marvel? I've been waiting for DAYS now.

Graphic Novelists is a really dumb term. Still, I'm intersted in reading a biography of Joe Sacco or Colleen Dorham. What are they called?

"“…what is norman osbornes oh-face? ”

It was the panel that showed his face when he came, while having sex with Gwen Stacy, in a somewhat recent (within last year, maybe two) issue of Amazing Spiderman. "

...wow, I guess its on Ogrish then.

/ jabs eyes out with a fork

Also, yes, yes, sex and violence, double-standard, but killing your wife by having sex with her is violent too in a more disturbing way.

This is a little exaggerated. It may be semantics, but you're making it sound like he was her murderer, rather than the accidental cause of her death. It was a pure accident.

Spidey klling MJ with the contents of his arachnads may be a little grim, but its nowhere near as bad as Marvel taking a collective dump on the grave of Gwen Stacy.

Of course, I'm always the one who argues that the SINS PAST storyline featured Gwen finding redemption for the mistake she made by putting her life in danger to protect the children, thus giving her a role in her death other than "helpless appendage of the boyfriend"...

Did it again, sorry.

Yeah, but the Savage Critics crew have all had a mad hate-on for Reign from the get-go. They're screaming about it, but the fact is that Graeme's basically focusing the entire review on what amounts to one page of the issue. It's a ridiculous, implausible concept, sure, but really not much more than anything else in Reign has been up to that point. The dialogue dealing with it is comically overwrought, but so is every other line of dialogue Andrews wrote in the series before that. Let me put it this way: if you were enjoying Reign up to that point (which I was,) this is not anything that is going to take you out of the comic. If you were hating every issue of the comic from the second you first laid eyes on it but continued to read every issue anyway just to insult it on the internet (which the SC crew clearly were,) you're going to find something new to scream about aside from "DKR RIPOFF SHIT GOD I HATE THIS! HOUSE OF IDEAS, MORE LIKE FRAT HOUSE OF SHITTY CHARACTER-DESTROYING IDEAS!"

Personally, I thought it was at least handled better than Brubaker's run on The Authority where he reveals that Rose Tattoo killed The Doctor with her heroin-filled vagina.

Your sperm is so powerful no mere mortal woman can withstand its might!

That's the whole problem with the concept. Its NC-17-Rated Masculine Sexual Potency Fantasy #3 weaved into our beloved wall-crawler's mythos. Pretty off-putting.

Hee. Arachnads.

Anyway, in response to david brothers's comment:

"This is a little exaggerated. It may be semantics, but you’re making it sound like he was her murderer, rather than the accidental cause of her death. It was a pure accident."

I refer him to Ragnell's comment in response. PLOT-wise, yes, it's an accident. SUBTEXT, however, suggests something pretty disturbing. Killing a woman by the power of ejaculation is unkosher, to say the least, when discussing ways in which death and violence are experienced by women in comics. If people are trying desperately to avoid a weird connection between sex and violence when it comes to how women in comics experience their tragic demise, toxic cancerous sperm is not the place to start.

Just to play the devil's advocate, though, it's not much of a fantasy - This isn't something to be proud of, and everything about the moment is drenched in shame and guilt. The radioactivity's weakened and mutated Peter, not made him more "potent."

Yeah, seriously. This isn't quite an "oh, he's SO big" power fantasy. It's, and I honestly can't believe I'm about to type this, an impotence fantasy, though fantasy may be the wrong word.

It can't even be a puritan/anti-sex thing, here. Guilt, particularly survivor's guilt, is one of the things that's at Spider-Man's core. It's about being responsible for the death of the one that he loved the most simply because he loved her.

I do think that you both have a point here, but it isn't a point that matches up with this text.

I'm sure he does feel guilty. It doesn't change the subtext though.

And I don't think Andrews deliberately wrote something that implies sexual violence because he hates women just as I don't think Brad Meltzer deliberately wrote IDC with glee for Sue's rape and showing up Jean Loring for the crazy man-hungry career woman that she was in the story with malice aforethought. I do think a little more analysis into what one is writing and the possible interpretations it could be construed as would be a fantastic idea.

Some interesting points raised here, but let's face it - all we wanna see is Normans oh-face. Does someone have a scan they can blind me with?

I gotta admit, I'm loving Reign. The political situation is ill-conceived, the dialogue and narration is hopeless, and the whole thing stinks of reheated DKR... but there's just something so ...PUNK... about the fact that someone's getting away with doing this with Spider-Man. The What the..?ness of it is the whole point.

So, who else got the spider-syphillis? Black Cat? Kitty Pryde? Sue Richards? Jason Jerome?

What you fail to realize is this:

His radioactive spider semen is actually a PLOT point, come the final issue, we'll be treated to Spidey overcoming his foes by VIOLENTLY masturbating on them and spraying them down with his cobra venom.

And you can quote me on that.

I'm sure the pun was intended when you wrote "come the final issue," but I still got a good laugh out of your comment.