Drunken Comics Rage

I now remember why the comics day after a week of vacation is so painful. After being out of town last week I come rolling in today to find a dozen books waiting on me.

Geez.

So something inside me said that was just too much. Something had to go back on the shelf to curtail the spending a bit for the week. I'm not sure why I thought one book at $2.99 was a massive difference, but it was my justification dammit. So I made a quick scan of my pile for the most likely candidates and then gave each the flip tt.

Amazing Spiderman #540 became the winner. Or I guess loser in this case. Thank you J. Michael Straczynski for making the decision an easy one.

I've been reading Amazing Spidey since the beginning of JMS' run on the book. Truth be told he's the reason I picked it up. In my childhood days I was never a huge Spidey fan. There was no real hate for the character, I just wasn't digging on him. Although I think I did boycott anything with him in it for a time after the whole Spidey vs the Xmen debacle in Secret Wars. And then there was the infamous Firelord incident. Sometime someone ask Ghostshark how he feels about Spiderman kicking the shit out of Firelord. I promise you it will be entertaining.

Anyhow, I picked up Amazing Spidey because of JMS and how much I enjoyed his tv shows (Babylon 5, Crusade). Somewhere along the way I had read his pitch for Spidey and was curious. I was just starting to get back into the comics scene again after a prolonged hiatus and books with creators from other forms of media were becoming my gateway drug at the time, JMS on Spidey and Kevin Smith on Daredevil and then Green Arrow. Then suddenly someone turned me on to Ultimate Spiderman during it's first arc and BLAM! a non-Spiderman fan was now reading to Spidey books regularly.

I remember during that early stretch of his run reading criticisms about how his work wasn't "true" to Spiderman. That an adult, married Peter Parker just doesn't work on the book and can't work. I always kinda thought that was crap. Sooner or later characters should mature (even if they don't age) and just because married couples have been written poorly in the past didn't mean it couldn't work. So from the early going I really enjoyed the book because it was a totally different take on Spiderman I had never really considered. It probably helped that I was completely oblivious to huge pieces of the Spidey canon.

As time rolled on, I continued to enjoy the book, but less so with each arc. Somewhere just before the Civil War stuff it really started to strike me that the book was on the fence for me. I stuck through Civil War just to get the "full story" for Peter given he above almost everyone else takes it in the ass the most during Civil War.

Now we're in "Back in Black".

Gah.

It's not that JMS writing is bad. In fact his storytelling is most times fairly sound. Perhaps he can be a bit decompressed at times, buts that as much a sign of times in comics as it is his style. It's not even the "preachiness". He is without a doubt very preachy when it comes to his politics and philosophy. Hell, I don't even disagree with a substantial amount of what he (obviously) believes. It's just that he can be about as subtle as a brick to the head with it most of the time.

No, it's not decompression or bricks to the head that are driving me off Amazing Spiderman. It's the complete lack of joy in the book. It now occurs to me that the early criticisms were slightly misplaced or inaccurately described. It's not so much that adult Peter Parker kills the whole Spiderman vibe. What it really comes down to is that adult Peter Parker = deadly serious.

Let's face it kids, the best part of a Spiderman book is and has always been his ability to wisecrack in the most heated of battles. When written well, that's the stuff that makes the character work. It's whimsical it's fun.

That's not to say that he hasn't in the past or can't in the future have very serious moments or tragedy befall him. But when you suck all the joy and comedy out of the book, you've really turned Spiderman into Buzzkillman.

That's pretty well what JMS has done at this stage. JMS can be humorous from time to time, but by and large you can easily describe his style as melodramatic. It works on other titles like Midnight Nation and to a lesser extent, Rising Stars (which carried a have dose of the before mentioned brick to the head). His Spiderman had been very serious for some time running now, but with Aunt May getting shot and this whole "Back in Black" business it's gone from serious to just flat dark. And Spidey really has no business being dark.

So I had bought the first issue of the "Back in Black" a month ago and promptly regretted it. All it took today to put part two of the story arc back on the shelf was to flip to the last page and read the last lines of the book.

Peter (to Kingpin on the phone): You can do one thing for me. You can die.

Ugh.

Double Ugh.

So thank you Mr. Straczynski, that $2.99 back in my pocket bought my sons happy meal on the way home.

 

Filed under: DVO Reading Rage, Marvel Comics