Lorendiac
11-29-2005, 06:43 PM
A few days ago I bought, very cheaply, a copy of the graphic novel Spider-Man/Kingpin: To The Death, published in 1997, scripted by Stan Lee and penciled by John Romita (the senior John Romita, that is).
Early in the story, someone in a Spider-Man costume slaughters a bunch of thugs with automatic weapons fire. Word soon gets around that Spidey has turned into a Punisher-style berserk vigilante killing machine.
The last person in New York City to hear this breaking news is, of course, the real Spider-Man. Some hours later, he stumbles across a gang committing a robbery - and when they see him above them, they scream and run out into the street - right toward a patrol car that just happened to conveniently be passing through the neighborhood. Things they say make it clear they're afraid Spidey was about to murder them, so the police are a safer bet. Spidey, of course, is very taken aback by their reaction.
Logically enough, he is just beginning to wonder if this could all be Norman Osborn's fault - when the Human Torch sees him, and without any preliminaries (such as a verbal warning for him to stop) throws some fireballs at him. A moment later, Captain America's shield bounces off the wall next to Spidey, and Cap strides forward, saying, "That was just a warning, wall-crawler! Give yourself up! There's no sanctuary for a superhero who turns bad!"
Spidey runs for it, apparently convinced that sweet reason isn't going to get him anywhere. On the following page, we see a montage of images as Spidey apparently spends the next few hours dodging Storm, Mr. Fantastic, Power Man (if that's what Luke Cage called himself at this point), Rogue, Wolverine, and some blond guy, clean-shaven, in a blue-and-gold X-Men outfit, but don't ask me who he is.
Something about all this bothers me a lot.
How many times has Spidey been impersonated by villains over the years? (Beginning, as I recall, with the Chameleon doing it that way in the very first issue of The Amazing Spider-Man?)
And how many times has he fought nobly beside the Avengers, the Fantastic Four, and even the X-Men from time to time? Either working with entire teams, or just teaming up with one or two other heroes for a particular case?
(I don't have exact figures, but the correct answers to both of those questions would be somewhere in the ballpark of "Lots and lots and lots of times!" :))
Hadn't he earned any kind of credit rating with his fellow heroes by 1997, when this story was published? (Such things as the reference to the recent return of Norman Osborn confirm it was set around the time of the mid-90s in Marvel's "modern continuity" instead of being a flashback to the early days of teenaged Peter Parker's webslinging career.)
For that matter, haven't other Marvel heroes - including some of the ones who were hunting for him without giving him the slightest benefit of the doubt - ever had the same silly thing happen to them?
What would have made a great deal more sense would have been something like this:
CAPTAIN AMERICA: Spider-Man! Answer quickly! When a bunch of us heroes were stuck on a distant world at the start of the Secret Wars, and there was talk of making me leader of our combined forces, whom did I suggest as an alternate candidate?
SPIDEY: Professor X! But he returned the compliment by endorsing YOU, and you finally accepted!
CAP: Good answer, son! You're the real wall-crawler! So, I take it you've heard that some psychotic vigilante is running around town wearing a copy of your costume? I'm out looking for him, myself - care to join me?
But, of course, that would require that Marvel heroes develop the uncanny ability to learn valuable lessons from their own past stories.
So I'm just wondering how everybody else feels about it - this particular story, and/or the fundamental issue involved.
Should this sort of story not be inflicted upon such veteran heroes as Spidey who have proven themselves to have the right stuff, over and over and over again?
Or should we all just meekly accept that Marvel heroes are totally incapable of learning from experience, and this sort of nonsense will continue to happen again and again without anybody ever getting a clue, if getting a clue would interfere with the way a particular writer wants to plot-hammer them to make them do exactly what he requires in any given emergency, no more and no less, regardless of what a real person with their wealth of experience would choose to do in the same circumstances?
Or should we say, "Yes, this story never should have been written - EXCEPT that it's a Stan Lee story and the guy deserves some extra leeway after all he did for the Marvel Universe back in the Sixties! Any lesser writer doing the same story would deserve our scorn, however!" (By the way - I forgot to mention above that the PLOT was apparently contrived by Tom DeFalco. Does this make a difference in whether or not we should find it tolerable?)
Or what? How do you feel about it when you see people turn on Spidey at the drop of a hat over something like this?
Early in the story, someone in a Spider-Man costume slaughters a bunch of thugs with automatic weapons fire. Word soon gets around that Spidey has turned into a Punisher-style berserk vigilante killing machine.
The last person in New York City to hear this breaking news is, of course, the real Spider-Man. Some hours later, he stumbles across a gang committing a robbery - and when they see him above them, they scream and run out into the street - right toward a patrol car that just happened to conveniently be passing through the neighborhood. Things they say make it clear they're afraid Spidey was about to murder them, so the police are a safer bet. Spidey, of course, is very taken aback by their reaction.
Logically enough, he is just beginning to wonder if this could all be Norman Osborn's fault - when the Human Torch sees him, and without any preliminaries (such as a verbal warning for him to stop) throws some fireballs at him. A moment later, Captain America's shield bounces off the wall next to Spidey, and Cap strides forward, saying, "That was just a warning, wall-crawler! Give yourself up! There's no sanctuary for a superhero who turns bad!"
Spidey runs for it, apparently convinced that sweet reason isn't going to get him anywhere. On the following page, we see a montage of images as Spidey apparently spends the next few hours dodging Storm, Mr. Fantastic, Power Man (if that's what Luke Cage called himself at this point), Rogue, Wolverine, and some blond guy, clean-shaven, in a blue-and-gold X-Men outfit, but don't ask me who he is.
Something about all this bothers me a lot.
How many times has Spidey been impersonated by villains over the years? (Beginning, as I recall, with the Chameleon doing it that way in the very first issue of The Amazing Spider-Man?)
And how many times has he fought nobly beside the Avengers, the Fantastic Four, and even the X-Men from time to time? Either working with entire teams, or just teaming up with one or two other heroes for a particular case?
(I don't have exact figures, but the correct answers to both of those questions would be somewhere in the ballpark of "Lots and lots and lots of times!" :))
Hadn't he earned any kind of credit rating with his fellow heroes by 1997, when this story was published? (Such things as the reference to the recent return of Norman Osborn confirm it was set around the time of the mid-90s in Marvel's "modern continuity" instead of being a flashback to the early days of teenaged Peter Parker's webslinging career.)
For that matter, haven't other Marvel heroes - including some of the ones who were hunting for him without giving him the slightest benefit of the doubt - ever had the same silly thing happen to them?
What would have made a great deal more sense would have been something like this:
CAPTAIN AMERICA: Spider-Man! Answer quickly! When a bunch of us heroes were stuck on a distant world at the start of the Secret Wars, and there was talk of making me leader of our combined forces, whom did I suggest as an alternate candidate?
SPIDEY: Professor X! But he returned the compliment by endorsing YOU, and you finally accepted!
CAP: Good answer, son! You're the real wall-crawler! So, I take it you've heard that some psychotic vigilante is running around town wearing a copy of your costume? I'm out looking for him, myself - care to join me?
But, of course, that would require that Marvel heroes develop the uncanny ability to learn valuable lessons from their own past stories.
So I'm just wondering how everybody else feels about it - this particular story, and/or the fundamental issue involved.
Should this sort of story not be inflicted upon such veteran heroes as Spidey who have proven themselves to have the right stuff, over and over and over again?
Or should we all just meekly accept that Marvel heroes are totally incapable of learning from experience, and this sort of nonsense will continue to happen again and again without anybody ever getting a clue, if getting a clue would interfere with the way a particular writer wants to plot-hammer them to make them do exactly what he requires in any given emergency, no more and no less, regardless of what a real person with their wealth of experience would choose to do in the same circumstances?
Or should we say, "Yes, this story never should have been written - EXCEPT that it's a Stan Lee story and the guy deserves some extra leeway after all he did for the Marvel Universe back in the Sixties! Any lesser writer doing the same story would deserve our scorn, however!" (By the way - I forgot to mention above that the PLOT was apparently contrived by Tom DeFalco. Does this make a difference in whether or not we should find it tolerable?)
Or what? How do you feel about it when you see people turn on Spidey at the drop of a hat over something like this?