My New Icon

[snurri]

OK, there are SO MANY THINGS less trivial than this going on in the world, but I'm going to get all fannish and pissy anyway. Those of you not reading scans_daily may not be aware of this, but Marvel, specifically Editor-in-Chief Joe Quesada, has mandated a storyline which not only ends the marriage of Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson, but retcons it out of existence. A storyline which has been essentially disavowed by its writer, J. Michael Strazynksi. (Yeah, the "Babylon 5" guy. Whatever you thought of that show, he makes some good points about storytelling at the link. Also the level of editorial intrusion he documents is kind of amazing.) A storyline which, if one can judge by these (admittedly out-of-context) scans from an upcoming issue, seems to be the worst kind of mid-life crisis "if only I could be a swingin' single again" male wish fulfillment.

Joey Q. has been on record for a long time as being of the opinion that Spidey shouldn't be married, and his objections always smack of "OMG grown-ups are so boring" talk. I'm a pretty big cynic when it comes to marriage and relationships in general (OK, maybe I'm just a really bitter romantic), but MAN do I hate the message this sends. Fandom never wants to grow up! Fandom is made up entirely of adolescent boys looking for Girls Going Wild! (Read the scans. I'm not making that up.)

Superhero comics have a lot of problems, and they do a lot of things wrong, but I still love them and the Spider-marriage is was one reason why. It felt real, because Pete and MJ had lots of problems, but they loved each other and they worked on them like adults. Back in the day on the Buffistas board we used to tease some of the more adolescent Buffy/Angel 'shippers (and their spelling) by typing BUFFY&ANGLE4EVAH!!! whenever one of the episodes had a particularly schmoopy scene between the two. I'm applying the same formula here, only this time I'm firmly in the camp of the howling romantics. PETER&MJ4EVAH!!!, no matter what Marvel says.

Comments

[dxmachina.livejournal.com]

Wow, so Peter steps out of the shower and no more MJ?

To be honest, I haven't read much Marvel in a very long time. When I tried to get back into it, it was just as Bendis wiped out half the Avengers, and I ran for cover. Right now the only Marvel books I'm paying attention to are Astonishing X-Men ('cause of Whedon) and Strazynksi's new Thor book, which has been very good.

[snurri.livejournal.com]

Astonishing is, well. You can finish that sentence your own self. I read the first Thor and wasn't convinced, but I've been meta-following what's going on there and I might try it again at some point.