The Energon Pub

Fair warning, massive spoilers ahead!

So for those who read Spider-Man, we all know that One More Day is suppose to shake up Spidey's world. However, J. Michael Straczynski give some hints what may happen.

Click here for a clipping from the current issue of Comic Buyers Guide and it sheds some light on the turning point of the book and the decisions Peter has to make.

We all know that Joe Quesada goes to lengths about how much he hates Peter/Mary Jane's wedding but it could be another red herring, similar to how he said he wanted Speedball to die only to turn him into Penance after Civil War.

But if he does erase all traces of their marriage, it could be another Legion of Superheroes fiasco that only a Crisis could fix. For example, Mary Jane is very tied into key events in Spidey's history. Venom's first agenda was to stalk Mary Jane before his full appearance. So what happens to that story?

Now I'm really scared for Peter

I'm not a big spidey fan but what the hell are they smoking over at marvel

Bye bye May ....

I mean it makes sense really. If MJ is the love of his life then he should choose her.

But they seem to be making Peter into a bit of an idiot at times, and it would provide a massive shake-up, and they could always get to do another "The wedding of Peter Parker and Mary-Jane Watson" issue a few years from now blah blah blah.

Of course erasing the marriage would also mean she wasn't there for him during the Civil War ... that would also turn out differently blah blah blah.

you know, it might not be so bad if this didn't have Joe Q Agenda written all over it. If MJ did die or the marriage dissolved, it wouldn't have the same impact as when Gwen or Harry died. Why? because it was based off someone's personal bias. Gwen died as a result of someone finding out Peter's secre tidentity. it was an excellent element and was inevitable for Peter to grow as a hero, and depsite Gwen's deaht, he never killed Norman, because it would make him no better. He learned the hard way why he has to keep it secret. And it later strained his friendship with Harry, which would ultimately lead to his demise, though he would die saving Peter. here, Joe Q tried killing MJ before but comic sales delcined as a result. Breaking up the marriage would lead to the same results. I'm just hoping OMD re-conceals spidey's identity it'd definately take a big wieght off his shoudlers.

Along comes Joe Q. Good Artist, but has an INFLATED ego, only lsitens to those who agree with him and is the last guy I would want as my EIC if I ran a comic company. Completely srews up the 616 universe, ruin's Gwne's character by making making her unfaithful to Peter by sleeping with Norman and having two children, gives free artisitc reigns to an A-list writter who ahd his own agenda and completely screwed up Venom and the Scorpion in one punch, leaves less than 200 mutants alive, turns the SHIELD into antagonists, kills and then revives spidey after a battle with a C-lister villain, unmasks Spidey, depsite the consequences that happened long ago, sends the completely wrong message with Civil War (that it's okay for the govt to stick it's nose in everything), kills Captian America, turns Tony Stark into an antagonist, breaks up the F4, depsite the fact The Thing and Human Torch have created a new F4 team for the moment, and now it looks as if he's going to dismember the X-Men for some other huge gigantic event. For pete's sake (no pun intended) you can only do so many "huge gigantic events" before it starts going sour.

Thing Marvel isn't getting is that people just want them to tell stories. They try too hard to tell good stories by making all these impactful events happen constantly. Ultimately it's the people who decide whether a story is good or not.

Roadbuster wrote:leaves less than 200 mutants alive

See that is what drives me batty about House of M/Decimation. The 198 are a group of refugees, not the total amount of mutants left in the world. So the number is completely irrelevant.

Wikipedia wrote:It has been confirmed by various sources that there are considerably more than 198 mutants remaining - the number has been referred to as "symbolic" rather than actual

Depowering mutants is one thing but it doesn't feel any different. There are still countless X-books. And mutants that lost their powers like Iceman and Magneto got them back months later. Pretty much the only affect is no more mutants are born.

Roadbuster wrote:breaks up the F4, depsite the fact The Thing and Human Torch have created a new F4 team for the moment

But I think the regular team are back together. It was just a "break."

Ram wrote:I'm not a big spidey fan but what the hell are they smoking over at marvel

A-freakin'-Men.

Marvel's been loopy ever since Civil War, IMO. It's sad when Marvel's big Cosmically oriented crossover ( Annihilation ) is actually more interesting than the one involving their main characters ( Civil War/Initiative/World War Hulk ). It's even sadder when you consider that Marvel's Cosmic characters have generally been waaaaay lamer than the rest of their characters! 'course, really, DC's not doing too much better with their 52/Countdown/Final Crisis stuff, but at least the characters have been more interesting.

I still don't understand why the Hulk hasn't kicked the crap out of the Illuminati yet.

I haven't actually read the storyline so far, just the previews for the first couple of issues (where Peter and Tony are talking about May for example).

I really hope Peter makes the sensible choice and lets you-know-who die. I mean, she already lived long, she has already died before (oh yeah, it was an actress, blah), and with MJ she has so much future and potential for storylines.

Although those rumors about a new superheroine named Jackpot are interesting if true.

i think JMS needed to leave a LONG time ago. i'm so sick of these hyped-up spidey stories only to have them suck and never be referenced again. (ex: the other- where did all those powers go!?)
it is nice, however, that the books will be coming out weekly.

Seems like only Peter David bothered to use those "The Other" powers.
If you ask me, Marvel needs better editors for their books.

Thenedain wrote:Marvel's been loopy ever since Civil War, IMO. It's sad when Marvel's big Cosmically oriented crossover ( Annihilation ) is actually more interesting than the one involving their main characters ( Civil War/Initiative/World War Hulk ). It's even sadder when you consider that Marvel's Cosmic characters have generally been waaaaay lamer than the rest of their characters! 'course, really, DC's not doing too much better with their 52/Countdown/Final Crisis stuff, but at least the characters have been more interesting.

I was REALLY excited about World War Hulk, then I heard that while that was going on, a nice quiet little war in space would be going on in the form of Conquest.

Yeah, Annihilation was a good read, but dammit, The Hulk was going to completely destroy the heroes of Earth! How cool is that going to be!

... I can't wait for each Conquest book now and wish WWH would just hurry up and end.

Burn wrote:

Thenedain wrote:Marvel's been loopy ever since Civil War, IMO. It's sad when Marvel's big Cosmically oriented crossover ( Annihilation ) is actually more interesting than the one involving their main characters ( Civil War/Initiative/World War Hulk ). It's even sadder when you consider that Marvel's Cosmic characters have generally been waaaaay lamer than the rest of their characters! 'course, really, DC's not doing too much better with their 52/Countdown/Final Crisis stuff, but at least the characters have been more interesting.

I was REALLY excited about World War Hulk, then I heard that while that was going on, a nice quiet little war in space would be going on in the form of Conquest.

Yeah, Annihilation was a good read, but dammit, The Hulk was going to completely destroy the heroes of Earth! How cool is that going to be!

... I can't wait for each Conquest book now and wish WWH would just hurry up and end.

I totally, absolutely agree. It's even worse for me now after rereading the Planet Hulk compilation. His adopted planet gets blown to bits, his wife killed, many of his friends dead due to the people who betrayed him. At the end of Planet Hulk, he's so totally full of rage and hellbent on getting some revenge.

Then WWH begins and he...beats up Black Bolt. Yay. In Planet Hulk, we're shown a Hulk that will kill remorselessly, one that's violent and brutal beyond belief. The Hulk from Planet Hulk would have torn Black Bolt in two without a second's hesitation. I can only think that somewhere between Planet Hulk and WWH there was a massive disconnect inside of Marvel HQ. It's especially sad because I was looking forward to WWH so much, and now I think I haven't been more disappointed in a Marvel crossover since, hmm, Onslaught or Heroes Reborn. It's even worse than House of M for me, which is saying alot.

Conquest looks to be awesome though. It better be. It's been put on my subscription list instead of Planet Hulk.

Yeah but look at it really.

Tony Stark, Reed Richards, Black Bolt, Doctor Strange and Charles Xavier.

Xavier's been killed off so many times there'd be no reaction.
Richards has been made popular in the FF movies, while Stark will be made popular next year. No way they'd touch those two.

Which leaves poor old Black Bolt to endure the arse beating. Why? Because he's the only one expendable.

And that whole "Gamma Corps" thing. ugh ... bloody awful. The only thing i'm really enjoying is Frontline, simply for the story with the cop and the alien.

Burn wrote:Yeah but look at it really.

Tony Stark, Reed Richards, Black Bolt, Doctor Strange and Charles Xavier.

Xavier's been killed off so many times there'd be no reaction.
Richards has been made popular in the FF movies, while Stark will be made popular next year. No way they'd touch those two.

Which leaves poor old Black Bolt to endure the arse beating. Why? Because he's the only one expendable.

And that whole "Gamma Corps" thing. ugh ... bloody awful. The only thing i'm really enjoying is Frontline, simply for the story with the cop and the alien.

Frontline has consistently been my favorite of the Civil War tie-ins. I've really enjoyed that book!

You make a good point about the expendability of the Illuminati. I'd still like to see Hulk break Namor in two, though. Iron Man's the character they're going to have to do alot of work with between now and next year. I was kind of shocked to hear the Iron Man movie announced around the same time that they were turning Stark into one of the most hated characters in Marveldom. Gonna be interesting to see what they do to fix that one.

My biggest problem with Marvel lately is that everything seems really short sighted. I can see tons of stuff being retconned somewhere in the future due to the poor planning. This whole Spiderman thing seems to fit in with that too.

Thenedain wrote:'course, really, DC's not doing too much better with their 52/Countdown/Final Crisis stuff, but at least the characters have been more interesting.

Whoa whoa whoa... 52 actually rocked. It's with Countdown they started to go downhill. Mostly because I think they're milking the weekly comic book thing.

Plus One Year Later didn't have much impact for me other than Robin's cool new suit.

In anycase, I sure hope that Peter chooses MJ. Not to be mean but Aunt May can't live forever in the Marvel Universe even with their sliding timeline.

Though it would also suck to see her go because JMS did an amazing job making her a great supporting character. Her learning Peter's secret is the biggest character development for her in a long time.

Supreme Convoy wrote:

Thenedain wrote:'course, really, DC's not doing too much better with their 52/Countdown/Final Crisis stuff, but at least the characters have been more interesting.

Whoa whoa whoa... 52 actually rocked. It's with Countdown they started to go downhill. Mostly because I think they're milking the weekly comic book thing.

Plus One Year Later didn't have much impact for me other than Robin's cool new suit.

In anycase, I sure hope that Peter chooses MJ. Not to be mean but Aunt May can't live forever in the Marvel Universe even with their sliding timeline.

Though it would also suck to see her go because JMS did an amazing job making her a great supporting character. Her learning Peter's secret is the biggest character development for her in a long time.

I liked 52 alot, though I've got to say that was mostly because of the Booster Gold and Black Adam storylines. Especially Black Adam. Man, that character got cool out of nowhere.

May's avoided death long enough. The lady's gotta go. Better yet, kill 'em both, at this point they're both almost like deadweight to the Spiderman character. It wouldn't really matter, as they'll only come back a few years from now anyway. May will be a zombie, and MJ will turn out to be a Skrull. Or something like that.

I hate Joe Quesada. I mean that. I don't like this person. He's a tubby little weasel who looks down his nose at comic book readers while deperately trying to attract everybody else. Here's a quick breakdown the many reason I absolutely despite this jackass as an editor, a creator, and a human being.

Mere months after Dreamwave closed, Marvel brought in Pat Lee for several projects. That's the same Pat Lee that screwed our fellow Transformers fans out of thousands of dollars owed to them for work we all enjoyed. I asked Mr. Quesada about this at a convention and he avoided looking at me for the rest of the show. It was rather amusing as I was sitting right in front of him. Every time he'd turn his head to survey the crowd, he'd have to look up or down when he got to me.

Late books. Lateness has NEVER been a problem in Marvel books the way it is now. NEVER. When a book like The Ultimates, a super high profile book, ships an average of 6 months late, there's a talent problem at Marvel. Ultimate Wolverine VS Hulk? I think this book is about two YEARS late at this point. And what does Porky say when fans ask about these delays? He'll respond one of two ways. He'll use some variation of "Well, you know, the writer is a little bit busy with a show called LOST. Maybe you've heard of it." Run that through your bull**** translator and read "His other job's more important than writing comic books. He'll finish it when he finishes it. Wait and like it." Or, he'll bring up that Watchmen and Dark Knight were late too. This, of course, ignores that nothing that Joe Quesada has ever been or will ever be associated with could hold Dark Knight or Watchmen's jocks. When you're big artistic triumphs are Azrael and Ash, maybe you don't want to lump yourself in with Frank Miller and Alan Moore. Just a thought.

The utter contempt he would show for people who bought their comics in, wait for it, comic book form was sickening. After he finished saying how important celebrities can't be rushed and comparing himself the writer of Watchmen, he'd tell fans that the book will read better in the trade because of all the delays. Well that's great, Mr. Quesada, but I don't read trades. I read COMIC BOOKS. I was the guy who would go to a comic book store every wednesday to pick up the titles on my pull list. Yeah, I COULD go to Barnes and Noble.com, pay half of cover price, and have the books shipped directly to my home. I'm sure the guy who operates the local comic book shop in a razor thin profit margin appreciates the EIC telling all of his customers to bypass his shop entirely.

Spider-Man's had a rediculous life, but only since Joe Quesada took over as EIC has has it become ludicrous. Spidey used to live a fairly mundane existance. His life sucks but fate sometimes cuts him some slack or, once in a great while, REALLY screws him. Gwen Stacy comes to mind. Big events were BIG events. Green Goblin's unmasking is STILL a famous event and it was FORTY years ago. Gwen's death, THIRTY years ago. Marriage? TWENTY years ago. But now take a look at Spidey's life since Quesada:

His powers aren't what he thought they were, Aunt May found out his secret, he discovered Gwen gave Norman Osborne a pity tumble, Aunt May's house burned down, he joined the Avengers, he DIED, he came back, he got new powers, he changed his costume, he got unmasked, and now it looks like they're going to retcon Spidey in such a way that nearly 40 years of his history simply don't make sense. Considering that these Spidey stories usually pick up at the very end of the previous one, Spider-Man has had the single worst MONTH AND A HALF of any fictional character in history.

Remember when you could buy a Marvel comic book and get a story? Not 1/6th of a story? Remember when six part stories were so huge they had to be released bi-weekly or as crossovers with the other Spidey books? You can blame Quesada for that one. It worked so well with Ultimate Spider-Man, surely it will work for every title and every character!

In short, he's a prat.

Tons of great points, Professor!

You can't even begin to get me started on Marvel's late book syndrome of recent times. I wouldn't mind it if it were lesser, mid-tier books. When it's the Ultimates, or Ultimate Hulk vs. Wolverine, THEN I have some severe damned issues with it. ( For the record, I feel the same way about All Star Batman and Robin's delays... it's not just a case of Marvel hate ) For ****'s sake, the Hulk's pivotal return in Ultimates is entirely because of events that occur within Hulk vs. Wolverine, but due to that book's endless delays, we STILL don't know what happened! That's amazingly poor continuity right there.

I used to love the Spidey books, but that's quickly become a thing of the past. I think it all started going down hill for me with The Other. I didn't mind him as part of the Avengers ( dear God, don't get me stared on the New Avengers title... that one just makes me want to scream )... but meh. The unmasking left me feeling flat.. I just didn't really care anymore because the character was just so... crappy? Boring? I don't know how to describe it, but not even the Iron Spider costume could get me to buy more than one issue of Spiderman again.

Ultimate Spiderman I continue to like, however, due almost entirely to Bendis. While I think that, at times, he's a bit overrated by comic fans, I do like his work on Ultimate Spiderman, and wish that more of the Ultimate titles were as consistently good ( I'm looking at YOU Fantastic Four and X-Men ). Heck, he even managed to make the Clone saga interesting, something I thought impossible.

In the end, I agree, the problem currently infecting Marvel is with the higher end staff, Joe Q among them, and how they interact with the rest of the Marvel Bullpen. I've no clue how they can solve it.. but I really wish they would.

I'm one of the guys who waits to buy the entire graphic novel from Borders. Why? Because I can't stand waiting months to find out what's happened. I'd rather buy the book and read the entire story. I have been keeping up somewhat on Spidey though since he's always been one of my favs, but at the moment I'm so disoriented by everything that's happening to him. IronMan has basically just become a villian, not much difference between him and Doctor Doom, world peace No Matter What! And Pete's just going crazy and I can't imagine where he's going to end up, though I think it'd be kinda neat to see him be a villian for awhile. It's cool to see him at the end of his rope. Throwing trucks at people on rooftops, jamming his wrists into KingPins mouth and telling him he's going to fill his lungs with web-fluid. That's some insanely sick s*** right there! That's not anything how Peter normally acts, which is why I'm finding it so interesting. It's like watching a train crash in slow motion. You don't know where it's going, but it looks kinda cool is definitely gonna end badly, and you find yourself glad it's not happening to you.

Not being interested in any of the behind the scenes stuff of the comic industry, it's really interesting to hear that J.Quesada is the #1 reason for alot of these problems. He always kinda struck me as a bit of a jerk when I'd see him in bonus feature interviews on dvds. Stan Lee just radiates fun and joy, good storytelling and interesting characters, whereas J.Q. just seems like a bit of a brat.

This stuff is the reason why I stick with the Ultimate Marvel comics. They've had that going for 7 years now without a hitch. No convoluted references to some vague and utterly useless comment from 30 years ago. They keep it straight and to the point. They use the bigger heroes and villains and keep the others out.

Professor Smooth wrote:Late books. Lateness has NEVER been a problem in Marvel books the way it is now. NEVER. When a book like The Ultimates, a super high profile book, ships an average of 6 months late, there's a talent problem at Marvel. Ultimate Wolverine VS Hulk? I think this book is about two YEARS late at this point. And what does Porky say when fans ask about these delays? He'll respond one of two ways. He'll use some variation of "Well, you know, the writer is a little bit busy with a show called LOST. Maybe you've heard of it." Run that through your bull**** translator and read "His other job's more important than writing comic books. He'll finish it when he finishes it. Wait and like it." Or, he'll bring up that Watchmen and Dark Knight were late too. This, of course, ignores that nothing that Joe Quesada has ever been or will ever be associated with could hold Dark Knight or Watchmen's jocks. When you're big artistic triumphs are Azrael and Ash, maybe you don't want to lump yourself in with Frank Miller and Alan Moore. Just a thought.

That's definitely a tough situation for me.

I was recently listening to a podcast with Allan Heinberg and his late conclusion to Wonder Woman. I really dig Heinberg's stuff (Young Avengers, Gilmore Girls, The OC, Grey's Anatomy, and his quick run on Justice League). Waiting for his comics to come out is painfully long but I really do enjoy them when they hit shelves.

I think Ultimates is one of the best books of recent years. But the wait was killer!

Kevin Smith rules and will always be one of my favorite writers/directors. But I don't even know if he'll ever finish Daredevil/Bullseye: Target

I suppose this is the reason why I love guys like Brian Michael Bendis and Robert Kirkman. These guys have like 6 books a month and they come out on a regular basis. Ultimate Spidey use to come out twice a month! And I think Ultimate Spidey was late about 1 week due to a printing error.

And then there are guys like Jeph Loeb, Geoff Johns, and Brian K. Vaughan who are writing tons of comics and writing TV shows or movies. I would love to be that creative.

By no means am I knocking on writers with late books. Finding time to write can be tough. It comes down to "Do I want the book now or do I want it to be good?" I go with the latter since I want a quality read instead of rushed.

But hopefully publishers understand that I would like a reasonably timely book. Get scripts in the can before even soliciting or drawing the book.

Decompression sucks. I can't really understand why it has to be "Do I want the book now or do I want it to be good?" as you say, since many professionals can do both!

It's the problem of having so many writers that take comic books as a silly hobby instead of understanding that it's a work as much as writing for a tv show or movie, and that they should keep up with the schedule or get lost. But they obviously get a free pass with the EIC for all their trouble because of name recognition.

Professor Smooth wrote:
Remember when you could buy a Marvel comic book and get a story? Not 1/6th of a story? Remember when six part stories were so huge they had to be released bi-weekly or as crossovers with the other Spidey books? You can blame Quesada for that one. It worked so well with Ultimate Spider-Man, surely it will work for every title and every character!

In short, he's a prat.

And that's why i quit buying comics. I'm not paying $30 a year (or that what it was 5 years ago) for 2 stories. And it never helped if one of those stories involved a crossover or 2.

A 2-parter was big. 6 parts, cool then. crap now. Less talk, more story!

Supreme Convoy wrote::BOT: That's definitely a tough situation for me.

I was recently listening to a podcast with Allan Heinberg and his late conclusion to Wonder Woman. I really dig Heinberg's stuff (Young Avengers, Gilmore Girls, The OC, Grey's Anatomy, and his quick run on Justice League). Waiting for his comics to come out is painfully long but I really do enjoy them when they hit shelves.

I think Ultimates is one of the best books of recent years. But the wait was killer!

Kevin Smith rules and will always be one of my favorite writers/directors. But I don't even know if he'll ever finish Daredevil/Bullseye: Target

I suppose this is the reason why I love guys like Brian Michael Bendis and Robert Kirkman. These guys have like 6 books a month and they come out on a regular basis. Ultimate Spidey use to come out twice a month! And I think Ultimate Spidey was late about 1 week due to a printing error.

And then there are guys like Jeph Loeb, Geoff Johns, and Brian K. Vaughan who are writing tons of comics and writing TV shows or movies. I would love to be that creative.

By no means am I knocking on writers with late books. Finding time to write can be tough. It comes down to "Do I want the book now or do I want it to be good?" I go with the latter since I want a quality read instead of rushed.

But hopefully publishers understand that I would like a reasonably timely book. Get scripts in the can before even soliciting or drawing the book.

Loeb and Johns are perhaps two of the best writers in comics these days, especially considering the sheer amount of work load they give themselves. And best yet, they rarely run late. Johns, especially, has been a shining light in DC since Pre-Crisis.

The whole thing with the Ultimates just drove me nuts. What was even worse was when Marvel announced that the creative team for Ultimates 3 already had the first few issues done but were STILL waiting for Ultimates 2 to be completed! Yet another reason I disliked the whole Civil War thing: it threw a massive wrench into the gears of one of my favorite books.

Supreme Convoy wrote:

Kevin Smith rules and will always be one of my favorite writers/directors. But I don't even know if he'll ever finish Daredevil/Bullseye: Target

I'm pretty sure I read an interview with him where he said he wasn't going to. I believe he said something like *paraphrase*, "When I started writing the story we were in a pre-9/11 world, now after 9/11 the story seems..." And I can't remember if he said silly, or unrealistic. Basically I remember him saying that if he did finish it he'd want to re-write the entire thing to take into account how the worlds changed since then.

I'm pretty sure I read it in Wizard a few months ago, they had a couple page interview with him.

I stooped, getting exited about stuff like this, they say it every two months, "This will change Spider-Mans life for EVER!"
But it's never good.

I'm realy hating what there doing with him, I just wish they would make a story arc making civil War just a what if thing.