The Comic Story That Won't Die

Like the death of Captain America, perpetrated last March, comic fandom's reaction to last week's conclusion of "One More Day" in Amazing Spider-Man # 545 just keeps gathering more and more momentum, now a week after its publication (for most people... we got ours only three days ago). Unlike Cap's fateful murder, though, the reaction this time out is nearly universally negative (even I had to admit that Ed Brubaker wrote a Hell of a swan song for ol' Winghead!)

I'm enjoying reading all of the vitriol directed toward "One More Day" since it echoes my own reaction to the piece of crap retcon that Joe Quesada mandated for Spidey. Joe Q clearly anticipated how poorly-received the storyline was going to be, as he arranged to provide a 5-part interview on the topic that's been coming out over the course of this week. If you're interested, you can find the first 4 parts here, here, here and here. My favourite part of what I've read so far would be Joe's assertion that this wasn't like DC's Crisis on Infinite Earths - which he always publicly dismisses as bad storytelling - but rather a tiny little tweak to Marvel history. Having read the conclusion of "One More Day," it didn't play that way at all to me, as it seemed like a major revision in its implications. For one thing, Peter and MJ didn't marry, so any developments triggered off that - like moving in together, I assume - didn't happen. Therefore any story where their cohabitation, or MJ knowing his ID, was a key point, didn't happen. Similarly, if Peter's ID was never revealed to the public, then all of the sagas that resulted from that didn't happen, and on and on it goes. But then Joe goes on to explain that, for example, Peter did reveal his ID during Civil War... but everyone has been made to forget it by "the devil" (Mephisto)! Yeah, that makes a lot of sense... considering all of the video and photographic copies of it, and the newspapers that featured it on the front page, and the blog entries about it that would've popped up all over the Marvel version of the blogosphere... that's some really solid logic you got there, Joe!

So then you can read Spidey-author J Michael Straczynski's take on why he couldn't get behind the rubbish tale that he was told to write in "One More Day" right here. Of particular interest is JMS recounting his attempt at understanding the gibberish that Joe Q was putting forth, like how supporting character Harry Osborn has been brought back into continuity but without any real explanation for even whether he died and then was returned from the dead or just never died in the first place... Straczynski's interrogating of Quesada on this aspect shows more clearly than anything else in this debacle the difference between an actual writer (JMS) and an artist who fancies himself a writer and editor (Joe Q).

And finally there's this delightful link that coolly and calmly calls attention to a press release from around the time of Spidey's shocking unmasking last year in which Joe Q came right out and promised that it wasn't just a stunt, and that "Marvel won't be backing-off of Spidey's big revelation by zapping the public with a forget-me-ray." Yeah, because having a magical being like Mephisto do it is so different than using a raygun for that exact same purpose! Since Joe's recently stated that the unmasking was always intended to be reversed in this fashion, that earlier quote completely undermines any credibility that he might've still retained after "OMD."

This is a lot like watching a train wreck, except that it's fun because the people on the train are all fictional characters or severely-misguided Editors-in-Chief!