Originally posted by King_Mungi
So in turn their just going to be rehasing all the old stories again. How many changes has Spider-Man had recently? they could have took a breather at least.
Well, with ASM coming out 3 times per week with three different teams on it, we'll just have to wait and see.
It can't get much worse. 😬
Originally posted by WrathfulDwarf
JMS INTERVIEW!Fasten your seat belts folks!
*leaves the room*
Having seen Joe's third interview on OMD, I think he raised a lot of fair issues. I think most of it represents accurately our conversations. It does, however, omit some of the main concerns I had with the resolution...concerns not mentioned therein, most probably as an oversight. As you know from my prior email, I was content not to respond to the prior interviews because I don't need to have the last word. (Newsarama Note: this last was in reference to Straczynski’s earlier e-mail mentioned earlier in which he declined a “One More Day” post mortem conversation.)But there are some vital omissions in the interview, including the primary reason I finally threw up my hands on the book, which had mainly to do with how the resolution was handled.
To explain, here's the conversation I had with Marvel, in sum:
"So what does Mephisto do?" I ask.
"He makes everybody forget Peter's Spider-Man."
"Uh, huh. So Aunt May's still in the hospital --"
"No, he saves Aunt May."
"But if all he does is save her life and make everybody forget he's Spidey, she still has a scar on her midsection."
"No, he makes that go away too."
"Okay...:
"Then he wakes up in her house."
"The house that was burned down?"
"Right."
"But how --"
"Mephisto undoes that as well."
"Okay. And the guys who shot at Peter and May and were killed, they're alive too? Mephisto can bring guys back from the dead?"
"It's all part of the spell."
"And Doc Strange can't tell?"
"No,"
"And the newspaper articles? News footage?"
"Joe, it's been forgotten."
"I'm just asking is that stuff there or not there?"
"Not there. And Peter's web shooters are back."
"Is this the same spell or a different spell?"
"Same spell."
"How does making people forget he's Spidey bring back his web shooters?"
"It's magic, okay?"
"I see. And Harry's back."
"Right."
"And Mephisto does this too."
"Yep."
"So is Harry back from the dead, or has he been alive? If they ask him, hey Harry, what did you do last summer, will he remember? And the year before? And the year before? If he says they all went on a picnic two years ago, will they remember it?"
"It's --"
"Because if he now has a life he remembers, if he's not back from the dead, then you've changed the continuity you said you didn't want to change. Those are your only options: he was brought back from the dead, and there's a grave, and people remember him dying --"
"Mephisto changes THEIR memories too."
"-- or he's effectively been alive as far as our characters know, so he's been alive all along, so either way as far as our characters are concerned, continuity's been violated going back to 1971.
How do you explain that?"
"It's magic, we don't have to explain it."
And that's the part I had a real problem with, maybe the single biggest problem. There's this notion that magic fixes everything. It doesn't. "It's magic, we don't have to explain it." Well, actually, yes, you do. Magic has to have rules. And this is clearly not just a case of one spell making everybody forget he's Spidey...suddenly you're bringing back the dead, undoing wounds, erasing records, reinstating web shooters, on and on and on.
What I wanted to do was to make one small change to history, a tiny thing, whose ripples we could control to only touch what editorial wanted to touch, making changes we could explain logically. I worked for weeks to come up with a timeline that would leave every other bit of continuity in place. It was rigorous, and as logical as I could make it. In the end of OMD as published, Harry is alive and he's always been alive as far as the characters know...so how is that different than he was alive the whole time?
It made no sense to me.
Still doesn't. It's sloppy. It violates every rule of writing fiction of the fantastic that I and every other SF/Fantasy writer knows you can't violate. It's fantasy 101.
Also
And yes, I wanted to retcon the Gwen twins out of continuity, which was something I always assumed I could do at the end of my run. I wasn't allowed to do this, and yes, it pissed me off. I felt I was left holding the bag for something I wanted to get rid of, and taking the rap for a writing lapse that I had never committed. Why this aspect was not brought up in the other interview, you'd have to ask Joe.
Poor JMS. 🙁
God I really feel bad for JMS now, I loved his run, thought it was great, he is such a talented writer, even Sins past was a good story, I know everyone disagrees with Gwen sleeping with Norman, I do as well but the story it self was very good, and if JMS had wrote how he intended it would have been fantastic.
And I would have wrote OMD the same way JMS was going to, just remove a couple of memories, not bring random people back, add web shooters confuse the whole continuity then blame magic, what the hell, this isn't even like it only affects Spidey it effects every bloody character nearly. Joe Q should realise the intelligence and talent of JMS and use it, he obv isn't a very smart man, ok maybe that's harsh but I think he's just being really lazy with this story, if you want to ret con something do it properly, and at least leave it for like 2 or 3 years before you ret con it, give it a chance for the story to grow...
Originally posted by Grimm22
What makes Joe Q and even bigger dick than he is for OMD is the fact that he made JMS write the crappy Sins Past and then left him out to take all the blame for it.I've gained a lot of respect for JMS for coming out and putting Queseda in his place.
I know! I always wondered how a talented writer could have made some really bad decisions like that when he seemed to understand the character and the continuity so well, now I know...stupid Joe Q.
Originally posted by Neo Darkhalen
I feel sorry for JMS, i feel sorry for everyone under Joe's power, after all he is the one who screwed classic Spidy up, and on the record it is good he got his web shooters back, at least we can salvage a little bit of classic history.
True the web shooters are better, but I don't see why this ret con needs to come about, tech we only really lost classic Spidey after he gave up his identity but no one had a chance to really use that story to evolve the character a little more...But the worst thing is that they have in a way ret conned Gwen Stacy's death...she may still be dead but now we don't really know how Peter got through it, and if she is alive that's just plain sloppy writing.
Originally posted by Neo Darkhalen
I am assuming that the goblin did survive then (I know he came back in the 90's but that was just plain stupidity.)
I quite liked the Goblins return to be honest, but then I like GG, see a story shouldn't do this, have everyone who hasn't read one comic sit wondering what actually happened from the rest of their collection.
Originally posted by Neo Darkhalen
I like him, but if you are going to kill of a character and have done so for more then 3 years you might as well keep them dead.
I suppose so, but at least we got some pretty good stories from when he was brought back, like Spider hunt, I did enjoy that, and identity crisis.
one more thing i better not see a single ordinary human being getting saved from a gun shot wound ever again in marvel, every superpowered human, people with healing abilities, doc strange, doom, reed pretty much everyone on marvel eath not being able to save may from a gunshot wound? I never seen such terrible witting, hell i bet they could have injected her with wolverine's blood and it wouldnt have worked
Originally posted by lando005Well someone been watching Volume 2 of Heroes haven't they? lol 😛
one more thing i better not see a single ordinary human being getting saved from a gun shot wound ever again in marvel, every superpowered human, people with healing abilities, doc strange, doom, reed pretty much everyone on marvel eath not being able to save may from a gunshot wound? I never seen such terrible witting, hell i bet they could have injected her with wolverine's blood and it wouldnt have worked
Yea OMD and everything about it is nothing more than the absolute worst plot devise in comic history.
I've never even began to imagine such crap!
There's just no excuse for everything to have unfolded the way it did.
Unless this all turns out to be some plot of the new avengers and Dr. Strange to just draw Mephisto out to finally destroy him once and for all. 😖hift:
Hey anything to save the story would be worth a shot now. IMO 😮