Back in Black is Stupid.
June 22nd, 2007 by david brothers | Tags: clone saga, mary jane watson, spider-man“I am not what I was before,” the silence says. “I am anger, I am madness, I am the spider. And God help you if you get in my way.”
No, really. This arc has been pretty bad, and the new issue? Terrible. Why?
Because we know how this ends. We’ve been here before.
Spider-Man: No Laughing Matters is a post I wrote last September about a pre-Clone Saga arc I liked a lot. In it, Spider-Man gets really angry, starts beating people up like crazy, and has an aunt on her death bed. Things between him and Mary Jane are really tense and he can’t quite manage to open up. It’s a story that has Spider-Man ready to kill… but he pulls back at the last second and remembers who he is.
Does any of this sound familiar? This arc was better 13 years ago, guys.
Images with sweet, sweet Bagley art from that story arc. The four pages of Peter reacting to Aunt May being hospitalized are better than anything Back in Black gave us.
And one of my favorite covers:
Back in Black is hollow.
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How much Spider-Man has Dematteis written? Are trades available?
Anyway, now that Spidey has been reestablished by Marvel(as you pointed out in the Quesada related post), where would you have him go from there? Do things being so connected now in comparison to the setting in the 90s make this difficult? I want to say there’s something to be said about it, when Bendis writes Spidey one way in his book in comparison to how JMS.
I haven’t had Spidey on my pull-list since Civil War started. I get the feeling at times that I should be pumped up while reading the book or something, it’s just really hard for me to be enthusiastic or interested in Spidey in his core book at this time. Especially when stories that apparently don’t do it as good the second time around are in place.
Kraven’s Last Hunt is probably JMD’s best Spidey story. I think I own it in both Marvel’s new Premiere HC and the old school squareish TPB size.
I don’t know that any of his mid-90s Spider-work is collected. It was fraught with crossovers and bad stories. This is the proverbial diamond in the rough, you know?
Where would i take Spidey… hm.
Having him join the Avengers is a great step. He’s been miserable for long enough already, it’s time for his life to kick into high gear. I’d let him stay with the Avengers for a good while, and eventually make it up to being co-leader. Later on, do something to shake up the Avengers and show how capable of a hero Spidey really is when he takes the reins solo. I dunno. I’d have to think on it.
Things are actually less connected now than they were back then. You can have two books in a “family” of titles telling completely unrelated stories if you want. That’s a good thing.
Spidey post-JRjr has been extremely lackluster, almost embarrassingly so. I’m looking forward to OMD if only because it’ll be something new.