The Four Color Media Monitor

In Marvel's latest dopey publicity stunt, they've done to the Ultimate line something not unlike what they've been doing to the main line:

Marvel Comics' most popular character is getting a hip new look - and a new person wearing the webs.

"That's not Peter Parker," Marvel editor-in-chief Axel Alonso told The Post. "There's going to be someone new wearing the costume."

Then why should we care? A big problem nowadays is that we're being asked to care more about the costume than the character. So instead of trying to make us to care about the classic protagonist, they replace him/her with a different one whose own characterization and depiction may not be any better than the predecessor's.

The new webslinger and the new look - a sleek black and red costume revealed here for the first time - will make their debut at some point this summer, after the conclusion of the ominously titled "Death of Spider-Man" storyline in June's Ultimate Spider-Man No. 160.

The comic will be polybagged, and will shake the comic book world to the core.

"It's unlike anything you've seen before," Alonso said.

But that boring cliche statement most certainly is. Will it shake the comics world to the core though? In the sense that it'll discourage more people from reading the Ultimate line, I guess the answer is yes. There's no need to even pull open the polybag to see what's inside.

The shakeup marks the first time someone else will be catching thieves just like flies in the "Spider-Man" titles besides Peter (or a clone of Peter - don't ask) in the character's almost 50-year history in either the traditional "Marvel Universe" or the more recent "Ultimate Universe."

Alonso wouldn't reveal much more about the new wallcrawler - "there's significance in the color scheme," he teased - but the image's release is another bad sign for Peter Parker, who in the ten-year-old Ultimate line of comics is still a Queens high school student.

The perpetually hard luck teen was shot through the gut by anti-hero the Punisher at the close of last week's issue while trying save Captain America. Comic fans have been burning up the internet speculating whether Peter might survive the storyline, even if his web slinging days are over. Alonso wouldn't reveal his ultimate fate, but said, "We did call it 'The Death of Spider-Man' for a reason."

I hesitate to think of how the Punisher is portrayed in this lame stunt. Whether or not Ultimate Peter Parker is dead, we probably can't be surprised if they intend to make his replacement permanent. The Ultimate line's had at least a few characters who were killed off altogether, and unlike the main line, they haven't bothered to revive them, though it could change. But if the story at hand is only being done for stunt sales, then there's little chance it'll be worth reading.

An adult Peter Parker will still be manning the role of friendly neighborhood wall-crawler in the regular Marvel Universe "Amazing Spider-Man" title.

Too bad the writing there remains bad, the Spider-marriage erased, and the editors/publishers the same ones who've been running the whole scene for a decade now.

Labels: bad editors, marvel comics, msm propaganda, Spider-Man, violence