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Wednesday, August 22, 2012 

USA Today ostensibly celebrates Spider-Man's 50th, but won't mention any of the new staff's abuse of the hero

USA Today's written about Spidey's 50th anniversary, but unsurprisingly, they include some pretty superficial or biased details in their article about the history of the most iconic Marvel superhero, getting input from awful writers like Brian Bendis, and they even bring in some subtle politics:
Comic fans have watched him get married, gain and lose jobs, battle crazy and dangerous villains, team up with President Obama and pretty much just struggle to make it in New York City both as a hero and as a normal dude. Plus, he has become the face of Marvel Comics.
Why do we have to hear about that tedious publicity stunt with Obama in a short story? That aside, what they don't mention is that comic fans have even had the displeasure of seeing Peter Parker's marriage with Mary Jane Watson deleted in an illogical pact with Mephisto, and USA Today doesn't sound keen on speaking on those fans' behalf, and I don't think they ever have.

And look who else quoted for the article couldn't resist making another politicized statement when describing what heroes were like up to the Silver Age:
Up to that point, superheroes had been a little boring, says Todd McFarlane, who became a star artist when illustrating Amazing Spider-Man in the late 1980s. A guy such as Superman was like a polite Boy Scout, and Batman, a millionaire playboy who took on evil at night, was "basically Mitt Romney."
Oh good grief, is that also what McFarlane thinks of Captain America and Iron Man? His absurd putdown of the Man of Steel, the Masked Manhunter and even Romney is in poor taste, and it's disrespectful of both writers and fans of the World's Finest duo. Hasn't Spidey also taken on evil at night just as much as day?
For a geeky kid with a spider bite, Peter Parker's done OK in terms of romantic interests. First there was Daily Bugle secretary Betty Brant, who would flirt with him when he dropped off pictures of himself as Spidey, then classmate Gwen Stacy and later Mary Jane Watson, a model he ended up marrying.

"There were a lot of women in his life," Bendis says, "and he'd just sit there and go, 'Why doesn't anyone like me?' They like you! You're nuts!"
Why doesn't Bendis like Spidey (he was quite fine with splitting up Peter and MJ just as much as Quesada was) or even the Avengers like Scarlet Witch and Hawkeye, the latter whom he wasn't very nice to either during his Avengers run? Again, this article omits any references to some of the worst story elements of recent years like the editorially edicted termination of the marriage with Mary Jane. It doesn't even mention how she was treated during the Clone Saga.

The statement that there were lots of women in his life is also misleading, since he didn't date as many women as Bruce Wayne and Tony Stark once did, and only with a few did he really have success. Bendis must've made that ambiguous statement to justify his and Quesada's vision of what they think Peter Parker should be, specifically, a guy who should only be single.
9. He commands loyalty

The past 50 years have seen Peter Parker toss his costume in the garbage and quit, warn of the dangers of drug addiction at the request of the government, get cloned and unmask himself to the world, among other things. That created a deep emotional connection.

"Even if (readers) wander away from him at some point — they go to college, or they graduate and go to the job market, or they get married and have kids — the sight of Spider-Man or an opportunity to read Spider-Man or see a film or a TV show brings it all back," says Marvel executive editor Tom Brevoort.
But Brevoort scares them away, and if there's anybody who doesn't offer true loyalty to Spidey today, it's people like Brevoort, Bendis, Joe Quesada, J. Michael Stracynski and current EIC Axel Alonso. Any opportunities to read Spidey today pertain to the older material only, because the new stuff that's been coming out since the "Final Chapter" in 1998 has been absolutely awful.

It's a shame that if there's any writers other than Stan Lee they didn't seek for interview input, it's Gerry Conway, Marv Wolfman, David Michelinie and even Roy Thomas, probably because they would've been less politically correct and sugarcoated than Bendis is being. And thanks to the damage Quesada wrought, that's why Spidey's 50th anniversary isn't much fun to celebrate.

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Yeah, why are they interviewing Bendis of all people? He's the one who wrecked the Avengers and forced Spidey onto the team.

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