The Four Color Media Monitor

CBR - what a surprise - wrote a puff piece where it sounds like their writer doesn't think the coupling of Peter and MJ should be restored. It does, however, bring up points of contention like previous plottings the current volume is picking up from:

Dan Slott’s decade-long tenure on writing Spider-Man recently came to an end, swapping the prolific writer out with former Captain America/Secret Empire scribe Nick Spencer. The first issue of his and artist Ryan Ottley’s much hyped run, Amazing Spider-Man #1, took Peter Parker back to the basics. The hero has lost Parker Industries, is under investigation for academic fraud, was fired from the Daily Bugle, and other New York heroes hate him because they think he’s buddy-buddy with Kingpin of Crime turned New York mayor, Wilson Fisk.

When those prior ideas are written by Slott, you know something's wrong. Also of note is that during Slott's tenure, Peter pops to the top with a business venture, proving the apologists for One More Day never had a problem with Peter becoming a financial success, but did have one with Mary Jane being his girlfriend/wife. So it was all a whole smokescreen used in defense of ridding MJ as Peter's bride, because there's a certain group of phony fans out there, Joe Quesada being one of them, who don't like marriage, and apparently view MJ as representative of a vision they depise, despite all their attempts to pretend otherwise: a woman who wants to become a success in some way or other. And they wouldn't even consider that not all models make big sums of money or live in wealthy manors. So of course, their logic is fake.

Next is where the article begins to collapse:

And like those now infamous wedding issues for Batman and X-Men, the move to bring Peter and MJ back together doesn’t really work. There are couples who’ve gotten back together after a time apart, but the issue itself piles so much misfortune on Peter’s doorstep it feels like Peter should be looking into a therapist or anxiety medicine instead of making out with his ex.

Like all relationships, the ones between superheroes and their non-powered partners are full of drama. In the decade since their split, Peter and MJ had many relationships that provided what neither could offer the other at the time. MJ got to date men who were reliable and had the stability that Peter couldn’t entirely provide, and Peter was with those who were more accustomed to or in the line of superheroic work as he. Not all of these relationships were perfect, but they were signs of real change, something that isn’t typically allowed in big two superhero comics, or at least, not in any lasting, meaningful way.

So I guess Mr. Fantastic and Invisible Girl's marriage had no real change, assuming that's really such a big deal. And if this is all they care about - unclearly defined "change" - then I think they have no business telling us what to think or believe at all. Besides, it's clear they approach this as though Peter and MJ are real life people, and not fictional characters. All because "realism" is such a goddamned emergency and comicdom won't survive without it.

The last couple of times that Peter and MJ broke off their romantic relationship — after that one time Doc Ock jacked Peter’s body for over a year — it was because she didn’t want his, frankly, ridiculous life as a superhero to define hers. More, she didn’t want to keep risking the danger the comes from being close to a superhero.

No, the scriptwriters (and Quesada) just didn't want her around, because, much like the writer of this awful piece, Spidey pairing with tons of other women is something that just has to be explored at all costs, and an organically written divorce isn't good enough for their greedy-for-short-term-sales mentality. Brian Bendis has been going a somewhat similar route of recent with Superman. They also won't come to terms with that these aren't real people they're writing, and CBR's writer won't take an objective approach to commenting on Slott's publicity stunt with Dr. Octopus' mind switcheroo.

Furthermore, if it's okay for girlfriends and wives in the DCU like Lois Lane to risk the dangers coming with partnership with a superhero, then it's okay for MCU girls to be written in the same situations. This article also stinks of an obsession with "being realistic", completely in spite of the fact this is a science-fantasy-filled fictional universe in question here, where you have characters who can fly, turn into flaming beacons and big green monsters, shrink to microscopic size or grow to mammoth proportions. So why must realism apply in every way, shape and form to dates and marriage? That kind of thinking is no doubt what got Mockingbird killed off by Mephisto at the end of Avengers West Coast in 1993, after a decade of marriage to Hawkeye. And while I'm not saying it would be any better if Clint Barton took the fall, the most irritating part is that the lady became the sacrifice, because the guy apparently rates far more important in nearly every way. An approach that's been used repeatedly in some way or other over many years, and the death of Gwen Stacy was an early precursor to it.

If anything, his life has become even more crazy since their split, since his teacher is the Lizard and he’s a roommate with Boomerang. Both of those situations are going to end pretty badly, and that’s coming just before the “Spidergeddon” event that’ll bring together the Spider-heroes of the multiverse yet again in a fight for survival against evil vampires.

Ah, and what's this? Talk of another company wide crossover? Well, David Gabriel did say they'd merely be taking a hiatus from the concept for a year and a half, so I guess this is just the beginning of the next round of crossovers nobody even complains about anymore, and maybe they never did.

Whatever the future holds for Peter and Mary Jane, their love will definitely be tested by it. And it may have been better for them both to just stay friends, or at least not jump into getting together again so amazingly fast.

It would've been far better for the buffoon who wrote this puff piece not to bother at all. Not even to enter the "profession" if he's only interested in having the books written in a way he thinks is suitable, not anyone else.

Some of the commentors chimed in with the following:

One of the biggest issues with comic books lately, and thus comic book websites such as CBR...is that everything now must be grounded in reality. Even though we are reading about people who can fly, lift buildings, etc...there has to be some real-world, logic explanation, and logical consequence/repercussion. For me, this has killed the fantasy aspect of reading these books in the first place.

I thought it one of the worst parts of Geoff Johns' run on the Flash besides the more noticeable jarring violence. In a way, he too was trying to push of form of heavy-handed reality into the book he wrote more on his own than JSA or Hawkman. Such an approach has also turned up in the MCU (in fact, I recall Johns put a most ugly scene in Avengers #71 vol. 3 from 2003 where it looked like Whirlwind/David Cannon was sexually assaulting Janet Van Dyne by licking her), and it's only served to drain the entertainment value from the stories. If all we're worried about now is "realism" then it's pretty clear those obsessed with the emphasis aren't reading the books for entertainment, if they're reading them at all. Somebody else said:

Did Joe Quesada ghost write this? This is one of the weakest, most ill conceived arguments I’ve ever seen.

The most beloved romantic relationship in comics asides from Superman and Lois Lane, is finally, after more than a decade after being destroyed in one of the dumbest stories the genre has ever seen, is showing signs of being restored, and you think that’s a *bad* thing?

How dumb are you, man?

Hmm, maybe Quesada did supervise this dismal piece! After all, the smart site editor would've commissioned one where somebody could praise Marvel for reversing something that garnered a bad reputation and brought down sales in the long run, replete with some of the worst written situations ever seen in a superhero comics like trolling the audience, and talk about the best moments featuring Mary Jane and how these can be drawn from for the best characterizations. Instead, they threw the chance away with a shoddy article meant to make Quesada and the social justice movement proud. Another stated:

Its more passive and tame than I thought. I thought the writer would go on a frenzy similar to the defense of Spockingbird but it wasn't. It just emphasized the end point of Superior where MJ had enough of the superhero life and that if they had to get back together that it shouldn't have happened so fast in ASM 1.

Which is still total crap. All the other people Peter and MJ dated were easily discarded meaningless flings whether it were "reliable men" for MJ or "superhero women" for Peter. Both ended up with nothing close to solid and its frankly quite laughable. Their best and only worthwhile relationship was with each other and all the superhero craziness and supermodel stalkers and everything only made them stronger than Adamantium.

This reminds me that personally, I think Rogue marrying Gambit - or any super-team player marrying another person with the same profession - is awfully cheap, yet it all but became the norm for how to do a superhero-getting-married tale for many years. That's practically why I think the time has come for it to change. No doubt, Slott and company were basically taking that premise and applying it to solo heroes as well, and in the poorest of ways. Here's another comment:

No other relationship in comics is more iconic other than Clark and Lois. If you think getting Pete and MJ back together is a bad idea then you. are. the. problem!

And if you think Clark and Lois getting separated is a good idea, you're the problem again! Here's another:

So in the worst Spider-Man storyline of ALL TIME written by a hack fanboy, Quesada, who looked at his responsibility at Marvel as not steward, but a kid with a toybox of his toys, they were broken up...by the Devil. So, after the Mephisto OMD/OMIT DISASTER of a story and its lack of adding ANYTHING meaningful to the mythos, you have the GALL to write about how they shouldn't be together!? Let me be clear: THEY SHOULD NOT HAVE BEEN BROKEN UP IN THE FIRST PLACE; at the very least not in that fashion. Also, the promise of Quesada that they would "tell stories that you couldn't with a married Spider-Man" never happened. EVERY STORY told since OMD could have been told. EVERY. ONE. With no major plot beats changed. It was a hamfisted, dull, and trite story that only served to WEAKEN the character. Over the last 10 years Marvel has TROLLED the fanbase over and over again as to them getting back together or OMD being undone (and Dan Slott trolled the fanbase over EVERY storyline he knew would be controversial in interviews), and now that they are taking steps that way to make changes you want to complain? I'm forced to ask: does this site HATE comics or just the fans? You hate this and complain about Flash War being "inconclusive" just because it was obivous that the writer had personal bias against Wally West, the DECLARED Fastest Man Alive-NOT inconclusive; not to mention Superman and any other classic Marvel or DC characters. So I am forced to ask: can you write an article that is just facts of the issues at hand or is every one just an Op-Ed. If so, say so, but don't list it as an actual article if it's just filled with opinion or innuendo.

I'm sure the propagandist doesn't respect Wally West as a creation either, and of course, so far, they've largely gotten rid of Linda Park West as his wife, while SJWs remain predictably quiet that a POC was kicked to the curb, because she was an organic creation by Bill Messner-Loebs, not a contrived replacement for an established white superhero. Here's another comment:

This is hot trash. It hinges it's arguments upon the idea that you couldn't have a series where Spider-Man and his superpowered wife and teen daughter are a team published at the same time as a seires where Spider-Man was the only lead hero and is dating a normal woman. It hinges upon saying Peter and MJ grew from their relationships since OMD. They didn't. It presumes that those relationships were good because they got things neither could get from the other without ever asking if those were things the characters truly wnated or needed. In short this is clickbait trash...with bad spelling.

That's why serious advertisers shouldn't waste their money on what's been an otherwise dreadful site for far longer than since 2010. CBR is an embarrassment and shouldn't be read anymore, because they don't know how to be encouraging and inspirational, and there's bound to be more negative takes on Spidey and Mary Jane down the road very soon at the awful site. They've become a leading reason why comicdom's been ruined.

Labels: bad editors, crossoverloading, marvel comics, misogyny and racism, msm propaganda, Spider-Man, women of marvel