The Four Color Media Monitor

Comics Should Be Good tells that, while J. Michael Straczynski was the writer of Amazing Spider-Man's 9-11 "tribute", one of the most embarrassingly bad side-stories concocted by Marvel several years ago, John Romita Jr. was the one who thought up the scene of Dr. Doom crying over the disaster. I did hear several years ago that JRjr had claimed credit for that dreadful idea, but assumed at the time that he was trying to take heat away from Straczynski. But now, apparently, it turns out that JRjr was behind it. But that doesn't mean that either one is absolved of irresponsibility. Quite the opposite, I'm disappointed with both writer and artist alike for depicting some of Marvel's leading villains out of character in situations where they don't even belong.

And if the following tells anything...

Romita had, in the past, already noted that Stracynski HAD mostly left the choice of which villains to feature on the page up to him (except that Doctor Doom was specified by Stracynski as having to be there).

...it's that Stracynski is still guilty on his part of writing Doom into the script to begin with. So even if Doom weren't depicted crying, it'd still be inappropriate and implausible, considering that Doom's already put innocent lives at risk in the past whenever he attacked the Fantastic Four (for example, that time in the mid-80s when he destroyed the original Baxter Building). Why exactly would anyone sensible want a demonic man who's likely to return to his old ways coming within even miles of Ground Zero?

If they needed to depict anyone crying, it should've been the good guys and girls of the MCU. It would make a lot more sense if Betty Brant and Ben Urich were the ones crying at Ground Zero rather than one of the biggest tyrants in the MCU.

Labels: marvel comics, politics, Spider-Man