The Hooplah Reviews "Spider-Man: The Other - Evolve or Die"

We're digging into the vault for this review. I checked this out from the library, some three years after it finished, too curious to pass it up.

Stupidly long title aside, I can recommend it. While the twelve issue story could've been compressed, or the climax moved an issue later, providing more build-up for Morlun's part and Peter's illness, I can't find much to fault.

The set-up is simple: Peter Parker is dying.

In an effort to stave off death, he's seeking help from all fields scientific, natural and supernatural. But in the end, they all have the same sad story to tell. In these twilight hours, he interacts with his friends and loved ones, fights the good fight now and again, but it's a losing action. And if his illness doesn't kill him, there's help waiting in the wings. Morlun, the totemistic villain introduced at the beginning of JMS' run makes a surprise appearance, back from the dead, to harvest Peter's powers.

(For those who don't know the specifics of the totem-aspect of JMS' run, it boils down to Peter being the current incarnation of the spider totem, one of many animal-based powers floating around. Morlun feeds on these, gaining in strength as he kills and absorbs their power. It was all introduced in the very first JMS arc. While this knowledge is passingly mentioned, knowing it can't hurt; it also shows why this is such a big deal, as it's the climax of Peter's development and acceptance of this mystical nature of his being.)

Peter and Morlun fight in great superhero fashion, the nigh-omnipotent villain rarely suffering, the very mortal hero plunging on, knowing death is near but also willing to give all. For with great power--! You know the rest.

Morlun savages Spider-Man. It's barely a fight, in the end. Cops arrive, denying Morlun his meal, Peter is rushed to the hospital and the heroes gather around their fallen comrade. Then Morlun returns, you get another fight but wait!

Yeah, now Peter Parker/Spider-man's got weird new powers, debuting in his second (and last, to-the-death-of-both) fight with Morlun. And he technically does die, but the story is told well from there. I won't get into the final act, but there's some internal struggles, more mysticism, rebirth and a decent, suitably heroic resolution.

Consider this: it's a death and return story, told over four months and twelve issues in three titles by the same three creative teams. From a technical standpoint, it's perfect. The story might have a few structural problems, but you cannot fault the framework overall that contains this (somewhat major) Marvel Universe story within only one (small) family of comics.

Mike "Ringo" Wieringo and Mike Deodato, Jr. both show why they are so popular - Deodato especially, as he redefines his style to more reminiscent of early Sandman or Hellblazer than his Wonder Woman stuff. Pat Lee I could do without; he can't draw Aunt May (looks like an old tranny) and in general misses out on nuance. JMS, Peter David and Reggie Hudlin write as one here, without any big differences in style or characterization. It's a little melodramatic at times, a fault I have with Spidey comics in general (it's either wisecracking or hyperangst), but it is supposed to be a monumental event. Thankfully, Morlun is toast.

Much can be said for the way it handles Peter's last days with his family, the interactions with the supporting cast and the overall emotional content of the story. Perhaps it's all made more bittersweet by Ringo's death since publication, and the parallel I couldn't shake of a life taken too soon. Unintended, but it helps. Even without that, I think we can all connect on a human level with these works of fiction, better here than in any other Spider-Man comics I've read.

The Other sits well with me as I write this and I think I know why it works for me, when it wouldn't for regular Spidey fans: I'm not a fan.

There is little appeal for me in the character, because there never seems to be a decent or well-written challenge. But here we have a story that is obviously complex and substantial, but one that flies in the face of Spider-man orthodoxy. Were you a fan from the 60s and 70s reading this, you'd no doubt call it trash or whacked out mysticism (maybe not "whacked out." Perhaps dastardly. How did people speak back then?). 80s and 90s-era fans see something potentially as grating and confusing as the Clone saga.

But I've followed nothing, care little for continuity and can come into this almost a greenhorn to recent storylines. Almost. There is no explanation who the group of heroes is he hangs out with (The New Avengers, pre-Civil War) until their costumed names are dropped. And it didn't click that Jessica Drew, not Jessica Jones, was the "Jessica" always there, until "Spider-Woman" was mentioned.

I like it because it doesn't feel like Spider-Man - the teenage, wisecracking webslinger pining after MJ or Gwen and struggling to balance home and hero lives - but a What If Spidey were a regular hero without all that youthful drama? It might stand as one of the few mature Spider-Man stories in print.

I don't know if "The Other: Evolve or Die" was part of a larger "The Other: [etc title]" series of stories, but it could've been. I'd certainly read more.

And for me to say that about Spidey comics is saying a lot.

-Hooper

Read on, faithful few!

The Hooplah Reviews "Spider-Man: One More Day"

A lot has already been written about this story. It's one of those comic book arcs that "breaks the Internet in two," as even the editors have started to say. But this one had good reason: it featured the manufactured end of Peter Parker's (Spider-Man) marriage to Mary Jane, his crush and love since high school (with a few interruptions).

Theirs was a star-crossed love, and it was for that reason that Mephisto, stand-in Devil of the Marvel Universe, chose to erase their marriage from existence save for a small bit from their souls to savor the anguish, the loss, the sorrow - all in exchange for the life of Aunt May.

But I don't buy it.

The Peter Parker that sell his marriage to the Devil isn't the same one who hefted a building on his back or has struggled for years to atone for one small moment of selfishness, who has given his all time and again for a city that he loves. What he does is not the reaction of an adult who's gone through life and seen how it works. Maybe the circles he runs in make him feel immune to death, as it pertains to him and those around him (in "The Other," he does die and come back and no one's all that surprised). But Aunt May is old, and if this was her time, if her getting shot was part of the plan (as was Uncle Ben's death), why can't Peter realize the lesson he's been taught time and again, that sometimes people die, and we cannot change that?

It's a bad story; there's no redeeming quality. I don't know if this is J. Michael Straczynski's fault as writer or Joe Quesada's (as editor-in-chief of Marvel, though as an artist he does a piss-poor job of helping). Editorial mandate was rumored to be the reason for how the story turned out. I'm betting that JMS wrote it 70% how it was published, and the tweaking was small. Mephisto was am editor-added part, but the dissolution of the marriage to save Aunt May was not.

And that's what gets me. It doesn't make sense for Spider-Man/Peter Parker to choose an old lady over a young, fresh marriage and a whole future. In fact, it insults Aunt May, who would've gladly sacrificed herself, but now can at some point be burdened with the knowledge that to keep her alive, two lives were broken.

My problems with the story cover all aspects of each issue.

The art was rarely good, at times giving the characters goofy, odd-shaped facial features. It's not that Quesada is a bad artist, but he was very inconsistent throughout. The "Brand New Day"/post-unmarriaging scene was good, as was the depiction of Mephisto. But Iron Man and Dr. Strange are obvious weak points for Quesada. He looks to be aping Mike Deodato's excellent, almost Vertigo-esque worked turned in a few years' back on the title, or at worst, the Spawn/Greg Capullo house style. Not suited for the story.

Good writing can overcome bad or mediocre art. I cannot honestly recommend this story, and it's because of JMS' writing. Nothing is rational, nothing is in-character, little is adult. Iron Man/Tony Stark is a heartless, fascist bastard; Dr. Strange is a parody of a sorcerer; Mary Jane is too verklempt to be the strong woman she's always written as being. Peter Parker is childish, wanting the bad things to go away; unheroic, throwing fists and irrational actions before sane reasoning; and selfish to a "t," in that he even considers ruining MJ's life or breaking her heart. I don't see how any of those could pass muster.

When asked about JMS' orignal ending at Newsarama, Joe Quesada said, "This was the story he wanted to tell. In his story, Mephisto was going to change continuity from as far back as issues #96-98 from 1971. In Joe's story, Peter drops the dime on Harry, and that helps get him into rehab right away. Consequently, MJ stays with Harry, and Gwen never dies and never has her affair with Norman, etc., etc. And in the end, Peter and MJ are never married." JMS agreed with this interpretation. He found the Mephisto/magic way a cop-out, though he was still going to make the demon an integral part of the story, just not his published actions.

Regardless, it doesn't gel either way. It's still a narrative cop-out, a deus ex machina, authorial interference. We deal with a powered rule that frequently bends and breaks natural laws, but the stories themselves are written in the real world. We can afford to suspend disbelief for the internal logic of powers and magic, but to have that fly in the face of story structure and characterization - in essence to shoehorn in established characters to fit a narrative mandate - breaks the rules. Might as well have 88 pages of Quesada and JMS explaining what happens, just pictures of them at their desks with world balloons, maybe holding up sketches of the characters for reference. "This is the story we want to tell featuring characters that look like this but behave how we need them to in a story crafted to dumb down the mythos and insult the audience."

The follow-up story/event is "Brand New Day," showing us what happens when Peter and MJ haven't been married for the last X years. People who were dead...aren't, new villains pop up, the old single dynamic abounds and there's an underlying sense of something amiss. In capable (non-JMS) hands, I hear we've been given many good to great issues that are far better than what came before. Out of the ashes of bad stories, great ideas can grown.

So check out those new issues, and if you're curious, once they undo Mephisto's bargain and reunite Peter and MJ, how this all started, check out "One More Day" from the library. Read, as I did, to satisfy an itch. But don't buy it. Don't show economic support for trash editorial moves like this. In the annals of Spider-Man history, this arc will be a blemish, not-soon-forgotten, but easy to mask. I only hope the resolution is as much reward to the fans as it is apology for what they went through to get there.

-Hooper

Read on, faithful few!

...I beg your pardon?

Buck: Thoughts on Final Crisis #3?

Hooper: I haven't been to a comic shop in a month, so for all I know, Magneto married Lois Lane and defeated the Skrulls by using the superion in the Viltrumites' blood to reverse the polarity of their multiverse, defracturing the infinite possibilities into 37 (in a row?!) new worlds, while at the same time defeating the Kun'Dyah beast that had erupted from Cavendish Hall, permanently sealing the Ogdru Jahad in Earth-: moments before it became Earth-;.

And Spidey unmasked again, this time for money, on the internet, and a little at a time while eating strawberries.

Read on, faithful few!