Glenn G "As for them not going anywhere, I think that has a lot to do with Spider-
Man's civilian life essentially being dropped from the book. Think about
it: his entire current ongoing supporting cast consists of Mary Jane and
Aunt May, both of whom know his secret identity. The Daily Bugle and its
employees are no longer part of the series (a damn crime, I say) and, last I
saw, Peter and MJ have no "civilian" friends with whom to socialize."

Glenn did you (or anybody else for that matter) see and interview (or internet posting, I forget) in Mr Straczynski claimes (paraphrasing) "If you look back at the old books Spider-Man as was about Peter and Spider-Man.  There wasn't a lot of stuff about other characters"

I really, really want to try and find this interview again to make sure I'm not imagining it because if the writer of Marvel's flagship title really believes this then no wonder the book is in trouble.  Mr Straczynski has the dubious honour of being the only person the EVER make me drop a Spider-Man title from my reading list.

Glenn (again) "How Peter accelerated to being a 30-year-old in such a relatively short time is beyond me."

Because Mr Bendis worked out (via some amazing mathmatical equation) that that's how old he thought Peter was and because he's the one that seems to be really in charge of Marvel these days it became gospel.  If you want to read really good Spider-Man type stories these days pick up Robert Kirkman's Invincible instead.

Andy

"All-Rape Comics" is going to be Marvel and DC's new joint monthly title

*******

Somebody should photoshop the All Star comics logo.

No idea, I haven't read the comic, and have no intentions of reading the comic (the panel was posted elsewhere).

Jason Fulton: That's the last panel of Spider-Man / Black Cat #5 - three years in the making!

I hope you didn't actually buy that three-year-late piece of crap, because then I'd have to make the long trip to the UP to rip you a new one.

QUOTE: Me: all respect to Howard Mackie and the other writers, it really was a dumb idea to keep the architects of the Clone Saga around after TPTB at Marvel decided to divorce themselves from it JB: Marketing was the "architect" of the Clone Saga, not the writers

Sorry - should have said "perceived architects." 

Well, here's the thing--Mary Jane should NEVER have been portrayed as a
"supermodel" or a successful TV actress. She should NEVER have gotten
past the ASPIRING model/actress phase. When you're aspiring to a career,
you're not exactly rolling in dough. Therefore, Pete and MJ COULD have
been portrayed as always being short on cash and struggling to make
ends meet. (And wouldn't it have added some dimension to their
relationship if MJ were to be portrayed as something of a shopaholic, or
needing to buy a lot of clothes and shoes to keep up with her competition
in the modeling world--thus depleting the Parker household funds even
further?)

**************************************

Unfortunately, then they’re just losers who married too young.

It’s an important distinction but in the Ditko/Lee (and for most of the Ditko/Romita) stories, Peter was never a loser: He was a genius headed for a free ride to pretty much the college of his choice. He had a very happy home life (and any attempts to retcon domestic strife is completely off base). He wasn’t popular but c’mon, how many of us were Flash Thompsons in high school? His problems were typical teenage alienation problems and what really made things difficult for him was, ironically enough Spider-Man – though one could argue that Uncle Ben would have died anyway, even if Peter weren’t in a position to make that fateful choice.

Peter’s future, even after Uncle Ben’s death, still had great potential. He should have finished grad school. He should have gotten a job as a research scientist some place and he should have funded Aunt May’s retirement to a nice house in Boca. His not doing this makes him a loser on every possible level. Creators try to pin the fact that Peter has not accomplished all of this on Spider-Man – by misinterpreting the whole “power and responsibility” thing so that Peter has “sacrificed” his life by being Spider-Man (though why he would also drag a wife into his pit of despair is less noble by any measure, arguably selfish).

This is progress?

QUOTE: The latter is a deadbeat (yes, yes, I know many perfectly responsible men have money problems but there’s no real excuse in Peter’s case – he’s too bright and has a college degree after all).

Keeping Doctor Octopus from destroying New York is not a valid excuse?

Black Cat:...because I've been raped too.

Spider-Man: Cry me a river. My uncle died and I was bitten by a radioactive spider. My parents turned out to be alive after years of leaving me to grow up with my aunt and uncle and then it turned out that they were robots. The Green Goblin killed my girlfriend. My best friend went all psycho fry-baby on me and his dad is a super villain who just won't die. Not even after he accidently impaled his own chest with retractable blades mounted  on the front of a bat shaped rocket glider thing. Oh yeah he apparently humped my late girlfriend a little bit before he killed her...My wife just told me that like a year ago. Same day Gwenny died Powerman tried to beat me up for like a thousand bucks because my boss hired him. Anyway she had rapid aging kids who tried to kill me recently. Lessee where was I ...I got kissed by a dominatrix with Insect genes that caused me to turn into a spider. Then THAT died and split open and I spilled out with bio-webs and the ability to talk to bugs. So I may not even be me. Speaking of that I thought I might be a clone of myself produced by a mad scientist who liked my late girlfried a little too much and blamed me for her death. Before that Kraven drugged me and buried me alive so he could dress up in my costume and beat the crap out of people. Then he shot himself but he's back somehow. I still crinmge when I hear the sound "Schuck!"  It turns out that some scary occult force may have caused the radio active spider to bite me in the first place. I joined the avengers so Stark'dd put my wife(who flirts with wolverine) and aunt up in free lodging. Worse I seem to be cursed and that is somehow slowly killing me. I got stuck in an alternate universe where I was super popular and my late girlfirend was still alive and then got dumped back here after the Scarlet witch neutered all the mutants she could get her spell to work on. I beat up this thug because I thought he was a vampire, no not morbius... some other vampire, and then he showed up, beat me to a pulp, ate my freaking eye, and they took me to the hospital where he showed up again and broke my wife's arm. Then I woke up, grew spikes out of my wrist and pretty ate him and then died and molted into something else dripping goo on a kid in the process. Oh yeah my infant daughter was kidnapped and is still missing. And for a year I thought my wife had died in a plane crash. Rape? Pfeh.