I AM GRANDO posted:

It contrasts batman as a square representative of the establishment against counterculture beatniks in a way that makes the establishment seem silly and insufficient to the task of managing society. That may not be intentional, and I will grant that the beatniks are always the henchpeople of the main villains and not the main villains themselves, who are generally not appealing.

Like, the idea of going to a dance club in the 60s and ordering an orange juice makes you seem silly where you’re not in on the joke if you’re surrounded by hip kids who know how to dance.

christmas boots posted:

IIRC As originally envisioned Hank is just kind of swinging his arms around as he’s having his rant/breakdown so she still gets hit but it’s an accidental thing that happens because he’s losing control and not a deliberate choice he makes to strike her

Ultimate cranks this up to 11 so Pym is just straight up a domestic abuser 24/7 and knowingly so.

sexpig by night posted:

yea he was supposed to be having a mental breakdown and flailing around and him hitting her was meant to be a 'oh god what am I doing' accident moment not 'OUTTA THE WAY BITCH I GOTTA REDEEM MYSELF'

That's why it sucks so hard that, like said, it feels like every Pym writer has a moment of 'I can undo that' that just winds up bringing it up again and dwelling on it, with poo poo like Ultimate being worst when they make him a very active, constant, abuser. Pym is a scumbag, that's kinda his thing, but yea 'hits his wife' was never meant to be part of that.

Ghost Leviathan posted:

A common theme with comic book writers is that they they just cannot leave poo poo alone and also kinda give the game away in that nothing after the 70s is really considered 'important' continuity wise unless it manages to be super popular, and even then not so much if the editor has an axe to grind/a nostalgia boner.

Edge & Christian posted:

This is kind of my point about these conversations, they're always a game of telephone. Sins Past was not a good story but there was no rape involved and no decree that Spider-Man can't have premarital sex. I suppose this gets into "you gently caress one goat lmao" territory of taking one part of one line and inferring a ton from it but the "Peter is a virgin" thing seems to come from solely from this interview:

This interview came out just before they started the "Brand New Day" run where Peter Parker was very much a single unmarried man having sex with multiple suitors, so if the idea was "Spider-Man has to wait until marriage!" then Quesada did an absolutely horrible job of keeping this mandate.

But again "Sister Mary Marvel demanded Spider-Man be a virgin so they had Gwen Stacy raped instead" is on some level more outrageous/more darkly humorous so I 'get' it.

Ambitious Spider posted:

Here's a good 35 part article about the whole behind the scenes of the Clone Saga mess:

http://www.benreillytribute.x10host.com/LifeofReilly1.html

For what it's worth I liked at the time. Ben Reilly/Scarlet Spider was cool, and Pete retiring with mary jane to have a family was a nice send off to the character.I also really liked the Spider-Girl comic that was the future of this time line.

sexpig by night posted:

yea he was supposed to be having a mental breakdown and flailing around and him hitting her was meant to be a 'oh god what am I doing' accident moment not 'OUTTA THE WAY BITCH I GOTTA REDEEM MYSELF'

That's why it sucks so hard that, like said, it feels like every Pym writer has a moment of 'I can undo that' that just winds up bringing it up again and dwelling on it, with poo poo like Ultimate being worst when they make him a very active, constant, abuser. Pym is a scumbag, that's kinda his thing, but yea 'hits his wife' was never meant to be part of that.

the holy poopacy posted:

I got to the part of the series where the clone plotline was arbitrarily extended for the 3rd time past its original organic ending and the author said "wow, we're already a third of the way through the story" and had a good lol

Then when I came back to this thread there were a couple new pages of goons defending comics and had another lol

Asterite34 posted:

It's especially weird because I'm pretty sure Reed Richards has slapped Susan Storm on multiple occasions over the course of his history, and somehow that hasn't defined his character nearly as completely as Hank Pym has been defined by his act of spousal abuse.

Maybe there's just less to work with for Pym. Like Mr Fantastic has enough other interesting stories and things going on in his life that continuity can quietly sweep the occasional messed up thing under the rug a little, people forget about it. Hank Pym though, that dumb slap is the most interesting thing he's ever done aside from building supervillain robots, so it sticks in people's minds to this day. It's like the informal rule that the more talented and famous a celebrity is, the less likely they are to be entirely remembered for doing something heinous. Nobody talks about John Lennon beating HIS wife, either.

Hell, Peter Parker himself has accidentally backhanded MJ at least once, nobody brings that up all the time. Partly because the radioactive spooge bit is funnier.

I AM GRANDO posted:

Foxfire_ posted:

Peter Parker getting his powers during high-school is right out. Middle school or college only.

Dr. Stab posted:

e: Only spider-man has to be male, though. Peter Parker can be any gender.

Volcott posted:

THE LEGACY VIRUS!

That is all.

Croccers posted:

So he can sell/distribute legal drugs though?

I AM GRANDO posted:

I feel like even though Jubilee was a relatively new character at that point, she’d have been established well enough to know to be nice around a dying child.

How old is Kitty Pryde supposed to be in that comic? When I was reading comics in that era, I had a sense that she was early 30s, but in the 80s she was 14 or 15, so I have no idea. She definitely looks like a mom on a teen drama in that panel.

moonmazed posted:

this thread always wraps back around to kitty pryde

I AM GRANDO posted:

I know this isn’t the same thing, but this hilarious license contract for Spiderman specifies that he must be older than 16 if he is to have sex in any media (which is honestly not a bad stipulation to impose) nor is he to sell drugs unless he is under the influence of the black symbiote suit:



Also note that the sex rule is particular to the time while he is Spiderman. Peter Parker can gently caress whenever, as long as it’s with a girl or girls.

Asterite34 posted:

It's especially weird because I'm pretty sure Reed Richards has slapped Susan Storm on multiple occasions over the course of his history, and somehow that hasn't defined his character nearly as completely as Hank Pym has been defined by his act of spousal abuse.

Maybe there's just less to work with for Pym. Like Mr Fantastic has enough other interesting stories and things going on in his life that continuity can quietly sweep the occasional messed up thing under the rug a little, people forget about it. Hank Pym though, that dumb slap is the most interesting thing he's ever done aside from building supervillain robots, so it sticks in people's minds to this day. It's like the informal rule that the more talented and famous a celebrity is, the less likely they are to be entirely remembered for doing something heinous. Nobody talks about John Lennon beating HIS wife, either.

Hell, Peter Parker himself has accidentally backhanded MJ at least once, nobody brings that up all the time. Partly because the radioactive spooge bit is funnier.

CharlestheHammer posted:

I mean this isn’t necessarily true. Spider man brings up the clone saga a lot despite no one really liking it

Hell Ben Reilly is the Spider-Man right now in an exact reference to that saga

Rochallor posted:

(because he also thought she was a lot older than she was).

Ghost Leviathan posted:

Is it still canon that Peter Parker got molested by a pedophile when younger?

Angry Salami posted:

I mean, it was never really 'canon' - it was only ever part of a PSA comic, and I don't think those are considered 100% official. Nothing else has mentioned it since then.

Ghost Leviathan posted:

It's still kinda loving lol given the whole thing is narrated by Spider-man standing on a rooftop and you think like, major childhood trauma MIGHT have some influence on a legendarily guilt-ridden character risking life and limb daily as a vigilante?

Rochallor posted:

Ages are basically choose your own adventure at this point. She's introduced in the early 80s as 12 and a half and ages in real time for a few years, but then that slows down and she ought to have been like 15 or 16 in the early 90s. But a few years later Warren Ellis has her dating a 30 year old (because he also thought she was a lot older than she was).

Edge & Christian posted:

Xarus promises to take over the world for vampires and sends out suicide bomber vampires to jump into crowded places in daylight and explode into a blood mist, and it's revealed the suicide bomber vampires have been given a virus to make their vampire blood even more vampire-infectious.

I AM GRANDO posted:

Also note that the sex rule is particular to the time while he is Spiderman. Peter Parker can gently caress whenever, as long as it’s with a girl or girls.

Dr. Stab posted:

e: Only spider-man has to be male, though. Peter Parker can be any gender.

pentyne posted:

Spider man storylines get so bad that previously reviled ones end up looking better.

The Spider-clone saga was a notorious story that was pretty widely hated, and by the time One More Day came out then reaction to it was "drat, clone saga really wasn't that bad was it?"

Also couldn't be insinuated that Batman went down on Catwoman during foreplay because "heroes don't do that"

Jedit posted:

She's been fairly consistently 25 since the mid-00s.

Ghost Leviathan posted:

It's still kinda loving lol given the whole thing is narrated by Spider-man standing on a rooftop and you think like, major childhood trauma MIGHT have some influence on a legendarily guilt-ridden character risking life and limb daily as a vigilante?

AceOfFlames posted:

IIRC the author wanted to make Uncle Ben the molester only for Marvel's editors to shoot it down. One of the few (publicized) instances I can think of where the higher-ups were the sane ones.

Ghost Leviathan posted:

Is it still canon that Peter Parker got molested by a pedophile when younger?

It's actually kinda funny that Reed Richards as an abusive domineering husband is all but canon and the stock parody of him in any other media (Venture Bros comes to mind) is taking the piss out of the whole 'standard 50s patriarch' thing he has going. Hell, it's still a running thing that literally every version of Reed except the mainline one turns evil.

Again, the whole reason the clone saga went on so long is that it WAS super popular to begin with, so they stretched it to the point where all that interest drained away and they very obviously had no idea how to end it.

Comic writers really just can't stop themselves from wanting to correct the record/have the last word on things that everyone else just wants to move on from because they don't have any actually new ideas.

Tiggum posted:

You have both misread this. The first list applies to all Spider-Mans, both in and out of costume. The second applies only to Peter Parker (whether in or out of costume). This is because Peter Parker is not the only character to ever have used the super-hero identity "Spider-Man". So some rules apply to all Spider-Mans and some only to a specific Spider-Man.