With Great Power...

Yesterday the final part of One More Day, Amazing Spider-Man 545, hit the local comic shop. I was expecting this to be bad. I was wrong.

Warning, spoilers abound.

As I outlined in a previous post, this has been the big change in Spider-Man continuity that has been hyped and debated for a long time.

Some have said "Wait until it finishes before judging", I myself was wondering if this catastrophe as it appeared was going to be a huge fakeout as noone in their right mind could really think that this direction was a good idea could they?

Well it has now finished and it is without doubt the single most damaging and blindingly moronic stories I have ever read.

The first part of the issue deals with the turmoil as Peter and MJ dicuss Mephisto's offer: let Aunt May die or have Mephisto alter reality and take away their marriage as if it never happened.

MJ proffers the idea that they do let her die, that she has had a good life, Peter has done everything anyone could do for her, Peter says he has thought of that too (I would like to think so) and that if they decided together to do it then maybe he could live with it.

Then MJ accepts Mephisto's offer, whispering something in his ear to convince him to give Peter a true shot at happiness (most likely theory is she told Mephisto she would bear the tragic knowledge of what they once were).

As a last sting in the tail Mephisto revelas that the young red headed girl who Peter saw on his tour of possible realities in the last issue was HIS AND MJ's DAUGHTER! Gasp!

If Peter didn't realise this before now then he is an utter moron, and even if he didn't, wasn't their ever a point in which he thought that maybe being married to the woman he loves and having good regular sex with her might one day to them having a kid and this would not happen now? Pretty obvious really.

MJ tells Peter she believes that no matter what Mephisto does she believes their love is too storng for anything to break it and they are destined to be together no matter what, they kiss one last time as husband and wife and a nicely drawn montage sums up their life together.

Peter then wakes up, it is the "Brand New Day".

He has overslept on his alarm, that goofy guy, and he dashes downstairs as he is late for something.

The stairs he runs down are owned by his Aunt May because not only is Peter no longer married he apparently is either a 25 year old still living with his old Aunt or somehow time has gone crazy and he's younger.

The former is the truth but the latter is how it feels.

Peter dashes out, stuffing down his beloved Aunt May's wheatcakes shouts that he loves her and rides off on his bicycle.

Yes, his bicycle, yes he is wearing a helmet and yes when this image is added to his other actions in this issue one wonders if he is, well, a little challenged.

Peter arrives at his destination: a surprise party thrown for someone to be revealed.

Flash Thompson is there.

Peter spots MJ who is wearing black and looking solemn, Flash spots the distraction.

"Yikes, awkward! Things still frosty with MJ, huh?"

When reading that line it was like a wonderful journey back in time to a simpler age where dialogue was consistently terrible but noone noticed.

And so the big surprise is shouted as Harry Osbourne enters the room.

Yes Harry is no longer dead as the memorable story that included his death never happened.

Peter spies a hot blonde, which turns out to be Harry's girl.

Peter sulks dramatically and says "figures" because this handsome, athletic 25 year old not only can't get a date he has the proportional emotional maturity of a spider.

The final full page is a close up of the revellers hands and glasses of champagne as they raise a toast to "A brand new day!"

"Mmmm this champagne tastes like piss"

There's then a reprint of the Spider-Man/MJ wedding issue. Because that helps.

Where to begin with this travesty?

First of all, it was Peter's decison to unmask himself in Civil War, he was perfectly aware that someone close to him could be killed due to it, Peter then decided to switch sides knowing full well he and his loved ones would no longer have Stark's protection.

And now with great power comes great inability to accept the consequences of your actions and instead let the devil decide the fates of you and your loved ones.

I doubt that will be the tag-line for Spider-Man 4.

There are all sorts of complications now added. Marvel's concept of time and reality altering has been pretty consistent, one change effects another. Now if Harry is alive then how does that effect things that happened? If Peter never unmasked how does that effect Civil War and all of the fallout from that? Is Dr. Doom dead as Spider-Man saved him when on his way to see MJ on the West Coast but now never made that trip?

Apparently not, we just have to assume it changed some things fundamentally but everything else went pretty much the same way. Except Peter didn't grow up at all through the course of what happened it seems. This profound shift in reality only effected the things Joe Quesada wanted them to (including he uses web shooters again now, Joe Q admitted he had that changed so they now had the possibility of Peter running out of web fluid at bad times again. Yay for great storytelling! Quesada also admitted it was his idea to go to organic webshooters in the first place. Yay for consistency!)

Would you like some ice with your Prime Punch?

And now because Peter has repeatedly acted in a way completely out of character (let's face it he does the deal as he can't handle being at fault for May's death, making him a virtual coward) we now have him apparently return to the character that Joe Quesada believes is the right one.

The goofy, nerd Peter who is 15 years of age in all but physical appearance.

Quesada has accused anyone who disagrees with him as just wanting to keep the character that they grew up liking without seeing the big picture of the character who will appeal to younger fans and ensure his future. Y'know, the character that he grew up liking.

In this softball session some would call an interview, Quesada responds to the OMD controversy.

Here is how Quesada sees the debate:

So, the way I see it, there are two sides of the argument, two segments of fans. On one side, there is a contingency of fandom that wants Peter to age along with them and live life as they do. He needs to get married, have kids, then grandkids, and then the inevitable. One the other side, there are fans that realize Spidey needs to be ready for the next wave or generation of readers, that no one can lay claim to these icons, no one generation has ownership and that we need to preserve them and keep them healthy for the next batch of readers to fall in love with.

Yep all fans who rail against this debacle simply want Spider-Man to grow old and die with them and are being selfish.

Staggering.

If I seem a little scattershot with my response it is because I'm having real trouble fully comprehending how awful this is.

There is nothign wrong with change, Ed Brubaker is doing fantastic work with bringing back Bucky from the dead in Captain America, he is doing great work in having Cap himself killed.

But to erase 20 years of continuity in order to make a character unable to change, to reward his growth with a reset button and all because Quesada thinks marriage ends story, the possibility of a supporting cast and the possibility of the fresh and exciting love triangle plot seems incredible in its stupidity.

I believe Spider-Man is such an iconic character because he is an everyman, a person we can identify with who gets put through the mill time and time again but comes through due to his courage, purity of spirit and respect and love for those around him.

Joe Quesada killed that character as he believes we will better identify with a 25 year old man living with his 75 year old Aunt who doesn't know how to talk to girls, can't scrape together the cash for a date, except when maybe at his millionaire best friend's pad and consistently screws up relationships with stunningly beautiful women because he hasn't grown up yet.

I was expecting this to be bad, instead it is an unmitigated disaster.