Swing Away Spidey
N/A
Amazing Spider-Man 546 Review
By: agentkooperDate: Monday, January 14, 2008
I don't often post using a serious tone, but something awful happened last night that effected me more profoundly than I imagined possible, I read Amazing Spider-Man 546.
Unlike so many people I refused to boycot Spider-Man after the recent reversal of his marriage. I felt that giving the people behind the character the benefit of the doubt was fair in light of everything I've followed the web head through. This is a mistake I will long regret.
The bulk of the issue doesn't really reveal much about the unfolding arc. Peter lives with May, Peter is poor, Peter hangs out with Harry who recently returned from Europe, Peter is a dick and almost kills J. Jonah Jameson. This is an introduction issue, not a lot happens and it was hard to read, but I was still ready to give the whole retcon a go.
And then something horrible happened, I turned the last page of the story proper and found a two page primer on the changes that have been made. While I was pissed that MJ would be gone, I never for even a moment imagined what Marvel had planned.
Check this crap out: Spider-Man never unmasked (even though many people remember it happening, they just don't remember who was under the mask). No one knows his identity, not May, not the Avengers, not Daredevil, no one.
Sure the dude in the book is called Spider-Man, but he is a total stranger. I realize the brain trust running Marvel thinks this is a chance to right the wrongs of the character's history, but even the worst crap (clone sage) happened to MY Spider-Man. Just like every person has mistakes in thier past, so does Spider-Man, but it's these mistakes that make us different, and learning from them is what makes us who we are, and this isn't the Peter Parker I knew. It's some stranger wearing his clothes.
I gave the book a C rating, average, with no leanings in either direction because I am not in the right state of mind to make a fair suggestion as to the quality of this particular issue, but I will tell you exactly how reading it made me feel.
I feet as if some one killed my best friend, a friend I had grown very close to, a person I shared personal moments with and knew inside and out. My best friend wasn't perfect, we disagreed almost as often as we agreed, but at the end of the day all tresspasses were forgiven and our friendship grew stronger. And then some jerk-off shot him in the head with a muther-f**king shotgun and replaced him with some alternative reality clone. Genetically, this new friend is the same guy. He looks the same, talks the same, has the same early past, but he doesn't share any of the memories I had with my decapitated buddy.
What I said about not boycotting this title before? Screw it, screw them, and screw this freak wearing my friend's spider PJ's.
P.S. - What appears to be MJ as New York's official hero is lame as hell also.
