Thursday, January 24, 2008 1:16 PM
As any good geek, I'm enthralled with video games, sci-fi movies, books, and Red Bull. But Comics hasn't been on my top list, other than seeing my childhood favorites finally come to the big screen. Of all the various titles, Spider Man and Batman were the two that I was most passionate about. Venom was, as per my famous "Why Venom Can't Be In Spider Man 4" post (which has 92 comments to date btw), one of the best villains ever and Batman's dark tone was always kewl.
But Spiderman got dropped along the way. Why? Because of the HORRIBLE Scarlet Spider storyline where we learn that Peter Parker wasn't *really * Peter but a clone of Peter that *thought* he was the real one, while the real one thought he was a clone. Uh huh...uber...stupid.
Then they butchered the Venom storyline, and who knows what else in the many years since I stopped reading. But a story on CNN caught my eye: Oh no! Is it Splitsville for Spidey and MJ? How interesting...mabye the strain of his "profession" finally got the best of them, or someone else came in the picture, or, I dunno, something potentially REALISTIC. But no, Marvel goes ahead with THIS:
"Well, the pair didn't exactly get divorced. After Peter Parker's beloved Aunt May was wounded in an attack, Spider-Man and Mary Jane reluctantly struck a deal with the devil-like Mephisto in which he erased everyone's memory of the couple's time together in exchange for May being restored to good health."
Becuase, y'know, Mephisto couldn't think of anything ELSE for them to pay him with. I mean, if he's got the power to erase EVERYONE's memory that EVER knew they were married, I'm thinking he might be dealing with higher-priority things...
Regardless, this is a DUMB storyline and one that I'm glad to see raised the ire of many a comic book geek.
Maybe one day we'll get back to how things were...sigh.
D