Amazing Spider-Man sucks these days. Well no it's cool. Nah it sucks. I don't know anymore. A lot of fans (myself included) were deeply upset about the outcome of the One More Day storyline. J. Michael Straczynzki had brought Spider-Man in new and exciting directions, and for it to end like this seemed like a cop-out of colossal proportions.
Apparently not everyone was happy with JMS's work. Which is understandable, you can't please everyone. But some Marvel bigwigs sent out a memo saying we need to bring Spidey bak to his roots. Completely forgetting the fact that characters need to change and grow in order to stay interesting.
The most significant change was the dissolution of his marriage to Mary Jane. Thus negating about 20 years of history. One of the ideas was that Peter seemed to work better as as single guy. Did these editors just not read a single comic from that 20 year timeline? Peters dialogues with MJ added some real depth to the character. And let us not forget that just a few months earlier, there was a Spider-Man without Mary Jane: due to numerous strains on the relationship, she had left him to pursue her career. Eventually they reconciled, only to be pulled apart one more time, this time through magic.
Now it's been about a year and a half since One More Day, and fans have had some time to get used to this new and “improved” Spidey. Along with the end of the marriage, we have the return of Harry Osborn, a new female goblin type villain known as Menace, and Eddie Brock is now the Anti-Venom.
There have been a lot more changes, some good, others bad, but overall they seem to be alienating most fans on a daily basis.
One particularly troublesome detail lingers: Spidey unmasked himself during Civil War (remember that?)Yet, thanks to Mephisto's machinations, nobody quite remembers who he was. It looked as though Marvel was going to deal with this (at least somewhat) in issues 590-591 where Spidey accompanies the Fantastic Four to the Macroverse. In it, the Human Torch is convinced that he knows Spidey's identity and forces him to unmask, by setting it on fire. Instead of actually dealing with this inconsistency, the writers just have the Fantastic Four automatically remember “Oh yeah Spider-Man is Peter Parker.” without any explanation as to why they all of the sudden do remember when two panels ago they didn't.
Some of the stories in Amazing Spider-Man have been good, but overall, with the events of One More Day hovering over them, most of the time they end up like the aforementioned Fantastic Four adventure, they start strongly, and fizzle out toward the end. Who knows, maybe with issue 600 we'll have a Brand New, Brand New Day.
Saturday, June 20, 2009
Thursday, June 11, 2009
Speculators Shmeculators
I first got into comics during the height of the speulation craze of the early 90s. I call it a craze because that's what it was. People who really didn't give a damn about the comics buying 27 different copies of Superman #75 (The Death of Superman for you laypeople). At this time a lot of publishers were using gimmicks to sell their books, nothing storywise, but a ton of hologram covers, foldout covers, variant covers, trading cards, and various other things that didn't make thebook any better, just more expensive.
I remember getting a copy of Adventures of Superman #500 (The Return) Which came polybagged with a special edition trading card, and was published with 8 additional story pages that didn't really move the story along, they just looked cool. Anyway when I got my copy I opened the factory sealed bag and read the issue with glee. This was awesome, I mean Superman was coming back from the dead. I knew they couldn't keep him dead for long. My joy was shortlived however, when I brought my book to school the next day.
Several of the other kids who fancied themselves “collectors” thought I had commited the crime of the century by opening that issue. Didn't I realize that the value would be severely diminished just because the bag was opened? One kid bought eight copies and didn't open a single one. Another time I had a friend pick me up a copy of Uncanny X-Men #300 with a holo-foil cover. If you don't know what holo-foil means, don't ask, it's not really that important in the long run. One of these collectors chimed in with his two cents and said “I know that book, it's worthless.” I wanted to respond with , “Dude it just came out.”
In the long run, neither of these books went up in value. Bagged or not Adventures of Superman #500 is still worth its cover price of 3.50. Uncanny X-Men #300 is worth 4.00, a 5 cents above cover price. Keep in mind these are their Near Mint/Mint values. Both of these books actually had pretty decent stories but were overshadowed by their glitz, glamour and hype.
I've always been a reader of comics first, a collector second; and never have considered myself a speculator. If you're looking for something to invest money in, comics aren't it. Case in point Gen 13 #1, that book was huge when it came out. I bought it for cover price, and it shot up to $60.00. But now it's listed NM/Mint value is listed as $4.20. A lot of comics have gone up in value, some even fetch thousands of dollars, but overall this is not the reason to buy them. Buy them for a good story and beautiful artwork. That value is priceless.
I remember getting a copy of Adventures of Superman #500 (The Return) Which came polybagged with a special edition trading card, and was published with 8 additional story pages that didn't really move the story along, they just looked cool. Anyway when I got my copy I opened the factory sealed bag and read the issue with glee. This was awesome, I mean Superman was coming back from the dead. I knew they couldn't keep him dead for long. My joy was shortlived however, when I brought my book to school the next day.
Several of the other kids who fancied themselves “collectors” thought I had commited the crime of the century by opening that issue. Didn't I realize that the value would be severely diminished just because the bag was opened? One kid bought eight copies and didn't open a single one. Another time I had a friend pick me up a copy of Uncanny X-Men #300 with a holo-foil cover. If you don't know what holo-foil means, don't ask, it's not really that important in the long run. One of these collectors chimed in with his two cents and said “I know that book, it's worthless.” I wanted to respond with , “Dude it just came out.”
In the long run, neither of these books went up in value. Bagged or not Adventures of Superman #500 is still worth its cover price of 3.50. Uncanny X-Men #300 is worth 4.00, a 5 cents above cover price. Keep in mind these are their Near Mint/Mint values. Both of these books actually had pretty decent stories but were overshadowed by their glitz, glamour and hype.
I've always been a reader of comics first, a collector second; and never have considered myself a speculator. If you're looking for something to invest money in, comics aren't it. Case in point Gen 13 #1, that book was huge when it came out. I bought it for cover price, and it shot up to $60.00. But now it's listed NM/Mint value is listed as $4.20. A lot of comics have gone up in value, some even fetch thousands of dollars, but overall this is not the reason to buy them. Buy them for a good story and beautiful artwork. That value is priceless.
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