Spider-Man, The Amazing Thread

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If you’re talking about Marvel vs. DC, then yes, I know about it. If there’s something else (besides the Batman/Spider-Man crossover that took place during the saga) please let me know! I definitely consider all of Marvel vs. DC, including the Amalgam comics, to be a part of the saga. It’s like a whole universe was made and then unmade within that time period! Besides, some of the story of Access trying to set everything right was told in Doctor Strangefate, so that one at least is totally relevant.

I’m really looking forward to the upcoming Spider-Man/X-Men thing coming up, though I wonder which timeline it’s going to reference–aka will it acknowledge the marriage between Peter and MJ or will it be in the new timeline where Harry is alive and things are weird? The only other flashback story I’m aware of it in Thunderbolts #33, where Ben makes a very brief appearance fighting sentinels during Onslaught.

I know about most of the stuff you mentioned, but mainly I’m looking to piece together stuff that was part of the time period when the saga took place. The Spider-Girl stuff intrigues me, though it’s set so far in the future that it would be like reading a sequel saga. The other stuff, these “nods” to Ben/The Scarlet Spider are just that–nods. I appreciate you mentioning them all the same! Seeing them reference it in recent comics has indeed made me happy.

The most frustrating part of the saga to piece together chronologically is the very beginning, when Ben finds out about May and starts on his way back to New York. It’s so poorly sequenced. Putting Ben’s appearances in order, along with MJ finding May collapsed on the floor vs. telling Peter about her coma vs. telling Ben about it, along with putting all of Peter’s actions in order–the four titles didn’t have their shit straight! Not until Power And Responsibility, anyway. I guess I have to settle for things not being perfect.:sad: I mean, even when I get it all worked out, then I’ve gotta put in Spidey’s appearances in the Black Cat mini, the Solo mini and the Prowler mini…and it’s not fun!! But I’m a chronology nut…

It’s much better when you have tie-ins anyway. Green Goblin was great because for just over a year it babysat the Daily Bugle and all of those supporting characters when they weren’t getting enough face time in the regular Spidey titles. It also served as a great bridge between the Spidey-titles and Daredevil, especially once Foggy Nelson started dating Liz Osborn.

What a great and wonderful saga, made more so only by the fact that it can be extended to be twice as long if you try really hard.

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For Spider-Man X-Men #3 it will be Ben Reilly hanging out with Wolverine only. It will take place during the Clone saga and Peter Parker and Mary Jane are said not appear in the story at all.

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Oh yeah, and before I forget to mention it, something I’ve been meaning to talk to fellow comic fans about is the solution Marvel seems to have come up with regarding crossover continuity. Marvel Zombies 3 mentions parallel, perpendicular and wave universes. I would theorize that DC is a wave universe…every so often it comes closer and closer to Marvel until the two merge, and for a while everybody knows everybody, and then it drifts away and they forget about each other. There’s a Daredevil comic that came out around the time that Marvel vs. DC did, and there’s a character called “Lois” making a call to a character called “Perry”, but it has no effect on the plot of the comic whatsoever. I believe this was intended as/could be viewed as a lead-up to Marvel vs. DC, where the universes were starting to join, but not quite seamless yet. The Ultraverse, in the meantime, would be a perpendicular universe. It came and went. Marvel Zombies is probably a parallel universe.

Thoughts?

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My point with regard to referencing the marriage vs. not is still something I’m worried about. Even if we just see Ben and Wolverine, who knows what Ben will be talking about or thinking? It’s a little stupid to be so concerned, but I am.

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I’m sure you probably know that Marvel has several continuities that has different Planet Earths, and there’s thousands of Planet Earths with the current one being 616. DC has boiled them down to 52 Earths, but they still haven’t revealed what every single Earth is, I think they’ve done about half or so. The Marvel characters they’ve encountered during the JLA / Avengers crossover (the only one that’s relevant to current DC in some ways) is likely to fall in one of those Earths, but DC will probably find a way to say it without saying it outloud, if they decide that’s what they want to do. Or they could hint at saying said Marvel Earth got wiped out during the Crisis before this one if they want too… Continuity in DC is a funny thing, you almost have to say “Continuity” when you talk about DC most of the time, but they’ve been trying to straighten things out the last couple of years. LOL at Countdown though, fastest retcon ever. :lol:

Levitz has gone on record to say there will be no crossovers with Marvel until Joe Quesada leaves Marvel. Yes, the hate is that bad… I just hope this doesn’t extend to things outside of comics and this is what’s keeping us from a Marvel vs. DC video game…

At one point DC even wanted to continue Avengers / JLA… WITHOUT MARVEL! Now how in the world would they get away with that? “Um yeah I fought that guy with a shield, his name was…” then Batman gets attacked before he can finish that sentence. :rofl: In some ways I’m glad that DC didn’t go through with this but I’m also hella curious how they would pull that one off…

I was reading a guy’s Spider-Man story once and he referenced when Spider-Man went to Metropolis. Bear in mind he was writing this as if it was an actual Marvel 616 comic. He’s a professional writer who has been published before, but he digs input from Spider-Nerds lol! I told him that it was a cool reference to the old Spider-Man / Superman comic but there is no way in hades that something like that would fly if it was a 616 comic. He said why not since Marvel owned the rights to that story. I mean, it’s his thing I suppose but the dynamics of the Marvel Universe change drastically if such places like Metropolis and Gotham exist within it to a degree and even still, if this was in a Marvel comic I’m pretty sure there would still be a call from Didio / Levitz? Well great story (he did admittingly retcon things he didn’t like, not with, Mephisto deals but lines of text and story which are the way Marvel retcons things most of the time anyway) and I guess that’s what matters in the end, he didn’t go overboard and have Superman join the Avengers or anything.

Joe Quesada hates the term 616 and at one point he tried to say there is no such thing! Of course fans pointed out the Marvel Universe books and JQ said he doesn’t read them (um yeah, makes sense… :rofl:) so he admitted that there is an Earth 616, he just hates the term because it sounds too DC to him. He’d much rather refer to the Mainstream Marvel Universe as just that, the Marvel Universe.

Regarding Spidey, Marvel is swearing up and down and all around that everything in the old continuity happened except Spidey and MJ were living together, not married. Though as others have pointed out, Marvel still has the opportunity to say that everyone’s memory has been screwed so that the whole world forgot the marriage / remembers the past differently and there has been some evidence to support that theory. BND is not very quick with answers though…

There’s still the Venom Dark Origin retcon book. A big part of Venom’s origin is he visits Spider-Man’s wife in issue #300, and they’ve even reprinted that issue in Spider-Man Family about 2 issues back. I think they will stop Dark Origin just before he visits MJ to dodge the issue. Though as New Ways To Die shows, Eddie Brock’s memory has been tampered with also so now he thinks that he kept messing with the Parker family because of Peter taking pictures of Spider-Man, not that he knows his identity.

Ah, guess we’ll see…

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Carpet Lint, is that you???

You’re messing with us, right?

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I don’t know who “Carpet Lint” is, but I’m assuming it’s either someone who screws around on here on a regular basis, someone who’s a fanatic for the clone saga, o just someone who’s a fanatic for stuff that people don’t like. Whatever the case, I can assure you I’ve never gone by the name Carpet Lint.

I like the alternate universe idea, but it’s no fun! I like plugging Spidey/Batman and crossovers like it into the middle of the clone saga and pretending they’re supposed to be there, and then asking myself, “Okay, so how does this ‘affect’ the outcome of the overall story?” I have to bullshit myself sometimes to answer that question, but then again I don’t think all the writers were “on the same page” with regard to crossovers. I think that, in some ways, the universes remain linked and the characters remember what happened. I’m pretty sure I can remember a Spidey comic where he talks about “The guy with the ‘S’ on his chest”…

Also, over the years at Marvel there have been two consistently recurring characters by the names of Lois and Clark:
http://www.marvunapp.com/Appendix/kentclrk.htm
http://www.marvunapp.com/Appendix3/loisdc.htm

There are plenty of possible explanations and one given by the site I’m showing you all, but I prefer mine.

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i have that venom book, lol shows up to their apartment and scares the shit outta mj just by lookin at her. lol.

my hate for the mexican dinner joe is unparalleled and will destroy him at all costs.

669

Wow, that’s pretty interesting. I always took things like that as Easter Eggs that wouldn’t hold up. Though I see both of those characters live in New York, and yeah I still think cities like Metropolis and Gotham would change the dynamics of the Marvel Universe greatly. But all and all those above links seem interesting and I look forward to reading them when I have some free time. Thanks! :smile:

670

I haven’t read any comics in fucking forever, and I’m so glad idid. Starting with ASM 568. Goddamn this is fucking awesome.

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Spidey reads this week for me -

X-Men Spider-Man was great! Waited a while to read it since I wanted to read Uncanny X-Men #27 (first time Spidey met the X-Men, Iceman and Beast to be precise), X-Men #35 (where he meets the rest of the team and there are storyline elements in that story that are at play here) and X-Men #66 (the story that occurs directly before this one) off the X-Men Complete Collection DVD-Rom, sinff, sniff, LOVE my DVD-Rom!

Also love it when people play carefull attention to continuity and actually make fill in stories like this fit! McKeever used to do this all the time in Spider-Man Family which is yet another reason I miss him over at Marvel. In Spider-Man Family, with regards to fill in stories nowadays they REALLY don’t care about making these things fit at all or lazily pick a generic area where it can fit… Blarg…

X-Men Spider-Man, X-Men related continuity stuff

Spoiler

Not sure how Marvel wants to play this and I need to a little research / rereading, but now we have another possible moment when Sinister extracted Jean Grey’s DNA in order to create Madeline Pryor, if you recall he is said to have gotten her DNA long ago. LOL do you remember when they tried to say he acquired it from Jean long ago in the Wildcats crossover? Not even sure how that one will hold up with Wildcats living in one of DC’s 52 Earths right now… Course for no we gotta see how this story plays out, interesting! :smile:

Venom Dark Origin #4 -

A little torn with regards to this issue. I went going in thinking that it would only go up to before ASM #300 starts and leaves things be, but they went into that issue and beyond. The first retcon in the book I didn’t mind. As some of you may know, originally in Web of Spider-Man David Michelinie wanted Venom to be a woman and in Web of Spider-Man there was a scene of a woman’s hand pushing Spider-Man into the train tracks in the subway. When David was hired on ASM, he was told to make Venom a woman so a different origin came about. So this issue retconned that to make it a man’s hand and Eddie Brock the one to push Spidey into the train tracks.

After that it gets a little funny as they retold the scene where Venom attacks Mary Jane in her apartment. It’s even more strange, since they just reprinted ASM #300 in Spider-Man Family? She is still coming home from shopping so that’s the same. Venom no longer says “Hi Honey, I’m Home!” because I’m guessing… Marvel doesn’t want to hint at a marriage at all? This time we see more of the conversation Venom had with MJ. Even though in the original issue Venom did not know that MJ was married to Parker at the time for this to even be a problem, it was really played as Spider-Man and MJ were just living together at the time. So the newer version can play better into BND.

Well if I try to look at this as a type of thing where it’s just a different way to tell the same story of Venom threatening MJ than nothing changes, IE nothing that happened would force anyone to change a Marvel Universe book or edit a Wikipedia entry with regards to Venom and MJ’s encounter.

So I guess issue 5 will go on to retell the rest of issue 300…

Eh, I’m in 4 issues so I might as well get the last one. But in my head, I’m just going to stick to Venom’s OG storyline even if I gotta put Lethal Protector back in there… Heh, funny how Eddie Brock is Anti-Venom now for any of this kind of stuff to really matter. I guess if you’re a new Spider-Man fan and want to read Venom’s origin without going through back issues and so on this is a way to go.

Seperate from the above the issue itself wasn’t bad. Love the artwork and in Eddie taps into the symbiotes mind so it can see it’s family’s history, where they took over alien creatures years ago. Don’t know why they would depict the symbiotes as black with white eyes because that whole think came about in Secret Wars when Peter grabbed the symbiote and ripped off Julia Carpenter’s Spider-Woman outfit, but that can also just be the way Eddie percieved things. I suppose it was a fun issue if you don’t try to overthink things much…

672

man i love kelly
he was the first writer i really enjoyed since i started deadpool in 1997
he has not lost his touch one bit, so much that when reading recent spidey, i was imagining wade under the mask

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Brand New Day for Ultimate Spidey? :shake:

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I don’t think it will be the train wreck that is the current Amazing Spidey comic. Still, I hope Bendis doesn’t fudge this up.

Well, I’ve been reading my TPB of Kraven’s Last Hunt that I picked up some months back. I have two actual issues from this story, but this is my first time reading the whole thing. There are some seriously disturbing scenes in this comic. Kraven BATHES in Spiders. He EATS Spiders. Dang.

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Kraven’s Last Hunt is classic, bub. That’s definitely one of my favorite Spider-Man stories. It’s so different from most other Spider-Man tales but somehow DeMatteis really pulled off the dark tone so successfully. I’d like to know what you think of it when you’re finished reading it.

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Since Zephy wanted to know my thoughts on Kraven’s Last Hunt, I’ve posted them here in my blog: http://reggieblogged.blogspot.com/2008/12/kravens-last-hunt.html

The gist of it? IT WAS EFFING AWESOME!!!

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Yeah Kraven’s death is like the only Spider-Man villlain death they won’t overturn.

Hey Reggie have you heard Defalco’s podcasts up on Crawl Space yet? Been meaning to get to that myself.

http://spidermancrawlspace.podomatic.com/

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Yeah, I heard 'em last night. Blogged about 'em to. Was great to hear from those guys. Ron Frenz spoke more than Tom D did, though, but I didn’t mind it. Ron had a lot of good things to say.

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I got around to listening to them yesterday. You’re right Roy does talk more than Tom but it was still cool. It’s too bad that Mr. And Mrs. Spider-Man is only getting 2 more entries before Spider-Girl moves into Spider-Man Family. Would of been nice for us to get both in the same book. But Spider-Girl will continue in Spider-Man Family so I can’t complain too much.

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Good write-up on Kraven’s Last Hunt, Reggie. Did you guys ever read the follow-up to it? I think it’s called Soul of the Hunter. It’s also by DeMatteis and Zeck. I found a copy of it once, but I didn’t buy it. It looked like it might have been one of DeMatteis’ lesser works. From what I gathered, it was very philosophical, only in a typical DeMatteis style that essentially regurgitates his usual “life is beautiful” themes. (If you’re a DeMatteis fan, I think you’ll know what I mean.)