Shirtless Saturday - Hank & Jan

Say hello to Janet Van Dyne and Hank Pym in happier times. Just another couple in love that couldn't leave well enough alone.

Shirtless Saturday - Forager

Presenting the luckiest man on Earth-1, Jimmy Olsen, with his new friend, Forager. I'm not exactly sure what that is protecting Forager's modesty, there. Perhaps it's Wonder Twin Jan (or is it Zayna?) in an unbilled cameo.

Isn't it funny how Terrans wear more clothes than anyone else in the cosmos? Sometimes it seems that every even-numbered alien planet or dimension is peopled by unrealistically hot babes with no nudity taboos. Apparently even Apokolips is no exception. Does it make you wonder what's under Darkseid's armor?

And we haven't seen half of the DCU's 52 universes yet. Hmm. In a world where no one wears anything, do superheroes still wear spandex?

No rest for the weary

"Paging Booster Gold and 'Rip Hunter'... Cleanup on aisle 51... Cleanup on aisle 51..."

I realize there are supposed to be subtle (and sometimes not-so-subtle) differences between the 52 'verses, but I'm beginning to think that the Monitors are right. The fabric of space and time is less stable for being split in 52 than it would be if there were only one.

Have you noticed that the superheroes not originating on New Earth are a lot easier to kill than their 'analogs' used to be?

Well, that was unexpected

Which Power Ring would come to you?

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I'm thinking the costume would make my butt look big. Do you have anything in a bowling shirt / bermuda shorts ensemble?

On the streets of Blogopolis

I really need to get away from the death of Peter Parker before it threatens to consume me like...well, like a consumable thing that's been consumed. First, a new red-blue-yellow color scheme, in honor of comic' four-color roots (which, since this was a rush dye job, the roots remain black, the fourth color, get it? Get it?).

There must be some other burning (ha! I kill me) questions that need addressing. Or burning. Or something.

For instance, does Superman poo? When John Byrne rebooted him, he addressed it specifically: No, he doesn't. The exact mechanism by which he doesn't, though, doesn't really withstand close examination, which is a phrase that makes me uneasy coming this close to Super-poop.

As Ranma 1/2's creator said when asked what would happen if the gender-switching martial artist got pregnant: "I try not to think about things like that...and you shouldn't either."

Many of Cracked.com's lists are entertaining, but many of them are flawed. Their 10 Best Animated Movies for (Traumatizing) Kids is more about traumatizing adults than kids, really. But some of them I get. Batman: Mask of the Phantasm, because Batman, ultimately, loses: That I get. The Incredibles, because some of the bad guys actually die? Not so much.

Watership Down I really get. Those damn bunnies are terrifying.

Scipio of The Absorbascon asks, What are the anachronisms and anachronoslides* that bother you most in your comics, and what would you do to remedy them? (* An "anachronoslide" is an historical reference that wasn't an anachronism when the comic was published, but becomes one later as the character's lifeline "slides" forward to keep him at a constant age in his "current" adventures.)

This is a great question, and I've got a number of "favorites" (if I don't "overdose" on "quotation marks" first), but first I have to consider this: This is the kind of question that only comes up in comic books. Nobody ever asks why Daniel Craig is so young when the character he's portraying first appeared in 1952. But I guess a septugenarian James Bond might be iffy. (Or not. Sean Connery is 77 years old, and still quite fit.)

(See, if James Bond were a comic book, we'd be reading about a perky blonde who might or might not be his granddaughter, named Jasmine "Jazzy" Bond. The "Danger Girl" people are missing a bet.)

Oh, look, the Miracleman Countdown Clock, indicating that the final published issue of Alan Moore's / Neil Gaiman's "Miracleman" will enter the public domain in 2089. Which is probably still sooner than those who are currently fighting over the rights to the character will settle the question.

Wallopin' Websnappers!

FRNDSM4COLOR

Perhaps the headline doesn't lend the event the dignity it deserves. But let us not weep over the not-a-hoax not-a-dream death of Peter Parker in Amazing Spider-Man #545.

Instead, let us celebrate 45 years of great storytelling featuring everyone's favorite Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man...

Well, we can't in good conscience include One More Day, can we? Okay, that still leaves 44 and a half years of...

What? Oh, yeah. The story began with Back in Black, didn't it? Still, 44 years...

Civil War? Well, yeah, right, it really began with Civil War and Spider-Man revealing his identity on national television. JQ has said no way they would have done that if One More Day hadn't already been on the menu.

But then what about Sins Past? Well to be fair, we can't count that train wreck of a story...

The Other? Organic webshooters? Ezekiel and Morlun? The Byrne reboot? The death of Aunt May? (Which one?) The Scarlet Spider? The Clone Saga? (Which one? All of 'em?) The alien costume? That time when he had, what, four secret identities? The effin' Spider-Mobile?

Boy, Spider-Man has sucked for a while now, hasn't he?

Well, we can still celebrate nine years of great storytelling from Lee, Ditko and Romita Sr, who...

Now just wait a cotton-pickin' minute. You're saying... You're saying that Spider-Man hasn't had a really good story since 1971? That's... that's crazy talk. You can't just, just retcon 36 years of continuity away! That's a hell of a way to treat your bread-and-butter flagship character! I mean, only a total loon would...

What?

At the End of the Day

Spoiler warning for... oh, forget it. This is the worst-kept secret since...well, ever.

Spider-Man is dead.

Wait a minute, you say. No, he isn't. I read Amazing Spider-Man #545. That isn't what happened.

Well, maybe you misread it. Peter Parker gave up. He surrendered to the Marvel universe's Ultimate Evil and gave him permission to rewrite his life retroactively, potentially remove him from existence completely (Mephisto hinted he could do that), counting on the Ultimate Liar to be telling the truth just this once, that in return for doing so Aunt May would live.

It would be just like Mephisto if Pete returned to the old homestead and found Aunt May alive as a disembodied brain in a jar on the mantel.

See ya later, Joe. Or not.

Somewhere at the intersection of four parallel earths

You know, it isn't that the story is badly told.

I've always thought Straczynski was a good storyteller. And for all that Joe Quesada is as slow as Christmas, he draws pretty good. I could wish that the alternate-Peter Parkers looked a little more like Peter Parker, but that's a quibble.

(Oh, dear, did I spoil anything? That's hard to believe, given the level of buzz this storyline seems to have generated. Too bad.)

But the core of the story just seems wrong. Spider-Man is a street-level superhero, and shouldn't be dealing with Mephisto at all. Maybe "Mephisto" is a Skrull. Hell, maybe Peter is a Skrull.

Do I seem too desperate? Is it optimistic or pessimistic to hope that this story goes almost anywhere other than where the accepted rumor says it will go?

Maybe I'm expecting too much. I'm expecting this story to fit neatly into established character patterns, if not necessarily perfectly into continuity. (Don't expect miracles. Not after "Sins Past.")

The logical way, the consistent way to end this is for Peter to spit in Mephisto's eye.

And then, "tomorrow", when Aunt May does, finally, die -- she's revealed as a Skrull. How long has she been a Skrull? Maybe... always? Wouldn't that be a kick in the head.

Maybe what this is is a full-stop discontinuity. Maybe this is their version of "Whatever Happened to the Man of Steel?" They're bidding farewell to the character as he has been and clearing the slate for the character as they now want him to be. And I should stop worrying about what happens to these people next, because it isn't going to logically follow from whatever happens to them in this story, and was never intended to.

---

Addendum 12/6: Hello and welcome, all you Newsarama fans.

One thing you have to admit, "One More Day" has to be counted as a tremendous success because people are talking about Spider-Man. The publishing delay has even, one might argue, worked in Marvel's favor because it has taken a one-month buzz and pumped it up to five.

One might almost suspect that was the plan all along.

Another thing that should be noted: The glee with which fans are jumping and pointing and saying "See, even JMS thinks this is a bad idea" is misplaced, or at the very least premature. Read it again: That's not what the man said. He said, "There’s a lot that I don’t agree with", but he was very careful not to say what that was.

And goodness knows there are several strong candidates.

C'mon, people: Pete wouldn't cut a deal with Iron Man (he didn't offer Tony any kind of deal, he just demanded help) and he's going to get cozy with the Big Bad, Satan?

What was the "Loki owes thee a boon, mortal" card for, if not this?

Given JMS' time-travel tale in Babylon 5, it feels conspicuous to me that we haven't seen the other side of the encounter with the alternate-costume Spider-Man in that cemetery. If not now, when?

Somewhere on another parallel earth

That makes 51. Or does it?

"Paging Booster Gold and 'Rip Hunter'... Cleanup on aisle 15... Cleanup on aisle 15..."

Somewhere on a parallel Earth...

...the "One More Day" arc featuring the Amazing Spider-Man was published, as originally scheduled, in weekly installments throughout the month of August 2007.

On that same earth, Allan Heinberg's "Who is Wonder Woman" and Kurt Busiek's "Camelot Falls" similarly achieved unbroken regular serialization.

On the other hand, Newsweek will have skipped its third week in a row, Time has missed more weeks than it has hit in 2007, and People and Us are in the midst of a month-long crossover. They sell in the tens of thousands, and they are only available at small shops called "news-stands". But I digress.

Unfortunately, I don't live on that earth. I have to buy comics on this one, where Marvel disguises a $1 price hike by hiding it in plain sight, in a "Still 395 cents" bullet-burst. Where the Marvel hype machine, with tongue in cheek, insists that "if you only read one comic this decade," it should be part two of a four-issue arc.

Where Joe Quesada can allow the flagship title of the Marvel Comics Group to drift so far off-schedule that these four "weekly" August issues are now "monthly" issues, barely expected to conclude the arc before the end of the year.

Assuming no additional delays.

I wonder how this story, on its completion (assuming it ever is completed, and with Ultimate Hulk vs Wolverine on a year-plus delay, surely it is permissible to question it), will compare to the Spider-Man epic by Lee and Ditko that concluded in Spider-Man #33.

That only cost twelve cents.

That only took one issue to tell.

That was published on schedule.

That didn't bring in a deus-ex-machina new character, or have Peter threaten to sell his soul, to tie everything together neatly.

That also saw Spider-Man facing a lethal threat to both himself and Aunt May, one that was clearly far beyond his ability to overcome, yet overcome it he did, when all else failed him, with raw determination.

Boy, I tell you, they don't make comics like that anymore.

Except, maybe, on that parallel earth.