Enough already!

I did not post anything on One More Day while Casey's countdown was going on out of respect for my friend and co-author. Eventually, it kind of faded on me until I saw a posting on Comics Should be Good saying that nothing done in Brand New Day couldn't have been done with a married Peter Parker. No real backup - just stating the point.

To this I say ENOUGH ALREADY!

We get it - you didn't like One More Day. Fantastic. Move on. The stories are going forward, why the hell can't you? The repeated belly-aching about this story has gone on way past the point where it has any right to. It's like driving from Point A to Point B using Road C instead of Road D, even though Road D is a lot prettier. Are you going to moan about it for months past the trip? No! You got to Point B. Well done.

I have not heard anyone complain that Spider-Man needs to go back to organic web shooters, unmasked, and on the run from the government. The general consensus is that, despite how he got there, Peter is in a more comfortable place for readers now. The trip has ended. We've reached the destination. We aren't going back and taking another route now. LET. IT. GO.

And that's it. I've said my piece, and now I will heed my own advice and wash my hands of this debate.

Reviewing "Brand New Day"

Despite all the whining and bitching about “One More Day”, many Spidey fans will still be reading the Wall Crawler’s adventures in Amazing Spider-Man. I count myself among them. What can I say? We’re junkies. While nothing is going to make “One More Day” any better the best us Spider-Fans can hope for is that the top notch new creative teams on Amazing Spider-Man turn out some good stories.

The first attempt is Amazing Spider-Man #546 - 548 written by Dan Slott and penciled by Steve McNiven. I remember reading an issue of Slott’s Avengers: The Initiative that guest starred Spider-Man and thinking “I’d love to see this guy write a Spider-Man book.” So, despite the circumstances, I was looking forward to these issues. Steve McNiven’s artwork was fantastic, but I’ve yet to see anything of his I didn’t like. I was disappointed to find out he won’t be returning for Slott’s next run on the book.

This is “Brand New Day” which means a whole new status quo for Spider-Man and the first issue establishes it with all the subtlety of a punch in the face. Very first page, Peter is seen making out with a random club girl. In case you missed it, Spidey’s single now, ladies! He’s also broke, practically unemployed, hanging out with his rich friend Harry Osbourne, and living with his elderly Aunt May in Queens. He’s also an unlicensed super hero, which makes him wanted by the government. Ol’ Sad Sack Parker is once again the lovable loser, only this time it’s slightly less lovable.

It seems Spider-Man’s been off the radar for a few months now.(How this fits in with the timeline of the rest of the Marvel U, I’d like to see.) J. Jonah Jameson has been using the Daily Bugle to tout how much safer the city is without that wall crawling menace but the truth is that the paper’s sales have tanked without Peter Parker’s pictures of Spider-Man. So much so that shareholders are dumping off their stock and it’s being bought up by Dexter Bennett, an idle billionaire who wants to own a newspaper and run it his own way. In order to hold onto every share he can, Jameson has stopped paying the Bugle’s staffers yet they continue working as a show of solidarity. Turns out Jonah still owes Peter for some old Spidey photos and Peter isn’t willing to wait. He wants his moneys and he wants them now. When Jonah calls Peter ungrateful for all he’s done for him, Peter fires back that it’s Jonah who’s the ingrate and that the current situation proves that it was his photos of Spider-Man that kept the Bugle in business so long. This makes Jameson so mad that he has a heart attack. Seriously. Peter feels so guilty that he decides to go out in costume and get some new Spider-Man pictures to save the old man’s business and life. But Jameson’s wife decides to go ahead and sell the paper to Dexter Bennett anyway, so it’s all for naught.

There’s a new villain named Mr. Negative. He has the power to…um…be the opposite color of what he should be…or something. He’s a low level crime boss who’s trying to take out the heads of the mob families in New York so that he can run the show. He has a bomb, some kids are in danger, Spidey saves the day. Mr. Negative escapes. The end. The whole thing seemed nothing more than a generic super hero adventure. And with someone as bad ass as The Hood running around trying to take control of New York’s criminal element, Mr. Negative seemed all the more pointless.

The new angle on Amazing Spider-Man seems to be to be reminiscent of the book during the 60s. Down on his luck Peter Parker, money troubles, lady troubles, a large supporting cast and monthly encounters with a new super villain who wants to put kittens in a wood chipper or something. I think that’s what Quesada and company were going for, to be honest. Nevermind all the growing the character has done over the last forty years. That being said, it’s an enjoyable read and a decent story. But in this case, decent’s not good enough. Coming off of the universally panned “One More Day”, the first three issues of “Brand New Day” needed to be a home run. It needed to not only establish the new status quo for Spider-Man but tell an excellent story in the process. Accomplishing that would outshine the grim specter of “One More Day” and genuinely make people forget about the old and embrace the new. As it is, Dan Slott’s story is only slightly above average. And it raises even more questions about continuity that only serve to remind fans of the ghastly story that came before it.

They say when you get your heart broken, all it takes is one great date with someone new to make you forget all about it. Aside from figuring out how Spider-Man works in the rest of the Marvel Universe, I believe us Spider-fans are just one great story away from putting “One More Day” behind us. This, unfortunately, is not it.

Ten Reasons "One More Day" Is the Worst Spider-Man Story Ever

#1 - Continuity, Shmontinuity

The biggest thing wrong with "One More Day" is that it throws at least twenty years of Spider-Man continuity out the window. Ask Joe Quesada or even Dan Slott and they'll tell you that it doesn't. That every story is still completely intact. That it all still happened, only people remember it differently. Well, that argument falls apart after examining a couple of the key new developments of "Brand New Day". Even accepting the memory change, things simply could not have happened exactly as the last twenty years worth of Spider-Man comics says they did and still arrived at "Brand New Day."

First off, Spidey's organic web shooters. After mutating into a giant spider, he managed to revert to human form but retained the ability to shoot webs without the aid of his mechanical shooters. If that all still happened exactly the same way, then why does Spider-Man need the web shooters again? Does he still have the organic webbing ability, he just doesn't remember he has it? Or does he not have it anymore, which would mean that the story in which he got the ability never took place?

Harry Osbourne. Is he back from the dead or did he never die? Or did he die and people just don't remember that he died so the Harry walking around now is simply a figment of everyone's imagination?

What about all the people who knew Spider-Man's secret identity, even those who learned it before Civil War? How can those characters still have the same relationship with Spidey when they suddenly forget who he is? (Side Rant: And aren't people like Dr. Strange and Charles Xavier going to question why they suddenly had one particular memory erased? It's not as if they never knew, as the first issue of "Brand New Day' states that Spider-Man did in fact unmask during the Civil War, but now for some reason no one remembers his name or what his face looks like. They seriously aren't going to try to get to the bottom of that?)

Those are only a few examples. There are many more continuity questions raised by "One More Day" and the resulting "Brand New Day". What parts of Spider-Man's history have been changed? What parts are the same? The story opens up that last twenty years of continuity and allows any writer to go in and change anything they see fit and simply point to "One More Day" when a fan asks for an explanation. I didn't like it when DC did it with Infinite Crisis and I certainly don't like it when it happens to my favorite character.

Ten Reasons "One More Day" Is the Worst Spider-Man Story Ever

#2 - Is This Seriously the Best They Could Do?

Let's say for a moment that Joe Quesada was right. Peter Parker's marriage to Mary Jane was dragging Spider-Man down. Stories were boring. Sales were hurting. The fans were clamoring for an end to the marriage and something needed to be done.

Even if that were the case, the sloppy, heavy-handed solution brought about in "One More Day" was the best Quesada could come up with? Even with J. Michael Straczynski and all the writers of Marvel at his disposal? A deal with the devil and then a fast and quick resolution that changes everything and explains nothing. Oh wait, they do offer an explanation. "Everything still happened the same, people just remember it happening differently." For example here's the way Amazing Spider-Man Annual #21 actually happened:


After the new status quo of "Brand New Day" here's how we remember it happening:


Ah yes, who could forget the issue where Peter showed off his snazzy new tux. A classic moment in the character's history. Come on. You have to admit, that's a little lame and a little lazy. It's almost as if they simply wanted to change things and said "Don't worry, we'll explain it later. If we get around to it."

Ten Reasons "One More Day" Is the Worst Spider-Man Story Ever

#3 - Who Ordered the Single Spider-Man?

The average comic book reader is 20-25 years old. The average age a which child learns to read is five years old. Do the math and that means that the majority of people who're reading new issues of Spider-Man now (not back issues, trades, or reprints) and have been for any extended period have been reading married Spider-Man the entire time. (That's exactly where I fit in, by the way.) Mary Jane is a huge part of the Spider-Man mythos to these readers. So who were the readers calling for her to get the boot? I'm not saying they don't exist, but I don't recall reading or hearing about it. Except, of course, in interviews with Joe Quesada. He's always been clear that he wanted Mary Jane out of the picture. Now, I understand that Quesada runs the Marvel Comics and that he can do what ever he wants, but surely there must be some impetus for drastically changing a character's history other than Joe Quesada wanted it to happen. With fan backlash and even one of the most well respected writers in the business telling him it was a bad idea, he must've had a damn good reason to go through with it.

There's two main reasons, that I can think of, for doing something in comics:
1-It's what the fans want. Give people what they ask for, they'll pay money for it.
2-There's a good story in it. Even if people criticize at first, if the resulting story turns out to be good they'll enjoy it.

Well, "One More Day" certainly wasn't what the majority of Spider-Man fans wanted. That said, there had better be some damn good stories coming out of the newly established "Brand New Day" status quo.

Five points to think about:

Here are five quick thoughts off of my head to spur some thought in yours.

1. The Iron Man movie will not be big enough to launch a second series and countless minis.
2. Wonder Woman needs a costume change. Sure, her look is iconic but the character would benefit from having a more conservative outfit in the "world of men".
3. At least one Wolverine series will be cancelled within a year. My money's on First Class.
4. One of the three new X-Books (Young X-Men, X-Force, Cable) will not make it to issue #20.
5. People have gotten over One More Day well before Casey's countdown has finished.