“Watching a character for many years and seeing the same situations arise becomes the real problem with these characters who have been around for so long. We like MJ and Peter and we want to see them overcome their struggles and be together happily. But once that happens, so much drama has left their story that it’s far less compelling–and that part of the story also has been told for succeeding generations, too.

Charles Schulz got tired of watching Charlie Brown go up to the plate in the bottom of the ninth and strike out, so he finally let him hit a home run in 1993 and win the game. But the next time that Charlie Brown strode to the plate in the bottom of the ninth with the game on the line, it was no longer a boy persevering in the face of inevitable failure and never giving up, it was a boy working on his batting average. Blah.”

Comments on a related subject on Mike Manley’s http://drawman.blogspot.com/ said:

“I’m 40-something and aging all the time. But I don’t want my heroes to get decrepit (and embittered) along with me. I remember being 10 and having a whole spinner rack of super-hero (and other types) of comic books available to me–all pretty much geared toward my age group.”

And:

“It needs fresh young readers who will pick up a comic and not just go see a Batman movie or play with a toy. We have to entice and grab them at a young age (around 3-5 years old) with the wonderment of all these characters so that they’ll be inspired to go pick up comics and hopefully read them and appreciate the art of sequential storytelling. This is why Spider-man is having a “Brand New Day”. They have to place Spidey in a way so that he lasts as a brand. The majority of the ones upset over “One More Day” were all in their 30s who’ve been reading Spider-man for decades. I’ve got news for you. You’ve outgrown Spider-man, he hasn’t outgrown you.”

Anybody else enjoying this back and forth or should Chris and I be IMing each other?

“trau·mat·ic adj
1. extremely distressing, frightening, or shocking, and sometimes having long-term psychological effects

Encarta® World English Dictionary © 1999 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. Developed for Microsoft by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc.”

Besides what happens to JJJ, nothing in ASM #546 approaches “traumatic”. But what about Spidey before “Brand New Day”? (And keep in mind that I have been reading ASM continually for close to 25 years, so I’m a fan.) [Spoiler Warning] In “Back In Black” Aunt May get shot by a sniper, Spider-Man goes around threatening everyone in his path before breaking in to prison to beat the snot out of the Kingpin. Then he tells the Kingpin that if May dies, he will come back to kill the Kingpin. In “The Other” Peter gets murdered, comes back from the dead in a different body after spiders eat his old body, and kills a bad guy with a spike that protrudes from his wrist. [End Spoiler Warning] Now that comes close to being traumatic, and not real Spidey.

Everyone’s entitled to his opinion. Chris has opinions about other stuff at http://www.angelfire.com/md/stgenerations.

Thanks for taking the time to read my review.