Issue #6: Brand New Controversy

This week is between paychecks, and since I spent my comic budget last week (and a few dollars more) I'll have to wait until payday next week to get my titles at Bad Apple Comics www.bacomics.com.

Comics for the week of January 23, 2008:
Countdown #14 (DC)
Dan Dare #3 (Virgin)
Legion of Super-Heroes (DC)
Superman Confidential #11 (DC) (This issue finishes the original storyline begun by Darwyn Cook and Tim Sale. I don't know why this concluding issue took so long.)

Since I don't have any comic books to review this week, I thought now would be a perfect time to comment on recent developments in Amazing Spider-Man, specifically the recently released first issue of the "Brand New Day" storyline.
I dropped Amazing Spider-Man in the middle of Civil War, not because I didn't like Peter Parker revealing his secret identity, but because I needed to drop a few titles to make room for a few that interested me more. I'm not picking up the title again, not because I don't like the developments in the book, but I need to make room for the upcoming Mark Millar and Bryan Hitch run of Fantastic Four, which interests me a little more. If I had a few extra dollars to budget into comics, I would pick up Amazing because I love the art of John Romita, Jr.
What I want to comment on really doesn't involve the issue itself, namely the undoing of Peter and MJ's marriage. It involves Joe Quesada's comments in previous years about his feelings on Peter Parker being married. He has made it clear that he's never liked it. He hasn't gone on a fanboy rant constantly about it, but he has made his views known enough that, when I heard what the changes were, it seemed anti-climatic; no surprise here.
Joe Quesada is welcome to his opinion, after all what comic book reader doesn't have them. I'm not necessrily saying he's wrong. I look forward to seeing how this story plays out. If I understand his opinion correctly, he feels that the marriage has taken Peter Parker from his roots as a struggling hero. To me, he seems to suggest that there can't be any good married Spider-Man stories, and that readers can't relate to a married Spider-Man.
To me, there isn't a life situation that Peter Parker can be put into that can't hold the potential for a good Spider-Man story, or any super-hero story for that matter. Do I have any ideas for a good married Peter Parker / Spider-Man story? No. If I did, maybe I'd be writing them from the inside instead of writing about them from the outside. And what comic book reader doesn't know of at least a few close friends or family who are married? If they can relate to them in real life, why not in their super-hero stories.
The essence of Peter Parker / Spider-Man has nothing to do with being married or single, to me. To sum up Peter Parker and Spider-Man in one statement is this: However many times Spider-Man beats the bad guys, there will always be something going wrong in his life to pour rain on his parade. That is true whether he is married or single.

According to the various comic book publisher web sites, the comics on my pull list for the week of January 30, 2008 are:
Action Comics #861 (DC)
Countdown #13 (DC) (lucky number?)
And as I mentioned earlier, I am putting Fantastic Four on my pull list, starting with issue #553, which wraps up the current storyline before Mark Millar and Bryan Hitch take over with issue #554. Reading that the FF will meet their future selves in issue 553 is too much to pass up. I may have to drop Countdown to make room.

To e-mail me about your pull list, write to: mypulllist@gmail.com.