Superior Spider-Man #11 Vidcast Review

7 Comments

1. I’m very much okay with the stated Marvel attitude on smaller continuity details: it’s a nice icing on the cake, but our main focus is on getting the broad strokes right and focusing on making the story and art good for that specific issue. And I’m fine with that – I think it’s more important that it succeeds as a story.

   (Especially since questions like “Can Smythe take off his helmet?” and “Is there a death penalty in Marvel’s NYC?” are things that can be kinda intuited from the comic itself. Obviously they’d have taken off his helmet if they could, it’s not as if the other supervillains are keeping their costumes, and obviously the death penalty is legal since it’s happening in this story. And by the time we reach the issue of who runs the Raft, I think we have reached a level of continuity detail which doesn’t matter either way.)

2. Sigh… maybe the New York State in the Marvel Universe still has the Death Penalty… I mean, we’re reading books about a man who can crawl on the walls… is this worthy of getting bent about?

   My only negative comment about the review is that the issue’s # was incorrectly stated as issue #10 when it was in fact issue #11.

3. That’s why I brought them up in my review here K-Box. There is a lot of logic that doesn’t really work here. Now say it was mentioned that despite the original plan, the Raft has become a failure and the new S.H.I.E.L.D. has decided to close down operations and give it back to the state of New York. Then the mayor or governor could do that no problem. Even bring up the talk over in the current Secret Avengers title how they are using both Seagate and another new prison for super powered criminals since the failure of 42, the Cage and the Cube. However, it’s not even brought up just like Jameson lands twice on the Raft when he was already there. Holes right there that keep it from being a more higher grade story even if it was pretty good.

4. Xingken: If that’s the case, then it needs to be explicitly established on the printed page.

   The funny thing is, there are actually any number of very good reasons a) why New York State would have a death penalty in the Marvel Universe and b) why the Raft could get shut down, but Slott doesn’t bother to supply any of them, because not only does he not even bother to include a single line about how, say, the wake of Civil War caused the New York State Supreme Court to reconsider its earlier death penalty ruling, but no matter how incompetent the Raft has been, Jonah has no power over it.

   After all, I actually saw Slott suggesting in his CBR interview that the Raft is not legally part of New York State … in which case, the mere MAYOR of New York CITY would have even LESS jurisdiction over it.

   Of course, this is all moot anyway, since according to Marvel’s own official website, the Raft is S.H.I.E.L.D. property, which means that NEITHER the mayor NOR even the governor of New York has any ability to get it shut down, but hey, why should professional writers be bothered to keep the continuity straight of something that’s only existed since 2005?

   http://marvel.com/universe/Raft

5. #2

   Well, our New York doesn’t host 80% of the world’s supervillains, who might have caused the state Supreme Court in Marvel universe to reconsider that decision at some point.

   Loved the “omg i’m reformed” and “pfft no such thing as refo… erm…” exchange. Made me laugh so hard 😀

   I’m incredibly annoyed by this back-and-forth Goblin teasing. An arc happens, no sight -> Goblin shows up for a second -> another arc happens, no sight. Will it drag forever until the series will abruptly end due to usual editorial kaboom?

6. And as has been pointed out by others, the death penalty doesn’t exist in New York, because it was ruled unconstitutional by the state Supreme Court, but then, why should I expect the man who wrote extensively about the law in She-Hulk to actually do his homework on that score in this story?

7. And as has already been asked:

   Smythe was allowed to keep his Spider-Slayer helmet in prison … why?

   That’s like a hostage situation taking place in a crime drama about a prison in a non-superhero universe because the guards let a prisoner keep a loaded gun.