Bendis Writes New Miles in 616 Series

61 Comments

1. @#30-The Scarlet Spider has his own name and identity. it isn’t a case of him or Miles diluting the brand so much as undermining the original character when they legitimately replace him. Miles didn’t do that because he replaced USM Peter Parker. the Scarlet Spider under Kaine was a legacy character to spin-off/partner moniker. Again, Scarlet Spider was to Spider-Man what Batgirl or Supergirl (or I guess War Machine) was to Spider-Man. that isn’t the same thing as say Wally and Kyle replacing Barry and Hal.

   I’ve never bought into the idea that derivative versions dilute the brand unless you have THOUSANDS and they are all there at the same time. I steadfastly believe that it is creatively viable to have a Peter Parker book a Mayday Parker book, a Miguel O’Hara book, a Scarlet Spider book and a Miles Morales book on the shelves at the same time. its the idea of them replacing Peter that I object to the same way I objected to Otto doing that.

   Er…no. Canonicity and what is and isn’t in character isn’t determined by whatever Marvel feels like putting out. It’s literature. It therefore conforms to the rules and conventions of literature which go well beyond whatever Marvel want. It isn’t a case of Marvel have Spider-Man act however they want therefore that is now in character. It’s still out of character because it goes against what older stories have established. That’s how a continuity driven franchise works. It’s continuous. I.e. the present builds upon the past. Amazing Fantasy #15 is the most important Spider-Man story ever and ASM #1 is the second most important. Just because you generate a load of things which go against the past that doesn’t magically make it now in character. It’s just a large pile of out of character nonsense. It’d be different if the series hadn’t defined itself by claiming consistency or continuity are important and the character can be anything from story to story. It didn’t though. So Post-OMD Peter has merely been out of character year to year for 8 years. Honestly the ‘word of God’ concept really doesn’t fly in literature and honestly never has for centuries. E.g. if for 10 years Marvel have Spider-Man willingly let burglars escape and basically act in a way which is highly irresponsible that wouldn’t be suddenly canon or in character. It’d just be 10 years of him being out character and the weight those stories would have in terms of the canon would be highly dismissable, same way the Mackie/Byrne reboot is. You don’t just accept what our lords and masters Marvel say just because they churn stuff out. By this logic NOTHING can be out of character when it very obviously can be. Some stuff can be debated. Other things though (like One More Day) can’t. There is literally no way for that to be at all in character for Spider-Man, Mary Jane or even Mephisto. This isn’t even getting into the fact that Post-OMD we literally have a new canon in the first place therefore the entire thing isn’t canon.

   Certain character traits shifting is fine if it’s to minor degrees or justified in story. If the editorial shift and Peter’s transitioned from one status quo into another one where his reaction to his new experiences warrants him changing then that’s fine. Arbitrarily changing major facets of him though? No, that’s not acceptable and never has been.

   What we’re discussing though isn’t even a character trait. It’s the treatment of the character himself. And when you are selling the idea that Peter Parker isn’t all that important to Spider-Man, can be replaced, and when even fans are seriously debating his relevancy to the franchise something really messed up has gone down. Peter Parker shouldn’t be optional or debatable.

   I was using the term commitment to mean they replace a character and their primary intentions are to keep the replacement around long term. It isn’t a Jean Paul Valley or Superior Spider-Man situation where the conceit of making the replacement temporary and bringing the original back into play was laid down from the start and even built into the story structure. USM Peter wasn’t going to be killed off, then replaced, then brought back and resume his mantle. That was never the plan. It might’ve been a contingency, but it wasn’t their main goal. Jean Paul Valley was never really going to forever be Batman, they’d worked out how and when Bruce Wayne was going to come back and his return was part of their mega-arc essentially from the start.

   In long form storytelling like this committing to telling the current stories as well as possible is an incredibly BAD idea. Civil War proved that. you need to do three things.

   a) Respect the past

   b) Entertain in the present

   c) Insure the future

   What this means is you can’t just short-sightedly do whatever you want now for the sake of making your story in the present good, giving no mind to the long term ramifications. Whilst that can sometimes yield overall positive results, it has proved over all detrimental to the industry where they are obsessed with cashing in this quarter or at times writers can’t be grown up enough to think beyond their initial excitement. It’s like fast food. It tastes great and hits the spot when you are eating it, but in the long term you are hurting yourself. Civil War was the greatest testament to this because for Spider-Man and the Marvel universe generally it was fucking asinine and destructive to allowing the Marvel universe work the way it had worked for decades. Now we’re stuck with having to just ignore the unnecessary cracks it caused for the sake of having the MU work in a creatively viable way. Like seriously post-Civil War why would anyone trust Iron Man ever again with anything?

2. @58 – Actually, as I was entering it into our records, I see that someone named ‘Gary’ with the same email address was already warned for saying the exact same thing about Slott, and was already warned.

   Yeah just going to go ahead and Instaban and hope somehow, someday that history books will vindicate me. 😎

   Thanks again for the heads-up.

3. @58 – Oh yes, we very much can. Thanks for pointing it out to us!

   @15 – The same rules for our message board apply here. First warning; clean it up.

4. Could we get a warning for #15’s personal insult of Slott and offensive racial discourse?

5. @56 – Got it! 🙂

6. And my post got caught in the spam-filter. Could one of the admins help me out?

7. @51 – Most of what you describe is when Miles had his own series as Spider-Man in the Ultimate universe. In that universe, he was Spider-Man. But now that he’s in the same universe as Peter, and the only news we’ve had so far of a Spidey series in the post-SW universe is that Miles is in a “Spider-Man” series, no. Just, no.

   I have no problem with a Miles series in the post-SW universe. But don’t call it Spider-Man. That’s Peter Parker.

8. @51

   I think everyone’s looking at the origin of Miles a little too closely. Yes, he took over for Ultimate Peter when he died. But look at every chance anyone else has had with Miles; Bendis never wanted to replace Amazing-Peter with Miles, he had them co-exist. I don’t think Miles is ever meant to replace Amazing-Peter. I think Marvel and every writer that we’ve come across has wanted to Co-Exist. A lot of the writers at Marvel seem to hunger to write Miles. So there’s that too. Writers were complaining that they couldn’t write a married Peter but a fair amount want to write for Miles? I’d worry about that too, I guess.

   In the end, Peter’s new series hasn’t been announced yet. Guys, seriously, Peter’s not going anywhere. Don’t be threatened by Miles. That’s just silly.

   My thing in the end is I saw so many people go “I hate Miles! He’ll take over for Peter!” When probably a lot of these new fans hated OMD but have slowly forgotten. Losing 616 Peter wouldn’t be a loss, at least not to me. Just give me 1616 Peter back and my life will be golden. Haha.

   TLDR
   Peter will always be around.
   Miles is so important for representation. Even if you think Miles is super PC, there are seriously so many kids who love the fact that Miles exists. So many people have that representation now. Don’t be so down on it, yeah?

9. @49

   Fair enough. you make some very valid points.

10. My post seems to have been caught in the spam filter. Could one of the admins help me out?

11. Despite all my griping, I don’t think that Miles would be the only Spider-Man in the post-SW universe permanently. Just like with SpOck, they would eventually bring Peter back as Spider-Man. But this is a brand new universe, and part of the point of this universal reboot is to bring in new readers. And I can understand that they would want to use Miles right away to set him up in this new universe, but to not use Peter as Spider-Man and leave him on the sidelines at the beginning of this new universe (cough cough) seems to be a monumental mistake.