August 3rd, 2011
I don’t have anything particularly insightful to say except that (1) Brian Michael Bendis is a great writer who doesn’t often rely on gimmicks. (2) In the best-case scenario, this experiment will go the way of John Stewart. I wouldn’t put more than $10 on the thing running for more than 25 issues. (3) It would not surprise me if the entire exercise–killing Spider-Man and replacing him with a PC grab-bag character in August of 2011–is a corporate effort to undercut the DC revamp that will launch in four weeks.
If DC’s pitch is to new people who aren’t comics readers, suddenly their approach won’t seem so novel. Every mainstream news story that mentions the DC relaunch and its “brave” use of minorities/alcoholics/gays/meth addicts as traditional heroes will also have to carry a mention of Marvel’s Spider-Man reboot from the month before. It makes DC look me-too-ish, rather than mold-breaking.
The final word comes from Galley Friend S.B.:
“Hey, I’ve got a great business idea: Let’s say fuck you in the biggest way possible to our dwindling core of fans. That’ll perk sales right up!”
“I know, right!? Who wants some coke?”“I mean, screw those nerds. If it wasn’t for continuity concerns, all the cool kids would totally be into reading comics, you dig?”
Mike August 3, 2011 at 11:19 pm
Wasn’t gay Ultimate Colossus bullied by the Catholic bigot Ultimate Nightcrawler or something?