Marvel recently announced a series of original graphic novels, and USA Today got a line on the first one. Spider-Man: Family Business is a story thankfully set before the stupidity of Doc-Ock: body snatcher, featuring Peter Parker on the run with his sister. What, you didn’t know Peter Parker had a sister? Neither did anyone else until now.
First here’s the trailer for the new original graphic novel, although it annoyingly autoplays in the USA Today article.
I’ll give Gabriele Dell’otto credit. As painted art goes what we see in the trailer doesn’t look that bad in sequential art form. And you know how much I don’t like painted art in comics. Mark Waid and James Robinson are the writers on this piece.
Mark Waid, one of a revolving team of Spidey writers on Amazing Spider-Man from 2009-10, signed on for Family Business because he wanted the chance to do something with gravitas and in a long-form graphic novel.
“The format was as much of the appeal as the character was,” says Waid, the Daredevil series scribe who is co-writing with James Robinson (Earth 2) and teaming with artist Gabriele Dell’otto (Secret War).
Well, it is nice that one of the big two remembered graphic novels are just for collecting trades of forced GN-length story arcs but a way to tell a longer story. Points to Marvel about that. So what’s the story about?
In Family Business, the Kingpin is organizing a large crime syndicate and it’s Peter Parker, not Spider-Man, who finds himself under attack, Waid says. The ruthless supervillain has “finally decided to expand his criminal empire on a global scale — if Spidey can’t stop him.”
But before Peter can figure out who’s after him, a mysterious woman in a convertible screeches to a halt in front of him, and she tells him she’s his long-lost sister, Teresa. The two of them never knew anything about each other, but Peter hops in the car anyway to get the bottom of the situation.
I’m of two minds on this one. On the one had, giving Peter a long-lost sister (provided she isn’t a plant by the Kingpin or something) is unnecessary, but that didn’t stop Peter’s parents from being written as dead spies. On the other hand, I kind of like the idea. It certainly is a new avenue to explore.
About this new character, the writer describes her as “the anti-Peter. She’s got it all together, she’s smooth as silk. She’s Modesty Blaise.”
Along the way, there will be insight into Teresa as well as more about Peter’s CIA parents, Richard and Mary Parker, and their deaths that orphaned Peter and put him in the care of his Uncle Ben and Aunt May.
“It seems very bizarre to him that Aunt May never mentioned anything about this woman, who’s about his age and the resemblance is there,” Waid explains. “Peter wants to try to figure out what this mystery is all about but basically they’re running from a crime syndicate out to kill them both throughout the novel, so there’s not a whole lot of time for Spider-Man to sit and relax and slowly suss this out.”
Something not mentioned in the interview is why Fisk is after Peter Parker…or is he after Teresa? I suppose the mystery is part of the story but it doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. I will give them one bit of credit: this is a story that would be hard to tell with Mrs. Mary Jane Watson-Parker in the picture since she would be as big a target and would change the story in some way. Then again, since this takes place at an early point in Peter’s life you could just as easily set it during one of times Pete and MJ weren’t together or otherwise have her out-of-town. Still, it’s one less thing for Peter to worry about and it sounds like he’s going to be a busy Spider-Man.
And I can’t let this go, but heaven forbid I leave well enough alone. 😀
“Peter is generally most interesting when he’s as ordinary as possible, except for the spider bite. There’s the one freakish thing that happened to him,” Waid says. “One of the reasons we haven’t explored a lot of untold secrets behind his lineage is the danger is obviously there to make it a little too convoluted and take away the everyman aspect of Peter.
“If you were to reveal that his parents were really Skrulls or reveal that Aunt May was really his mother and not his aunt, if you try to pull something like that it feels like you’re pulling the rug out from the ordinary Joe that Peter is. We’ve successfully sidestepped this in this graphic novel.”
You know, the everyman who works in a high-tech lab and is a member of two different superhero teams.
Family Business is also set before Marvel’s current Superior Spider-Man series, where arch-enemy Doctor Octopus has taken over Peter’s body, to make it a “a little more outside-audience friendly,” Waid says.
“If most people are asked on the street who Spider-Man is, they may know Peter Parker. We dodge continuity that way to make it a little more timeless.”
Too bad nobody thought of doing that to the main series and try to get some new readers to boost sales. Spider-Ock has gone long enough.
Spider-Man: Family Business looks to be a rather interesting idea but the question is how well they pull it off. And what will become of Teresa Parker in continuity and in this story. We’ll have to wait until next year since the OGN doesn’t come out until April, 2014. That gives us time to learn a bit more about it before we can judge it proper.
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