Turns out replacing Doctor Strange with Doctor Doom as Sorcerer Supreme was a very bad idea. Who knew? Anyone who has heard of both characters.
Yes, as Marvel Comics joins Marvel Studios in continuing to ruin the reputation of Stephen Strange, they decided Steven was so unable to stop an evil force that he turned the title of Sorcerer Supreme over to Victor Von Doom. You know, the tyrant dictator who puts on a facade of a perfect community (or else) and is probably the pettiest person in the Marvel Universe as he quests for the ultimate power that he should rightly have by nature of being him. No wonder the usual suspects seem to love him so much. I’ve seen a Facebook page that seems to exist only to show Doom is so totes awesome you guys and better than that Reed jerk.
What does it have to do with Spider-Man? Apparently Doom is also what the British call a “lazy git”.
As shown in the trailer, Doctor Strange made a deal to undergo a trial to convince Cyttorak, the guy Juggernaut gets his powers from, to protect the mortal realm from his kin. If you ever read the Eighth Day storyline from the 1990s you know why we need it. Not wanting to do things like give a crap about anything that Doom doesn’t claim as his own (a very short list), he makes Peter do everything instead, giving him a bunch of 1-Ups like a video game because each challenge ends with dead Peter. Like Peter hasn’t died and come back enough. Dude’s another challenger for Optimus Prime’s title.
At the end of this “Eight Deaths Of Spider-Man” storyline, Peter has apparently had enough and decides to quit, after one of the challenges, as described in Fansided’s Bam! Smack! Pow!‘s article, one of the trials leads to Peter seeing the deaths of so many people that he turns into that broody emo kid who says nothing matters because death in inevitable, and this is his latest reason to quit being Spider-Man.
“But Tronix, that same article point to yet another unnecessary relaunch in April stating that Peter is still Spider-Man so clearly he’ll change his mind like he did any other time the continuity didn’t end because MTV didn’t renew the series.”
I’m sorry, this makes this idea less stupid…how?
Would we be surprised at this point if they didn’t try or at least want to make this permanent? The Insomniac game universe (Earth-1048, as I continue to school Marvel Studios how the Marvel Multiverse numbering system works) claims to be putting Peter in permanent retirement so they can focus on Miles Morales. People have noted that Peter in Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man (no official designation as of this writing so the Marvel Database goes with the placeholder Earth-TRN1450) acts more like Miles, or at least Spiderverse Miles, where Peter is also dead and Miles is the sole Spider-Man in that universe (Earth-1610, which is also the designation of the original Ultimate Universe comics where Miles replaced dead Peter, so even Sony doesn’t know what the #$%$# they’re doing). I’m saying there’s a trend and if the sociopolitical nonsense that took over Captain America to make Falcon another also-ran was coming for Spider-Man we wouldn’t be surprised. Miles was created as one of the characters Brian Michael Bendis made for his adopted kids, the other being Riri “Ironheart” Williams, and I could see the usual suspects not caring about taking that over for their own purposes. Their goals are more important than kids, after all. Also, they hate kids.
That out of the way, let’s say Peter is coming back. Do we want this story? Bad enough they used Doom to continue to screw over Strange, but dragging Spidey into the Doctors conflict the same way they did with the whole mutant/Inhuman stuff by killing Ms. Marvel in his comic rather than in something she was tied to due to backstage Disney crap makes it worse. If the point is to show Doom is bad at the job…I mean, duh. It’s Doctor Doom. All he cares about is Doctor Doom and making Reed Richards suffer. The title makes him feel like a special snowflake because now he gets the big magic title. Remember when Hank Pym was “Scientist Supreme” for some reason? I don’t know who replaced him, but since Doom likes science as much as magic, expect him to go after that next so he can shove it in Reed’s face. Doom is becoming somebody’s power fantasy at this point. If there’s a “Petty Supreme”, Victor won that title years ago. It’s just too small for him to acknowledge it.
As for Peter being forced to witness 3,000,000 deaths and deciding life is meaningless? Bullcrap. Death has already been a defying moment in Peter’s life more than once, and from people he actually knows and cares about. Literally the first time we meet him, Uncle Ben’s death changes the course of his life. Then there’s Gwen Stacey and her dad, the Osbornes (they both get better while Gwen has been cloned as often as Peter if not more)–even One More Day, where I lost all general interest in Spider-Man, had Peter trying to stop Aunt May from dying. That’s just in the main comic universe (the ACTUAL Earth-616–I’ll stop now). Peter’s even hit Marvel’s afterlife revolving door a few times. Even when Uncle Ben lives, death is just part of Peter’s life. I mean, watch this video if it’s still up!
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Does the One Above All have to come back to show him why those lives mattered, and why Peter was right to save them? It’s already annoying that Peter followed up a positive visit from God’s stand-in to selling his marriage to Satan’s stand-in during the same event. (I don’t think it’s so much Mephisto torturing Peter and Mary Jane with a piece of their soul remembering their marriage so much as Marvel torturing Spider-Marriage fans.) I just hate this on concept because it feels like it plays too much into Peter’s issues and not enough on his sense of heroism. If anyone should be aware of how easy it is to die, it should be Peter Parker. He’s died, his loved ones have died, and he’s seen all the people who got to have a full life because of his actions. Death is already part of Peter’s life. He may well overcome this, but this is just another “Peter quits” story and one that really doesn’t sit well with me. I’m glad I’m among the people who stop caring about main universe Peter after One More Day or I’d be angry instead of annoyed. This isn’t the hero I want to read about.
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