Alternate title: Scrappy-Doo and Guess Who.
It’s the closest thing to a James Gunn image in my library. It still makes me happy. Sometimes I remember why I make a weekly comic strip.
However, it’s not Gunn’s treatment of my childhood nostalgia that is bugging me right now, unless you want to get technical. I did grow up with the DC Universe and their now abandoned takes on the aspirational hero with fun stories and adventures that could be done in one issue but still have ramifications in later issues. Of course I also loved the DC shows I grew up with because they followed the same formula. Sadly this is no longer the case.
That’s not what we’re here to talk about though. I’m not trying to trash Zac Snyder when I say it was a mistake for Warner Brothers to use him as their “Kevin Feige”, the only who was supposed to create their own DC Cinematic Universe. Snyder is good for the stories he tells but the stories he tells are not in line with the DC superheroes or why so many fans like those characters. His more cynical perspective on superheroes worked to adapt Watchmen but that book ran counter to the DC heroes as well so it was in good company. The “DC Extended Universe” bombed for the most part, and that included stuff he partly or entirely wasn’t part of with the exception of the first Wonder Woman movies. Even that film did stuff wrong, while the first Shazam movie was based on Geoff Johns’ re-imagining of the original Captain Marvel so I don’t even care if it was good or not. At any rate Warner Brothers was forced to end his “Snyderverse”, though some of the ways they did so wasn’t really fair to him no matter how happy I am he’s no longer ruining my favorite heroes.
Unfortunately James Gunn comes with his own issues, and right now he seems to be making the same mistake as the New 52. (By the way, someone next week remind me to go over the current Dan DiDio situation.) While Snyder kind of borrowed from that with his darker tone, Gunn is following one of their other mistakes: he isn’t committing to the reboot fully enough. Some of his statements are really confusing considering the direction he’s going, and what’s coming with him FROM the Snyderverse to the Gunnverse.
BW Media Spotlight 
Even Spider-Fan Writers Aren’t Into Modern Spider-Man
Spider-Man is Marvel’s flagship character. That’s why they fought so hard to get him in the Cinematic Universe, even if he’s only Peter in physical design, with maybe a few good quips. That’s on Sony but that’s another discussion. Created by Stan Lee and designed by Steve Ditko, Peter Parker’s first appearance was in the last issue of horror anthology Amazing Fantasy, all the way back in the 1960s. Lee had tried to get his bosses to let him do the character but they weren’t into him…until Spider-Man got such a strong response that they suddenly loved the idea and Amazing Spider-Man #1 soon hit shelves.
However, there are a lot of problems with modern Spider-Man. There are some things you can trace back to the 1990s but it’s in the 2010s and 2020s that the characters has really started suffering. Recently, Avi Green of Four Color Media Monitor, a comic critique and commentary site that sometimes has articles on Bleeding Fool, located a commentary on the Spider-Man fansite Spider-Fan. At least it was a fansite. While still up as of this writing I can’t find a review after 2015 of the main books and the contributors (that’s plural) only seem to post something once a month to the blog. In June, contributor Adam Winchell posted a commentary entitled “Spider-Man Ends: Or Why It’s Time For Marvel To Hang Up The Webs”, which you can read here for full context as I go over the commentary. With a title I don’t think I have to tell you what it’s about, or how hard it was for someone who writes for a Spider-Man fansite literally called Spider-FAN to make such a statement. So what does he say and how much sense does he make?
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Posted by ShadowWing Tronix on October 10, 2023 in Marvel Spotlight and tagged commentary, Marvel Universe, Peter Parker, Spider-Man (Peter Parker).
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