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By Jason Bourgeois
Not surprisingly, after my lengthy screed last month going over every little detail of Marvel's poorly thought out One More Day event reinventing the Spider-Man corner of the universe, it's only natural that I follow that up with a look at the first three issues of Brand New Day. Hopefully having this come in quite a bit shorter than last month's rant.
Marvel's revolutionary idea for the new Spider-Man is that they would be doing Spider-Man three times a month. This is nothing new, however instead of making three books each month, with different titles, creative teams, and on occasion even different directions, they have decided to go the route of one single title, with creative teams rotating out on story arcs, and coordinating so the parts make a larger whole. DC's Superman titles, and the Legion of Super-Heroes, tried something similar, but they kept it to separate titles, with their creative teams and storylines, with threads that bounced between all the books, and occasionally built towards larger events. Superman stayed in such a pattern for most of the 90s, and in my opinion, it worked. It made people want to buy all the books, for the big picture, and the larger stories, and every title had its own feel. Marvel hopes that with only one Spider-Man title, the sales will be higher overall, as many people would skip the other books, as they were often thought of as not being The Spider-Man comic.
So far, only one creative team has done their work on Amazing Spider-Man, so it is difficult to judge how smooth everything will be between everyone, but odds are good that with the quality creators Marvel has put together for this book, there should be little difficulty, as well as having Tom Breevort on board as editor to oversee the project.
Kicking off the first month/three issues of the brand new direction is Dan Slott on writing chores, and Steve McNiven doing the pencils. Dan's well known for his She-Hulk run, where he showed his grasp of humour and continuity, and when I first heard his name associated with the title, I was sure he would be a good fit for Spidey. Granted, Marvel has tossed out large chunks of the last 20 years, in a willy-nilly fashion to undo whatever they want in a way that makes no sense, but I'm trying to judge Brand New Day for Brand New Day, and not what lead up to it. My suspicions about Dan were borne out though, and these are some very solidly written issues, all tying into a single story.
With McNiven just coming off his high profile gig doing Civil War, and being an amazing artist anyways, I had no fears in that department as well, and he performs just as I would expect, just like Dan. If this book wasn't already high profile enough by being the lone Spider-Man book, and the controversy and mystery, Steve would surely bring even more attention, but the creators are likely to be overshadowed by the buzz.
The first month covers establishing Peter's new status quo after Mephisto has made a mess of everything, which still makes no sense, and despite having a two page spread explaining the way things are now, there are plenty of contradictions. Even on those very two pages. If Marvel can't make heads or tails of what's going on now in just two pages, then there are serious issues at work here. Again, I digress to try and stick to BND, but that's hard since one leads from the previous event.
We get hammered with how sucky Peter's life is, and it falls a bit hollow for me, since it is all forced crap because of the previous event. This is not organic crap being flung at Peter as obstacles, but rather just there, because Mephisto was a jerk. People feel for Peter being down on his luck because they're problems we can relate to, and while this will be better as time goes on, right now all these problems are because Marvel's devil caused them, and that's not exactly a relatable stance. It's not horrible by any means, but one of many missteps made in the last few months.
Once all that is out of the way, Peter gets a webshooter stolen, has girl troubles, money troubles, and ends up giving Jonah Jameson an earful, to the point of giving him a heart attack, because Pete has had a Very Bad Day indeed. This really feels like forced drama, and the strings are showing, mainly because the only reason this is happening is because the devil gave Peter a deal. The writing is very rickety because they've got license to be lazy in their justifications for things, since they have a catch all of it all being done by magic.
The biggest problem with the very first issue is that there's actually no Spider-Man in it. Sure, there's Peter, and he does a few Spider-like things, but he's out of costume, and it's very light on superheroics. With the first issue of a big new direction, with lots of attention and people coming by to look, this is far from hitting the ground running. Sure, most folks know Peter is Spider-Man, but if people can complain about there being no Spider-Man in Ultimate S-M #1 a few years ago, I feel the same gripe should apply here, since this is intended very much to be a jumping on point, for new and old.
While Peter hunts for his webshooter, and wallet, he ends up stumbling into a plot to kill off two mafia-like families, so a new villain can step into the void and run things his way. It's a very simple storyline, ties back to Dan Slott's Free Comic Book Day Spidey special from last year, and wraps things up while leaving doors wide open for future storylines.
Once the title gets past the baggage heaped upon it by One More Day, and can dive into the meat of the book, this is, honestly, some very solid Spider-Man stories going on here. It's not the best Spider-Man has ever been, and it's not overly stand out either, but it is very solid, very classic Spider-Man, which is what Marvel wants.
And that is really the problem, isn't it? This is all very safe, very standard, while being very well done. It's basic, simple Spider-Man by the numbers, and done very well in that regard, but there's no real bite to it. It's great Spidey, and there's nothing wrong with that, but with Marvel resetting everything to 20 years ago, and making it very clear that marriage is bad, how can I care what happens? Marvel has made it very obvious that this is where Spidey should be, and are willing to blow up two decades worth of stories to make sure it will be that way. How can I care about Peter being in a relationship, when I know there can never, ever be a happy ending, because he can't be married? Very often books reset to a status quo, but very rarely in such a grandiose matter, and making things so plain and standard, I find it very hard to care.
I really wish I could sit and read these new Spider-Man books in a vacuum, without any baggage of One More Day, or even the overall Spider-Man oeuvre, just the basics to know what's what. These really very well done Spider-Man books, but with so much hanging over them, like a black shadow cast by Joe Quesada, I simply am unable to think of these books in anything other than a bad light, and they leave a bad taste in my mouth. Someone said that these are very good Spidey books, for thirty years ago, and that's very true. This would have been a great Spider-Man book in and of itself, but with everything that has happened, every page feels like a slap to the long-term fans. Despite wanting to read this Spider-Man, I am unable to continue buying the book, as all I do is pick over how this doesn't fit with where Spider-Man should have left off a few months ago, not two decades ago.
If you're looking for well done Spider-Man stories, these titles deliver, and maybe you can enjoy them, but I just can't get that nagging voice about how much disrespect this gives to the longtime fans.
Jason M. Bourgeois
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