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Message

Subject: Re: The problem with JMS's Spider-Man
Date: 13 Mar 2001 01:33:15 GMT
From: jmsatb5@aol.com (Jms at B5)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.comics.marvel.universe

Just a couple of quick responses to stuff here....

Never have I seen more hysteria over a comment that's been totally
misinterpreted by people.  

Let me make this clear: I am NOT IN ANY WAY reconning Spider-Man's origin.  The
way he got his powers is the way he got his powers.  But there are questions to
be raised within that context that, I think, can be extremely interesting.  

The term "dynasty" is also completely misleading, because that's not what I'm
doing.  I'm trying to put his abilities in a context that will enrich the
character.

To those who say they don't care about the character's past...lemme put this
simply: who we are is a function of what we have done, and who we have been in
the past.  We are the sum total of all that we have seen and heard and felt and
experienced.  So it is *very* important from a storytelling perspective...not
to sit there and dwell on details of continuity that will be of interest to 5
guys logging all this stuff in, but in a formative sort of way.

I think a lot of people are reacting to this in light of the gimmickry that's
been done to the character in the recent past.  That ain't this.  I don't *do*
gimmicks.

As to getting MJ off the board for a while, what I told Marvel was that so
*much* detritus has accumulated around Peter and Spider-Man that it's necessary
to peel some of that away for a while so that we can spend time with *him*, and
learn who *he* is.  The signal-to-noise ratio has gotten very high in the books
of late; we need to dial it back to give us some room to focus on Peter.  So
this comment:

>This to me is another way
>to write a woman character out of the book because the
>writer doesn't know what to do with said character. And
>having enjoyed the strong women characters JMS had
>on Babylon 5, I'm surprised he's going this route.

-- is, you will pardon my saying so, total and utter horseshit.  Take one look
at Midnight Nation and tell me I don't know what to do with strong women
characters.  Take a look at B5 for that.  What, do you think I suddenly became
gender-retarded or something?

My suggestion: why not wait to see what I actually *do* with the book before
judging it?  I'm always happy to take the reactions to what I've actually done,
good or bad.  But let's make it that kind of reaction, not what *you* think *I*
MIGHT be doing.

Because I'm not.

So the discussion is moot.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
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