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Subject: Re: AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #38
Date: 19 Feb 2002 05:11:32 GMT
From: jmsatb5@aol.com (Jms at B5)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.comics.marvel.universe

If I may be so bold....

>Going back and
>"fixing" the things that you don't like, that's what bothers me in this
>case.

There was nothing there that I didn't like, that I would therefore want to
change...and, in fact, I didn't change it, as will be noted in a moment.

>You
>could've had the Ezekiel/Morlun arc without getting into the ridiculous
>dime-store philosophy questioning the nature of Spider-Man's powers.

What's wrong with asking questions?  It was never resolved that Ezekiel was
right.  He just raised the question and set up a possible context.  If you
recall what was actually written in the issue, Spidey finally comes out to say
he doesn't know if Ezekiel's right or wrong because (and this is a direct
quote) "it doesn't matter to who I am."

Peter got his powers through the bite of a radioactive spider.  That is
unchanged.  I asked a question about the nature of the spider in the Marvel
universe which is full of amazing creatures -- thunder gods, gamma irradiated
people, other guys who can talk to ants, sorcerers and sorceresses and Lokis --
so within that context, how improbable is that question, really?  

But having said that, at the end of the day, I did not resolve the question in
Ezekiel's favor.  I left it open.  You're certainly free to dismiss it, because
for the most part Peter did.  

So that changes nothing in who he is, only asks a question about context.

>The
>Aunt May discovery could have been handled without rewriting how Uncle Ben
>died.

In the original story, Ben died at the hands of the man Peter Parker set free. 
In this story, that still happens.  That has not in any way, manner, shape or
form been changed.

What has been added was that May and Ben had an argument that night.  It's
never been said that they *didn't* argue.  She said she never saw him alive
again.  In continuity, Ben surprised the guy in the house, as I recall.  She
could well have gone up to bed after the argument, he came back in...whammo.

Either way you look at it, however, in not one lick of this is Ben's death
rewritten.  Not anywhere.  It adds an outside context, because I like playing
with context, but it doesn't change the details one bit.

Anyway, I just wanted to jump in because while I don't mind being pilloried for
things I have done -- sometimes it's warranted, sometimes it ain't, those are
the breaks -- I do kinda mind being pilloried for things I *didn't* do.

And your statement is factually incorrect.

 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
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