#I like how it looks like mj is saying the title in that first panel

[oliveroctavius]

[theelectronicstranger]

Ultimate Spider-Man #1 Discussion

            It’s been more than a week since Ultimate Spider-Man #1 came out and I want to give my first impressions on the comics. If you have not read this comic, then maybe read this later because I will be spoiling almost all of it in here.

            First, I just want to talk about how nice it is to just see Peter be happy with MJ and their two kids. I love every interaction they have in this book. It’s just nice to see an adult Peter with a family again. I love this one interaction with Peter and his son, Richard, where Peter is telling him to go to bed but Richard is reading the original version of A Tale of Two Cities so he asks his dad if he could stay up a little longer to finish the chapter that he’s on. Peter looks at him and calls him a ridiculous person and his son says, “I don’t know what you’re complaining about, Dad, you made me this way. And I’m cool with it.” I love that scene so much because Richard is just the younger version of Peter, maybe Richard is an even bigger nerd than his father. I really hope that nothing bad happens to this family, but this is a Spider-man title.

            The second thing I want to talk about is the relationship between J. Jonah Jameson and Uncle Ben. I think it’s really refreshing to see Uncle Ben be alive in this universe because we rarely get to see the man. I hope we get to see him for a long time in this title and he’s just not going to be here for a year's worth of comics and that’s it. Also, I really love that him and Jonah are pretty much best friends in this universe or at least respected colleagues. I love the scene when they both quit the Daily Bugle and you can tell, from the few pages of interactions we’ve seen of them, that these two have had each other’s backs for so long and that they have this friendship/partnership that’s built on respect for one another. I really like this panel when they’ve both just quit; Uncle Ben asks Jonah, “So. What are we gonna do now?” and you can see these smiles on their faces as if they just didn’t destroy the lives they had. I love that they’re both excited to be unshackled from the Daily Bugle and they’re excited for what’s ahead of them.

            I also really like that Jonah and Peter in this universe are close. Jonah is pretty much family/another uncle to Peter. I think it was a nice touch when Jonah offers Peter his own tie and ties it to Peter himself. It shows that this version of J. Jonah Jameson is very much like family to the Parkers and that Jonah cares and respects Peter in this universe. I hope that we see more of this version of Jonah and that he doesn’t devolve into the caricature of sensational journalism that we often see him as. I think that under all that mess, J. Jonah Jameson can be a man with integrity; a man who can be kind; and a man that deserves respect. I just really like how Jonah comes off in this issue. it's something we rarely see in the main marvel universe and I just want more of it.

            I also really like seeing other marvel characters in this issue. We saw Matt Murdock in this issue and he’s a priest instead of a lawyer. I wonder if he’ll ever be Daredevil in this universe or maybe he already is because he seems blind when we first see him. We also see Harry Osborn, who I think is already confirmed to be the Green Goblin in this universe. I love this new redesign of the Green Goblin; it’s more of a tech-based design than the previous ultimate universe’s one, which was more biological. I can’t wait to see more of him. Also, we saw Kingpin, who is pretty much just regular Kingpin, but he seems more wealthy and powerful because there’s less heroes that stood in his way on his rise to the top. I think it also made him less cautious because of what we see happen in this issue.

Matt Murdock/Daredevil:

Harry Osborn/Green Goblin:

Kingpin:

            I really love how Peter becomes Spider-Man in this universe. I love that he asks both Uncle Ben and MJ’s permission before he decided to be Spider-Man. Those are the two people whose opinion he really cares about and they basically both tell him that he should do what he feels like he needs to do. Both of them trust him enough to know that whatever decision he’s about to make isn’t going to be a bad thing for him nor will it destroy his life. I also love how open and mature both Mary Jane and Peter were when talking about this. Sure, Peter was leaving out about the spider powers thing, but it's just really nice to see these two adults talk through their inner turmoil in a mature and calm manner. I hope that him being Spider-Man doesnt change too much of his dynamics with Uncle Ben and Mary Jane.

Uncle Ben Permission:

Mary Jane Permission:

            I love the panels of him when he does decide to become Spider-Man. I think Marco Checchetto’s art is so good in this book, and I hope he never leaves it. I think the way they showed Peter freeing the Spider was excellent. You can see everything single thing he’s thinking about as he lets this spider out. You see the support and confidence that both Uncle Ben and MJ give him to finally become Spider-Man. This is the first time I’ve read a Spider-Man book where Peter decidesto take on the responsibility of being Spider-Man himself rather than it being an accident where he’s given these powers and now responsibility is thrust upon him. I think it’s a really interesting concept for Peter to be the one to choose this life. I hope that him being older would change how he is as Spider-Man. I also don't know if this version of Peter will be a funny Spider-Man or if he'll be a more serious one. Something tells me that he'll be a bit more serious. I also hope that this responsibility isn’t too much for him and that this doesn’t destroy his life. I know I might be a little too cautious, but I’ve been reading Spider-Man books for more than a decade and they always seem to know how to destroy Peter’s life, so I’m going to optimistic while preparing for the worst heartbreak for my guy.

I really love the premise of this Universe and I think it really works for what they’re doing here. For those that don’t know, the premise of this universe is that the Ultimate Reed Richards (The Maker from Universe 1610) invades a whole universe and recreates it in his image, which meant that he interfered and ruined a lot of would-be heroes’ origin stories so that they would never happen or would never be heroes. For example, in the end of Ultimate Invasion #1, he made sure that the spider that would have bit Peter never bit him, so that he would gain spider powers and become Spider-Man. I really like that Tony Stark and the other heroes of this universe are trying to set things back to how they would have been if the Maker didn’t ruin this universe. I love the idea of them giving these heroes their stolen destinies back. Also, I’m so intrigued by what Tony said in this book that in 6 Months they will free this world. I wonder how that would change this universe and how it will affect this version of Spider-Man. I know there’s still some time travel shenanigans going on so I wonder how they will resolve that.

Theories:

            I’m not really sold on the idea that the blast that happened in the Ultimate Universe One Shot actually killed anybody. I feel like with all the time travel shenanigans that Tony somehow found a way to save the people that would have been affected by the blast by putting them in a time bubble or something. Because when Tony appeared in this issue and talk about how in 6 months, they’re going to free this world, he gave the vibe that he was able to save the people that was supposedly killed by the blast they’re pinning on him. So that might mean that Aunt May is still alive. This might just be me trying to be optimistic, but I feel like there’s more to that blast that we don’t know yet.

            Also, I have a feeling that the Green Goblin won’t be a villain in this book but more of an anti-hero type character like the Punisher. I feel like we only truly saw him hurt Kingpin in this issue so he might be dealing justice in his own way. I feel like this Green Goblin and this version of Spider-Man will have a Daredevil and Punisher type of relationship where they both are trying to do good and serve justice in their own way. I think it’ll be a pretty interesting take if this is the case, but I don’t really know. We’ll just have to read more to find out.

            Anyways, thank you for reading this. I hope you enjoyed the book like I did. Tell me what you guys think of it. Are you guys also as cautious when you see Peter parker be happy as I am? Do you think this new universe is off to a good start? I’d love to know what you think. Also, I extremely recommend buying this issue if you haven't read or bought it. Have a good day!

[hellzyeahthewebwieldingavenger]

Do you mean the characterization where the character relived all of Peter Parker’s memories at the end of ASM #700 and was trying his best (from his point of view) to be a hero and NOT a villain? It’s almost like an important, life changing/character-changing moment like that happened in between those two scenes. But go figure. :-D

@danslott-blog

I’m writing this because I wouldn’t have space in the original post. This is to be considered a direct reply to the above poster.

You know, I can’t be 100% certain if you are the real Dan Slott or a sycophantic fan of his. Your blog page…

…leads me to believe you are in fact the real Dan Slott. 

Thing is I saw this comment last night but I didn’t check out your blog until this morning. Nevertheless, last night my first instinct was to presume you to be the real Dan Slott.

The fact that my mind immediately jumped to that possibility, the fact that I can’t rule it out and the further supportive evidence of your blog, speaks volumes.

It speaks volumes about the person Dan Slott whether or not you are the genuine article or not. Because your actions so thoroughly fall in line with his behaviour.

And it is damning. As are your words. Let’s unpack them.*

So, did I mean Otto’s characterization? That’s what you were getting at. That my original post was in reference to Otto’s characterization between ASM #700 and Superior #2?

No.

I did not.

At all.

I was referring to Mary Jane’s  characterization. I elaborate upon the topic in this post.

Tl:dr: MJ was eager to sleep with ‘Peter’ in the former issue but not in the latter.

That should have been utterly obvious  to anyone observing the post because I was presenting events from 2 issues and saying they didn’t line up. Obviously  the purpose was for the readers of my post to play spot the difference.

The similarities were Otto’s desire to have sex with Mary Jane. The difference was with MJ.

As of this writing, twelve other people grasped that obvious intent Dan.

Why on Earth do they have superior reading comprehension skills than a professional writer  for the largest comic book company in America? Surely that should be a basic requirement of the job?

Not that I’m surprised. It is exemplary of the vast majority of your pathetic, reductive and damaging  work on this franchise.

But let’s dive deeper.

You claim that Otto reliving Peter’s memories in ASM #700 (after the scene in the OP) changed him hence he was different in Superior #2.

But he’s not.

In ASM #700 he tried to exploit Mary Jane’s misconception that he was Peter Parker (and her pre-existing feelings for him) to have sex with her.

In Superior #2 he was still  trying to exploit Mary Jane’s misconception that he was Peter Parker (and her pre-existing feelings for him) to have sex with her.

So he hasn’t changed. At all.

But for the sake of argument, let’s pretend you are right. In Superior #2 (because he relieved Peter’s memories) he was trying to be a better person from his point of view.

So you are saying from his point of view   raping Mary Jane by deception constituted trying to be a hero and not a villain?**

If Otto experienced Peter’s memories then that would logically entail his upbringing and morality. Meaning Otto would in fact know that what he’s trying to do with MJ is unethical. Or he’d appreciate that he’s not the real Peter Parker and it’d be a disservice to the real man who’s legacy he’s trying to uphold to sleep with the woman he loves. Or he’d know who MJ was and appreciate she deserved better than to be deceived.

But no. He was horny and was going to satisfy himself  no matter what. Hence later in the issue after he experiences Peter’s memories of ‘being’ with MJ he says he’s ready to move on and starts eyeing up other women, including Sajani.

Furthermore, even without Peter’s memories Otto would never have attempted to sleep with Mary Jane for two big reasons.

The first is that she is frankly not his type.

Prior to Superior, the women Otto held affections for (romantically or otherwise) were either scientifically gifted (Mary-Alice, Carolyn), admirers of his brilliance (Stunner, Carolyn, Mary-Alice) or unconditionally kind towards him (Aunt May).

You know…kind of like his own mother was!

MJ is not scientifically gifted. MJ did not admire Otto’s genius. As far as he knew she didn’t even admire Peter’s genius and even the times she has canonically it has been in a different way to the ladies in Otto’s life. MJ was never singing Peter’s praises for being so clever for inventing this or that, she was never borderline fangirling over his intellect. She also wasn’t unconditionally kind like Aunt May was, her kindness manifested in a starkly different way. She wasn’t taking Otto, Peter or a stranger home for a cup of tea or a nice meal.

Since Otto wanted to sleep with her before  he was exposed to all of Peter’s memories, the only rationale reason for his interest was the superficial. She was an attractive young woman and Otto wanted her body.

Which would be weird  right because I seem to recall you and your buddy Christos Gage saying Otto didn’t care about looks in his romantic partners?

This brings me to my second reason.

Otto is evil but he’s not Purple Man/Doctor Light levels of evil. He wouldn’t do something as debase as that, he’d view it as beneath him. In his own warped way he holds a certain respect for women. Hence he genuinely cared for Aunt May, Stunner, Carolyn Trainer, Mary-Alice and of course his mother.

But let’s say I’m wrong. Let’s say Superior #2 was covering totally virgin territory for the character that had never been touched upon before. As in there had never been a word written about Otto’s love life, attitudes to women, attitudes to sex, etc.

That being the case, you established as hard canon that Doctor Octopus, the villain of the pg-13 movie Spider-Man 2, antagonist in dozens of Spider-Man cartoons for children and video games for kids and teens, is an attempted rapist!

As in if MJ hadn’t turned him down all those times his attempts would’ve been successful and he’d just be an actual  rapist.

You took a beloved, fun character (who was unique for having a somewhat humanitarian side to himself) and made him utterly irredeemable. You had him attempt an act of evil that the readers know (within the context of the genre conventions) is one of the, if not the actual, worst things a villain can do.

Good job buddy.

Oh, and needless to say, you totally and utterly failed to take Mary Jane’s point of view into account; as you did in response to my OP.

You never considered how you were using the main female character of the franchise who is beloved  within the fandom and generating cheap, gratuitous tension by threatening to rape her.

In conclusion Dan Slott, you were never ever qualified for the job as Spider-Man’s lead writer. You never ever deserved the role because of how you lied and cheated your way into Marvel, disrespected the works of your predecessors and disrespected the characters you were in charge of.

You had good ideas half the time but your writing craftsmanship skills on the title were woefully lacking hence you could only competently execute them 1/8th of the time. When combined with the raw damage you wrought to the characters and narrative you are without question the single worst on-going writer of Spider-Man in history.

I’m sure you are pleased with that record considering it was blatantly obvious you were far more invested in cultivating an eventual legacy for your self on the character than you were actually serving the characters and organically developing them.

Author of ASM #600, 700 and 800

The only Spider-Man writer to have written 3 centennial issues in a row.

The guy who has written 1 in 5 issues of Amazing Spider-Man.

Oh, and also the worst on-going writer of Spider-Man in history.

Wow.

What an achievement.

Now, why don’t you stop searching for your own name or works online and do something more practical with your time.

Like learning how to write.

*Oh and btw, I’m writing this presuming you are the real Dan Slott.

Also I’m going to try my best not to swear but that is where my politeness ends. This isn’t CBR Dan, Mister Mets (nor any other moderator) is around to censor or ban anyone to protect you.

**And yes, having sex with MJ when she didn’t know he was really Doc Ock is objectively  a form of rape. Here is literally the first sentence  about rape on Wikipedia, with emphasis by me:

“Rape is a type of sexual assault usually involving sexual intercourse or other forms of sexual penetration carried out against a person without that person's consent.”

Contrary to what your buddies Fred van Lente or Stephen Wacker might have told you, force is not a requisite.

No consent = rape.

Had MJ had sex with Otto she’d have been giving Peter her consent not Otto. Therefore Otto would have been raping her. This was acknowledged in fact in a Dead pool comic book from 1998!

Courtesy of one of your Brand New Day peers, Joe Kelly, Deadpool v1 #12 saw Wade have sex with Siryn, whom he had feelings for.

However, in the next issue ‘Siryn’ reveals she was actually Typhoid Mary in disguise, a woman who’d endeavored to bring out Wade’s darkside against his wishes.

Wade’s dialogue and body language clearly convey how he feels sickened and violated by the experience. When he asks Mary why  she did this to him she replies it was simply because she could. Whilst Wade is on the ground feeling vulnerable she stands up, leans over and licks him!

The scene when taken in context is brutally unsubtle. Typhoid used trickery to exploit Wade. She put herself in a position of power and abused that power to dominate Wade, to remove his agency.

That is literally all rape boils down to. Not sex but power. The scene, especially the last panel hammers that point home.

But just in case  you still didn’t get it the very next page depicts Wade vomiting and saying he needs a shower.

This is a common reaction from victims of sexual assault, at least in media. The ‘I need a shower’ moment is practically a trope.

Why did a 1998 Deadpool story  have a clearer understanding of the topic being played with than a 2013 Spider-Man story…that was allegedly for children no less!

P.S. You know Tom DeFalco had Peter Parker wrestle with his emotions in the wake of the ‘Death of Jean DeWolff’ story arc way back in ASM #275.

You might say that witnessing such violence and examining his own actions with perspective was a life changing experience for him.

With that in mind, how about you explain to me why Peter experiencing death, deletion, abuse of his life and body, losing a whole year of his life and then returning to it totally changed doesn’t  count as a life/character changing experience?

Because you sure as hell didn’t write him reacting with the pain, the sadness, the anguish that he (or any normal human being) would’ve had after he came back. Nope. Just back to cracking jokes I guess.

Do you like…not know how human beings work?

That’s a rhetorical question because I know the answer.

[sailolive93-blog]

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Do you even know that? You act like all these things can be magically paid for without anybody in the middle class being negatively affected. I have a bachelor’s degree and I didn’t feel like college was very challenging. It was more like a series of annoying classes I didn’t need when all of college could have been boiled down into one year of the core classes of my major of marketing. College is a fuckin scam and it’s only truly necessary for a very limited amount of majors. You’re just another minion that kisses the feet of big-government Democrats that try to make us feel like horrible people for not allowing them to sucks insane amounts of money out of the economy and spend it how they would like to. inch "That's including the localization teams for every language though, as well as PR and marketing. >! Some of them might even be legacy accreditation for the Gen 6 models they're *still* using.! < " "Time is a cost and you should track where that cost is going. 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If your posts keep getting removed then you will be banned. READ THE RULES! *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Remember to[contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/? to=/r/feetpics) if you have any questions or concerns. *" "I came of grew up and came of age in Chicago during Jordan's time with the Bulls and the shortest answer is that it's almost incomparable because the level of fame basketball players before Michael Jordan was laughably lower than now. Even today MJ has a logo that might be more identifiable than the company that created it. I would argue no athlete in any sport has surpassed MJ's level of fame. MJ pioneered so many avenues of endorsements, its like comparing planes in the era of propeller planes with jet planes. Jordan like most greats, stood on the shoulders of giants, specifically Larry Bird and Magic Johnson. Those two spent the better part of the late 70's and early to late 80's dominating the sport of basketball. Also add in Isiah Thomas of the Pistons and arguably "Dr. J" Julius Erving of the 76ers and those four were the superstars of the four teams that won EVERY NBA championship of the decade. Before Michael Jordan won his FIRST NBA Championship in 1991, he was arguably bigger than all of them. Before MJ, being a big name athlete meant getting your name on a breakfast cereal box called Wheaties, and doing the commercial saying the plug line "Gotta eat your Wheaties! " That's not a joke. Check 'em out on youtube, they're cringe worthy. MJ's meteoric rise in my opinion was helped by a few special advertising campaigns. I think first would have been his Nike commercials with Spike Lee, another pioneer. He just made "Do the right thing" at a time when black people making movies with black people in the movies wasn't really a thing. Spike Lee also happens to like playing characters in his own movies and Mars Blackmon was a character in that movie that Spike Lee chose to portray in a series of commericals with Michael Jordan. Again, pardon me for repeating, but I have to say it again for context. You have a supremely talented and charismatic young athlete being marketed by a young shoe company (Converse Chuck Taylors were still THE basketball shoe) hiring a visionary and ground breaking director to do something that had not been done before. And they crushed it. Again, at this time Michael Jordan wasn't winning NBA championships. He was having savant level performances, but get bounced out of the first round by the Celtics, or getting manhandled in the playoffs by the Pistons. By the time he did win it all in 91, MJ was doing things that no one had done in fields well outside basketball. Michael Jordan in Flight is one of the first videogames to have 3D. He had already supplanted Dr J in the one on one basketball video game with Larry Bird. Gatorade put out a marketing campaign with the song "Be Like Mike" and that song was the top song for the summer of 92 in Chicago on most radio stations regardless of genre. You're already familiar with Space Jam, but before Space Jam, the Looney Toons were relegated to afternoon after school syndicated (rerun) television stations. Michael Jordan made Bugs Bunny cool again to a whole new generation that knows of them only through MJ. I hope that helps. inches "Yeah I don't want to turn it around and criticize Musk over this or anything, but Tesla is great at PR and marketing while convincing people they don't actually try to be. inches "No, you dont need more parties, you need to ban all parties and establish government funded elections where everyone with a certain amount of support by the people can run using government money and marketing channels. Equal funding, equal marketing, equal candidacy, by the people, for the people. Sounds too good to be true? Well fuck you, because parties are corrupt barbaric cavemen shit. " " Funny Cartoon Images for website content - Family Funny Images and illustrations, Ultimate single panel funny cartoons used for websites, social media and emails https://www.freecartoonsdaily.com https://www.cartoons.cafe   www.cartoons.cafe www.acmeblanks.com sign up now! Funny Cartoons, Funny family cartoon images, Custom Cartoons, Niche Cartoons, Humorous Illustration Services, Business Cartoons, Medical Cartoons, Custom Comic Strips, Book Illustration Services, Political Cartoons, funny hospital cartoons, cartoons for marketing, corporate cartoons, work cartoons, business cartoons, Computer Cartoons, farmer cartoons, farm cartoons, tractor cartoons, Pig cartoons, pig farmer cartoons, cor farmer cartoons, wheat farmer cartoons, soybean farmer cartoons.... inch "That's including people associated with the marketing and promotion of Sword and Shield, which means people at Nintendo and the Pokemon Company rather than actual programmers at Game Freak working on the game itself. The same article you're looking at gives 200 at Game Freak - which is likely wrong since Game Freak had 143 employees, and Game Freak openly stated most were working on Town. You could include the modelers from Creatures Inc, but given that the models are the same as those developed for X and Y by Creatures Inc years ago, they are likely still being credited for "work" on this game that was actually done quite some time ago. " "Imagine what a lucky break JonTron was for FlexSeal. Their products are actually pretty decent, but their marketing was almost typical infomercial stuff that no-one over fifty would've seen. Next, out of nowhere, some YouTuber makes them famous amongst younger customers. People make "that's a lotta damage, " and "I sawed this boat in half, " memes. Everyone knows who they are. Chances are, when you need some stuff like this you'll at the very least know about their existence and you might buy their stuff because at least you know they're legit. Some people will buy it when they need something like that, literally for the meme. All they have to do is keep the ball rolling with tweets like these (because, of course, people actually follow them on Twitter now). " "That's my point. The pub you linked to is disney land. I'm looking for somewhere that recreates the  a more authentic historical experience. I think these places have got their marketing wrong which is why they are closing. They should be trying to recreate an experience closer to that in the Pathe news reel. If you just sold fresh baked bread, potted Hare, a variety of local ales you could heat with a poker while smoking a hilarious pipe you could capture a huge slice of the real ale / hipster / foodie market. " "No game in the genre had been competition for the Diablo franchise since it's inception. D3 no matter how you look at it was a huge commercial success being in the top 10 video games sold of all time at one point. Diablo now has become what WoW was before, tons of games saying they are a WoW killer and none of them doing it. So now we looming at Diablo killers but they all end up falling off somewhere because they don't get the same $$$ support / marketing. inch "8M opening weekend bad = bad marketing. Bad quality movie would be revealed in the multiplier (word of mouth and no rewatches). In this case I don’t think there was anything compelling from the movie they could focus the marketing around which led to the 8M OW. " "I’m in the same boat. I have to get 14 credits by may2020. In the last 2 weeks I did principle of marketing 3 credits score 66 and principal of management 3 credits score 62. This week I’ll take precalculas which is 5 credits and calculus which is 4 credits. I did not pay the $89 for the test because I did modernstates which pays the testing fee. It also reimburses me for the $20 testing fee" "Marketing. McAf€€ gets money from users, Micro$oft gets money from McAfee. They beget the green, motherfuckers that they are. Sometimes  http://tipofmytongue.topreddit.info  who install 3^^rd party stuff tho, it's not only Microsoft. Anyway, it's a motherfuckery of bloatware if not malware. "McAfee antivirus is one of the worst products on the planet" -John McAfee" "You're arguing entirely from marketing hype instead of actual quality, which is entirely stupid and comes down entirely to Sont having far greater of a userbase and them having less games to pump more money behind. Besides, let's not pretend Sony has an actual library of games here. Both Xbox and Sony have completely shit the bed this console generation in terms of exclusive libraries. Sony has had like, 8 good games this entire generation as exclusives. You have Death Stranding, Uncharted 4, Horizon, Until Dawn, Bloodborne, God of War, MLB The Show... That's about it? I guess you also have Detroit and Last Guardian depending on who you ask, but I defo don't wanna throw Days Gone on that list. But in any case, you could lump all of those games into loke 3-4 genres. Am I missing anything? But yeah, stop saying dumb shit like "Well its not a household name so its irrelevant" because you're entirely missing the point and reducing the entire industry to what can or can't be marketed. As well, its telling that Sony has stated their goal next-gen is to have less games release but have them be bigger, where Microsoft is going the opposite direction. Keep the the big titles, bur also have a little something for everyone. Diversity is important. Your Battletoads reboot might not sell as well, but its important to folks who like it. Games shouldn't be live or die based on how well they fit in established and marketable trends. Its absurdly reductive" "I actually never had injected one, whats the main difference? And is it really a big improvement or rather a marketing bait" "It’s all part of his NYC persona. Marketing. inches

[mrsspidermanmaryjanewatsonparker]

Amazing Spider-Man: Renew Your Vows #16-18 Thoughts

Previous thoughts here. 

This arc is a mixed bag.

Previous arcs of RYV tended to give one of the family members more priority than the others. It wasn’t exactly that we’d have an MJ arc then a Peter arc then an Annie arc exactly, but which characters got more focus did shift around. The Venom arc for example was more MJ’s story with Peter playing support and Annie more in the background. The X-Men arc was more Annie’s arc with her parents splitting the second fiddle role.  The penultimate arc before the time skip was another more Annie centric storyline, actually probably the most Annie centric story since issue #3.

Houser’s opening arc put the spotlight on each family member culminating in Annie herself, but Annie was still being developed through Peter and MJ’s eyes in those issues. This made a lot of sense since she’d be the most important thing to either of them and we already know who Peter and MJ are. Even if they’re 8 years older that’s not going to amount to them being as significantly different as the now teenaged Annie whom we’d not yet met.

This arc is another Annie centric arc which initially seems like Peter is going to be an important backup player, sort of like how the Venom arc was MJ’s arc first and foremost but Peter still played an important role. This was indicated by us getting Peter and Annie’s thought captions in issue #16 and the story revolving around Peter working at Annie’s school.

Issue #17 drops Peter’s captions and point of view and the story becomes Annie’s totally now revolving around her two new friends abruptly introduced at the end of issue #16. Peter however had three poignant scenes in the book implying that going forward he would be an important character to the pay off the arc. This did not happen because issue #18 thrusts forward with the story about Annie and her new friends, now with Normie as an important player. Peter shows up but only as part of the ‘parental collective’ alongside MJ and gets just one scene with just him and Annie at the end of the book, which serves to simply reiterate the sentiments from the earlier scene with MJ and to payoff that Annie and him are more at ease about both being at Midtown High.

Now there are two ways of interpreting all this.

The optimistic and diplomatic way is that the arc is about Annie growing more independent via forming a new friendship group. Issue #16 nicely sets up that Annie, like many teenagers, is trying to find where she belongs in the high school jungle as she and her old friends have drifted apart as unfortunately happens as kids grow older. Her Dad’s continuously diminishing role across the issues as her relationships with her new friends (and old friend Normie, whom she reconnects with which is maybe pay off to what I just talked about) grows is symbolic of her becoming more independent as she grows up.

The more cynical view is that...this arc is just disjointed. That Houser wanted to set up the status quo of Peter at Midtown high and dedicated the first part of the arc to that but also had it half act as a transition into the meat of the arc, which is about Annie befriending Lacey and Reece...oh but Normie is also involved too.

Unfortunately I’m inclined to think the latter is more likely.

It almost feels like Houser was seeking to set up the general status quo for the family in her first arc running through issues #13-15, then was setting up Annie’s personal status quo with this arc.

Like imagine this was not a Spider-Man family title but a Spiderling title. You establish her school, her social situation, her Dad being a teacher, her older friend in Normie. The only thing you arguably don’t have set up here is her parents or the fact that they are superheroes but that’s because you’ve already read the previous issues. Heck issue #16 even has Annie swinging solo on the cover, almost like it could be the cover to a Spiderling solo book.

The focus upon Peter in issue #16 feels like I dunno...lip service to the fact that this supposed to be a team book and not an Annie solo book.  Feeling exacerbated as his presence diminishes as the arc goes on. It wouldn’t be that bad perhaps if the arc supplanted his presence with MJ’s but that doesn’t happen. MJ is a slightly more distant third fiddle in this arc.

Now conceptually having an arc so focused upon Annie isn’t all bad. If you looked at Houser’s run and the post time-skip era in isolation, dedicating a focus arc to her and her status quo makes a lot of sense. However considering the arc just before the time skip gave her the lion’s share of panel time and she’s also had a lot of play in the X-Men arc and Conway’s opening arc AND how Houser’s opening arc dedicated a lot of time to developing Annie...you see where I’m going with this.

She’s stealing too much lime light from Peter and MJ at this point, even if this arc was hypothetically afforded them more panel time.

But how does this connect with those two points I raised up top?

Connected with this is the issues raised from the time skip itself.

When the time skip was announced the big criticisms surrounding it mainly revolved around:

a)      The jump abandoned the status quo we’d been building for 12 issues b)      Making Annie a teen is derivative of Spider-Girl/Mayday Parker

Jameson and the Bugle are used organically for what little they show up. Jonah also looks noticeably aged, although that does raise the question of why nobody else does.

Annie is well characetrized and believable as a teenager who is both unreasonable about the cringe factor of her Dad teaching at her school and well over her head in getting mixed up with Lacey and Reece. Her growth in the story is also done well as she has to become more akin to a parent and grows to accept her Dad’s place at her school. Fundamentally Annie is played as a nice balance between trying to be responsible but tripped up by youthful arrogance and deep need for independence. Does that remind you of anyone Spider-Man fans?

·         Houser continues to play Peter Parker, out of touch Dad (complete with Dad jokes), believably

·         MJ as the mediator between Peter and Annie also feels very believable for the characters

·         The mugging scene was funny

·         Houser throws shade at Slott’s shitty Peter Parker paparazzi arc

·         Peter being a teacher again is lovely although it’s in a different field to what he was teaching in the JMS run. This is actually a good way of allowing something comfortingly familiar yet also unique for RYV, and is possibly set up for Houser to use going forward. Best of all it comes out of relatable financial problems that have been common to Spider-Man since day 1.

·         Annie adopting a tech role in the school drama club is an eloquent way of having her find something that’s both a reference to her mother and father’s passions

·         All of conversations between Peter and MJ and between Annie and her parents were done well...with one sort of exception but we will get there

·         Bringing Normie back into the picture, for all the problems I discussed, is an eloquent way of reinstating him into the post time-skip status quo and his reconnection with Annie brings things full circle from Annie’s other friends drifting away

·         The Normie flashbacks were adorable

I’ll get this out of the way...Mister Sinister. Let’s put aside how so far he’s done nothing in the book, his presence in a Spider title is just unwanted·         Peter, even in issue #16 where he is more present, feels rather...undermined. I’m trying to figure out a more political correct way of saying this besides ‘Peter is kind of a Beta here’ but off the top of my head I just can’t. It just doesn’t feel right when Peter is played as immature as his teenage daughter to the point where he ignores a crime in progress and is insulted along with his daughter by MJ, or where Annie is angrily telling him off when he’s in costume in school and he passively just agrees with it. This was something knocking around a little bit in the previous arc when Logan was telling him off in issue #13 too and was sort of there a little bit under Conway. Its never been as bad as here though, but I guess it’s a nitpick at the end of the day. Heck the MJ comedy bit was very funny for what it was.·         Stockman’s art isn’t bad and is pretty similar to Roche’s from the previous arc. But there is this unrefined quality to it. It’s not as good as his issue #5 art and of course such a major step down from Stegman. Also it dipped noticeably in issue #18·         The kids turning out to be if not bad then on the dangerous side was incredibly predictable·         The resolution was seriously not great. Reece having feelings for Lacey was not set up until the issue where it was going to become the key to resolving the plot, it should’ve been introduced earlier. In fact the entire Reece/Lacey plot shouldn’t have been brought up towards the end of issue #16 but played out throughout that issue. Similarly the end of the three issues randomly telling us that Lacey and Reece’s abilities had totally faded was trite and far too convenient. Throwing a line in earlier on, even the issue before, that the powers might be temporary would’ve alleviated things.·         Peter and MJ’s confronting Annie in part 3 was a nice scene but the ending where they just pat themselves on the back and say ‘we did good’ felt rote and not really true. A sign the arc was kind of falling apart a bit towards the end.

  Over all I’d give this arc a C-

[eddycurrents]

For the week of 11 September 2017

Just one favourite this week: Ninjak #0 by Matt Kindt and Francis Portela (with MJ Kim, Khari Evans, Roberto de la Torre, Sija Hong, and Juan José Ryp). Published by Valiant.

Ninjak #0 provides a capstone to Matt Kindt’s run with the character, giving both an encapsulation of Ninjak’s history to date and one final mission to propel the series further into a more in-depth exploration into the Ninja Programme and legacy, before handing the character off to Christos Gage and Tomás Giorello for their new Ninja-K series.

I very much like how Kindt plays with time in this story. After firing an arrow on the first page in the present, the book’s pages are bisected by that arrow’s path, with the top telling of the events immediately leading up to that first page--illustrated by Francis Portela--and the bottom offering snippet’s of Ninjak’s history--illustrated by MJ Kim, Khari Evans, Roberto de la Torre, Sija Hong, and Juan José Ryp. (You can see an example above). It’s an interesting and effective way of delivering a lot of simultaneous information and narrative at once and I was particularly impressed by everyone involved.

As time on the top converges with the arrow, the structure reverts to a standard one timeframe narrative as it leads into a teaser for the new Ninja-K series from Gage and Giorello.

Like with the previous recent zero issue offerings for Bloodshot Reborn and Divinity, this serves as an excellent primer for people interested in the character and in jumping into the Valiant Universe.

Quick Bits:

All New Wolverine #24 wraps up the “Hive” arc guest-starring the Guardians of the Galaxy and Leonard Kirk’s tenure as artist on the series. This arc was fun, with Tom Taylor delivering some very nice and heartfelt interactions between Laura and Gabby, as well as continuing to present some strong characterization with Rocket and Groot.

| Published by Marvel

Amazing Spider-Man #32 is a single issue story of Norman Osborn trying to reclaim his Green Goblin persona. It’s an interesting look into Osborn’s drive and potential, with some absolutely beautiful artwork form Greg Smallwood & Jordie Bellaire.

| Published by Marvel

Birthright #26 provides a jumping on point as it begins a new story-arc. It’s fairly exposition heavy, but Joshua Williamson still makes it feel interesting, even to old readers since there’s a bit of a shift since the last issue. As always Andrei Bressan’s art is beautiful.

| Published by Image / Skybound

Deadpool #36 is a transitional issue from Deadpool working for “Stevil” Hydra Cap and the forthcoming Despicable Deadpool, closing out some old plot threads and sending off the remaining supporting characters, while setting up Wade’s new status quo of reluctantly working for Stryfe. As usual Gerry Duggan mixes in humour while ultimately making Deadpool a tragic figure. 

| Published by Marvel 

Doctor Strange & The Sorcerers Supreme #12 is a fitting send-off to a series that still feels gone to soon. From Javier Rodriguez to this issue’s Nathan Stockman, the series has been great artistically, and this issue’s sideways widescreen format is well appreciated. Robbie Thompson also brings it back full circle to how this excursion started in last year’s Doctor Strange Annual by closing on the “Not So” Ancient One’s journey.

| Published by Marvel

Grass Kings #7 is still an inscrutable beauty. Part crime drama, part mystery, part family drama, part treatise on loyalty and community in an extremely independent society, Matt Kindt and Tyler Jenkins have something special here. This issue adds another layer to the problems that they’ve been having with Cargill, while more explicitly breaking open the mystery of a potential serial killer and giving us some more details on what happened in Bruce’s past that led him to coming home to the Grass Kingdom.

| Published by BOOM! Studios

Gwenpool, The Unbelievable #20 is going to mess with your head. In a good way.

| Published by Marvel

Hulk #10 brings Mariko Tamaki’s second story-arc to a conclusion. I can’t say I enjoyed it as much as I did the first, but there have still been some entertaining moments. The character interaction between Jen and Patsy being particularly strong. 

Also, like the previous issue, the art shift part way through detracts. Both artists, Julian Lopez and Francesco Gaston, are good, but their styles kind of clash. Lopez uses a thick line and somewhat realistic style similar to Jesus Saiz, whereas Gaston has a thinner line and a bit more angular, stylized character composition--much like Georges Duarte, who started this arc. 

| Published by Marvel

Kill or Be Killed #12 pushes Dylan further into darkness, even without his little demon friends whispering not-so-sweet nothings into his ears. As always, Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips are creating a compelling, nuanced story month in and month out. There’s also some good development in Dylan and Kira’s relationship, but, as per the original dissolution, I’m expecting the other shoe to drop sometime soon. 

| Published by Image

Mech Cadet Yu #2 brings Yu and his adopted Robo back to the Sky Academy, where he’s officially accepted as one of the cadets. The story beats are pretty standard coming of age, living through adversity by being a fish out of water, ruffling the feathers of the establishment-type thing, but Greg Pak never allows it to feel old. Yu and his Robo are just too likeable characters to not enjoy seeing their advancement and acceptance. It also helps that Takeshi Miyazawa’s artwork is wonderful. 

Despite not being published under one of their more all-ages imprints like Boom! Box or kaboom!, this series remains something that I think that kids would get a lot of enjoyment out of as well.

| Published by BOOM! Studios

Old Man Logan #28 is a work of art. I don’t know who made a pact with the devil in order to consistently get this level of artwork out of Mike Deodato Jr., but whatever they did since at least the Jeff Lemire Thanos series, Deodato has been producing some of the most beautiful, thoughtful, and compelling work of his career. He’s been a great artist for more than twenty-five years in the industry, but his work lately has been absolutely next level. His shading, page layouts, character designs & staging, and panel transitions are practically a masterclass on the art form.

| Published by Marvel

Pestilence #4 unveils some secrets as we head towards the conclusion. This has been a fairly bloody and brutal tale of knights vs. zombies from Frank Tieri and Oleg Okenev and it’s not letting up. It delivers a nice satisfying crunch.

| Published by Aftershock

Redlands #2 jumps the series ahead to modern day, fleshing out the sisters’ characters and the world that they live in, having pretty much taken over Redlands, Florida following the bloodbath back in ‘77. We’re still left a lot of details out, but we’re given a better look at some of the things going on, as a game of murderous cat and mouse between the sisters and an unknown potential blackmailer unfolds. Jordie Bellaire and Vanessa Del Rey are creating something interesting here and I’m definitely hooked to see what happens next.

| Published by Image

Retcon #1 is...something, I’m not really sure what. Interesting, though, certainly, and something I’ll continue to read for a bit. Ostensibly this is about a team of supernatural beings working for the government, but the interview in the back and the title suggest something else. If anything, the artwork from Toby Cypress is worth the price of admission alone. Still not sure what to think of the story.

| Published by Image

Sacred Creatures #3 again challenges me to decide whether or not I like Pablo Raimondi’s mix of traditional comics art with photography. I’m leaning towards yes.

| Published by Image

Secret Warriors #6 kicks off a two-part arc with the members of the Warriors back on their own. The bulk of the issue is devoted to Daisy tracking down who murdered Coulson and it leads to some humorous exchanges. Who would have known that life model decoys are anatomically correct?

| Published by Marvel

Spy Seal #2 feels even more like a European funny animal book than the first issue. To me it feels like Rich Tommaso is doing a take on something like Tin Tin, but with an anthropomorphic seal, and it’s just wonderful.

| Published by Image

Transformers: Lost Light #9 gives a kind of closure, or at least a transition, to the Natuica/Velocity/Skids character and story arcs. It’s kind of bittersweet when you consider the implications and I expect that James Roberts will undoubtedly revisit this somewhere in the future. Also, the reveal of who the “Grand Architect” is at the end of this issue is pretty epic.

| Published by IDW

Uncanny Avengers #27 is a pretty straight-forward conclusion to the team’s confrontation with Graviton. It’s mostly action, but there are some character moments cementing that this team can still work together fairly effectively. The artwork from Sean Izaakse again is very nice.

| Published by Marvel

Other Highlights: Babyteeth #4, Black Science #31, Clue #4, Curse Words #8, The Damned: Ill-Gotten #4, Defenders #5, Dread Gods #2, First Strike #3, Genius: Cartel #2, Ghost Station Zero #2, Harrow County #25, Hellboy & BPRD - 1955: Occult Intelligence #1, InSEXts #13, Jane, Lumberjanes #42, Mage: The Hero Denied #2, The Realm #1, Riverdale #6, Rocket #5, Rose #6, Runaways #1, The Shadow #2, Shadows on the Grave #8, Slam!: Next Jam #1, The Sovereigns #5, The Spirit: The Corpse Makers #4, Star Wars #36, Star Wars: Doctor Aphra #12, TMNT Universe #14, The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl #24, Venomverse #2, War for the Planet of the Apes #3, Weapon X #8, Winnebago Graveyard #4, X-Men Blue #11

Recommended Collections: Britannia - Vol. 2: We Who Are About to Die, Elektra: Always Bet on Red, Kingpin: Born Against, Saucer Country, TMNT - Vol. 17: Desperate Measures

d. emerson eddy believes that uptown funk is going to give it to you. Don’t believe him? Just watch.

[felassan]

Tomorrow, beyond, [ME]: Andromeda & [you]

Okay squiddos, so - it seems like in terms of Mass Effect: Andromeda news/information, tomorrow (Feb 23rd) is gonna be big/good.

The press were recently given significant looks at the game. If shinobi is to be believed, “they got several hours of hands-on”, and the embargo lifts tomorrow, supposedly at 9am Eastern. That’s 2pm GMT (here is a timezone converter if you need one). Apparently, the press will be allowed to discuss everything they saw in their previews, including missions they played, side missions, gameplay, lore, all six squadmates and how the game begins (but not how Ryder becomes the Pathfinder). 

Even if shinobi can’t be taken at his word or he’s just “predicting” stuff which is obvious/otherwise known (he seems to do that sometimes), there’s other things floating around. IGN have tweeted about a long and thoughtful 2000 word ME:A preview article that should surface at some point tomorrow. [EDIT: UPDATE - This article is going live on IGN at 6am PT, and is reportedly spoiler-free, with the writer saying that she doesn’t discuss the story or narrative at all.] IGN are holding Unlocked (I think that’s a podcast) tomorrow at a specific time so that they can talk about Andromeda there too. Dev Ian Frazier tweeted that the press who saw chargen will be allowed to talk/answer questions about what they saw tomorrow. This Reddit user (who is presumably part of the press) is gearing up and taking questions for an AMA about what they saw during 3 hours of play, saying that they can post answers from 1am Australian eastern time on Friday morning (which is around 9am Eastern, you guessed it, tomorrow [if I’m calculating things right -!]). Beyond “tomorrow” specifically, there are more videos in the gameplay series to come (supposedly the next one may coming out on Friday), Jaal information coming at some point (people are speculating tomorrow for that based on the times the previous character profiles were put up), etc. 

Even if shinobi is just saying things, it’s definitely true that with the previews and such tomorrow, there could be spoilery information or things that some would consider spoilery among the news. And, tomorrow itself aside for a second, with stuff like PAX (March 10-12th, BioWare are going to have a panel there and they say it’s going to be big, Cora’s writer will be there [EDIT: UPDATE - the panel and Q&A is from 4-5pm local time on March 10th, and is stated to contain never-before-seen gameplay and new secrets about what lies beyond the Milky Way, but no spoilers]) on the horizon and the upcoming early access trial, we’re definitely entering the period where some spoilers are going to start flying around. Therefore for those of you who are intending to go dark or considering going dark, I’d say now might be a good time to do so (just my opinion). If you’re looking for an alternative, safer community to fill your “Mass Effect discussion” fix til the game comes out (sadly on Tumblr people can’t all be trusted to tag things properly, and there’s no moderation of that sort of thing), I think r/masseffect might be a good shout. From the sounds of things, it seems like the mods there will be doing their utmost to enforce and ensure that people can browse the sub without stumbling into blatant, poorly-handled spoiler titles and information.

[EDIT: UPDATE - Ian has tweeted more details about the potential for spoilers. Press played both early and mid-game content, so light spoilage is possible. Read carefully.]

Now, I would have had to make a post with the following housekeeping information and request at some point soon anyway, so off the back of the above, now is as good a time as any.

For those of you who feel you know enough already, want to discover the rest in-game as you play or who are otherwise concerned about spoilers, but want to keep reading my blog, here’s some essential housekeeping relating to spoilers: this is not a spoiler-free blog. However, starting from tomorrow because of the lifting embargo and stuff, I’ll be tagging spoilers with all of the following tags - “spoilers”, “spoiler”, “Mass Effect: Andromeda spoilers”, “Mass Effect: Andromeda spoiler”, “Mass Effect Andromeda spoilers”, “Mass Effect Andromeda spoilers”, “Andromeda spoilers”, “Andromeda spoiler”, “MEA spoilers” and “MEA spoiler” - in an effort to catch as much of them for as many of you as possible. Hopefully that list is extensive enough. Add to your blacklist as applicable. It’s hard for me to say right now what will constitute a spoiler for me to tag in the first place... Any further or detailed story information I’d class as a spoiler, same for specific details about missions and further information on characters (not including Jaal’s official character profile, if he gets one), basically anything not officially said or revealed by BioWare themselves in their marketing, and further down the line, all things I find out from playing the game after launch definitely - but I’ll try my best. Any leaked or supposedly-leaked information is already posted/discussed under a cut with pre-warnings - any more of these will be now be tagged with the same spoiler tags. Hopefully that helps you out somewhat with your experience of my blog, anyway. I’ll understand if you need to unfollow for a while or would rather be safe than sorry, etc. If you have any issues, questions or requests regarding this sort of thing, feel free to send me a message.

On that note, I actually don’t want to know much more about the game in terms of lore, characters and story than what I do right now, so I’ll be trying to avoid spoilery stuff myself. I definitely don’t really want to know stuff to do with characters/story that comes from sources other than BioWare’s official marketing (EXCEPTION: the list of LIs and their sexualities). With that in mind, from now on news/information posts might be patchy or otherwise not contain everything that’s come to light. I’ll be trying to navigate the spoiler minefield to find spoiler-free rundowns of new information put together by other people who don’t care about spoilers, and especially towards and following the early access trial and launch itself I’ll be limiting my time on Tumblr and other sites, stuff like that. I want to enjoy and discover the game as I play it just as you do. Also with that in mind, I’m turning off Anon asks from now until after I feel I’ve played through the game sufficiently (probably a week/some weeks or so after release). I’m doing that because in the past (DA:I) people have seen fit to send me spoilers on Anon, for whatever reason. Sorry in advance for any inconvenience caused by these things, especially the Anon thing (cause I love getting messages!). :( Because of this preference to not be spoiled I also have to ask that you don’t send me links to new leaks, send me asks discussing spoilers from articles that you haven’t seen me post about, ask me my thoughts on [x] story revelation that you haven’t seen me post about, tell me about your reaction to something that happened in your playthrough shortly after launch, etc until a reasonable amount of time since launch has passed or you see a post from me saying I’m turning on Anon asks again or that I’ve finished my initial playthroughs (something to that effect).

Closer to the trial and to launch I’ll reblog this information a couple of times. My liveblogging tag for the game is going to be “MJ in Andromeda”, so you may wish to blacklist this also.

Hopefully we can work together to keep the game unspoiled and our Tumblr site-experiences as regular and smooth as possible. :)

Thanks for reading, sry for the longpost, I know it was pretty damn dry.

[fightingdiamond]

KCON LA 2017 fanaccount!!

part 3: Astro!!!!!! 

I saw pictures on twitter of Hoshi leaving LA!!! He looks a lot better already!!!! I'm so glad~

Ahhhhh we're almost getting to the end 😔 I felt like I didn't even do much at the convention, just a lot of waiting in lines and walking around the expo hall just looking, but I was pretty sad for it to be over. Next time I go, I'll definitely try to attend more panels and other actual events rather than just waiting around 😂

After seeing VIXX by chance on Saturday, as soon as I could on Sunday, I went to the Toyota booth and asked when Astro was going to show up. They kept telling me Astro was coming at 2 and (in my head) I was like umm sweaty their fan engagement is at 2???? But eventually they told me Astro was gonna come right after their fan engagement ended, so it'd be hard to get a good view of them at both the fan engagement and at the booth. I'd already walked past the audience line for Astro and around noon it was so long already!!!!! I was so shocked, I didn't know Astro had so many fans???? Don't get me wrong, I'm proud of my babies, but I was so surprised!!!! Eventually I decided I was just gonna wait in the audience line and try to get as good a view as possible, and to hightail it outta there as soon as the hi-touch started so I could try to get a good view at the Toyota booth. 

Arohas (Astro's fanclub for those who don't know) are so sweet!!! They're the nicest people I met all weekend, oh my god. The people near me in line were so friendly and down-to-earth - like, I was pleasantly surprised at how critical they were of problematic fandom happenings and how they didn't let their passionate love for our idols blind them to the respect that our idols deserve ❤️ Astro are pretty young, I think Rocky and Sanha are both still underage? We struck up a conversation about that really quickly, and about how frustrated we were with people who sexualize underage idols (not just Astro but also Seventeen, NCT Dream, etc). It was so lovely, I wanted to cry a little bit 😍 I love Arohas! A lot of the fans I talked to were also pretty young, so I was even more impressed at how mature they were!

I also met an Aroha who's also a Wonwoo stan! Her name is Mia, she's the same age as my sister and is literally so precious ❤️ she reminds me of my sister but without any of the annoying parts 😏😏😏 Arohas and Wonwoo stans are so precious and need to be protected at all costs 😌😌😌

I didn't get that great of a view of the fan engagement but it was awesome just to be there! I'd already seen VIXX and Seventeen up close the day before so it was okay that I didn't get to see Astro too close; next time I would love to be closer to them, but it was really nice to be able to see them with my own eyes at all 😍 Eunwoo is so tall????? And Rocky is so gorgeous 😍

I filmed the whole engagement so I'll just throw out some things I remember!

-Eunwoo's eyes literally sparkle??? I don't know how he does it!!! He's so beautiful, oh my god. I read comments on the internet saying that Eunwoo was even more beautiful in real life, and I....have to say I kinda disagree? Those comments must've come from people who didn't already think Eunwoo was the most beautiful person they'd ever seen, because I think he is and I honestly don't know how he could be MORE beautiful 😅 the only thing I have to say about seeing Eunwoo in person is that he literally has the sparkly anime eyes going on, but in real life somehow 😍

-Sanha is so freaking tall! LOL

-Jinjin looked really soft with his bangs down, it was so cute 😌

-when they got the part-switch mission from rolling the die, I was squirming in anticipation already!! But then Eunwoo said, in freaking absolutely perfect English, "do you guys know our title track Confession?" I SCREAMED SO LOUDLY OMG I love Confession so much!!!!!! 😍 it literally powered me through studying for my biochem final 😂 AND THEN. AND THEN!!! ROCKY STARTED SINGING!!!!! I almost cried, I've been waiting my whole life to hear that boy sing and it was absolutely perfect 😍😍😍 I would sell my soul for Rocky to get more singing lines!!!! And Jinjin sang the chorus of Confession and that was equally amazing, oh my god. Then Eunwoo and Moonbin rapped and ahhhh they were so cute!!!! I love Astro!!!! I'm gonna be honest here, I'm sometimes disappointed in their live performances on music shows but I'm so baffled now as to why they sometimes don't sound good, because they all sounded perfect at the fan engagement???? Eunwoo and Moonbin were asked to sing their favorite pop songs too and they both sang Justin Bieber and freaking killed it!!! All of Astro's voices are so strong and perfect and literally they could be the next power vocal group???? Why hasn't this happened yet?????? They're amazing ❤️❤️❤️

-Rocky did a sexy dance and I almost felt bad cheering because he's underage but he was really feeling it, I just couldn't deny him the fun he was having! 

-they were asked to say what they thought they could do better than the member to their left and they were all so savage LMAO

-at one point they were picking the next member to roll the die and some fans started chanting MJ! MJ! and the chant caught on - it was so cool seeing how the fans all came together to support each other and our boys ❤️

-at the end the maknaes (Sanha and Rocky) rolled favorite pop song again so the MC was like ahhh, do you guys (the fans) just wanna see a sexy dance? And there was this collective uproar LOL I don't know how much of it was encouraging the sexy dance and how much of it was refusing, but the MC caught on to the correct answer clearly because he was like, ok, just do aegyo then! Thank you to the powers that be for protecting my babies 🙏🏽

When they started announcing the hi-touch, Mia and I left and hurried to the Toyota booth. She stayed outside the expo doors to try to see them walking in, and I rushed inside to try to worm my way close to the booth. I'm not kidding, I seriously sprinted! The things I do for Astro, I swear 😍

I think I ended up probably four or five rows from the front? But because I'm so short it really wasn't close enough 😭 my sister needs to come with me next time, she's taller than me 😭 I could see the boys when they came into the booth, but they didn't notice me even though I was screaming for Eunwoo and Rocky 😅 I also hadn't brought a sign or banner or anything, which probably would've helped them notice me 😂

They played a little trivia game with us and took some pictures with lucky fans, and then they were off again 😭 I met up with Mia outside and we exchanged videos! It made me realize that mistakes were made on Saturday haha 😂😂😂 I had had a pretty good view of VIXX walking in, but I was silly and got caught up in the moment and tried to go inside the expo and see them at the booth, but there were already way too many people there so I barely saw them. I should've just stayed in my spot outside and waited for them to come back out! I might've even been able to get Hakyeon's attention then 😭 oh well, now I know for next time!

I went to a panel about LGBT kpop fandom, which was obviously super cool! Lol something that sticks out in my memory is when they opened it up for questions and one person was like, "so you know that whole no homo thing that some idols do?" And I was like, is this a JB callout post because same 😶

And then.....it was over.....😓 all in all it was a great first KCON! I spent a lot of money but that's ok, I'm not planning to do something like this again for a loooong time 😅 

I'll post some advice and tips too~

[militaryspouse101]

New Post has been published on Military Spouse

New Post has been published on http://militaryspouse.com/msoy/town-hall-2017-did-we-empower-you/

Town Hall 2017: Did We Empower YOU?

Military Spouse magazine hosted its 5th annual Town Hall sponsored by Allstate on May 11 at the Army-Navy Country Club in Arlington, Va. Five sessions throughout the day touched on a different aspect of empowerment. Check out what each panel and speaker contributed to the message.

Sponsors, How Do YOU Empower?

Moderator: Sue Hoppin, founder and president, National Military Spouse Network

Panel members:

Melissa Christmann, military program manager, Allstate

Tom Down, diversity and military talent acquisition manager, Capital One

Herrick Ross, recruiter, military talent acquisition, Starbucks

Theresa Lepow, senior program manager for military recruiting, Amazon

credit: Steve Barrett Photography

TAKEAWAYS:

“The people in the room with you today are your tribe. In a time when resources are scarce and vary from installation to installation. We have one resource that never goes away: each other. Remember that and you’ll go far.” ~Sue Hoppin

Allstate: “If your program doesn’t include military spouses you only have half of a program.”

Capital One: “We look at spouses as equally as we do veterans.”

Starbucks: “As military spouses you have the opportunity to see the world in a different way.”

Amazon: “We look to hire military spouses and then retain them and honor them. I look to build a military spouse program with a menu of options.”

Each of the representative companies championed the military spouse employee and what they can bring to the table. One key takeaway? Be proud of the fact that you’re a military spouse. Be sure to self-identify if there is an option. These companies want to know you’re a spouse. They are looking for the skills you bring to the table.

As with any other job seeker, though, be calculated and specific about what jobs you apply to. Keep your resume to one to two pages. Use your cover letter to show your personality, explain any gaps in your resume and really iterate what an important role being a military spouse is. “Your cover letter should reflect what job you’re applying for. I know it’s a lot of work, but it’s what gets you a job.”

Consider three Cs when applying for jobs: Culture, commute and compensation. How you prioritize those is up to you.

Regarding the sometimes awkward salary conversation, the panel members emphasized research and realistic expectations. Websites such as glassdoor.com and salary.com give reasonable expectations as to what number is appropriate based on job title and location. Don’t forget to take other benefits into consideration, too; the whole benefit package counts. Don’t focus on a target number. Rather, have a salary range and be flexible.

Each company differed in work from home policies. The common takeaway is to have a conversation with your manager. Company policies vary, and policies vary by specific job and manager as well.

Empower YOU Panel of Milspouses

Moderator: MJ Boice, in-house staff writer, National Military Family Association

Panel members:

Holly Vega, stay-at-home parent, 2017 Quantico Base Spouse of the Year

Brittany Boccher, advocate, 2017 Armed Forces Insurance Military Spouse of the Year

Lauren Hope, entrepreneur for-profit, 2017 United States Military Academy Spouse of the Year

Verenice Castillo, entrepreneur nonprofit, 2013 Armed Forces Insurance Air Force Spouse of the Year

Jennifer Mullen, business professional, Verizon Wireless, 2016 Armed Forces Insurance Coast Guard Spouse of the Year

credit: Steve Barrett Photography

TAKEAWAYS:

Why do you do what you do?

“We pursue this niche because we have to. I’ve strived to have my own circumstance aside from the military. I like my own identity. What that means for me is I work and have something I’m passionate about. It’s whatever is appropriate for me in that season of my life. It’s a chosen reason.” ~Mullen

“I’m not in my husband’s shadows. I’m equally beside you. I am a volunteer. I am proud to be a volunteer and serve my community wherever I go and my children get to see that.” ~Vega

“We all have a purpose. It took one day for me to start meeting families for me to realize why didn’t I choose to do this sooner? Then I started getting more involved until there was no turning back. If I was going to do this, I would do it all the way. Running a nonprofit can be crazy and overwhelming. My husband will tell me to remember why you’re doing this. It’s not about you; it’s about those who you serve. That will always be my why.” ~Castillo

 How do you measure success with what you want to do?

“At the end of the day, it’s about happiness. That’s it. I don’t need accolades or recognition. It’s if I’m happy with what I did that day when I lay my head down on my pillow at night. I don’t measure success over time; it’s literally each day.” ~Boccher

“We’re all here for a reason and I’d like to know that reason. The tribe I surround myself with is success. I’m a professionally trained chef by trade. After my son was diagnosed with multiple food allergies I had to stop everything that identified me to take care of him. Life changes. Priorities change. My family comes first. I’ve had a hard time identifying with my new life. Jewelry has always been a hobby but when cooking went out and I needed another creative outlet, jewelry came in. I’m flattered and honored it’s taken off.” ~Hope

All of the panelists agreed spouses need to ask the questions about what they can do to help and have a meaningful answer when someone asks them how they can help. Junior or senior spouse, moving is still scary. Find an organization, go in and tell them what you can offer. Ensure you share a mutual vision. If visions aren’t in alignment, you’ll end up following someone else’s rather than yours. “There is someone out there with your vision and passion who will want to work you.” Also be sure to ask for a seat at an organization’s table; you might be surprised how many tell you to pull up a chair and join.

Mentorship also is important. Find at least one mentor you can talk to; these people can change based on what season of life you’re in. It’s about building a whole support system.

Do three things: Embrace military life, embrace military community and embrace opportunities afforded to you as military spouses because they are abundant.

Now that YOU’re Empowered – How to Talk to the Decision Makers

Presenter: Elizabeth Adams, Director, Ceremonies and Protocol, Air Force District Washington

credit: Steve Barrett Photography

TAKEAWAYS:

Etiquette and formal protocol is never out of style. Within 30 seconds of meeting, people have established first impressions. Wear age appropriate clothing that reflects your personality, is appropriate for the occasion and is current and fashionable – but not trendy. A little trendy is OK; a lot trendy is not.

Dining etiquette: Don’t unfold your napkin until it’s already on your lap. Then, unfold it only half. One never drinks a toast to oneself. Set a knife down on the plate with the blade facing in. Never take a bite off of a roll; rather, break off the bite you’re going to eat and butter only that.

Cell phone etiquette: Maintain a privacy range. Use your library voice. Put it on vibrate or turn it off. Do not put your phone on the dining table.

RSVP etiquette: Respond by the due date no matter what your answer is. If you must cancel, do it personally within 48 or 72 hours.

Nearly 75 percent of adults experience anxiety at a party with strangers. To help alleviate that, improve your mingling skills and small talk to find connections. Be well read and listen to the news. Focus on the other person and remember to never interrupt.

Handshaking: Shake from the elbow using two smooth pumps. Maintain a firm, but not hard, grip. Clammy hands? Own it. Avoid large rings on your right hand and wearing fragrance to be sensitive to many people who have fragrance allergies.

Empowering YOU While Keeping You Safe

Presenter: Alexandra Brown, senior consultant in the advisory services, Ernst & Young LLP

credit: Steve Barrett Photography

TAKEAWAYS:

In a world of oversharing with social media, Brown recommends following The Dinner Rule: “If you wouldn’t invite them into your home, do not have them on your social media.”

Information is power, money, safety and security. Protect yours. The C.I.A. of information is it needs to be confidential, maintain the integrity of how it was originally published and it needs to be available.

Even if you post something online and delete it, it never fully disappears (the “digital tattoo”). Think before you post anything on social media. Online photos now will exist for generations. “We have become a generation of content producers. Privacy as you know it no longer exists.” When you post a photo of your child, think about if it could come back to bite them in 10 years, or when they’re looking for a job. Will your social media post affect or hurt them in some way?

Secret apps also are prevalent these days, such as Cover Me, Calculator Photo Apps and Omegle. Monitor your child’s technology closely. Encourage your child to write in a journal using a pen and paper rather than posting their feelings online. Brown does not give her children privacy with technology, but gives them total privacy with their pen and paper journals. “They are one click from anyone in this world; most children are not equipped with the maturity to handle that.”

To avoid ransomware, which prevents a victim from accessing critical data and system function until a fee is paid to the attackers, get in the habit of once a month downloading everything on your computer to an external hard drive and then unplug the hard drive until your next update.

Consider using passphrases instead of passwords. “Criminals are smart, don’t make it easy for them.” A passphrase, for example, could be derived from saying “I like Starbucks at 2 p.m.” The passphrase is shortened to ILoveSB@2p. That’s a strong password, and very hard to hack into. “Passwords are the key to your kingdom. Protect those.”

For more information, visit Facebook.com/OPSECforFamilies.

Take Care of YOU and Empower All Generations

Presenter: Corie Weathers, Licensed Professional Counselor, 2015 Armed Forces Insurance Military Spouse of the Year

credit: Steve Barrett Photography

TAKEAWAYS:

The biggest thing Weathers hears from spouses is that they don’t know what their purpose is. “My biggest concern is spouses today are chameleons and we have an identity problem,” she says.

“How will you serve or empower anybody else if you don’t know who you are? Let your own light shine, which gives other people permission to do the same. When you stop being afraid and insecure, that’s when you have power. Not that you use over other people – power you use as influential to make a difference in other people’s lives.”

What kind of a superhero are you as a military spouse? Where are you on your superhero journey? Weathers walks through the steps each superhero takes on their journey.

Backstory. Before a superhero has a power, they have a backstory. It’s often painful, but your backstory matters to your purpose and to what makes you passionate.

Call to adventure. Some superheroes have denied their calling at first, which is a sabotage moment. It’s not about who’s against you or who you’re out to rescue; it’s about yourself, who you’ll be and what you need to do within yourself to deal with it all.

Answer the call. No one can make the choice for you if you’re going to answer a call or not; you have to answer it yourself and realize it’s worth it to move forward with messy people and a messy life. True healing happens in the backstory when you can bring purpose and meaning to what’s happened and use it to bring hope into other people’s lives.

Blessing, which comes right after internal conflict. There is always a blessing on the other side of answering a call. We fear the blessings won’t come after internal conflicts, but they do.

Establish a dual persona. Superheroes have gone through a growth. Every superhero must go home and wrestle with the fact they are different. They know something about the world and about themselves they didn’t know before. You’re ready to make an impact on the world when you realize you can be in both places. You don’t have to be fully accepted anywhere for you to accept yourself. You are you wherever you go.

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[oliveroctavius]

Did you check out the first issue of the new Ultimate Spider-Man? I'd be curious to see your thoughts

I was planning on letting it pass by me, zen-like. I kind of... disapprove of the entire concept. The more redundant universes Marvel creates (note that I say redundant, in that I like some AUs with recognizably different heroes and story lines) the more it approaches a DC-like level of story fragmentation, where nothing has to matter and everything runs on vibes. Every new restart survives an even shorter amount of time. It's a death spiral.

But alright. I may not know who Hickman is but some other people seem to like him. I'm Charlie Brown, the new title is a football, here's some of the whistling my foot makes as it flies through the air.

First off a disclaimer: comics are into longform storytelling these days, so almost nothing happens in this issue by design. This is a setup, not a story. I can point out some pettier dislikes, but I can't know what might turn out well yet.

I get that this is going to tie in to the Maker, but calling this USM is a bogus decision that is going to cause so much confusion down the line. It's like they didn't want to admit they were setting up yet a third story. See above grouch about redundant universes.

Uncle Ben being alive instead of Aunt May is a hell of a decision. But I like Hell Of A Decisions if they're pulled off with confidence. I miss og USM's ponytailed gentle old hippie Uncle Ben, I admit. He had a surprising amount of characterization, which I always liked about that series.

I... do not get... why they are homewrecking Robbie + JJJ for Ben. Like, I'm kind of offended on Robbie's behalf. og USM already put some of Robbie's plotlines into Ben--I mean, Ben Urich's hands, but this is more based on 616, isn't it? Robertson's personal moral compass and how that interacts with his job and his safety and his journalistic ethics AND his relationship with Jameson's short-sighted tendencies have been the core of his character for 60 years. Could we not think of something new for Uncle Ben to be doing instead of overwriting an existing character relationship and adding next to nothing to it? And Robbie's there and just kind of fine with the Kingpin's proposal as far as we see so far. This is probably my biggest complaint.

The kids could be an interesting element, but we don't really see any of that yet so it's purely potential.

The Harry fans seem to like this new Harold and his visual design so far. I suppose he's not fully flavorless but the flavor that is there is like. Salt and pepper.

MJ could stand to look older and have more characterization but that is not an original observation. Wait, she's definitely based off her 616 self and not her USM self isn't she? God why DID they call this USM, this is a structural publishing nightmare

The Goblin design is what people think the Raimi goblin costume was, which is not exactly a compliment. Also I *know* I'm the Goblin Fan but are there, really no other villains you could think of to open with? No? Is this the only plot point that's ever going to get adapted over and over again? Maybe it will be good and I'll be glad, I think! And then imagine Charlie Brown and the football again.

Another thing that really got me was the churning camera angles on some of the simplest scenes here. I respect the dutch angle hustle, Chechetto, but if I'm feeling seasick while trying to follow a scene where people have a conversation while sitting down then you might want to rethink your strategy.

To misquote Roger Ebert for a second, "the penciler has learned from better comics that artists sometimes tilt their panels, but it seems he has not learned why."

[hellzyeahthewebwieldingavenger]

Abramazing Spider-Man #2 Thoughts

More crap.

Let’s deal out some of the minor positives I have.

The art continues to be nice.

Having a Spider-Man get into heroing via the influence of their love interest is something different for whatever that is worth.

Ben burning the suit only to then immediately regret it was a funny subersion of expectations. It made me chuckle.

The only thing I noted as derivative of older Spider-Man stories was the cliché burning of the costume in the backyard.

The recap page did a good job of catching up new readers. Yes. I’m praising the recap page. Let that sink in.

Okey dokey that’s enough now.

Whilst last issue initially made me vaguely interested before chatter surrounding me converted me into hating it, this issue was more bland and going by through the motions.

The thing is last issue so utterly tainted my (and everyone else’s) experience that I am struggling to look past the fact that this is obviously amateurish and actively deceptive of the readers.

That’s perhaps made me resentful to most of the things in the story, I know I’m probably not being fair and balanced in my approach to it.

But all I can say here is how I felt about the book and how I felt about it was supremely unimpressed.

I want to address some tiny points before diving deeper. So Peter is a super scientist but somehow he couldn’t find or design a camera that would work better for him as a one handed man?

Benny clearly never used the webshooters before and yet he’s swinging around with a degree of experience that doesn’t make sense when it’s literally his first try. Hell he’s even carrying someone while he’s at it.

I also don’t get the passage of time or the physics of the web swinging scene. So they are standing on the ground, he shoots a webline, smash cut to a splash page of them swinging, with the dialogue clearly conveying the latter clearly follows the former. Comic books are sequential storytelling. One scene or sequence should lead into another, in particular when conveying movement. Ron Frenz was a master at this, rarely if ever, were you questioning how characters moved from Position A to Position B. I don’t know if this was Pichelli’s fault or if it was Henry Abrams just wanting a cool shot but it sucks.

The recap page claims that Ben accidentally hit the bully from last issue harder than he meant to, and maybe I’m just forgetting something, but I did not get that impression. So good job telling me stuff about last issue that the story itself failed to convey.

Finally Faye Ito/Ito Faye/Asian Michelle Jones/Benny’s Manic Pixie Dream Girl stereotype collides face first mid swing into a billboard. But she’s fine. She’s not even scratched or banged up? What? Would that have made her less pretty or something? Also I guess that scene was a callback to Spider-Man 2002, but I’m not griping about that.

Let’s move on to the more significant problems with the comic book.

I’m not the first person to point this out, but I think it bears repeating, this comic book feels like a movie, and I mean that in a bad way.

The panelling feels like a fill storyboard more than a comic book, it’s not making great use of the things you can do with the medium or the space provided. You want a great example of the opposite check out the art in Absolute Carnage: Seperation Anxiety #1.

Tied in with this criticism is the idea that the Abrams (well Abrams the younger) have developed this story like a film.

I am going to slightly disagree here. I think it’s more as though they’ve designed this as a prestige TV mini-series with a Hollywood film budget. I say this because the way this issue starts and finishes feels like a Netflix episode more than the second half hour of a movie.

Part and parcel of that was the obnoxiously incremental advancement of the Cadaverous and Peter subplots. Cadaverous spewed random cryptic nonsense that existed more to remind us he existed than actually accomplish anything.

Peter’s job overseas...again, why is he not just a scientist if he’s retired altogether? He’s not even a science photographer, he’s basically a grizzled Jimmy Olsen or something. Peter became a shutterbug because it was convenient, he didn’t really want to do that long term as a career, his ambitions lay in science, a job that if anything would be far more accommodating for his disability than going to dangerous parts of the Middle East to awkwardly snap photos. It’s not even like being a scientist would preclude him from getting away from NYC or his son if that’s the idea. He could be travelling for conventions and conferences. I also don’t get why we needed as many scenes of Peter overseas as we got nor why it bothered to linger on the tragedies experienced by the people there. It wasn’t like it was a lot but it’s panel time that could be put to better use. At best it felt like a pretentious attempt at being deep, at worst it might be set up that plays into the story later. The thing is the Middle East doesn’t really make for great Spider-Man stories, nor indeed most international conflicts.

Getting into the meat of this issue...Faye...fuckign Faye.

She’s a cliché.

In fact lots of stuff in this story is cliché, it’s just that unlike last issue they aren’t cliches specifically drawing from older Spider-Man stories, they’re more general clichés.

The thing that really annoyed me with Faye and Benny’s interactions was that she was obviously being played up as a kind of remixed Black Cat/Catwoman due to her costume. Like she’s supposed to be a bad influence on him or something, exemplified by the fact that she shoots down and subverts Peter’s famous motto about responsibility. It didn’t even make sense. Having responsibility gives you power...what?????????????????????????

Benny himself continues to be bland and boring as a protagonist to follow. Like so much of this story thus far he feels like a typical film or TV protagonist having issues with their Dad and in that regard is just going through the motions. I dunno if I’d call him passive per se, but he’s not too far removed from being passive that’s for sure; but not as passive as Aunt May.

I mean blaming his Dad for abandoning being Spider-Man and his mother’s death. I practically predicted the dialogue from the moment that scene started up and whilst okay it’s never been done in Spider-Man before strictly speaking it’s so generic to countless other forms of media, including other superhero comic books, it’s just banal.

His belief that he is a freak is also questionable, specifically it brings into question the world building of this universe. Were this a world where only Spider-Man existed as a hero (more or less like the Raimi movies) then that’d be fine. Even in a world of mutants that’d also be fine, though you’d imagine mutant acceptance would’ve 10+ years removed from when Peter was active. But so far this version of the Marvel Universe feels very generalized in regards to the MCU.

It’s like the Spider-Man and MJ of this universe were generalized versions of the Raimi films iteration, jammed into a generalized version of the MCU where mutants do not exist and the 2012 Avengers are THE Avengers. But if that’s the world Benny grew up in, why would being born with powers make him jump to ‘freak’? He’s just a superhero, that’s cool in a world where there is no mutant stigma and where the Avengers are revered fallen heroes.*

My final criticism is in regards to the final sequence. It was just weird.

Benny and the civilian he was rescuing had dialogue that was far more casual than the situation demanded. Like dude, you’ve been blown up, buried alive and rescued by a bona fide superhero who’s not been seen in 10 years and now killer robots are surrounding you. Who is that chill in such a scenario? Who goes through all that and at the end basically says ‘lol classic Spidey lol’?????

The civilian also had odd dialogue where it was as though Henry was throwing shade at the premise of the book itself, about how lame an older, disabled Spider-Man with a beard and a kid would be.

But like Henry...YOU came up with that? If you think it’s lame why are you making 5 issues worth of it????????????????

My final point is that whilst the artwork is praiseworthy, it’s also far from Pichelli’s best work. It’s in fact noticeably lower quality than the work she was producing on the 2016 Miles Morales titles or even the debut of that character.

My recommendation?

Don’t read this. If you are truly curious wait for the trade to come out and then buy it as cheaply as possible?

As for me, I’m sticking this out to the end but I’m also going to be saving my money and reducing my order to just one copy and have cancelled my pre-order of the trade.

Ever since Spencer showed up I’ve made a concerted effort to support the spider titles I like and want to see more of (that’s code for the titles featuring MJ) and since last issue deceived me and this issue failed to impress, I don’t want more work like this from Marvel in the future.

*Also I’m going to be pissed if it turns out a chucklefuck like Cadaverous wound up taking out the Avengers somehow. Like really, this clown did them in?

[hellzyeahthewebwieldingavenger]

ASM vol 5 #25/826 Story 1 Thoughts

Wow!

Now THIS is how you do a milestone issue...even though the milestone was last issue but whatever!

In some ways this issue reminded me of a lot of DC’s recent milestone issues for the Trinity. Wonder Woman’s 75th Anniversary special, Action Comics #1000, Detective Comics #1000.

By this I mean you have multiple artists contributing and the story feels like vignettes.

The difference though is that most of these vignettes are in fact part of the same story.

The downside of that is that it does make the main story ‘Opening Night’ feel somewhat disjointed because there are 3 or 4 endings. It could’ve been easily fixed by simply presenting the Syndicate pages and the Gleason pencilled pages as their own stories (which functionally they are) or at least as clearly labelled epilogues.

That’s a nitpick though because the main story over all was fantastic, no pu....actually pun very much intended. Why not Spencer likes his puns and meta jokes and there was plenty of the latter in this issue. Case in point Kindred’s jabs about continuity.

Let me get some minor negatives out of the way.

The changing artists really, really didn’t complement one another exempting Kev Walker and Ottley’s work. Ramos’ artwork wasn’t well integrated with the rest of the art at all, as was the case with his work in the Heist arc back in the earlier issues. Gleason’s work I will give a little more of a pass too because as presented it feels so much like it’s own separate story and has consistent art within those pages it’s not really a problem. But with Ramos and Ottley it’s very jarring.

Now it is the lesser evil because I’d rather have Ramos draw some pages and panels rather than the whole issue. Reserving him for, let’s face it, the less important B-plot of the main story whilst Ottley does the heavy lifting on the main story is a great compromise.

Other small complaints I have involve Mary Jane herself and her storyline.

For starters...Carlie Cooper is back. Now she isn’t used badly, it’s just...I hate that character. I don’t think many people have many positives to say about her and there is baggage associated with her. So if she is destined to become MJ’s go to buddy then that’s going to grind my gears (especially when we consider she let MJ risk her life by dating Otto in Superior, what a jerk!) and I’d infinitely prefer a wholesale new character or an old established character (Liz, Glory, Jill Stacy even?).

Buuuuuuuut on the flipside Carlie was better suited to being MJ’s sidekick in this story given she got involved in some of the action. Possibly even seeing her get zapped was Spencer putting in a piece of catharsis for the many fans he knows honestly hate this character.

Secondly we got MJ’s acting career. Now there are three little problems I have with it that might not even be problems. Let me explain.

a)      MJ claims she lost her Secret Hospital job because of the nature of her life. I took that very much as an implication associated with her connection to Spider-Man. Problem is...she didn’t lose her job because of Spider-Man. Her role just happened to be cut back and eventually if I remember correctly she either quit following a deranged fan assaulting her or she was outright fired. Now in defence of her comment and of Spencer, the line doesn’t explicitly mention Peter or anything like that so it could easily be taken as her life being in general crazy regardless. Bear this in mind for something else I’m going to bring up

b)      MJ claims she never liked being famous. That really struck me because of course MJ wanted to be famous from day 1. Now you could easily argue that when we first met MJ she was younger and had yet to experience fame, so now she feels differently. Buuuuuuut she was a model in her adulthood. She pursued acting as a soap star, and as a movie star and as a stage star and took a job at Stark industries and at various points was modelling during those jobs. Soooooooooo what gives? I mean....maybe you could say she hated aspects of being famous but the speech seems weird and inconsistent in and of itself even. I’m hoping I’m just missing something

c)       MJ says she had trouble fitting in and then over did it in social situations. I dunno if that’s really true. It could be bad phrasing on Spencer’s part but really MJ always did fit in, her facade helped her to fit in, it was partially engineered to help her to do that. Is that what he means though?

d)      MJ becoming a famous actress again gives me mixed feelings. Spider-Man is the everyman and whilst temporary fame that comes crashing down is one thing, if she is long term famous it kind of meddles with the everyman aspect of Spider-Man. An aspiring actress, even a low key soap star is different a more if you will ‘domestic’ form of fame. But that’s more a criticism of where this might lead so it could wind up being fine.

One final, final little problem I had was another example of worried where this MIGHT lead. In Kindred’s lair we see a wall depicting different Spider-Heroes and so now I’m facepalming that the climax to his storyline will be a huge crossover event affair that demands I read Miles and Gwen’s and Jessica Drew’s titles.

Again a nitpick at best, at worst something to worry about in the future not the present.

Everything else in the main story was beautiful.

MJ’s connection to acting is restored. Wonderful. It’s my preferred profession for her because it taps into Peter’s double life and her own history with her party girl facade.

The speech was well written and delivered and I liked the meta aspect of her giving it whilst disguised as a famous super hero wife!

Spencer continued to find a way to handle the old criticism lobbied against MJ/the marriage that it Mary Jane simply waited by a window (even though I think that’s fine sometimes) or just got stood up on dates all the time by having MJ have friends she can hang out with. This is one aspect where Carlie, because she is in on the secret, helps a lot I must admit.

Spencer also renders Mary Jane very well rounded.

Look I LOVE seeing instances where Mary Jane shines as cool, as bad ass and the like, but sometimes if handled poorly it can come off as idolizing her.

Spencer avoids this by giving MJ flaws.

She’s jealous of Melanie’s success which she sees as something that could have been her’s.* She has tiny doubts about Peter’s sincerity. She admits she struggles to fit in and feels uncomfortably exposed in the limelight.

But she’s also, brave, self-sacrificing, resourceful and, most importantly in this story, a good actress (apparently being able to impersonate Melanie’s voice...or maybe that’s something no one thought about because this is a non-audio medium).

The effect is to make Mary Jane truly the hero of the story, not just because she is ‘taking point’ in the main story but because she feels complex and nuanced, just as Peter is.

My quibbles above aside, Spencer really is a good Mary Jane writer and for Spider-Man that’s an important consideration for a writer (just as being a good Lois Lane writer or good Alfred writer is for Superman and Batman). He’s done her justice 99% of the time he’s written her and it says an awful lot about him and his priorities for this title that he’d give the lion’s share of a milestone issue over to her.

It also says a lot of his abilities to make good stories out of well...clean up duty.

Let’s be brutally honest here the majority of Spencer’s issues have revolved around stories really designed to fix things after BND and Slott’s run.

Back to Basics fixed Peter and MJ’s relationship and mostly reconstructed Peter’s character by having him own up to the diploma debacle and zero in on who the man was and who the spider was by literally separating the two.

The Heist reconstructed Peter and Felicia’s relationship and fleshed out why MJ and Peter were getting back together as quickly as they did.

Those poorly drawn Bachalo issues fixed Ned Leeds not being dead.

Hunted fixed Kraven not being dead and Shed and more stuff with Felicia

Now this issue has fixed MJ and Peter’s future’s to some extent. Peter is back at ESU and MJ is back to acting. Not only does she now have a Stark free job situation but it’s a job that’s her home away from home as I discussed a bit above.

The issue also does some clean up with Curt Connors, restoring the pre-Hunted status quo and by extension facilitating something else comfortingly familiar by having Connors teach Peter.**

Speaking of Connors, I can’t recall off the top of my head (having not eaten breakfast yet) if Connors had safehouses before now to keep him safe from his family. I know that has been the case in other stories, such as the Forever Young novel from a couple of years ago, but in the comics I can’t recall. If not then it’s a great thing for Spencer to integrate. If so it’s a great thing for Spencer to have remembered and gives Spider-Man a meaningful subplot to work with whilst Mary Jane takes the limelight in the main plot.

Now let’s move onto Mysterio. As I predicted last issue the doctor was Rinehart but I was mistaken in believing it was the real Rinehart. Spencer, and Mysterio, were so good at their jobs that I was successfully fooled into thinking Mysterio really had died last issue. The idea that Rinehart was really Mysterio and Mysterio was really someone else never occurred to me and was an ingenious twist.

But like all good mysteries it had clues right there for us to see as last issue signposted the disappearance of Mysterio’s former doctor,  who we now know was tricked into becoming Mysterio so beck could escape. What sold it was the inner monologue of Rinehart talking about Beck as a separate person. This would’ve been a cheap trick under a lesser writer but Spencer justifies it by claiming Mysterio was method. Just brilliant. As was tying in MJ’s agent and new found fame to Mysterio and his film script.

We also get some more tantalizing tidbits about Kindred. He doesn’t like killing innocent people if he doesn’t have to. The idea of him being an established villain now looks much less likely. And did you notice that when we first see him in the issue...he’s sticking to the wall...surrounded by spiders...and later has them crawling out of his bandages...and is targeting other Spider people...hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm????????????????

That about does it for what I call the ‘main main story’, we move now onto what should’ve been epilogues.

There isn’t much to say about the Syndicate pages beyond they were good for what they were, they eloquently tie into the main story and set up the next arc.

Much more interesting are the Gleason pages, and not just because the art looks so nice and so much better than Ramos.

On the one hand I am wary of Spider-Man comics bringing in too much of the shared universe because it messes up a lot of the drama and stakes. But as a little side story meant to set up something else that’s fine and what a set up.

Spider-Man 2099 is back!

Now I feel like I should really catch up on his solo book. I kept buying it but stopped reading it around Civil War II!

I honestly have NO IDEA where this is going beyond thinking it might have something to do with Kindred’s interest in all the other spider people??????

Beyond all that...not much to say.

I’m not going to tell you that I recommend you pick this issue up because....c’mon...you know you already did...and loved it!

   *Importantly, if Spencer intended it this way, MJ missed out on Melanie’s success because of something not  connected to Spider-Man. I was worried the story was going in for this idea that being with Peter has cost Mary Jane a successful career, but in this issue, through Melaine we see that wasn’t the case.

MJ’s life led her to quit a role that was already being reduced but it wasn’t because of Spider-Man stuff at all.

This is not just refreshing and healthy for their relationship, it’s also realistic. Take that every bullshit AU about MJ being famous by not dating Spidey!

**By the way I was going to criticise Connors having both arms in human form but then I double checked issue #2 and that was the case there too. I keep forgetting that he has both arms now it’s just so weird to see.

[hellzyeahthewebwieldingavenger]

Spider-Girls #2 Thoughts

Mixed feelings but don’t get it twisted they’re mostly good mixed feelings.

When I say I have mixed feelings it’s a case of me trying to decide what this series is.

Now I went into Spider-Girls expecting it to essentially be Spider-Geddon’s equivalent of Scarlet Spiders in that every issue would focus upon one of the 3 main spider characters (wow I’ve never used the word spider so many times in a sentence before).

What I wanted from Spider-Girls was a lot of Mayday focus and/or her interacting with Annie and addressing the fact they are pseudo sisters.

However my expectations were in fairness not based upon what was advertised, the series wasn’t stated to follow that narrative structure. As for what I wanted this series has delivered on that to a certain extent.

But more importantly than what I expected or wanted is what the series actually is, what it’s trying to be and whether it lives up to that.

And that’s where I’m debating with myself how to evaluate this.

Because it’s clear to me to a large extent Spider-Girls #1-3 is effectively....Renew Your Vows #24-26 (or #29-31 technically).

Put aside how the book is written by Houser for the moment. These past two issues have seen Annie as the focus character, the action wholly take place in her world, involve her supporting characters, centre upon her powers and utilize major plot elements from her book. So like I said this doesn’t just continue Annie’s story from RYV it is to a large extent the next 3 issues of the title.

Key phrase there though, ‘to a large extent’.

Because the series also pays attention to Mayday. She’s not the POV character, we don’t see her internal thoughts, but her emotional journey in this story is given panel time and played as important. Anya’s isn’t.

If this series is supposed to be about all of them as the main characters then this is bad, because Annie is stealing the limelight. But if this is a continuation of RYV it is also bad because Mayday and Anya have basically replaced Peter and MJ’s roles as second/third fiddle to Annie and that series was supposed to be about the whole family.

Buuuuuuuut...the series isn’t titled RYV, it’s it’s own off to the side mini-series.

So in that sense we’re sort of in a unique situation wherein it has to adhere to established continuity of all these characters (in Anya’s case I know next to nothing so let me know about that) but it doesn’t have to be consistent with RYV’s central premise.

Houser is free essentially to do as she wishes so long as she’s consistent within the context of this book.

So evidently the series is about Annie amidst an adventure where she is joined by Anya and Mayday. I guess then a more appropriate title would be Annie and the Spider-Girls but that makes for a lame title.

The fact that this is an off to the side thing also helps or mitigates the fact that there is a mystical aspect to this series which normally shouldn’t be in a Spider-Man book nor RYV.

Now that I’ve gotten that out of the way, within what this book is trying to be, is it any good?

The answer is in fact yes, it is very, very good.

From my personal POV I want so much more Mayday/Mayday and Annie interactions but I can’t hold that against the comic. Especially when what we do get of Mayday is done well and is respectful to her character; unlike the cover which saw fit to omit her apparently.

We get direct references and flashbacks to Mayday’s past, with the writing and art clearly demonstrating they did their research.* Normie was a huge part of Spider-Girl and having Mayday think about him and for the comic to briefly play compare and contrast with RYV Normie is both natural and very appreciated. It also helps to explore Mayday’s character, something worthwhile given how long ago her series was. You can tell from the art and dialogue her romantic feelings for Normie still sting a bit.

Houser doesn’t rely just upon going over old ground with Mayday, she continues to showcase Mayday’s feelings of unease in Annie’s universe, which is perfectly natural. She also uses Anya quite effectively in this way.

Were I an Anya fan (as opposed to someone who resents her for getting Mayday cancelled and stealing her name) I might be more upset about that and her over all treatment in this book. Because this is Mayday and (even moreso) Annie’s story, Anya is kind of just there as a vehicle to propel the plot and to get help explore Mayday’s feelings. As she says herself she’s not a Parker which I choose to take as Houser throwing shade at Anya and I love it. The only thing I dislike regarding her use really is

a)      Her tension with Normie. She claims Normie having six arms should convince him to believe in her magical mumbo jumbo but really that doesn’t stack up. Science and sorcery are different things to the man on the street. A genetic experiment giving you six arms is frankly easier to buy than magic scrolls

b)      Her inclusion at all. Beyond helping Mayday to open up I see little creative rationale for her inclusion if anything the story would be stronger if it really was just Mayday and Annie. I’m sure you could find some reason for Mayday to go after Annie alone even with the same central premise. Like I dunno say Anya and Mayday got attacked and separated, with Mayday getting a hold of the scrolls or something.

Going back to Mayday briefly, one thing that is a double edged sword is how she’s changed since Spider-Verse.

By this I don’t mean her costume (I kind of miss her Spider Island suit but oh well).

I mean that she’s become a bit more cynical. Not overly so but it’s there. She refers to her adventures as Spider-Girl as a very distant past, going so far as to say ‘back in High School’. I’m choosing to take that as not meaning Mayday has graduated because that wouldn’t make sense. But the fact she refers to high school like that and treating her high school worries back then as meaningless is a clear sign of how she’s changed.

This is as I said a double edged sword.

It’s bad for two key reasons. The first is that it gives new readers a warped impression of Mayday and wouldn’t encourage them to check out her old stories (which Marvel wants you to do hence her recent epic books and this series happening around her 20th anniversary) let alone helping get her any new stories. Secondly it’s simply for older fans not the Mayday we knew and loved. Don’t get me wrong it’s a drastic improvement of how not  like Mayday she was in Spider-Verse but it still undermines including her when surely the point of that is to entice back older fans.

On the flipside though it is entirely realistic for Mayday to feel this way in the wake of what happened in Spider-Verse and Web Warriors, especially as some stories have implied (illogical as this is) that she’s spent most of her time with the latter group. Losing your Dad violently, then being embroiled in a war for survival, then acting as a police officer of countless worlds, then being stranded in one of them, losing your newly found ‘Grandpa’ and then finding yourself in another violent war with the same people will believably make your old high school worries seem trivial.

In a sense I feel for Houser as she is in a lose-lose situation.

Spider-Girl fans want the Mayday we know and love but we also want her to be treated believably and to develop as a character (albeit preferably under the pens of her creators). In the context of this situation those a mutually exclusive goals.

Houser has opted for the latter which I guess if nothing else helps maintain Mayday’s verisimilitude so that hopefully in the future writers may pick up on her and course correct her organically. It’s also in line with the direction her creators chose to adopt for her in the wake of her Dad’s death so Houser is continuing to be respectful. In fact between the respect she’s shown and how much her run echoed Spider-Girl’s I think she might be a fan.

In a lot of ways the situation brings my mind back to Howard Mackie’s Hulk issue of PPSM. It saw Spider-Man picking a fight with the Hulk in the immediate wake of losing Mary Jane. Losing MJ was a horrible situation that should never have happened (much like everything involving Mayday in Spider-Verse and beyond) but the story was good within that bad context.

Moving on to Annie, as much as I complained about the over focus upon her in RYV, her exploration here ain’t bad. We acknowledge that she’ll feel a little adrift with her parents gone and her sense of reality opening up. It’s also right and proper she feel guilty about what goes down. I think much more could’ve been done with her though. I know we have a fair amount of plot to get through but you had space for more thought captions.

As for the elements of her series that have come back they kind of make me feel better and worse about the final RYV arc.

Looking back the final arc of RYV was probably it’s worst, at least of the second volume. There were major problems with Slott’s first volume when you look at it.

But a lot of elements from that arc clearly were written in as set up for Spider-Girls. Normie’s mutation. The spider creatures created from Annie’s blood. Her hyped up Spider Sense. Peter and MJ’s first child.

That’s all to this series’ benefit because we need not waste any of the 3 issues we have setting that stuff up. In that sense I can see now why that final arc was the way it was to some extent. The X-Men connection is still unforgivable though. On the other hand though it means that the grand finale of that whole series was in service of this which taints the arc as a whole. Not only was it problematic unto itself but it existed for something else, that isn’t even technically the actual finale arc of the series. It’s a spin-off continuation for one particular character from that book.

Anyway let’s wrap up with a few smaller points.

·         We have the Inheritors show. Up obviously I hate seeing them but I guess it’s mandatory. I will say that the choice to use the twin Inheritors is a neat one given the story revolving around two pseudo sisters in this series.

·         I didn’t think of this at the time but Normie’s six arms are reminiscent of his black costume form in Spider-Girl. That works well in this series but it retroactively makes it’s inclusion in RYV yet more derivative of MC2.

·         I liked the brief interaction between Annie’s parents and the Spider-Girls. It was believable for parents to behave that way.

·         I liked how the series went as far as to point out some of the spider creatures were deemed fit for trial so they didn’t all get jailed nor let off the hook.

·         There is a spelling error in the comic when Normie says ‘immortal  spider powers people’ it should be spider powered . A nitpick and rich coming from me I know but my blog isn’t a professionally written comic you pay for.

·         The art is faaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaantastic! I makes me made these 3 issues have better art than basically all of Houser’s RYV run.  Special kudos for that cool splash page.

Much as I can pick problems with this issue it was still really lovely to read.

*Except on Normie’s black costume design but that’s an artistic licence thing I guess. They balance it out by recreating a Spider-Girl cover, from ASG IIRC. Also they fixed her legs unlike last issue so kudos.

[mrsspidermanmaryjanewatsonparker]

Amazing Spider-Man: Renew Your Vows V2 #3 Thoughts/Review

Click here to see my older thoughts

I’m not gonna go page by page on this one just FYI

Story:

Annie May Parker is sent to the principal’s office for doodling in class. Outside his office she encounters an older student named Stephanie Kim who has a reputation for being the toughest kid in school. Stephanie advises Annie May to just let the principal say what he wants and wait him out. This works with Stephanie later explaining her four years of school has taught her that their principal doesn’t really care too much about the students or what they do, so long as his life isn’t made difficult.In the playground the pair spot Jermaine Grant (son of Gloria Grant) who’s being picked on by some older kids. Annie steps in but it’s Stephanie’s words which send the bullies skulking off.

Suddenly Annie’s Spider Sense blares and she receives disturbing visions of her parents in trouble. Recognizing the Regent’s base from her visions, Annie changes into costume and races off to help her folks. At the scene though she cannot find them and is promptly captured by the Moloids, waking up hurt and in their clutches (leading us to the end of issue #1).

MJ/Spinneret angrily rescues (and consequently grounds) Annie leaving her to watch them fight the dinosaur from earlier issues from afar. But following another Spider Sense induced vision she sees her parents falling into a large hole and tries to warn them. She’s too late however, but she’s just in time to notice the dinosaur waking up and lunge at her. As Normie Osborn watched intrigued she lures the dinosaur into the hole, sending it tumbling down to land nearby the Mole Man who’s captured her parents.

After a few quick exchange of words Annie declares that it’s time for them to fight, whilst exclaiming fearfully in her head.

Review:

I like the art.

I don’t like Annie being a hero and think it’s OOC for Peter and MJ to let her do that.

Well that’s all I have to say for this issue....okay I’ll elaborate.

Yeah...the art continues to be immensely great and whilst I find it OOC BS for Annie to be a hero...I have to admit that just looking at her as a hero in her own right...it is really endearing.

And this stems from Conway’s ability to write a pretty decent child character. I feel as time has gone by many writer’s have become more skilled at doing this when in the past it used to be an almost guaranteed path to something insufferable.

In the first two pages alone we get a look at her creativeity, a trait stemming mostly from her mother but a little bit from her Dad and also her quick thinking when she covers up her revealing doodle by eating it. Whilst childish and unnecessary it underscores Annie’s youth. We’ve seen Peter go to lengths to cover up his identity and Annie is simply doing the same but in a more childish manner. The artwork even reflects this in places as it becomes a little more simplistic and a little more cartoony which makes sense when the series is being viewed through the eyes of a child.

We’re also introduced to more supporting characters in the form of Annie’s Principal, teacher and school mates. With their introduction we now have a pool of characters and environment for each member of the Parkers to interact with and follow respective subplots about Peter=Bugle, MJ=the store, Annie=the school, an ingenious move on Conway’s part to add variety and dimensions to each family member. The principal character is maybe too hard an attempt to give a character a gimmick, but it is early days. The other characters though are decent enough and there is ground for some interesting dynamics between Stephanie, Jermaine and Annie. Annie looks after Jermaine and is turn looked after by the older Stephanie despite Annie being the stronger of the two. It’s an interesting flip on Peter’s lonely and bullied school days but isn’t quite as wild and popular as MJ’s.

As for the dialogue same story from previous issues though Conway does a good job of reflecting the nervous, ineloquent, jumpy and fast thought processes going through the mind of a child...even one who says OMG in her head...by the way has anyone seen by walking stick?

Moving on...Annie’s Spider Sense.

It is an interesting power that has a lot of potential so long as it isn’t misused too much and doesn’t become equivalent to Madam Web’s abilities. It is also something that renders her unique to her parents...but not her ‘uncle’ Kaine.

Yeah...Kaine’s Spider Sense lets him read the future too. Is this a deliberate rip-off? I dunno.

Her debut double page spread and in fact all of her action panels once more made me more open to what is otherwise not a great visual design for her costume. It’s one of those suits which makes sense realistically but too the point of not being very good visually. In fact her undersuit which is just black with a red chest is much better visually speaking. But the one aspect I’m not okay with at all is the pigtails. I think they are cute on her but as part of the costume look too dorky and offer too easy a weakness for enemies to exploit...which they do in this very issue when they capture her. Its hard enough believing that Peter would allow Annie to play hero let alone believing he and fashonista Mary Jane (who’s made a point of making her hair more practical in costume) would allow Annie to swing around like that.

If nothing else it further makes the deduction of her and the Parkers’ identities easier to figure out. Your looking for a family of three, one man, one woman and a young girl, both ladies with long red hair, the girl wearing it in pigtails. Hmm...how could we figure this out? Maybe Peter Parker the famous Spider-Man photographer who’s daughter has long red hair like her mother and wears that hair in pigtails could tell us? Then again maybe the Parkers don’t care that mucha bout people deducing their secrets considering they all are fairly liberal in throwing their names and familial titles around.

You’d think at the very least Normie Osborn who along with his family has a close personal relationship with the Parkers and probably would know who Annie is would be able to deduce this. Even if he is only aged...um...actually I don’t know how old he is. He’s acting like an adult but he’s much shorter than his assistants and clearly younger too. If you presume Annie was born circa Mayday in the Clone Saga and she’s at most 10 years old now then Normie would be like...15 tops? And that’s really pushing it. The letters page claims that there is a reason or this age dilemma but I have no idea what that could refer to.

The action scenes are well drawn and Annie’s defeat of the dinosaur was an example of her inheriting her paren’ts resourcefulness, but the big problem is that it mostly rehashed what we saw in previous issues and gave us little plot advancement. At least advancement from where previous issues left off. We’ve fleshed out Annie and made note of her powers but in terms of all the Mole Man stuff we’ve moved maybe one pace beyond issue #2 which itself only moved like 2 paces beyond issue #1.

Mole Man is...ehhhh...his weird nutty dialogue is starting to enter a danger zone where it will become too over the top and insufferable.  Its trying too hard to be self-aware that he’s a ridiculous character. In contrast Annie’s joke about being grounded was much funnier and Peter’s reaction of quiet pride and light reprimanding was priceless.

Overall this issue gets a....B I think. It was really compromised by the limited plot advancement but the set up stuff with Annie and her characterization kept it afloat well enough.