Character Revamp: Santa Claus

Marvel has long been known for taking characters from popular culture and making them stars of their very own comics. Marvel has published books focusing on Rom, GI Joe, the Transformers, Heathcliff, and if my memory serves, Barbie. They also had a hit with their long running series that starred Dracula. Well, Jason and I have heard rumors of their newest sensation, a popular character who is set to star in his very own mag: Santa Claus.

Some of you may have heard of Santa Claus, but for those who haven’t, he’s a powerful hero who maintains a base at the North Pole. From this base he monitors the world, seeking out the naughty and the nice, and distributing appropriate rewards or punishments, dependent on someone’s naughty level. He’s seen many evil beings rise up against him in the past, from everyday political adversaries, such as his original nemesis, the Burgermeister Meisterburger, to more powerful magical foes, such as the Winter Warlock, to even foes from other dimensions, such as the Boogie Man. Yet, still he soldiers on, doing his part for the people of Earth.

Now, we haven’t seen Marvel’s pitch for this series yet. I can’t say for sure how they’re going to play it. However, Jason and I….well, figuring out how to sell series like these and make them relevant to today’s audiences (or, at least, interesting to us) is what we do. So, we thought that we’d share our pitch for the new Santa Claus series, and then you can compare it with the eventual series that Marvel produces (the first issue of this series was supposed to ship this month, in time for the holidays, but it’s late, and will now ship in July).

So, we basically have to nail down three basic areas for our Santa proposal. First, we have to define Santa. Who is he? What powers does he have? Why is he doing what he does? Where does he live, and what sort of base does he have? Does he have a secret identity?

Second, we need to nail down his supporting cast. Who are his allies? Any family? Who helps him in his duties, and why?

Finally, we need to determine his villains. Who forms Santa’s Rogues’ Gallery?

Let’s start with Santa himself. The legends would have you believe that Santa is centuries old and has been waging his war on naughtiness for all that time. However, I posit that the man we know as Santa has actually been many men, who have passed the costume down over the years, somewhat like the Phantom. One of the main jobs of Santa is to locate a suitable replacement, bring that replacement into the fold, explain his secrets, and train the replacement. In this way, there is always a Santa, ready, willing and able to take over whenever he is needed.

Santa himself has no special powers, although all Santas are trained in various skills. Moreover, Santa carries certain technological and magical gadgets (provided by two of his allies; we’ll discuss those later) which aid him in his work. I believe we will keep his headquarters at the North Pole, but with the understanding that Santa can transport himself anywhere on Earth quite quickly, and would even be capable of covering the entire globe in the span of about four hours if necessary.

Before I get into detail, I’ll see if Jason has any concerns or wants to go in a different direction.

The biggest difficulty, and also the biggest resource, with this revamp are the various legends and attributes put upon “Santa Claus” by different countries and cultures. I would think, for the sake of appealing to the action/adventure aspect of the character, that we should eschew the whole “leaving candy for the kids” part of Santa’s lore. This action could show up as a final page wrap-up…almost like a calling card of sorts, but I wouldn’t want to base every storyarc around it. However, the reasoning for such behavior could play into his development. Santa Claus, in the comic book sense, stands for something more powerful and universal than seasonal gift satisfaction. He’s the ultimate protector of the innocent, the vanguard of an entire season, and the primary source of oversight for keeping everyone on the straight and narrow. Even when he isn’t in his prime period of activity, he still has to keep a vigilant watch over the easily swayed minds of the world’s wishful youth.

It’s a tough job and I like the concept of having a Santa succession schedule. I would guess that the average person behind the Santa costume would only last for a decade or so. The job is so draining, both physically and mentally, that an average person might go insane rather quickly. I would also like to put forward the notion that his support staff is made up of a line of legacy characters as well…almost like a solemn, dedicated branch of a religious group whose sole purpose is to aid this universal symbol. Their world is very insular and secretive, but abounds with joy, fulfillment and an inner peace brought on through their work.

Besides, a badass group of ninja monk elves would be awesome to witness in action.

I could also see Santa employing a multi-branched charity organization posing as a front for data collection. He needs to have an alter ego who can blend into normal day-to-day activities.

I do have an idea or two for villains and would like to offer at least one supporting cast member. However, it sounds like John already has some ideas brewing, so I’ll let him take the stage again…

I have a few ideas, and since there is interest in supporting cast and villains, let’s move that way first (we can always detail exactly what Santa can do later). Let’s start with supporting cast.

The original Santa’s origins are still somewhat shrouded in mystery and legend, which works well for all concerned. Honestly, no one in the know about who Santa really is wants the veil pulled away from Santa, since if someone knew much about the original Santa, they may start to realize that the current Santa isn’t that person. However, one thing we do know about the original Santa is that he met and fell in love with a remarkable woman, one who was the matriarch of an entire clan.

This clan was made of elves, elves who had been exiled/marooned/imprisoned on Earth centuries ago. These elves had tried to hide themselves from the outside world, but when their mistress met Santa, she broke their traditions and the two wed. When Santa began his calling of watching the world and doing good, his wife was in full agreement, and she brought her family inline with Santa’s goals, even convincing them to move to the North Pole, when Santa decided that they needed to be farther away from the people they watched over.

This clan of elves are not the long lived, virtually immortal elves that one reads about in The Lord of the Rings. Their lifespan is that of a mortal, and their numbers are not limitless. They obviously can’t continue to only mate among themselves without serious consequences, and Santa also realized that forcing them to spend their entire lives in the North Pole could be cruel. So, each elf is allowed a time in their life when they can go out into the world and seek a mate, living as normal humans do for a set period of time. The time period is indeed finite, and an elf (male or female) must find a mate within that window or they lose their chance. Complicating matters is the fact that the mate they find must be special, as the elf must tell their chosen one of their true nature before the time limit expires. If the mate agrees to return with the elf, they are made to appear to have suffered a fatal accident in their world, and can never return to it. If they do not agree to return with the elf, their minds are wiped of the information that was imparted to them, and the elf returns empty-handed.

Because of these strict restrictions, not every elf is able to find a mate, which is one of the reasons why their population does not expand beyond the capacity of their headquarters. Any children that a couple produces are raised by the entire elven clan, in a communal setting, which helps to placate those elves who never find a mate in the first place. Santa is not really the leader of these elves; instead the elves follow the descendent of that original matriarch, who may or may not be the current Santa’s mate.

These elves have a mastery of their own unique technology, which they use to help Santa in his mission. They perform the necessary maintanence around the headquarters, and provide Santa with numerous gadgets. They also count among their numbers experts at various fighting styles and they can train Santa in those arts as well.

Santa’s other ally is the Winter Warlock. Once a foe of the original Santa, he was eventually reformed, and became a steadfast ally of the man in red and white. As the Winter Warlock grew older, he began to investigate ways to prolong his life. He eventually realized that the cold of the North Pole seemed to have retarded his aging process, and he soon theorized that even deeper cold would stop his aging process completely. To that end, he used his magics to encase himself in a block of ice in the middle of the Claus compound. He is still conscious in that block, and can communicate with Santa, but he can never leave it. However, he still possesses power, and is quite helpful in providing magical aid to Santa in the form of information gathering and occasional magical trinkets for Santa to use. Most Santas would actually say that his most useful gift is his wisdom and willingness to listen. He now communicates telepathically, and is aware of what happens around him. He can see and hear in all areas of the compound, and were the compound to ever be attacked, he would be able to marshal his magic for a terrible defense.

That’s some of his supporting cast. Your thoughts Jason? Any you want to change or add?

Love it! I was trying to come up with a supporting character that could be a mentor of sorts to the incoming Santas, but I think you’ve handled it beautifully with the Winter Warlock idea. I see him as a version of DC’s Oracle character…someone who can offer advice and give direction to Santa during his adventures. There’s something interesting about having him be a former adversary too.

I think you nailed what I was going for with the elves. They’re old school. And their only purpose is to serve the mission of Santa Claus. However, they aren’t just cute little toy builders…these guys are a hardcore, focused “army” of assistants who have a multitude of skills. I can imagine elves with specialties…some are engineers, some are tech experts, some are trained in military operations (including intelligence and espionage). It’s the perfect scenario, almost like DC’s League of Assassins or a competent version of AIM from Marvel.

You’ve touched on the character of “Mrs. Claus” too. I like the notion that she may or may not actually be married to the current Santa. It could all just be a front to make them more acceptable in the public eye. That could offer a fun dynamic behind the scenes too. Maybe the two of them don’t get along at all!

The one thing that seems to be missing from the support side of things is an explanation of Santa’s abilities. How does he deliver goods to everyone on Earth all in one night? How can he be in so many places at once (I’m looking at you, mall Santas!)? How does he keep track of so much information? And how does he manifest the “holiday spirit” to affect emotions and generosity? I have a feeling you’re going to make a reference to the North Wind, and who knows what else, with that storyline.

As far as bad guys go, the first obvious choice would be Jack Frost (who may or may not be an elf himself). He’s the expected archenemy and I have no problem with that. However, I feel like he needs some sort of history and motivation. He could be the Lex Luthor to Santa’s Superman…a super smart foe who employs others to carry out his schemes. He uses fancy gadgets but doesn’t really have any powers of his own.

I’d also like to mention Black Pete. In Dutch and German folklore, Black Pete was Saint Nicholas’ assistant, but I think it would be cool to have him turn on Santa at some point…maybe he was persuaded away by something evil. This would make him similar to Marvel’s Winter Soldier or DC’s Tim Drake.

John and I spoke briefly about this topic before we posted and I told him about a vague idea I had for a villain that almost seemed to borrow themes from the supernatural (a la Swamp Thing or Sandman). I thought that Santa and his elves should be ever vigilant against a vast negative force called “The Never.” I see The Never as a network of evil, always evolving and adapting, a personification of children’s nightmares that draws its power from the darkness and the negativity of the general populace. This villain could look like anything really, but would most likely take forms similar to the Perchten of Germanic folklore…grotesque animal masks with horns and fangs, thick furs and pelts as a costume, almost like a version of a zombie viking. I could also see The Never as a group of shapechangers who taunt and harass Santa during his travels. They appear as a flock of ravens or a massive colony of rats. I could even see them spreading a sort of plague (of fear, of sickness, of darkness. etc.).

I dunno. Aside from the general nuisance villains who have their own schemes in mind to steal gifts or ruin the holidays, it seems like you’d need something that would pose a serious threat to the well-being of humankind without their knowledge. Santa is the secret defender. And The Never would be an excellent, yet nebulous, enemy for him to face off against.

Hopefully, John has some more follow-through for these ideas!

Okay, we seem to be on the same page as far as allies, and I think you’ve really nailed some neat villains. I couldn’t agree more with you that Santa needs a serious threat to combat, and I think The Never is a perfect one. The Never would be his Dr. Doom, his Dormammu, his Red Skull. I like that The Never isn’t defined and is somewhat nebulous, as it should be at this point. Perhaps, over the years of Santa’s run as a comics character, the Never may be fleshed out more and examined in detail, but that should be a slow process, taking many storylines. The Never wouldn’t appear in every plotline, but it would be a presence in the book almost constantly. Even when Santa is dealing with other villains, the Never would be a looming menace.

I like the idea of Jack Frost and I like that he doesn’t have any powers. If he doesn’t have powers, one must wonder why he took that name and what it is he does. One of the things that must be decided for every Santa villain is whether or not this threat has been a long term foe of Santa (and therefore has fought many different Santas over the years) or whether or not this is a more recent foe. It gives the villain a much different feel if he or she has been fighting the Santa organization, in some form, for centuries, or whether they just ran afoul of the current Santa much more recently. In this case, I’d like to cast Jack Frost as the former. In fact, I’d like to suggest that Frost did have powers at one point in time, and that he clashed with Santa in the early days, when the original Santa was fulfilling the role of protector. Here’s how I see it going down.

Frost was a rival of the Winter Warlock; they were both powerful supernatural beings, with Frost being an immortal of the same type that live in Asgard and Olympus, and the Warlock being a powerful mortal. When the Warlock fist clashed with Santa, and then began to reform, Frost saw his chance to eliminate his rival once and for all. Frost launched a devastating attack against the Warlock, wounding him deeply. Frost could probably have finished off his foe, when Santa intervened (perhaps it was this intervention that convinced the Warlock that Santa truly followed a path that appealed to the Warlock as well, leading to his final redemption and reformation). Thus did Santa earn Frost’s enmity. The two of them clashed repeatedly for the next few decades, with the Warlock joining the fray on a few occasions. Frost had nearly defeated Santa a few times, but the Warlock and Santa, working as a team, continually proved too much for him. Frost decided he needed to eliminate the Warlock as an ally of Santa, and conjured up a crystal which would drain the Warlock’s powers. He devised an elaborate plot to use the device (stories which will no doubt be told in the inevitable spin-off, Santa: Origins) but during the battle when the device was used, Santa inadvertently interfered with its operation, and Frost had his powers removed instead; everything except for his immortality.

That sets Frost up as more of a cross between DC’s Lex Luthor and Vandal Savage. Ever since that battle he’s been searching for ways to restore his lost power. To stay a credible threat, he’s also amassed as much power as he could in the physical world, studying science and the technology of the day, staying on the cutting edge of what is new and dangerous. This also gives him a motivation to continue to fight against Santa; he wants revenge for his powers being stripped from him and he wants to find a way to be powerful again.

That’s two great foes. Black Pete is a very interesting foe, who I think would also be aware of Santa’s true nature. And, obviously, Santa would fight much more conventional menaces too, as well as meeting some of the existing villains in the Marvel Universe (because, really, who wouldn’t pay good money to see Santa vs Dr. Doom? Or Santa vs the Kingpin: Battle of the Fat Men? I know I’d shell out $4 for some of that). Do we need to detail out any further villains? If not, then all we need to do is nail down his abilities. I’ll check in with you tomorrow to see what you think.

Again, kudos to you for all the inventive backstory stuff. I think we’ve detailed the essential supporting cast and supplied a solid inventory of villains. Of course, there will always be other characters (both good and bad) who pop up from time to time…but I think there’s a strong nucleus there to build a long-lasting title around.

Probably the best thing to do now is to delineate just what it is that Santa does and exactly how he does it. Applying basic comic book physics to what we know from the Santa-based legends, I’m assuming he has gadgets or magic items that help him teleport/move at lightspeed/displace time. His ability to squeeze up and down chimneys indicates a level of shapeshifting. He has certain resistances to the elements. His reindeer and sleigh can fly somehow. And Santa’s sack of presents probably has origins in a pocket universe where he’s able to store vast amounts of product…like a Bag of Holding from D&D. Can you explain all of that?

We seem to be rolling along well. Let’s get this thing wrapped up in time for Christmas!

Hmmm. Detailing exactly what Santa can do could prove slightly challenging, simply because there’s so much to choose from. Santa seems to be able to do so much. Let’s break it down.

I agree that transportation is our first priority. Let’s face it; the guy lives at the North Pole, which is probably not very villain infested. He could potentially fight that polar bear that shills for Coke, but otherwise, he’s going to have to travel to defend the Earth. Teleporting would certainly be the quickest way for him to get from place to place, but it doesn’t really fit into his mythology and it can also be used as something of a cheat by writers. I prefer something that’s more traditionally Santa, and something that doesn’t enable him to arrive at the scene instantaneously. I think keeping the sleigh is the way to go, although I’m not sure that it should be pulled by reindeer, or at least, not all the time. I imagine that Santa used to use the reindeer, which the Warlock had enchanted, to pull his sleigh when he wanted to travel. However, while he still keeps reindeer for emergency sleigh-pulling, the simple fact is that they were sometimes unreliable, and they needed to be fed and taken care of, and when Santa had to travel halfway around the world and didn’t come back the same night as he left, they were problematic. So, sometime in the past few decades, the elf clan constructed a technological sleigh for him. This new sleigh can move at fantastic speeds (several times the speed of sound) and comes with a retractable canopy so that Santa doesn’t have to worry about breathing when it’s moving that fast (and it can also be used in low altitude orbit or underwater, although it’s design isn’t very efficient in those environments). The elves have loaded the new sleigh with all kinds of gadgets, much in the manner of Blue Beetle’s bug, and are constantly experimenting with more, in the manner of James Bond and his Q.

I like the idea of shapeshifting as a way to move up and down chimneys, but I’m wary of making Santa too superhero, because if that’s the case, how are powers passed on from Santa to Santa? There certainly could be a way to do that, probably involving a ceremony between the outgoing and incoming Santas and the Warlock, but then there’s also the case of what happens when a Santa falls in battle (although his powers could then be transferred automatically, kind of like a Vampire Slayer’s powers are in the Buffy universe). Actually, the more I think about it, the more I like that last parenthetical aside. It could be interesting to see the powers transferred, either by ceremony or by automatic transference. What makes the latter such an interesting proposition is the idea that perhaps a Santa could die without locating a suitable successor. Normally, the successor is training at the North Pole, so if a Santa would fall, they would already be in a position to take over the role. But what happens if there is no one ready to take over? I could see a plot where the powers choose someone when the current Santa falls unexpectedly, and the Warlock and Mrs. Claus and the elves have to figure out where the powers went, have to try and determine why that person got the powers, and then have to locate them, bring them in and train them. That could be fun.

So, what are these powers? I agree that shapeshifting has to be one of them. After all, moving up and down chimneys is difficult without shapeshifting, and Santa is also someone who’s depicted at vastly different weights. It’s going to be difficult to fight the Never or Jack Frost’s goons when you’re morbidly obese, so he’s going to need to be able to go from overweight to fit and ready to fight. Shapeshifting also gives him a lot more options in combat, and that’s important. Shapeshifting can also be useful for entering those houses without chimneys, as he could make himself thin as paper, and slide under doors or around windows, or he could turn a finger into a key to open the door; there are lots of options with this power. In fact, I’m wondering if he really needs any others, or if that power is enough for Santa to have? I think it is.

Santa does have a sack with an immense storage capacity; another gift from the Warlock. Santa fills that sack with gadgets from the elves, gadgets which give him a wide range of options, which often change. As I mentioned earlier, the elves can be seen as a clan of Q’s from James Bond. These guys provide him with a huge selection of technological edges, and it might be fun if they’re all constructed to look like toys. That keeps a theme going with him, and still enables him to kick some butt.

What do you think of that power set?

I hate to say it, but the “gadgets disguised as toys” idea is hilarious. Not only could it be a running joke that the elves don’t know how to build something that isn’t toylike, but it also opens up a story or two about mistakenly leaving the wrong item under a child’s tree. Oops! Santa accidentally gave Timmy a freeze ray instead of the BB gun he asked for!

Your sleigh idea could be taken a step further. Since you brought up Blue Beetle’s bug, why not have Santa’s “sleigh” actually be a ship of sorts? Perhaps he has an image inducer attached to it to make it look like a sleigh being pulled by reindeer to the average passer-by. The truth is, however, that Santa’s ship is the same thing people have been reporting seeing in the sky all across the Midwest and Southwest. All those assorted UFO sightings and things that look like tin pie pans floating in the sky with flashing lights are really Santa going about his evil-fighting business. I like how that ties the Santa legend into everyday pop culture. It would also be fun to have his sleigh resemble Doctor Who’s tardis…where the outside is a defined size, but the inside is disturbingly larger, with numerous cabins and compartments, massive storage areas and sleeping quarters for dozens of helpers. The power of magic!

I also agree that Santa should have some sort of super-ability. I’d hate for everything to rely on tricky gadgets and amorphous wizardry. I don’t want to lean to heavily on Winter Warlock though. The process of finding, training and passing on the Santa powers should be a function of the elven lore. Perhaps they’re actually aliens and have highly advanced technology to imbue these powers upon their selected target. Maybe it’s something they really have no control over, but are just there to monitor. Or, and this is kind of a twisted spin, maybe the machine/gizmo/process they use is extremely dangerous and some of the Santa recruits haven’t survived the transfer of power…or, in a way of explaining Black Pete’s origin, maybe one of the subjects was affected differently by the transfer. Maybe Black Pete had been selected as a Santa apprentice (like Robin to Batman), gone through the training and all that, and then the power transfer didn’t work or screwed him up somehow and he vowed revenge for eternity!

Too dramatic?

Shape-shifting as Santa’s sole power covers a lot of bases. It could also explain how he blends into the crowd so easily and how no one sees him throughout the rest of the year. This could also play into the earlier idea I had about having his alter ego be the head of some large charitable organization. He keeps tabs on the world in plain sight of the everyday populace!

Wow…I think we came up with some valid ways to make The Scintillating Santa Claus! an enjoyable comic book. Final thoughts?

Just that I agree with you on everything you mentioned.  I had originally thought of suggesting that the sleigh be an actual ship that shared some of the properties of the Tardis, so that’s amusing.  I also agree that having Santa’s power transfer be a function of the elves rather than the Warlock is a good idea, and does help to maintain a balance between the Warlock and the elves, so one side isn’t obviously more important than the other.

I think this works!  This could actually make a comic; it would be a huge hit!  After all, if kids don’t buy it, they’re going to find themselves on the naughty list!

Making Civil War more Civil

I believe that I’ve been somewhat harsh when I’ve discussed Civil War in the past. That may seem unfair. I actually think the general concept of Civil War was interesting, but I believe the execution was flawed. One of the early concepts of our blog was to take concepts that had been done already, but done in a way we felt didn’t live up to the potential these concepts held, and try to find ways to fulfill that potential. That is what we shall now attempt with Civil War. First, let’s start with the basics.

I think that the basics of Civil War are very sound. The government of the United States in the Marvel Universe decides to revive the Superhero Registration Act, a concept that Marvel had discussed during Acts of Vengeance over a decade ago. The general theory behind the Superhero Registration Act makes a lot of sense. After all, in a world where masked vigilantes are so common, there are bound to be a large number of normal people who feel overwhelmed by them. I think this concept does make sense.

Beyond that concept, the idea of heroes being of two minds on the issue, with some supporting registration and some opposing registration, also makes sense. Obviously the heroes of the Marvel Universe aren’t all going to agree on an issue that is this important. Where the actual Civil War comics went wrong was in forcing their heroes to take an all or nothing stance, and especially in roping Captain America and Iron Man into the roles of leaders for the two sides. Marvel wanted a very straight forward fight between heroes, with two sides squaring off in a battle royale. Unfortunately, things aren’t that simple, and with an issue as complicated as the Registration Act, the only way to force your characters into the two neat sides that Marvel desired would be to force those characters to behave wildly different than their histories and established personalities would dictate. Marvel took that route, and while that route resulted in some Civil War comics that were decent, the series and tie-ins as a whole were rarely very good.

I think that one of the largest problems with the story of Civil War was the small role played by most of the villains in the Marvel Universe. Yes, they appeared here and there, but most of the story was focused on the heroes fighting each other, and the villains never really capitalized on the chaos to do some real damage. I suppose that, had the villains taken a more active role, it would have forced the heroes to stop beating on each other, which would have derailed the story that Marvel hoped to tell, but in the end, it made for an unsatisfying crossover.

I have some ideas on how I would have told the Civil War story, and I’ll get into specifics. However, before I do specifics, I thought I’d give a general outline, and we can see what Jason thinks.

During the Road to Civil War, we would have seen much of the same thing we saw in the Marvel Universe version, with Congress again discussing the Super Hero Registration Act. I believe that we would have had many of the Marvel Universe heroes testifying before Congress, as they did before. The Fantastic Four, already on record against it, would remain that way. Iron Man, I have always believed, would be against it, as he’s railed against the government many times in his title, and I find it hard to believe that he would suddenly decide that perhaps the government is a trustworthy entity that can be counted on to handle such sensitive data. Captain America, I think, might be for it. Cap is a trained soldier himself, and one who has always stressed the importance of training on his fellow Avengers. While I don’t think he would be rabidly in support of it, I think he might see the wisdom. Spider-Man would not unmask (which was always a stupid gimmick), although he might fall in line with Tony Stark. The lead-in issues are relatively low key, just setting the general mood of the nation.

When the miniseries begins, we start off much like the genuine version: with a giant catastrophe that could have been avoided, but was not. Whether or not we use the New Warriors is something we can discuss, although their role in the beginning of Civil War is something I can live with. But the catalyst that was provided in the first issue of Civil War is important. Now, we have the public point of view turning against superheroes. Considering that Marvel superheroes seem to barely avoid lynch mobs as it is, this is well within reason. We also see some of the attitudes of various superheroes changing with some heroes beginning to believe that perhaps training would be a good idea. Many of Marvel’s superheroes are confused and unsure of their next move.

The government makes things worse when, after the tragedy and under tremendous pressure from the public, they pass the Superhuman Registration Act. Now unregistered heroes are illegal. Those heroes with public identities, like the FF, register, whether they agree with the law or not. After all, it’s the law, and Reed Richards would argue that the only way to defeat it is to fight it from within. Other heroes also register, but for those like Spidey or Daredevil, who are trying to keep their identities secret, the decision is tougher. They could decide not to go into action in their costumed identities, but of course, it’s hard to ignore someone in danger, so they no doubt would suit up, where they would come under fire from policeman and federal agents. I’m sure SHIELD would also be ordered to stop any superhuman who wasn’t registered. The Civil War has begun, but right now, it’s more a tale of atmosphere and dread, without clearly drawn sides. Then, as the first issue ends, we see someone is getting organized; the villains.

We start the second issue with the villains beginning to understand that they are at a great advantage. Many of the heroes who keep the streets clean are in hiding, and while they may come out of hiding to stop the villains, doing so places the heroes at a great disadvantage, with law enforcement officials as interested in arresting them as they are in arresting the bad guys. Some of the top criminals like the Kingpin and the new Mandarin begin gathering allies and preparing massive crime waves. In the meantime, the few registered heroes are working around the clock trying to keep crime down, since they no longer have a lot of help and a few of the non registered heroes are caught and thrown in jail. Their identities are now publicly known, so they might as well register, but now their lives are thrown into turmoil, as those around them may be in danger.

We could add in various subplots (I have a few in mind), but this all leads to the last issue of Civil War, where the villains come out in force, attacking the registered heroes. The unregistered heroes see their friends fighting a losing battle, so they come to help. SHIELD and other law enforcement authorities see what is happening as well, so they intervene. This way, we can end the series with a battle royale, as the heroes fight the villains, with SHIELD and its allies taking down anyone who isn’t a registered hero (villains and unregistered heroes both).

Thoughts? It would be more difficult to write and wouldn’t contain quite as many “big moments”, but I do think it could be interesting and exciting and could still end with a big bang. However, I value your honest opinion and perhaps you have some ideas for the general direction which would work better. Once we have a general direction we agree on, we can go into the details.

I don’t think our version of Civil War would lack in “big moments,” I just think ours would make more sense…for example, NOT killing Black Goliath with a fake Thor that came out of nowhere and then had no purpose later in the miniseries either. I would like to think we might have a better grasp on who would fall on each side of the argument (y’know, actually backed up with some rationale instead of just which costumes looked cooler facing off against each other). We’d probably have a better explanation for the decision to use villains to hunt down heroes…that whole Prison 42 thing…Jack O’Lantern’s head exploding to reveal pumpkin inside…the semi-coherent reasoning behind the Atlantean sleeper cells…and dozens of other things.

I would also like to retcon that whole “Norman Osborn shoots an Atlantean ambassador” nonsense, considering this shadowy benefactor of his was never revealed (that I can remember). Plus, even in the face of what would probably amount to treason by trying to kill a foreign diplomat on US soil, Osborn is then handed the reins of the government’s defense system at the end of Secret Invasion. Say WHAT?!?

Oh, and there’s the small problem of Tony Stark hiring a dude to attack him disguised as Titanium Man in an effort to show the government why they should NOT pass the SHRA…and then suddenly changing his mind and becoming the staunchest supporter of the SHRA on the face of the planet.

I have to even disagree with John on the relevance of the Stamford incident. Is this supposed to carry more weight because it didn’t involve a skyscraper tumbling down in Manhattan? No one ever talks about all the people displaced, maimed or even killed by superhuman activity every day in New York City! I’d also like to know when it became customary to try to crucify the only survivor of a horrible nuclear blast as a child killer? When did Speedball ever do anything to anyone?

At the same time, I agree that there was a gigantic missed opportunity to show the villains’ upper hand in this debacle. There should have been ridiculous ramp-ups in crime levels, looting and general unease. I would’ve expected full-scale riots and hate crimes and all sorts of activities in the face of something this massive and controversial. Instead, we got some melodrama over a couple of spandex-clad grown men glaring at each other. And they couldn’t even kill a major character off during the whole thing. Civil War? Brother against brother? Hell, the only brother anyone was against was Bill Foster…and he got offed by perhaps the biggest Aryan power freak in the entire Marvel Universe (or at least a cybernetic clone of him). Symbolic much?

Iron Man would’ve been on the anti-government side, by all rational accounts. Sure, he has big defense contracts and his hands in pretty much every black ops program in existence, but that would just give him more clarity on how easily the government could screw something like this up. Plus, he’s all about himself. His entire career is built on doing things his way and being better than everyone else. He wouldn’t kowtow to this kind of authority. Cap, on the other hand, has a general goodwill towards the government, believing (naively at times) that they always have the people’s best interests in mind. He protects the flag and all that it stands for. Hell, he was created because of the Draft…I doubt he would see this as anything other than a newfangled version of that program. We’d have to examine the other major players to see who would fall on what side. Off the top of my head, I see the Fantastic Four, She-Hulk and maybe Ms. Marvel as Pro-SHRA, mainly because of their public identities and/or ties to the military. Luke Cage, Hawkeye, Daredevil, Spider-Man, Punisher and pretty much every mutant would be Anti-SHRA for obvious reasons. The villains would, for the most part, go underground and all but the boldest would stay there. Why? Well, it’s not very easy to be a bad guy when the government has your entire life on file. They wouldn’t want to risk being captured at all.

I like the idea of having a prologue to the event. Was there such a thing? I don’t remember any official preamble…though I guess a lot of this was being set up in various titles before the miniseries hit the stands. If it could be properly disseminated throughout a breadth of titles, then we could start the first issue of the Civil War series off with a big event. I’m curious to see where you think this will head. And I’m sure I’m forgetting some details that stuck out for me the first time I read the series. Have at it and we’ll see where it goes!

Ok, so we start with a prologue. I think that we need to do a few things in this timeframe (I’d say 6-8 months before Civil War starts). First of all, I’d love to start this ball rolling with the campaign for Senator, and eventual win, of Henry Peter Gyrich. The man has been a part of the Washington power scene for decades, so he must have a lot of favors to call in, and he’d be a perfect conservative Republican candidate for Senator somewhere. I think watching his Senate campaign happening in the background of a few books (the Avengers would certainly have an interest in this, the X-Men would probably follow it, and it would show up in Spider-Man’s book since all the news of the Marvel Universe is reported by the Daily Bugle) would be a great way to kick things off. One of the main facters of his campaign would be the SHRA, a law which Gyrich has supported in the past. By making the passage of this law one of the major issues in his platform, we not only get to see the heroes following his campaign, but everytime there is massive property damage or questionable behavior on the part of any hero, Gyrich will be there to take advantage of it for his campaign. This happens for a few months, and then Gyrich is elected.

Gyrich is acting out of what he truly believes are in the best interests of the United States, and certainly you can make a strong argument for why the SHRA is a good idea. However, Gyrich needs allies. I propose introducing another Senator who will offer Gyrich his full support. We can name this senator later, and it doesn’t matter if it’s a male or female. What’s important about this second senator is that he’s really a Skrull. Yes, this was done during the original Kree/Skrull War, when a politician was revealed to be a Skrull in disguise, but let’s be honest; it works well, it’s a smart move for the Skrulls (hey, they have one gimmick, and they’re going to use it to their best advantage) and it gives us another face behind the SHRA (I think one of the weaknesses of Civil War is that we never really knew anyone in the government who helped to pass this legislation. It simply happened, and it left the reader feeling very unconnected to the event). Now, our Skrull politician will NOT be revealed as a Skrull during Civil War. He’s just going to be introduced in various titles, as Gyrich’s main partner is pushing the passage of the SHRA. We’ll focus more on the character in Secret Invasion.

So, these two spearhead the push of the SHRA, which takes another 2-4 months in our time. Again, this should play out in the background of more and more books, and again, anytime a hero (or even villain) does something reckless or which results in property damage or loss of life, Gyrich and his allies will be there to use it to justify their campaign. We also see this playing a larger role in the various titles of the MU, as we see heroes begin to take a stand on the issue. I agree that Cap would support it, as would Ms. Marvel. I agree that Iron Man would oppose it. Now, the Fantastic Four have opposed it in the past, but I could see an issue of their title where Iron Man comes to them to ask them to continue to oppose it, and Cap comes to them to ask for their support. Both characters can make strong, convincing arguments, and the FF feels a little awkward and uncomfortable being placed in the unique position of having to offend one of the most well known and respected characters in the MU, no matter which side they choose. In the end, they decide to remain silent, explaining to both Cap and Iron Man they they didn’t want to upset either of them. Unfortunately, staying silent is really a win for Cap and Gyrich and Stark is not happy with this decision. The FF will have to grapple with this later in the miniseries, as they’re confronted with the fact that, had they acted, they might have prevented the passage of the SHRA.

The problem that those opposing the SHRA have is that most of them can’t testify against it, since most of them have secret identities. This is what made the FF’s testimony against the SHRA so invaluable during Acts of Vengeance, and makes their silence in this case so damning. Stark can testify against the act, since his identity is known, and he may try to convince others (like Spider-Man) to announce their identities so they can testify, but I doubt that many heroes would be willing to go to that extent. That leaves Stark and perhaps Luke Cage as the only heroes who can really take a stand against the Act, and it doesn’t look good for those who oppose it.

Meanwhile, the villains are paying attention. All the villains would know what is happening, but it would be particularly apparent to those like the Kingpin, who’s been shown to have contacts throughout different levels of government in the past (and may even be throwing his influence behind Gyrich, albeit surreptitiously). The villains can see that it’s likely the SHRA will pass, and if it does, it’s going to hamstring some of their biggest foes, like Spider-Man and Daredevil. Yes, the villains may be concerned about being caught, but I’m not sure if it’s going to be any worse for them to be caught now than it was before the passage; after all, when they got caught before the SHRA passed, they still had their identities discovered by the government who could dig up anything on their pasts that they wanted. I think this is when the Kingpin begins to gather his forces, waiting for what he knows is inevitable. Again, we’d see this in various titles, usually just a page or so an issue, as the Kingpin recruits his forces.

Now, I’ve typed a lot, just for the prologue, but I want to stop and get your reaction. Are we on the same page? I think this sets things up logically. It introduces our main supporters of the SHRA, giving it the face it lacked before (and for a bill like this to pass, it’s going to have to have some strong supporters). It begins to build some tension in the MU between various heroes, and we begin to see how things could possibly go. And, it also shows us that the villains are paying attention and are prepared to capitalize on current events. It makes the MU feel like a real live place. Agreed?

The big question now is, do we have a large event that is the catalyst Gyrich needs to push for final passage?

Now wait just a second. If I understand you correctly, you want Civil War to actually have a plot, right? That just blows…my…mind. Maybe it’s because it has been drummed into my head repeatedly for the last two or three years by the powers-that-be, but I always just assumed that things spontaneously happened within the Marvel U. No rhyme or reason, just consequences and fight scenes. It’s like a revelation from on high to have a buildup with rational pacing, and sub-stories, and behind-the-scenes characters, and actual thought processes. I’m stunned.

As you can tell from my heavy sarcasm, I felt that the reasoning behind Civil War was, for lack of a better word, nonexistent. Even though they tried to shoehorn in some pathos with the blowing up of a school and the whole fake Thor shooting a fake thunderbolt through Giant-Man (or whatever name he was going by at the time…and what was with him not being shrunken back down to normal size before being buried?), the series still lacked any real emotion. The heroes were like empty shells going through the paces. There was very little overreaction to the events or the legislation or the hero hunting. At least by adding a political slant to the background, you’ve planted that seed of “something is bound to come of this.” I believe, the word is “foreshadowing.” Maybe someone at Marvel could send Mark Millar a dictionary for Christmas.

It makes a lot of sense to start having some public pushback on these destructive incidents involving superheroes. We’ve talked about it before and I still can’t believe that any civilians in the Marvel Universe would ever leave their homes for fear of having a giant robot/spaceship/sentient plant/skyscraper/dimension-altering weapon dropped on their heads. Honestly, I can’t believe that a teeny, tiny nuclear explosion outside an elementary school in Connecticut would be the singular event to cause such an uproar. Things don’t just go from calm to natural disaster at the drop of a hat…you can see these things building and rising and coming from miles away. It would be refreshing to have something proactive happen in superhero comics instead of always being so defensive and reactionary.

Gyrich is a good figurehead…and someone who could play a large role in Marvel’s government for years to come. I know I mentioned him in passing during our Marvel Presidential Candidates post. The guy has both the experience and the inside knowledge of superhero activity. I could also see Valerie Cooper getting involved in some of the goings-on. The senior staff from Damage Control would probably be testifying before Congress too. And, of course, I think we’d hear from both Stark Industries (from the military-industrial corner) and Rand Corporation (from the infrastructure and charity angle). Foggy Nelson may even be asked to serve as counsel for someone, since he has a lot of experience defending superpowered individuals. I think that cast of political and legal characters would effectively cover the bases of Marvel’s titles from Avengers to X-Men to the rest of the Marvel U.

This sort of backstory may end up leading to less hero-versus-hero clashes and double-page spreads, but it could lead to a different set of conflicts altogether. Instead of just having Cap going toe-to-toe with Tony, we could inject the villains into the equation and make it a three-sided battle. Everyone wants their piece (or “peace” depending on which side you’re on). And it would make things that much more volatile with everyone having to not only watch their back, but their sides as well…who’s your friend, who’s your enemy?

I like your prologue. It has necessary meat. Where do you see it going from there?

Well, I never got your opinion as to whether or not an actual event was needed to kick things off in the first issue, and lead to the final passage of the SHRA, but I’m going to say that it’s necessary. So, as we enter the actual Civil War series, the first issue begins with a group of New Warriors trying to stop some bad guys. I’d prefer to ditch the reality TV concept. Certainly, no portrayal of Night Thrasher that I’ve ever read would have him agreeing to something like that (he’s in it for the justice, not the fame) and I think that made the Warriors seem too shallow, which is unfair to some of them who have a long history in the MU of being fine, upstanding heroes. Ok, that might be a little much, but honestly, these kids are doing their best and attempting to do the right thing. Let’s give them the benefit of the doubt. Besides, if we get rid of the crass Reality Show spin, it actually makes this story all the more tragic. Instead of a bunch of shallow jerks blowing up themselves and some kids, we have good people who are trying to be heroes, and through a simple mistake, end up causing the death of so many.

Where are we? Ah yes, New Warriors fight bad guys, including Nitro, who blows up real good, killing a lot of kids, and some of the Warriors he was fighting. Nitro got some extra power from one of the Kingpin’s subordinates, since the Kingpin thought that juicing up someone who’s power is already very destructive could likely lead to the sort of situation that would provide a groundswell of support for the SHRA. The public hears about the disaster, and thanks to a handheld video which was filmed by a tourist (or heck, someone could have filmed it on their phone), the public sees the Warriors fighting these guys and can see the mistake the kids make.

Now, this might not have been a big deal otherwise. However, Gyrich descends on the scene of the tragedy with his allies and inflates the story into a tale of selfish superheroes and innocent children. He gets the public riled up about it, and a month later, the SHRA passes (I think an incident like this could incite public sentiment, if someone helped push that sentiment, and also if the public was leaning towards frustration with heroes before the incident even occurred). It is now illegal for non-registered superhumans to act. Some heroes register; basically, those heroes with public identities, or those that work for the government anyway. Captain America, of course, and the Fantastic Four are the first to register. However, Cap makes it clear to Gyrich and the government that the heroes will NOT hunt down and capture each other. Gyrich isn’t happy about this, but he does remind Cap that, while Cap may not wish to seek out heroes, if an unregistered superhuman is spotted by Cap, Cap is duty bound to bring that hero in. Cap reluctantly agrees to this, and the other registered heroes do as well.

We also check in with the villains, and see the Kingpin and Mandarin readying their forces to take advantage of the plight of the heroes. Is there much to take advantage of? Oh yes, you better believe it. Cap and the Fantastic Four are still around and fighting the good fight, but the Avengers disband, since the team is torn in two. Cap supports the act, but Wolverine, Spider-Man and Iron Man all oppose it, and they leave the team. Since Stark funds the team, he also tells Cap that they won’t be able to meet anymore in his Tower. Cap pleads with them to come around and support the SHRA, but they refuse, and they start to lay low. That leaves few of the heroes around to battle villains, and the villains take advantage of it by starting a crime wave that plagues New York City. The heroes are stretched thin, and the Human Torch finds himself fighting a powerful trio of villains on his own: the Sandman, Titania and Absorbing Man. The rest of his colleagues are fighting elsewhere on the island of Manhattan, and the Torch is having problems defeating this terrible trio. It doesn’t look good for the Human Matchstick.

Peter Parker, however, hears about the raging battle either on the news, or at the Daily Bugle, or perhaps he simply is passing by. He can’t let his friend by killed by these dastardly villains, so he changes to Spider-Man to help out. The fight is a difficult one, and the Human Torch is eventually knocked unconscious, badly wounded during the melee. Spider-Man eventually ekes out a win, but he’s tired and wounded himself. Just then, the police and SHIELD arrive. The Torch is rushed to the hospital, while the villains are all placed under arrest…as is Spider-Man. When he’s taken to the prison, he’s unmasked, and the news teams at the site are quick to make sure that the entire world knows that Peter Parker is Spider-Man! End of issue one.

Now, why did I duplicate two of the big events from the early stages of Civil War? I basically did it to show that the big events Marvel had planned for this miniseries were fine and could be used, but they could be used in a way that fit the plot, rather than simply being thrown into the mix without thought as to whether or not they made sense for the character. By duplicating the events but not the circumstances surrounding the events, we could take the repercussions in many new directions. Over the next few issues of the limited series, we see Spider-Man faced with a dilemma; his secret identity is known, but he’s stuck in prison, so who’s protecting his wife and aunt? Spidey feels he has no real choice if he wants to protect those he loves the most, so he breaks out of jail to find the ladies in his life and get them to safety. His jailbreak in issue two would be the big event of that issue, made even more dramatic when he finds he can’t escape without the help of the Sandman, who’s also been sent to prison. The two reluctant allies escape, and once they’re free, Spidey lets Sandman go, vowing to find him and bring him down as soon as he’s made sure his wife and aunt are safe. (This is another layer of guilt for Peter, especially if the Sandman is part of any dastardly plots before Peter can get to him; Peter is always at his best when he’s swimming in guilt.)

Peter won’t find his aunt and wife in the second issue however. He makes his way back to the house where they’d been staying after leaving Avengers Tower, and he sees May and MJ in an upstairs window. As he rushes to the house, anxious to hold them (but not at the same time…ewwww!) the house explodes! Peter is distraught, and sure that his loved ones are dead, giving him a major mad on for anyone who supports the SHRA. Typically, Parker’s life is not going to be getting any easier, as Gyrich is using Spidey’s presence at the Torch debacle as the reason one of the FF is now in a coma at the hospital. The FF don’t quite believe that, but some of the public does, and these people really hate Spidey now. Peter doesn’t care though, and in issue three, he goes after one of the SHRA boosters (possibly Cap) blaming them for May’s and MJ’s death. Cap doesn’t want to fight Spidey and he tries to talk, but as anyone who’s read an angry Spidey comic knows, sometimes he doesn’t really listen. However, after a large public brawl (which Gyrich again spins to make Spidey look bad, contributing to the ugly public mood regarding him), Iron Man swoops in, and captures Spidey, taking him away from the battlefield.

Spider-Man still has his dander up, and is incredibly angry, but Stark calms him down by explaining that May and MJ are alive. After Stark saw Peter’s identity revealed on TV, he immediately went and got his aunt and wife, taking them back to his current hideout. He left holographic projections of them at their old house, so that anyone aiming to hurt the ladies might go through with their plans, and then assuming the ladies were dead, they would move on to other things. Spidey has a tearful reunion with two people he thought dead forever, but now he has to deal with his actions against Cap.

Meanwhile, just to pick up on the Torch thread, we see that the Torch’s injury is really causing the FF some grief. Reed is trying to argue that Spidey’s interference in the battle is what got the Torch wounded in the first place (since that’s the story Gyrich is spinning), but neither Sue or the Thing really believe it, and it’s obvious that Reed’s heart isn’t in it either. At the same token, Reed still believes the FF need to toe the line regarding this law, and that outright rebellion will only make things worse, inflaming public opinion and convincing Americans that superheroes are indeed out of control, proving Gyrich’s point. Thing and Sue aren’t as convinced, and the first cracks in the FF are planted here, as the team begins to splinter, each of them wrestling with the correct course of action.

Whew! This is just a taste of what we could do in the first few issues; we still haven’t discussed what the final plan is of the Kingpin and Mandarin (you know they have one; in fact, I’m sure they each have a different one that they aren’t sharing with their “ally”), nor have we touched on a lot of the other heroes in the MU. Any thoughts on your end on either what I’ve suggested, or some things you’d like to do in the series?

I wish I could remember all the details as well as you have. For some reason (probably “event fatigue”) I keep getting my Civil War plot points confused with the relatively sparse plot points of Secret Invasion…which I’m sure we’ll cover next, right?

I find it fascinating that you were able to keep many of the original scenes by retrofitting them to our new (logical) direction. Makes me wonder what the writers actually do at one of those Marvel retreats. I mean, you made it all sound so easy in two brief explanations, and it flows from one pragmatic conclusion to the next. Do they just play Twister all weekend and then pick names and storylines out of a hat to mix and match?

Since I can’t seem to pin down any details on my own to exploit, let me play Devil’s Advocate for a moment instead. The whole fake Thor thing has been trashed now. Completely and utterly useless. Which is fine. However, the big fight scene where he made his debut has also been scraped since the heroes are not really fighting amongst themselves en masse. Will there be any sort of significant death that we can tally up? Is this a matter of some second-string villain getting the public dirt nap? Or a less important hero falling at the hands of the villains?

To the bigger point, with Cap and Tony on reversed sides in this thing, we’ve eliminated the relevance of Nick Fury helping out Cap. Where do Tony and his band of rebels hole up now? I think we also put the kibosh on the Thunderbolts involvement, which removes the tragically dumb move of putting Osborn in charge of anything. At the same time, with Tony on the anti-SHRA side, he would no longer be in line to take over SHIELD.

So, while I’m following the show on the ground, with the FF and Spidey and the press and the politics, I’m still left wondering what the big picture is for the heroes and villains and what the shake-up will be at the end. Is there a Negative Zone prison? Are the villains shipped off to concentration camps? Is the 50-state Initiative still valid? Have you thought that far ahead? Do my questions help at all? Hello? Hello?

I think your questions help quite a bit, and they also give me a chance to draw out a more general picture, so that I’m not just doing an issue by issue summary of how I see the series going. Let me try and take them one at a time.

Yes, no Thor clone, and certainly no pathetic death of Bill Foster. That was so lame. That being said, it wouldn’t be a summer crossover without at least one high profile death (if one can call Foster a high profile death; with all due respect to the late, lamented Giant-Man/Goliath, he wasn’t exactly a fan favorite). Now, we potentially killed some of the New Warriors in the beginning of the series, just as the official Civil War did. But I also believe we can have death during the miniseries as well. One of the things I haven’t mentioned detailed during these discussions is just what the villains are up to, and I’m not going to start now. However, I will say that the villains are very active. In fact, I’ve figured out a way to work the Thor clone into the storyline, so let’s continue using the events of the original mini-series, shall we?

By the middle of the mini-series, it’s becoming obvious that some of the citizens of the MU aren’t really very happy with the way things are going. The fights between the superheroes and the villains are causing a lot of property damage and most of the unregistered heroes are lying low, meaning that the superheroes that are registered are having a hard time keeping up with the constant villain attacks (we’re checking in with our rebels every issue; they’re being led by Stark and are mostly holed up in one of his safe houses). There are fights between heroes. Usually they occur when Stark’s forces learn of an impending villain attack, or when they learn of a villain-hero brawl that’s threatening to overwhelm the heroes. Then the rebels will go to assist the heroes or stop the villains. Unfortunately, being the MU, this doesn’t always work out so well. The registered heroes are under orders to arrest the unregistered ones, and by this time, they’re getting a little pissy with those who won’t register. After all, the sanctioned heroes are working their keisters off trying to keep order, they’ve seen one of the rebels batter Captain America (that would be Spider-Man, mentioned above) and some of the registered heroes can’t help but blame the rebels for the injuries and property damage the villains are causing. So, anytime the two sides get together, there will be a fight.

Into the midst of the registered heroes comes Bill Foster, whose career as a hero has always been somewhat rocky. He registers with the government hoping that perhaps, now that the hero playing field has been thinned, he can grab some attention. Don’t get me wrong; he’s not a total jerk just looking for headlines. Foster has always been a hero, and still is, but he’s also not above taking advantage of the situation while it’s front page news. Still, public sentiment seems to be moving away from registration, and this won’t do for the Kingpin or the Mandarin. They need more time for their endgame and that means they need to make sure that the Civil War continues. So, they decide to come up with a fiendish plan (as villains are wont to do). Knowing that Thor hasn’t been seen in awhile, but also knowing that he would surely object to mortals telling him what to do, they decide that perhaps he could be the perfect fall guy in their scheme.

Nightshade, working for the baddies, begins moving around the country, spending brief moments at some of the sites of Thor’s most recent battles before his death. At these sites, she searches for and collects any data on Thor, and with the help of someone like Sabretooth (someone with enhanced senses) collects any DNA samples that still exist, if any). She also, with help from some of the other operatives in the villain’s employ, breaks into Avengers Tower (and because the registered heroes are stretched so thin, this proves possible. They also catch a break when Jarvis, who should be able to activate the automatic defenses at the tower, but makes a few poor choices and is knocked unconscious instead. That’s a plot thread to follow up on in Secret Invasion.) and raids the computer files for information on Thor. With all of this information, she returns to her fully stocked lab and, with the help of other criminal scientists like Karl Malus, she creates a clone of Thor. Dr. Faustus helps to program the clone Thor’s mind, and makes sure to fill the Thor clone with a lot of anti-SHRA rhetoric. This clone isn’t perfect (or as powerful as Thor), but it doesn’t have to be. Now, the villains simply await their chance.

Within a few days, another villains attack draws out both registered heroes, with Bill Foster among them, and the rebels. Soon, the villains either are captured or escape, and it’s just the heroes fighting. The sanctioned heroes are tired, and this exacerbates the issues I mentioned above, and the two sides are soon fighting in earnest. The media, of course, records all of this, and Gyrich and his allies continue to use these fights as proof that the unregistered heroes are threats to the country. However, no one expects the scoop they are about to get. Suddenly the Thor clone flies into the fight, spouting the anti-SHRA rhetoric that Faustus programmed into him. Thor is violent and brutal, way over the top, but the cameras are picking all of this up, and he does look and sound like the public assumes Thor would, and he seems to have Thor’s powers. Before the Thor clone is there too long, he lashes out with his lightning, killing Bill Foster. Both the registered and unregistered heroes are stunned, and Stark quickly calls for a retreat (the clone Thor flees then as well, whipping up a storm to discourage pursuit, which helps to maintain the illusion of him being a rebel, but then goes another way once he’s out of view of the TV cameras). The rebels flee, but to the eyes of the world, and to the eyes of the registered heroes, the rebels have crossed the line. This inflames public opinion against them and also incites some of the registered heroes to be even more upset (while the Thor clone seemed off to them, and some may suspect the truth, again, these guys are tired and frustrated, so they’re not all thinking too deeply on the matter).

So, there’s that event covered. What else did you ask? No, Tony wouldn’t take over SHIELD, but Captain America now can. Of course, we want to assassinate him at the end of the crossover (because Brubaker is doing such neat things with that plot in Cap’s own book, and really, Bucky would look silly in the Iron Man armor), but for now, we could make him head of SHIELD throughout the crossover, and Fury could help Stark (it wouldn’t be the first time they were uneasy allies, and I think they make a much more interesting duo than Cap and Fury anyway).

At first glance, I’m saying no on the Negative Zone prison, which I always hated. Of course, with villains and heroes being captured by the government, they’re going to need a place to hold them, and if I’m not mistaken, all of the current government prisons for superpowered captives use Stark tech. So, the government turns to Reed Richards to create a place to put these superpowered people, where the superpowered people can’t escape and Stark can’t use his inside knowledge of security systems to cause a breakout. Now, Reed may be brilliant, but he’s already stretched thin, and he doesn’t have much time. He needs a place that’s impregnable, and he knows of somewhere like that: the Negative Zone. He’s not thrilled with that solution, but really, the captives are going to be stuck in the prison, and will never see the outside. What does it matter where the prison sits, either the Negative Zone or Butte Montana, to the prisoner sitting inside it. So, the Negative Zone prison is still around.

As for the 50 State Initiative, that ties in with the question of how we end our Civil War miniseries. Goodness knows, I thought the end to the original MU miniseries was one of the most stupid anticlimaxes I had ever remembered for a big event. I would like to think that we could wrap things up a little more tightly. The last issue would have the Kingpin and Mandarin’s plots coming to fruition, and a huge villain attack (with the Thor clone participating), which both registered and unregistered heroes involved. Once the villains are defeated, the heroes on both sides would go at it, with Cap and Iron Man fighting each other above it all. Cap would be talking to Iron Man, trying to convince him that he needs to surrender. After all, Cap could reason, the SHRA IS law, and if that is going to change, it’s going to need to change by fighting within the system. Stark’s way is only making things worse, and while he doesn’t blame Stark for Foster’s death, surely this rebellion made that death possible. Stark realizes that what Cap is saying makes sense, and he surrenders (I think it makes more sense that Cap could sway Stark with words, rather than Cap looking around a battlefield and going, “My bad.”).

That wraps up the series. Captain America is the one who suggests the 50 State Initiative, as a way of trying to convince the heroes who haven’t registered to do so. He holds a press conference to discuss this, and during the conference, he’s assassinated by someone yelling “Fascist!” That puts it just about where the MU was after Civil War, with the exception of Stark as head of SHIELD. You’d need someone else to fill that slot, and I think a lot of people could take his place and some great stories could come out of that. I’d think Ms. Marvel might make sense, or if you really want to tie this story into Secret Invasion, how about making Dr. Pym the head of SHIELD. That could be very interesting….

Thoughts?

First of all, “Reed may be brilliant, but he’s already stretched thin” is probably the funniest thing I’ve read all day. Secondly, and this one is not as funny, I’m disappointed in this turn of events. The reason I continue to point out the fake Thor in every reply is because I find the whole concept to be sooooo out of left field as to be nonsensical. And then killing off Goliath (just who is White Goliath, by the way?) just adds to the nonsense. Look, here’s a character that no one has seen (aside form a few appearances) for roughly two decades or more and then he shows up only to be killed off? Ignoring the fact that he had given up the heroing bit to become a serious scientist, it still smacks of over-convenience which itself is a sign of bad writing. I was sure you were going to just let these bits of the story fade away. Who would really come up with the ludicrous idea of cloning a God in the midst of a Civil War? Wow…now that I said it out loud, it is kind of a brilliant idea…but that’s part of the problem too! If you could’ve seen this coming and sat around and daydreamed about the far-reaching possibilities for months on end, then sure, you may have come up with this ludicrous plan. But to just pull it out of your back pocket and casually throw it on the table? Your allies would either laugh at you or have you committed. And don’t drag poor ol’ Bill Foster into your scheme! What did he ever do to anyone? And where’s the significance? He’s not the “go for the glory” type. He has never craved the spotlight or sought unnecessary recognition. That said, your explanation of the cloning quest was pretty spot-on. Kudos for that.

Honestly? I would much rather see a member of the Young Avengers sacrificed for the cause…the new female Hawkeye never did anything for me. She’s disposable. And just the simple fact that she’s so young and new would allow the loss to resonate even more and reinforce the pro-SHRA’s drive for training and discipline. Granted, you don’t have the literal deus ex machina of Thor appearing from out of nowhere (after months of absence), killing a hero, and then disappearing in a puff of smoke, but it could still be managed. You have an unnamed assailant assassinate Cap as he’s ascending to the helm of SHIELD. Why couldn’t this same villain pull the trigger on Hawkeye in the midst of all the hero versus hero chaos? There must be a shape-shifter or marksman somewhere amongst the villainous ranks that we could appropriate for the dastardly deed. If the villains have all been captured or chased away, and the method of attack was parallel to that of a well-known hero, then the media would have a field day with placing the blame on the rebel faction. And the rest of the story could play itself out as you’ve described.

Or, conversely, here’s our opportunity to make Punisher relevant again (since he’s spent the last decade or so becoming a horrible caricature of himself…a soulless, cliched leftover from the “grim-n-gritty” vigilante era of comics). Good ol’ Frank is such a devotee to Captain America and the quasi-military feel of the superhero crowd, that he maniacally follows the SHRA to the letter. He takes it upon himself to stomp out the menace of the rebel heroes and he doesn’t care who gets in his way. Since Spidey actually had the audacity to lay his hands upon Cap, Frank decides he needs to take him out. Only problem is, Spidey senses the danger and dodges the shot…as a result, Hawkeye takes one for the team. This could be the turning point in the media coverage. The so-called heroes have now killed one of their own (in theory) and both sides have growing doubts about the SHRA. Not sure what the fallout would be there, but it puts the onus on the other side to prove this can work. Gyrich, being a politician, can play both sides against each other. He’d claim that the SHRA would be good for everyone, sanctioned heroes included. And Punisher would be made the scapegoat (he could benefit from the depth).

I’m not sold on the Negative Zone prison either. It didn’t really seem to serve a purpose considering how easily folks broke out of it anyway. It may as well just be a part of the Fifty State Initiative…not just training, but rehabilitation. Perhaps the jail could be an extension of Camp Hammond (which would make Taskmaster’s involvement more reasonable…he could be training villains to be heroes as part of a community service sentence).

As for the SHIELD thing, Cap would be the obvious selection. His assassination is the true icing on the cake for the event (and I think it should take place during Civil War and not in his own title). The American people would finally feel at ease with a government official and begin to believe in better days ahead. And then POW! Looking ahead to upcoming events, we know that the Skrulls gain control of SHIELD during Secret Invasion. Since you’ve already brought up the issue in Gyrich’s run for political prominence, why not have the other senator who’s posing as a Skrull become the new head of SHIELD? The government seeks more oversight of the organization and more control, so they name one of their own to run it. Makes sense on paper.

And finally, does Tony Stark have safe houses? I know he has vacation homes and scads of real estate investments, but does he have “drop off the grid” accommodations? I just ask because it seems funny to imagine this billionaire playboy skulking about in abandoned sewer tunnels. There would be a much more interesting dynamic between Stark and Fury, making for an uneasy alliance in the face of so much upheaval. On the plus side, since most of Marvel’s America operates on Stark technology, it’s easy to imagine how the rebels could set up quick response teams to deal with the villains and such. They would have eyes and ears everywhere and access to almost every computer in the country.

So, to recap, I was completely on board with the beginnings of your revamp, but there are a few things here in the middle that I disagree with. Maybe I’m just being picky, but I think there’s a lot of potential to turn this mediocre miniseries into something more long-lasting and meaningful. Do you agree with any of the points I’ve made? Any ideas how we can implement the suggestions I offered?

I agree with ALL of the points you offer (and I’m even ok with the killing of the new Hawkeye, despite being a fan of her character and of the Young Avengers in general).  The ONLY reason I used the clone Thor, killed Goliath and brought in the Negative Zone prison was to point out that all of the big ideas from the published version of Civil War could still be used, and they could be worked into a plot more seamlessly than they were by Mark Millar.  However, with that point made (probably in much more detail than was required) we can go back to putting together a Civil War story that makes more sense and flows even better, and I think your suggestions do that.

Your comments about Tony Stark and safehouses makes sense; he probably wouldn’t necessarily have them, and certainly his partnership with Fury is a lot more interesting if the safehouses are something Fury brings to the table.  It sets up a much better dynamic between them, and puts the two of them on more equal footing, making for more interesting chemistry between them.

We could go on and on about our Civil War, but I think that we’ve detailed it pretty well, with my beginning and your middle and end.  In the long run, we end up almost where the Marvel Universe was at the end of their Civil War, with only Stark being in a drastically different place (but, I think in the end, a much more interesting one for that character.  It’s also a place that keep him a hero, rather than turning him into the fascist ass he became in the MU).  I suppose that Bill Foster’s in a different place as well, being alive rather than dead, but considering he was languishing in Limbo before he was brought back simply to die, there’s not a lot of difference.  We’ll just continue to allow him to languish in limbo.

So, considering the length of the post, I think our work here is done.  Perhaps we can go through this same process again in the future with Secret Invasion, another mini-series with a great premise that was never fulfilled.

Moon Knight: Brought into the Light of Day

Moon Knight, oft described as a Batman clone, has had a long but relatively undistinguished career at Marvel Comics. Personally, I’ve always felt the Batman clone comment was unfair; yes, they’re both superheroes who are millionaires and mostly fight at night, but otherwise, the similarities are pretty nonexistent. I mean, Wayne’s loyal butler is English and Moon Knight’s is French; I don’t see how their lives could be more different.

Moon Knight is Marc Spector, a mercenary and soldier-of-fortune who fights another mercenary named Bushman, and loses badly. Left for dead in the Egyptian desert, he is rescued by devotees of Khonshu, the Egyptian God of the Moon and Vengeance. Unconscious and near death, Spector has a vision in which Khonshu appears to him and offers him a new chance at life if Spector will be Khonshu’s avatar on Earth. Spector agrees, his life is saved and, when he returns to the United States, he creates the Moon Knight identity.

Not a bad origin, although, as mentioned, it hasn’t led him to much success in the Marvel Universe. Perhaps he should have surmised times would be tough when his first appearance was in Werewolf by Night, one of Marvel’s titles in the 1970’s which tapped into the horror market. This was in 1975, and after that appearance Moon Knight jumped around the Marvel Universe a little (even joining the Defenders for a few issues), until finally securing his own series in 1980. Doug Moench and Bill Sienkiewicz chronicled these adventures and, while the book was critically lauded, it didn’t do wonders in sales, and was cancelled in 1984. Since then the character has appeared in numerous one-shots and limited series, and has also received other chances to carry an ongoing series; he’s currently on his fourth.

None of these series have been spectacularly successful, although all have had brief flashes of fame. Normally, it is the artist that seems to make the public take notice of a Moon Knight comic; Bill Sienkiewicz was in the beginning of his career when he pencilled Moon Knight, and it helped to push him into the spotlight; Stephen Platt was his penciller in the mid-90s and was quite a hit with those who enjoyed his very Image-esque art style; and his current series started off strong with pencils by fan-favorite David Finch. Oddly, while Doug Moench, his co-creator and original writer, gets some credit for his early stories, most other writers are rarely thought of in connection to the character.

Perhaps one of the reasons for that is Moon Knight’s striking visuals. His costume is distinctive and jumps off the page at the reader; the flowing cape and the contrast between the white of the costume and the dead of night work together to make Moon Knight a character to remember. However, his personality often seems to be ignored in the rush to focus on his visual representation, and I’m not sure that’s wise. The character actually could be quite interesting, if properly developed. So, the question before us for the next few days is: How do we make Moon Knight the interesting and successful character he has always had the potential to be?

Nail on the head with that last paragraph. Sienkiewicz set the tone for every Moon Knight story that will ever be published. I’m not saying that’s a bad thing. At the time, his style was quirky and gritty and maintained a certain level of darkness and chaos. The art had a quasi-supernatural feel to it which fit the character’s design and his backstory well. I think Finch did a nice job in capturing that roughness in both his posing and his costume design.

The only problem (and it’s a big one) is that Moench’s ideas were a bit ahead of their time. See, Marc Spector was a mercenary and he realized that he was no Clark Kent…meaning that it may be obvious to the fine folks of Chicago that Spector and Moon Knight are one in the same. So, he takes the blood money he has earned and invests it, becoming a millionaire. He then creates the identity of Steven Grant to rub elbows with the upper crust folks. To keep up with what’s going on at the ground level, he also creates the identity of cab driver Jake Lockley. Let’s recap that. We have Marc Spector the mercenary, Moon Knight the superhero, Steven Grant the rich dude and Jake Lockley the common man…all in the same body. Helping him with this marvelous charade are his pilot/butler Frenchie and Marlene, the daughter of an archaeologist he tried to save from Bushman’s greed. It was a brilliant concept that allowed Moon Knight to mingle in different social classes without anyone suspecting his true alter ego. Imagine the long sleepless hours, the precise yet hectic schedule and the general confusion this kind of lifestyle would create. The story potential was limitless.

Unfortunately, the series was cancelled after only 38 issues.

And here’s where the problem of Moench’s ideas comes in. See, no one else knew how to handle the multiple personality thing. So instead of trying to use the concept creatively, Marvel’s editorial department allowed it to just be shoved aside and retconned away. When the Fist of Khonshu miniseries was released (with an all-new creative team), all of the established bits of Moon Knight’s background were stripped off. Alan Zelenetz, who had taken over writing chores on the last few issues of the ongoing series, was tapped to “reinvigorate” the Moon Knight concept. So what did he do? Well, let me break it down for you: Marc Spector abandons the identities he has created, including Moon Knight (bad move). He gets telepathically summoned to Egypt by the Khonshu followers (huh?). They give him a bunch of “mystical” weapons…some of which were created by Hawkeye that one time the Avengers got sucked back to ancient times (…speechless…). He absorbs the Spirit of Khonshu which gives him limited superhuman strength based on the phases of the moon (which is kind of cool, except when he has to say “I can’t fight this week. The moon’s in a waxing gibbous. Sorry.”). And he turns his back on his supporting cast to go hang out with the West Coast Avengers (and later finds out that it was actually Khonshu who wanted to join the team because he was always picked last for dodgeball or something). About the only really cool thing to come out of that miniseries was this Sienkiewicz cover:

So that’s the first reason behind the character’s continued wading in the bottom-feeding realm of Marvel’s cast. But I’ve got another pretty valid reason too: his rogues gallery. Check out this short list of villains that he has faced throughout his adventures: Bora, Bushman, Coachwhip, Commodore Donny Planet, Conquer-Lord, Flag-Smasher, Grand Bois, Hatchet-Man (his brother Randall), Hobgoblin, Jester, Karg, Killer Shrike, Master Sniper, Midnight Man, Morpheus, Phantom Rider, Ringer, Secret Empire, Sons of the Jackals, Stained Glass Scarlet and Werewolf by Night. Not exactly any Ali-Frazier matchup in the bunch, huh?

And let’s not forget that he’s been killed at least three times during his career too. I don’t want to make it sound like that’s a unique thing in the comics world, but when your character isn’t in a top tier book a needless death/resurrection thing can really throw off sales.

Basically, it comes back to the tenets John and I espouse for every revamp we detail. 1. You need a unique selling point. In this case, Moon Knight had it with the multiple personalities. 2. You need a strong supporting cast and some relevant foes to fight. The former was taken from him while the latter never developed. And finally, 3. You need some consistency. Stick with it. Make something of it.

In Moon Knight’s latest ongoing series, writer Charlie Huston brought the character out of a self-induced exile and revealed his waning faith in Khonshu, his apparent addiction to prescription painkillers and the trouble he’s having rebuilding past friendships. That’s all a great start. He’s even hallucinating from time to time. Great! The only thing I wanted to see more of was some sort of mental imbalance from trying to play so many different characters throughout his career. Unfortunately, the later issues of Huston’s run have turned into a stream of brooding heroes and punching contests. He did re-introduce Midnight, the poorly-conceived sidekick that was foisted upon us all during the second Moon Knight ongoing title, but that whole plot turned into a watered down version of the Miracleman/Kid Miracleman dynamic.

There’s more to say here about direction and mistakes and missed opportunities, but I’ll turn it back over to John for now. What can be done to re-energize this property? Can Moon Knight be made into a top player in the Marvel Universe? Should he be?

Well, making Moon Knight a top player in the Marvel Universe suggests making him front and center in the Marvel Universe, and I’m not sure that’s a good idea. I enjoyed the issues when Moon Knight was in the West Coast Avengers, but it never truly fit the character, and he always looked out of place with the team. In addition, because the Avengers rarely run around during the evening, he was forced to fight a lot during the day, and amongst the rest of the team, he just became another costumed hero. I don’t have a problem with him being an associate of the hero community, but I think he should be on the edges, and if he gets involved in things, he should be allowed to do things his way. I’d recommend few guest stars in his book, at least from the heroes and those that do drop by should expect to be dragged into Moon Knight’s world, rather than vice versa.

That being said, I truly do like the character. I’ve perused a few issues of the current run, and honestly, I thought they were practically unreadable. I found them to be full of mopey, over rendered characters speaking in tortured prose that made absolutely no sense. I read three issues in a row, and never really knew what was going on or what the character’s motivations were. The art was, I believe, attempting to be dark and moody, but sadly was simply dark and ugly (this was after Finch left the title). I was very disappointed, because I did enjoy Moon Knight and thought that a lot more could have been done with him.

The multiple personality bit was brilliant, and I enjoyed the fact that it could serve almost like a superpower in some cases (at one point during Moon Knight’s tenure as a West Coast Avenger, the villain Dominus paralyzes the Avengers by affecting their minds; Moon Knight is immune, because every time Dominus hit him with the ray, it just knocked out one personality, and another was always there to take over). However, I never saw the downside to the multiple personality really explored, and it needs to be. The man is at least three different people and there are literally hundreds of issues worth of stories that could be written on that premise alone.

I also believe that the visual style of the character is very important. The demands of it are not easy for any one artist to draw, especially if you play up the multiple personality aspect of the character. The world of Moon Knight is a dark place, and it needs to be drawn dark, but still readable, straddling that fine line between a horror book and a superhero book. Steven Grant’s world is that of high society; it’s bright and well lit and needs a different feel. Jake Lockley is more of a dark, noir feeling, since he’s on the streets with the people. Finally, Marc Spector is a straight up action mercenary, so a cleaner action style works best for him. To really emphasize the different personalities, you really want to portray their lives in distinct styles of art, which is going to be difficult for a lot of artists. There are some who could do it, although it might be best to hire two or three different pencillers, or to have different inkers working over one penciller to really make the book look unique. The differing artistic styles could seem jarring, but I think they’re necessary to really get across the fact that there are so many different people in Moon Knight’s head.

Even with that being said, we still have to work on his supporting cast and his rogues gallery. I think his supporting cast has potential. Marlene is a gorgeous woman who’s been shown to be strong as well. The interesting thing to explore there is how does Marlene love a man who is actually four different men. Does she love them all? Just some of them? How can she help him integrate his four personalities into one? (For that matter, does he even want to integrate his personalities?) What kind of woman can live like this? I also think that Frenchie could be used more. He’s run quite the gauntlet, and has been beaten up and paralyzed numerous times over the years. They’ve also recently decided that he’s gay. He’s Marc’s oldest and only true friend, and he needs to have a place in the series. He’s not just an “Alfred”, but a very involved participant in Moon Knight’s activities, with a long history of experience as a mercenary and the mechanical expertise to keep Moon Knight’s gadgets working.

The rogues gallery though? Yeah, that’s going to take a bit more work.

The thought of having more than one artist on an ongoing Moon Knight title is not only brilliant, it’s practical. Sure, setting the right mood is important for the book. What may be even more important to the success of the book though is its schedule. Marvel is notorious for its lateness. Having multiple artists means less pages for each and could (if everything is planned well) result in a shorter completion time. Of course, if one of the artists falls behind, then it could also spell certain disaster. It’s tricky.

I agree that Moon Knight needs to stay on the fringe. And the idea of visiting heroes adopting his tone is crucial. It’s like what we talked about with the horror setting. You need consistency to pull that stuff off correctly. Spider-Man is a good fit. Punisher may have his place. And Daredevil seems to work on the same outskirts of the Marvel Universe. Hulk? Not so much. Iron Man? Too techy. And the team thing is right out the window.

The multiple personality aspect HAS to be brought back. That’s what made him different from Batman. He actually played different roles all the time and it didn’t seem silly (Matches Malone, anyone?). Plus, it gives the opportunity to wonder which one is the REAL character. So many ways to play that theme out.

His supporting cast is small but important. Frenchie gives support and Marlene grounds him somewhat. I think there’s a big opportunity to expand the cast though…add some tension.

The rogues gallery has me stumped right now. One would think that his archenemy should be Bushman, but there’s absolutely nothing interesting about the character. He’s just an angrier version of Marc Spector. No, Moon Knight should be dealing with the more shadowy types. Conspiracy theorists. Twisted religious causes. Human trafficking. Back alley genetic experiments. The kind of overtly creepy stuff that the other heroes don’t want to get their hands in, let alone acknowledge.

We’ve established a general tone and at least one or two things to explore. You want to take a stab at the rogues thing? Maybe throw some names out and I can see if I can make them fit? Other ideas for expanding the supporting cast? And didn’t we make mention, during our Go West musings, that we would relocate him back to Chicago? Is there something we can do with that?

I’m going to start by discussing the rogues, since I think we agree that a hero stands or falls on the strength of their Rogues Gallery. You mentioned some of the people he has fought in the past above, and I’ll start with them. I should make sure I agree with you on Bushman first though. Bushman is, quite simply, dull and uninspired. The only reason he’s stuck around is because he was part of Moon Knight’s origin, but that ship has sailed. Time to use a better class of villain.

My first pick for a member of his Rogues Gallery would be Killer Shrike. I’m well aware that Shrike has never had a large role in the Marvel Universe, and this has puzzled me for some time. First of all, I like his visual look, and in the Moon Knight title, that’s important. He has a neat, streamlined look, with a nifty cape. The colors of his costume are dark, and he’d fit in quite well in a darker, moodier comic. Killer Shrike may need an attitude adjustment, or perhaps we simply need a new Shrike, which should be easily accomplished. Visually, I think Shrike is as close to Moon Knight’s opposite number as currently exists.

Another possible villain for him would be Hobgoblin. I fully understand that Hobgoblin is seen as a Spider-Man villain, but with the Green Goblin back among the living, Hobgoblin has faded from the scene in the Spidey titles. Let’s give him a new lease on life with Moon Knight. Again, Hobgoblin has a great visual look and is actually a rather scary looking bad guy; I’ve always felt he was a much more menacing villain than the Green Goblin. There have been quite a few men behind the mask of the Hobgoblin, and we could use any of them, or create our own Hobgoblin. Or, if we simply must keep Bushman in the picture, make him the new Hobgoblin. He wouldn’t be the first mercenary to don the costume, and you can retain the connection he has with Moon Knight and reinvent Bushman as a more interesting villain at the same time.

Sadly, Moon Knight’s past foes are really rather pathetic (although this could be a place to use the Ringer I mentioned in our “Building Better Villains” posts over Halloween), but I did notice Coachwhip. It’s no secret that I’m a huge fan of the Serpent Society, and perhaps we could gather a few of their former members (including Coachwhip) into a smaller Serpent Squad to bedevil our heroes. Most of them are fairly freaky and would work in an edgier story.

After that, I fear we’ll be creating villains for Moon Knight. It might be interesting to create at least one villain that’s seen more often for one of the other identities. For example, a corporate bigwig who runs in the same circles as Stephen Grant could be interesting. He could either be a true villain who simply likes to run with the jetset or he could be more of a weak man, who does bad things because he needs to in order to maintain his lifestyle. The interest would be in seeing how Moon Knight handles him when this guy stumbles into that area of Spector’s life. It could be even more interesting as Moon Knight’s personalities begin to overlap; he can normally keep them separate because their worlds are so different. What happens when those worlds touch? How do his personalities interact when someone crosses from one life to the next?

That’s a start at a Rogues Gallery. I’m sure we could find some other villains being underused in other areas of the Marvel Universe, dust them off, and give them Moon Knight as a sparring partner. I think Xemnu the Titan is free…

After your “time to use a better class of villain” comment, I can’t believe I’m actually going to say this, but the selection of Killer Shrike as a main foe is brilliant! I feel dirty inside. To tell the truth, Shrike and Moon Knight have a lot in common. Both were mercenaries before they became costumed types. Both have generally succeeded on their own skills, with the exception being Shrike’s powered armor. And both have pretended to be something they’re not…Shrike has actually posed undercover in a number of criminal organizations. To take it a step further, there’s the topic of vengeance. In one of his earlier adventures, Moon Knight faced Shrike (with Ringer and Coachwhip) who managed to shoot down the Mooncopter (don’t laugh) and nearly kill Frenchie. Shrike was never punished for that daring act.

Now pardon me for a minute as I digress into another revamp, but I think we need to update Killer Shrike as well. I don’t mind the guy in the suit. He has that military background and extensive experience working in the underworld with various unsavory types. However, he has a few faults too. First of all, I don’t know about the cape (or the goofy plume on his head…if he still wears it). I could picture some sort of wing-like thing similar to Black Bolt’s costume. Secondly, his name is just silly. Can we drop the “Killer” part and just call him Shrike? I mean, from a scientific stance, all shrikes are killers. They’re creepy little birds (also referred to as “butcher birds”) that like to impale their prey on thorns or sticks. Why can’t we adopt some of that nastiness in his characterization? If Marvel wants to have a more visceral, ground-level title, this could definitely be it.

Your next pick was Hobgoblin and I have to disagree with you. As much as I like his look (even with its similarities to Moon Knight), in my mind he is inexorably tied to Spider-Man. Each man behind the mask had some sort of tie to the Spider titles and most of Hobgoblin’s encounters took place with Spidey. If we took the character and put Bushman or another meaningless person under the cowl it really wouldn’t make sense or be an original story. That’s a dead end to me. I would suggest we could use Demogoblin, because he had a previous run-in with Moon Knight too. However, I think his demonic origin may be a bit too “out there” for a grounded title. Let’s just skip the whole goblin subset.

Coachwhip is an interesting possibility. And she would add a villainous female to the ranks. I would absolutely LOVE to construct a new Serpent Society and the Moon Knight ongoing series is the perfect place to present a darker, dirtier lineup that could become involved in some of the less-flashy types of crime I mentioned earlier in the post. I’d include some of the members with interesting names and powers like Boomslang (which is actually one of the most venomous snakes in the world), Puff Adder and either Sidewinder (useful powers) or Cobra (creepy powers), plus create a couple new ones perhaps based on snakes like the Keelback, Lancehead and/or Pit Viper.

As far as creating new villains goes, there are a lot of options. The one you mentioned seems like a sort of Kingpin/Norman Osborn thing…which is an expected, though not altogether horrible, direction. Although I must say that “The Committee” sort of serves that kind of purpose for him right now (without the personality involvement you mentioned). It would be intriguing to have a bad guy who Moon Knight encounters in his various personas…a ruthless tycoon that gladhands with Steven Grant then badmouths Jake Lockley as the lowly driver. It would be kind of cool to demonstrate how someone like that acts when they have to interact with those they deem below them. Of course, this same guy might look up to Marc Spector and need to hire him for some nefarious scheme.

I could also see us creating a sort of anti-Moon Knight character as perhaps the champion of another Egyptian God, one that is in conflict with Khonshu (and, as an aside, didn’t the Serpent Society pal around with a version of Set – the Egyptian God of chaos?). Or perhaps we could set up an underground group that worships a different interpretation of Khonshu and is at odds with Moon Knight (sort of like radical Islam versus traditional Islam). That’s one direction.

I’m all for making Killer Shrike simply Shrike, since that’s less typing. Let it be done! Actually, I agree with everything you mentioned about him, and truly believe that he could be a first class villain for our hero.

I could disagree with a lot of your Hobgoblin comments, and while I agree that he’s tied to Spider-Man now, I don’t think it has to stay that way. After all, Sandman was another villain tied to Spider-Man, who moved over to become a Fantastic Four villain, and of course, the Kingpin was every inch (and he has many inches) a Spidey villain, who’s now more universally thought of in connection to Daredevil. These seem odd at first, while a reader’s mind adjusts, but soon the villain becomes associated with their new antagonist. I’d also point out that Jason Phillip Macendale, one of the Hobgoblins, was very pragmatic and I think he’d be happy to continue his criminal career avoiding Spider-Man. I could make these arguments, but I won’t. I’m more than willing to concede the Hobgoblin, mostly because you like the idea of a new Serpent Society!

I like the concept of keeping it smaller, with more like 5 or 6 members, rather than the 15 or 20 they had at one time. I think the character of Sidewinder is a fascinating one; he had gone straight, I believe, to be able to spend time with his child, but there are many ways to bring him back to the bad side of the street. That being said, I’ve also learned to like Cobra, a character that I never thought much of. Mark Gruenwald really fleshed him out during his Captain America run, and I think the Cobra would be very interesting; combining him in a group with Sidewinder could lead to some clashes, since both of them led the Serpent Society at times, and the two of them aren’t getting along right now.

While I recognize the cliche of the evil businessman, I think a character that can interact with all of Specter’s personalities is too valuable to dismiss. Besides, we don’t have to make this character a ruthless planner, which does tend to be the stereotype. Instead, he could simply be a weak willed man, who is desperate to hold onto what he has and will do reprehensible things to retain his wealth, his power, or maybe even his wife. Perhaps his wife is shallow and vain, and will leave him if she doesn’t get the jewels and valuables she covets. Perhaps the man is a city politician who had a skeleton in his closet, and was determined to hide it during a re-election campaign. He was forced to associate with less than reputable people to accomplish this goal, and unfortunately, he opened a door that he has not been able to close, as these people continue to force him into other actions or risk losing his political clout under a scandal. Perhaps he’s a young man who’s running his parents’ business, and not doing a very good job of it, and is willing to do anything to keep the business solvent so his parents won’t be disappointed. My point is, we don’t have to use the Norman Osborn archetype for this character if we don’t want to.

As for a secret organization, like the Committee or the Secret Empire, I like the thought of one, but the reality always seems to fall far short. In the end, they seem to either have no personality and/or very nebulous goals. If we were to use such an organization, we’d have to know exactly why they were formed and what their motivation is, and I’d want to detail out at least a few prominent members so that we had some personality we could infuse into their appearances. I think one of the main problems with the Secret Empire is that everyone has their identity hidden by those bloody faux Ku Klux Klan robes they wear. Normally the identities of the important members is a secret to the reader, as they’re someone the writer wants to reveal down the road, so they aren’t given personalities, in the fear that this could clue the reader into their true identity. Phooey! I say give them individual personalities; it makes the organization so much more interesting than any minor mystery about who’s actually hiding behind the hood.

A counterpart to Moon Knight, embodied in the avatar of another Egyptian deity? I can see that. The only other Egyptian deity that ever regularly appears in Marvel comics (and certainly the only evil one) is Set or Seth, depending on who’s writing him. You mentioned tying him into the Serpent Squad, which would make sense, because of the snake motif. However, we could also go with Sekhmet, a lion god that has fought the Avengers and the Black Panther. Even more interesting could be using an avatar of Anubis, the Egyptian god of funerals and mummification. In fact, Moon Knight had a run in with one of his priests already. A modern day priest of Anubis, Sheikh Ahmad Azis declared himself the reincarnation of Aram-Set and named himself Anubis the Jackal. He was killed in a confrontation with Moon Knight, way back in the first issue of his second series. Perhaps this Sheikh actually was connected to Anubis, and Anubis annoints someone else as his avatar to get revenge for the Sheikh’s defeat?

So, we have Shrike, a new Serpent Society, an unscrupulous businessman, a new Committee or Secret Empire (choose your favorite) and an avatar of a rival deity. That should keep Moon Knight busy, and the other heroes won’t laugh at his Rogues Gallery anymore. What about his supporting cast? Do we stick with just Marlene and Frenchie?

Your idea of having a Set-based avatar running alongside the Serpent Society makes me chuckle. Not because it’s a bad idea, but because it reminds me of Cobra and their dealings with Serpentor. Ridiculous. There are, however, some interesting paths to explore in the Egyptian pantheon. And I think that stuff could be mined to great effect. Also, I think one way to expand his supporting cast would be to introduce some sort of native guide or foreign professor steeped in the mythologies. If it were a guide, it could be someone who is determined to serve at Moon Knight’s side, in honor of Khonshu, and that would lead to some funny encounters with Frenchie as they both try to help Moon Knight. Perhaps the professor type could be female and Steven Grant could meet her at a museum fundraiser…the two of them hit it off and he uses her as a resource. I think we have to be careful to build up his alternate identities and make at least one of them strong enough to stand on its own. That’s another Batman trap we don’t want to fall into, where the costumed character is a bigger presence than the man under the mask.

Frenchie and Marlene should be the all-time core of the series. Building up both of their personalities apart from Moon Knight will help strengthen the storylines overall. And we can have supporting cast members bloom out of those characters too…Frenchie’s new boyfriend or a new love interest for Marlene that ends up being part of our new Secret Empire. The multiple personalities give us a lot of chances to introduce new characters, both useful and disposable.

I’m interested in the move to Chicago. There’s already an established image of political corruption there, which would lend itself to some sort of evil underworld. Crime has been up in the city recently as well. The Serpent Society might set up house there, seeing it as ripe pickings and new stomping grounds away from a gaggle of heroes. The Windy City backdrop gives us an easy in for pretty much everything we’ve talked about so far.

I’m certainly all for moving him to Chicago; think how cool his cape will look in the wind out there! I also like your idea of an expert in the Egyptian pantheon. One thing to consider about his supporting cast touches on something you mentioned, which was that we wanted to make sure his secret identities are all strong characters in their own right. By doing that (and I agree that it’s essential that we do it) we create a situation where Moon Knight almost is his own supporting cast. We now have a book tracking seven characters, if we include Frenchie, Marlene, our new expert, and all of the four Moon Knight personas. It also would probably be wise to introduced a few supporting characters for each personality who don’t deal with any of the other sections of Spector’s psyche. For example, Jake Lockley might have a few informants who only ever deal with him; Spector would have a few mercenary contacts and Grant would have some high society friends. We’d need a few recurring characters for each of these personalities if we’re going to sell them as independent of each other.

I would see the structure of the book being similar to the Green Lantern title that DC produced back in the early 90s; one story arc would deal with Hal Jordan, then one with John Stewart, and then one with Guy Gardner, with occassional stories involving them all. Of course, Moon Knight would always dominate the book, but I could see one story arc putting more focus on his Jake Lockley persona, and then another spending more time with his Steven Grant side….that sort of thing. The first story arc would have to introduce all of the personalities to the reader, but there would be plenty of time to flesh them out down the road.

Hmmm. We covered supporting cast and villains; we’ve discussed how to structure the series, and what we think the important beats are….did we forget anything?

Well, I don’t know if you have any opinion on it or not, but I think we should do a quick examination of Moon Knight himself and see what works and what doesn’t. As things stand, he’s pretty much Batman in white. We’ve talked about increasing the presence of his various identities, but we haven’t discussed what we might change about the guy in the fancy outfit. Does he have any sort of powers? What are his limitations? Does he rely on painkillers to get through his adventures? Is he a gadget hound? Does he have a Mooncycle and a Moonmobile and a pair of Moonskates? Let’s do a quick inventory of what makes Moon Knight tick.

I would like to see his “lunar-reliant” abilities make a return, not necessarily in reference to the various phases (though it would be cool to remove any additional powers during a new moon and have his powers go overboard during a full moon) but more in the “better at night than in the daytime” sense. He could be similar to a werewolf but without the creepy transformation. Honestly, he looks ridiculous fighting in broad daylight but the full whiteout effect would be pretty effective at night.

I think his painkiller addiction should be front and center in dealing with all of his various identities. The drugs will color his entire life, but each alter ego will handle it differently.

And the gadgets have to go. I don’t mind him having some sort of staff or a couple bladed weapons that may have been given to him by followers of Khonshu. However, the mass-produced throwing weapons and the helicopters and submarines and dirigibles have to go. I don’t like the “funded by a millionaire” quality of the character. It makes him too much like Batman. He should be more of a ground-level hero…relying on his skills and his environment to take out the bad guys.

I agree that returning to him his Khonshu derived might is a good idea.  If he’s Khonshu’s avatar, he really should get something out of the deal, and I love the idea that these abilities are dependent on the phases of the moon.  Ditto your feelings about the powers perhaps getting a little too strong and out of control during the full moon.

As for gadgets, I think he has to have some.  I mean, he is a millionaire, and surely he does something with his money.  I wouldn’t give him a utility belt and a submarine, but I’ve always liked his flying Moonjet (or whatever he calls it) and it does provide him with transportation, which every hero needs.  However, maintaining that would probably be expensive enough; certainly I think he should fight with his traditional weapons, like the ankh. 

I will admit that the painkiller addiction seems a little too Desperate Housewives to me.  I’m not fond of it.  That being said, it makes perfect sense; how would a human who gets beat on as much as he does, with no real powers to speak of, survive that sort of pain.  Of course, if we’re returning a measure of superstrength to him with his Khonshu given powers, would he still need the painkillers?  I’m thinking that, when the moon is waning, he would need them, since his powers are at their weakest.  However, for much of the rest of the month they wouldn’t be as necessary; of course, he’s addicted to them, so he’s taking them all the time.  Do they interact with his powers?  If he breaks the addiction, what does he do at those time when his powers aren’t strong enough, and he needs relief from the pain?  There is some potential in this concept.

Spider-Man: Where did it all go wrong?

Spider-Man has probably been in the news (not the real news; they don’t care about comic books, unless Captain America dies on a slow news day. No, I’m talking about the comics news, spread out across a gazillion internet blogs and websites) more than any other super-hero recently, thanks to Marvel’s “One More Day” storyline. Chances are, if you’re reading this post, you know very well what that storyline entailed, but on the off-chance that the only thing you know about Spider-Man is that Kirsten Dunst is a hottie, let me quickly explain.

In the comics, Spider-Man has been married to the beautiful Mary Jane Watson for (our time) almost 20 years. I believe they got married in 1989, but I’m too lazy to look up the exact date. No, I lie, I’m not that lazy. They actually got married in 1987, so they’ve been married for over 20 years. Apparently, there were those at Marvel Comics, led by Editor-in-Chief Joe Quesada, who felt that their marriage had destroyed some of the very essence of what made Spider-Man the character in which millions had fallen in love. They wanted to get rid of the marriage, but how can you do that? If they get divorced, then Peter Parker has the baggage of a failed marriage. If she dies, then he’s a widower. Neither solution makes him the character he was in the 1960s and 70s.

The solution, from Marvel’s point of view, was “One More Day.” Here’s that quick synopsis I promised: Aunt May has been shot and lies dying. Mephisto, one of the many Marvel Universe iterations of Satan, promises to save May’s life if he can erase Peter and Mary Jane’s marriage from reality. They will not be married, they will have never been married, and no one will remember the marriage. Peter Parker weighs the options over in his mind. “Hmmm,” he thinks, “do I give up sex, love and a strong marriage with a gorgeous redhead who is a former model, or do I save my aunt, who’s 120 years old? What would my Uncle Ben do?” It’s an easy decision. Or it would be, if it had been made by the character. Sadly, it was made by a couple of 40 year old men who refuse to leave their childhoods. Parker took the deal, and the marriage was undone.

There seem to be two schools of thought on this subject. One school believes this to be the stupidest story in a long history of stupid stories, and a bad idea, since it rewrites two decades of Spider-Continuity. The other school believes this to be the stupidest story in a long history of stupid stories, but hey, at least it got rid of the marriage that had ruined their beloved wall-crawler, so alls well that ends well. No one seems to have liked the story itself, with the possible exception of J. Michael Straczynski’s accountants, when he cashed the checks he received from writing said story.

For our purposes, we need to look at where Spider-Man went wrong as a character, and what can be done to fix him. For the purposes of the “One More Day” story, the question is whether or not his marriage to Mary Jane was a mistake. Personally, I liked the marriage. My feeling is that, when you publish a character for over forty years, there has to be some sort of character development. By getting married, Peter was growing up, the exact same thing Stan Lee had him doing when he had Peter graduate from high school and go to college within the first three years of the comic’s existence. A married Peter Parker was an interesting Peter Parker, as he now had to consider how his actions would affect, not just his Aunt May, but his wife as well. Plus, the interaction between Peter and Mary Jane was phenomenal, and when they also interacted with his Aunt, they were a full realized family unit, realistic and relatable. They seemed like real people. It is an irony of which I am quite aware that the writer who did so much to make this family so interesting to readers was J. Michael Straczynski, who then was the one to destroy this family in “One More Day.”

But perhaps not everyone agrees with me, so I open this to the others.

Wait…wasn’t Straczynski the same hack who got Gwen knocked up by the Green Goblin? He’s the reason I stopped reading Spider-Man comics in the first place (and I’ve got a pretty impressive collection). Much like nearly every other modern comic being produced today, I felt that Amazing Spider-Man had gotten weighed down by “real life” and wasn’t the fun book I enjoyed growing up.

That said, I’m torn on the marriage thing. I remember buying the wedding issue (one copy of each cover, thank you) and thinking “Wow, this carefree, wisecracking young hero is getting tied down. How sad.” Of course, I was in high school at the time and didn’t really relate to marriage. Things change. Now I’m married with kids and Peter Parker seems like a guy who wants to make things work but, regardless of his Uncle’s responsibility adage, can never quite get it together.

On one hand, being married takes a lot of independence away from Spider-Man. Like I said, he always seemed like the high-flying, fast-talking type to me. He stays out late. He doesn’t clean up after himself. He just wants to have fun.

On the other hand, he and MJ really work as a couple. And hell, there are very few marriages in comics, good or otherwise. It was a genuine relationship that built over the years and reached its logical next step.

Here’s my thoughts on the storyline: Aunt May is freaking old. She’s served her purpose. May acted as Peter’s conscience. She represented his vulnerability. And she anchored him. Big deal. Let the bonebag die. Seriously. What’s the big loss? Hasn’t MJ embodied all of those aspects in her own way already? By losing Aunt May, but holding onto MJ, does anything really change in Peter’s life?

Wow…a deal with the devil. That’s original. Look, it doesn’t even make sense on paper. How did that get through editorial? By eliminating the marriage, they’ve set back Spidey’s history by 20 years. Everything that happened to him since 1987 can no longer technically exist because the circumstances that caused the history have changed. It’s some sort of bizarre chaos string theory in reverse. People that he’s met, words that he said, things that he did. All gone. And, in practice, that blank slate has to emanate to every corner of the Marvel Universe. Anyone who crossed paths with Petey during that time must be revamped too. Events that he took part in can no longer be put forth as fact. IT’S ALL WRONG.

Of course, eliminating 20 years of continuity also gets rid of the “Gwen had the Goblin’s twins” storyline AND the -shudder- “Spider-Clone Saga.” I guess that’s not a bad thing.

The problem here is that Marvel has painted itself into a corner where the only “logical” solution is to just make the relationship never happen. It’s almost as bad as the Bobby-Ewing-in-the-shower move. Like John said, they couldn’t kill off MJ because then Peter would seem weak or damaged for not being able to protect her. And they couldn’t divorce them because then Petey would either come across as a victim or a jerk (depending on who did the dumping). Even when they briefly separated the couple, Spidey became all whiny and woe-is-me. I got tired very quickly of his inner monologues about how he had screwed everything up. It was almost annoying as most of the scripts from the 90’s animated series.

Oddly enough, it turns out that the “Mephisto Gambit” was also proposed as a solution to the horrible 90’s Clone Saga, but was dismissed as being “out of Spider-Man’s league.” Hmph.

The question before us is “What next?” If I recall correctly, the Clone Saga was followed up by a completely forgettable storyline. Of course, that’s not really fair. Most of 90’s Marvel stories were completely forgettable. So is that the solution? Just write a bunch of filler issues until everyone forgets the debacle and then hope against hope that the readers will eventually come back?

Before I answer Jason’s questions, I have to make a couple of comments. Yes, Straczynski wrote the reviled story where Gwen had sex with Norman Osborn. Yes, we all shudder to think of it. However, if one strips away that story, I think they’ll see that Straczynski has a very good grasp of the character of Spider-Man and of his supporting cast. There were also a lot of people who didn’t like his take on “Spider Totems” and Ezekiel, and the idea that his powers were more magic based than science based. Having read those stories, I think Straczynski actually does a brilliant job of saying, “Maybe my magical explanation works, but if you don’t like it, the science explanation still works just fine.” He didn’t set his new continuity up as a definite, but just as a possibility, and in the end, I thought the story was very well done.

I won’t condemn Straczynski for deciding that Gwen would do the nasty with Norman Osborn. I didn’t like the plot, but he had enough credit from his previous stories that I let it slide. To me, the characters are more important than the plot (which is not to say plot is unimportant, but I think character trumps it) and Straczynski knew these characters inside and out. In fact, I find it interesting that rumors abound that he wanted his name removed from some of “One More Day”, because he didn’t like the way the story was progressing, and the eventual outcome.

Jason mentions that he sees Spider-Man as a high flying and fast talking hero. Some people feel that he’s more interesting as a single man. I’ve read numerous commentators (including Mr. Silver Age, who writes for the Comics Buyers Guide) who seem to think that these are intrinsic parts of his character, as are his status as a hard luck hero. Perhaps I’ve always missed the point of Spider-Man, but I consider only one facet of his character to be intrinsic: his innate sense of responsbility. It’s his understanding that with great power, comes great responsibility. That’s what makes Peter a hero. That’s what makes him interesting. I know that the original stories often cast him as a hero with the worst luck imaginable and more problems than he knew what to do with, but if you look at his origin, I don’t think that the hard-luck hero is part of it. Sure, he was picked on, but that just made him a geek. Otherwise, the only bad luck he had was when his uncle was killed by the same burglar that Peter had allowed to escape him (which, I have to admit, is horrifically bad luck), but it wasn’t so much bad luck as it was necessary for his origin to work. I’m not sure that you need the hard-luck hero to write good Spidey stories.

Yes, Aunt May is expendable. In fact, they’ve killed her already. In Amazing Spider-Man #400 she died. J.M. DeMatteis (what is it with hard to spell names that I have to look up like his and Straczynski….why can’t I be typing about Jim Lee?) wrote a touching and heartfelt story where May and Peter spend some time together, and then she passes away silently in bed. It makes me cry everytime I read it. And they did just fine without her for a few years, before someone decided that they needed to bring her back.

So, how does this get fixed? Well, I have to admit, sometimes there is more harm to be done by trying to fix bad continuity than there is in simply throwing your hands up in the air, giving up, and ignoring it. That worked fine with the Spider-Clone storyline, because in the end, there were no changes to continuity, and you could cut those years out of the Spider-Man mythos without really changing much. Sadly, that doesn’t work for “One More Day”, since we’re left with a screwed up continuity. If we ignore it, then what? If Peter starts getting serious with someone in a relationship, we’re basically going to be treading much of the ground we already tread with Mary Jane. I suppose they could put him with someone who’s personality is much different than MJ’s, but I think that many of the problems faced in a relationship are somewhat universal, and it still seems like they’ll be retelling the same stories all over again.

This also brings up another problem with “One More Day”. This plotline again shows us how short-sighted Marvel Editorial is. What sort of future can Peter have? If he gets serious with another woman, what are they going to do? They can let them date for awhile, but after dating for years, it’s going to begin to look bad if Peter won’t take the next logical step. Besides, once a relationship gets serious, you start to have some of the same issues you have with marriage, even if the participants aren’t actually married. So is he never going to be allowed to be serious with a woman again? If he gets serious, are they going to start dropping them off bridges again, as they did with Gwen? It seems that Peter is either destined to always be moving from relationship to relationship and never getting serious (which is likely to eventually make him look like something of a cad) or he’s destined to get in a serious relationship and make more deals with Satan knock-offs. What kind of solution is this?

I think something has to be done about “One More Day”. I’m not sure what. Not much time has passed; how about Peter waking up, and Mary Jane is in the shower and the whole thing is a dream?

Zing! And we’re right back to the Dallas solution. I agree with your assessment about relationships. Marvel can’t honestly hook Peter up with another woman or the readers will scream foul. Then we get into Bruce Wayne territory…which is to say, every time a new female character shows up as a love interest in Batman , DC has Pavlov-dogged us to know that she’ll either turn out to be evil or she be killed within four issues. It’s similar to the new red-shirted dude on any given episode of Star Trek or the mysterious stranger that shows up at the Peach Pit on Beverly Hills 90210. That kind of mindless redundancy is what destroys the limited credibility of comics.

I can’t believe I’m actually going to say this, but thinking about it, the dream bit makes a lot of sense in this situation. Petey’s under a lot of stress from the “unmasking on national TV” thing…he’s bummed about his aunt’s health…maybe he has a wicked ingrown toenail or something…why wouldn’t he have a fever dream about the devil?

You’re right. This isn’t an ignorable offense. This changes everything. And it needs to be changed back before it’s too late.

Well, I had a great post all written, and it was witty and insightful and would have netted me that Pulitzer for sure….and the computer ate it. Somehow. I have no idea. These new fangled computer things sure throw me. I had originally suggested to Jason that we simply chisel our thoughts onto stone tablets, as we did back in my childhood. Jason felt that we would not receive as much attention as we would posting onto a blog. “Well, what if we threw the stone tablets at people, asking them to read them? Maybe drop them from airplanes. That should get us attention,” I suggested, proud that I had reached a solution for the apparent problem. Oddly, Jason said nothing, but simply slowly backed out of the room.

On the plus side, this means that this post will probably be more concise and easier to read. You’ll have to imagine that it is much wittier than it really is, and trust me that all of the good snarky comments and funny jokes were actually eaten by the computer. In fact, feel free to assume that about any posts I make from this time forward.

I’m not sure that fixing Spider-Man would be that difficult, and I think we can even do it without using a plotline from a nighttime soap opera that aired over two decades ago. First of all, can Mephisto really bend reality in this way? I know he’s cosmic level, but I thought he was more Galactus level. I don’t think Galactus can rewrite reality for an entire planet. That seems like something that only someone on the level of Eternity can do. If we assume that this is slightly outside Mephisto’s power range, that means that this never happened. What happened? Here’s how I would lay it out.

We keep doing the stories in Amazing Spider-Man for a few months, as we’ve been doing. However, Peter starts waking up from dreams. In these dreams, he’s married to MJ, and he’s very happy (as they often were). The dreams are good, but he’s somewhat sad when he awakens, since he now has no one with which to share his life. Meanwhile, while awake, things start going bad for him. Small things at first, but they escalate, and soon he’s dealing with some relatively major problems, all depressing and disheartening. Meanwhile, he’s still having these dreams of his marriage to MJ, and they’re getting more vivid.

I wouldn’t drag this on for more than a few months. Soon, his new life is crumbling around him, but his dream life is strong. However, he’s beginning to remember more of this dream life including the deal he made with Mephisto to give up his marriage. Something about that rubs him wrong, the first thing in his dream life that has done so. It just doesn’t seem like something he would do. As problems continue to mount in the waking world, he retreats into his dream life, all the while beginning to realize something is wrong. Suddenly, in a burst of emotion, he wakes up to find himself confined in Mephisto’s realm.

It turns out that Mephisto, always eager to break a noble person (as he’s continually tried with the Silver Surfer), saw Peter Parker before “One More Day”. Peter was incredibly vulnerable at that time….his aunt was dying, he was on the run from the law, many of his super-hero friends were unavailable to him because of Civil War, the population hated him more than normal, he had just dealt with Captain America dying, he had been fired from his source of income…so Mephisto grabbed him and took him to his realm. There, he tried to break his spirit, but Peter fought back.

Perhaps his escape from Mephisto’s illusionary world was facilitated by Dr. Strange. After all, Strange was a teammate in the New Avengers, and if Peter was missing for a few days, no doubt Strange would have tried to find him. Strange found Peter in Mephisto’s realm, and he comes with a group of New Avengers. The New Avengers fight some miscellaneous demons, while Peter faces Mephisto, and beats him in some sort of philosophical discussion (so the victory remains Peter’s), or if that seems dumb, perhaps Strange just grabs Peter and they get the heck out of there.

This returns Peter to the real world. He rushes to the hospital and gets to speak with his Aunt May one more time, before she dies. He has MJ to comfort him, and together, they move on with their lives. The end. Well, except for the fact that we now have a ton of plots open to us. I have more thoughts, but I want to try and post this, and see what the others think first. And there may be a better way to undo this, which I’d be more than willing to entertain.

Holy crap! That’s BEAUTIFUL. Have I mentioned how much doubt I had about this website working correctly and how that all disappeared with your latest response? No? Okay, then just forget I said that. Wouldn’t want your ego to get any bigger.

I’ve always hated non-tangible villains like Eternity and Death and all that stuff (almost as much as I dislike most cosmic characters, but that’s for another post). Give me a guy you can just punch in the face and I’m satisfied. Mephisto is better left in a drawer somewhere and, hopefully, this retcon would put him back there for another decade or two. It makes perfect sense with Spidey’s New Avengers connections and the general paranoia gripping the Marvel Universe right now. It’s a perfect mirror-verse brought on by Peter’s vulnerability under the circumstances.

And we get rid of Aunt May in the process. Huzzah!

Thank you. You’re too kind. What saddens me is that no one at Marvel Comics will take the time to devise a solution like this one (and I don’t mean a solution that uses these elements, but any solution that solves a major problem with their continuity). Of course, Marvel doesn’t see the problem here, and I suppose that saddens me more than anything. Look at what happens if we get rid of “One More Day”, let Aunt May die, and continue Peter in the Marvel Universe married to Mary Jane.

First of all, the relationship between Peter and Tony Stark can never be the same. Even though we know that Peter will always blame himself for his Aunt’s death, just as he does his Uncle’s, he surely is going to acknowledge the part that Stark played in everything. Had Stark not convinced Peter to unmask, the chain of events that led to May’s death would not have happened. Had Stark not pushed through the Superhero Registration Act, and at the same time, begun acting like Iron Fascist, Peter and his family would not have been forced out of Avengers Tower, and May would not have been vulnerable. Stark is indirectly responsible for May’s death.

Now, I don’t think you use May’s death to make Peter grim and gritty. That’s not Peter, and if Ben’s death didn’t turn him into Blood-Spider, I don’t think May’s should. I don’t see Peter infiltrating the Helicarrier with an Uzi to take out Stark, especially since we know that Peter will ultimately lay the blame at his own feet. That being said, when the craziness of Civil War subsides, and all the heroes love each other again, which is bound to happen, there will always be some bad blood between Peter and Stark. I think you could write some very interesting scenes between the two of them, the next time they end up in the Baxter Building during one of those huge cosmic crossovers, where all the heroes plan how to beat the cosmic villain with an afro.

What about the Kingpin? He ordered May’s death, and he did it from prison. How does Peter react to this? He’s fought the Kingpin for years, but now it’s personal. This isn’t the Kingpin getting Matt Murdock disbarred; this is the Kingpin ordering the death of Peter’s only living blood relative. Again, I don’t think Peter should put a Spider-Skull on his chest and go gunning for the Kingpin (although, am I the only one who thinks it would be amusing to see the Spider-Punisher, with a little spider skull and crossbones on his chest?), surely Peter is going to want to see justice done. But the Kingpin’s already in jail. So what can Peter do him? Killing isn’t an option, and neither is incarceration. Peter’s resourceful, and I think there could be an interesting plot there as well.

Finally, for those who approved of “One More Day” for making Peter closer to his original incarnation, we get that too. He spent years being guilty over his actions being responsible for the death of his Uncle Ben. However, over time, that has somewhat faded (it won’t ever fade completely, but you can’t be guilty about something for forty years). Now, he can have that with the death of his Aunt May, which again came about because of his actions. That’s some good psychological drama there.

I think there’s more possibilities in this direction, more stories to be told, and new ground to be tread, rather than old ground to be retread. Now all we need to do is get someone to agree with us. Who has Joe Quesada’s phone number?