I'm Just Sayin'…#65

Solicit Text is as follows:

SPIDER-MAN: THE CLONE SAGA #1 (of 6)

Written by HOWARD MACKIE & TOM DEFALCO

Penciled by TODD NAUCK

Cover by PASQUAL FERRY

You’ve been asking for it…and now it’s here: THE CLONE SAGA!!! Marvel’s most controversial event of all time returns with a vengeance, presenting the Clone Saga as it was originally intended to be told! From the minds behind the crossover that changed comics forever and the artist that introduced Spider-Man to President Obama, it’s six issues of twists and turns that will shock fans old and new alike! Be here as Peter Parker’s worst nightmare begins again…now with an ending you have to see to believe!

MY KNEE-JERK REACTION: My Spider-Sense is tingling…

I’m not sure I trust this new trend. I mean, it should be interesting to see how this all plays out in the mini-series, but there’s a part of me that thinks, “sure…this may be the story as it was intended…but the fact remains, THIS IS NOT WHAT HAPPENED.”

It feels almost as if between this, X-MEN FOREVER and the upcoming IRON MAN & THE ARMOR WARS, Marvel is trying to get its readers comfortable with the notion of re-writing the past. And once that happens, and readers begin to see Marvel less and less as the continuity-driven universe, then before you know it readers won’t expect continuity at all. It seems like a very real strategy at work here, and I like that about as much as I like being manipulated by pretty artwork.

…seriously, Marvel – knock it off.

I mean, in the last ten years both Marvel and DC have managed to train us as readers and consumers not to care if a monthly comic is one, two, six months late, thankyouverymuchKEVINSMITH! – so long as we get our story, right? (Speaking of which: has AMBUSH BUG: YEAR NONE #6 come out yet?) Think about it: why aren’t these stories wrapped around a “What If…?” banner, or something? Why aren’t X-MEN FOREVER and SPIDER-MAN: THE CLONE SAGA part of the reimagined Ultimate X-Men and Ultimate Spider-Man that I hoped would happen some time ago? Both Marvel and DC have eroded a lot of my trust in them over the last few years, and this just doesn’t smell right to me…but I guess we’ll see where this goes soon enough.

Okay, now on to our main topic today. As I said before, what touched this off was the Dwayne McDuffie fiasco, wherein he was pretty much fired from JUSTICE LEAGUE of AMERICA for throwing back the curtain and exposing the issues he’d been having with Editorial. I hadn’t been reading his run, although I’m completely mystified as to why so much outside interference was even necessary. I mean, when Kurt Busiek had Kang the Conqueror obliterate Washington DC, there wasn’t any mention of it in any of Marvel’s other comics. Nobody cared. That’s what was going on in THE AVENGERS at the time. Nobody worried about whether or not it was mentioned anywhere else.

When Grant Morrison had Magneto wreck New York City, there wasn’t any mention of it in any of Marvel’s other comics. Nobody cared. That’s what was going on in NEW X-MEN at the time. Nobody worried about whether or not it was mentioned anywhere else.

When Dan Jurgens had Thor take over the world, father a son with the Enchantress and name Loki Sorcerer Supreme, there wasn’t any mention of it in any of Marvel’s other comics. Nobody cared. That’s what was going on in THOR: LORD OF ASGARD at the time. Nobody worried about whether or not it was mentioned anywhere else.

When Peter David had Genis Vell and the cosmic being Entropy destroy all known creation, there wasn’t any mention of it in any of Marvel’s other comics. Nobody cared. That’s what was going on in CAPTAIN MARVEL at the time – and in between issues, no less! –  and once again, nobody worried about whether or not it was mentioned anywhere else.

So there’s no reason McDuffie couldn’t have been able to write the stories he wanted to write. Back in the day they had a way of dealing with such things – they called them Editor’s Notes. Remember those? “This story takes place before/after the events of that OTHER story.” Boom. Done. What’s so hard about that?

And what really concerns me with what happened with McDuffie here has more to do with the fact that he is Milestone’s strongest advocate at DC, so as POPCULTURESHOCK.com rightly asks, what’s going to happen to those characters if DC and McDuffie have fallen out with each other?

Then there was the NEWSARAMA.com announcement that Iron Fist and Luke Cage would soon appear as agents of Norman Osborn over in THUNDERBOLTS #136 which I guess, between this announcement and the final scene from THE IMMORTAL IRON FIST #27 answers the question of what’s going to happen to Danny Rand following the IMMORTAL WEAPONS miniseries:

When I read about this, all I could think of was “awwwww crap. I don’t want to see Iron Fist in THUNDERBOLTS – I wanna see him in HIS OWN BOOK!” And I’ll tell ya, I’d like to think I wasn’t the only one who had that reaction. Marvel has something truly special with THE IMMORTAL IRON FIST, and as much as I realize that newer monthlies have a much shorter shelf life these days, it doesn’t seem worth it to me that Marvel seems willing to let this one go on the gamble that at least SOME readers will follow Danny Rand over to a comic that has, by and large, been rendered redundant by DARK AVENGERS. Sigh, and sigh again.

 And then of course, we have JMS leaving THOR, citing the imminent arrival of a THOR-themed event as his reason for leaving the comic for which his writing earned an Eisner nomination. “The one concern at the back of my head was that of being pulled into a Big Event that could affect the forward momentum of the book and alter its direction. I’ve said elsewhere that in many cases — and this isn’t just Marvel, the trend is pandemic — such an event can sometimes result in the individual books serving the event, rather than the other way around, and you have to spend months and issues afterward stitching everything back together. I’m the kind of writer who likes to write in a straight line and know for certain the terrain he’s standing upon. Some writers can handle all that and never break a sweat. For me, it’s just not something I can do competently. That’s a shortcoming on my part and I recognize it as such.”