Why teams should be more like the Avengers and less like the Justice League.

In comics, the Justice League of America is (usually) a collection of the seven best heroes in the DC Universe. The Avengers, on the otherhand, are Marvel's premier super team. They have guys like Thor and Iron Man on the team, obviously, but there are also guys like Ant-Man and Hawkeye, guys that can't exactly stop a train by themselves, but guys who bring something valuable to the team because they aren't just muscle. They transform the Avengers from just being a collection of cool guys, like the JLA, into a dynamic collection of individuals who make themselves better by being together. Now, obviously I mean no disrespect to them but the JLA overpowers everyone they face, the Avengers have to outhink their opponents. Teamwork matters more than individual accomplishments.
Since the Knicks landed Carmelo Anthony, the NBA has gone nuts. Everyone is talking about how the “super teams” are going to ruin the league and the small markets are done. That seems asinine to me. Look, first and foremost, if we learned anything from LeBron James time in Cleveland, it should be that success in the NBA comes from teamwork, not one or two players. When the Denver Nuggets had Carmelo Anthony and Allen Iverson, who were both top twenty players in the league at that time, they never made it past the first round of the playoffs. A good team consists of players who understand their roles and accept them. The Bad Boy Pistons were the epitome of this because even though Thomas, or Dumars or anybody else on the team wasn’t better than Michael Jordan on an individual level, as a team they were. The Super Team argument doesn’t work because it makes an assumption that I don’t believe is true: teams don’t need a superstar to succeed. Last year, Charlotte made the playoffs, and their best players were Gerald Wallace and Stephen Jackson, who are both very good, but I don’t think anyone considers them to be “star” players. Now, obviously the Bobcats were the 7^th seed last year, so let’s take them off the table. A team like Atlanta, whose best players are Joe Johnson, Al Horford and Josh Smith, though, are perennial playoff teams, and while all three of those guys are very, very good, none of the three can fairly be considered a star player. It might be that they don’t get the publicity they deserve, because Johnson, especially, is probably the most undervalued player in the league, and the Hawks need him to succeed, but they also do well because all of their pieces work well together. Portland is another team that fits this category, especially this year with Brandon Roy being injured and slow. LaMarcus Aldridge is a very good player, he’s even an All-Star. But he is NOT a superstar. Now that the team has acquired Gerald Wallace, I’m looking forward to watching them play, but Wallace, despite his immense talents, is not a superstar. The NBA isn’t going to disappear in Portland or in Atlanta because they can’t get Deron Williams, Chris Paul, or Dwight Howard in 2012. The league, despite what a lot of pundits would have you believe, is not entirely dependent on where these guys wind up. Obviously it will affect the game, and change a franchise, but it doesn’t mean that everything else just goes away. There’s a strong possibility that Denver is better without Carmelo than they were with him. A team like Memphis can beat any team on a given night because they can make a combination of good pieces like Gasol, Gay, and Randolph work. Heck, the San Antonio Spurs’ biggest star player is five years past his prime. Teams like Oklahoma City work better than teams like the Pistons not because Kevin Durant is so much better than anyone on the Detroit team (obviously, that helps though) but because the Thunder understood how to give the team pieces that would fit well with Durant, players that understood why they were there and what their role on the team was. In New York, unless Amar’e just decides to back off, that’s not going to happen easily. In acquiring Carmelo, the Knicks gave away players that, on an individual level, were decent to good, but on a team level were invaluable, because they did things that no one else on the team could. Raymond Felton, in D’Antoni’s system, was a great point guard. Galinari flung himself at the basket when he had to. That’s not Carmelo’s game, and Amar’e can’t play that way, either. The Miami Heat struggled to put their team together and make it work, but despite the sheer strength of will from James and Wade to make it work, the team is still fundamentally flawed and will have a difficult time in the second round of the playoffs. I have a hard time believing that, if this is the way we’re headed with professional basketball, teams like Atlanta or Portland are just going to disappear because they can’t get three of the top twenty players in the league like Miami or New York. Obviously those teams got better, and will be difficult to handle in the playoffs, but they still have the same issues that caused them go hunting for star players elsewhere, they still have to figure out how they can afford to keep the stars and have enough to provide a decent bench, and they have to make sure everything can actually fit together well. It’s not as easy as just grabbing a great player, throwing him into a random system, and pairing him with another great player, and to pretend it is takes away from the fun and skill of basketball.

Red Robin: Why Fabian Nicieza and Marcus To Deserve Your Money

 

The best comics blend art and writing so that each enhances the other without being overtaken by the other. When the script is good, the characters become more than just placeholders for dialogue, and when the artwork is good, they begin to take on a life of their own within the story. Everything works together, so that it all becomes something more than its parts. It’s the same with songs and films. The lyrics and the music are supposed to complement one another to create a full picture of what’s being conveyed. Likewise in movies, when the director can elicit the proper performance out of an actor, everything begins to fall in place. For comics, this level of craftsmanship used to be a lot more common than it is now. We used to have teams like Stan and Jack working together for long periods of time on multiple books, creating new worlds, and setting the bar. Today, it’s rare to find a creative team that stays on the same book for over six months, let alone a year.* It’s even harder to find one that takes a story and brings it to another level.** Robert Kirkman’s done this twice, actually, with “Walking Dead” and “Invincible,” and while I’m personally a bigger fan of “Invincible and the beyond excellent Ryan Ottley on art, both books are raised to an impeccable level by the art. “Ultimate Spider-Man” and “Daredevil” both achieved this feat with Brian Bendis, Spider-Man being shepherded by Mark Bagley and Daredevil being brought to life by Alex Maleev. “Fables” has also hit this mark with Bill Willingham and Mark Buckingham creating a fully formed world and completely reimagining the characters we all know. Since a comic is made by many people, though, it takes a lot of people to make this really happen. When it does, though, the results are spectacular and often bring the medium of graphic storytelling to new heights. Sorry to make that kind of dramatic statement, but really, there’s no other way to put it: that completely pulls a story together.

“Red Robin” is one of these books for me. The teamwork of Fabian Nicieza and Marcus To is impeccable. They manage to not only give Tim Drake a personality that is lacking in so many superheroes, but also manage to transform the character from a run of the mill, stereotypical sidekick/hero into something a little different. Under their care, we’ve seen Tim become more of his own man than he ever was before as Batman’s other half. He’s becoming independent, but he’s not fully leaving the nest. Besides that, though, Tim’s become less and less the common crime stopper, and is actually living up to his potential in every facet. Not unlike what his former assistant Dan Slott is doing with Spider-Man, Nicieza is using everything Tim has to make him into a better hero. Where before, dealing with kidnappings and stopping the occasional mugging was enough, and Tim could always find himself at Titans Tower, now he’s more focused than ever on stopping real crime and doing what it takes to make that happen. He has, like Batman himself recently, gone global, but he’s also playing chess in a world of checkers. Tim Drake is the same kid who figured out who Batman when he was about fourteen. He is smart, he is prepared, and most dangerously, he is impassioned. He has his mission, and he will do whatever it takes to accomplish it, but he isn’t as limited as Bruce is. Now, we’re seeing a rogues gallery and love interests develop that haven’t been involved before. Now, Tim’s got his own assistants that are only tied to the Batverse tangentially. Now, he’s taking people like Ra’s Al Ghul on personally, instead of dealing with one of his assassins. More international crime fighter than superhero, Tim Drake has established himself outside of the system and has become his own man. He has no time for the minutia of Gotham: the world is suffering. Let Dick Grayson handle the Joker, he has to stop a network of assassins from killing world financial leaders. And he does this without ever asking Bruce Wayne for help.

Nicieza is the perfect follow up to Chris Yost for this book. Yost got the ball rolling, and Nicieza has given Tim new purpose now that Bruce has returned. Nicieza is in a class of writers like John Ostrander, Geoff Johns, and James Robinson: they understand continuity, and use it to improve a story without becoming bogged down by it. Each story Tim has been involved in up until this point represents a portion of his life, and Nicieza makes sure that the memories remain. Every part of who he is, his training with Shiva, his connections with the Titans, even his relationship with Bruce’s son, Damian, all play a part in who he’s become because that’s the human existence: we’re the sum of our experiences. And that’s the brilliance in what writers like Nicieza can do: they make these characters seem human. They transform them from images on a two dimensional plane into characters that remain with us long after we put down the book, and make us want to stay with them next month. Tim isn’t trying to prove himself any more, he’s already done it. Nicieza lets Tim use his abilities at strategy and his charm together, building relationships with people that he uses to his advantage, all for a noble goal. He has given him his own world to play in that is unencumbered by any bat signals, and given us a look at Tim Drake as he slowly but surely becomes an even better hero.

As smart as Nicieza’s writing on the book has been, Marcus To’s pencil work has been equally impressive. To’s style is sleek but intricate, so that nothing is wasted and everything that appears is noteworthy. To is one of those artists, like Jamal Igle, who truly can tell a story with what they put on a page. Body language, facial expressions, all of it matters. Where other artists focus on double splash page pin ups, (which, for good measure, To can pull off excellently as well,) To focuses on giving the audience the best story possible. When Tim is acting as Tim Drake, he makes sure to stand and move like a normal teenager, but when he’s in costume, first we notice the extra weight on him, and we notice that he never lets his guard down. In a suit and tie, he insists on pushing his arms out wide, of making points to the media and others to get his point across. In armor, though, he’s guarded, prepared, but extremely mobile. Tim, for whatever reason, seems much more comfortable in costume than in his street clothes, like he’s acting to be Drake, and hiding himself in public, not unlike Bruce. To captures this feeling perfectly, using the eye slits in the Red Robin mask as the entrance to his soul. Other characters benefit from this attention to detail as well. When he draws Red Star, we see the Russian superhero not as a walking six pack of muscles, but as a normal man who happened to get powers. Red Star has always been an uneasy hero who does his work because his people need him, not out of any sense of glory, and To gives him a gravitas in his eyes and stance that fits the people’s defender. He has never been one to flash his abilities unnecessarily, but he will do what is necessary. Red Star wears pants and a shirt rather than armor or a mask, and To shows us what this says about him as a man: he is not comfortable in a position of authority, but he does his job, and does it well. We gain insight into who he is immediately, and know as much as we need to without any extra information. Coupled with Nicieza’s writing, we’re given a collection of unique and defined characters that, like To’s design aren’t too complicated, but aren’t shallow, either.

This is why I love comics: we get to see two creators at the top of their games come together and give us something really special. The story is less about a superhero, and more about a young man trying to find his way in the world, showing, in an unexpected way, a window into ourselves. Tim reacts as we do to the world around him, and sees fit to change it by using all his abilities, making himself better, but still standing on shaky ground sometimes, asking himself how far he’s willing to go to do the right thing. He has to find out what he will and won’t do in the name of justice. And that’s really the question that’s raised for all of us: is it the right thing to do if we have to sacrifice our morals to do it?

*This isn’t to say that this has to be done to make a comic good. In the case of books like “Jonah Hex” and others, the switch in art contributes a lot to the story, emphasizing a shift to help reset the different light the main character is seen. In the case of “Jonah” in particular, since the Hex character’s mythology is so important to the story, the changes become almost necessary because of the different viewpoints explored and wind up making the book that much better. The same could be said of Madame Xanadu's artistic shifts.

**Now, obviously, I’m not counting brilliant books and runs like anything Eisner did, Walt Simonson’s “Thor,” Jeff Smith’s “Bone,” Stan Sakai’s “Usagi Yojimbo,” or anything written and penciled by one person, because it is a little easier for the art and the story to match up in that case (although, not always. See Frank Miller’s “Dark Knight Strikes Again.”)

Spider-Man 2: The Perfect Love Story

A few years back, “Dark Knight” garnered a lot of well deserved attention after it came out, and became a cultural phenomenon. The film became one of the highest grossing in history and changed the landscape of superhero films if nothing else. Christopher Nolan had managed to give the world a film about superheroes that not only fit the character, but brought the audience into the world of the hero, where for an hour and a half, a guy in clown makeup became the scariest thing on the planet. Keep in mind, the Joker is probably the most famous mass murderer in American Fiction, so seeing him up on the screen should create this kind of reaction. Nolan did what Burton and the other previous directors couldn’t: he gave movie audiences the same feeling comic readers have had for over seventy years. Batman was never just a dude in a suit, the Joker was never only a guy with a weird sense of humor, and Harvey Dent wasn’t just an attorney. All three represented something bigger than themselves. Nolan created an almost perfect comic book movie. Too bad Sam Raimi beat him to it.

Spider-Man 2 will always be, in my mind, the first time a comic book movie was done exactly right. Now, first off, let me say that there are plenty of good to great comic movies out there. A lot of people go back to Superman, which I can’t really comment on since it came out thirteen years before I was born, other than to say that I’m sure it was excellent at the time. But the problem I have with that movie, assuming we accept Luthor, is that if Superman can reverse time, why doesn’t he go back and prevent everything bad from happening? Why does he just save Lois? Isn’t that kind of selfish? The movie brings up more moral quandaries and questions about Superman as a person than it should because of that one scene. The first Spider-Man movie was good, but had its share of problems, but a lot of those, aside from having Willem Dafoe dress up in a power ranger costume to play the Green Goblin, were because it was an origin story. Spider-Man 3 had a lot of potential, but between doing what the studio wanted, trying to be funny, and trying to bring a bunch of plotlines together, that got lost in the jumble that was three main villains, two love interests, and an emo Saturday Night Fever dance routine. X-Men 2 is clearly the strongest from that series. Both of the Hellboy films are excellent, even if they don’t follow Mike Mignola’s excellent comic stories. But, still, none of them quite measure up to Spider-Man 2.

Spider-Man 2 stands above all others, because what we get in Spider-Man 2 is a film that gets exactly who Peter Parker is and taps into the reason the audience connects with him. Peter is a guy whose life sucks before he gets powers, and then starts sucking even more after he gets them. You’d think, at the very least, that with his awesome web-slinging powers, he’d be able to deliver a pizza across town on time. Nope. He winds up losing his job because he saves a kid from getting hit by a truck. And that, my friends, is Peter Parker in a nutshell. Peter is trying to balance everything but he just can’t. Between school, saving people’s lives, trying to make rent money, and keeping up with his friends, he’s always letting someone down. He can’t let anyone get hurt, so he takes the pain on himself. If stopping an armed robbery means failing a test, he’ll deal with it. After losing his uncle, Peter can’t bear to see anyone hurt, and he’s always going to feel responsible for allowing it to happen. It’s what defines him. It’s why he’s willing to let the woman he loves marry another man. As an audience, we connect with that, because we’re the only ones who know Peter’s secret, so it hurts us when he doesn’t make enough money at the Bugle. We know he’s a good person, and it’s tough watching him struggle because he does the right thing. Tobey Maguire does an excellent job of portraying Peter, giving him enough angst to balance out the humor, and make Peter really seem like the kindest guy on the planet.

The other side of the coin is Doctor Octopus. Otto Octavius is a scientist who’s trying to make the world a better place by trying to give the world a clean and efficient renewable energy source. But, alas, he doesn’t check his calculations, and everything goes horribly wrong. He winds up killing his wife because of his own hubris and becomes a monster with four mechanical arms. Raimi brilliantly handles making this transformation, giving it the air of a monster movie. I think he’s had some past experience with those. Anyway, the scene in the hospital excellently sets up the power and the horror of the arms, and manages to pay tribute to the classic movie villains while doing so. What we see in Otto is a man who has become overwrought with grief, pride, and outside influence enough to become a monster. He doesn’t want to rule the world or to hurt other people, he’s just concerned with finishing his work. Alfred Molina gives Octavius humanity so that the supervillain becomes someone we understand. When he meets his doom, though, it is as a hero who refuses to “die as a monster.” I wonder if killing Dr. Octopus off was the best answer, but to give the character the proper finale, and to reunite him with his wife, I suppose he has to die. But a point to remember is that Spider-man defeats Octavius not with his fists, but with his mind. There’s no way Peter could have beat him one on one, but because he used his head, he was able to solve the problem. And that’s the magic of Spider-Man: fists don’t solve everything.

Both of these parts of the film, the relatable hero who can’t be with the woman he loves, and the villain who we can relate to, are important pieces to the whole arc of the film. But “Dark Knight” has both of these as well. What puts Spider-Man 2 over the top, in my opinion, is the way it captures the spirit and energy of the character. As great as “Dark Knight” is, it is almost impossible to watch it and walk away smiling. With Spider-Man 2, it’s impossible not to smile. Seeing Peter recite poetry never fails to make me feel awkward. When Doc Ock climbs up the side of the bank with Aunt May, I always gasp. Every time Peter and Mary Jane meet at the end of the film, I can’t help but grin. The film manages to bring enough light and hope to the screen that I can’t help but love every second of it. No matter what’s going on, it makes me feel something. The absolute best part of the film, though, for me, is the end, where finally, FINALLY, our hero, after dealing with his pain all alone while we’ve been with him, has someone who knows his secret, and better yet, appreciates him for it. Say what you will about Kirsten Dunst (and believe me, I’ve said plenty,) the look in her eyes when Mary Jane finally realizes that Peter is Spider-Man is incredible. In that look, she understands how good Peter is and how tough everything he’s been through must have been. She knows how terrible everything she’s taken for granted is. And she realizes how much pain and guilt he carries with him. When they finally kiss at the end of the film, we applaud it not only because the hero gets the girl he’s been chasing all this time, but also because someone finally sees everything that he does. He doesn’t have to carry the weight alone anymore. He’s found someone who is willing to take risks just to be with him because the thought of letting him go it alone anymore is beyond agonizing. And, what’s more, is that we know he deserves it. Seeing Peter finally get kissed as Peter means as much to us as the audience as it does to him. We know that he deserves love, and now, at last, he has it. And nothing is more perfect than that.

Steve Earle and Ron Marz: Brothers in Defiance

            There are a few people who can only be happy when they’re outside the system. For whatever reason, they do their best work when they set their own rules and don’t have to worry about the demands of other people. A lot of people can just do their job, and even though they’re bothered by the constraints, they cope, and they do their work. This is how most people live their lives, because it’s a reasonable thing to do, at least for most, but there are a  few who can’t put themselves in a box, regardless of how big the box might be. Personally, I work best when I can do my own thing. I need goals and expectations, but if I can do it my way, it goes a lot better than when I have someone checking up on me a lot. I think that’s more common, but there are plenty of people who are resistant to the system itself and everything about it. One of my best friends, a guy named Mike is like this. Once he started setting the rules for himself, there was no way he was going back to letting someone else tell him when he could eat. Some people are just wired this way, they break the expectations of society, but because they do, they can excel more than they would have before.

One of the best examples of this, in my opinion, is Steve Earle. Earle was unwaveringly unique with his sound and his music, despite what his label wanted. He famously flipped a table over on an executive at a restaurant because they wanted him to change an album cover. After Earle was dropped from his first label after multiple conflicts and confrontations, he fell into a drug fueled depression. After finally coming out of rehab, he was picked up in 1995 and released an acoustic album that became one of his most acclaimed, “Train a Comin’” which was well received commercially, even though Earle complained about the song order being incorrect. Where most would be happy to just be given another shot, Earle was more concerned about his art than he was his health, in every way imaginable. Never afraid to voice his political stances, Earle released the album “Jerusalem” in 2002, which tackled the attacks of September 11^th, and the misrepresentations of Islam. Earle even wrote a song about the American Taliban, John Walker Lindh. “Death machines were rumblin’ across ground where Jesus stood” he sings in the title track of the album, as he comments on the irony of where the world truly lies. Earle thrives because he has the ability to break the rules. Many companies would have balked at his demands throughout his career, but because of his commitment to his craft, he managed to present music that, while somewhat controversial, was also very effective and thought provoking. Earle had the courage to put out an honest statement about how he felt, consequences be darned, and he did it in such a way that even those who disagreed with him could find some common ground. I don’t know that any of that would have been possible if he was concerned with what the guys behind the desks at the label thought. That’s the same confidence that allowed him to do an album with the Del McCoury band in 1999, a year before “O Brother Where Art Thou” made bluegrass more acceptable in the mainstream. The same thing that allowed him to do a tribute to a man he named his son after when many had forgotten Towns Van Zandt. When more popular musicians are concerned about auto tone or busy talking about all the celebrities they’ve slept with, Earle sits in his room and writes. While he’s not as far out of the system as a Tom Waits, he has very clearly defined himself a niche for his success.

Ron Marz is another example of someone who manages to defy the way things “should be” and create work that still resonates after a decade. Marz is probably most famous as the guy who ruined Green Lantern. At least that’s the image some people on the internet cling to. Well, that and that he hates women because he had a bad guy kill a superhero's girlfriend. What they fail to mention, though, is that Marz brought new life to the character and managed to completely refine and redefine everything in the Green Lanterns world, while still acknowledging the importance of what had come before. Marz did things that very few comic book writers would have been brave enough to do at the time, but he didn’t do them to be edgy or to shake things up: he did them(and still does them) because it made sense for the characters and it made the stories better. While most remember the violence associated with Marz’ work, what they forget is that, more often than not, from what I’ve read, it mostly occurs off panel, so the violence is actually a product of the audience’s imagination. Marz manages to engage the audience, to make them willing participants in the world he’s created, and take characters that had become stale or one note, and transform them into real and engaging people. There is an understated elegance in giving an artist a weapon that works off of imagination, and that’s exactly what Marz did with Kyle Rayner. Despite this, though, and despite great work for both major publishers, Marz decided to work for Top Cow and help them reshape their universe into a thriving and exciting world of depth. He defied the system by leaving the big companies, going to work for a publisher that was mainly known for having great artists but little content, and making it work. He has now made a book about a random team member of Cyber Force a must read. One of the primary points of emphasis in his books, to me, at least, is the idea that no matter how hard we try, we are all still human. It is, to me, an exploration of the human spirit fighting against the world and every other power, attempting to control the uncontrollable. That’s stuck with me, I think, because it is a universal truth: we never want to accept that we can’t control everything. And that’s important to note, because while we don’t want to become slaves to the system, we also have to realize that there’s only so much we can do. The point, though, is that no matter if we win or lose, we should be uncompromisingly individual. If we can’t be ourselves, no one else will.

Ferris Bueller's Day Off and Spider-Man: Why Dan Slott is John Hughes

“Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.” This line, said by Ferris Bueller is repeated often. You’re likely to hear it at graduation speeches, funerals, and even weddings. The reason for that is simple; people say it because it’s true. We have a tendency to get bogged down in worrying about things we can’t control that we forget to enjoy what we have. The problem with Ferris’ approach, though, is that it requires someone like Cameron to offer the proper balance. Cameron brings reason into Ferris’ world, and while it’s true that Ferris loosens Cameron up from being uptight, Cameron also manages to bring Ferris back down to earth. The two sides need one another to achieve any semblance of balance. Without Ferris, Cameron remains miserable and can never enjoy what he has. Without Cameron, Ferris never takes anything seriously and never accomplishes anything. This relationship is important because it saves them from themselves. We see that they care for one another, but we also see that they need one another, and that’s really why it matters. The pieces of the Bueller crew each represent a different part of

our psyche. Ferris is id, Sloane is ego, and Cameron is superego. Each piece is necessary, and each piece is flawed. John Hughes makes these characters real and endearing so that, decades later, they’re still relevant. That’s part of his magic and one of his big strengths as a filmmaker. Hughes gave these characters enough gravitas and honesty that they didn’t seem fake or stupid or even unlikeable for the most part. He gave us teenagers that weren’t punks when, in real life, many of them most certainly are. That’s why I’ve always thought he would’ve made a great Spider-Man movie.

Obviously, Spider-Man has guilt issues. Like Batman level guilt issues. Letting that thief get away will haunt him forever, and because of that one mistake, he’s bound by his responsibilities to doing everything he can and more to help people. Peter Parker has never thought he did enough to help people. That, really, is the curse that Ben Parker left on his life. No matter what he does, it’s never going to be enough because his uncle’s never coming back. This defines Peter. He will never be light and free to smell the roses because of it. Peter has his responsibilities and that’s what matters. But that’s where Spider-Man comes in. See, Spider-Man is more than Peter’s costumed identity, it’s his outlet. The mask allows him to break lose, to crack jokes, to have fun. The moments he has in costume are easier for Peter because everything is simpler. While he still thinks about things, being in costume means worrying about the rent, how upset his girlfriend is, or even his Aunt’s health takes a back seat. There’s a bad guy and he has to be punched. Even though it makes his life outside the suit more complicated, his life inside the suit is necessary not only because it’s his responsibility but also because it frees him. He doesn’t have any super villains to punch as Peter Parker because they aren’t wearing brightly colored outfits to announce themselves as villains. As Parker, he has to worry about keeping everything a secret unless someone finds out and puts his loved ones at risk. Peter is left with the cleanup that comes from being Spider-Man and the damage that brings to his life. In a way, Peter is Cameron, and Spider-Man is Ferris. Both sides need one another to exist. One without the other misses an integral part of Spider-Man’s endearing characteristics. Spider-Man, above all other things has to be young and he has to be responsible. Because Spider-Man has to be young, I have grown to accept One More Day as time has passed. The youth, the faults, the attitude, all made Spider-Man into what he is today, and if that’s taken away, the character loses the allure. If the responsibility is taken away, though, then the very purpose of the character is demolished. Hughes would’ve been perfect to capture this balance, I think, because he did it so often on camera so often. With his mastery of the drama of high school and his portrayal of kids, Spider-Man might have turned out okay, even back in the 80s. This, oddly enough, brings me to Dan Slott.

In the grand scheme of things, Dan hasn’t written much Spider-Man. Sure he’s done a few storylines in Amazing and other places, and he’s now the head writer on the series going forward. But it’s not like he’s Roger Stern or Stan Lee, in terms of longevity. That being said, he may very well wind up having a better run on the book than either writer. Now, breaking out the Stan comparison is a little unfair, since he set the bar, along with Ditko, back in 1963, and they set it pretty freaking high. But Slott has earned that comparison because he gets the character like only those two other writers have really gotten it. See, when he writes Spider-Man, it’s fun. For whatever reason, writers over the past few runs that have spanned decades have made Spidey seem like a punching bag. Everything gets heaped up on him more and more. When Slott writes it, though, you can tell Peter’s having fun in the costume. What’s more, you can tell that Peter is finally handling his responsibilities outside of the costume better than he ever has, realizing that he has gifts that have to be used that didn’t come with the spider bite. Peter, after being beaten and kicked for thirty years, has finally become his own person with some degree of freedom and a way to make himself better. Slott also manages to improve Spidey’s enemies without discarding their previous incarnations. Doctor Octopus is more dependent on technology, but has more abilities because of it. The Hobgoblin is more unpredictable and better armed than ever before. Venom and the Scorpion have become major villains again. And the Sinister Six are finally back together again for the first time. We’re two issues into what I hope is Slott’s major run on Amazing Spider-Man, but already it’s one of my favorites to date. Regardless of what happens in the future, I have an appreciation for what Slott’s done so far with a character that’s been around for over four decades by making him not only relevant again, but making him as relevant as he was when we first met him so many years ago. Peter Parker is doing great things and might just reach his full potential, in and out of the comic. The sheer joy that comes from reading that book is back now, because you can feel the energy and passion that’s been put into it. And that’s going to carry on for decades as well. Because, just like John Hughes, Slott understands what he’s doing and what the audience needs rather than wants. He’s brought pieces from every run that’s come before him together and made it all important to Peter. He’s not playing Peter as somebody who’s been a spectator in his own life. Slott has made Peter seem more like a real person by making the stories that have come before a real piece of Peter’s life. He’s taken something that many would throw away and made it a key part of who the character is. As a result, not only is Peter more believable since his psyche isn’t fighting itself all the time, but the other characters gain more power as well. Now, everything has a real depth to it, more so than it did before. Carroll O'Connor once said the characters on All in the Family were important because they were real to him. Hughes and Slott both seem to share this feeling. Nothing is unimportant. What's more amzaing, though (sorry for the pun) is that they both make the audience feel the same way. And being able to do that requires a master’s touch.