Sperg about comic books here

[Tor Lugosi]

The only good stuff with Vanessa Fisk would be her appearances in Amazing Spider-Man (I don't know the issues off the top of my head) in the late 60s and 70s as she was Kingpin's no-nonsense normie wife that wanted her husband to stop being a gangster that had Kingpin henpecked in those Kingpin/Spidey stories.

Probably thinking of ASM 83 - 85 by Lee, 163 & 164 by Len Wein and then 194 - 200 by Marv Wolfman, although her role in those story arcs is pretty minor. She popped up in a handful of other appearances but they were usually fairly inconsequential.

Speaking of Daredevil, I'm about 25 issues into v2 now. The first Echo story arc from #9 - 15 is okayish, better than Kevin Smith's drek but it goes on for far too long. Echo is also... weird. She's written as if she suffers from arrested development, with her inner thoughts portrayed via children's crayon drawings and in general comes off as very childlike... but also Matt's love interest, which makes it kinda creepy. I liked Bendis' first story arc from #16 - 19 a lot, with it being more of a story focusing on Ben Urich, who investigates the death of a supervillain* and the child he left behind. Around this time Bendis also did a mini-series called Daredevil: Ninja which was godawful. It felt like an unused Ultimate Spider-Man script given how everyone talks like a teenager. Between that and the lazy, vaguely manga-ish art there's just nothing good about it. Going from the serious and mature story arc with Ben to that crap gave me whiplash.

From #20 - 25 is a story arc by Bob Gale, screenwriter of Back to the Future. For some reason it seems to have never been reprinted (or if it did, it was ages ago; all modern collections of v2 of Daredevil seem to skip it). The story probably could've been told in three issues and been better for it because it feels like it just drags on and on. The ending is also kinda anti-climatic and not very satisfying. Still, on the whole I enjoyed it because it largely focuses on a legal case (someone suing Daredevil for property damage that he swears he didn't do) and Daredevil stories up to this point that focus on the legal side of the character are pretty rare, plus even with the length problem Gale manages to keep the writing pretty snappy and engaging.

Right now I'm in the middle of #26, where Bendis' Daredevil run truly begins.

(*It being Leapfrog made no sense. The real Leapfrog had a different civilian name and his kid was much older. I wonder if Bendis meant for it to be the real Leapfrog, an editor read the script and went "this makes no sense" and had him change the name)

 

[ChampFantana]

Yeah, I actually wrote about it earlier. I thought it was good, though not as good or as necessary as Born. I'm hoping he turns those two stories into a Vietnam War trilogy by giving us a third & final part about Frank's second tour.

The Platoon was decent, but not nearly as good as Born. As for Frank's second tour, Ennis wrote a story arc in Fury: My War Gone By that deals with one mission that Frank got up to alongside Nick in Nam.

I really like Ennis as a writer, but I do agree that he needs a strong editing hand to rein him in when he gets too self-indulgent. The Boys was aggressively mediocre, and the TV adaptation is liquid dogshit. Preacher and Just A Pilgrim are probably his best non-Punisher works, even though Just A Pilgrim absolutely shat itself at the end of the Garden of Eden story.

I'm re-reading Adventures in the Rifle Brigade, and it just might be the funniest comic book I've ever read. I have a very similar juvenile sense of humor to Garth, so I enjoy his humor writing.

As for Gravel, I liked it well enough, but I think it had a lot of potential that it didn't live up to.

Sorry for the additional sperging, I can't figure out how the get the mult-quote function to work. I was trying to reply to GoPro's post on page 221 about Ennis' work.

 

[MirrorNoir]

Probably thinking of ASM 83 - 85 by Lee, 163 & 164 by Len Wein and then 194 - 200 by Marv Wolfman, although her role in those story arcs is pretty minor. She popped up in a handful of other appearances but they were usually fairly inconsequential.

Speaking of Daredevil, I'm about 25 issues into v2 now. The first Echo story arc from #9 - 15 is okayish, better than Kevin Smith's drek but it goes on for far too long. Echo is also... weird. She's written as if she suffers from arrested development, with her inner thoughts portrayed via children's crayon drawings and in general comes off as very childlike... but also Matt's love interest, which makes it kinda creepy. I liked Bendis' first story arc from #16 - 19 a lot, with it being more of a story focusing on Ben Urich, who investigates the death of a supervillain* and the child he left behind. Around this time Bendis also did a mini-series called Daredevil: Ninja which was godawful. It felt like an unused Ultimate Spider-Man script given how everyone talks like a teenager. Between that and the lazy, vaguely manga-ish art there's just nothing good about it. Going from the serious and mature story arc with Ben to that crap gave me whiplash.

From #20 - 25 is a story arc by Bob Gale, screenwriter of Back to the Future. For some reason it seems to have never been reprinted (or if it did, it was ages ago; all modern collections of v2 of Daredevil seem to skip it). The story probably could've been told in three issues and been better for it because it feels like it just drags on and on. The ending is also kinda anti-climatic and not very satisfying. Still, on the whole I enjoyed it because it largely focuses on a legal case (someone suing Daredevil for property damage that he swears he didn't do) and Daredevil stories up to this point that focus on the legal side of the character are pretty rare, plus even with the length problem Gale manages to keep the writing pretty snappy and engaging.

Right now I'm in the middle of #26, where Bendis' Daredevil run truly begins.

(*It being Leapfrog made no sense. The real Leapfrog had a different civilian name and his kid was much older. I wonder if Bendis meant for it to be the real Leapfrog, an editor read the script and went "this makes no sense" and had him change the name)

Wake Up was the first real example of Bendis raping characters, doing ZERO fucking research, and generally speaking salting the Earth to basically render characters radioactive purely because he could.

Fun factoid: you want to know WHY Bendis got yanked from Daredevil after Wake Up, his first arc and not allowed back on the book? Because when he was refusing to do even basic bitch research on Frogman, the Spider-Man writers (who had been using Frog Man on and off as an ally of Spider-Man and had his son, who BTW was a teenager, become the new Frogman) had a story written and drawn for their prestige anthology book Tangled Web (where they were letting big name talent write Spider-Man stories outside the main book) and were pissed the fuck off that Bendis was being such a lazy god-damn hack and pissing off fans HARD. When confronted, Bendis glibly told Spider-Man editors to just "spike" the issue's release which got him kicked off Daredevil for about half a year (hence the Gale run) as the Frogman issue got moved up in release schedule to damage control Bendis's bullshit.

Bendis continued to shit on Spider-Man editorial when he got put back on the book, murdering Rose and White Tiger and damn near got away with killing Kingpin so as to replace him with a Mary Sue stand-in who's entire character was based around "I'm a real gangster, not one of this lame-ass loser gangsters in the comics" (which goes towards Bendis being a failed noir writer who actively resents having to work in the comic industry) and, again, was forced to rewrite the story by Spider-Man editorial (who by this point was sick and tired of Harras and Quesada letting Daredevil writers crap on Spider-Man characters, though by this point Quesada had his mouth firmly on Bendis's micro-dick and gave him both Ultimate Spider-Man to write PLUS usage of Mary Jane Watson, but also vetoed editorial begging Quesada to stop him from killing White Tiger off).

Regardless, Wake Up was so reviled and ground zero for why every DESPISES Bendis, that Marvel literally pulled an audible and declared the story to be non-canon. To the point that Bendis was barred, when he came back onto the book, from featuring the kid from it. Years later, Bendis bootlicker Matt Fraction tried to continuity patch the story back into canon by claiming it was someone else who stole the Frogman suit and killed off the Wake Up Frog Man in a Punisher book he was writing. But Wake Up and the debacle with Bendis being pissy he couldn't kill Kingpin and later Scott Lang, is shit that made Bendis the monster he is today as far as him cultivating Brevoort as his chief protector to let him rape lore with impunity because HOW FUCKING DARE SOMEONE SAY NO AND CALL OUT HIS REFUSAL TO DO ACTUAL BASIC BITCH RESEARCH!

(Addition: the Gale run eventually did get reprinted along with #51-55 in a "collect the spares" trade a couple of years back)

 

[Kup]

@Null Kiwi Farms is about to be canonized in the DC universe, I hope you were paid dividends.
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https://twitter.com/screenrant/status/1552749509716967424

Clark, the jock-chad/A+ student…….. is gonna get bullied by TikTok speds.

I’m hyped, they can’t go any lower. He literally got butt-fucked and his son willingly gets butt-fucked, this’ll be nothing.

 

[Water-T]

Speaking of Bendis and rape, he's cornholing the whole Legion of Super Heroes franchise. First the post Doomsday Clock reboot suffered a pointless 2 issue mini series and a failed 12 issue run. Now he's 4 issues into a 6 issue crossover with the Justice League, and it's just a boring, badly drawn, pointless mess.

Even worse, he's been given the reins over a LOSH series on HBO Max.

STOP IT BENDIS! YOU'VE ALREADY RAPED THE LOSH TO DEATH!

 

[MirrorNoir]

It's been speculated that the Legion cartoon is a ploy to get Bendis off the comic so it can be retrobooted back to pre-Flashpoint again, as someone at DC found a way to get rid of Bendis by flogging him off to the animation division.

The Doomboot as Bendis's run has been branded, was canceled after like 12 issues, Legion vs JLA is a huge nothing burger as DC decided NOT to connect it to Dark Crisis, and I've heard tale that Geoff Johns has stuck in cameos of the OG Legion in his Flashpoint Batman mini in a group shot of visions of the various DC futures.

That said, as horrible as Bendis's Legion has been, it can't be worse than the 00s Legion cartoon. The only thing about that farce that people seem to remember is robot Brainiac 5 and the idiot on /co/ who is obsessed with meming Phantom Girl's cartoon design as Best Tinya.

 

[Bolo]

Amazing Spider-Man #900 was better than the previous 5 issues but outside the fluff, a dire warning that we are officially back in the Brand New Day era of fail and AIDS, complete with the recent announcement that Slott's slithered back into the vineyard with his own secondary Spider-Man book, which he had tried to get greenlit when Spencer first took over Amazing to try and undercut Spencer's run.

It's no wonder Marvel's announced a huge slate of X-Men related junk and Venom crossover crap (Dark Web supposedly will involve Venom's book as well as X-Men), along with featuring MJ heavily in promotional artwork for Dark Web along with perenial waifu Maddie Pryor. Though given how the editor of the Spider-Man books has made it clear that he intends on scorching the earth with Ben out of jealousy over the fact that more people like Ben over Miles, along with Kaine still being persona non grata, I have to wonder how much damage Dark Web's going to do to everyone involved as far as Nick Lowe being in the camp that desperately wants Peter dead so Miles can be the only Spider-Man in town and wanting to undo everything Spencer did to rebuild fan faith after Slott spent a decade salting the earth out of spite and malice.

Man, this is such a bummer to see, because even if I wasn't reading everything Nick Spencer, I have to admit that It somewhat warmed it's way to me, and no, it was just because "uhh Mary Jane and Peter forevah!!" type of stuff, honestly I was fine with Peter being a bachelor, and I grew up with 90's Mcfarlane Spider-man. And while I love MJ as much as the next guy, man it was a pain in the ass for the writers to find something for her to do.

And yeah, I'm not that braindead that I'm going to praise the pretzel like logic to unmake the Brand New day shit Pencer went throught, nor the crazy Sin's Past and the twins, but honestly, I don't think there was a earthly way to make it good, so might just as well rip the band-aid.

And that was the best thing about the Spencer run, it felt like a huge clean up job by the end, but it sort put Spiderman in a place fans liked, with Mary Jane at his side and him looking forward to be Spiderman and do adventures.

So glad that I decided to stop and take a pause after that because when I heard about this new run... yeah, fuck that.

And now Marvel is bringing back Slot? fucken really? Who does that fat fuck blow there that they still keep this joker around? I have yet to find a soul that genuinely likes his "longest run ever" on Spider-man, and i have yet to find a soul that managed to read his Silver Surfer book without colapsing out of severe wince out of a fat, old, lonely man writting his OC don't steal imaginary girlfriend:

Hope the money was good Allred.

Black Cat is being pushed, because Marvel's slowly realizing that Black Cat is the only love interest MJ/Peter shippers will remotely tolerate. Which is a shame, as Brevoort and Slott DESPISE Black Cat, to the point of having Black Cat being repeatedly raped in prison by a lesbian predator in the Slott run to hammer home "we hate this character and we're going to have her get raped and rather than doing it for cheap sympathy, it's being done to set up her becoming evil".

Isn't Black Cat gay now? I'm not gonna read that Iron Cat shit, but word is that she is gay now.

 

[Water-T]

Isn't Black Cat gay now? I'm not gonna read that Iron Cat shit, but word is that she is gay now.

She's bi. She's officially been so since Kevin Smith had Felicia mentioning that she dated both men and women in his Spider-Man/Black Cat mini-series.

 

[Bolo]

She's bi. She's officially been so since Kevin Smith had Felicia mentioning that she dated both men and women in his Spider-Man/Black Cat mini-series.

Ah bi-sexual, the get out of jail card of sexual identities, for authors who don't have a ounce of original ideas and can only spice up a female character by suggesting that she can also munch some carpet. Just be carefull to not pull a muscle by all that groundbreaking.

 

[Jetpack Himmler]

It's been speculated that the Legion cartoon is a ploy to get Bendis off the comic so it can be retrobooted back to pre-Flashpoint again, as someone at DC found a way to get rid of Bendis by flogging him off to the animation division.

The Doomboot as Bendis's run has been branded, was canceled after like 12 issues, Legion vs JLA is a huge nothing burger as DC decided NOT to connect it to Dark Crisis, and I've heard tale that Geoff Johns has stuck in cameos of the OG Legion in his Flashpoint Batman mini in a group shot of visions of the various DC futures.

That said, as horrible as Bendis's Legion has been, it can't be worse than the 00s Legion cartoon. The only thing about that farce that people seem to remember is robot Brainiac 5 and the idiot on /co/ who is obsessed with meming Phantom Girl's cartoon design as Best Tinya.

Don't forget Imra's Vulcan-like eyebrows.

I thought the second season was a vast improvement insofar that it was darker and had an ongoing storyline with Imperiex until Brainy broke bad. As for the OG Legion appearing in Flashpoint Beyond, I will need to read those issues again, but the one of the driving plot threads is that a serial killer is murdering time travelers.

Spoiler

Including Flashpoint Barry and Eobard Thawne (though it won't stick for the latter given he's a living paradox).

 

[Overly Serious]

And now Marvel is bringing back Slot? fucken really? Who does that fat fuck blow there that they still keep this joker around? I have yet to find a soul that genuinely likes his "longest run ever" on Spider-man, and i have yet to find a soul that managed to read his Silver Surfer book without colapsing out of severe wince out of a fat, old, lonely man writting his OC don't steal imaginary girlfriend:

View attachment 3547389

I'm sorry but what the fuck is going on here? If this is the first light in existence, why do all these species have eyes? Is evolution not a thing in the Marvel universe? These creatures were all roving around with these odd and useless squishy orbs in their skulls. "Hey Jake? Do you have photoreceptors?" "Yup!". "Me too. Any idea what a photon is?" "Nope!"

And this happened all at once? So speed of light was infinite back then? Or did light just appear everywhere at once? Oh, never mind - it "echoes through time". So the first light appears at every moment of time (how is it the first, then?)

Also, I'm not familiar at all with this story but from this single page and your comment is the horrible implication that Silver Surfer (Guyliner Edition) had a girlfriend named Dawn and that he did this so that all species would refer to the appearance of light by her name? This is stupid at levels that can't be measured. Also, what did the name Dawn mean before there was light, then? It was just a sound two parents thought was fun to make?

I have to be misreading your comment and this page. If not, this is possibly the dumbest moment in comics.

 

[Nick Obre]

I'm sorry but what the fuck is going on here? If this is the first light in existence, why do all these species have eyes? Is evolution not a thing in the Marvel universe? These creatures were all roving around with these odd and useless squishy orbs in their skulls. "Hey Jake? Do you have photoreceptors?" "Yup!". "Me too. Any idea what a photon is?" "Nope!"

And this happened all at once? So speed of light was infinite back then? Or did light just appear everywhere at once? Oh, never mind - it "echoes through time". So the first light appears at every moment of time (how is it the first, then?)

Also, I'm not familiar at all with this story but from this single page and your comment is the horrible implication that Silver Surfer (Guyliner Edition) had a girlfriend named Dawn and that he did this so that all species would refer to the appearance of light by her name? This is stupid at levels that can't be measured. Also, what did the name Dawn mean before there was light, then? It was just a sound two parents thought was fun to make?

I have to be misreading your comment and this page. If not, this is possibly the dumbest moment in comics.

I think it's not meant to happen at the same time, but over the eons.

Which is still fucking stupid because, for one, not every species would have evolved out of a fucking cave, for two, not every species to first see the light would have the intelligence required for language, for three, not all species would have the organs required to produce these sounds but instead would click or some shit, and for four, WHAT ABOUT ALL THE HUMAN LANGUAGES WHERE THE WORD FOR DAWN IS, LIKE, AMANECER OR SOMETHING, NOT TO MENTION THE LANGUAGES THAT PREDATE ENGLISH AND HAD DIFFERENT WORDS FOR IT?

SLOT YOU FUCKING PURPLE PROSE WANKER

 

[MirrorNoir]

It's been said that Slott's Silver Surfer run was basically Slott's Doctor Who spec scripts with Matt Smith/Clara changed to Silver Surfer and said OC girlfriend of Surfer.

As for why Allred worked on it, given the stories of Slott's lateness issues and having Gage ghostwrite/outright write fill in issues for him during his Spider-Man run, I'd give Allred the benefit of the doubt that he thought it would be another Future Foundation deal, where Slott would lose interest/be so lazy that Allred would be given complete control over the book to ghostwrite, the same way that Matt Fraction basically washed his hands of Future Foundation and let Allred ghostwrite the entire series, when he was ordered to put Scott Lang on the book as the leader of the team, due to Fraction DESPISING Scott and being pissy that Heinberg was allowed to resurrect him after Fractions' BFF Bendis killed him off and refused to allow other writers to bring him back until Disney intervened on Heinberg's behalf.

 

[Bolo]

It's been said that Slott's Silver Surfer run was basically Slott's Doctor Who spec scripts with Matt Smith/Clara changed to Silver Surfer and said OC girlfriend of Surfer.

As for why Allred worked on it, given the stories of Slott's lateness issues and having Gage ghostwrite/outright write fill in issues for him during his Spider-Man run, I'd give Allred the benefit of the doubt that he thought it would be another Future Foundation deal, where Slott would lose interest/be so lazy that Allred would be given complete control over the book to ghostwrite, the same way that Matt Fraction basically washed his hands of Future Foundation and let Allred ghostwrite the entire series, when he was ordered to put Scott Lang on the book as the leader of the team, due to Fraction DESPISING Scott and being pissy that Heinberg was allowed to resurrect him after Fractions' BFF Bendis killed him off and refused to allow other writers to bring him back until Disney intervened on Heinberg's behalf.

Future foundation is what? 2013, 14? That was about the time the ant-man movie came about right? Not that the public in general uses comics to know the movie characters anyways...

I didn't really read jack shit about Marvel in that era, the "Marvel now" besides the Robbie Reyes Ghost Rider (to be honest it was more so for Tradd Moore's art, but I liked Robbie), and but there was some hype after Hickman's FF, which is why I've read his secrets wars later on and had a good time, but I had no idea Fraction was doing FF with Allred's art, is it any good? I mean, i took a quick google and found this stupid thing:

But since you said it was more Allred than Fraction's pretentious ass, maybe it is good? You know, have some of that Madman fun about it?

 

[DaBigBopper]

I never really understood the writers hating MJ or struggling to give her a role. The entire arc where JMS made some Jew up for Peter's new costume is superfluous because MJ's entire thing is fashion and acting. It'd be an easy way to explain being around Superheroes if MJ is effectively the seamstress of the Superheroes and Peter is her photographer/ business partner, him running out of a room is because he wants to get his wife out of there.
I also get tired of Jews in comics because current Jewish writers cannot shut the fuck up about it. Fucking Kirby intended for Ben to be Jewish, but he's literally just a jock pilot (I hate the Thing, though. His whoa is me bullshit gets boring after the 3rd story.)

I'm sorry but what the fuck is going on here? If this is the first light in existence, why do all these species have eyes? Is evolution not a thing in the Marvel universe? These creatures were all roving around with these odd and useless squishy orbs in their skulls. "Hey Jake? Do you have photoreceptors?" "Yup!". "Me too. Any idea what a photon is?" "Nope!"

And this happened all at once? So speed of light was infinite back then? Or did light just appear everywhere at once? Oh, never mind - it "echoes through time". So the first light appears at every moment of time (how is it the first, then?)

Also, I'm not familiar at all with this story but from this single page and your comment is the horrible implication that Silver Surfer (Guyliner Edition) had a girlfriend named Dawn and that he did this so that all species would refer to the appearance of light by her name? This is stupid at levels that can't be measured. Also, what did the name Dawn mean before there was light, then? It was just a sound two parents thought was fun to make?

I have to be misreading your comment and this page. If not, this is possibly the dumbest moment in comics.

I mean all the aliens there have eyes to see the light of Dawn. It makes sense for them to have eyes rather than the eyeless freaks who feel light on their skin or hear flowers open in response to light.

 

[King Metalia]

I thought it was decent but I only read the first one. Normally DC stuff bores me to tears with the exception of some of their alternate stories like Kingdom Come. Superman Earth One was also pretty fun, as was All Star Superman. Hitman doesn't count as a mainline DC thing.

Anyone else read All Star Batman? I kind of liked it. It was extremely stupid.
View attachment 3538167
If Moonknight wasn't such a brooding sourpuss and instead did coke all day, eventually getting into the moon mobile and to look for fights he would probably be like that.

I unironically love All Star Batman. If only there was more of it. 10 issues was not enough.

 

[Bolo]

I never really understood the writers hating MJ or struggling to give her a role. The entire arc where JMS made some Jew up for Peter's new costume is superfluous because MJ's entire thing is fashion and acting. It'd be an easy way to explain being around Superheroes if MJ is effectively the seamstress of the Superheroes and Peter is her photographer/ business partner, him running out of a room is because he wants to get his wife out of there.

Yeah, but how does that relate with Spiderman and his adventures? Just being a seamstress and being with Peter for a job doesn't mean MJ gets to participate in the bulk of the book, that is, Peter being Spider-man, that is what we are here for.

And of course, the same could be said about aunt May, or any of the supporting cast, but there was no stuggle to write aunt May because she ain't that important to Peter's story. Yes, she is Peter's mother for intents and purposes, and she does provide some purpose and drama for the story, like her being in her death bead or having bills to pay, but you could go on with a book for months without her showing up because not only Peter is already a grown ass man, keeping his Spider-man life from her also means she doesn't have a stake on whatever Spider-man does.

MJ... ain't so simple. She worked well at the start because she was the third piece of the triangle that pushed Spiderman to be a hit with teenagers in the 60's, turns out people like the Archie, Betty and Veronica dynamic and it was clever of Lee and Romita to use it, and turns out that if you use soap opera elements on you super-hero comics, they tend to work well, Claremont would be doing the same later on with the X-men.

And so the romance and such worked well because it was the juggle between Peter and his Spiderman life and how he managed them both, you know the drama stuff, and for this purpose, it was pretty clear her role in the story, to be one of Peter's love interest, to see if she and Peter will be togther, and that is the exciting part of it, that is why the heroes usually "get" the girl by the very end of the story.

Then Gwen died and Peter married MJ and now what? She knows Peter is Spiderman and aside from being the dame in distress in some stories or helping out in some tangential way in others, you could tell that they were struggling to find something for MJ to do, and you can't just write her as Aunt May, someone Peter occasionaly visits from time to time, she is a major part of Peter's life but not really Spiderman's.

Like most of the fans, I love MJ, and I couldn't help to smile when she was back in Spenser's run, but, like I said, I kinda unserstand why writers don't want her around, it is easier to write Spiderman going on this long crazy adventures, or doing the stupid shit he did on the Slott's run, or joining the Fantastic Four and shit if Peter doesn't have a wife to return to.

What can I say, Spiderman is 60 goddamned year old, and he never got a break from a ongoing story (with multiple books and events as well), there is no earthly way to keep a story that continues building on lore and drama going for this long without things going out of rail.

In a ideal world, Peter Parker's story should have ended when he married MJ, yes he would still be Spiderman and going to fight crime and stuff, but that we would not have to see, the send off would be that we get to see the hero get the girl he loves and be happy ever after, and we don't need to see said after, because it ain't interesting.

 

[Tor Lugosi]

The soap opera of Peter's personal and professional life has been 50% of the book since his inception. A good writer should be able to occasionally find something for MJ to do. Gerry Conway had no problem with it, both on his original Amazing run and then his concurrent Web & Spectacular runs. Len Wein, too, handled it pretty well. Oddly, it seems only today's crop of man-children writers seem to have trouble writing decent relationships. You don't even have to give her something to do for every story, just a "she's out doing X" would suffice; give her her own life that pulls her away.

She worked well at the start because she was the third piece of the triangle that pushed Spiderman to be a hit with teenagers in the 60's, turns out people like the Archie, Betty and Veronica dynamic and it was clever of Lee and Romita to use it

This was never the case. Stan Lee wrote Peter like a boy-scout -- he only ever had eyes for the girl he was currently with. Even when Liz Allen finally became attracted to him, Peter was mostly annoyed with her overtures because he was then with Betty Brant.

 

[Bolo]

This was never the case. Stan Lee wrote Peter like a boy-scout -- he only ever had eyes for the girl he was currently with. Even when Liz Allen finally became attracted to him, Peter was mostly annoyed with her overtures because he was then with Betty Brant.

I would say yes for Liz Allen, not so much for MJ. I agree that Peter was a straight arrow and would never cheat on Gwen, and he was very much into her, but I wouldn't say that for MJ, at first Peter was very much attracted to her, even if he had eyes already on Gwen:

But after that, yeah, I would agree that Peter was very much into Gwen and MJ served to cause jealousy on Gwen and spice up some of the scenes (MJ was also dating Harry as well):

And dude, Peter and Mary Jane married way after both Conway and Wein runs, it was in 1987 (I was surprised when I look it up, I thought it was much earlier as well), the issue the writters were having was not to write MJ as a flirt or a date, but as a wife.

Maybe the writers suck and couldn't find something for her, but the wedding and wife issue is something a lot of these superhero characters struggle with

 

[Overly Serious]

I mean all the aliens there have eyes to see the light of Dawn. It makes sense for them to have eyes rather than the eyeless freaks who feel light on their skin or hear flowers open in response to light.

What? No - the point is that if there hadn't been light before then they wouldn't have eyes. Eyes are complex organs which evolved to perceive light. No light, no evolution of eyes. This comic has all these creatures having eyes before light existed.