{"id":23467,"date":"2024-11-07T12:00:25","date_gmt":"2024-11-07T16:00:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/?p=23467"},"modified":"2024-02-21T16:41:26","modified_gmt":"2024-02-21T20:41:26","slug":"asm-v2-annual-2001","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/2024\/11\/07\/asm-v2-annual-2001\/","title":{"rendered":"ASM V2 Annual 2001"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

So this one\u2019s weird right from the cover because that image is from the Spider-Man video game. It was in ads in all Marvel Comics for several months before this issue came out, seen here:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I mean, that\u2019s weird, right? Also weird that not one issue of this is done by either title\u2019s regular artist. Romita was a part of this from the beginning. Buckingham seems like he should be allowed to be part of it. And, as happens so often around here, this seems like it just came out of nowhere. Like someone remembered they better wrap this thing up ASAP and just called whoever was available to draw it. Like The Gathering Of Five. like the end of the Hobgoblin mystery. They obviously knew when a new writer would be taking over ASM. They obviously knew they had to resolve this. Why does it feel like an all-hands last minute emergency sprint? Well, it\u2019s Joe Bennett, Sandu Florea and Joe Rosas, as you\u2019d expect for an emergency fill-in, as we draw this chapter of Spider-Man to a close.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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How do they have money? Peter was homeless for awhile! Well, we cut to what has been the usual gang plus MJ packing Peter\u2019s stuff to move him out of Randy\u2019s apartment and back to Aunt May\u2019s house. Peter says he\u2019s even going to miss the newly acquired cat, but that Aunt May is allergic. The art team renders an orange tabby cat instead of the giant jet black beast from the Romita issue, but really, who cares? We\u2019re shuffling things off the board as fast as we can, here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Not that she was failing or anything. She seemed too busy, if anything. What exactly is she going to do now, anyway?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Peter is, understandably, still overjoyed at just the sight of MJ, and scoops her up and starts bouncing off the walls as only he can, even as she protests that May could walk in. Then they go work on unloading all their stuff. Seems like we\u2019re all back to normal, eh? Soon, they\u2019re up in the attic, storing all their stuff. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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First time we\u2019ve seen MJ put on her \u201cNothing gets to me\u201d face in a decade! She goes outside for that air, acting all nonchalant, then deflates when she\u2019s out of sight of the porch, shaking with fear. But then Peter is there, saying she doesn\u2019t have to do this alone, that they\u2019ll get through this together. Then we interrupt our reunion tale for some VERY 2000 political commentary:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Hanging chads. The most abused joke in American political history? Maybe so. Glad to hear May and Anna were on the right side of that, though. Anna sure zoomed back to Florida fast considering MJ has been revealed to be alive for what appears to be only days, at most.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Later in the evening, we find MJ looking through old photo albums in Peter\u2019s old room, when he comes in and talks for awhile about how, when he was living here, he never imagined having a \u201cbabe like Mary Jane Watson up here!\u201d The 2 of them pledge their love and so on, and then there\u2019s an explosion outside. Peter tries to ignore it, but the TV says it\u2019s a terrorist attack on United Nations Plaza. Peter says the Avengers will probably take care of it. But then there\u2019s another explosion, and Peter can\u2019t ignore it anymore. He apologizes and heads out the window as a pretty somber looking MJ watches him swing off into the distance despite the visible lack of anything to swing from.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I don\u2019t recall any intimation that MJ was a cheerleader in the past. As she keeps looking through photos, the news guy waxes strangely poetic about how Spider-Man always seems to arrive \u201cjust in the nick of time. Like a knight in shining armor always there for those that need him!\u201d Laying it on thick, aren\u2019t you, unseen newsperson?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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MJ looks very serious and doesn\u2019t respond, and when pressed, says they have to talk. So, we then find them walking down the street at night, Peter babbling away because he\u2019s nervous, MJ shutting that down. He tries to apologize, says he knows she\u2019s mad, but she says she isn\u2019t mad. That she sees it more clearly than she ever has, that this is the man she fell in love with.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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So she just wanders off at like 5am without even bringing any of her stuff? Wearing a crop top and a tiny skirt on a night when Peter needed a leather jacket? Ok! I hope she at least put shoes on… Yes, friends, after all that, they\u2019re separated again. FURTHERMORE, they could have just DONE this at ANY TIME! They didn\u2019t have to replace Peter with a clone to get rid of him being married, they didn\u2019t have to blow up MJ to get rid of him being married\u2026 they could just BREAK UP! But the same elements who would tell you that Spider-Man being married was a terrible mistake will ALSO tell you that it would be even worse for him to be DIVORCED. Why? Because it makes him seem older, and Spider-Man must represent youth. To which I say: You know what doesn\u2019t represent youth? Having a baby who died in childbirth. That ship has sailed, dumb dumbs! If you want him to not be married then just END HIS MARRIAGE! Instead, we get all this nonsense. And the worst is yet to come! But this wasn\u2019t really meant to be any kind of end for Peter & MJ. This was the direct request of the guy who\u2019s taking over ASM next post. He wasn\u2019t necessarily opposed to them being married, but he wanted Peter alone for awhile, so he could really get into the character. And so, after a year and a half of everyone knowing MJ would be back, here she is, and there she goes. And if you assumed the bad guy would reappear in this issue, get a name, have anyone make even a small attempt to do something satisfying with that guy, well, that\u2019s a reasonable thought, but as you can see\u2026 nope! He really will remain an unnamed, barely explained deus ex machina forever. Unreal. I don\u2019t know that they could\u2019ve done a worse job. Again and again, these books spin up a long plot with a rushed, nonsensical ending that was not the original plan. How do I know that in this case? Well, I found this old interview with Howard Mackie shortly after his tenure wrapped, done with perennial Spider-Man fansite Crawl Space. And in it, they get around to asking this\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Spider-Man Crawl Space: Concerning the stalker storyline in your most recent run on Amazing. What were your original plans for it, and how did they get changed if any?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Howard Mackie: The Stalker storyline went through many transitions. It started out as a relatively short storyline which was going to focus on Mary Jane’s life as a model\/celebrity. Wanted to show that not ALL things which happened to the Parker’s were Spider-Man’s fault. I think THAT is a problem with many of our established characters these days. Often they are their own worst enemies. Crimes are committed, battles arise, stories are created around old and established enemies. I have often felt that if the Avenger’s, the Fantastic Four, Spider-Man, Daredevil and most other super-heroes really wanted to reduce the crime wave in New York City… they would simply move. THAT would take away all the stories in which Avengers Mansion, FF HQ, etc… were attacked and put innocent lives in harms way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 At some point the story mutated into something else entirely. I think Ralph planted the seed in my mind that the Stalker might be MJ father( who we had not seen in many years) and would give us the opportunity to explore the relationships that MJ has had with ALL the men in her life.     THEN all the major editorial changes at Marvel occurred. New editorial edicts.     I wrapped the storyline up in the way you saw.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Spider-Man Crawl Space: Comics have many sub-plots and dangling cliffhangers. Were there any that you wished you were able to resolve  that you didn’t get a chance to?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Howard Mackie: Never look back. I don’t. I did have a follow up to the Joey Z storyline that I wanted to do…     Primarily I am grateful that I was given the opportunity to wrap up the Stalker storyline and to provide a clean start for the next writer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Everything he said there is more interesting than what we got. By \u201ceditorial changes,\u201d he presumably means Jemas and Quesada replacing Bob Harras, and maybe, to a lesser extent, Axel Alonso replacing Ralph Macchio, tho one HAS to assume this was worked out somewhat more in advance than the month before it began publication. But, then, maybe not! It has all the earmarks of an emergency. Maybe at some point, they thought the new guy would handle bringing MJ back. I\u2019d really love to know more about what went down, but I guess I never will.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Well, with that sad excuse for a resolution, Howard Mackie is done with Spider-Man. For the most part. And kinda done with comics, too. He\u2019s also writing the X-Men spinoff Mutant X at this time, but is done with that sometime in 2001. He\u2019s got a couple credits after that, but after being a longtime editor and then a prolific writer at Marvel, this is kind of it. And what a sad way to finish. These days, fans seem to only remember him with disdain for the 29 months of the relaunch. But he was consistently turning out one of, if not the, best issue of Spider-Man any given month for much of the 90s. It\u2019s a real shame it all shook out like this. It seems like editorial is at least partly to blame for his fall from grace. Certainly in the case of this story. But who knows what all went down? I guess that\u2019s how it goes sometimes. Well, that\u2019s it for this block. Next post, we go right into the next issue of ASM, and its new writer, and its familiar artist, and its pretty shocking first issue\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So this one\u2019s weird right from the cover because that image is from the Spider-Man video game. It was in ads in all Marvel Comics for several months before this issue came…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":23444,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1864,1],"tags":[1863,35,308,415,976,621,525,21,24,1971,2],"class_list":["post-23467","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-2000s","category-uncategorized","tag-amazing-spider-man-vol-2","tag-aunt-may","tag-glory-grant","tag-howard-mackie","tag-jill-stacy","tag-joe-bennett","tag-joe-rosas","tag-mary-jane-watson","tag-randy-robertson","tag-sandu-florea","tag-spider-man"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23467","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23467"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23467\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23476,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23467\/revisions\/23476"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23444"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23467"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23467"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23467"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}