ITT: comics that almost ruined a character or team

ITT: comics that almost ruined a character or team

Pic related

>Oh noes, my Spider-Man is...not...married now? But the stories are still canon?
Ruined forever!

>almost

It did as far as I'm concerned.

Its not that they undid the marriage, but how they did which was the problem. Lets also not forget all the stupid retcons that occurred. It made the past 20 years of stories practically worthless.

>It made the past 20 years of stories practically worthless.
How? Name one story that now didn't happen - besides the wedding issue - as a result of OMD. Let me remind you that although Joe Q said the pregnancy story didn't happen, there's nothing in canon itself suggesting that is the case.

The death of Harry Osborne, Norman's reason for going into hiding among other things.

Those stories still happened, we just have additional information. It's a retcon, but it does not void those stories out.

If a story makes you uninterested in where it's going, then it's probably ruined.

>almost

The stories lose a ton of their meaning because of it. There's also the entirety of the Totem saga from 2001 to 2006 that got completely scrapped outside of Morlun's return in a stupid fashion.

>almost

Rucka's recent run on WW.

OMD was four issues. It's not meant to serve as some great Spidey story. It's meant to retcon the marriage and move on.

I don't think they lose their meaning. The emotions you felt reading those stories 20 years ago are still valid. Now you know more about the story.

> There's also the entirety of the Totem saga from 2001 to 2006 that got completely scrapped outside of Morlun's return in a stupid fashion.
Good. The Other is a fucking wretched story.

>It's meant to retcon the marriage and move on.
Uh, yeah, exactly. It made me completely uninterested in where the story of Spider-man was going, ergo it ruined it.

you must be a super casual if you really think thats the worst ww run of al time.

Azzarello was worse, fight me, fanboy.

So you only read Spider-Man for the marriage?

It was a core part of the character I cared about, yeah. Not the only thing I read it for, but trying to continue after felt like missing a tooth and it was too distracting to be fun anymore.

Not the worst. Just did not like it. Or all the forced dram involved with the covers and content.
No. Also, you are wrong.

I know I'll get shit for this but the hiketeia was pretty good

I feel like Peter sacrificing his unborn child to Satan so a decrepit old woman can keep living ruins him forever, yes.

Yeah, Spider-Man making sacrifices for the ones he loves is so out of character! He's never done that before!

>let's destroy decades of development with a shitty and contrived story
>it doesn't matter, the stories happened anyway
You should kill yourself.

The stories and the development both happened. You don't lost one without the other.

>You should kill yourself.
Over a Spider-Man comic? Yeah, let me get right on that.

In a meta sense, going to such lengths to magick a marriage away ruins several elements of storytelling.

First, it establishes that the company refuses to age the character any further. Seeing as a large part of Peter's appeal for 40 years was how he continued to grow and change, this is pretty bad, and he's mostly been in stasis as a character in the decade since.

Second, it establishes that Marvel does not respect you as a reader at all. They would rather fulfill their own agenda on your dime than deliver an interesting story.

Third, it ruins all future romance stories. They've clearly shown us that Peter is meant to be single, so all future flirts are wasted page space.

Fourth, the character's integrity is fucked. You may as well write him raping babies at this point.

I don't think he's killed children before, no.
That's where I draw the line. Sorry that you can't understand why some people don't want to read about a guy who tells God to fuck off and gives Satan his baby in exchange for three more years out of granny already-died-thrice.

>First, it establishes that the company refuses to age the character any further. Seeing as a large part of Peter's appeal for 40 years was how he continued to grow and change, this is pretty bad, and he's mostly been in stasis as a character in the decade since.
There's a very specific reason for this. How old do you want Peter to get, and why is that the age you want to cap off at? Comic book heroes aren't supposed to age. That's why Superman has been thirty or so for 80 years.

>Second, it establishes that Marvel does not respect you as a reader at all. They would rather fulfill their own agenda on your dime than deliver an interesting story.
This happens all the time in pretty much every comic book company, so if it's respect you're looking for in every single comic you buy, I strongly suggest picking up a new hobby.

>Third, it ruins all future romance stories. They've clearly shown us that Peter is meant to be single, so all future flirts are wasted page space.
So relationships can't be interesting unless you know a marriage is possible? Come on, that's just silly.

>Fourth, the character's integrity is fucked. You may as well write him raping babies at this point.
I don't even know if you're trolling at this point, so I won't even bother responding until you elaborate further and without shock trolling.

The Bendis Iron Man run. Only that it has destroyed Tony and it shows no signs of stopping any time soon.

Cool armor design though...

Peter refusing to accept the responsibility of his actions and sacrificing the lives and happiness of others to assuage his guilt is pretty fucking out of character.

Yes, you do.
The whole point of that was to reset all of that, you fucking retard.
I swear, you're either trolling or actually Quesada.

Spider-Man did not kill a child. If anything, he just had to come to realize that any child him and M would eventually produce would simply never come to existence. You may as well argue that you killed your children when you came inside your sock this morning.

Except MJ both agreed and wanted Peter to make the deal. It's not like he did it behind anyone else's back.

It didn't 'reset' all of the character's development, you dolt, it just erased the marriage. Every relationship, every lesson learned, etc. is still there. Just swap 'wife' with 'long-term girlfriend'. Ta-da!

>Comic book heroes aren't supposed to age.
Tell that to Cerebus.
"BUT THE BIG TWO DO IT THAT WAY!" isn't an excuse for shitty practices.

I really like how all of your responses boil down to
>yeah it's shitty, but that's comics so deal with it

>It didn't 'reset' all of the character's development
Yep, you're trolling. Thanks for clarifying it.
I repeat, kill yourself.

>Every relationship, every lesson learned, etc. is still there. Just swap 'wife' with 'long-term girlfriend'. Ta-da!
Well that's just blatantly untrue, and clearly not the way any writer has treated it. Go suck capedick elswhere fag

>Satan confirms that the child you were going to have has been undone by your stupid bullshit.
>This does not count as the termination of life despite the stupidly nonlinear nature of time in Marvel.

He made a conscious decision that forced another life to be undone in exchange for an old woman's.

He may as well have strangled his child to death in my eyes.

Yeah, Cerebus that famous comic book hero on everyone's lunchbox! Come on, you can't possibly believe aging the heroes will ever happen. If you're that upset about it, there are plenty of other mediums besides superheroes that would love to have your money/time/attention.

They all boil down to people being in an uproar over something that lasted for all of four issues and changed very, very little.

Abortion

>They all boil down to people being in an uproar over something that lasted for all of four issues and changed very, very little.
No, you don't get to twist your own words. You literally admitted that all of the complaints were valid, and that if we didn't like it then comics aren't the hobby for us. Own up to how much you like sucking Marvel's cock bro, it's probably how you've lasted so long.

>Yeah, Cerebus that famous comic book hero on everyone's lunchbox!
If you want to go that angle, Goku went from 14 to 58 or so and he's still an international icon that sells merch. Peter himself aged 20 years with no effect on his marketability.

>the hero one of biggest appeal is that he grows and matures
>H-HE'S NOT SUPPOSED TO AGE

Canon Superman has aged, married, and had a child. Batman also has a biological son. What's Marvel so afraid of?

Yeah, pretty much, except the logic for doing it is to extend a decrepit woman's life.

I can deal with Peter having to make the heartwrenching decision to abort their child for a good reason, like serious deformity pre-birth or the pregnancy being a danger to his wife. Aborting a child to save an old lady is too far.

I'll never understand where the high school Peter meme comes from. He was in college less than two years into the book.

This sounds like the kind of argument someone working at Marvel would make.

Let's be honest, it's probably Slott again. There's no more dedicated spidershill on the internet

> that lasted for all of four issues and changed very, very little.

>Peter went from living on his own to sleeping in Aunt May's house
>from married to single
>from a teacher to a manchild
nothing changed besides his entire attitude and personality. They transplanted some weird young Peter's character on an adult body.

Why don't you tell me all of the development that no longer happened, buddy? Go ahead and list some examples and how OMD retconned them out. I'll wait here while you tell me to kill myself again all while coming up with jack shit.

I'll issue the same challenge to you - when did any write treat the OMD-ized MJ/Spidey relationship any differently than what I described?

You dumb fuck, the child had not been conceived yet. It was a separate entity to the baby that Stormin' Norman poisoned. Again, someone tossing their condom out is more akin to killing their own children than Spider-Man acknowledging that he'll never have a kid with MJ.

I'm not twisting shit, man. Their complaints aren't valid because what they're complaining about has been going on for eighty fucking years now. They don't rage about it unless it's their favorite hero/waifu/whatever. People who are that upset over this petty shit simply don't enjoy the superhero genre and don't read the comics. Your average comic fan understands the limitations of the genre and enjoys the stories they want to enjoy.

No superheroes age, dipshit. Again, Superman has been the same age for nearly eighty fucking years. I never see people getting ass-blasted over that.

Superman is an exception, but that's also very recent. Let's see how it plays out. I suspect that should DC ever 'reboot' again, all of that stuff will be tossed out the window. Batman has a son, but doesn't appear to have aged much, if at all. I suspect Damian will get retconned one day because of this. You never know.

Yeah, someone working at Marvel would argue that Spider-Man often makes horrible sacrifices for the ones he loves. Because, you know, he does that. A lot.

>Good. The Other is a fucking wretched story.

Still better than OMD.

I should have been more specific. Very, very little changed in terms of the impact on past stories - the actual retcon did barely anything except legally unbind Spidey from a marriage. Just swap 'wife' for 'long-term girlfriend'. That's the big, Earth shattering retcon. Grab your pitchforks, folks!

>Come on, you can't possibly believe aging the heroes will ever happen.

You mean like how Peanuts never aged its characters even though in the early years, Schroeder, Lucy, and Linus were babies? Or Sally was introduced as a baby?

You mean like how high school Spider-Man seems to be the fucking tired default marketing idea even though he went from being a high schooler to a college student in the first five years of his comic?

You mean like how married superheroes with children are bad even though right now not only did they bring back Clark being married to Lois they even decided to bring in the idea of him having a kid?

>if it's respect you're looking for, I strongly suggest picking up a new hobby.
>I'm not twisting shit, man.
Shut the fuck up nigger, you couldn't give an honest answer if your life depended on it

>the actual retcon did barely anything except legally unbind Spidey from a marriage. Just swap 'wife' for 'long-term girlfriend'.
Again, blatantly untrue, but you don't care. You're just here to shill

You're that OMD apologist/Spidey is a brand" faggot, aren't you? Seriously, kys.

>You mean like how Peanuts never aged its characters even though in the early years, Schroeder, Lucy, and Linus were babies? Or Sally was introduced as a baby?
You just quoted me talking about superheroes and you bring up children who star in a syndicated, long-term newspaper strip. Come on.

>You mean like how high school Spider-Man seems to be the fucking tired default marketing idea even though he went from being a high schooler to a college student in the first five years of his comic?
And Marvel quickly brought that to a halt. After he graduated college, Peter pretty much stayed the same age (give or take - just like all heroes).

>You mean like how married superheroes with children are bad even though right now not only did they bring back Clark being married to Lois they even decided to bring in the idea of him having a kid?
I didn't say it was bad. Like I said earlier in the thread, Superman having a wife and kid is a very recent development. It may work out very well. I like those stories a lot. But I suspect that in ten or so years when DC is forced to reboot again, they will fall by the wayside.

Look Sup Forums, I found Slott! What do I win?

>Yeah, someone working at Marvel would argue that Spider-Man often makes horrible sacrifices for the ones he loves. Because, you know, he does that. A lot.

"Uh yeah guys, that Spider-Man. He should be miserable guys, let's make him really miserable!"

And that's how you get flanderized stories.

>You dumb fuck, the child had not been conceived yet.
Yeah, but again, time is stupidly nonlinear in Marvel. Peter was faced with the fact that he would be denying his future child their life and decided to go ahead with it anyway.

You're the one who called it an abortion, you don't get to back down now. Peter time-aborted his baby.

>You just quoted me

I'm not that user so I don't care what argument you were having with him.

>who star in a syndicated, long-term newspaper strip. Come on.

Which isn't that different from comics. Comic strips usually gotta be done daily or weekly. Isn't Spider-Man a long term comic?

>And Marvel quickly brought that to a halt. After he graduated college, Peter pretty much stayed the same age (give or take - just like all heroes).

Is it? Most people thought he was older even back in the 80's. And people make the argument that marriage made him look older. But I don't think the younger readers cared about him being married or older.

>No superheroes age, dipshit
Peter has, though. Compare his origin to JMS's run. He started as a high school student and then aged to the point where he became a high school teacher. Even now he's still a fucking adult, he just acts like a kid.

And dude, what are you even on, with this don't age bullshit? Marvel as a whole has been pushing that their characters CAN age.

Yeah, okay. I expect to see you bitching and moaning like this every time an editorially mandated story comes out.

Again, give me examples. I'll wait.

Spider-Man wasn't miserable, he literally didn't remember the events of the comic.

>Yeah, but again, time is stupidly nonlinear in Marvel.
Which means the kid may have not even been conceived even if Spidey had stayed married for a million years.

>Peter was faced with the fact that he would be denying his future child their life and decided to go ahead with it anyway.
Again, cumming on your Korean cartoon girl pillow is more akin to 'killing your future children' than what Spider-Man did - to a kid who may or may not have even been born in the first place.

>You're the one who called it an abortion, you don't get to back down now. Peter time-aborted his baby.
That wasn't me. If you want THAT discussion, go to Sup Forums.

As a kid I liked that Peter had adventures as a kid and an adult. I wouldn't have phrased it like this as a kid, but it allowed him to simultaneously be several different kinds of roles. It makes him feel more real.

Yes, Peter didn't get reduced from being an experienced and matured hero to being a manchild so "new readers" could be pandered to.
Many relationships weren't reset because of the "no one knows the identity" retcon
>BU-UH IH SDIL HAPPIND
It. Doesn't. Fucking. Matter.
Yes, you should kill yourself. You're either very dumb or obtuse on purpose.
>No superheroes age, dipshit
Spider-Man aged, you fucking retard.
>MUH SUPERMAN
No one gives a fuck you poked condom accident.

Wait, why are we responding to the shitty trolls again?

I post this while admitting that I enjoyed House of M, Decimation, Messiah CompleX and Second Coming and probably would have liked a conclusion that didn't make the Avengers the good guys.

The effects of Decimation were twofold on the X-men. First, nearly all of their classic mutant enemies were neutered. They either lost their powers or became kinda-sorta allies of the X-men for a time. The second, far more reaching, effect was that the only new mutant characters that could be created were "inexperienced newbies". No more Gambits. No more Sebastian Shaws. No more Psylockes. Writers could no longer introduce a new mutant character that had a backstory more complex than "just got powers". This is the reason why the last good X-man created was Xorn before Morrison converted his potential into story energy. There have been some acceptable X-kids (particularly the Academy X kids) and I think Hope has serious villain potential but X-men that could measure up to the introduction of characters like Gambit, Rogue or Psylocke.

There was a chance to undo the effects of Decimation with the event that became AvX but by that time Marvel was owned by Disney and had no reason to fix them.

PS, OMD is shit. If the marriage had to go there were better ways than a deal with Mephisto.

>No superheroes age, dipshit.

X-men do. The O5, Giant Size and New Mutants teams have aged quite a bit from their debuts.

The satisfaction of not being a deformed manlet

>And dude, what are you even on, with this don't age bullshit? Marvel as a whole has been pushing that their characters CAN age.
And yet, for the most part, their characters have been the same relative age for fifty years or more. Spider-Man is a little wonky because he started off being tied to an institution you only stay in for four years. I have heard from current Marvel editors that, looking back, they wish Stan and the other early creators had sort of Archie-fied Spidey and kept him as a high school era, but I'm sure we all know how that would have ended up.

>X-men do. The O5, Giant Size and New Mutants teams have aged quite a bit from their debuts.
This is true, generally for the above reasons. Although the O5 have now essentially been de-aged.

Of course, in both those cases the de-aging stopped relatively early on.

I'm not sure why you're arguing my opinion.

To ME, seeing a vision of your future daughter, having it made clear she will never come to be if you choose to do what not!Satan asks, and doing it anyway is just as good as stabbing her. You can see it differently, that doesn't change how I feel.

I just feel sorry for you if you can't see how this would ruin a character for some people. I'm sure there are other people who can stomach it, but this completely ruined Peter for me, even more than dumb shit like him punching his pregnant wife.

>And yet, for the most part, their characters have been the same relative age for fifty years or more
REED HAS A FUCKING SON.
HE'S AGED OVER 20 YEARS, YOU ASS.

Yes, Ultimatum was arguably worse. Yes, Ultimate Universe was going down the drain before this.
Still, this was a beginning of a slow and painful end for the universe. The precise moment everything went to shit. All Ultimatum did is putting a final nail in the coffin that Ultimates 3 has built.
I wish Scarlet Witch-verse stayed, though. I don't disagree with you, but it seemed like the universe had a potential and could be explored more in What If type of comics.

>Marvel as a whole has been pushing that their characters CAN age.

They have? Explain.

Did it ever occur to you that maybe Mephisto was lying or just plain wrong? Time is so fucked up in Marvel that what is true one day may be not true the next.

Your average Marvel reader understands that this kid who has never existed and probably will never exist. It has no bearing on Spider-Man for them.

What if there was an issue of Captain America where Cap gets thrown into the future where him and some lady have a kid? Then, he goes back to the past and never fucks that lady? Mephisto tells him that the future in that instance was the absolute truth. Did he kill the kid? Would you stop reading Cap?

Reed ain't aged much. His son doesn't age him because he was gray at the temples from the beginning and he popped out pretty early on.

Considering mayday existed and was popular you are wrong slott. Just stop shitposting and go back to ruining spiderman. your drivel is pathetic. unless you're bendis in which case do us a favor and load a gun into your mouth.

>What if there was an issue of Captain America where Cap gets thrown into the future where him and some lady have a kid? Then, he goes back to the past and never fucks that lady? Mephisto tells him that the future in that instance was the absolute truth. Did he kill the kid? Would you stop reading Cap?
Did he choose to abstain because it would bring mommy dearest back to life?

If so, yes, because that's still sacrificing your child for an old, dead person.

What does Spider-Girl being popular twenty years ago have to do with anything I've said?

That child wasn't May, it's a second one (Annie). Just FYI.

Because most of the people who read spiderman were long time fans. People were great with him aging and developing. The sales back then were literally twice of whät they are now. Spiderman went from an actual flagship book to a medicore one. It's sad how marvel ruined him. what a way to drag an iconic character into the mud.
it doesn't really matter the concept was there people were fine with spiderman aging.

>Because most of the people who read spiderman were long time fans. People were great with him aging and developing.
You got a source on that? Where did you get that data?

>The sales back then were literally twice of whät they are now.
Comics sold more in the 90's than they do today? No way!

>Spiderman went from an actual flagship book to a medicore one. It's sad how marvel ruined him. what a way to drag an iconic character into the mud.
Again, gonna need a source that Spider-Man's current sales are directly related to OMD.

Also, none of this still has to do with Spider-Girl, whose sales were notoriously bad later in the character's publishing life.

You just gonna ignore
then?

Even early 2000s Spidey sold better, man. John Byrne Spidey, for fuck's sake.

Not really the same thing - Spider-Man felt responsible for May's impending death. Cap presumably doesn't feel that way about his mom.

Spider-Man did what he always does - he made a tough choice. Well, not that tough - because the daughter you keep referring to doesn't even exist. He'll miss out on time with his daughter, but that doesn't mean he's killing his daughter, it just means she will continue to not exist. Just like the potential daughter that swims out your cock when you're watching cuckold porn on your iPad.

Comics sold better overall in the early 2000's and Spidey had a brand spanking new movie (not a sequel, not a reboot, his first ever feature-length film) to boot.

Actually, that may have been JMS by then, but my point still stands. Sales were higher back then across the board.

The early 00s were the previous low point for Spidey, you mong. It started picking back up around 03 and is even lower now than back then.

Movies don't affect comic books sales I'm sorry you pretend it does. Norms don't give a shit and I'm not going back through sales charts just to deal with some pedantic asshole. Sales were higher when people cared about these characters and they just don't anymore and considering how marvel ruined them time and time again it's easy to see why.

>>Fourth, the character's integrity is fucked. You may as well write him raping babies at this point.
>I don't even know if you're trolling at this point, so I won't even bother responding until you elaborate further and without shock trolling.
>Sells his marriage to the devil as well as possibly preventing his own daughter from being born, just so his frail old aunt could live (note that with how old Aunt May is she could die in just a few years or less)

I don't know about you but that doesn't sound that responsible to me. Which is a bit of a problem when Spider-Man's motto and arguably character-defining line is "With great power comes great RESPONSIBILITY."

Not him but ASM did gradually increase in sales once JMS came on board (2001), then it had higher sales during the year of the movie (2002)

Before JMS was Mackie, and ASM had dropped below 50,000 at one point.

Sorry, I mentally moved the timeline forward two years by mistake.

My point was that current Spider-Man is doing about the same and at times worse than the previous low, which was the result of horrible creative direction, not the 90's market crash.

Irrelevant. Comics still sold better as a whole in the year 2000 than they do today. Pre-orders alone were through the roof (whereas, today, various methods of LCS purchases are tracked).

>Movies don't affect comic books sales I'm sorry you pretend it does.
They don't affect them...much. It's foolish to say no kid went and bought his first Spidey comic after seeing the first Raimi movie.

> Norms don't give a shit and I'm not going back through sales charts just to deal with some pedantic asshole.
I already did that for you, and back then only pre-orders were tracked from shops, not overall orders for the shelves.

> Sales were higher when people cared about these characters and they just don't anymore and considering how marvel ruined them time and time again it's easy to see why.
I'll wait for your data showing that's the case.

And Spider-Man felt that it was his RESPONSIBILITY to save his Aunt's life due to him feeling directly RESPONSIBLE FOR her current predicament.

>Comics still sold better as a whole in the year 2000 than they do today.
This statement would have been correct 10 years ago, but...

Marvel intern. you should have enough fucking data to realize that people who see movies don't go out and read comic books even back then. I had talked to fucking dozens of people at my school years ago for a stupid psych paper not OnE wanted to pick up a comic book after watching spiderman, NOT one.

>Dozens of people at one school trying to rush through a conversation with some nerd is a good representation of the entire population who saw the first Spider-Man movie
You should publish this research in a psych journal, user.

Autist why do you care? no one is going to agree with you, you could send hours aggravating yourself and others but no one gives a shit. you're wrong everyone thinks your wrong. At this point it's just people shouting at each other.

This pretty much sums up why I can't enjoy Spider-Man anymore

I don't give a shit if people agree with me. This whole conversation has consisted of people telling me that I'm either lying, retarded, or Dan Slott (or all three) followed by me asking people to support their claims and literally no one doing so.

Sup Forums, everybody!

I'm not the Marvel Intern idiot you've been arguing with you stupid fucking mong. I actually went and looked up info on Comichron. Retailers' orders did increase the year of the first film. By this point they were already past the Morlun story and not yet getting to "return of Mary Jane" so there were no Big Event storyarcs like Sins Past or whatever yet.

>followed by me asking people to support their claims and literally no one doing so.

But the only one who isn't really supporting their claims is you.

What claim are you asking me to support, user?

Who wants to bet this guy won't list any and will instead get angry and call me names?

I'm sure twitter would be a better place for your self-entitled declarations. you could even ignore people who argue with you :)

preferrably the ones where it doesn't sound like you're lifting your defenses from Marvel's empty talking points.

>Who wants to bet this guy won't list any and will instead get angry and call me names?
Well, at least you didn't call me any names.

>almost