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Stephen Schleicher
Stephen Schleicher began his career writing for the Digital Media Online community of sites, including Digital Producer and Creative Mac covering all aspects of the digital content creation industry. He then moved on to consumer technology, and began the Coolness Roundup podcast. A writing fool, Stephen has freelanced for Sci-Fi Channel's Technology Blog, and Gizmodo. Still longing for the good ol' days, Stephen launched Major Spoilers in July 2006, because he is a glutton for punishment. You can follow him on Twitter @MajorSpoilers and tell him your darkest secrets...
8 Comments
No fair teasing us with May Parker.
Don’t toy with my emotions, my heart can’t take it.
I call Spider-Verse trickery!
Na, it’s “too hard” to write a book where the hero has an atomic family in which he is happy. I wish it happened though.
Only if he starts being treated as an adult by other characters and writers.
I’m going to say a new What If… series.
Now, however would DC or Marvel know that “it’s “too hard” to write a book where the hero has an atomic family in which he is happy” because they’ve never actually freaking tried it long enough to find out! The problem is that having a growing, happy family goes against the fundamental “rule” (I prefer to think of it as the fundamental problem) with superhero comics which is that at the end of the issue (or story arc) the characters have to be the same as at the start of the series. Can’t have permanent growth! Which sort of rules out 90% of the possible stories they can tell. The funny thing is that in manga, the Japanese have no problem at all telling stories where the characters fall in love, start families, grow old, die, or change on a fundamental level due to the experiences they had during their various adventures. Funny how the American comic book publishers can’t seem to wrap their puny little minds around the concept. I can imagine all sorts of stories where Peter and Mary Jane are forced to deal with raising a child while keeping his Spider identity under wraps, with, over the years, little May beginning to wonder why daddy keeps vanishing at odd times until her own spider powers begin to appear. How she might, years later, when daddy is too old, assumes the mantle of the spider herself. They could do the same thing with Batman or even Superman, if they had the guts to do it. I quit reading Spiderman after the issue where they revealed that it was the clone, Ben Riley, who had actually married Mary Jane, and not Peter. I figured then that they were looking for a way to remove Peter’s “Ball and Chain” and I didn’t care to be part of it. Nothing I’ve seen since has been able to lure me back.
Shoulda never been busted up in the first place.