PeterDavid.net

LOVED Robbie's confrontation with JJJ. Not to mention several out-loud chuckles in the first few pages. I'm gonna miss this book after the next couple of issues.

The emotional fallout of CW that I've been most looking forward to is the long-term payoff of the Peter/JJJ relationship, so seeing Robbie get in his face was excellent. My guess is he'll be un-fired in an hour or so, knowing JJJ, but you never know. Robbie unknowingly hit on Jameson's most personal button -- his capacity for self-denial, going all the way back to Stan/Steve's JJJ admitting to himself and himself alone that he was really jealous of Spider-Man's selflessness and felt the need to tear him down in order to make himself feel like a bigger man.

Hell, Jameson's self-delusion is so deep that he probably actually believes all the stuff he's saying about buying Peter's photos (almost constantly at cut rates) out of pity for him. It's possible he really does believe the part about loving Peter like a son, or seeing him as the world's last honest man. Which will make their first heart-to-heart interesting.

I'm most looking forward to JJJ's eventual realization that he's supporting the side that puts Norman Osborn in positions of great power, deploys bloodthirsty killers to populated areas, and managed to get Captain America killed.

(Deep down I keep hoping to see a retired Phil Sheldon smack him around a bit, but I know that's a pipe dream.)

Loved Robbie sticking it to Jonah.

Also, Spidey singing Black Eyed Peas to the beat cop was awesome! Peter is the perfect writer for this title.

As much as I really enjoy JMS' work on the flagship title, I think that Peter's writing on FNSM is the one I am going to miss the most. This issue hit on all cylinders.

Honestly, given what Robbie did, Jonah *had* to fire him.

I definitely agree with you PAD, Todd's art is simply amazing and that's his best issue so far. I even thought it'd be the end of the story so well-done it was (don't ask me the logic of that - nowadays most of the artists hurry in the end, not the opposite). Fortunately, I was wrong. By the way, nobody mentions the colorist, but his work was so vivid that enhanced the effect of Todd's drawings.

So, how many issues will we still have with you guys? two or three? I can't wait to see how you'll close this story even thought I'm sure we'll miss you around.

I would to like to see a scene someday where someone (maybe Betty) ask Jameson what was a 15 years old kid who ends up to be the primary wage earner of his family supposed to do.

Oh dude, you did it. The toilet full of spiders didn't succeed in grossing me out, but this issue did, and then some! That last panel with Ero about to shove the egg sac down Peter's throat...

Excuse me, I had to leave the keyboard to vomit. I think I'm okay now.

No. No, I'm not. Excuse me again....

Okay, from this point on it's sure to be just harmless dry heaves.

I loved Peter quoting the "My Humps" lyrics when the cop opened the trunk. It's one of the Black Eye Peas weakest songs, IMO, and probably cost them fans, but it's still a perpetual fountain of comedy material.

I'm curious, was there any temptation at all to have the cop respond "I'ma get-get-get you drunk, get you--wait, no!"

I agree that Robbie was great in this issue. But given how long he's been working there and how he's been JJJ's confidant for a great deal of that time, I would have expected Jonah to be a little more hesitant about firing the guy. Between Robbie here and Ben Urich in Civil War: Frontline it seems like Jonah's got a quick trigger finger re. termination of employees lately. Maybe he was acting in the heat of passion and will come around...but the question will be whether Robbie will want to return. I sure wouldn't.

I liked the exchange between Peter and the cop about giving up.

I also have to wonder if that web-cocoon containing Flash was watertight, because despite his humorous comments the dude must have been pissing his pants. When Flash said that Peter was worth 100 of Ero I kind of saw what was coming and was thinking "Oh God Flash, that was a HORRIBLE choice of words..."

Pretty interesting reason why Ero was drawn to Flash. THAT I didn't see coming. It's pretty original and it makes sense.

Finally, I admit I had to smile at that framed newspaper clipping on Betty's wall (with the headline about Mr. Fantastic and Plastic Man and rubberneckers). It's one of those puns that you don't WANT to like, but you do anyway.

Hmmm. As for Jonah's reaction, could it be due to Jonah being a skrull?

Not a comment on the issue itself, but I'm catching up on all the stuff coming out from the conventions this weekend, and the news that Marvel is canning F'NSM and Spectacular in favor of shipping Amazing 3 times a month.

It's an interesting editorial choice, and I'm wondering how they're going to handle it. Or if it will work for any length of time.

Why wouldn't it? Well, I'm sure there are people that are picking up Friendly, but not Amazing, and so forth. So, I'm wondering how many people are really going to want this move - not just for financial reasons (if they're not getting all 3 current titles), or creative team reasons.

Oh, and PAD, Steve Wacker says you have a 4th nipple.

I am just enjoying someone using the supporting cast again and hope that it keeps up when you move off the book.

I agree that it would be difficult - at best - for Robbie to come back. Which begs the question of whither The Daily Bugle? His greatest value lay as a 'hand brake' for JJJ's excesses. Without that, how far off the deep end will the latter wind up? And will he wind up taking his beloved paper down with him? Or will the delayed emotional hit he'll take from the possible realization of what he's done (and I agree at that point he rpetty much had to) act as the proverbial bucket of cold water and have JJJ finally realize what his obsession is really costing him and those around him. Hey, weirder things have happened in the marvel universe.

But I'll miss Robbie if he doesn't return. Written well, he was a solid, likeable character. Somewhat more so than the movie version, at the very least.

Aaarrrggghhh

Sorry for the double post.

(Don't Worry I took care of it-Kath)

It was a good issue, Peter, and yes, I thought Todd's art stood out (with the exception of the cover, which I didn't think was composed as well as the interiors). The story developments were good.

I have a question, though (though I don't know if you'll read this, given your trip to the con): What is your last issue of the title gonna be?

Thanks.

Peter,

Congrats on taking over She Hulk. Looking forward to it.

Joe V.

PAD,

Just when I thought it couldn't get any more interesting...

One Spidey comment made me wonder when webbing would actually come out of his butt.

Ero being able to shoot webs from her fingers (if I saw it right) made me wonder what Spidey can do but still doesn't know (not that you have much time to go down that path).

The explanation of "the other"--has that always been the reason for the name?

Bottom line, great issue. Leaves me waiting to see how it ends. Only way I see him winning is Spidey embracing his "ant-man" type powers, calling in the armies of spiders, shrinking down to their size, and leading the attack.

By the way, congrats on She-Hulk. Makes sense. Never has been a character I liked, but I am glad you have something else to write.

Iowa Jim

This has been the best Spidey book in years. I'm sad to see your run come to an end.

Jonah had it coming, especially the punching of that personal self-delusion hot-button, after all this time. And so did Robbie for finally doing it.

One of the questions that result is how long will it take them to forgive each other?

And I'm looking forward to Peter and Jonah finally settling their beefs with each other. One of these decades...

And I'm going to stick with this thinking: the only reason to give a super-hero a secret ID is to blow it up someday.

Was anyone besides me bothered by Ero's line (I'm paraphrasing here, as I don't have the comic with me) where she contrasts herself with Peter by saying that where he is weak, she is strong, and where he is light-skinned, she is dark-skinned?!?! There was a third element to that remark, but like the weak-strong comparison, it was a (more or less) moral contrast - unlike the comparison based on, of all things, skin color. I want to be very clear: I am not suggesting that Peter's a racist, but to analogize a difference in skin color to a moral difference - with darker on the negative end of the spectrum - is, at best, a lapse of judgment and, frankly, unnecessary to the story. (Sure, it explains "Miss Arrow's" appearance - and her blonde hair suggests that she was intentionally not portrayed as a black woman - but (a) she didn't need to have that appearance in the first place, and (b) it didn't really need to be explained.)

A couple of qualifiers here, lest anyone get nit-picky:

- "Moral" may not quite be the right word, but especially without the comic in front of me, I'm having trouble coming up with the better one.

- Sure, Ero wasn't implying that being darker-skinned was a bad thing - indeed, to her, it's a mark of her superiority to Peter. But as readers we know that Peter's the good guy and she's the villain, and that's the perspective I'm addressing here.

As for other things, while I liked Robbie's blowup at Jonah, I wish Jonah had been more forgiving - though perhaps he eventually will be. I like to think Jonah is not a one-dimensional megalomaniac, but a rather psychologically complex, somewhat damaged individual who's not prone to introspection but can - sometimes - recognize in others qualities that he's missing. (A rough analogy that comes to mind is the way Archie Bunker in "All in the Family" was shown over the years to be a man who in many ways had a good heart, who loved his family, but who'd been raised in such a way that he carried an awful lot of psychological baggage that he not only couldn't see his way past, but couldn't even recognize in the first place.) I feel like Jonah has often viewed Robbie as his conscience, as a man capable of making moral judgments that Jonah may be too blinded by emotion to make.

That said, in the real world the debate would probably not be whether to run the story of Peter's confrontation with the cop at all - which seems clearly newsworthy, if only because other papers would likely pick it up - but how to cover it: whether to run it on the front page, "above the fold" (OK, the Bugle's probably a tabloid, so it doesn't have a fold in the NY Times sense), or whether to bury it inside the book; whether to accompany it with alarmist or matter-of-fact reporting, etc. But that wouldn't have served the dramatic purposes of the story nearly as well, so I'm not complaining.

When Jonah fired Robbie and told him to shut the door behind him, I would've liked Robbie not to do the latter. But Robbie's a far better man that I am, and probably doesn't need to be spiteful. Besides, he may have been thinking strategically, figuring that Jonah's "forgiveness" will come quicker if he doesn't up the ante.

Well done. Loved the Robbie smackdown. For too long, RR has been the check to JJJ's unbalance. Will be interesting to see where they take it from here.

Robbies got enough cred to get a spot anywhere else, so no worries for him - but with him gone Jameson will come unhinged.

I..... don't know. Robbie telling JJJ to stick it has been a moment so long in coming I read it and I didn't have a really strong reaction (well, not as strong as my reaction to Pete getting the egg sac shoved down his throat. Eeewww).

Do you think it's possible that there are totally obvious or necessary moments like this that -- because they've been intentionally ignored for too long -- lose their power?

I mean, Robbie walking out on JJJ would have been earth-shattering in, say, Spidey 190 (first series, natch), in much the same way Jean DeWolff's murder was. But now, after so long? I can't help but think JJJ will come crawling after him.

Ever since Peter unmasked, I keep remember one of the "X" titles -- not the mutant books, but "Earth X" or "Universe X" or whatever -- mentioning that, after the world found out who Spider-Man was, and learning that he'd been working for the newspaper that had been hounding him all the time, The Daily Bugle soon folded because the resulting loss of credibility resulted in a heavy dip in readership.

Then again, does a newspaper today need credibility to survive?

Well, over at ComicMix we can see why Peter's run on FNSM is coming to an end. The URL for the story tells it all http://www.comicmix.com/news/2007/06/19/marvel-axes-friendly-neighborhood-and-sensational-spider-man/
So, no more FNSM or Spectacular and just 3 Amazings a month.

Neil

Sorry plsaes :(
Wrong category...

will be caeffulk

It's nice

Sorryt plaese :(
Weogn catwgpry....

iwll be carfeul

I'll admit that I've been hot and cold when it comes to this particular series at any given time, but for my money this was the best single issue of the series thus far.

Part of it was the JJJ/Robbie smackdown. As far as I know it's the first time we've ever explicitly heard that Robbie was enough of a journalist to put the pieces together himself years before unmasking was even an option. Some of the stuff I'd read post-CW #2 seemed to confirm that perhaps Robbie DIDN'T know after all, and that made me a bit sad.

I'm also just happy that this book seeks to tie up loose ends that nobody else really seems to care about - especially in regards to "The Other." Now, instead of just wanting the story to be completely forgotten along with "Sins Past," I find myself actually caring a little bit about where this is gonna go, and that's quite a feat given my absolute hatred of "The Other" and nearly everything to come of it.

-M