Retro Review- Spider-Man: The Gathering of Five - End of an Era (SPOILERS)

Long before the days of The New 52 and Marvel NOW!, there was another time where comic book companies, specifically Marvel, were relaunch happy; it was called the 90's. During the last half of the decade, Marvel began a slow campaign where most of their longest running titles were restarted with a new #1. Fantastic Four, Captain America, Avengers, Daredevil, Hulk, pretty much no one but the X-Men were safe; not even Spider-Man. By 1998, the web-slinger had four monthly titles going, and after "The Gathering of Five" and "The Final Chapter" storylines, all had been cancelled and two of them were relaunched. Now I had only started reading Spider-Man comics sometime after the relaunches, thanks to the Wizard Spider-Man special I had received as a present for my 8th birthday, where I learned so much about the history of Spider-Man. Now in 2013, Marvel finally released a paperback collection of the final issues in that era of Spider-Man that I had missed the first time around.

While comic books in the 90's get a lot of flak, reading these stories today brought back a feeling of nostalgia to me. Reading comics when I was younger, pretty much Spider-Man exclusively, was so much simpler. Heroes were heroes, villains were villains, and I read stories not thinking about the writers' or editors' intentions; not to mention I already missed all the clone stuff beforehand. Ever since the "One More Day" storyline erased Peter and Mary Jane's marriage and rewrote Spider-Man's history, I have found it hard to think of said history as fluid as it used to be. I entered Spider-Man comics when Peter was married to Mary Jane, and going back and reading those stories again, well, like I said, nostalgia takes over.

Nostalgia aside though, there were some things I couldn't really overlook. There were some grammatical errors, which as an English major I would notice, but nothing I couldn't get past. Another thing I seemed to notice was that some comic book stories years before are dragged out just as much as they are today. For example, in "Gathering of Five" Part 3 (Spider-Man #96), Spidey had to stop "some sort of prehistoric dinosaur" that breathed fire while on his way to stop J. Jonah Jameson from killing Norman Osborn. I mean, that just seems completely random. On a positive note though, Peter did make a jab at the 1998 American Godzilla movie during that fight, so that made me laugh. I think it goes along with the nostalgia I was feeling, seeing Peter reference things in the 90's; there was another instance in "Gathering of Five" Part 5 (Sensational Spider-Man #33) where Peter was singing "The Way" by Fastball while scaling a building to catch Override. As for another case of the story being dragged out was watching Peter do random things through New York while Osborn was putting things together for the Gathering of Five ceremony in Part 3 (Spectacular Spider-Man #262). That said, that would be the weakest issue of the collection; Peter didn't really sound like Peter in some parts of that issue.

There was one part of this storyline that is controversial though, and that is the resurrection of Aunt May, who was believed to had died years prior in Amazing Spider-Man #400. Apparently Osborn had had her held captive and replaced her with an actress who he had genetically changed to match May's appearance. Not only is that a ridiculous retcon, but it also diminished the emotional final moments of May's life. Another source on controversy from this was that Peter believed it was his infant daughter May that was being held captive, who was believed to have been stillborn since the end of the Clone Saga. Despite that, I once believed that Norman still had baby May alive and stashed away somewhere, most likely Europe. I mean, he kept his and Gwen Stacy's kids around so there was nothing to say baby May couldn't be alive too. However, due to the continuity changing of "One More Day", the likelihood of May's mortality has greatly diminished. On both counts though, they're things I would work to change if I ever get the chance to work at Marvel and on Spider-Man.

While the storyline isn't exactly perfect, I would say it would be the perfect ending to the original volume of Amazing Spider-Man and the other Spider-books. I mean, if you compared it to Amazing's recent "final" issue with Doc Ock declaring to become a superior Spider-Man, "The Final Chapter" story really seemed like that. Peter practically saved the planet from his archenemy (yes, Ock may have been the one to "kill" Peter, but I still consider Osborn to be THE archenemy) and only a handful of people would ever know it, and when it was all done, he burned his Spider-Man costume to try and live a normal life with his wife and newly returned aunt. If it wasn't for the final scene with the Scriers breaking Norman out of jail, it would have been perfect with no loose ends.

For the sake of completion, I, along with my nostalgia, would say "Spider-Man: The Gathering of Five" is a satisfying read for those who would want to see an in-continuity finale for the web-slinger.

STORY RATING: 6/10
RECOMMENDATION RATING 8/10

The Frustrations of a Marvel Reader Part II

I'm not sure if this will be a recurring segment on my blog, but I felt the need to follow up after the original "Frustrations" post, given that new comic solicitations came out this week. Who knows though, Marvel may do something that pisses me off again next month that warrants another post. But let's focus on this one now.

For those who may recall, I ranted about how Marvel has relaunched series, cancelled them, only to relaunch them again for the littlest reasons. For example, Wolverine's current main book was cancelled after #13, with a new #1 starting a month later with the same writer. Another thing that grinded my gears was Marvel cancelling series before they ever reach #50 nowadays, like with Daredevil, the current volume of which was ending in February with #36. Of course a character like Daredevil wouldn't be without a book for long. So it seems probably a week after my original post, Marvel announced the relaunch of Daredevil under the All-New Marvel NOW! campaign. Here's the kicker though: IT'S THE SAME DAMN CREATIVE TEAM FROM THE LAST VOLUME. The only big change this book has gone through is that Matt is moving to San Francisco. Apparently the team was given the option to relaunch a year earlier for the original Marvel NOW! branding, but they decided not to because they thought it would be too "gimmicky." Really? How is THIS not gimmicky? A lot of Marvel books that were relaunched for NOW! got new creative teams or went through some significant change. I probably wouldn't be so mad about this if Daredevil got a new creative team for this relaunch. Don't get me wrong, Mark Waid's made this book one of my top reads every month, but there's no reason this book could have went past #36 besides a minor sales jump with a new #1. Still, the fact that I'll continue to get this book shows that I'm interested in both character and writer.

Another title that was cancelled was Wolverine and the X-Men, the only X-Men book I had on my pulllist. Of course, here we are a month later, and the book was relaunching with a new #1. Unlike Daredevil though, this book was given a new creative team. Also unlike Daredevil though, I will not be "re-adding" the book to my pulllist. I mentioned before prior to the book's relaunch announcement that I may consider adding Amazing X-Men to my pulllist if it was given a .NOW issue. Well now I've decided that I will trade-wait for that book so I can start reading from the beginning. I've come to this decision for a few reasons:

1. The new Wolverine and the X-Men book will now focus more on the kids. While I've enjoyed reading about the kids before, I would much rather read about Wolverine's actual team of X-Men. Considering much of the same characters like Beast, Storm, and Iceman are in the book, they are the ones I'd like so see in action.
2. Jason Aaron, who is writing the soon-to-end volume of Wolverine and the X-Men, is also writing Amazing X-Men. No disrespect to the book's new writer, Jason Latour, but I have not read any of his work, so I'd rather go with the sure thing. Jason Aaron's writing is what made me enjoy Wolverine's side more than Cyclops' when Regenesis began. That said, I'll stick with an X-Men book written by Aaron.
3. Along with starting from the beginning, trade-waiting on a book will save me money. Compared to buying a new issue every month for $4, I could just buy a trade every few months.

But still, the way Marvel has handled their relaunches has made me wonder how long it will take before they've completely diminished the value of an #1. Then I thought of an idea that I'm not saying should happen, but would probably less likely piss fans off. Just abolish the ongoing series and make continuous limited series. This practice was done with Venom during the 90's. In lieu of giving Venom an ongoing series, Marvel gave Venom a new limited series a month after the previous one ended. For example, after the Lethal Protector series ended, the Funeral Pyre series began a month later, and this was what happened with Venom books for 5 years. I'm just saying that if Marvel loves #1 so much, maybe they should consider bringing this practice back as the standard.

My last "Frustrations" post also talked about how I felt DC was handling their publishing better. My predictions for cancellations out of Forever Evil were proven half-correct. In March, both Batman: The Dark Knight and Talon will be ending, and it's very likely they won't be relaunched. Nightwing may be cancelled in April, but that's just a guess; something will happen with that title though, that is for sure. As for Batman and..., I'm not sure where the title will go, as it's not ending just yet, since March's issue will feature Aquaman. There's still the plotpoint of Ra's al Ghul having Damian's body, so perhaps once that is wrapped up, the book will end, and maybe Damian will come back with his own solo "Robin" book.

Based on March's solicitations for DC and Marvel, it will be the smallest amount of books I've gotten in a long time. Marvel alone only has 8 individual issues I'll be getting; Superior Spider-Man continues to double ship and will have an annual compared to my other books' one issues. With Talon and Dark Knight cancelled as well, that leads to 18 books, 12 DC and 6 Marvel, now on my pulllist heading into April, barring any surprises from either. That works out well for me, since I'm trying to save money now I've bought a new laptop (which I'm using right now). The one thing I wholeheartedly expect will be Superior Spider-Man ending in April with Amazing Spider-Man relaunching in May; I mean, the new movie's coming out and Peter's got to come back sometime. If that doesn't happen, I'll be very surprised.

So will I be back again next month to update on my comics pulllist? I guess we'll see when the April solicitations come out.