Writing Comments

[bartl]

Well over a decade ago (actually looking up supporting data, it must have been late 1992 or early 1993), Grant announced that he would be writing Spider-Man. I wrote, in all innocence, what I thought would be an interesting deconstruction fo the character, including how it could be introduced into a plotline. Grant commented that he liked it, but that he could not use it, even if he had come up with the idea independently. Because I had sent the idea to him, even if I signed over all rights, there would still be a possibility of legal problems up the line.

I learned an important lesson that day: NEVER give an unsolicited writing idea to a writer, ESPECIALLY in a friendly context, because that does the writer no good whatsoever, except keeping him or her from using the idea. I have been careful ever since; even when I sent Grant the idea for last week's cover challenge, I asked for his permission, first. With the "characters that should never again be used" thread, I actually had an idea for an interesting deconstruction (by the way, when I say "deconstruction", I mean it in the original sense, of taking a minor idea which is normally wiped out by the major idea, and making it the major idea; for example, Grant's EDGE was a deconstruction of the super-hero concept, because it took super heroes acting like super heroes, but made the minor idea that they were placing themselves as being more important than the rest of humanity, and made it the major idea) on one of the concepts; a quite detailed one. Which is why I couldn't mention it.

Since the previous cat IS out of the bag, my idea about Spider-Man had to do with Peter Parker being more than just a victim of bullies when he was in high school; he used his intelligence as a weapon, always putting down Flash Thompson and crew. Intellectually speaking, HE was a bully, himself. Now, kids like that eventually learn that if you attack somebody with rapid wit, they are going to fight back with THEIR advantages, which is often strength and fighting skills, so they learn to hold back. But Parker, in becoming Spider-Man, got the strength and fighting skills, too, so he never learned to keep his mouth shut.

The story idea was to have Mary Jane meet and have an affair with an intelligent, sensitive scientist, the key being that he would be the sort of person Parker would have likely become had he not been bitten by a radioactive spider (and, of course, have Parker realize this).

Still not too bad an idea, but completely unusable.

[Steven Grant]

Actually, when I was in high school, I found the best way to deflect people was to insult them, but in such a way that they knew they were being insulted but they weren't sure how. I don't know why it worked - frankly, I'd've just hit me - but it did. Stopped 'em dead in their tracks every time. I guess it was along the same lines as the principle I learned sometime later that the best way to avoid a fight is to ask the other guy a question that he'd have to stop and think about, and that subverts the rage that a fight requires.

- Grant

[dancj]

"If an (OW) irrisistable (oof) force hits an (ouch) unmovable object, what (ow) happens?"

I'm not sure I could have pulled that trick off

[Brenz]

The story idea was to have Mary Jane meet and have an affair with an intelligent, sensitive scientist, the key being that he would be the sort of person Parker would have likely become had he not been bitten by a radioactive spider (and, of course, have Parker realize this).

And that scientist's name...was Robert Bruce Banner.

Slugfest!

[bartl]

And that scientist's name...was Robert Bruce Banner.

Even before Peter David came in, Banner was a nutcase. Now, Tony Stark...