Tom Brevoort's Spider-Man Manifesto

[GranApp]

I don't know exactly what was in the Free Comic Book Day version, but in the back of this one there was a "Spider-man Manifesto" by Tom Brevoort, written during the planning stage of BND. Also a section that says who all the characters are and what's going on with them, including a few things that I don't think have happened yet in the series. It also had some pencil drawings from the story, and on the last page a letter from Wacker.

I really enjoyed reading the Spider-man Manifesto. It basically outlined what elements should be in the Spider-man stories and what needed to be changed. I agreed with most everything in there and I'm glad they're taking Spider-man in this direction.

[The Confessor]

As far as McNiven vs. Jimenez...it seems like I'm the only one who prefers McNiven.

Nope, I'm in total agreement with you on that one.


I thought the Director's Cut was OK, not really any better or worse than the original Free Comic Book Day issue to be honest...after all, apart from a few subtle changes in dialogue it was the self same thing.

But what about Tom Brevoort's 'Spider-Man Manifesto' printed in the back? Did anyone read this pile of s**t? Sweet Jesus, it made my blood boil! :evilangry

Apart from his proposal to publish Amazing Spider-Man three times a month, I whole-heartedly disagreed with pretty much everything he was saying in it. Reading this (after seeing the whole OMD debacle play out) was like watching a train wreck happening in slow motion. And to think, they were seriously considering bring Gwen Stacy back from the dead in Brand New Day!!

LOL...I'm getting all worked up again right now, just thinking about it! Honestly, I was experiencing vein popping, white knuckled rage as I read this manifesto of crap!


OK, I'm going for a nice quiet lay down now. ;)

[Will.S]

But what about Tom Brevoort's 'Spider-Man Manifesto' printed in the back? Did anyone read this pile of s**t? Sweet Jesus, it made my blood boil! :evilangry

Apart from his proposal to publish Amazing Spider-Man three times a month, I whole-heartedly disagreed with pretty much everything he was saying in it. Reading this (after seeing the whole OMD debacle play out) was like watching a train wreck happening in slow motion. And to think, they were seriously considering bring Gwen Stacy back from the dead in Brand New Day!!

LOL...I'm getting all worked up again right now, just thinking about it! Honestly, I was experiencing vein popping, white knuckled rage as I read this manifesto of crap!


OK, I'm going for a nice quiet lay down now. ;)

Trust me, I felt the exact same way.

On the other hand it did have neat rundowns of the villains and upcoming characters that will be cool for BND Spider-Man fans. It's really a shame OMD had to taint the books so much for me with faulty premises and questionable retconning because otherwise I would have been all over it.

[RunningMonk]

But what about Tom Brevoort's 'Spider-Man Manifesto' printed in the back? Did anyone read this pile of s**t? Sweet Jesus, it made my blood boil! :evilangry

Apart from his proposal to publish Amazing Spider-Man three times a month, I whole-heartedly disagreed with pretty much everything he was saying in it. Reading this (after seeing the whole OMD debacle play out) was like watching a train wreck happening in slow motion. And to think, they were seriously considering bring Gwen Stacy back from the dead in Brand New Day!!

LOL...I'm getting all worked up again right now, just thinking about it! Honestly, I was experiencing vein popping, white knuckled rage as I read this manifesto of crap!

meh....i didn't feel this way at all. i thought it was a good read. i look forward to it. what's wrong with what he wants to do with the book?

[Cody H]

But what about Tom Brevoort's 'Spider-Man Manifesto' printed in the back? Did anyone read this pile of s**t? Sweet Jesus, it made my blood boil! :evilangry

Please to be spoilering Tom Brevoort's Spider-Man Manifesto? Please?

[The Confessor]

meh....i didn't feel this way at all. i thought it was a good read. i look forward to it. what's wrong with what he wants to do with the book?

It's not so much what he wants to do with the book itself, just that I took extreme umbrage at some of the things he was saying about how Spidey/Peter Parker works best as a character. I just didn't agree with him a lot of the time and the supercilious way in which he voiced his thoughts, as if he and only he really understood Spider-Man as a character, really annoyed me.

Please to be spoilering Tom Brevoort's Spider-Man Manifesto? Please?

Ummmm...here's some scans of it, I hope you can read them OK....

[Leocomix]

Thanks for that. I don't get the complaints. Tom Brevoort nailed most of the problems with the franchise. (That was in Sept 06!!)

[TheAmazingSpidey]

Thanks a lot, The Confessor! :)

[ZT4]

Well at least the manifesto makes a lot of things perfectly clear, which really, is all the fans wanted in the first place. Glad theyve added it here, even if it was just the original pitch concept, it didnt exactly endorse Gwen's return...it seemed to just be there as "an option", not something to be passionate about.

...The way how she'd be handled may pave the way for a Menace option.

The MJ/fiance thing doesnt jade me surprisingly, it'd likely just be something to throw Peter off the scent, otherwise it'd be uncharacteristic...

...Oh wait. Everyone is.

At least they even admit the possible flirt with Betty is "kissing your sister ugly" and it'll serve more to drive a rift between them, leading us into the customary "Peter completly alone" months, with either Jackpot or Black Cat satisfying his coustumed side.

And if they decide to tell more from the POV of MJ and May, giving us answers and building towards that love story Quesada is trying to sell sans any marraige, all the more intriguing. We've already seen small variations of that with the short stories in BND.

[Nik Drou]

I'd just like to say, that manifesto is probably the most depressing comics-related thing I've ever read.

[Blader5489]

It's not so much what he wants to do with the book itself, just that I took extreme umbrage at some of the things he was saying about how Spidey/Peter Parker works best as a character. I just didn't agree with him a lot of the time and the supercilious way in which he voiced his thoughts, as if he and only he really understood Spider-Man as a character, really annoyed me.

Uh...can you point out where he's off the mark? Because I think that manifesto really nails who the character is and how he should be written.

[ZT4]

But you prefer a single , non-progressive Peter, so you see no flaw. Where as people who know the marraige wasnt intruding....well...

[Blader5489]

But you prefer a single , non-progressive Peter, so you see no flaw.

Actually, no. But thanks for putting words in my mouth. :rolleyes:

[stillanerd]

Basically, to sum up Brevoort's entire manifesto, he's essentially saying "Let's make the Spider-Man comics EXACTLY like Spider-Man 2." Heck, the whole subplot he throws out as a suggestion of having Peter and Mary Jane reunite only for Peter to find out she's engaged to some other guy is straight out of that movie. This reminds me when Marvel attempted to have Wolverine and Jean Grey rekindle their sexual tension in Uncanny X-Men around the same time of Grant Morrison's run on New X-Men because of the sexual tension between Logan and Jean in the X-Men films. So, once again, Marvel is taking it's cue from the movies in an attempt to sell more comics.

Also, Brevoort talks about not going through re-hashes of old stories, but Breevort's idea of having Peter and Betty have a fling after Peter learns about MJ's engagement and how it complicates his friendship with Betty is a rehash itself from Marv Wolfman's run, in which Peter also hooked up with Betty after MJ rejected his proposal of marriage. Course, I doubt, since this was a proposal, that, if Marvel still plans on going ahead with the idea that Peter finds out MJ is engaged to someone else and has a fling, it will be Betty. She'll probably be still in the "big sister" role, but most likely the girl will probably be with the new character, Carlie Cooper, a.k.a. "CSI Gwen Whitman." Since they didn't bring back Gwen to be the "spoiler," then Carlie fills that role and also takes up Betty's as the friend Peter hooks up with in a moment of self-pity. And of course, because of that awkward moment between them, Carlie ends up going with the new cop character, Vin Gonzalez.

Thing is though, there is a lot about what Breevort says that I agree with in terms of who Spider-Man should be as a character: that Peter Parker is Spider-Man and not the other way around, that his everyday life outside of being a superhero is just as important as his life as a superhero, that he's a hard-luck hero, that he initially reacts like the reader would before finally doing the right thing, that he's an outsider, that his supporting cast plays a crucial role in stories, that he has a sense of humor, etc. I think everybody can agree with that. The thing is, did Marvel really, truly need to use Mesphito and his magical marriage annulment to make this happen? Absolutely not. Marvel could have done what Breevort advocated long ago even if the character was still married to MJ. The cold hard truth is that Marvel, including Breevort, didn't do an effective job at editing and controling their writers. They were so hard up in trying to peddle stories that either feel under the category of "life-altering events" or "shockers" that they didn't bother realizing how far off the reservation they were until it was too late. Even now, they are still caught up in that mindset, but this time it's coupled with a kind of nostalgic, mid-life crisis that much of the writers and editors on Spider-Man, including Tom Breevort and Joe Quesada, are caught up in. Also, Breevort, by his own admission in this Manifesto, basically says that Spider-Man has to remain 25 years old indefinitely and that he "doesn't grow up." Sure, you could slow the aging process down so that 100 issues of Amazing Spider-Man is 1 year in the Marvel U, and you could maintain a status quo, but without the component of change and progress (or at least the illusion of change and progress) the question then becomes, why then should be keep reading Spider-Man if they know nothing he does will really matter? Why should new readers, which Marvel so desperately wants, even bother picking up the books if they know that none of the stories really matter? Especially when you have other Marvel titles who seem to be having far more illusion of change and progress than Spider-Man?

[Leocomix]

It's funny because it's not what I understood. What I got and what I think Tom meant is that you don't have to return to the teenager to make the character right. In Spider-Man 2, he's an adult but that doesn't prevent a correct interpretation, of the character.

I agree with what you say about Peter having a fling with Betty but if it happened before, it's in-character. If you're constantly meeting someone that you have been intimate with before, the question of future intimacy is bound to come up. That's Human relations 101.

In the next para, you come up with your basic disagreement: the magic annulment didn't click with you. Well, they thought it was a good idea, making the marriage so holy that Mephisto would go after it. They probably thought that by doing that they paid proper respect to the marriage and to the sensitivities of fans. Seems it didn't work for some. It worked for me, I'm not embarrassed to say.

Then the point of growing up. Since he's been married, he's not grown up. All attempts at developing the character were backpedaled. The baby, forgotten; Ben Reilly, forgotten; the death of MJ, undone. Fans are fickle. If they don't like a story they want it retconned. If they like it they want it to remain canon. Growth never had anything to do with it. The only thing that keeps readers are good stories. There are disagreements whether continuity constitutes or not a fundamental element of a good story.

I disagree with the last part of your statement. What makes a story matter is whether you enjoy it, not whether it is in continuity. Dark Knight Returns matters. Marvel knew they were taking a risk of alienating those lifelong fans, they wanted new blood for creators, for readers. Time, more than you or I, will tell if Tom was right.