Question about Jonah in Amazing 700(spoilers)

[Garythebra]

Did anyone else think that Jonah was completely out of character in this issue, I mean suspiciously so??
I can kinda understand him deciding to resolve his issues with his dad and Aunt May but when it comes to his complete 180 turn around regarding his feelings about Spidey it just doesn't read right to me.
One of Jonah's major defining character points is that he despises Spider-Man. His consistently irrational hatred of Spidey is what makes him who he is.
No matter how many times Spidey has saved the city, saved the world or even saved Jonah himself as well as his family, J.J. has always stubbornly refused to accept that he is anything but a menace.
Now suddenly within the space of a few panels he's competing with Flash to become head of the Spider-Man fan club. He was positively gushing about him by the end of it.
Seeing Jonah like this was actually kind of distracting for me and left me wondering if there's maybe something else going on with his behavior. Maybe something we will see getting paid off somewhere down the line.
What do you all think? Is this just an example of some bad characterization from Slott or is something else going on???

[E. Wilson]

This actually follows a line of progression that Slott's been feeding for a while. First, Captain America himself tells Jonah that it was Spidey who stopped the Octobots back in the first "Big Time" arc. Then, Jonah reluctantly acknowledged that Spidey saved the city at the end of "Spider Island", honoring him in public. Later, he honestly thanks Spider-Man for saving Aunt May and his father during the Alpha storyline. Brutalizing the Scorpion, who was about to kill Jonah and his family, (and who's tried to do so many, many times before), was just the last in a series of events leading Jonah to see Spidey in a different light.

Honestly, Slott's been laying the groundwork for this one for a while.

[DebkoX]

It was just showing how he'd FINALLY acknowledge spidey and appreciated him.

[KurtW95]

It was just showing how he'd FINALLY acknowledge spidey and appreciated him.

But it isn't Spidey.

[E. Wilson]

But it isn't Spidey.

I'm going to go out on a limb and point out that this is entirely intentional on Slott's part.

[NightHaunter]

The point is that in Superior Jonah supports Spidey. It's just setting a new status quo for a different book. It'll be an interesting change I think.

[Garythebra]

I get that the groundwork for a more Spidey-tolerant J.J. has been laid by Slott in other issues, but his reaction here just seems so completely OTT. His dialogue was completely out of character:
"If anything happens to that wall-crawling wonder now. I'll never forgive myself."
Can you honestly imagine J. Jonah Jameson saying something like that about anyone, let alone Spider-Man.

[E. Wilson]

"If anything happens to that wall-crawling wonder now. I'll never forgive myself."
Can you honestly imagine J. Jonah Jameson saying something like that about anyone, let alone Spider-Man.

See, I read it as "If anything happens to that wall-crawling wonder now," as in, "Now that he's finally shaping up into a decent guy, it would be terrible if he died". This is still Jonah we're talking about; he doesn't think he's wrong so much as he thinks Spider-Man is changing into a better hero.

[NightHaunter]

Mmm yes I suppose the transition is rapid even with the groundwork, but it's all for the purpose of quickly setting up superior.

[Garythebra]

I could maybe go along with that if it wasn't for the next bit of dialogue that comes outta Jamesons mouth:
"Look at him!!!! The brave fool."
To me, those two panels seem to be highlighting J.J. man crushing on Spidey big time and thats just preposterous.
I get that Slott is obviously doing it to highlight the fact that Otto-Spidey is going to be different from Peter-Spidey and that the people around him are going to see him and act differently around him. But doing it this way seems kinda cheap and tacky to me

[Assassin Spider]

It goes way back to the early issues of Amazing Spider-Man, in an oft-reposted panel where Jonah admits to himself in the dark that he'd give anything to be the same kind of man that Spider-Man is, but because he knows he can never be that good, he's going to do his best to tear Spidey down so he can feel a little bit better about not being able to measure up to Spidey's example. This isn't something out of the blue so much as throughout Slott's solo run, he's been building up to Jonah finally being able to act on and accept his feelings of admiration and respect for Spider-Man in spite of everything he's done to try to distance himself from those feelings, and ironically enough, it happens with the "wrong" Spider-Man.

[NightHaunter]

I think to say it happens to the 'wrong' Spider-man is incorrect. More importantly it happens to a different spider-man, who isn't afraid to punch a dudes jaw clean off. Jonah respects this Spider-Man more so because he gets it done.