I don’t think I ever read any of the Mc2 titles outside of this. I always got a Malibu vibe from the ads, maybe due to Juggernaut Jr. I didn’t realize DeFalco was over the whole thing. I’ll give it a shot.
DeFalco wrote about 90% of it (the exception being Wild Thing, written by Larry Hama, and a couple of Spider-Girl issues by Sean McKeever). Art across the books were almost all by Pat Olliffe, Ron Frenz, Ron Lim or Sal Buscema. Spider-Girl is the strongest offering - likeable character and world. Stuff like Avengers or Fantastic Five feel very much like tributes. I suppose, Avengers might work for you. I'm not keen on the idea most the original Avengers "went away" and then the new team is half good and half shit and they are basically just doing remakes of old Avengers stories. J2... is... a thing that exists. I mean, it's very kiddy and dopey but there's something earnest and charming in how not fully formed it all is.
You like the series for precisely the same reasons I did. Probably the same reason everybody liked it. It was one of the only books in the 2000s that maintained a colorful and fun tone, while everything else went for subversion and edginess. Like you said, edgy comics have a place, but when that sub genre becomes the mainstream, something has fundamentally broken. We are reading about good people who choose to fight against injustice while wearing bright spandex. That conceit is something people used to be fine with accepting. So long as the book plays it straight, there's no problem. It's when morons who can't handle the goofier elements or were bullied for reading them decided to try and make everything like the Killing Joke and Frank Miller's Batman. I think Spider-Girl / A-Next were just about the only book on the shelves at the time that remotely qualified as being comfortable with itself in this genre. Maybe bits of Thunderbolts and Exiles. Refreshing... even if DeFalco continued to write convoluted plots and origins, at least the spirit of spandex super heroes remained.
I think the only problem with Spider-Girl is it's connection to the other rMC2 books. They (especially A-Next!) were very content to just remake and call back to old stuff. Every A-Next is basically a direct homage or analog to an old Avengers story. Whereas Spider-Girl was, using elements of Silver Age Spidey, but always presenting them in the context alongside what is a new story. I wonder if there's something to be said about Tom DeFalco's passion for a project... if he cares, you get something like Spider-Girl or his early Thor work... if he is checked out, you get almost pastiche Silver Age remixes like a lot of his later Thor work. Spider-Girl is also the longest running female-led Marvel title (100 issues, then relaunched with a #1 and lasted another 36 and then relaunched again with a new #1 and then got axed because EiC didn't even like an alternate reality Peter being married to MJ... I think total it was near 150 issues?). That Marvel are so pig-headed they would rather bury the character than continue her stories - and yes there is still demand, people are still passionate about it and they hated Dan Slott murdering her family and making her "Spider-Woman" - there's no reason whatsoever that Spider-Girl isn't on the shelves when instead they are desperately trying to push Spider-Gwen. Spider-Girl has a voice and a demographic. Spider-Gwen flails around trying to find either and never succeeds. Not even Spider-Girl, there just should be one comic that is at least something for "the old fans". Not something stuck in the past or throwing memories at you, but something that is catered to people who enjoyed those things that are always milked for nostalgia. Like, Marvel Snapshots Namor. Have one comic on the shelves every month exactly like that. An Invaders series or a Captain America title (I wish) or yeah Spider-Girl I suppose. Get Jerry Ordway to do Spider-Girl, get Rog to do Spider-Girl, get Dan Jurgens to do Spider-Girl. Instead of using them for these inane continuity insert minis that are designed to not accomplish anything beyond appealing to people's desire for something that resembles what comics used to be. There, of course, were a few things during or after Spider-Girl that were similar but it really really flat-lined in the Bendis Age. Even the phony Kurt Busiek stuff more or less died out in favour of the "these aren't comic book stories, they are the first draft of the next big Marvel movie" mentality. Meanwhile, Tom DeFalco was doing that awful Thunderstrike miniseries with Thunderstrike's son and that giant gold dildo as the villain.
@@SonofNimrodIdiot I was going to ask what about Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane? But even that ended by 2009. Not sure why an anti MJ agenda took hold. I wish Marvel would do what you say, but they really have moved far beyond anything bordering on serving a broader demographic. Maybe it is just easier to target active niche minorities and guarantee a certain number of sales than try to make more mass appealing stuff. Whatever the reason, Marvel isn't ever going back.
Joe Quesada is largely pointed to as the Mary Jane agenda guy. He basically wrote/drew the story that broke them up, he was the one who canned Spider-Girl, he was the one who inserted his daughter as Spider-Man's new love interest. He, like most the crew, were firmly of the belief that Spider-Man's true love was Gwen Stacy and that any comic that came after she died was not good and didn't count. Basically anything at Marvel is a combination of a non-fan stuck in the past and their incredibly vain and selfish abuse of power to force that on others.
Her first appearance is in that issue of A-Next I showed (#4). A-Next #11 has her team-up with Cap and a great cover of them together. She was also in Captain America Corps from 2011.
I can't get into any of the Spider-chicks. they don't have green hair and matching lipstick which does it for me. 😍 I do love Jessica's physique though.
I don’t think I ever read any of the Mc2 titles outside of this. I always got a Malibu vibe from the ads, maybe due to Juggernaut Jr. I didn’t realize DeFalco was over the whole thing. I’ll give it a shot.
DeFalco wrote about 90% of it (the exception being Wild Thing, written by Larry Hama, and a couple of Spider-Girl issues by Sean McKeever). Art across the books were almost all by Pat Olliffe, Ron Frenz, Ron Lim or Sal Buscema. Spider-Girl is the strongest offering - likeable character and world. Stuff like Avengers or Fantastic Five feel very much like tributes. I suppose, Avengers might work for you. I'm not keen on the idea most the original Avengers "went away" and then the new team is half good and half shit and they are basically just doing remakes of old Avengers stories. J2... is... a thing that exists. I mean, it's very kiddy and dopey but there's something earnest and charming in how not fully formed it all is.
Love the new pic.
You like the series for precisely the same reasons I did. Probably the same reason everybody liked it. It was one of the only books in the 2000s that maintained a colorful and fun tone, while everything else went for subversion and edginess. Like you said, edgy comics have a place, but when that sub genre becomes the mainstream, something has fundamentally broken. We are reading about good people who choose to fight against injustice while wearing bright spandex. That conceit is something people used to be fine with accepting. So long as the book plays it straight, there's no problem. It's when morons who can't handle the goofier elements or were bullied for reading them decided to try and make everything like the Killing Joke and Frank Miller's Batman. I think Spider-Girl / A-Next were just about the only book on the shelves at the time that remotely qualified as being comfortable with itself in this genre. Maybe bits of Thunderbolts and Exiles. Refreshing... even if DeFalco continued to write convoluted plots and origins, at least the spirit of spandex super heroes remained.
I think the only problem with Spider-Girl is it's connection to the other rMC2 books. They (especially A-Next!) were very content to just remake and call back to old stuff. Every A-Next is basically a direct homage or analog to an old Avengers story. Whereas Spider-Girl was, using elements of Silver Age Spidey, but always presenting them in the context alongside what is a new story. I wonder if there's something to be said about Tom DeFalco's passion for a project... if he cares, you get something like Spider-Girl or his early Thor work... if he is checked out, you get almost pastiche Silver Age remixes like a lot of his later Thor work.
Spider-Girl is also the longest running female-led Marvel title (100 issues, then relaunched with a #1 and lasted another 36 and then relaunched again with a new #1 and then got axed because EiC didn't even like an alternate reality Peter being married to MJ... I think total it was near 150 issues?). That Marvel are so pig-headed they would rather bury the character than continue her stories - and yes there is still demand, people are still passionate about it and they hated Dan Slott murdering her family and making her "Spider-Woman" - there's no reason whatsoever that Spider-Girl isn't on the shelves when instead they are desperately trying to push Spider-Gwen. Spider-Girl has a voice and a demographic. Spider-Gwen flails around trying to find either and never succeeds.
Not even Spider-Girl, there just should be one comic that is at least something for "the old fans". Not something stuck in the past or throwing memories at you, but something that is catered to people who enjoyed those things that are always milked for nostalgia. Like, Marvel Snapshots Namor. Have one comic on the shelves every month exactly like that. An Invaders series or a Captain America title (I wish) or yeah Spider-Girl I suppose. Get Jerry Ordway to do Spider-Girl, get Rog to do Spider-Girl, get Dan Jurgens to do Spider-Girl. Instead of using them for these inane continuity insert minis that are designed to not accomplish anything beyond appealing to people's desire for something that resembles what comics used to be.
There, of course, were a few things during or after Spider-Girl that were similar but it really really flat-lined in the Bendis Age. Even the phony Kurt Busiek stuff more or less died out in favour of the "these aren't comic book stories, they are the first draft of the next big Marvel movie" mentality. Meanwhile, Tom DeFalco was doing that awful Thunderstrike miniseries with Thunderstrike's son and that giant gold dildo as the villain.
@@SonofNimrodIdiot I was going to ask what about Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane? But even that ended by 2009. Not sure why an anti MJ agenda took hold.
I wish Marvel would do what you say, but they really have moved far beyond anything bordering on serving a broader demographic. Maybe it is just easier to target active niche minorities and guarantee a certain number of sales than try to make more mass appealing stuff. Whatever the reason, Marvel isn't ever going back.
Joe Quesada is largely pointed to as the Mary Jane agenda guy. He basically wrote/drew the story that broke them up, he was the one who canned Spider-Girl, he was the one who inserted his daughter as Spider-Man's new love interest. He, like most the crew, were firmly of the belief that Spider-Man's true love was Gwen Stacy and that any comic that came after she died was not good and didn't count.
Basically anything at Marvel is a combination of a non-fan stuck in the past and their incredibly vain and selfish abuse of power to force that on others.
I will start looking for American Dream. Girl Captain Americas can be a future video.
Her first appearance is in that issue of A-Next I showed (#4). A-Next #11 has her team-up with Cap and a great cover of them together. She was also in Captain America Corps from 2011.
I can't get into any of the Spider-chicks. they don't have green hair and matching lipstick which does it for me.
😍
I do love Jessica's physique though.
Jessica Drew dressed as Madame Hydra in one issue of her series...