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“The king died and then the queen died” is a story. “The king died, and then the queen died of grief” is a plot.
E. M. Forster

“If you think ‘the queen died of grief’ is a plot, you wouldn’t last ten seconds in Surf City. The Queen iced her husband to claim control of the underworld. And now she’s got a deathray, probably pointed at a city Americans care about or Paris. That’s a plot.”

–Captain Carnage

For 24 glorious hours following the end of the Super Bowl, Superhero Nation’s going crazy with either a NY Giants or NE Patriots-themed header. You may remember the custom header I prepared in the off-hand chance that the 1-12 Dolphins beat the 13-0 Patriots. (It, uhh, didn’t happen).

Click to see the part that got cut off on the right.

Mercifully, I did a better picture of Brady this time around.

I’ve written before that you have to keep the level of unusualness in your stories steady or things will feel really weird. Case in point: Peter Parker breaks up with Mary Jane. After making a pact with Mephisto. Who brings back Aunt May and Harry Osborn. (No word yet on whether Peter actually is a clone this time around).

There are a few ways to interpret this:

1. Marvel admits it really screwed the pooch when they outed Spiderman during Civil War. Trying to fit Spiderman into a Fantastic Four-sized hole was not well thought-out.

2. Marvel has decided it isn’t done screwing the pooch. There’s no other industry where companies feel the need to dilute their good products with their crap products*. Spiderman, meet Mephisto.

The Ubyssey suggests that Quesada was the main cause.

Joe Quesada, editor-in-chief of Marvel, had long been an opponent of Spider-Man’s marriage. A married Spider-Man, Joe felt, restricted the kind of stories that could be told. A single swinging Spidey, however, was free to “have sex and download porn.” Now, a simple divorce would have sufficed, and could reasonably be explained. But this, Quesada felt, would tarnish Peter’s status as a role model for kids.

If the Ubyssey is even remotely close on this, we can safely say that Marvel may actually be the worst-run entertainment company around.

1. Unless Peter gets single, we can’t write stories where he can “have sex and download porn.”
2. But a divorce would tarnish Peter’s status as a role model.
3. Let’s have him make a pact with the devil instead.

Admittedly, things are different in NYC than Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, S.C. and Florida, but that’s just ridiculous.

*”There’s no other industry where companies dilute their good products with their crap products.” To some extent that’s hyperbole. Each new Star Fox game discredits the Nintendo brand as a whole. But at least Nintendo doesn’t force Star Fox plotlines on its actually good franchises.

Random tangent: I actually once had a mildly interesting premise for a Star Fox book. Well, really, it was more of a fever-induced delirium than a premise, but work with me.

Star Fox News.
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