Mark Millar's Spidey Whodunnit Thread OF MYSTERY

I reckon Eddie Brock did it in a final Venom rage before he dies/sells the symbiote.

Does Ralph Dibny have an alibi?

NO

It would be good if it was the father of Gwen's baby.

Ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh.

Not about the Aunt May thing, BTW, but just about every other damn thing about MM's Spidey. I phear I will sound like the uber-geek pedant if I voice my dissent using actual words, though, so I'll abstain (& save it for my own webspace). But, really - ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh.

Geek out - I will rebuff your attack with sweet reason.

Well, my MAIN beef (besides the wanton guest appearances) (& what's up w/ Rachel Summers' off-the-cuff "oh, I'm just an alt.universe what-if had JG & SS knocked boots and had baby" dialogue expository moment) is the fact that MJ (who's been written as 3 totally different characters in all the main Spidey books - Paul Jenkins has her being a thoughtless crass ball-&-chain, JMS has her all proud & stoic, and MM has her as a well-intentioned but thoughtless ditz) just flashes a gun nonchalantly while she & her hubby are having lunch, AND HE DOESN'T EVEN GO "Hey, you know, that ain't cool, my uncle was killed by a gun you crazy broad don't make me go all FAPPO and pay you in rape dollars!" IN HIS CAPTION BOX!

&, really, just the whole amped-up paranoid "OMG Spidey's a menace let's jump his bones" bullshit that's running rampant - he can't trust the Avengers, he can't trust the cops, he can't trust blah blah blah blah.

There's plenty of coolness going on in the book, sure, but at least attempt to stick to the script & don't arbitrarily disregard / reimagine a character's motivation / reason for being just to move the story along.

I'd say more (esp. in regard to MM's diminishing returns in the books of his I've been reading), but I gotta sleep, so, Vic, the floor is yours.

GUNS DON'T KILL PEOPLE, THE GREEN GOBLIN KILLS PEOPLE.

It's Batman who's got the gun phobia - and it's not the first time MJ's been PACKIN' HEAT either. Hey, if Gwen Stacy had had her dad's police special on her, there would have been LESS TRAGEDY in Pete's life (right up until she shot some kid eighteen times in the throat because she thought he might be Mysterio).

Okay, guns are bad obv. but seeing as Spidey lives in a country where it's legal to carry one around with you and currently has his family targeted by an aunt-killing maniac, you can hardly blame him for not speaking up in this instance. He can't be on-message all the time.

As for there being 3 MJs... fair enough, but there are 8 Logans so she has it easy.

I swear Spidey's been an anti-NRA lobbyist many a time, or at least enough times to acknowledge MJ's actions, regardless of being distracted by May's possible moider & being sideswiped by the Sinister Sixty-Six. I just wish the inner dialogue didn't smack of ... I dunno ... glib plot advancement fluff?

I am disappointed that Mark Millar of all people is even writing 'inner dialogue'.

I'm very conflicted about Millar. He is exactly the kind of writer I ought to like but I actually find his stuff a bit irritating sometimes.

Bingo! I don't think I'd mind the cavalier attention to character minutae & continuity (despite my self-professed continuity fetish) if he actually WENT FOR IT & didn't try to ineptly straddle the line between "fuck you this is MY HOUSE" and "gotta tow the line yessir". Actually, I take that back - he can do whatever he wants re: stories & plot & whatever, but just keep the characterizations consistent, Mr. Millar sir.

Like, for instance (from his k-spotty Ultimate X-Men run), if you're going to have Wolverine leave Cyclops for dead in a ditch in the Savage Land because of his jonesin' for Jean Grey, by all means, have a ball. But at least follow it through to a logical conclusion & don't play it off as some inopportune boner-aided brain fart from the Walking Kabob because the arc's ending soon & you have to clean house for the next creative team.

Is there an MM: S&D thread? If not, you know where I'll be.

Also, boo on most folks that can't stoop to use thought balloons when the caption boxes are doing the same damn work. Tom should appreciate that my first encounter w/ such captioning (awkward, but effective) came from MARK WAID's run on _Flash_.

As much as I like interior monologue (it's only dialogue if we're talking about multiple-personality disorder folks), thought balloons are kinda ugly. Captions are a workable solution.

Yeah, I hate to say it but most of those captions in MKS would look really horrible as think bubbles.

To be honest, obvious plot advancement isn't my problem with the latest issue - more the lack of it. The whole scene in the prison with Norman seems to be just showing off how evil he is. Effectively creepy stuff.

Millar walks the line a lot of the time between excellent and awful, but I think he's been pretty consistently good here.