Surely There Are Better Examples?

So let's start with this link. That's the post I mentioned yesterday. Before we go further, a disclaimer: This isn't a Brand New Day bashfest post, so if you enjoy the current Amazing Spider-Man, more power to ya. No beef with you about that. Everybody cool? Great, let's move on.

The thing that catches my attention is comment #3, where "ElCoyote's Prophet" takes this opportunity to blast fanboys for destroying comics as a medium, with their fanaticism over continuity, and their demands that everything stick to it, and he brings up Spider-Girl. Not as a victim of this, but as a title that represents fanboys obsession. Uh-huh.

First, let's just accept that ElCoyote and I are going to disagree about Spider-Girl as a title, and DeFalco's relative ability as a writer. Whatever, that's cool. Here's the thing that amuses me about it, though. If you're going to pick a book to point at as something the fanboys love, to the detriment of what ElCoyote would deem "better" books (BND Amazing Spider-Man issues), I think there are probably better options than Spider-Girl, for two primary reasons.

1) Sales. Here, let's take a look at the sales figures from Paul O'Brien's monthly breakdown. Let's see, there's Amazing Spider-Man, at #4, 8, and 14, all moving at least 80,000 units, but where's Amazing Spider-Girl, this title the fanboys are so wrongly giving their praise (and presumably, their money) to? Oh, there it is, at #114, selling just above 15,000. Well, Brand New Day is lower now than it was in January, maybe the fanboys are bailing out, and switching to Spider-Girl instead. Hmm, nope, the book's numbers are lower in March than they were at the beginning of the year (only by about 500 units, but they aren't increasing).

So if Spider-Girl owes her sales to fanboys, they make up a lot smaller section of the readership than people think. The other thing I want to throw out real quick, is this comment from Tom DeFalco, back when they announced that Spider-Girl was ending, but Amazing Spider-Girl was going to start up, that the reason was because, poor Direct Market sales or no, the book was a money maker in other markets (see quotes here) which I assume means supermarkets, libraries, Target, places like that. In other words, not the places I would expect the "fanboys" to be going to get their comic fix. Basically, I don't think Amazing Spider-Girl is stealing sales away from her dad's book.

2) Continuity. OK, if you're going to argue that fanboys only care about continuity, why Spider-Girl? I may be taking a different approach to continuity than ElCoyote, but there really isn't much you've got to know ahead of time to understand Spider-Girl. She's the daughter of Spider-Man, she has his powers, and as a high school student, uses said powers to fight crime because it's the responsible thing to do. And they tell you all that on the recap page. It's a book that exists in basically its own universe (barring the occasional mini-series). Besides those mini-series, there's nothing that directly effects it, or is affected by it. If one of those mini-series happens to tie into the current plot, what's important is explained in story, and then editor's notes tell you what stories to look for if your curiosity has been piqued.

So does that make Spider-Girl for the continuity obsessed, because it's written to be easy to follow and catch up on, because you can keep track of how characters and events are connected, and because things that happen in those occasional other titles aren't completely swept under the rug? It seems unlikely, but I think I'm interpreting "continuity obsessed" as when you have to already know a bunch of backstory to follow a comic at all, and ElCoyote may mean something else, and just fails to define it. For my definition I would have suggested The Lightning Saga or maybe the current X-Men Legacy title as examples. Or hell, Secret Invasion seems to be set to answer all those "Why is Character X, Y, Z acting out of character, compared to what they did at {insert issue, year, event of choice}" questions. Well that and to show heroes punching each other, then aliens if there's time later.

Look, you want to rant about how all "fanboys" want is comics like they read when they were kids? Then you've probably got a case against Spider-Girl, because DeFalco doesn't write much different now than he did when he wrote Amazing Spider-Man back when I started reading comics (circa ASM #273). Obviously I enjoy his style on this title, though I'm quite glad there are lots of other titles out there that have very little in common with it, some of which I purchase (The Punisher MAX, anybody?). It's an older school style of comic writing, but I'm not sure we want DeFalco to try and get more modern. I certainly don't want Amazing Spider-Girl to get as decompressed as Immortal Iron Fist, and I think the last time DeFalco tried being more modern was his Fantastic Four run, where there were constantly big shake-ups and death (Torch on trial! Doom murder/suicides Reed! Adult Franklin Richards from the future! Sue's horrible new costume! The Thing wears a bucket on his head! Yikes). Although again, if that's the rant you're trying to make, I think DC would be a better target, and certainly Brand New Day (let's regress Peter back to his early '70s status quo! Whoo!).

Of course, if ElCoyote just wanted to rant against Spider-Girl because of a deep hatred for it, well, can't help there, seeing as I don't share the feeling.

Hey, thanks for sitting through that (assuming you did). I needed to get that out of my system.