I came across an interesting critique of Brand New Day that didn't revolve around swearing, screaming about dropping the titles for good or other, similar, fanboy ranting. It's by MadGoblin of Spidey Kicks Butt and you can read the whole thing by clicking here. I do warn you, though, it's a fairly long read that takes the odd tangent here and there, but I read and agreed with most everything in the article.However, the most unique thing about the article is the comparisons to the 1999 relaunch with Howard Mackie post-Clone Saga. Here's a selection of quotes MadGoblin gives us in the article.
- ”Meanwhile, Peter’s life will be going through some changes as well. There will be a re-exploration of some of the old Daily Bugle supporting cast and an introduction of some of the new supporting cast members.”
- ”The Spider-Man books need an influx of new blood in terms of villains that Spidey goes up against, and we’ve got a storyline cooking that will give us just that.”
- ”I want readers to put down the first couple of issues and say “This is fun again.” That’s pretty much it. I want it to be fun. I want to put back in the sense of wonder.”
- ”So we’re trying to get back to the essence of who the character is. We’ve had a lot of distractions over the past bunch of years. It’s not really a reboot or a revamp, but a refocus. Refocusing on what made Spider-Man Spider-Man.”
- ”Re-reading the earliest issues of Spider-Man, the thing that always made Spider-Man unique was that so much of it was about Peter Parker. Three quarters of the book was just Peter Parker soap opera stuff with high school or Aunt May, and then Spider-Man had to get into the costume, pop off and do the superhero thing.”
- ”I think marriage aged Peter and MJ instantly. They’re suddenly being portrayed as a married couple, as opposed to a young couple. It took away the chances for any sort of romantic tension. That’s part of what defines Peter Parker.”
Just a bunch of random OMD / BND quotes, right? Sadly, no. These are all quotes from various publications and interviews with Howard Mackie concerning the relaunch of Spider-Man.
If you think that's interesting, MadGoblin goes on to list many other glaring examples of rehashing the previous reboot, such as both series dealing with a Spider-Man that's been out of action for months and a new Daily Bugle to the moratorium on old villains and the need to create new ones. The amount of similarities are staggering and the comparison is the best part of the article and something I hadn't even thought about or read about anywhere else.
