Comic Book Death: Editorial Hammer of Deaths

Considering that my last post had a parody animation of GaoGaiGar where the robot was wielding a ban hammer, the timing of this post is ironic.

Editorial death control, in my mind, is the most current and controversial topic in comic book deaths. Why? The big one right now is probably Barry Allen.

It has more or less been openly stated that the reason Grant Morrison, author of Final Crisis, has decided to bring back Barry Allen is because he's the Silver Age Flash, and he likes the Silver Age version of any given character best. Barry Allen has been gone for twenty three years, and bringing him back almost certainly required the complicity of DC's major editors.

But that's less the point. I don't care that much about Barry Allen, although as previously noted some are rather bothered. A case I do care about is Spider-Man and Aunt May.

Aunt May "died" back in the early/mid '90s. After her "death," the editors and writers repeatedly said that they would never bring her back. At that time, Peter and Mary Jane were about to have a baby. When the baby should have been born, apparently at the editor's behest, the baby disappeared. (It was strongly implied the disappearance was a kidnapping, but the presentation was apparently ambiguous enough that it could easily have been a death instead.) Writer Tom DeFalco, creator of Spider-Girl, wanted to bring her back, and apparently stated that he would "bring back May [Spider-Girl]," but instead Aunt May came back.

That's hardly the worst of it, though. The most recent event involving poor Spidey and his poor aunt has attracted a lot of flack. Aunt May is fatally wounded by a sniper gunning for Peter Parker, and as a result, Pete makes a deal with Mephisto, in which he essentially sells his marriage to the devil so that Aunt May can live. This causes him and almost everyone else to forget that he was ever married, Aunt May and almost everyone else to forget they ever knew that he is Spider-Man, Harry Osborn to come back from the dead, and Mary Jane to possibly become a superhero. (Okay, at least one good thing may have come of this.)

What's my point? This seriously messes up more than ten years of continuity, and no one can figure out just what's what anymore, essentially because someone doesn't like Mary Jane Watson being married to Peter and thinks that Aunt May is more important to Spider-Man. (This isn't the first time that this particular someone tried to screw up Spider-Man.) This is also the point in which they tried to bring back Gwen Stacy. This whole idea upset the writer so much that he apparently struggled with this individual, who I will persist in not naming directly, and was browbeat into writing the controversial storyline. (Not that this entirely lets the writer off the hook-he contributed to this monster, although he at least has the good grace to apologize for it.) The big editor has claimed that "there will be a payoff" for One More Day, but the current highly successful storyline, Brand New Day, in the words of multiple bloggers, completely and totally does not require Peter Parker to be single, despite what this editor claims.

The sad thing is, this guy will think that the sales vindicated his actions, yet the biggest criticisms of the new story come from elements actually introduced by One More Day. Sigh.