One More Post

This is hopefully going to be my last post about One More Day, and Marvel's Editor-in-Chief. Here's an email I sent Mr. Quesada months ago. It outlined my personal issues with how poor the writing and storytelling has been for the past year or two.

Dear Sir:

I've been reading Marvel consistently for a few years, and I've followed along during the recent "big events," from Secret War to the Civil War. As far as I'm concerned, the writing has diminished considerably over the last three years. While I "got back in" to comics (moreover, Marvel Comics) after five (+) years, I've been monitoring a close, literary eye on the craft and execution of Marvel's recent cross-title crossovers. Being an educator, I suppose it's just something I tend to do. It isn't the grammar, or the syntax that is used in the books. It's the storytelling that has suffered. Truth be told, there is seemingly just a considerable lack of effort from the creative department.

I understand the business, and the marketing angle of telling these stories. They sell books that may be underselling, sell multiple copies of the same book thanks to the scale of the event (and of course, "variant covers,") and even to a far lesser extent, some of these stories occasionally re-invigorate a viable character from the Marvel library. I understand the corporate aspect of the Marvel Company. It just so happens that my involvement is merely with the literature being printed and sold, that I personally take issue with.

Being that I spend money to receive this literature, it's my prerogative to do what I see fit with it. It isn't much (on a visit-to-visit basis), and from the far-to-recent past, these stories have brought me joy, or elicited some emotional resonance, which warrants further purchasing. However, this glaring issue with regards to storytelling has caused an even more extreme response than the stories themselves. It shows a lack of creativity, and a lack of respect for the intelligence of those who choose to invest our time and finance into this company. Those I truly pity are the current customers, who seem to operate out of what I can only assume is either blind devotion or obsessive habit. It certainly isn't for the "groundbreaking material" that I've come to expect from the "House of Ideas." It is for these reasons that I will no longer contribute to the Marvel Company.

I'm telling you this only because I feel so strongly that I've been duped, because truly there is no one instance I can point to and say, "This is the exact moment when Marvel lost me." Think of it as a steadily declining slope of contrivance.

I don't honestly blame Marvel, the corporate entity, for this. Clearly this model works, and will for a time. It allows Marvel to gain significant leverage in the publishing business; indeed, in the entertainment business. Monetarily, decisions made by the chief staff members at Marvel are turning a profit, and I can't harbor any resentment in that regard. I wanted Marvel to succeed. Marvel's success meant more books for me to enjoy. Now, there is no enjoyment from these books. These books are tired and predictable. It's because these stories are so forced and banal that I've decided to stop. It's not because Marvel is just "a bunch of whores," as the verbal minority of internet-users have antagonistically shouted with the clickety-clack of their keyboards. It's because Marvel has decided that profit and creativity are mutually exclusive. There is a difference. You can make money and still be original.

As B.J. Gupta said, "Creativity comes from zeal to do something; generally, to make some money." Meantime, I'll be waiting for something decent. Maybe it'll come from you guys someday.

I gotta admit, three Amazing titles a month was mighty tempting, though...

Best,
S. Crivelli

A few months later, I received a reply from "the man" himself:

Sal:

Thanks for writing.

While of course this is all subjective, I'm sorry if you aren't happy with the stories we're currently producing. While I cannot discount your displeasure (because lets face it not everyone is going to love what we do), I can certainly tell you that the one thing that isn't true is any assertion that we're phoning it in or that we're sitting around deciding to be predictable or cliche. Regardless, that's not to say that you aren't feeling what you're feeling, it's only to let you know that everyone at Marvel works their tails off to bring our customers the best comics humanly possible. For my money, today's stories are some of the best ever produced perhaps since the golden era of the early sixties, but hey, that's what makes it a horse race.

Sorry if we've let you down somehow, perhaps some other time down the road you'll consider giving us a whirl again.

Be well and have a great holiday!

JQ

I thought it was incredibly articulate and cogent, and kind of cool that he takes the occasional moment to reply to emails. I thought it was really appropriate, until I read an article on Newsarama today. In it, we heard testimony from the writer of One More Day, and Spider-Man for over five years. Here's the part that matters:

To explain, here's the conversation I had with Marvel, in sum:

"So what does Mephisto do?" I ask.

"He makes everybody forget Peter's Spider-Man."

"Uh, huh. So Aunt May's still in the hospital --"

"No, he saves Aunt May."

"But if all he does is save her life and make everybody forget he's Spidey, she still has a scar on her midsection."

"No, he makes that go away too."

"Okay...:

"Then he wakes up in her house."

"The house that was burned down?"

"Right."

"But how --"

"Mephisto undoes that as well."

"Okay. And the guys who shot at Peter and May and were killed, they're alive too? Mephisto can bring guys back from the dead?"

"It's all part of the spell."

"And Doc Strange can't tell?"

"No,"

"And the newspaper articles? News footage?"

"Joe, it's been forgotten."

"I'm just asking is that stuff there or not there?"

"Not there. And Peter's web shooters are back."

"Is this the same spell or a different spell?"

"Same spell."

"How does making people forget he's Spidey bring back his web shooters?"

"It's magic, okay?"

"I see. And Harry's back."

"Right."

"And Mephisto does this too."

"Yep."

"So is Harry back from the dead, or has he been alive? If they ask him, hey Harry, what did you do last summer, will he remember? And the year before? And the year before? If he says they all went on a picnic two years ago, will they remember it?"

"It's --"

"Because if he now has a life he remembers, if he's not back from the dead, then you've changed the continuity you said you didn't want to change. Those are your only options: he was brought back from the dead, and there's a grave, and people remember him dying --"

"Mephisto changes THEIR memories too."

"-- or he's effectively been alive as far as our characters know, so he's been alive all along, so either way as far as our characters are concerned, continuity's been violated going back to 1971.

How do you explain that?"

"It's magic, we don't have to explain it."

And that's the part I had a real problem with, maybe the single biggest problem. There's this notion that magic fixes everything. It doesn't. "It's magic, we don't have to explain it." Well, actually, yes, you do. Magic has to have rules. And this is clearly not just a case of one spell making everybody forget he's Spidey...suddenly you're bringing back the dead, undoing wounds, erasing records, reinstating web shooters, on and on and on.

What I wanted to do was to make one small change to history, a tiny thing, whose ripples we could control to only touch what editorial wanted to touch, making changes we could explain logically. I worked for weeks to come up with a timeline that would leave every other bit of continuity in place. It was rigorous, and as logical as I could make it. In the end of OMD as published, Harry is alive and he's always been alive as far as the characters know...so how is that different than he was alive the whole time?

It made no sense to me.

Still doesn't. It's sloppy. It violates every rule of writing fiction of the fantastic that I and every other SF/Fantasy writer knows you can't violate. It's fantasy 101.

It troubled me that it's MJ and not Peter who is the one to actively make the decision.

I'd originally written the first issue of OMD to take place directly after May gets shot, and in fact turned in the first script directly after she gets nailed. Editorial decided to build in a block of issues for One More Day...meaning May would be in that bed for almost a *year* which I thought was just too long to make work.

And yes, I wanted to retcon the Gwen twins out of continuity, which was something I always assumed I could do at the end of my run. I wasn't allowed to do this, and yes, it pissed me off. I felt I was left holding the bag for something I wanted to get rid of, and taking the rap for a writing lapse that I had never committed. Why this aspect was not brought up in the other interview, you'd have to ask Joe.

Mainly, the book was rewritten in the editorial offices to a degree that the words weren't mine any longer, to a certain degree in three, and massively in four. If the work represents me, I leave the name there and take the rap; if it doesn't, then that's a different situation. There's just not much of my work there, especially once you get to the last dong of midnight...everything after that was written by editorial.

Whether my work is good or it sucks, it's mine. What came out of the end of OMD wasn't, hence my desire to omit the writing credit. Joe graciously offered to share it on the last issue. I think that helped. Credit where credit is due.

What I don't want is for this to turn into a public pissing match. Joe did what he did because he thought it was the right thing to do, and as EIC that's his call, not mine. I respect and admire him. I hope this will be the end of the matter.

I just felt that there were some important bits not addressed, that needed to be.

This is the kind of lazy storytelling I was talking about. It's not the writers' fault. It's the fact that they're boxed into a corner, and can't write themselves thoughtfully out of it. This is kind o the reason I was so offended by this decision. Now it's just been confirmed.