The House of the Rising Sun

During the Constitutional Convention of 1787, Benjamin Franklin is said to have been fascinated with a portrait of the sun painted on the back of the President's chair. Franklin argued it was difficult for artists to distinguish between the rising and setting sun. When the Constitution was signed, however, Franklin was pleased to declare the painted sun was indeed rising.

I have a similar question.

Well, okay, not really. Mine is less about the future of the free world than the future of one of my favorite comic books. Still, I can't help but think Ben would smile on my efforts. He was, after all, one of the only founders to recognize the potential of the novel. (Nice guys, the other fathers, but a bit stiff.) So here it goes:

Is the sun rising or setting on Marvel Team-Up?

I know what some of you are thinking. There have been two efforts to revive MTU in the 616 proper, making for a measly collective 36 issues since Volume 1 ended with #150. Maybe it's not about whether the sun is setting or rising at this point, but how close we are to midnight. Fair enough. But I'm big believer in Cinderella stories. The stroke of midnight is where the action is.

But first I'll talk about what works against MTU in today's Marvel Universe.

1. Spider-Man isn't Marvel's flagship character anymore. Originally, MTU served as a primer for the larger Marvel Universe. In the early 80s, Spider-Man was the only character I read consistently. I often learned about other Marvel characters through MTU, and sometimes I even tried their titles out because of it.

But even when I was reading MTU, Spider-Man was losing ground fast to Claremont's X-Men. Wolverine started showing up in more titles than Spidey by the mid-80s, and he's just as known to mainstream audiences as Spidey these days. In the current Marvel Universe, the Avengers are front and center.

2. The Market. In MTU's prime, you didn't go looking for comics. They found you. They were at the convenient store, the cornerstore, the newsstand. MTU was the perfect title to grab a kid's attention while he was grabbing a soda and some baseball cards. It was summer blockbuster fare, light on continuity and heavy on action. There was a little something for everyone, from space adventures to barbarians. You weren't likely to find swords and sorcery in ASM, but you could here.

For better or worse, the market is increasingly specialized now. Comics have all but disappeared from the public view. You won't find them by accident, and you might not even find them on purpose. Comics aren't aimed at that potential ten year old's first comic experience. The primary audience is now thirty-somethings and up who have been reading comics for years. They know the characters inside and out.

The result is a more focused narrative style where the pitch precedes the team-up vehicle rather than the other way around. We might get as many team-ups as we ever did now, if not more, but they tend to gravitate toward one-shots and mini-series. The upside of this approach is that a concept generally has to be decent to get off the ground. The downside--well, I'll get to that.

3. Spider-Man as an Avenger undermines the MTU concept. Ben Franklin had a saying: Be civil to all, social to many, and known to few. That strikes me as a pretty good motto for Spider-Man's place in the Marvel Universe. He should be close to a few heroes, mainly the FF and Daredevil, but even then not that close. More catching up with an old friend close than the what's changed since I saw you five minutes ago variety. Spidey's a guy who knows how to keep his distance.

So you can imagine I'm not charitably disposed toward the idea of Spider-Man joining the Avengers. For one thing, he's historically very guarded. His relationship with the FF developed over time. Daredevil discovered his secret identity coincidentally. And he's never been predisposed to organization of any kind. There's a reason he's a freelance photographer. You can call him an Avenger if you like, but he's not going to show up for your "stopping Kang the Conqueror" roundtable and he won't bring donuts if he does. That's just not how he rolls.

That's why MTU worked. There was just the right blend of familiarity and mystery to Spider-Man's relationships with the other Marvel heroes. They feared, admired, loved, used, hated and wondered, but never knew him.

It also lent itself to the sense that the Marvel Universe was connected in the same way our world is. You know how you can't just dart into Wal-Mart to grab a carton of milk without running into some old friend who wants to get chatty? It was the same thing with the MU. Spider-Man ran into these guys because they lived in the same city, not because he had them on speed dial.

Except now he kind of does. "Hey, Cage, pull the jet around and meet me at Starbucks in half an hour."

Which is soooooooooooooo much less interesting to me than a world where he might accidentally run into Cage, who's looking to cash in the bounty on his head, all while trying to catch Sandman. But I digress. On to the Cinderella story that's playing out in my head.

Here's why I think now is the perfect time for a MTU revival:

1. Flagship or not, Spider-Man is still the most versatile hero. Wolverine is the best at what he does, but Spider-Man is pretty darn good at everything. If you're faster, he's stronger. If you're stronger, he's smarter, and so on. That means he can hang with almost anyone in the MU without becoming irrelevant to the task at hand. He's essentially the rock/paper/scissors of the MU.

And that's why he's still the best hero for a monthly team-up title.

2. Bringing Spidey and the Market Back to Basics. If one of the goals of the post-marriage direction is to bring Spidey back to basics, it's been compromised by his Avengers status. It really doesn't gel that Spider-Man is hated, hunted, and broke in ASM, while he's got the Avengers on tap in the Bendis-verse. One sign of that disconnect was the discrepancy in the way ASM handles his secret identity as opposed to New Avengers. Over in ASM, Spidey has trouble opening up to the Fantastic Four about the psychic block that keeps his id a secret. Buuuuuuut over in Avengers, he spills his identity to the entire team.

When Luke Cage and Hawkeye know Spidey's secret id and DD doesn't, that's entering Bizarro territory. The big problem here is that Spidey doesn't work at the top-down organizational level. (Isn't that what got him into trouble in Civil War?) If he reveals his identity, it will happen at the personal level.

My solution? Kick Spidey's butt off the Avengers and revive MTU. Not only will this be in keeping with what ASM is trying to accomplish, it would also give us a back-to-basics gateway title for Marvel outsiders. Get it on the magazine rack at Wal-Mart, and make it accessible for the ten year old reader's first potential comic experience.

Ideally, MTU should thrive on the fantastic. In fact, that's one thing that today's oh-so-focused narratives have lost. We're so concerned about keeping the writing on track, we're forgetting how to make stories fly off the page. There's something to be said for both approaches, and that's why we need a title that isn't afraid to fly by the seat of its pants again.

So c'mon, Marvel. You can speak to the 10 year old inside of me, and the 10 year olds outside the marketplace, too.

Let's bring the House of Ideas into the House of the Rising Sun with this battlecry:

"Loner Assemble!"

WOS 8: Revenge of the Satellite

The Satellite Title is back, and this time it's personal!

No, it's not a Steven Seagal flick. But there is something of a "Hard to Kill" motif running through this post.

For a long time now, I've been arguing that the Spider-Man line needs an old school satellite title. I may have just gotten my wish.

I'll make no secret that some of my fondest Spider-Man memories come from the original PPTSSM, later abbreviated to SSM. It began with the tail end of Mantlo's run, where I was treated to the Doc Ock/Owl Gang War and then Silvermane's return. There's a misleading argument that says the real action has always been happening in ASM. It's the worst kind of misleading because it's mostly true.

But then, there's always this:



Or this:



And hey, there's even this:



And who could leave out this:



But my real point isn't that a satellite title needs to keep pace with the developments in ASM to be worthwhile. Quite the contrary, actually. I'd only argue that a satellite title has as much potential to tell memorable stories as ASM. And I think the satellite title has some advantages working in its favor that complement ASM. And if WOS 8 is any indication, Marvel agrees.

1. Consistency. Three years ago this wouldn't be a unique advantage, but since ASM went thrice monthly with a rotating team, it's a big deal. Without getting into which approach is "better," I think having the best of both worlds is a nice way of filling a need. I'm inclined to prefer a consistent team for ASM, too, but I'll be happy to take this. I'm pumped because the title could hardly be in better hands than Fred van Lente's. How cool is he? Well, when he wrote Marvel Adventures Marvel Superheroes, he made my then five year old son think Ant-Man is cool. Think about it. Ant-Man. Hey, I like Henry Pym and all, but I never thought he'd be in comptetition with Spider-Man for a young boy's affections.

Then there's his ASM work. If you haven't read his Spot, um, spotlight in ASM 589, then grab it! Not only did he make the Spot lethally effective, he tied it into Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island . His reworking of the Chameleon as (and I'm paraphrasing here) "Dr. Phil as serial killer" is genius.

The first part of "The Extremist" doesn't disappoint, so stay tuned for more FVL goodness.

2. Backups. If it were up to me, I'd say make this a one-two punch with FVL in the lead and J.M. DeMatteis on Ben Reilly backups. The DeMatteis backups are, I'll admit, the biggest draw for me personally. I don't like to pay a lot, but I'd probably pay $5 for a ten page JMD Reilly story alone. (Shhh! Don't tell Marvel. Or my wife.) Better yet: double the size, give DeMatteis equal space, and maybe throw in another back-up. Call it Marvel's FVL/JMD/IAH (Insert Ad Here) Three-in-One! That's a spicy meatball!

3. Focus on the Supporting Cast. This was always a huge draw for PPTSM. ASM has tended to squeeze out the supporting cast in favor of the bigger developments. But Jonah Jameson, Flash Thompson, Robbie Robertson, Betty Brant, and the rest are just too good to go to waste like that. Look, neither ASM or WOS can be everything to everybody. But put them together, and we've got a winner. Now throw in Marvel Team-Up and we'd be set.

4. Less financial burden. Right now ASM is a huge drain on ye olde paycheck. One issue into the new WOS format, it appears to be a title you can enjoy without reading ASM. Marvel needs an entry level Spider-Man title that doesn't require taking out a second mortgage or a huge readership commitment. Long, sprawling arcs and subplots like the Gauntlet are wicked cool. But they can be intimidating, too, and it's nice to have a title that can complement ASM or stand on its own merits. Right now the Bat-family at DC has done tremendous work making each title accessible on its own, which is no small task. I ask no less of Spider-Man!

All in all, it's a good time to be a Spider-Man fan again. And I was wrong to compare the satellite title to an old Seagal flick. It's more like a Jackie Chan/Owen Wilson buddy team-up.

You may argue amongst yourselves which title fills which role. But we here at REILLY FACTOR encourage informed decisions, so for Pete's sake, watch Shanghai Noon before you decide!