Curmudgeonly Comments on Continuity
Continuity. It's the bugbear of any comic book character, and Spider-Man has
more continuity to live down than perhaps any other guy in long-johns. Much as
I hate to be curmudgeonly about these things, my recent reading of Sensational
Spider-Man (Vol. 2) #29 popped up a few obvious goofs.
- I'm pretty sure that Marvel's Scarecrow does not have fear powers. That's
the other guy that Roberto keeps making jokes about. Marvel's Scarecrow is a
contortionist and acrobat who has a bunch of trained crows. If Roberto wanted a
guy with fear powers, he should have used Mr. Fear but then he wouldn't have
been able to make those jokes, of course.
- I'm not up on my Will O'the Wisp history but isn't he essentially a good guy
now? He was never really a villain. He always had reasons for what he was
doing. I can accept that Chameleon has threatened him to join the gang in the
same way that he threatened Molten Man, but shouldn't Spidey at least wonder why
Wispy is coming after him, rather than playing this silly "who are you again?"
game?
- I'm not sure that Madame Webb should be back to what she was circa Amazing
Spider-Man #210. Has she really reverted all the way back to that? One thing
I AM sure of is that Madame Web is NOT FRENCH! She has never shown any
indication of being French. The Handbook lists her birth place as Salem,
Oregon. Maybe this is some phony French accent fad she's going through. Or
perhaps she's taking lessons and just wants to practice on Peter.
Does this really matter? Well, yes and no. A gripping story will only be
slightly dented by the odd factual glitch - check out The Da Vinci Code for a
great example. But Marvel prides itself on the ongoing development of its
characters, and this kind of carelessness is counterproductive.
C'mon guys. Let's get the facts right, eh?