“What I don’t love about this is that EVERYONE is a quipster. Even old man with evil-sounding German name is making wisecracks (by himself, alone, in a lab, while dying or something).
I’m a big fan of comedic writing, and something that benefits comedic writing is when some characters are funny and some are not. Because you need that buffoon, that wiseacre, that snarky person, to run up against someone who is, for lack of a better term, normal.
Because if everyone within the bubble that is a piece of fiction is funny, then no one is funny, because the bar for “funny” is higher within this fiction than it is within our world. Baseline Guy in this world is much funnier than a fairly funny person in our world.
Contrast. That’s the world I’m looking for. It sort of erases contrast, and contrast is, for me, the key.
Take the return of Spider-Man from the events of Superior Spider-Man. Spidey encounters Green Goblin, Spidey now fully himself, fully restored, and as they’re about to fight, Spidey says something like, “Yeah, well at least I’ve never had the indignity of carrying a man purse.”
Green Goblin is incensed. We get a panel of Gobby in complete stunned silence. Then he just says, “It’s you.”
And Spidey replies, “The one and only.”
And that’s the thing: The one and only.
Because Doc Ock, who was occupying Spidey’s body for awhile, was not quippy and was not fun, he was not Spider-Man.
When Spidey says that line to Goblin, Goblin knows, instantly, that it’s the kind of thing only Spider-Man would say, and Spider-Man is most definitely back.
It’s a beautiful character moment for Spider-Man, and I think that’s something you can’t get in these first few issues of ASM by Nick Spencer.
Spencer’s characters are funny, I enjoy them, but I think a funny character is funnier standing next to a character who’s not funny.
So, weirdly, I’m saying I think this would work better if it was less funny.
Is this adulthood?”