Current location:	Madtown, WI
Current music:	Presidents Of The United States Of America - "Candy" [Live]
Entry tags:	comics

What You Didn't Read In The Chicago Panel Reports
While in Chicago, I was highly curious what the online reactions would be to the Joe Q / MJ craziness that I witnessed in a few key panels, so one of the first things I checked when I got back were the Newsarama and Comic Book Resources panel reports. And I was highly surprised to discover that not only was there seemingly no internet fan reaction...but that both sites had either not reported tidbits that I found significant, or simply understated the whole thing.

For example, one thing you may have missed is that, at the Marvel X-Men Panel, we ended up discussing MJ for a around 25 minutes (or possibly more) of the 60 minute panel! It came up when Joe was asked if he'd yet addressed the three "genies" he'd like to put "back in bottle" he'd once mentioned in interviews, and if he could tell us what those three were. The third one he brought up was the Spidey marriage thing...and from there, he was debating with the audience for approximately half of the X-Men panel.

Newsarama at least mentions in their report that we were on the topic for 25 minutes or so, and Comic Book Resources comments on it in their report's title. But one thing that neither site mentions, is that the moment it came up, with Joe Q naming it as his third genie-in-the-bottle, the sound of low "boo"s filled the audience! And ended up being "boo"ed two more times before the whole discussion was over! At a panel that was filled more with *X-Men* fans than Spidey fans!

I didn't hear any "boo"ing from the crowd at the Mondo Marvel panel, but the MJ marriage once again dominated the Q&A portion of the panel, though you wouldn't guess from the three-sentence summary it gets in Newsarama's report. The CBR report actually mentions a few of the specific questions/answers addressed, but misses what I thought was the money-quote of the hour, which at least Newsarama paraphrases in their aforementioned three-sentence summary. When asked why we need Spidey unmarried in the regular books, when you can read new young-unmarried-Spidey stories in Ultimate Spider-Man, Joe responded that there are all sorts of things you can do with regular Spidey that you can't do with younger, Ultimate Spidey, because younger Spidey can't do things like "have sex, or download porn."

Yes, have sex, and download porn. That is an exact quote...I am not making that up. My roomie crazy_elf_girl turns to me in disbelief and whispers "those are the stories he wants to tell...??"

After he's finished answering the next question (a non-MJ one), I decide to raise my hand, hoping to get him to elaborate on the sex/porn thing. Joe points right at me, but there were two guys in front of me and slightly to the sides, and one of them launches into his question, thinking Joe was point at him...oh well. After that question has finished up, I raise my hand, and Joe calls on me again. My question goes like this:

"One of the things I really like about the way the Spider-man books is set up, is that with Ultimate Spider-man you can read about younger, single Spider-man, and in Amazing Spider-man you can read about the older, mature, married Spider-man, which allows you to be able to tell a greater variety of different stories. So I'm confused, are there really stories you want to do with an older unmarried Spidey, that couldn't be done with Ultimate Spidey-- [Joe tries to start his answer, but I briefly cut him off to finish the rest of my question] --because I don't think "having sex" and "downloading porn" make for real interesting..."

And then I trail off to let Joe start his answer. Which is basically once again asserting that, yes, there are all sorts of stories you can only tell with an older unmarried Spidey, but without being able to cite any more convincing examples.

I was so disappointed to discover my question wasn't covered in either panel report... ;-P

Oh well...I suppose it's reported now. ;-)

One other thing, that crazy_elf_girl noticed more than I did, was how visibly annoyed Joe seemed to be getting, as question after question ended up being about MJ. It got to the point where, when about ten minutes were left of the panel, they finally asked if there were any non-MJ questions.

I've sometimes wondered if it's just those of us who are more feminist-minded comic fans who are most opposed to Joe's ridiculous idea that Spidey's marriage makes it more difficult to come up with stories. But after seeing just how opposed the majority of fans in general are to the idea, I think it's safe to say that this is the most unpopular story idea since "Spider-man is actually a clone!"

During the X-Men panel, at one point someone shouted out "Mary Jane is a skrull!," which was my first thought when the news of Bendis's "skrull invasion" idea first hit after New Avengers #31. Joe gave a short answer under this breath, that I can't remember exactly, other than that it sounded like a "shoot, someone guessed it, must come up with redirection!" type answer. But that could be just because I already suspect he's been seriously thinking about it... ;-P