Not the most controversial thing to come out of Civil war but still one that received a lot of attention was the conversion of goofy comedy character Speedball into the dark, brooding, self harming Penance. At the end of his first solo series I decided to review how well this new direction has gone and most importantly, will this open up new stories.
I'm normally quite up for a change in characters. I still think the world may be more interesting if Ben Reilly remained Spider-Man and Peter Parker was allowed to retire with a family (And a dead Aunt May) you could have had a young, single Spider-Man with a supporting cast of youngish friends. He could be skint, possibly even at college. Oh wait, like he is now but with less Satan.
First, the general character would have been pretty laughable if he was conceived from the ground up. Powers that only work when he's in pain, so he has a suit with hundreds of spikes on the inside to make his powers work. It is very late '90s and screams "I'm angst ridden aaaaargh" and in itself it doesn't really hold much interest. But all that's done is take one minor B-List character and turn him into another minor B-lister. There has been some abuse of this inside the marvel camp and you could object but for the most part its been really funny. I do feel for the writers of Civil War: Frontline, who dealt with the speedball to penance transformation but the GLI summer special where squirrel girl tries to talk him back into being speedball (And we see his cat Niels is dead, now all that remains is P-Cat, the penitent puss.)
What is surprising is that Marvel have been trying to give him a push. He had his own Limited series where he (Spoiler warning) takes bloody revenge on Nitro (Although notably doesn't kill him) which was actually really good, as has his depiction in Thunderbolts as he receives therapy from Doc Samson. So while I still think the makeover and nature of the powers are questionable, there is no doubt that Robbie Baldwin is getting some far greater character development. Indeed while he seems to have an obsession with pain and masochism once he's clear of his survivors guilt he may grow further. Penance: Relentless showed Robbie becoming more confident, where as before he was a self hating loon living in spartan quarters. He still lives up to his frequent nickname Captain Emo for now, but I have to say, I'm more interested in Robbie Baldwin's journey as penance that I was with speedball.
"Oh wait, like he is now but with less Satan." Genius :-D
ReplyDeleteI must admit, I'm not taken with what they've done with Speedball. Largely because, as you mention, it reeks of 90s (and not in the cool Ben Reilly way).
However, if they're telling an interesting story with it, then that to me, is the main thing.
Of course, I'd like to think at the end of the story we'll be back to the status quo, with Robbie back as Speedball, but having gone through a journey, and learned something about himself along the way.
Captain America is probably the best example of this. A few years back, the idea of Cap dying and staying dead (for over a year before being replaced) would've been heracy. However, by using it as a way to tell a compelling story, Ed Brubaker has made it work. We're all reading comics to be entertained. Its when changes are made for the heck of it, with no compelling story behind them, that they run into problems.
ANd that is the problem with Amazing Spider-Man at the moment, while by all reviews Dan Slott is writing one hell of a good comic, so far nothing is being done in the new status quo that couldn't be done in the old.
ReplyDeleteWorth noting, Take Marvel's most contraversial decisions to date.
Bringing Bucky back from the dead, Gave us the winter soldier ark, a new character and the current cap. And frankly while bringing a long time dead character back is generally bad, its been done so well its worth it.
Civil War, The MU is far more interesting now than it was. I actually hope the SHRA remains in some way shape or form for many years to come.
Killing Cap, See Bringing Bucky back
Speedball/Pennance - Has lead to some interesting stuff in Thunderbolts and a great LS.
So, the challange for spidey is to tell a storey that couldn't be done with the marriage intact.