Scott King

 
     It was announced yesterday that Spider-Man will be returning to his black costume. Spidey Editor Axel Alonso & Joe Q. wants everyone to believe that the motivation for this wasn’t really to match up the comics with “Spider-Man 3.”  Alonso tells CBR:

“For the most cynical fans out there who'll say Marvel wants Spider-Man in the black costume because of the movie, they're only 10% right. The beauty is we knew 16 months ago as we were planning out the thrust of "Civil War" and beyond, how all of this laid out beautifully for us to move into the future. So, the thing is the timing is perfect. We understand the motivations behind the change. The same as when we were planning "Civil War" and people would guess that maybe Cap would be the pro-registration guy and some complained that he would be, but then they saw how it was rendered and why he was motivated to do what he did. That's what's driving us right now. Character motivations and how they react to what's going on around them.”

     That’s all crap. The motivation was that they wanted to link the comics to the movie. The change of costume isn’t story driven.
     Look at the other announcement that came yesterday involving Spider-Man:   “Spider-Man Family” which will feature a 22 page main story set somewhere in Spider-Man’s past with a short back up story.
     In an interview with Newsarma, the writer, Sean McKeever says that upcoming story lines involve the black suit, sandman, and venom. Since I’m a fan of McKeever’s and a regular at his site I asked if the higher-ups told him to incorporate those story points or if they were solely his idea. He said they he was given him.
     It’s not that I don’t understand why Marvel is trying to link up the comics with the new movie. It makes sense to draw in new readers. But Alonso & Joe Q. should just be honest about it instead of trying to play it off as “Ohhhh nooooo we wanted to do this all along. It’s just dumb luck that it works out this way."