I started to watch a documentary series on the sitcoms when I had to drop it as soon as they had talking heads to say, with a right face, that I love Lucy invented the family sitcom. I love Lucy It was an extremely important television program, but it is just an absurd position, because it completely ignores the fairly long history of the radio sitcoms. Damn, I love Lucy It was not even the first sitcom of Lucille Ball! She had done the sitcom radio, My favorite husbandfor a few years, and in fact, I love Lucy came when CBS wanted to bring My favorite husband on television. Ball agreed to make a television sitcom, but only if her real husband, Desi Arnaz, could play her televised husband. Once it has been agreed, the program was reworked and I love Lucy was born.
I mention this because, so often in our pop culture, we stand on the back of our ancestors. I Love Lucy was based on popular radio sitcoms of the time. This is obviously one of the most interesting things about the famous humor comic strip title, ArchieWho was only one of the many comics who tried to adapt the Andy Hardy films in which Mickey Rooney featured at the time, which made Rooney one of the largest cinema stars on the planet. Archie, unlike other similar titles, lasted, and that is why he is considered to be the main example of this comic strip, even if Archie was not even the first Riff Andy Hardy in his own comic book company, MLJ Comics, which was then renamed Archie Comics.
The central theme of Archie Comics is the love triangle between Archie Andrews, Veronica Lodge and Betty Cooper. The joke, of course, is that the Archie House style makes Veronica and Betty almost identical, other than their hairstyles and distinctive colors. Their personalities, however, could not be more different. With Veronica, a rich spoiled girl, and Betty, a type of girl at the entrance of the girl who works hard, a large part of what makes Archie comics work, is that you have these strong and archetypal characters, in this way, you could tell 5-7, page stories and that everything makes sense, because you do not need to spend a lot of time, because all that does not mean, need to spend a lot of time presenting the characters, because We know These characters already. John Romita Sr. was a successful romantic comic strip artist for DC in the 1950s and Romita learned this same exact lesson while drawing romantic comics: that you have to make each character an archetype so that the plots of romance have a meaning when you only have a handful of pages to tell the story. He brought these strong narration tips for Marvel when he returned to the company in the 1960s (he started with Marvel in the late 1940s), where he finally took over Amazing Spider-Man by Steve Ditko. Romita presented her version of Mary Jane Watson (she had been a dark figure for Steve Ditko), and quickly, Romita and Stan Lee had the idea of putting Peter Parker in a situation similar to Archie Andrews with Gwen Stacy and Mary Jane Watson settled.
However, a bit like the first round of Mike Tyson’s punch-outThe “Batle” between Mary Jane and Gwen Stacy did not last very long, while Peter Parker quickly started to go out with Gwen exclusively. It was not until years later, when Lee had left the book and Gerry Conway had become the writer that Conway and Romiita had decided to write Gwen Stacy by making her killed, and making Mary Jane the main romantic interest. After years of MJ being the main romantic interest, writers often returned to these old stories and told new stories in this period when the rivalry between Mary Jane and Gwen was much more uniform. So, knowing the story of Spider-Man, when we look at Ultimate Spider-Man # 20, we see the dynamic Gwen against Mary Jane revisited, only with a new ultimate touch!
Ultimate Spider-Man # 20 is the writer Jonathan Hickman, artist Marco Checketto, colorist Matthew Wilson and letter Cory Petit, and he continues to push the dangers with whom Peter and his family are confronted with the ping and his men, while showing the work that this whole situation has on the marriage of Peter and Mary Jane.
How does this story contrast with dinner at the start of the series?
Obviously, the major hook of this issue is that the Osborns and the Parkers share a dinner together, just as they did in the fourth issue of the series. The only big difference is that in that The problem, Harry, Gwen and Peter knew that Peter and Harry acted like Spider-Man and the Green Goblin, but Mary Jane did not do it. However, neither Peter nor Harry knew that Gwen Stacy was also secretly mysterio.
Now, with all the secrets released, the dinner faces a very different light, and that does not go well, and the central conflict comes down to Mary Jane and Gwen.
How is Mary Jane different from Gwen Stacy?
The big difference between Gwen and Mary Jane is that Gwen devotes herself to winning, while Mary Jane wants to protect her family. Gwen therefore cuts her quickly when she clearly tells Mary Jane that the absolute priority of Mary Jane is to protect her family responsibility. It is such a cold and calculated position, and obviously, Mary Jane cannot believe that she would say that.
David Messina was generally used for the quieter problems, such as dinners and things like that, and I think it is because his facial expressions are simply sublime. He really nails Mary Jane’s disgust in Gwen, but also Gwen’s coldness.
He also does an excellent job on the secondary intrigue of this issue, Richard Parker and his great-uncle Ben discussing the fear of Richard of his super-surge (who shot a bunch of bad guys the other month). Hickman has only four problems in the book, so taking a little problem when there is so much to do is a bit of a surprise, but I think it is important to remember that you may prefer that a writer has made a different direction while recognizing the quality of what they wrote, and Hickman did a good job with this problem.
But my boy, there are certainly a lot to conclude in four numbers!
Source: Marvel