Sunday, October 2, 2011

A Study in Scarlet

From Bleeding Cool comes the news that Marvel is going to introduce a new Scarlet Spider character in a story that dares readers to guess his true identity!



Y'know, as much as I love me some mystery stories, sometime Flashback contributor Trey Causey and I were wondering why is it that comics seem to only tell the same type of mystery?

Who is this mystery character?
 
I can understand wrestling using that worn out plot device because there ain't a lot of time to spend on narrative in wrestling, but comics should be different, right?

Still, more and more, we are treated to a new spin of the Who is Ronin!? type of storyline. Say what you will about Identity Crisis, but at least Brad Metzer took a different tack with his mystery. (Albeit, his resolution was utterly ridiculous.)

What's sad is that the original Scarlet Spider/Ben Reily storyline had a lot of real mystery to it back in the nineties other than who the character was. (At the time, we all knew it was the clone from Spider-man 149)



The reasons the original return to the Clone Saga storyline overstayed its welcome have been WELL documented at http://lifeofreillyarchives.blogspot.com/. Still, that saga still has its fans and this return to the well may draw some of them in to see if Ben Reilly is returning to Marvel continuity. I just have to wonder if in a comic universe where there are now multiple Spider-girls, Ultimate Spider-men and Spider-women, will a Scarlet Spider story be just more noise on the wire?

I think the real mystery here is going to be what is Marvel going to do next to try and pull readers in when a mystery character in a hoodie doesn't work?

With that, enjoy today's appropriate Free Comic: Sherlock Holmes from Charlton Comics.
[ Sherlock Holmes 1 ]



Enjoy!

- Jim

3 comments:

MattComix said...

"The Foundation"? Oh god, yet another across the line event thing.

Trey said...

@Matt - And anther recycled idea.

MattComix said...

and another round of lame trade-dress that makes all the covers in the line look like crap.

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