Ok, if it’s one of the three or four clones running around, I’m dubious that this is a good idea. If it’s the real Gwen, I’m even more so.
Granted, everything J. M. Straczynski touches is gold–in something like 30 issues of Spider-Man, IMO he’s hit exactly one wrong note (Sorry, JMS, Dr. Doom is a mass murderer. 9/11 would not make him weep openly. The death of his true love didn’t make him weep openly) which is still a better record than any other run on the book except Steve & Stan’s. If anyone can pull this off, JMS can.
But…I’m still dubious.
(Plus, I’m wondering if it’s the Chameleon back from the dead?)
[Spock voice] Fenris, it would be pointless to speculate until we can be assured of the facts of the matter. The solid execution of what is unanimously considered a bad idea can, in fact, elevate such an idea to brilliance because of its unexpected genesis.[/Spock voice]
My take: Only an blithering idiot for an editor what greenlight such an terrible idea with such a loaded history – just mentioning ‘clones’ and Spider-Man in the same sentence can get you run out of many dingy comics shops – unless, in fact, there’s something to it. Have a little faith.
I thought I had been reading Amazing Spider-Man fairly carefully, but I don’t recognize the villain mask on the cover, which leads me to think that this is something new. JMS has done a pretty remarkable job so far of breaking new ground with the comic, creating new adversaries, and placing Spidey in new and unusual situations, so I suspect (hope) that this will be a continuation of the above. I’m sure we don’t have to worry about clones, but I wonder if this will be some sort of mystical scenario–we’ve already seen Spider-Man revisit key moments of his career, and perhaps this is a similar deal. A possibility, right off the top of my head: so far in JMS’ run, we’ve seen Peter achieve a bit of closure regarding his sense of obligation to Uncle Ben. Other than this, what might be the single greatest percieved failure in his life? Possibly Gwen’s death, yes? But what if this event were somehow magically negated? Doesn’t Loki still owe Spider-Man a favor?
