Greg responds...

Well, Algernon, as I respond to this, there's over 800 questions in the queue. EIGHT HUNDRED!!!

And I haven't even gotten to the airing of YJ episode 119 yet.

Anyway, I'm open to posting the SpecSpidey Bible, but the problem is I don't have it here at Warner Bros (for obvious reasons). So I need to be reminded either when I'm home or at my office in Beverly Hills.

Greg responds...

No.

Greg responds...

It was Mr. Roman.

Greg responds...

As you noted, I have NOT had the time to read the New 52, so I will not comment on that specifically. Whether or not it works creatively depends more than anything else on execution. Since I haven't seen the execution, I can't respond to how it works creatively. But I KNOW that commercially it's been a HUGE hit. I like to believe that it wouldn't have done quite so well, if it wasn't executed well too.

But generally, on the idea of reboots, I do have a handful of thoughts:

1. I don't want to be a hypocrite. When we started Spectacular Spider-Man and again on Young Justice, we were effectively doing a continuity reboot. I feel when adapting something to a new media, that's essential, but it doesn't change the fact that (a) we did it and (b) I was relieved to be able to do it. Relieved to be able to jettison elements that I felt didn't work or were redundant or confusing, etc. Our goal, particularly on Spider-Man, was to come up with something Classic, Cohesive, Coherent, Contemporary and Iconic. So how can I object if the comics themselves want to do this?

2. In the end, whether or not either SpecSpidey or YJ was/is successful depends on our execution of our ideas, additions and cullings. I like to think both shows are successful, but that's a judgement each individual viewer would have to make for him or herself.

3. I was working on staff at DC Comics during the publication of the original Crisis on Infinite Earths. In fact, during my very first editorial meeting, I raised the question as to why we weren't starting ALL our books over (with the numerical exceptions of Detective and Action Comics) with issue #1. I remember very clearly a collective groan rising up from the conference room table. (They had dealt with this question for months before my arrival.) On the one hand, they wanted Crisis to be a real sea-change, a true reboot (before we knew that term). On the other hand, if you truly reboot Batman, then Robin doesn't exist yet. No Robin, no other sidekicks either. So no Teen Titans. And at the time, the New Teen Titans was the company's best selling book.

4. So the end result was that some things got rebooted and some did not.

5. This was complicated by the fact that certain creators came late to the party, and certain characters got reboots too long AFTER Crisis.

6. And so, as a READER, I couldn't help feeling that - rather than simplifying the continuity - Crisis made it more complicated. This will happen in general, naturally, as time passes and more and more comics are produced by a variety of creators and editors, but Crisis seemed to exacerbate the problem for me personally.

7. In part this was because, I really liked the DC Multiverse. I agree that it was abused to the point of confusion. (And I think it was nuts that Earth TWO had the forties heroes and Earth ONE had the sixties heroes. Just the odd backwards numbering itself created additional unnecessary confusion.) But if limits had been placed on the number of parallel earth stories and crossovers, I think it could have been fine.

8. ESPECIALLY, if they had created a new Earth-THREE, starting over with heroes of the eighties, with Superman and Batman (being new to the hero thing but) remaining relatively constant. But with a new Green Lantern (for example) as different from Hal Jordan as Jordan was from Alan Scott.

9. But that didn't happen. And in fact, though I've read very few comics since 1996, my understanding is that reboots have hit over and over at both DC and Marvel. That negates reader trust in the worth and weight of the stories they're reading. It's more insidious than obvious. And you risk alienating old readers, even as you may or may not attract new ones. You'll always get a short term gain off of a reboot, because everyone wants to check it out. But long term...

10. And going back to my first point - which is that most everything depends on execution - I personally didn't love the execution of some of the post-Crisis rebooting. Some people may have loved it. And that's totally legit. But some of the rethinking on certain individual characters didn't work too well for me.

11. Though personally I think the Bates-Weisman-Broderick reboot on Captain Atom from his Charlton incarnation was brilliant. ;)

12. So, personally, my feeling on reboots in general is that you either do them or you don't. You've got to be thorough and ruthless about it, or don't bother, because otherwise - long term - you're creating more problems than you're solving.

13. And still and all, ultimately, it all depends on execution.

Greg responds...

If you're talking Spectacular Spider-Man, then they might have if we had had more episodes and permission...

I definitely had plans for Cyclops, Beast and Professor X, at least. Iceman too. Heck, maybe Firestar, eventually.

Greg responds...

No. It would be impossible, even if I liked the idea (which I'm not sure I do).

See my recent post on why SpecSpidey went away for an explanation why Marvel/Disney couldn't use SpecSpidey materials.

Greg responds...

Nope. Wish I could, but I can't. See my previous response.

Greg responds...

Marvel DIDN'T cancel it.

It's all very complicated, and we were certainly the recipients of bad corporate luck, but no single company cancelled the series. We just wound up with a situation where no single company could proceed with it.

I'll try to break it all down:

1. Sony had originally produced SpecSpidey as part of their overall entertainment license of the Spidey property (which of course included the extremely lucrative live action films).

2. But in order to win some concession on those live action feature films, Sony returned the animation rights to the character back to Marvel.

3. So now only Marvel could produce a Spider-Man cartoon. Sony no longer could, which meant SpecSpidey couldn't continue at Sony.

4. I have no idea whether Marvel was interested in continuing Spectacular Spider-Man or not. But let's assume for the sake of argument that they would have liked to.

5. They couldn't.

6. Why? Because Sony owned all the specific elements (designs, storyline, etc.) to the SpecSpidey VERSION of Spider-Man. So Marvel would have had to license all that BACK from Sony.

7. You can imagine how unlikely THAT scenario was. Marvel finally gets the rights back to do an animated version of their marquee character, and then they have to pay Sony to do it instead of just starting from scratch. That was never going to happen.

8. Of course, all this was complicated by the fact that Disney purchased Marvel, and Disney and Sony are direct competitors.

9. And I'm sure Marvel was excited to put their own stamp on an animated Spider-Man. Who could blame them?

10. So that was it. We were toast through no fault of our own. The folks at Marvel, Sony and even Disney all seemed to like our show, but the corporate mess made it impossible for us to continue.

11. And, yes, it is a bummer. (For me, at least.) But it's no single person or single company's fault. It's just how things shook out.

12. And finally, though I have no involvement with the upcoming Ultimate Spider-Man, you can't deny that a lot of great people have worked on it. There's no reason to think it won't be as good or better than SpecSpidey. To a certain generation, SpecSpidey will always be THEIR Spider-Man cartoon. But to a new batch o' viewers, I'm sure their Spidey of choice will be the Ultimate.

Greg responds...

I haven't seen it. So I don't know what you're talking about.

But I'm not opposed to Spider-Toasters on principle.

I miss Spectacular Spider-Man too, but I wouldn't count Ultimate out. There are some great people working on it.

Greg responds...

Our May Parker was a single parent due to a couple of horrible tragedies. That informed how she behaved both in her own life and toward Peter.

We leaned toward making her a little more savvy... but also somewhat unprepared. Uncle Ben did not leave her in a great financial position. (Because if he did, why would Peter constantly need money?) We kept a bit of her naivete, but tossed in some inner strength and acuity, especially when it came to Peter's love life. She could take action (or give solid advice) - not just relative to the Sinister SIx, but more relevantly when it came to some of the ladies in Peter's life: Betty Brant, Mary Jane Watson, Liz Allen and Gwen Stacy.

She wasn't a young woman - certainly older than the parents of most of Pete's friends - but we didn't want to make her ancient. And we figured one trip to the hospital was plenty, i.e. once she had one heart attack, she would begin to take better care of herself.

And since she was always a great cook, we figured she'd build on that when she needed money, which gave us the cookbook that she authored.

Her life did revolve around Peter but wasn't exclusively his. So she had her friend and her theater and her cooking and her work, etc. We just tried to make her a fully realized character.

And... I should give a TON of credit to DEBORAH STRANG (as directed by Jamie Thomason), for truly bringing May to life. Couldn't have done it without her.