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WEISMANSWERS 2009-05 (May)

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Thomas writes...

Alright, you've had Venom in season 1 and 2 or 'The Spectacular Spider-Man, and you gave Cletus Kassidy a cameo in season 2. Does this mean your going to introduce Carnage into the fray, or would that be a bit much for the show?

Greg responds...

No comment.

Response recorded on May 19, 2009

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Michael Byrne writes...

Hey, Greg! Just wanted to say that I loved every new episode of Season 2, all the way up to Goblin and Spidey's climactic battle! But...there is something I want to understand about [[spoiler]] Norman. Why did he go to such measures to take over the Big Man's empire after his identity was guessed by Spidey? I mean, Normie has it all: a great tech company, a loyal son, and a home people only dream of renting. Was he trying to protect all that from others by taking command, or was he simply an ungrateful tyrant obsessed with power and money? I mean, I know he cares about his son in little amounts...but I just can't fathom the reasons for why he did what he did.

Either way, it's been a great two seasons so far, and I encourage you to keep the dream of a season 3 alive. This series, simply put, is lightning in a bottle.

Greg responds...

SPIDEY SPOILERS!!!

Well, my gut reaction is to say if it isn't clear what kind of guy he is from the episodes themselves (let alone 40+ years of continuity) then nothing I say here is going to matter much. But basically, he wanted MORE.

Response recorded on May 19, 2009

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Denis writes...

Hello, Greg!

For a while, now, I've been wondering about something.
For how long has Jason Canmore been sentenced?
Sure he destroyed law enforcement building, but as far as we know, there's been no loss of (human)lives in their actions, his and his sibblings'.

Thanks in advance

Greg responds...

I don't know that he has been sentenced yet -- or tried. It's only been a few months, and he was in the hospital for quite a bit of that.

Response recorded on May 19, 2009

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Litwolf writes...

Has there been a selection made in the guest who will write the introduction to Clan-Building volume 2? And is there going to be a guest intro for Bad Guys?

Greg responds...

There's no intro to Clan-Building Volume 2. I haven't seen the Bad Guys proofs yet.

Response recorded on May 18, 2009

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Tom Daylight writes...

Hi Greg,

Congratulations on putting together the best screen adaptation of Spider-Man of all time. I was particularly impressed with your Green Goblin whodunnit. I wonder if you're going to take a similar approach to the Hobgoblin story?

As far as I can see, there are not only a ton of "red herring" candidates in the source material (in fact Roger Stern said it could have been absolutely anyone other than Peter Parker and Robbie - and indeed he invited his replacement Tom DeFalco to unmask Hobgoblin as anyone he liked, although ironically he'd left the book by the time that happened), there's at least four alternative candidates you could genuinely cast in the role (names and descriptions omitted for the sake of spoiler aversion; I hope you know which I'm referring to). The character who was unmasked and officially was the first Hobgoblin for nine years, the character who was revealed to actually be the original Hobgoblin after all that time (mainly due to some writer switches), the character who took on the Hobgoblin's mantle after believing he'd murdered the first one, and the character who became Hobgoblin in Ultimate Spider-Man.

So the way I see it, the casting of this character won't be as clear-cut as "the guy it technically was in the comics all along", because in reality it was a whole bunch of different characters depending on when you were reading it. And casting Montana as Shocker, Tombstone as the Big Man, etc, suggests to me that you're not afraid of playing against the diehards' expectations. So, presuming there is a season three... will this kind of thing play into your Hobgoblin story, or will you be introducing him more as a viewer-in-on-everything supervillain?

Hey, maybe you could even satisfy that Robbie fan by making him a suspect this time. :)

Greg responds...

No comment.

Response recorded on May 18, 2009

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THE BIG CHEESE writes...

Hi Greg. I have always wondered why did you make the Big Man of Crime Tombstone? Because in the comics, Tombstone was a hitman. Thanks. Please write me back.

Greg responds...

As I've stated (many times) before, our original plan was to use Kingpin, but he turned out to be unavailable to us. Tombstone seemed like a character who would well-fit that roll, and I think that proved true. I'd still like to have a shot at Kingpin some day, but I can hardly regret how things turned out.

Response recorded on May 15, 2009

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Todd Jensen writes...

A comment, inspired by my last question about the Standards & Practices deaths.

Many of the "deaths by falling" that you had in the series, such as Findleach's and Gillecomgain's, were there simply because of S&P, and I don't think that it would have made a sizable difference to the story and characterization if, say, Gillecomgain had run Findlaech with a sword instead.

But it made good dramatic sense, I think, to have the Captain and Hakon die that way. One of the crucial points of "Awakening"'s opening was Goliath being driven to despair by one blow after another, to the point where he finally commits suicide (in a sense). The Captain and Hakon falling off the cliff rather than being ripped to shreds by Goliath worked there; now, not only has Goliath's clan been massacred, but he can't even exact vengeance upon the two people most responsible for his loss. It brings him one step closer to devastation.

So I think that even without Standards & Practices, it was a good idea to have the Captain and Hakon die that way.

Greg responds...

Me too.

Response recorded on May 15, 2009

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Todd Jensen writes...

In "City of Stone", you had Findlaech, Gillecomgain, and Duncan all die by either falling off something or getting burned up by the Weird Sisters' magic, to make the methods of their deaths acceptable for Standards & Practices.

But in Part Four, you had Canmore temporarily slay Macbeth by running him through with a sword. Did you have any difficulty with Standards & Practices over that?

Greg responds...

Nope. Because (a) the audience saw no details of the event and (b) a few seconds later he stood up.

Response recorded on May 15, 2009

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Anonymous writes...

"I did read "One More Day" and I read the first year or so of "Brand New Day" before my workload overwhelmed me. It would be pretty hypocritical of me to rant against the resetting of timelines, since in essence that's what I've done on this show. "

How would it be hypocritical? You are starting a new universe from scratch with the benefit of hindsight. Marvel reset an existing universe to a status quo that hadn't existed in two decades.

What are your thoughts on the marriage between Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson? Do you think it was a good idea? Marvel, and a lot of anti-marriage fans seem to be stuck on this Spider-Archie character. It's like they don't want their characters to grow and evolve.

Spider-Man has always seemed to be a story about coming of age and growing up. That seems to be the theme of your show also.

Did Marvel drop the ball and lose sight of who this character is? Because it seems that way to me.

I would have loved to see him as a dad, raising Baby May with Mary Jane, but Marvel chose to have Norman Osborn kidnap or kill that child (they never said what happened) because they felt it would age him.

But what sucks the most is that Stan Lee was the one who married them. It's what he wanted for his characters. What Marvel did to them would be like some future writer of "Gargoyles" deciding that it's boring if Goliath and Elisa get together because the tension there was the core of the relationship and resets their entire relationship back to what it was in the first episode.

Greg responds...

SIMPSONS SPOILERS!!!!

Personally, I like characters who grow and change. My all time favorite episode of The Simpsons, is the one where Lisa is having her fortune told and we flash-forward to her in college, falling in love and NOT getting married.

But when you're working on a commercial property that fundamentally has to work commercially, it can be tough when your series has evolved beyond its original premise, especially when you have MULTIPLE authors who have pushed and pulled the thing in multiple (well-intentioned) directions over the course of 40+ years. (Stan wasn't REALLY the guy who married Pete & M.J., no matter how much he participated in the decision and execution of the wedding itself. His run on the book had long since ended.)

Ttake the argument to it's natural extreme. Let's say, to be generous, that Pete was 15 in 1962. So now in 2009, he's 62-years-old. By all rights, if we really wanted to see him change and grow over time, we wouldn't be reading about Pete and M.J. raising baby May. We'd be reading about Pete and M.J. attending May's wedding and the birth of HER kids. (Or whatever.) And we'd be seeing a 62-year-old Spidey swinging around the city... or seriously considering retirement (or whatever).

Now, me? Yeah, actually, that REALLY interests me. It totally does. But I get why it's a commercial nightmare -- and you must also.

You ask how would it be hypocritical of me to rant against resetting timelines, but the answer is pretty obvious. Sony and Marvel approach me about doing a new Spidey show, and I pitch them a sixteen-year-old Pete in high school in 2008. I'm resetting. (You call it "starting a new universe from scratch", but really, what's the difference?) I could have pitched them: I'd like to see Spider-Man as a grandpa. They wouldn't have bought it and frankly, as much as it interests me, I'm not sure I'd have wanted to do it as a Saturday morning cartoon even if they had said yes.

And bringing up an ensemble show like Gargoyles with (more or less) a single guiding hand is really apples and oranges. I can evolve the premise and the relationships and even age the characters, because I can constantly add younger characters at the other end to maintain commerciality. Best of both worlds.

But with a single character property like Spider-Man, what happens when you've aged him beyond his premise. Do you live with it? Do you try to make it work commercially anyway? Can the premise evolve? Or do you find a way to reset. There's no one right answer, but folks have to bite the bullet and decide. Once a decision is made, then it becomes about execution.

STAR TREK SPOILERS!!!

Look at the recent Star Trek movie. They took the continuity and reset it using time travel. The Spidey staff used Mephisto. The concept of the reset/clean slate was surprisingly similar. What remains is execution. Some folks may buy into the Trek reset because of the execution. Some may not. Same with Spidey. And then there are some folks who just don't like the idea of doing a reset AT ALL. That's legit too.

I had the advantage of doing an adaptation for another medium. So I could reset without any continuity excuse. And still, at the end of the day, whether people liked what I did had a lot more to do with execution than themere FACT that I did or didn't reset. Same, I'd guess, goes for One More Day/Brand New Day.

Response recorded on May 14, 2009

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Patrick writes...

When will you post a ramble for Hunter's Moon, Part III? I really enjoy reading those, and Hunter's Moon Part III is, for my money, one of the best and most dramatic episodes of the series!

Greg responds...

I don't know. I'll try to get around to it eventually.

Response recorded on May 14, 2009


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