Your Mission, Should You Choose to Accept It...
This week’s missive comes to you straight from the world’s smallest airport lounge. I’m headed to Austin, TX for a work thing that’s almost not top secret, so if anyone has any photography hot spots and/or awesome local nerdy shops I should check out, I’m all ears.
You may notice that this newsletter is a little late. (Or not, in which case, damn my guilty conscience!) I’m blaming that on today’s flight—
Joseph Philodendron Kelly! You had two weeks to get this done on time!
Yes… yes I did. But some life got in the way: I took not one but two motorcycle classes to brush up my skills. I visited friends in Connecticut. Attended two family parties. Cooked healthy and nutritious meals. Watched movies. Wrote some comics. Scored one solo Victory Royale in Fortnite and made Darth Vader say inappropriate things about my Man of Action partners… but none of these things should have kept me from writing…
What did it was an impending trip. This trip.
Even though I have been on hundreds of flights in my career as a comics pro, preparing for travel always triggers a little anxiety that kicks in about a week before I take off. It’s a low-level, weird kind of buzz that creeps in around the edges of my life and throws me off of my game until I finally start the real deal of packing. Everyone who knows me sees it coming from a mile away, but I’m surprised each time it happens.
And lest you think this is a newsletter about self-flagellation and guilt, I bring all of this up to set the table to discuss the theme of my first arc in Amazing Spider-Man. One that really comes to the fore in Issue #4. (This one is kinda “writerly”, but there’s lots of pretty art ahead!)
Hey! Isn’t the theme of Spider-Man “with great power comes great responsibility?”
Sure. W.G.P.C.G.R. is foundational for Spider-Man. It’s maybe one of the best articulated themes of any comic book super-hero ever. From that thematic trunk, however, I hope to tell stories that branch off into some unexplored areas. Like that time when a young Peter Parker was swept up in his low hum of anxiety, which we see beautifully illustrated by Pepe in the flashbacks that culminate in issue #4.
Since my first issue, we’ve seen middle school Peter acting out in increasingly dramatic ways. Despite Aunt May and Uncle Ben’s best efforts, Peter’s rebellion comes to a head in this sequence, which I asked to play out during Spider-Man’s drug addled battle against Itsy-Bitsy:
A few things to note here. First, Peter Parker is drinking. Underage drinking. Peter canonically doesn’t drink, so I had to get special permission to make this scene happen. The first and only time you’ll ever see Peter in his cups. (My sincere thanks to Nick, Kaitlyn, and Tom for running this idea up the flagpole and to C.B. and Dan for letting it fly.) This scene felt transgressive to me, like I was spying on Peter’s secret life, which says more about me than the scene, I think. But it was the way in to bigger things.
Here’s how Pepe pencilled the scene:
And how he finished it up…
And, how Marte brought it home:
Even without color you can lose your mind marveling at Pepe’s deft choices, but Marte adds some special sauce that puts this spread over the top.
But what does this have to do with “theme”?
This scene of Peter crossing a line as he rides out a wave of adolescent stress is the crescendo that’s immediately followed by consequences: vomit, a little shame, and a lot of truth…
Not gonna lie, just thinking about this scene gets my tear ducts working. It’s the love of a parent for a child. It’s Peter’s shame that feels all too familiar. Vulnerability that leads to a breakthrough and reveals Peter’s deep truth: Peter Parker is afraid of loss, specifically the loss of his surrogate parents, who he knows instinctively will leave him one day. With the heart of the matter exposed, May tells him that the only way to lose the ones who love you is to push them away.
This is the theme. Yes, there’s cool stuff with Hobgoblin and Itsy and webbing… but without this the story has no legs.
Fellow Man of Action and life partner Steven Seagle always looks for an active theme - not a one word idea like “loss” or “control” - but something one might find on a fortune cookie that prescribes character action. “The only way to lose the ones you love is to push them away.” fits the bill. This simple sentence begs questions that we can answer through action:
What if you hold too tightly to those you love? What happens after you do push loved ones away? Is the thesis wrong, because there are other ways to lose those you love? (Hint: it is and is not wrong.)
The exploration of the fortune cookie theme begs dramatic action.
To illustrate this another way, I point you to the grand finale of the 35 year old Mission: Impossible mega franchise. My son and I did a complete rewatch of all of the M:I films leading up to Final Reckoning, and throwing absolutely no shade at the first six films, it’s fair to say that there isn’t much theme happening. There’s thematic stuff, yes. Bureaucrats and politicians ruin the world. The good guys always win… unless they’re actually the bad guys… who are really the good guys in high tech masks. Etc.
But, in the same way Ethan Hunt always manages to pull out a save no matter the odds, the M:I team wove a theme into the final two films. I know that they did this intentionally because they said it about seventy times: Everyone has a choice to do the right thing to help someone they will never meet.
This theme is embodied in Ethan Hunt and his irrepressible Impossible Mission Force partners in anti-crime. When power-mad governments, evil-ass terrorists, greedy mercs, an uncaring AI entity and its mouth-breathing supplicants move the world to the brink of destruction, people with an unshakeable moral compass do everything humanly possible to save us… folks they won’t ever meet.
The greatest trick the filmmakers pull off isn’t the impressive physical stunts that Tom Cruise and his team commit to film… it’s the execution of this theme in such a way that we actually believe that there are smart, morally upstanding humans out there fighting for us from the shadows.
That’s a comforting thought in these challenging times. So comforting, in fact, that I found myself welling up at every instance of Ethan and co. standing up for me at great personal risk. Maybe I ugly cried.
Themes fortify plot to evoke a visceral response in an audience. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to find those themes and work them into your writing so that it leaps off the page.
Best,
-JK
Books & Appearances:
Comics!
The Amazing Spider-Man #5 - On sale NOW! 6/4
The Amazing Spider-Man #6 - On sale 6/18
The Amazing Spider-Man #7 - FOC 6/2 - On sale 7/2
The Amazing Spider-Man #8 - FOC 6/23 - On sale 7/23
The Amazing Spider-Man #9 - FOC 7/6 - On sale 8/6
Immortal Sergeant - Order from your LCS!
I Kill Giants - Order from your LCS!
Appearances!
Hurricon - 6/14
Heroes Con - 6/20-6/22
Terrificon - 8/8-8/10
Peter has always have moments of being angry in the, past times where he doesn't tolerare people, I feel it's a normal human, symbiotes, flash, his clones, deadpool.
Will we see a bit more of it? Specially maybe like not something like he grows and comes to like everyone but maybe, remain with that just dislike of someone and that they will never get along, but at the same time it's not like being mortal enemies? Like maybe with Paul? Feel Peter should be able to dislike him, and if not him, still have those human responses that he is a good person but doesn't needs to get along with everyone or be overly welcoming of others all the time.
That Peter and friends call themselves the Freaktastic Four in reference to the Fantastic Four feels like it might be a little early (were the F4 a thing already at this point?) but also feels like it might just work. I'm curious if you had any thoughts about the timeline of it all when writing the scene? Do you have a definitive age for Peter in these flashbacks in your head?
It's possible that it doesn't line up exactly, but I did have the folks at editorial backing me up so I think it's okay. Peter's in middle school in my mind during the flashbacks. I try not to get too hung up on timelines (within reason) since Marvel has always been flexible as opposed to hard reboots to lock in the time line.
So would you be saying Johnny is older than Peter or Johnny was in middle school as well when he became the Human Torch?
Ha! No - they were crazy, but I don't think they brought a 12 year old into space.
Maybe they just made up the name and it's a great coincidence as sometimes happens in fictional stories.
The name actually came from my friends and I in school - we were called the "Big Four". I thought that didn't work for the book, so I thought "Freaktastic" was more fun, more nerdy, and a nod to FF.
Next flashback is Brian taking the F4 to court for copyright infringement.
I'm curious of whose idea it was to give Hobgoblin his new look, the wings and sword, they were originally the look of Phil Urich so curious whose idea it was and if there was a particular reason to remove the glider?
I was looking for ways to differentiate the Hobgoblin from the Green Goblin a little bit more. So when I was looking at what folks have done over the last bunch of years, the sword and wings really struck me as unique. Pepe's take on the whole look really elevated the character, I think, and takes him out of GG's shadow a bit.
If I'm allowed to make a second question.
Something I love about your stories of Spider-Man is giving Peter cool abilities, there was that time he made like an illusion or something in Grim Hunt to look like Kraven, and the organic webs in Savage Spider-Man.
With the promise of Peter's level up is there a chance we might see either more stuff like that or learn the origins of such powers and why come and go? And if not powers, maybe make Peter use tech for himself, maybe at least use material other than spandex for the suit?
I think that you will DEFINITELY see some crazy cool stuff during my run. I love that Spidey is at heart a sci-fi character, so when we can play with that and experiment a little bit in an organic way it works for me. Tech, powers, body horror, etc. - so long as there is a character reason for us to get there, I think it's all fair game.
So do we have any chance of seeing Peter deal with villains outside his rogue gallery? Not saying like new ones, but villains of others, like maybe see the round 2 with Lord Deathstrike?
I think so! That's one of the things I always loved about comics - cross pollination of heroes and villains.