![[]](http://www.sfdebris.com/tools/buttondiv.png)
Over on the Voyager page, I have Voyager vs. Superfriends, which takes a look at the frightening number of similarities between both programs. So, I've decided to take a somewhat similar approach to this page with Enterprise vs. Spider-man. Unlike the previous page, this isn't going to be a comparison of show against show, but rather the frightening number of similarities between the show and the comic book in terms of creative bankruptcy. What may seem slightly unfair is that I'm going to be using Voyager a bit in my analysis; I feel, however, that Voyager was where all things started going to hell, and that many of the problems of Enterprise began with Voyager, and it would be unfair to ignore the historical precedents and lay the blame solely at the feet of one show.
Klingons? Bah! Romulans? Yawn. Borg? Forget about it. Time-traveling space Nazis? WTF? All of these enemies of Earth have tried in vain to destroy the heroes of Star Trek, and none have succeeded. But alas, after four years, Enterprise proved unable to resist the forces that threatened it, not from space, but from the creators of the program themselves. Why did it fail, and how can we avoid failure again in the future?
I want to talk a little about something that might seem a thousand miles away from where we are, but is very much on target. I'm talking about Spider-Man. I have every single issue of Amazing Spider-man for the past twenty years, from before Peter Parker's proposal to Mary Jane Watson until today. There have been many ups and downs over those twenty years... I need only utter the words "Clone Saga" and I'm sure anyone who recognizes the words is nodding their head in agreement(1).
The books sold almost in perfect inverse proportion to the quality of the story, so that it made tons of money while producing drek. Only two good things came out of the Clone Saga: the Tom DeFalco Spider-Girl series, and the use of Norman Osborn (the original Green Goblin) in the hands of good writers like J. M. Dematteis and Paul Jenkins. But I'm starting to get off the subject...
In response to declining sales, all four (yes, four!) Spider-man titles were canceled, and two were then "rebooted," meaning that they restarted with number 1 again. So after Amazing Spider-man 441 comes 58 issues renumbered before they had the sense to return to the original numbering with issue 500. The reboot was part of a new direction, including bring on John Byrne to work with Howard Mackie, who was handling the other Spider-man book as well(2).
The first near two years of this is... words are hard to come by. Suffice to say that what the two did to Peter borders on being a goddamn war crime. The stories sucked in every possible way: the support cast were one dimensional filler, Mary Jane was a distant woman out of her husbands league and reach, Peter returned to being Spider-man and intentionally tried deceiving his wife about it, the villains were dull, and they tried shoe-horning in Byrne's retconning of Spider-man's origins that was loved by all of eight people, including Byrne himself(3).
It was shit. I have those issues still for two reasons: there's something to be said about having twenty unbroken years of a comic book, and it reminds me that if this can get published, I have no excuses. Between this and Kevin J. Anderson, I will never have a reason to stop trying to advance my writing career, but I digress.
The series really hit its low point when Mary Jane was killed off in issue 13. And there was nothing dramatic about the end... this wasn't Gwen Stacy being tossed off a bridge by a supervillain, it was a plane blowing up with her on board, and even that makes it sound more exciting than it was. If Peter had known about the bomb, had been racing the clock to stop it, at least that would have been something! It was impossible not to see this as a big "f*ck you!" to the long time fans, and it showed(4).
Sales didn't rise, they dropped, substantially. This is very important, because remember that the people dropping the book were the same ones who stuck through it during the Clone Saga! In other words, these people tolerated Spider-man during the crappiest period of his run, and they still wouldn't read this stuff! This was a problem that stuck for years, even after Marvel finally got their shit together and put Paul Jenkins and J. M. Straczynsky on board in time for the 2002 film. Mary Jane was revealed not to be dead, and she still was left out of Peter's life for years before being brought back. The old time readers wanted her back! Marvel EIC Joe Quesada (pizza delivery guy in Jay And Silent Bob Strike Back, if you're wondering) commented that people wanted Peter to be married because they were adults now and wanted him to grow up with them... once again showing that they didn't get it! People remembered fondly Peter and MJ being together! Some of us even grew up with them like that. It wasn't that they wanted Peter to be what they were like, they wanted him to be the way they'd remembered for so long, which was being married to Mary Jane! Plus, it was always a wonderful part of the character of Peter. As Peter, things constantly turned out wrong for him, he was always the world's whipping boy. It was nice to finally see him have one single thing right in his life, as if all the bad karma that had been heaped on this selfless individual paid off with her. It didn't matter if the public treated him like a vigilante, it didn't matter if he was attacked by the Daily Bugle, it didn't matter that he had a hard time paying the rent, it didn't matter that he was scrambling to try to make something of his life while balancing his responsibilities, at least at the end of the day he had someone to go home to!
You see, all of this crap: the retconning, the relaunch, killing and driving away Mary Jane, all came back to the idea of growth. The sales weren't going up; now that the speculative market had chewed up and spat out the industry, only fans read the books, not new readers. The reason blamed was that the stories were inaccessible to the new reader. Well duh! If you spend three years f*cking with your flagship character, then yeah, it's going to be kind of inaccessible. But instead of drawing in new readers by producing quality products, they completely misdiagnosed the problem (5).
They blamed it on too much adherence to continuity and deviating from Spider-man's roots. They needed to reset the stage, fans be damned! They'll still buy it, but we'll open up the market to new readers too!
I think you might start to see where this connects to Enterprise.
Marvel tried distancing themselves from their own history to try and build sales, and they flopped miserably. When the books abandoned the fans, the fans abandoned the books, and the great plan turned out to be an architect of destruction. If you disrespect the consumer and the product they love, you're slitting your own throat. It took several years for Marvel to fully get it.(6)
The problems Marvel had with Spider-man came from the following issues:
So, if you remember the launch of Enterprise, then you remember that B&B apparently weren't familiar with Marvel Comics, because even as Marvel was still scrambling to fix the colossal screw-up they'd made of their flagship character, they did the same damn thing. They took the fans for granted; they alienated them. They wouldn't even put "Star Trek" in the title of the series. The attitude was that this was a grown up version of the show, and they didn't bother to hide this attitude.
They took the following approach:
Am I making it clear yet why I've approached this topic the way I have? In fact, some of the parallels are almost frightening. For example, point 3; a wonderful moment in the great exchange between Marvel management and the readers is when they said that those who disagreed lived in their parents' basement jerking off to pictures of Elektra. Berman and Braga, in an interview about continuity, brought up the fact that people wrote in because the Enterprise fired phasers out of a photon torpedo tube (their way of showing that those who disagree with them are just obsessed with minutia rather than concerned that the franchise is being run into the ground).
Marvel learned their lesson before it was too late to turn back. They brought Paul Jenkins and JMS on board to write the stories, threw Byrne's Chapter One stuff in the shitter where it belonged, brought back Mary Jane, let Peter settle into a real (adult) life, and focused on satisfying the fans who were willing to pay for this stuff, and were much more likely to get the next generation involved in reading Spider-man because the children pick it up from them (my kids like Spider-man and I never actively did anything to make that the case). What allowed Marvel to do this, however, was a change in management. Officially Bob Harras was let go because he didn't capitalize on the X-Men movie, but the rumor is that his edicts that drove Spider-man right into the ground were a strong contributing factor.
When it came to Voyager, the Trek powers that be didn't get it. The show stank. Most of the characters were either uninteresting or actively annoying. Keeping the show on the air called for, well, I can almost see a white board in the office with "What do Trekkies want to see?" and it says:
And thus Seven of Nine was created. Now, I've stated my support for the character many times, even here on this site, so I'm not saying it was a bad move. She was actually interesting; the fact that she had nice boobs was just icing on the cake. Seven helped keep the show afloat until the magic seventh season, but the show still didn't really solve the problems that were in the program, they just had a means of getting through. So that meant the wrong conclusions were reached: the fans liked Seven because she had breasts, thus we can stick with the same stuff, add breasts, and we're fine.
T'Pol anyone?
Unlike Seven, T'Pol didn't appeal to me. Yes, she is nice looking, but she immediately turned me off to the character. The line that did it, and I know this probably seems ridiculously petty, was in the pilot when the captain, T'Pol, and Trip are eating and she refers to them as carnivores. It's not a joke. Now, I'm not going to get up in arms about the retconning that says that Vulcans are all vegetarians; fine, knock yourselves out (Note: what I mean when I say "retconning" is that Tuvok ate animal products on Voyager; thus Vulcans are not universally vegetarian). But the problem is two-fold. First, it was a rather provocative statement, spoken with visible distaste, and that didn't sit well. What was worse was that it was completely inaccurate. I doubt any human is a carnivore; at most a human would be an omnivore, consuming both plant and animal products. That scene led me to think that either T'Pol was trying deliberately to lay into these humans and show she's oh-so-frickin-superior, or she's an idiot. Neither sat very well with me. Nothing after that did anything to make me change my mind; already the character was ruined for me, and I don't care if she had breasts the size of honeydew melons, I'm not watching a character that can't appeal to my mind. (By the way, I realize it's a cheap shot, but don't you just love those pictures at the top of the page? It's so funny to me that the program that pats itself on the back for its adult entertainment is going for the boobs, and the entertainment stereotyped as being for adolescents wants to get rid of the boobs.)
So Enterprise came and the only thing learned from Voyager was "Stay the course and add some boobs" instead of "we almost lost the show because it sucked so bad; let's deliver a quality product!" Now, they did do some things right. The uniforms were good, and the ball caps. But for the most part, they stayed the course, and the new viewers that were waiting in the promised land didn't seem to be there, while the dispensable fans were dispensed. And what could they do this time? Bring in boobs? They already had boobs! It's not a coincidence that Enterprise was on the bubble at exactly the same time that Voyager had been as well. And the inexcusable part was that it took a decade for someone to finally figure it out. Unlike Marvel, they waited too long before seeing where the problem was, and by then it was too late. Spidey's a superhero; finding a way to avoid hitting the ground at the last possible moment was all in a day's work for him. But for the all too human crew of Enterprise, there was no one to save them when the series was driven into the ground.
Let me take a moment, however, to point out those who fight behind the scenes. For Star Trek, there was Ronald D. Moore, who delivered lots of great material for Deep Space Nine (a program that was far superior to Voyager, possibly due to the fact that the powers that be were so focused on Voyager, they let the creative talent run free and do some great things with that show). He came on board Voyager and wrote such memorable episodes as Survival Instinct. He left the show because of the creatively stifling environment there was there, mentioning in particular the stupid technobabble used to pad out one of his episodes when the running time was short, rather than actually coming up with something interesting to the viewer. On the Marvel side, during the infamous Clone Saga editor Tom Brevoort stood up to management when they tried destroying the creative vision of a mini-series he was working called "The Final Adventure." It was supposed to end with Peter Parker and Mary Jane having their baby and living happily ever after. When word came down that Peter was going to be rightly returned as the one true Spider-Man, Brevoort was told the ending had to change. Fair enough. But the change was that instead of the birth, there was to be a miscarriage. Brevoort put his foot down; they weren't ending that story on such a horrible note. Besides, as he's quoted as saying by assistant editor Glenn Greenberg in Life of Reiley, "There's no way in hell I'm going down in history as the man who killed Spider-Man's baby!" Today Brevoort is editor of the highly anticipated Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man, written by Peter David, and New Avengers, written by Brian Michael Bendis, both featuring Spidey and both with top industry writers, thus showing that sometimes, creative integrity can pay off.
Kate Mulgrew stated the problem with Voyager was that the fans wouldn't accept a female captain. Rick Berman said the problem with Enterprise were the complaints of the "usual people" on the Internet. I don't know why this is, but the entertainment industry seems to be the only one that blames the failure of its product on the consumer. When was the last time you bought a car with a mechanical defect and the manufacturer said it was your fault because you weren't ready to handle a vehicle like this? When was the last time you bought a defective DVD or video game, and the people at the store said you just didn't understand it? If your house falls down a year after it's built, show me one construction company that says the problem was with the home owner rather than the one who built the thing. Only entertainment feels the need to lay its failures at the feet of those it was supposed to entertain. As much self-deception as someone out there might want to have, you can objectively measure the quality of your product by looking at the audience willing to show up (which wasn't there) and the opinion of critics who objectively look at the merit of a program (which wasn't there either). It must be nice to have zero evidence that you've produced anything of any quality and still believe so strongly in your own infallibility that you can blame the audience. It's not like Star Trek is some art film that you need to examine to understand, with a subtext that needs to be gleaned through careful analysis to reveal artistic genius. Voyager and Enterprise, on the days when it even tried for subtext, beat you about the head and shoulders with it.
Let me make this point very clear. If you're producing art, then great; not everyone will get your message, but you express your voice. That's absolutely wonderful. If you're producing entertainment as a product, then you have to reach the audience and make them want to have your product. If they don't, the problem's not them, the problem is you! If you learn nothing from this, learn that the world has changed too much that you can look down on your audience, because there's too many other forms of entertainment or just entertainers in the same medium that are willing to deliver the goods. Your audience will remain loyal if you're loyal to them, but if you turn your back on them by failing to deliver a quality product, then you're getting exactly what you deserve. I'm sure it must have been great for a while to have that license to print money that was Star Trek, but the ride's over. You're going to have to actually work again to win your audience back.
Season 1
Season 2
Season 3
Season 4
Help support SF Debris
E-mail
1. For the rest of you: the Clone Saga was, when you add in all the assorted crap around it, about three years of confusion and shock for shock's sake and funky covers, and told us that the person we thought was Spider-man for decades was just some damn clone to boot, a point that was later reversed. A bit of irony is that one of those instrumental in saving Peter Parker was Dan Jurgens, the same writer who killed Superman.
Back
2. Howard Mackie clearly burned out on Spider-man before this. In re-reading this, I hit him hard. Mackie gave us lots of good stories over the years, but not these years (By the same token, I praise Jenkins, but although he delivered some of the best Spidey stories of the past decade, he doesn't walk on water by any means). I'm not sure why he stayed on. It could have been the prospect of working with John Byrne, which is certainly understandable, or simply the honor of being selected to write all the titles for Marvel's flagship charcter. Unfortunately, it was an artistic flop which continued right up until his exit with Amazing Spider-Man Annual 2001, which shows Peter acting like an asswipe. Mary Jane hadn't died in the explosion, but was kidnapped and held in isolation by a deranged stalker. Naturally, since Peter is a sensitive person who deeply loves his wife and is concerned about her emotional well-being, especially in the wake of this horrible experience, all that's on his mind is boning her. What a dickhead.
Back
3. As a noted commentator on Spidey pointed out, the work of the writers, editor, and Editor-in-Chief did more to destroy Spider-man and his life than any villain ever succeeded at. Killing his wife, taking away his job, and forcing him to live like a homeless man on the streets is more than even Norman Osborn could hope to accomplish. It also showed that Peter was obviously mentally ill, as he had all manner of friends to turn to at this time, including Aunt May, and instead chose to sleep on the street. The most popular Marvel Superhero, reduced to this state...
Back
4. The same Byrne and Mackie, whose work I refer to as "shit" in this article, killed MJ on orders from then Editor In Chief Bob Harras. If B&M were guilty of war crimes, you can fill in the rest for Harras. Anyway, even Byrne, who was no fan of the marriage, said that any solution was going to be worse than the problem it tried to fix. This was why they chose the "no body" death as a way out, but again, this should have been a milestone issue, and even though they were only doing what they were ordered to, the writers failed to deliver the goods. By comparison, J. M. Dematteis had to kill Aunt May (who's also back from the dead, also on orders from Harras, and then was promptly left to act like a one dimensional characature); he handled it in a way that long time fans, even if they disagreed with, could say was a wonderful tribute and a landmark issue. The death of MJ was a f*cking insult.
Back
5. Yet another bit of support for this is the success not long after this by two other books at Marvel, Peter David's Captain Marvel, and Christopher Priest's Black Panther. These weren't even second-tier characters, they were bench-warmers, but the writers on those series were very good at what they did, telling stories that were fun and exciting, with rich characters and driving plots that succeeded despite their star characters rather than because of them. I never had any interest with either character, but with the constant proclamations of its quality and critical acclaim, I checked them out, and I'm so glad I did. If the same devotion was put into Spider-man as it was in these books, it would likely have consistently been a top selling book instead of being abandoned in droves.
Back
6. Incidentally, Paul Jenkins, whom I mention in the text, was one who always got it. I don't know if it was his intent, but he hit the nail on the head with one superb tale of Peter Parker: Spider-man. It was about a young black boy who lived in a rough situation and had Spider-man as an imaginary friend. At the end he has to leave and he goes to shake hands goodbye, and Spider-man takes his mask off revealing a strong, confident black man behind the mask. What Jenkins got was that it didn't matter whether Peter was married or not, successful or not, or what race he happened to be: a fan of Spider-man was a fan because when you look at Peter Parker, you look at what you wish in a small way was yourself. To deny that... that's what really is deviating from Spider-man's roots!
Back
7. This point is especially embodied in pre-Clone Saga Todd McFarlane's work on a vanity title created for him called simply Spider-man, which was drawn and written by him. The art was great, the story and words were ass. It is wholly appropriate that the entire first story arc was titled "Torment," I just didn't think it was referring to the act of reading the story. He got a little better over time, but dear God... if I made a comic with art as bad as that writing, you couldn't give it away next to the register.
Back
