Physics is Taking Over Spider-man

(Sent to the editors of Spider-man)

I hate it. If you read the current issues of Amazing Spiderman -- which, no doubt, so many of you do -- you will find that the current time in which we live has killed everything that we once knew about the story. What is happening is this: all of the mystical or supernatural world in Marvel is being taken over by a physicalist picture of account. Everything they do in Spiderman now exists within a sci-fi paradigm. It's like they can't think of metaphysics any longer. Every character's ability is being explained at some atomistic, molecular level. What's happening is that the comic book is becoming star trek. There is absolutely no reason, given the assertability conditions now in play, that Spiderman wouldn't simply have Jim Kirk's phaser handy.

When the man becomes the mystical, all it does is make everything a detective show. If I wanted to watch detectives, I'd watch Rockford. I don't want to see Spiderman winning battles with science. I want him winning by virtue of the unexplained.

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