John Byrne says a few things about UTOS

The whole 'Age the Characters' mentality is truly insidious. Sometimes it happens without the people involved even being aware.

Consider: Almost 20 years ago now I pitched, mostly in jest, a book that I called Spider - Boy . The premise of this book

How can get get away with that???

Both Superboy and Hidden Years took place during a long period of the characters' lives that had just never been clearly defined.

Untold Tales took place during a very defined period of the characters life. It was different.

Plus, there was such a tight continuity from issue to issue back then, that telling any story about Spider-Man during that period would almost be required to either have no sub-plots at all or be consistant with the previous continuity.

The last thing Byrne wants to hear about are facts. Check out his latest argument with Erik Larsen for that.

Every writer or aspiring writer has loads of stories about how their ideas were subsumed or ripped off. Hey, I have some, too. Moench & Gulacy's S.C.I. SPY was a rip-off of my (unpublished) TECH SPY! Gaiman's 1602 is a rip-off of my (unpublished) Renaissance superhero title Roses of England! Sob, sob, whine, whine. And so on and so forth...

It seems that, together with the rest of the industry, Byrne has blissfully forgotten about Spider-Man: Chapter One, where he himself did a variation on the same thing.

- Tue

: > stories that fit into particular places in the mythos . : : It seems that, together with the rest of the industry, Byrne has : blissfully forgotten about Spider-Man: Chapter One, where he himself : did a variation on the same thing.

I don't think that's the same; CHAPTER ONE was a reinterpretation of existing material, while UNTOLD TALES was new material altogether.

That said, I had no problem whatsoever enjoying UNTOLD TALES, although I'd never read most of the early AMAZING SPIDER-MAN issues at the time.

The fact that the UNTOLD TALES stories fit in-between the AMAZING ones was merely an added bonus later on, when I did read the old stories.

Someone ctiricized Chapter One in that same thread, and Byrne said that the critic was actually criticizing Stan Lee and Steve Ditko, since he did nothing to change the original story. (I wholeheartedly disagree)