Trouble (comics)
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Trouble | |
---|---|
Publication information | |
Publisher | Marvel Comics's Epic imprint |
Schedule | Monthly |
Format | limited series |
Publication date | September 2003 – January 2004 |
No. of issues | 5 |
Main character(s) | |
Creative team | |
Written by | Mark Millar |
Artist(s) | Frank Cho |
Penciller(s) | Terry Dodson |
Inker(s) | Rachel Dodson |
Trouble is a five-issue
Trouble was meant to re-popularize
A trade paperback collecting the five issues was originally scheduled to be published on 18 February 2004, but canceled when Epic was shut down after Bill Jemas, who had been a driving force behind the imprint, resigned as president of Marvel Comics. A hardcover collection was published by Marvel on June 1, 2011.
Characters
- May Reilly – A 17-year-old redhead and something of a wild child.
- Mary Fitzpatrick – May's blonde best friend and rather shy.
- Ben Parker – Richard's older brother, who was often in hospitals as a child.
- Richard (Richie) Parker – Ben's younger brother and their dad's clear favorite.
Plot summary
May finds a man to stay with, but does not tell him about her pregnancy. She grows to be disgusted by him. May contacts Mary and meets with her. Mary is still very angry with May for having an affair with Richie, and tells her she deserves all the trouble she is going through, but decides to help her when May tells her she has been thinking about suicide. Mary comes up with the plan to tell everybody the baby is hers, so May will not have to face her fundamentalist parents and Mary can test if she can trust Richie, who is still in love with her and writing her frequent letters, none of which she has answered yet. Once May gives birth to her healthy baby boy, Peter, Mary takes him to Richie, and they start a family, while May returns home to her parents as if nothing had happened.
Covers
All issues of Trouble featured photo covers by French photographer Philippe Bialobos in the style of teen
The second printing of the first issue (Trouble #1: The Second Chances Edition) was the only one to feature a conventional comic book cover, drawn by Frank Cho.[1]
Reception
The reveal that series' main characters, May, Ben, Mary and Richard, are meant to be Peter Parker's Aunt May and Uncle Ben, and his parents Richard and Mary Parker, and thus, the revelation that the Ultimate Marvel incarnation of Aunt May is actually Peter Parker's biological mother was seen as highly controversial among Spider-Man fans, with many criticisms of the series mistakenly implying the series to be set in Marvel's primary continuity,[2][3][4] with Millar's dialogue being criticized as not being representative of the time it is set in (supposedly the 1970s)[5] and his storytelling failing to grab the audience; many complained that the characters were written too similarly, and were hard to keep apart, "save for the fact that one of the girls will do it on the first date when the other one won't".[6] In contrast, Dodson's artwork throughout the series was praised.[6]
References
- ^ "Trouble (2003) #1 "Trouble: Part One of Five" (Second Chance Variant Edition)". Comic Book DB. Retrieved April 25, 2007.
- ^ "Mark Millar & Terry Dodson's Controversial Trouble to be Collected in 2011?". Web Article. 18 November 2010. Retrieved October 11, 2016.
- ^ Lee, Stan (w), Lieber, Larry (p), Demeo, Mickey (i). "The Parents of Peter Parker!" The Amazing Spider-Man Annual, vol. 1, no. 5, p. 11/2 (1965). Marvel Comics.
- Romita, John (p), Milgrom, Al (i). "The Amazing Parkers" Untold Tales of Spider-Man Flashback, vol. 1, no. -1 (Minus 1), p. 8/4 (July 1997). Marvel Comics.
- ^ Review Archived 2005-03-08 at the Wayback Machine of Trouble #1 by Chris Allen on moviepoopshoot.com
- ^ a b Review Archived 2005-09-01 at the Wayback Machine of Trouble #1 by Paul O'Brien on The X-Axis, 13 July 2003
External links
- Trouble cover gallery at Comic Book DB
- Newsarama's coverage of Marvel's press conference about Trouble (archived at archive.org)
- "Trouble - A review (archived at archive.org)". Archived from the original on July 1, 2004. Retrieved September 5, 2009.
- "SpiderFan.org - Comics: Reviews: The Summer Everybody Lost It". Retrieved April 8, 2005.
- SpiderFan.org Top Ten Reasons Not To Take The Trouble Mini-series Seriously