Spider-Man General Discussion

Then Ultimate Spider-Man really would be the last one.

The thing is, despite all the fan backlash, Wells' run still gets moderate to good reviews from most sites, and it's still in the top-ten for overall comic sales (not just Marvel).

I'm sure Marvel will be looking at the response to Hickman's run and learning (all the wrong?) lessons from it — but if Wells' run actively failed, he'd have been gone long before it reached #54.

By the same token, Hickman's had a huge burst of support for Ultimate, but at this point Peter's fought two supervillains and hasn't finished his first arc. Everything in his life is going well. At some point that will change. Hickman will undoubtedly make some creative decisions that some fans don't like — even if the run as a whole remains beloved — and we'll see where we go from there.

Edited by Mrph1 on Mar 29th 2024 at 4:35:41 PM

Yeah, and who would pass on the chance to write Spider-Man to add to your cred?

All you need to do is play by editorial's rules.....

That said, I don't think Editorial ordered Paul specifically. Wells is a contracted hatchet man but he gets to decide how the execution goes.

Heck, he didn't even need to break up MJ and Peter to my understanding, he just can't undo One More Day or get them married again.

To be fair, most of those sites are known shills for the big two and often give positive reviews for access to perks.

Adventures In Poor Taste got so fed up with the run that they refuse to touch it.

And there is no objective way we can measure sales anymore, the charts only have half the information. But even if so, ASM isn't getting half the printings Ultimate Spider-Man is getting.

If Hickman makes his changes, I suspect he'll wait until it's safe to do so...aka if Peter and MJ reunite in 616 so we have at least one book which gives us positive changes in Peter's life. That's what doomed Renew Your Vows really, there were two books, it and Spencer, giving us a happy Peter and Spencer was eyeing towards undoing OMD, making RYV redundant.

Edited by Zarius on Mar 29th 2024 at 9:40:51 AM

In a lot of ways, I feel like Spider-Man is kind of like a trap comic for writers. It superficially looks simple to write and is very well-known meaning you'll get easy readers. But the instant you scratch past the surface image, it's lore and characters are a lot more complicated than most people think, and the popularity of it means that it gets constant editorial attention in the worst ways possible. Spider-Man seems like the sort of book a beginner writer could make their big break on, but it's actually got a big skill gate and a lot of baggage attached to it.

Whether or not the game is rigged, they're still doing ok in the game.

Maybe it's getting better reviews than some other Marvel books because of its profile, maybe the positive Amazon reviews (which came up in the So Bad, It's Horrible thread) are purely because it arrived on time and undamaged. Maybe the sales figures are manipulated by all the variant covers,

But, if so, I imagine many other Marvel and DC teams are still envious of the support and success it's getting.

(Probably not so envious of the editorial restrictions, though)

Edited by Mrph1 on Mar 29th 2024 at 4:46:03 PM

Spider-Man is ALWAYS going to sell, and sell big.

Edited by Zarius on Mar 29th 2024 at 9:48:54 AM

They're absolutely not a measure of quality, no.

But Marvel is a profit-making work-for-hire business. If we buy the book out of bile fascination, they still get the money.

And I'm sure they'd rather have an unpopular run like Wells' Spider-Man, which we all keep talking about, than a run like Ridley or Ewing's Black Panther, which gets criticised or ignored and simply doesn't sell.

YMMV.

Yeah, sorry I exploded like that, I trimmed my post in case it was interpreted wrongly, thanks for tackling it diplomatically.

Anyway, the same site soliciting Wells' 'climax' also has one for a second Superior Spider-Man trade, it's title? Superior Spider-Island

Well...I'm doing my part. Ultimate Spider-Man is in my pull box...and I haven't touched ASM in years.

I mean I won't begrudge someone for getting ASM if they get any enjoyment out of it, just if they get it for any other reason but...

Like don't get it cause someone baits you into it due to being informed. Cause then you get hassled for spending money on something you hate anyway and at least the former leaves you with money for any other title.😁

I guess a reader who wasn’t aware of all the real-world drama surrounding the character’s romantic life might enjoy it? Maybe?

Edited by HamburgerTime on Mar 29th 2024 at 4:08:11 AM

I mean, I could picture somebody who knows almost nothing about Spider-Man as a series coming in on this book as their entry point and not hating it. But I can't imagine the opinion of it going any further than So Okay, It's Average, nor can I imagine them continuing to have a high opinion of it as they branch into the wider series and read better stories.

even discounting the mj stuff, peter has not gotten a clean win the whole time wells has been writing, he keeps getting partial wins or needs bailed out by someone else, or even if he does win a villain wins too.

J. Michael Strazynski is teasing 'little bits' of Spidey work over on twitter.

Imagine if Wells is off at #54 and the rest of the volume is clean up from JMS, like Waid after Spencer post-Secret Empire on Cap

Edited by Zarius on Mar 29th 2024 at 11:20:23 AM

Kinda surprised JMS is coming back to Spidey, given all the Executive Meddling he got saddled with at the end of his previous run.

or jms after mackie and byrne lol

Edited by Saiga on Mar 29th 2024 at 11:21:42 AM

'little bits' could mean anything, like the Spidey guest spot he did in Captain America#2 which was only a couple of pages.

JMS was supposed to have had another 'top secret' Marvel project announced in 2023 at Comic Con alongside his Babylon 5 movie, but nothing came of that.

The idea of JMS coming back to fix things reminds me of how supposedly Russell T. Davies once claimed the only reason he'd ever return to Doctor Who was if the show was in danger of being cancelled because of how badly someone bungled it, and then sure enough years later he did indeed have to come back.

Never read Mackie/Byrne but I've heard it described as rivaling Wells is being almost entirely terrible. Like, apparently Peter gets shipped with a 15-year-old? Yeah, that definitely sounds like Byrne.

Bryne is the guy who made that dumbass Magic the Gathering of five storyline as well IIRC.

Apparently, the guy really hated Green Goblin coming back and wanted Doctor Octopus to be Spider-Man's numero uno villain again.

Proving that writers fight over this kind of thing, and this is one of the least petty things Bryne has done.

He also wrote Spider-Man Chapter One which was an attempt at rebooting the Spider-Man mythos.

....But it was bad. Very bad.

And ironically started the whole trend that pops up in adaptations of Norman Osborn creating most of Spider-Man's villains.

Howard Mackie and Todd DeZago were also involved in writing Gathering of Five. Ralph Machio was the editor.

I don't know who originally came up with the idea but according to the Old Farmers Wikipedia, Tom DeFalco wanted the storyline to bring back baby May but Byrne and Mackie insisted on reviving Aunt May instead.

Yeah I was referring to Magic the Gathering of Five in the context of the Byrne-Mackie run but I guess the awkward phrasing made it sound like it was only Byrne.

Still, that was such a dumbass storyline and of course, he put in the villain he hated front and center.

Supposedly, Norman's fate of going totally insane and being rendered an incoherent babbling lunatic at the end of the story was going to be Byrne's way of writing him out of the Spider-Man mythos and he wanted to bring attention back to Doc Ock.

But uhhhh..... his design for Ock was pretty shit, and the far more competent Roger Stern wrote Revenge of the Green Goblin that followed Magic the Gathering of five.

Seriously, do not look at Byrne's design for Ock, it's hilariously bad.

Edited by RedHunter543 on Mar 30th 2024 at 11:51:14 PM

-schmuck baited- Is it the mad scientist coat over big chonky robot arms and legs?

It's so typical of Byrne that even when he had a good or at the very least understandable take - like that reviving Norman was a mistake - he responded to it in the absolute worst way possible and ended up tacking a bunch of horrible takes onto it like him and Mackie insisting on bringing Aunt May back for no readily apparent reason.

The obsession with keeping Aunt May around is still the most baffling yet telling aspect of Spider-Editorial and their ilk, because they never actually seem to do anything with her and she contributes absolutely nothing to the mythos nowadays, but they absolutely cannot part with her because her going away would represent progress and they consider progress to be the worst thing that could possibly happen to the series.

.....why was Daniel Larusso editing a comic book.

Edited by HandsomeRob on Mar 30th 2024 at 9:32:36 AM