Spider-Man General Discussion

MJ and Paul. Not even a better love story than Twilight.

At least we got MJ possessing a big teddy bear and beating up a bunch of mooks with it.

So I have to ask... who is Spider-Man being written for? They continually double down on things they know the fans hate, especially where the character's personal and romantic life is concerned, even as other widely-criticized plot points like M-Day have been walked back on. Is it like, some weird revenge or schadenfreude thing from Lowe to the fans? I'm trying to think of possible motives and coming up dry?

The office's nostalgia and pride.

And I guess cause some people with involvement of OMD are still involved in some capacity, thus not wanting to concede it was a mistake from Day One.

Spider-Man still sells well so presumably for some mainstream audience who doesn’t really care as long as he’s swinging on webs and slinging quips

It's this exactly. It's a small percentage of readers who actually spend a lot of time thinking about comics. Most tend to basically read it and forget it, and those people find the run just fine.

You say that like Ultimate Spider-Man hasn't been proving that hot take objectively wrong by outselling the main book by miles for months on end.

It's how bad the main series that Ultimate is selling like hotcakes is my theory.

But that said, Ultimate also has it's own legs and isn't being ruined like Renew Your Vows with gimmicky storylines forced by editorial that annoyed the writer in charge.

USM has a lot going for it. Hickman is one of the biggest writers in comics, the new Ultimate Universe is a big new deal that's gotten a huge amount of attention. We'll see what the sales are like by issue 6.

I also want to note that at least one issue of ASM is in the top 10 most months. So it's not like it's some sort of huge sales failure. The reality is, for all the online heat, ASM continues to be picked up by people who've been reading it for years, and those people continue to mostly enjoy it and then move on.

We’ve just gotta wait probably 10-20 years when one of us is Running the Asylum and in charge of editorial to undo OMD and get things back on track.

This is basically speculation on your end. The sales could be propped up by hate-readers or speculators for all we know.

Dubious. It's likely hate-readers are very small in number, and speculators would also be a small portion of sales. Most of the people buying ASM are almost certainly going to be casual readers, people who pick up ASM, Batman, Superman, and a couple other consistent high-sellers. The people who like seeing popular characters doing things, and who give very little thought to the stories. The people who still look at comics as the disposable entertainment they were originally intended to be.

Why did the Big Bang Theory run for so long, despite so many people online hating it? Because people online don't actually matter. It aired at a time and channel that people were used to watching, so they kept their brains off and watched it. Why does ASM still sell, when so many people online hate it? Because people online don't actually matter. It's a title that people are used to reading, so they turn their brains off and read it.

USM is off to a huge start, no doubts about it, and a small portion of that will be people excited to see Peter and MJ together. We'll see if it can keep up the momentum, or if sales drop as the shine wears off. I've got no skin in the game one way or the other. I'm just saying that the idea that ASM's sales are primarily hate-reading or cover gimmicks or whatever is wrong.

Who is ASM being written for? It's being written for the 98% of the audience who turn their brains off.

I don't think telling us that the reason Amazing Spider-Man does so well in the charts is because it's 'overwhelming majority' are brainless zombies is the winning argument you think it is.

What does that say about the state of the book? Why should THEIR voices matter more than people who think about the stories and how the characters are treated? You're making the case that mindless entertainment trumps in-depth analysis every time and that there's no point in challenging the book to do better. You are advocating, almost defeatistly, that mediocrity is better for the book and that the public themselves are mediocre, unchallenged cattle.

Big Bang Theory may be hated, but it was also a smart show. If you had made the case for something worse from Chuck Lorre's portfolio like "Two and a Half Men" both pre and post Charlie Sheen, then yeah, I could understand that. People did turn their brains off for a show like that

Also, if "all online opinions don't matter" then explain the 'feedback' the letters pages of ASM frequently get from disengaged and outraged readers. Oh sure, you'll still get positive letters, but Marvel have been fair in allowing a great deal of letters to be published that criticise the book and take them to task for several bad character takes. None of those letters are "online", so do they matter?

Edited by Zarius on Apr 26th 2024 at 1:06:20 AM

Likely isn't the same as calling something the reality. I don't think the majority are hate-readers, either, but saying it's a fact that most of the fanbase is fine with it is simply incorrect - we can't know.

As is your assertation that a small number of USM fans are there for Peter/MJ.

I don't think my attitude is defeatist. The people involved, both the creators and the editors, want to tell the best story they can. They don't always succeed, but that's always the goal. And I think that, in general, paying too much attention to audience feedback can actually get in the way of that. I mean, paying too much attention to reader reactions was actually what ruined the Clone Saga - people loved it, so marketing forced it to be extended, and that made people turn against it, leading to a panicked return to the status quo.

Marvel needs to strike a balance between art and money. As a creative endeavour, they want to put out the best product they can. As a business, they need to make sure it stays profitable. For now, ASM remains profitable enough that the creative side is able to tell the stories they want. If it stops being profitable, then they'll need to change things and figure out another direction to go.

In the meantime, yeah, people criticizing the book aren't actually a priority for them. Nor should they be. If you've got a vision, don't compromise it to maybe satisfy critics. (Not unless they're giving you a lot of money to do so. Comics doesn't pay for shit.) Whether that vision works out or not, better to stay true to it and fail honestly.

I'm going to be real, there's like very minimal evidence hate watching as a concept even works.

What it usually means is that something unpopular online has a silent fanbase who doesn't participate in internet discussions.

Someone's certainly buying it.

This isn't like the pre-Krakoa X-Men stuff where, despite the history and popularity of the characters, it just wasn't selling. A better comparison might be the pre-Image days when Liefeld, Larsen and others were steering their books, and critically slammed from some quarters, but kept selling anyway.

(Which was also buoyed up by polybagged issues with trading cards, variant covers etc. - but still selling)

Marvel's first and foremost a business. If the book keeps selling as issues and collections, they're probably still happy.

Compare it to all the Marvel books that nobody here (or on the main Marvel thread) ever bothers to talk about. Al Ewing's Avengers Inc. (a much better book, imo), got cancelled after five issues. Kieron Gillen's Eternals lasted for 12.

Hardly anyone online seems to be talking about Daredevil or Blade. Sales figures suggest that's not purely an online lack of interest.

By that standard, Marvel's not going to be too unhappy with how the Wells run is doing. You don't get 50 issues if the company sees it as a failure.

Fwiw asm always had a lot of different covers and variant covers where the shops need to order a certain amount to get a special cover.

Ultimate Spider-Man#5 will introduce Otto Octavius to the new universe.

...Hmm, they look a bit like Ditko Pete

Hmmmm, this Otto is tied to Oscorp and Harry Green Goblin. Interesting.

I'm getting the feeling from the page they showed Gwen is ultimately going to be the girlboss big bad

Hell, maybe she becomes the new Queenpin if Fisk falls at the end of the first arc

Edited by Zarius on Apr 27th 2024 at 12:34:26 PM

That would be a delicious idea, but wonder if Harry is going to be part of her world, or they'll end up at odds? I did get some strange Norman Osborn esque vibes from Gwen Stacy in issue 4.

Remind me, is this only the second Gwen Stacy we know that helps run a mega corporation?] I only know one other and that's Steel Spider's Gwen Stacy from the animated series

Oh, and Ultimate Spider-Man outsold Amazing Spider-Man again

Wild to think that's possible, since ASM had all the bells and whistle spandex action and Ultimate Spider-Man revolved around a simple double dinner date with world-building conversation.

Yes, this would be the second.

But Gwen becoming more antagonistic would also reference Liz Allen being the CEO of Alchemax.