This thread's for the Spider-Man comics and spin-offs, whether they're decades old or brand new.
- Apart from the main Marvel Universe titles, Ultimate Spider-Man, Spider-Man "What If?" stories, crossovers, guest appearances in other books, Alternate Universe tales and things like Marvel's manga adaptations are all on-topic here.
- Spider-Man 'family' books are on-topic (as are their own crossovers, guest appearances etc.) - e.g. Spider-Man 2099, Miles Morales, Spider-Woman, Silk, Spider-Gwen, Venom, Carnage, Black Cat, Red Goblin and Spider-Verse.
- Characters and comics that originated in Spider-Man but are no longer directly connected to the spider-franchise (e.g. Punisher, Silver Sable) are not on-topic, unless you're discussing historical connections and crossovers. If in doubt, check before you write a long post. If this isn't the right place, there's a more general Marvel Comics thread
which covers them.
Technically, Marvel's Infinity Comics (and their predecessors, Infinite Comics) are webcomics, not comic books, but it's fine to talk about their Spider-Man stories here.
Discussions that are only about Spider-Man adaptations in other media (films, video games etc.) are off-topic, but discussing the differences between the adaptations and the original comics is fine - as long as spoilers for the adaptations are tagged.
Please follow the spoiler policy rules
- tag spoilers for the latest issues, for any previews or content leaks, and for off-topic comics. When including spoiler tags, try to write so that tropers can make an informed decision before viewing them (e.g. which series and issue will they spoil?).
Edited by MacronNotes on Jul 10th 2023 at 10:58:13 AM
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itsy bitsy was a normal woman till she got injected with peter and wades dna she isnt actually his daughter clone or otherwise
Yes and no. It used to be that the symbiote just came with a weakness to fire and sonic stuff. Then it was retconned that the symbiot also prevented the host from getting proper rest as it kept the body active even during sleep. Then it was retconned that the symbiot feeds on and slowly kills the host. There was a What If? where Spider-Man keeps the suit and it ends up eating him, then going crazy after he dies, and it's explained Eddie Brock only lasted so long because Eddie had a malignant cancer for the symbiote to feed on indefinitely. Then it was retconned in between the What If? and Eddie's cancer diagnosis that the symbiotes eat brains specifically. THEN it was retconned that the symbiotes can get everything they need from brains from the host's food, and that their policy of consuming hosts was actually a form of gluttony. One so disgusting the Silver Surfer saw no issue calling Galactus on their planet after the symbiotes had consumed the rest of its macro fauna. The Venom symbiote was a reformer you see, it believed in living in harmony with the host.
Altering to the host personality, and to what extent, depends on the host and the symbiote in question, and always has for as long as symbiotes have been depicted as being able to alter personalities. It's a two way street, hence Venom going from over eager and boundary ignoring to outright murderous in both the What If? an the main 616 comic books. Currently if the symbiotes pose no inherent health risks other than needing to eat more. As long as your symbiote isn't an asshole your life expectancy is otherwise the same, longer considering increased environmental awareness, mobility and resistance to injury.
Edited by IndirectActiveTransport on Jul 6th 2025 at 7:07:24 AM
Buldogue's lawyerHas there ever been a What If? where Spider-Man found the costume-repairing machine and never got the symbiote at all?
The Protomen enhanced my life.![]()
In short, whether or not the symbiote is harmful to the host (and/or inherently evil) is Depending on the Writer. However the writer wants their latest symbiote to work, they'll retcon something in to explain why this one, right now, works the way it does in that story, and the next the next writer will do another retcon to explain why their new symbiote character works differently, etc.
I mean Gwen's symbiote isn't a real symbiote, more akin to Ultimate Venom.
Edited by GateStarX on Jul 5th 2025 at 11:42:41 AM
It's gonna be fun on the bun!Gwen’s symbiote was also completely different from the 616 symbiotes
Yeah
Edited by Bocaj on Jul 5th 2025 at 11:41:56 AM
Forever liveblogging the Avengershttps://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=12966307980A80182800&page=1524#comment-38095
Honestly, that CBR comment hits the nail on the head.
And it's not just Spider-Comics, it looks like most, if not, all of Marvel's 616 stuff is super-borked.
Funnily enough, I've been seeing some thoughts about this via the Spider-Fam Discord (shameless plug here
if anyone's interested) and it could be one of two scenarios...or even both (they got too big so I had to put them in folders):
TL;DR: Marvel's way of running the comics is more ancient than dinosaurs and they gotta get their heads out of their butts. They have to do better.
Edited by TargetmasterJoe on Jul 5th 2025 at 6:20:30 AM
I honestly think the best thing Marvel could do is cut 1/3 to 1/2 of their line, and focus on longer-term runs (with consistent creative teams) rather than a lot of short runs. I remember back when I was still reading, they were putting out, like, 80 or more comics a month. That's ridiculous.
40 comics a month. Maybe 45. That should be the limit. Because that would encourage readers to actually try comics outside the big ones. Keep the range of titles as diverse as possible, just fewer in total.
X-Men X-Pert, my blog where I talk about X-Men comics.I doubt Marvel can be convinced not to publish seventy X titles at a given time.
Forever liveblogging the Avengers![]()
it definitely sounds like they’re repeating the 90s again. Eventually the trick wears off and the “free money” goes away. I do wonder why they’re still restructuring into Disney. Hasn’t it been 13 years?
Edited by DeltaCube91 on Jul 5th 2025 at 6:00:36 AM
I just wish that a run could go more than 20 issues before it either ends or relaunches
Adding on to what I previously said, I really don’t think reversing OMD is even a thought In Marvel’s minds. They had a series with the premise of Mary Jane and Peter never getting divorced and it got cancelled. I think the problem is current ASM stories just seem to be repetitive and boring. Every run after Brand New Day had some kind of gimmick at some point. Dan Slott had Superior than Parker industries, Nick Spencer had Kindred and the stupid new suit, Beyond was “Ben Reilly is the main Spider-Man again!”, Zeb Wells had a new suit, “what did Peter do” , and the two “goblin Peter” stories, and now Joe Kelly has Ten Lives, Hellgate and Symbie. It feels like Marvel’s trading high quality stories for “Look at this cool new idea we have! Keep reading to see how it ends up!” People like Ultimate Spider-Man because it’s telling a story throughout the run that’s not just something that’s obviously going to be forgotten at the end of the run.
Edited by DeltaCube91 on Jul 5th 2025 at 7:09:52 AM
I mean, what you're describing is just kinda how serialized Big Two storytelling has always worked. Sometimes a story has permanent consequences, like when a supporting character dies. Most of the time, it's just meant to be an entertaining story. It can be differing lengths - a single issue, an arc, spread across two or three years - and may or may not be followed up on later, but it's still, "Hey, look at this thing that's happening right now." That's not new. We got a ton of stories like that while Spider-Man was married, too. Maximum Carnage was "look at this cool idea we have and keep reading to see how it turns out." That's what the original Clone Saga was. The vast majority of stories that have ever been told at Marvel fall under what you describe.
So it doesn't really feel like a good-faith criticism of the current Spider-line. You can argue the overall quality of the stories, absolutely. But suggesting that "look at what we're doing now" is somehow different from basically the entire history of superhero comics strikes me as inaccurate.
X-Men X-Pert, my blog where I talk about X-Men comics.It feels a lot more gimmicky currently though. Honestly, Parker Industries and Superior probably don’t count because they actually stuck with it, but for the other examples, Hulk runs, Thor runs, Captain America runs, all of those feel more like actual new stories of the character rather than doing something quirky and different for an arc. The difference in how I see it is most runs nowadays have some sort of plot progression, or are a bunch of fun vignettes involving a character (Ryan North’s FF) Spider-Man tries to be both, and so each run has some boring mystery box that pretends to be advanced but isn’t until the last arc ( an example being how Kindred would show up a bunch of times, but there wasn’t any indication of his identity until the end) and sandwiched in between you have pretty standard Spider-Man stories that are mostly forgettable, because they have to fit in the bounds of the “grand plan” for the run (For example: Tombstone in Zeb Well’s ASM beat up Spider-Man in the first arc and wasn’t really defeated until the last) And then the out of costume stuff is just Peter needs to get a girlfriend/job and nothing actually advances there either.
Edited by DeltaCube91 on Jul 5th 2025 at 8:02:30 AM
I hate the mystery boxes.
Even with the very good North FF run, playing the 'how we got here' as a mystery just annoyed me.
Anyway, to me it feels like you used to have these long runs that didn't jump on the new number 1s so frequently so each new writer at least tried to make their stuff feel like a continuation. One long, unbroken Avengers story going back to when Hulk disguised himself as a robot clown and continuing through lots of stuff some good a lot bad up until the book is unceremoniously killed off in Onslaught to outsource the team to another company. But, Busiek at least managed to make his Heroes Return run feel like a natural continuation of Avengers. Until Bendis unceremoniously blew up the book.
Point being, having all these runs built to be jumping on and off points lacks that feeling of unbroken history. Writers are more willing to start wherever and end with putting all the toys back in the box. It often doesn't feel like one ongoing story that's been continuing for decades.
Forever liveblogging the AvengersYeah, and I’d argue now it feels, especially with Spider-Man, each run is a long unbroken story that gets all but ignored with the next run, making it seem pointless. Like how Spencer’s run set up Peter getting his Doctorate and it was forgotten about
Edited by DeltaCube91 on Jul 6th 2025 at 3:02:21 PM
Its hard to describe exactly, the plainest terms is its just not good anymore.
The stories aren't great, the characters aren't either. Peter's setting has been functionally obliterated, his supporting cast is a shadow of itself, once an acclaimed part of his mythos.
While Peter himself is just a loser. He can't get anywhere in life. No career or social decision is allowed any sort of progress.
His books are basically just "Stuff happens", there's no purpose or heart to it all.
Even Miles gets some of this. His current run while not terrible, is a lot of event tie-ins, endless crossovers, and upgrades. Blade gives him a magical suit, Black Panther gives him a vibranium suit, and dealing with mythology stuff like being Spider-Zero's agent and the current arc having him deal with Ares and Hercules of all characters.
"I am Alpharius. This is a lie."Maybe I'd have to take it slow, but I maintain that the magic is the first thing that has to be drastically reduced, followed by the multiverse. Then the spider-people should be separated, distributed across the USA/Earth.
Whatever, crossovers, sure. Have Spider-Man launch them into their new status quos. The "Web of Life" is overblown, there are multiple webs of life, so if it falls the multiverse won't collapse. It still exists, but it's in the periphery now, rarely ever talked about. Spider-Man meets Ghost-Spider/Spider-Woman on Earth #65 or whatever, get an artist who can draw some contorting web swinging wall crawling stuff, and then leave her there. Ever three months or so, Kaine in Austin Texas or what not, Chasm in Newark New Jersey maybe, we can keep Miles around just because original Ultimate is gone good, and I guess Bailey in his out of any real danger as much as possible is maintainable, but Silk's going to LA, or Hawaii, or Grand Rapids. Paul is getting shot out of a cannon and then ignored like he never existed. Venom on Eddie, anti on Flash, both mostly away from Peter. Spider-Man needs a big, scary ally-enemy, use Puma. A secret agent type? Use Solo. Spider-Verse can still happen, but it's strictly events. The spider-people can still be social, but largely social with other people while largely solitary from each other.
We're back to basics. Peter Parker, school teacher and friendly neighborhood Spider-Man, juggling his job, supporting cast and drive to stop crime, and disasters, on a neighborhood level. Maybe we end up building back up to magic, multiverse and two dozen spider-people in two years time after my year at best run is done. Maybe doing all of that in one run is unrealistic, maybe it wouldn't be good, but my aim would be no more magic, except Black Cat I guess, no more multiverse, at least not in Peter's book.
Buldogue's lawyerThe good news is that Black Cat's luck powers are all science. The science of psionics and slash or cybernetics. Don't question it, that's just how comics roll.
Forever liveblogging the Avengers
