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
So controversial Spider-take time.
I unironically enjoyed Superior Spider-Man volume 2 even more so than Spencer's run. He actually had character development and growth as a character, thanks to Gage's direction and genuinely dealing with the last runs criticisms regarding his character and his fake identity being borderline sexual assault and working with it in his run. It helps that Anne Marie wasn't a love interest, was able to be the moral core of the run and keeping Ock on the straight and narrow. I liked seeing Ock having to deal with developing a conscious for real and dealing with his newfound empathy towards civilians, I liked his interactions with Ps 4 Peter, the Horizon college cast, Dr. Strange and regular Pete. It was great seeing him develop and not as the usual illusions of change. Plus it was hilarious to see him explain his complicated backstory to one of the women he was dating, I mean, how do you even start explaining that your actually a former supervillain who swapped minds with Spider-Man and are now in a new body?
I guess Slott and Spencer's admissions that OMD will NEVER be addressed soured me much more on regular Peter and made me enjoy Ock's journey as Spider-Man.
Then of course, Mephisto had to ruin it.
"The Black Rage makes us strong, because we must resist its temptations every day of our lives or be forever damned!"I sort of feel, stepping back and taking a more objective view, that Spencer did likely intend his ending as a satisfying fix for OMD. After all, Peter has the moral high ground back, confirmation that he and MJ are inseparable, meaning the deal didn’t really work in the end, and we get an actual explanation for Harry’s return and a less stupid in-universe reason for the deal itself.
Spencer just underestimated HOW big a fix the fans wanted.
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It works better for Caine to be honest.
As his series. Since his series actually uses magic and doesn't feel as weird since Kaine doesnh have a long, long history of mostly science based villains that Spidey uses. It's probably why most ideas of that stuff got imported to him.
"That's right mortal. By channeling my divine rage into power, I have forged a new instrument in which to destroy you."![]()
It's not really much of a victory over Mephisto. Since we know for all the comics claim that Peter and MJ are inseparable, Marvel won't have them be together for real because of the brand, eventually they'll go through a period of separation, and Peter will see someone else, Peter still dodged responsibility by taking Satan's deal to fix his mistake, and aborted his unborn daughter to save his elderly Aunt who suspiciously keeps getting a lot of action.
And Peter STILL hasn't even punched Mephisto.
Edited by RedHunter543 on Oct 7th 2021 at 12:10:53 PM
"The Black Rage makes us strong, because we must resist its temptations every day of our lives or be forever damned!"Yeah.
When you think about it, at this point the only difference between Classic Gwen and MJ is that MJ has too many fans to make killing her off viable.
In practice, she's in the exact same situation: they won't let her be with Peter due to an obsession with not aging him.
One Strip! One Strip!MJ in particular seems to have a lot of creatives with a sort of complex about her compared to other superhero love interests. Like, every attempt to break up Superman and Lois that goes over like a lead balloon (which is all of them
) is quickly rectified, even the New 52 breakup and subsequent hookup with Wondy that IIRC was intended to be permanent.
I just don’t get why MJ’s different.
Probably because most editors think Spider-Man is at his most interesting as a "swinging bachelor" whereas Superman, even though he hasn't always been married to her, has only ever really loved Lois Lane. And even then, there were a bunch of other factors beyond just the relationship with Lois that resulted in New 52 Superman's commercial and critical backlash.
They are obsessed with Swinging Bachelor and / or Teenage hero.
Even though Peter's teenage era lasted a very short period of time, and he'd been with Gwen for a long time after that.
In fact, for most of his history until he married MJ, he was with someone: Gwen, then Mary Jane, then Black Cat, before marrying MJ again.
One Strip! One Strip!Even the Sam Raimi movies only had him in high school for part of the first movie.
Disney100 Marathon | DreamWorks MarathonAnd he graduates High School at the start of the second Amazing film.
Honestly, I kind of place the Ultimate Spider-Man cartoon as the start of the transparent effort into really making Peter the overtly Kid-Appeal Character. Technically Spectacular was the first multimedia adaptation to go all-in on making him a teenager again, but that was at least designed to be an amalgam of the original Lee/Ditko stuff with Bendis' Ultimate comics.
Edited by Lionheart0 on Oct 7th 2021 at 2:26:31 PM
Remember when Spider-Man refused Iron Man's offer to join the Avengers because he had his own problem to deal with?
Swinging bachelor Peter is a pretty bad image for the character since he's supposed to be a mascot for kids too.
What the hell kind of message does it send? That it's okay to flirt with multiple women and not commit? Marriage makes you boring? Okay Marvel was all in on that.
"The Black Rage makes us strong, because we must resist its temptations every day of our lives or be forever damned!"There was a lot of speculation back in the day, that Joe Q was influenced by his experiences with his ex-wife.
And that writers and editors were living vicariously through Peter's single swinging days.
Making Spider-Man into a harem story is dumb.
"The Black Rage makes us strong, because we must resist its temptations every day of our lives or be forever damned!"I mean just look at BND and all the new love interests that were shoved on, like Carlie Cooper, Michele, Norah, as well as all the bar hopping Peter did that had him kiss random red heads.
"The Black Rage makes us strong, because we must resist its temptations every day of our lives or be forever damned!"

I think the most well-received Spidey runs are the none-Amazing books like Spectacular or Friendly Neighborhood.
Prolly because less controversial reveals and additions.
"I am Alpharius. This is a lie."