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
I personally enjoyed the Cabal stuff.
Where Norman is making an alliance of evil with the likes of Doctor Doom, Loki, Namor, Emma Frost, and the Hood.
It's like a supervillain version of the Illuminati.
"The Black Rage makes us strong, because we must resist its temptations every day of our lives or be forever damned!"Did they too fail at everything and make things worse for themselves? Like the Illuminati?
Forever liveblogging the AvengersThey are supervillains, of course their alliance of evil just makes things worse for themselves.
Norman just didn't have what it took to keep a group like that together. Best case scenario was that he could keep an alliance of convenience with them but not even that worked out.
"The Black Rage makes us strong, because we must resist its temptations every day of our lives or be forever damned!"The whole bring back Kraven plotline is a perfect symptom of Editorial's obsession with the past, and inability to actually do anything interesting with it.
Kraven had a good story in the 80s and now want him back. So what are they going to DO with him now? Doesn't matter because they have him back.
Just look at how they handled Harry in BND. They want Peter to be back in those days where he's hanging out with friends in clubs and shit, but they forgot to actually give Peter and Harry an interesting dynamic that makes the audience invested in them being friends.
"The Black Rage makes us strong, because we must resist its temptations every day of our lives or be forever damned!"I know this gets corrected, but Superior Spider Man is the first time in my life I've been genuinely repulsed by something in a comic book. Can't believe they went all the way with Otto purging Peter from his head.
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Extremely well said.
Yeah, Superior is… something else. You can tell why it’s so controversial.
My take on it is that Otto should’ve died in Dying Wish (which should’ve been his Last Hunt; they had built up to him dying from his injuries for years by that point) and Peter should’ve gone down the path of becoming Superior Spider-Man all by himself. That or just had Otto become a Superior Spider-Man figure in an entirely different way. As is with the whole body swap aspect, it’s just weird and uncomfortable and creepy on a lot of levels, not to mention it becomes something that’s blatantly going to be undone quickly and generally taints the actually decent premises of both a darker, horror-themed Spider-Man and a supervillain trying to become a hero while still using villainous methods.
More than that, Superior is a real schizophrenic beast. It’s got some of Slott’s best writing, some interesting exploration of the idea of villain redemption arcs, some really cool storyline ideas, and was at least a genuine effort to push a badly-stagnating series into a new direction rather than just trying to pretend like it’s still the 70s. But it’s also got some of Slott’s worst writing, brings a ton of his writing flaws into sharp relief, began the modern trend of editorial and their cronies focusing on making rage bait instead of good stories, and dragged on FAR too long, being essentially a five issue arc at best stretched out into a long status quo. Which was never going to work well.
Edited by immortaleditor on Oct 24th 2023 at 5:55:39 AM
I don't care much for 616 Peter, so Otto replacing him was fine for me after the initial issues with MJ of course.
At least Dan Slott redeemed himself with Renew Your Vows.
And that comic had Spider-Man murdering Doc Ock in cold blood. That felt like a self-deprecation from Slott.
"The Black Rage makes us strong, because we must resist its temptations every day of our lives or be forever damned!"Far as I’m aware/remember he never shows up in Renew Your Vows (the mini or the ongoing) after that. And given the way the rest of the Sinister Six talked about during the above-mentioned scene, I just kinda assumed he dies offscreen from his mortal wounds. But also it’s been awhile since I read Renew Your Vows so I may be forgetting. I need to reread it, it’s so good.
Edited by immortaleditor on Oct 24th 2023 at 8:50:01 AM
Another Spider-Man Unlimited issue today.
We get a glimpse of the "War of the Cosmic Spideys" - one with a cosmic cube, the other with the Infinity Gauntlet. Insomniac Spidey is more concerned that he doesn't see any worlds where Peter gets to settle down with kids, though...
Which feels a little pointed.
After that, they finally catch up with the 616 Spot... just as one of his alternates turns the tables on him, draining his powers and trying to seize control of the Spot's plan.
Off screen groan of pain is often used to paper over a “Aw geez did that guy die?”
It gets used a lot in cartoons by having a person who just exploded or whatever shout “I’m okay!” from off screen
Invader Zim the show added in some off screen dialogue to appease the Nick censors who grumpily told them to stop killing animated children
Forever liveblogging the AvengersThe idea of Spider-Man villains playing Yu-Gi-Oh in their off hours with each other makes me laugh.
Electro: And now I play electric virus! ELIMINATING THE LAST OF YOUR LIFE POINTS!
Shocker: You idiot, we're playing rummy.
"The Black Rage makes us strong, because we must resist its temptations every day of our lives or be forever damned!"Kraven's best stuff was dealing with Squirrel Girl and struggling with the fact that he doesn't have any way of dying so his "man versus beast" pretensions don't mean anything. So Squirrel Girl says that he has to find something else to define himself by. It also had really good Spider-Man versus Kraven encounters where Peter refuses to believe that Kraven has reformed while the latter agrees as well, saying he's going to be eventually fall off the wagon because he only only acts like a better person around Doreen. He even talks a bit about how an awful family man he was.
It's the most character development he ever had.
Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.

On Norman Osborn having no good stories since coming back: I really enjoyed the "Osborn" mini by De Connick and Rios. Admittedly, part of that is because of the art. Emma Rios is my absolute favourite artist. That mini also introduced June Covington, and she was kinda delightfully fucked up there. But yeah, that mini was really good. One of KSD's earlier works at Marvel.
"Riri’s still around but just kinda there and has nothing in particular going for her. I haven’t seen a single person who is seriously a big fan of her." I really liked Riri. Eve Ewing's solo with her was great, and she was generally cool in Champions.
"Throw him into the sun and move the fuck on." Wasn't that literally how Kelly Thompson ended her Purple Man arc in her JJ run? Captain Marvel threw him into the sun after he used his own power to kill himself?
X-Men X-Pert, my blog where I talk about X-Men comics.