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.
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- 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.
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Edited by MacronNotes on Jul 10th 2023 at 10:58:13 AM
Though that also brings into question of what constitutes iconic. Peter and MJ were married for 20 years...and to the general public due to the far more influential games and movies...Peter and MJ are the equivalent of Lois and Superman. The brand itself no longer seems to support the version ASM is trying to push for.
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It's honestly just gotten sad. The desperation to push for a version of Spider-Man that most people don't even seem to want. No other Spider-Man media uses anything similar to current ASM...so it seems even in the company as a whole...OMD Spider-Man is viewed as inferior.
Edited by knightstorm on Nov 1st 2023 at 8:34:47 AM
Yes, Peter and MJ as a pairing are very well known ... as a Will They or Won't They? thing.
Actually...they're well known as a couple. The Spiderverse movies and Insomniac games have them in a stable relationship. ASM is completely off brand by comparison...and as it has far less influence in the general publics perception of the characters...it's largely irrelevant nowadays. The current editorial aren't just fighting a losing battle...it's a war they lost long ago.
Edited by knightstorm on Nov 1st 2023 at 8:44:56 AM
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Spider-Editorial lost any hope of winning that war the very instant that the MCU had its own version of MJ become Peter’s sole and undisputed Love Interest. Probably even sooner when the Raimi films had Pete and MJ as the official OTP or the various cartoons did so. The string of Insomniac Games, Spider-Verse movies, acclaimed elseworlds like Renew Your Vows and Life Story that frequently get cited as “entry level comics”, and stuff accompanying it all just hit the nails harder into that coffin.
The only reason they probably still get away with it is nobody higher up caring enough to really crackdown because they’re behavior hasn’t gotten QUITE obnoxious and blatant enough to prompt anyone higher on the food chain to step in and force a regime change like happened to Dan DiDio and Ike Perlmutter.
While the intent at the time seems to have been the whole Norman faked Harry’s death thing (or, more insultingly, trying to imply that Peter and MJ being married got Harry killed as “proof” that things were better without the marriage), that was stupid and Nick Spencer’s run established that BND Harry was just a clone and said clone’s creation was indeed a part of Mephisto’s wider scheme to try and prevent Peter and MJ from being together and ruining their lives to prevent the birth of Mayday, who may or may not be destined to kill Mephisto.
Looking back, I’ll always laugh that the only way Spencer could make OMD make sense was declaring it was all literally just an attempt to ruin Spider-Man forever by some asshole.
Edited by immortaleditor on Nov 1st 2023 at 9:08:38 AM
1. The Clone Saga despite dragging arguably did get better when Peter and Ben were brothers and the Pete bashing from Marvel ceased (Making him as unhinged as possible).
That said while it would be iffy to still have MJ rejecting Peter for being a clone, but if there was ever a time to separate them, it would have been their daughter's end. It's my take that would be the last legit means to undo everything then as grim as it would be and that passing on that should have been the sign that yeah that sunken ship sailed.
2. As for it not qualifying as iconic? Well Mr. Freeze being a more tragically layered villain was even later and outside comics first when originally he was even less than Captain Cold with his Rogues Family membership.
But that is still seen as worthwhile.
Or as some fans brought up, Alfred. Guy originally entered Bruce's employee after he became Batman and had to work out the secret. Also a bit more comedic.
Being a confidant from day one, plus serving the family as far back as Thomas and Martha Wayne only entered canon following Crisis on Infinite Earths.
Or while it happened earlier for X-Men, Magneto also being more sympathetic, plus not labeling his group in adaptations as Evil (Pryde aside I think).
Heck, the 90s animated series when you really look at it, only a few present cases of villainy with mostly being a reluctant ally.
Take Sanctuary. While drastic, his objective in the episode wasn't evil illegal or wrong. Mutants could join him off Earth or stay if they wished. And when some human astronauts are attacked due to Cortez overstepping boundaries, he gives them shelter to recover and leave safely. Well regarded even if he was mostly a villain for a longer period of time up to that point.
3.
Yeah they should have just rebooted them from the start, but you could avoid further confusion if the Pocket Universe was off-limits (via hard to travel between) and not used in Superman or at least not impacting his story.
Spencer was very clearly trying to correct as much of the damage editorial made as he was feasibly allowed to, retconning away Sins Past was honestly more than I genuinely expected him to get away with. It's a valiant effort to be sure... and then of course Zeb came around to fuck it all up.
Disney100 Marathon | DreamWorks MarathonI grew up reading classic comics and watching the 90's show, and I remember playing the PS 1 Spider-Man game and being a little confused as to how MJ knew Peter's real name in the Venom scenario ("Peter Parker! Just get me out of here now!"). But it was all cleared up for me in the character profiles section
where MJ was said to be married to him.
Not quite - May, during a doctor's physical, says she feels like "a spry young sixty year old" implying she's quite a bit older than that.
edit: also i want to dispute ASM 400 being the only good use of Aunt May in 616. It is nice as an ending for her, but sort of undercut by the fact that it is just her final moments
A better use of her was JMS' run, with Aunt May learning Peter's identity and becoming his conversation. "The Conversation" in particular is a really good and heartfelt issue, such that Bendis pretty much ripped off for "The Talk" in Ultimate Spider-man.
Edited by Saiga on Nov 2nd 2023 at 6:32:26 AM
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Yeah, it’s sad that Zeb’s had his reputation destroyed by this run. Dude showed a fair bit of promise in years prior. Hellions, as you mentioned, was one of the best books in the Krakoa Era of X-Men, an era that’s already quite good itself. He also had a pretty damn good run on New Mutants. He can write good comics when given the right tools…
But then again, he also has written a lot of stuff like Venom: Dark Origin before this, so his work has always been kinda hit and miss.
Thinking of hit-and-miss, what's the view on the current Venom and Carnage runs, and the whole Summer of Symbiotes thing?
I've enjoyed Ewing's Venom, but imo it's never hit the same heights as his Immortal Hulk or X-Men Red work, possibly because of the split teams and parallel protagonists.
I've also enjoyed bits of Ram V's Carnage, and Paknadel's stuff has been pretty good, but didn't entirely buy into the whole "Carnage ascends to godhood" arc.
...and I've pretty much skipped the two big crossovers. Did I miss much?
Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 2nd 2023 at 3:39:37 PM
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Yep. Ah, Shed. Good times.
Sometimes a writer being good on one book doesn't transfer to another book.
For spider example, Spencer is a decent spider-writer when he's not getting up his own butt with arc plot. But his Captain America run, charitably speaking, is not well regarded.
Forever liveblogging the AvengersEwing’s Venom is… eh. I hate time travel stuff with a passion so I’m biased against it, but ignoring that it’s got a lot of really cool ideas, but is hobbled by the fact that Ewing isn’t the sole writer; the Dylan issues aren’t bad but they’re REALLY slow and aimless and seem to do nothing but interrupt the much more interesting Eddie issues. But beyond that, it’s okay. Its a very inaccessible run that pretty much requires you to be fully aware of the characters’ entire histories to work, so definitely not for beginners; that’s not a negative or positive in my view, but it’s something to be aware of.
I would also say it suffers from what the Venom book has suffered from ever since Donny Cates’ run, which is that they’re using Eddie for stories that would probably work much better for Flash for the sake of synergy.
The Shed came out around the time of the New 52, and the double whammy of “Curt Connors kills his only remaining family, who is a a child, and tosses half his character concept to become a tortured man trapped in the Lizard’s body” and “Mr. Freeze never knew Nora, she’s just a random frozen patient he fabricated a relationship with because he’s violently insane” that caused me to throw up my hands, go “crap, it’s happening everywhere” and leave superhero comics in general for a few years.
There was a real theme of “let’s reinterpret everything to be as shockingly depraved as possible” going though comics at that time that didn’t age well at all.

Its disturbingly reminiscent of how Legion of Superheroes was destroyed as a franchise by becoming a mess of pocket universes and Time Trapper schemes after Crisis, with them not being willing to let go of Superboy and do a full reboot like the rest of DC was doing and instead creating arbitrary, cascading retcons and continuity resets to try and have their cake and eat it too.
Edited by immortaleditor on Nov 1st 2023 at 8:28:06 AM