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
There is something also to note about Character Development versus Character Derailment.
A lot of people want to make villains into heroes and heroes into villains.
And it's rarely a good idea to go all the way for either.
Doctor Connors eating his own son is shocking but it doesn't leave anywhere for the character to go.
Edited by CharlesPhipps on Nov 2nd 2023 at 8:00:40 AM
Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.
...But left plenty of places for the Lizard to go that Slott and other writers didn't bother to follow up on. And that's not making the hero into the villain anyway, because the Lizard was always a villain.
Also, he didn't eat his son. He just killed him. I mean, that's still horrible by every measure, but let's at least be honest about what happened.
Edited by Dracoblade on Nov 2nd 2023 at 8:57:23 AM
Shed was the kind of story that, even if it was ridiculously dark, I could actually maybe see working… if it were, like, the last Lizard story ever and treated as a major Wham Episode that pushes the series in a new direction. Once Lizard murdered Billy, that was it for him as a character and for Curt. The worst nightmare that Curt always feared came true and Lizard finally achieved his goal of taking over their body but it’s a Pyrrhic Victory at best because he now has the capacity to understand how evil and wrong what he did is and is consumed with guilt.
It’s actually not a completely awful conclusion for the character. Dark and depressing and tragic, yeah, but it could’ve worked if written a tad more tastefully, not jammed into the middle of the already ridiculously bleak OMD/BND period where Spidey’s stories were just nonstop misery, and if they had either killed Lizard off afterwards or committed to having Billy stay dead and Curt atoning in the Lizard body (basically, his ending from before fucking Dead No More ruined it and a bunch of other sendoffs with more clone bullshit).
No, it's making a Tragic Villain into a Complete Monster. There's no actual personality for the Lizard after that and no real reason not to put him down because, of course, he's a comic book character and has Joker Immunity.
Or to put it differently.
"Stegron and the Lizard are the same character but Stegron is evil and has no moral issues with being a monster. Stegron is thus utterly boring."
Same with Hydro Man and Sandman, Morbius is and Morlun
Edited by CharlesPhipps on Nov 2nd 2023 at 10:21:00 AM
Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.![]()
Nah, Curt atoning in Lizard's body was a total cop-out. I wanted to see more of the Lizard struggling with the human inside him, and exploring why people were willingly going to him, even working for him, because he turned off their human morality. It was a great premise that was squandered.
Lizard absolutely had a personality after that — more of a personality, in fact, as beforehand he would alternate between mindless monster or generic bad guy. And yes, there is a reason to bring back Conners, because he's a good man and spider-Man would refuse to give up on him.
Lizard did have moral issues with being a bad guy, and was therefore interesting. It was the Jekyl/Hyde paradigm reversed. The "nowhere to go" thing is a load of nonsense.
Edited by Dracoblade on Nov 2nd 2023 at 10:31:02 AM
Sorry to double post, but there's a video from Casualty Comics I wanted to talk about:
In these issues of Ultimate Spider-Man, what was supposed to be a lighthearted, hilarious "Freaky Friday" Flip become much less hilarious the closer you look.
It's also mentioned that Bendis, the writer of the comic, adapted this storyline for the Ultimate Spider-Man show, where it worked much better because it excised most of the creepy sex stuff.
Edited by Dracoblade on Nov 3rd 2023 at 12:15:41 PM
Given that when Bendis wrote it alone for the tv show as said without any possible input from Spider-Editorial, all the creepy stuff was gone and it was actually somewhat entertaining, I’m going to be charitable for once and say it was entirely on Nick Lowe.
Venom: Dark Origin SUCKS. Not only is it a badly written and edgy mess with ridiculous and weird-looking art, but it basically tries to completely rewrite Eddie’s backstory and history in godawful ways. This is the mini that introduced Eddie’s long lost sister for the record. An idea so stupid Donny Cates’ only recourse was to literally declare it a hallucination.
Edited by immortaleditor on Nov 3rd 2023 at 5:43:35 AM
Tbh well Bendis has always been hit and miss for big heroes. He's always been a fantastic spider-man writer.
It's just editorial has a way of fucking him over at times (like that time he tried writing an out a future writer could use for one more day.... That Quesada subsequently overrode)
"That's right mortal. By channeling my divine rage into power, I have forged a new instrument in which to destroy you."![]()
![]()
Eh, I wouldn't be so quick to put it on Lowe for those reasons. The cartoon adaptation came much later, with the benefit of hindsight and reception to the original plotline. And was also in a medium that wouldn't really allow that kind of joke to begin with.
Oh so it's still gross actually
Edited by Saiga on Nov 3rd 2023 at 5:57:48 AM
Ultimate Wolverine is a pedophile into red heads.
So I was legit afraid for MJ in this scenario. This is one of those Ultimate storylines that I missed out on as a kid so reading it as an adult came with that understanding.
Edited by RedHunter543 on Nov 3rd 2023 at 8:59:37 PM
"The Black Rage makes us strong, because we must resist its temptations every day of our lives or be forever damned!"To this day Ultimate Wolverine is a prime example of how shit the OG Ultimate Universe could be outside of Spider-Man and Hickman. How do you take one of the best and coolest X-Men, easily the most famous and popular one, and turn him into a creep who does shit like try to have sex with teenagers, try to murder people who get between him and his raping, and approves of incest.
Where did they get that from. I know a lot of ultimate stuff is exaggerating unfairly 616 stuff like Pym. But where did Wolverine is a creep come from. Hasn't he always been pretty protective of the younger x men characters.
"That's right mortal. By channeling my divine rage into power, I have forged a new instrument in which to destroy you."
Logan’s absolutely NOT a creep. He drinks “respect women” juice as much as he does beer and, brother, he’s an alcoholic. He just also happens to be a Kavorka Man who happily sleeps with any gal who’s down to bang. And A LOT of gals are down to hang with him.
![]()
I THINK Logan being a creep was some kind of hideous garbling of the dumb Logan/Scott/Jean love triangle. Millar included that stupid triangle without considering the fact that his version of Jean was still a teenager (not that she looked or acted like it) when she met Logan, in contrast to 616 where she was an adult by the time he joined the team and especially by the time they started suggesting there was an attraction between the two. It just kinda escalated out of control from there. That and Ultimate Wolverine was a huge asshole in general, but nearly everyone in Ultimate X-Men was one.
Edited by immortaleditor on Nov 3rd 2023 at 6:39:16 AM
Once we move away from the Spider-Man crossovers, Logan's also off-topic for this thread.
We have a dedicated X-Men
thread where he can be discussed.

Ya know if I could do a Venomverse I would have it revolve around Eddie bonding with a family of the Parker's that only knew him as a villain. With Eddie dealing with the hardship that most of his alternate selves are evil.
And the main conflict would center on a version of Spider's Shadow Peter that never separated from Peter. So a battle between Venom Prime vs the Uber Venom.
"I am Alpharius. This is a lie."