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
"you can just say everyone in this run was a Space Phantom and the real people were off doing something else and lose absolutely nothing." Except for the fact it would be an absolute shit way of handling things, satisfying no one, including the people who hate this run.
X-Men X-Pert, my blog where I talk about X-Men comics.I can't see any need to adapt Paul. The only purpose he serves is as an obstacle for Peter and Mary-Jane, and there are plenty of far less radioactive characters who can serve that role and contribute more than that such as Harry Osborn, Felicia Hardy, Liz Allan, Flash Thompson and even John Jameson (again).
Edited by windleopard on Dec 27th 2023 at 12:06:18 PM
Plus the lore he has about being the son of some kind of god in an alternate dimension is pretty stupid and doesn't belong in Spider-Man.
So any adaptation could just make a random guy and name him Paul.
"The Black Rage makes us strong, because we must resist its temptations every day of our lives or be forever damned!"![]()
Yeah but shit like the Inheritors, web of destiny, and Mephisto aren't exactly well received or fitting to Spider-Man being a science fiction hero are they?
Like, just look at how people are groaning when Sony is trying to use the Spider-Totem stuff in Kraven and Madame Web when the animated Spider-verse movie was smart enough to not use the Inheritors or Spider-Totem garbage.
Edited by RedHunter543 on Dec 27th 2023 at 7:27:22 PM
"The Black Rage makes us strong, because we must resist its temptations every day of our lives or be forever damned!"The Spider-Totem stuff was great back when it was introduced in the JMS run and I still love it - I feel like a bit of an outlier for really enjoying the original Totem lore and thinking it was a perfect fit for Spidey. It would've kept being great if they had continued treating it the way JMS did, but instead they tried to ignore because "status quo" and then when Dan Slott brought it back, he completely missed the point of it and retconned it into confusing nonsense that was just an excuse for Inheritors butchering Spider-People while Peter gets jerked off as the specialest, most important Spider. It lost any sense of mystique, spirituality, and intriguing exploration into new ground for the series that it had during JMS' work and got dumbed down embarrassingly; best shown by how Slott retconned the source of it all from being an eerie spider-like Eldritch Abomination that nobody seemed to really understand to a hot girl who is supposedly a god of some kind but is pretty much just a normal woman in appearance.
"Peter gets jerked off as the specialest, most important Spider"
Yeah that's a major reason why I hate the Spider-Totem lore because despite what Slott tries to say otherwise, it does make Peter Parker into the chosen one and robs the appeal of him being a regular guy who just happened upon great power.
There's a reason why the Spider-Verse movies leaned into the idea that anyone could be Spider-Man.
"The Black Rage makes us strong, because we must resist its temptations every day of our lives or be forever damned!"In addition to Carlie, they fixed Silk, Red Hulk, Azazel kinda… Hell, Ben Reilly was regarded as the ultimate Replacement Scrappy for a looooooooong time.
Paul could very much find his place.
The Renew Your Vows story continues in Unlimited: So the mystery thief is from an alternate world, a Peter Parker variant who's Earth is overrun by more animalistic, savage villains. He lost his MJ to Norman and found himself stranded here. He creates a device to take him back to his world, but he pulls in his world's take on the Sinister Six instead
Norman: Don't get me wrong, terrorizing New York on a daily basis is a pretty good gig. But to be able to take away that which gave you so much joy to destroy your happiness, it's just so much more satisfying to the soul.
"The Black Rage makes us strong, because we must resist its temptations every day of our lives or be forever damned!"I'm against killing Paul, but mostly because I think it'd set a bad precedent.
Sure, it would probably be really cathartic, but then the writers and suits would take the wrong message and think this is how you deal with characters people don't like.
Hell, they may have already done just that.
I don't know how Paul should go, but if he does die, I want it to mean something beyond now the person I hate is gone. Death in comics should have a purpose.
I also think Paul (and characters like him) shouldn't have been made in the first place. If your only purpose is to prevent other characters from being happy, then that's not good.
One Strip! One Strip!Carnage issue 2, so Celtus waxes the whole issue about theology and what's the difference between a prophet or a madman. Even talks to some victims about before killing him. Issue ends apparently encountering the original Cletus giving him the answer, an audience.
Flash is also weirdly hesitant on catching Carnage. He still hasn't suited up yet, and keeps watching You Tube videos because the murders aren't being discussed by the normal news for some reason, even talking to one video as it goes on (which we are clearly supposed to view negatively as the guy in the video is shown to recording without pants and is then yelled at by his mom to not lose his job).
And then he goes to Liz Allen for help on what's Carnage's potential motives and she tries to tell him not to get in over his head, of which Flash then asks the female bartender who likes him "Hey do you think I like looking for trouble?"
Dude what does it matter? The alien-empowered serial killer is out there murdering people. Symbiote up and hunt him down already.
Edited by slimcoder on Dec 27th 2023 at 9:27:51 AM
"I am Alpharius. This is a lie."RE: Paul after Wells era:
At this point, doing something substantial with Paul is looking more and more like a Herculean task.
My patience for him has gotten so thin that I wouldn't mind if they just made him a villain so they have a reason to toss him overboard.
Heck, if the next guy wants to undo OMD, make it so that after voluntarily helping his Rabin salt the earth (because Rabin tricked Paul into thinking he'll be able to rule a piece of it), Mephisto approached Paul, promising him dibs on MJ, and Paul (wanting to be in control of something) accepts without hesitation.
Then, we find out that the reason MJ was so cold to Peter is because Mephisto went all Reverse-Flash and whispered her to say all that bad stuff and he whispered to Kamala to sacrifice herself to save MJ. (And to hedge his bets, Paul fed MJ parasites that would make her more submissive to him.)
Works for me! I was going with...Wells' MJ is actually Mephisto in disguise...and Paul is the unknowing dupe. Peter learns the truth...and rescues the real MJ. Paul has a nervous breakdown when he learns the truth...and his last scene is sitting in a padded room humming the name "MJ".
Edited by knightstorm on Dec 27th 2023 at 3:23:25 AM
Paul talk aside... Cody Ziglar's run on Miles continues to be a ton of fun. He leans a bit much into Author Appeal with the anime references, but #14 continues to detail the enormity of Miles' struggles and how he's learning to call in help when he needs it.
The art is continually stellar too. Also, Shift is back! And Kamala too!
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The prophecy I'm still spreading is that Paul has been fucking Norman in MJ's body.
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Jesus, that sounds like an abysmal idea. A story designed solely and entirely to shit on other stories is a terrible story.
Paul finds out there are still some survivors on his world. He goes back to help them out in any way he can, to try to help his world live again. Boom, done, he's gone, the people who hate him never have to see him again, and no one has to sit through a shitty story whose only purpose is to complain about another shitty story. Because I can't think of anything that would be less enjoyable to read than a story dedicated to talking about how bad another story is.
X-Men X-Pert, my blog where I talk about X-Men comics.I agree with
, in-universe Take That, Scrappy! antics always yank me right out of the story. If you can see the writer winking at you through the fourth wall, it doesn’t work.
Honestly I would just kill off Paul immediately or offscreen him and then move on from there.
Don't make him the focus of an entire take-that story. Just get rid of him immediately and be done with it.
I recall Ulysseus from Civil War 2 got a small take that in one story where he's shown to he imprisoned for a split second and that works fine.
Edited by slimcoder on Dec 28th 2023 at 7:22:29 AM
"I am Alpharius. This is a lie."I think Paul would probably not get the same treatment from anybody but Zeb Wells, though.
I'd compare it more to Judas Traveller, where he went from an omniscient spirit to a delusional illusionist once the story changed and time had passed.
I think that's natural, you just can't come off as too spiteful with it.

They already made Paul racist against Mutants.
"The Black Rage makes us strong, because we must resist its temptations every day of our lives or be forever damned!"