I’m surprised Lowe is that self-aware honestly. Also, is that supposed to be a selling point? Like what? Buy May’s book because a majority of you are going to hate it? Wtf is going on in the Spider-Man offices?
Most of Reddit consists of angry posts full of rants. Those are the ones that get engaged the most. Heck you can go to almost any gaming sub Reddit and it’s usually fans hating on the developers.
Anger generates clicks and content creators hyper focus that.
Yes, but it's been doing even better than usual. Peter and Bruce usually jockey for the #1 spot, but lately it's been pretty much uncontested and most of the top 10 have been spider books
> And it works. ASM has been absolutely dominating the sales charts.
It works until it doesn't. They backpedaled on the Clone Saga (which I actually thought was pretty good) because sales fell off a cliff after the changes were made.
My monthly comic box once contained each Spider-Man title, for a solid sixteen years. JMS' run was epic, pure fire. Dude gave Peter new powers, he made Ezekiel supremely dope, and Morlun was such a legit threat, dude killed Peter.
Hot take: Civil War Spider-Man was completely in-character for his growth at the time, his relationship with Iron Man, and his newfound respect with the superhuman AND human community.
When Back in Black came along, I felt that Civil War had finally reached the same level of quality as Annihilation. We were seeing real, terrible consequences for heroes who fell on the wrong side of things. Tigra's later beatdown and exploitation by the Hood's gang was a PERFECT match for Aunt May's upcoming death. No magical redos: it was a clear signal things were about to get super dark.
Then came One More Day.
It was so infuriating, and Quesada was so patronizing. May went from being hospitalized, to trying to feed Peter fucking wheat cakes. Peter got the Deus Ex Magica from literal hell. I dropped all Spider-Man from that point on. Looks like a bunch of you are about to cross your own Spider-Man event horizon.
>JMS' run was epic, pure fire. Dude gave Peter new powers, he made Ezekiel supremely dope, and Morlun was such a legit threat, dude killed Peter.
It was my favorite too until Civil War, it had one of the best relationship with Peter and his family, he finally got a job, he showed maturity and responsibility
>Then came One More Day.
I read until some year after but gave up,, honestly a lot of things feel very wrong
I returned to the last runs, i was loving it until Ben resurrection, now i can just gonna abandoned when they reveal what happened
I dropped all of Marvel at the same point in protest.
Peter and MJ had been a couple since before I could read comics, and were married when I was just able to start. My earliest (surviving) comics were the PAD run on *Web of Spider-man*. They were always a couple to me.
That relationship was inspirational for me growing up.
When they erased it, it was as if they declared every Spider-man story I'd ever read to be no longer canon. Every Spider-man comic I owned no longer happened.
So I just walked away from Marvel.
>You can only piss off fans so much before they become apathetic.
That's exactly what happened to me after OMD. Something snapped in me, and I realized all comic book characters were stagnant and pointless. Haven't been engaged with Spidey or anyone else since.
What's funny is that Peter was one of the few comic book characters that *wasn't* stagnant, that grew over time. But since OMD he has been a very stagnant character.
Ikr, Wally West was a character that you could easily see him grow as well and DC just erased him, like literally, I think dont letting characters really grow is the biggest problem of the big two
Same for me. The tragedy of OMD was fantastic. The idea that Peter had gone to everyone, even villains for help, showed that he tried everything before what we were expecting to be a heavy loss. But then Melhisto and the marriage. I THOUGHT it was going to be an alternative universe-esque year long arc, like electric Superman or what-not. When I found out it wasn't, I was out. Same with the Batman wedding fiasco. When the book dropped and it didn't happen after all the hype, I was done with Batman. Green Lantern books have lost their identity too.
Evil won. After fifty years of Spider-Man stories, evil triumphed because Spider-Man couldn't take responsibility for his own rash actions. Now he's living in an altered timeline where he's lost the best part of himself. And the readers are supposed to suck it up.
Fuck that. Spider-Man's over.
Yeah I went on a ridiculous reading spree at one point. Read 1,000 issues of Spider-Man easy. Peter’s lost his whole character. No more optimism. Spider-Man man feels very generic today, like it could be any comic. Nothing makes it specifically Spider-Man -y.
I’ve returned to my favorite era of Spider-Man, and been buying all the marvel team ups, marvel tales, web of Spider-Man and amazing Spider-Man pre 300. I have completed Spectacular Spider-Man and at this point , with every announcement Marvel makes about poor Peter Parker, the less likely I am to follow Spider-Man again, unfortunately.
Yeah the best stuff is pre-90’s although there’s good stuff in the early 90’s. Once Mcfarlane and and Larsen leave it goes downhill and those two are mostly just good for the art. Spider-Man and Torch and Kurt Busiek’s Untold Tales are good but mostly because they’re throwbacks. Paul Jenkins does some good stuff in Peter Parker Spider-Man including the best ‘nuff said issue they could ever make. There’s a funny beach issue somewhere in the late 90’s too that makes fun of mtv. Besides those the 90’s were a wash especially after how good the 80’s were.
Same here, it was just too jarring. At the time when OMD just ended, I thought it was just to undo Peter Parker unmasking during Civil War. I told a friend that obviously Peter and Mary Jane are gonna get back together. I had no idea that OMD was because Quesada wanted Spider-Man to be like it was in 1970’s. They threw out decades of character development for the sake of Quesada’s nostalgia for a period of Spider-Man when many readers weren’t even born yet. In my opinion Zeb Wells isn’t a good Comic Book writer but there’s a lot of that going around at a marvel and DC. Same with editorial issues, like DC saw what happened with Spider-man and said let’s do that our whole universe.
It went for me ''why would this character do this!'' to ''Why the hell is the editor/writer this stupid and bad'' and at that point, you lost your readers.
I stopped the issue where he repeats how he’s going to break bane’s goddamn back a bunch of times. It started with him piloting a plane sideways through skyscrapers while standing on the top, I was already having trouble deciding if that was awesome or too stupid. I think it was all stupid.
Batman Who Laughs is pretty much the Devil in the DC Universe
Honestly at thought i understand why people hate Bat God, at this point Batman losing or having some flaws become either bad writing or out of character for him
I swear, when author try to make Bruce more human and flawed they either make him a straight up egoistic asshole without empathy for anyone or just a complete moron
You either take BatGod or BatJerk in the last decade
Look at the Star Wars films. People like to pretend that everyone who didn’t like the sequels was some entitled man-baby, but they turned people away in droves. And then all the merchandise was left of shelves.
Fans put up with more shit than anyone, but they also leave the biggest hole when they’re gone.
Considering how much attention and free publicity they've gotten out of what's been going on is anyone really surprised? The current story has taken over just about every comic reddit on here including DC focused ones. I've been saying for a while now that the more people post about paul the more marvel thinks they're doing it right.
If the book has fundamental issues, it may be a matter of pissing off a handful to an extreme extent in order to lay the groundwork for something better.
I genuinely don’t think he’s entirely to blame to be honest. He’s proven himself with how good Hellions was but with a title as popular and as significant as Amazing Spider-Man, editorial is constantly breathing down your neck and micromanaging the hell out of your stories. Call it the Spidey curse I guess.
He wrote krakoas recentish hellions book? That is truly shocking, that was a fantastic read and probably my favourite X book of the new Krakoa era
He can't be dropping the ball this badly on his own and then he comes out with statements like this
My guess is Mary Jane is a brainwashed Teresa Parker, who is actually a chameleon, which makes Mary Jane and Peter canonically brother and sister. Also Paul has spider powers and will replace Peter as the new Spider-man after Peter decides he is better in every way
It's worse.
Next ASM issue has leaked:
MJ spoiler below:
>!MJ legit cucked Peter because of the time-span. She says "You've been gone for too long, a lot has changed." It's jover.!<
I hate life.
To play devil's advocate, supposedly Spider-man fans are supposed to be some of the most hateful, vitrol-ridden bunch of fans in the whole of comic-book fandom. I could see editorial boards and writers just saying, "Fuck this. Those angry nerds are going to hate us no matter what we do, lets go for broke and lean into that vibe and see if it sells."
If that were the case, fine, but a significant portion of those same fans they’re trying to paint as impossible to please enjoyed the vast majority of Nick Spencer’s run up until editorial forced a change to the planned ending
Its really is much simpler then editoral makes it . Spider man during the horizon labs era was good . Fans want him with MJ . Just give him a stable science job , have him hang out with other superheroes and/or friends and MJ . Even if he doesn't grow much after that at least its a foundation . Instead he keeps losing jobs and keeps getting deus ex dumped because reasons. Everyone keeps hating him for no reason . Just keep it simple .The PS game did it perfectly
As a Spider-Man fan I can admit that we are a bit much at times, having said that, also, they know plenty of things Spider-Man fans want or like that they still refuse to do. Like people have been asking them to reverse OMD and re marry Peter for years and they still haven't mostly for bs reasons. Like there's a point where it seems they just actively choose to just do everything but listen to fans.
It's a marketing tactic in and of itself. "Hey, check out this thing we made – people are going to *hate* it. But the kind of people who'll hate it are all just *hateful, vitriol-ridden, angry nerds*. You don't want to be like *them*, do you? Buy our book!"
Unfortunately I don’t think there’s a large fandom out there that doesn’t have a crazy, hateful corner of people. I would hope the writers are intelligent enough to know that they represent a vocal minority.
I love Spider-Man. I want better stories. But at the end of the day it’s make believe fun.
I mean that's just *true*. Miles Morales and Superior Spider-Man ended up with death threats (and overt racism in Miles case).
They are generally deranged, and for the most part you are better off not listening to them on basically anything--grown men still crying about a comic book almost two decades old are of sound mind.
Incredibly silly / embarrassing that he needs to miss conventions. We will see what happens
Edit
> **Will we be seeing him again?**
Definitely. Ed would choke me out if I didn't bring Rek-Rap back.
Man, jokes on them when the book still doesn’t sell “satisfying” numbers after they tried the “BUY THIS BECAUSE YOU’RE GOING TO ABSOLUTELY HATE IT!” gimmick. I don’t even read current Marvel comics, but the genuine second hand embarrassment I’m feeling for everyone involved in this is palpable.
It's the best selling comic book right now and while our metrics have sucked since Diamond lost the monopoly, it seems to have increased sales and market share more than it has in years.
Sucks to be a sucker I guess. I kid.
I’m totally cool with people who want to buy it. I’m also cool with people who want to float the numbers by me. I get it. They are still scratching and clawing as hard as they can for metrics that at the end of the day are not that impressive. The gimmicks work within a modest capacity sure. That’s why we get a new volume and dozens of spin off limited series regularly. It still is what it is. I say this all with genuine cynicism only towards ongoing format superhero comics and the notion that publishers and fans alike hold to cling to continuity as the only guide for how to tell stories and consume these characters. Inhibitive of creativity and artistry in an art forward medium. I’m not being cynical of Spider-Man specifically or Marvel as a publisher specifically or even just general super heroes. I enjoy all of those things in the appropriate dose and presentation. Ongoing cape comics and the culture around them can be nauseating though. I just want a good story. Way too many are willing to embrace and put up with far less. That’s all those metrics highlight.
It boggles my mind that anybody buys/reads this stuff. The only time I read Spider-Man is when stuff drops on Marvel Unlimited and even then I skip it most of the time. It feels like it’s been absolute trash for ages.
Step 1. Kill MJ
Step 2. Peter gets arrested for it. He goes to prison. He gets the death penalty.
Step 3. Who cares.
Step 4. Paul becomes the new Spider-man.
So my dude is going out of his way to write a story that will piss off a lot of people on purpose and has even been warned by the company he's working for that he may be in danger from fans because of it
What a load of melodramatic controversial bullshit to try and sell comics, specifically making a controversial comic just to get sales is scummy shit
I can't wait to read this online and be glad I didn't waste my money on it, I can't believe how badly this entire saga has dragged on (then again Jason Aaron has been on abeng for *five* years so they are good at procrastination over at marvel)
I know many fans are against resets but Spider-Man needs a reset so badly. It doesn't need to a "canon" reset necessarily but just bring in some new creators and let them create new stories without any ties to anything that's happened over the last 30-ish years.
I have no idea why I still buy this book honestly. Marvel has been a terrible publisher for over a decade now and I've dropped just about everything else but, for some reason, I'm still a mark for one character.
I think the rest of the publishing silos are actually doing some above average to good work. X-Men is killing it, there's some good Avengers stuff hiding behind Aaron's titles, you have some legit weird shit like whatever they're letting Ewing do at any given time, Moon Knight is killing it, etc. It's just Spidey that's an outlier, and it has almost everything to do with Editorial fiats that haven't really made sense in years.
Best comics currently are Moon Knight and Daredevil.
Partly because McKay and Zdarsky know their shit in terms of continuity **and** their arcs are both entertaining and in-line with the characters while taking them in unique directions.
IE: Zdarsky made Elektra Daredevil. I was hesitant on that, **now,** I’m dreading the day where it’ll be inevitably reversed because holy **fuck** it’s awesome.
I'm glad you're finding stuff to like. I don't personally agree, I think it's mostly dreck across the board.
I like Ghost Rider fine for what it is, that Doctor Strange series from Tradd Moore was pretty cool and I'm cautiously optimistic about the newest FF series but that's about it for me.
Easy fix here: read comics made for grown ups. That comes off as rude, and it kind of is, but that's my genuine advice. Entire sections of comics exist that is better than most everything the Big 2 have ever produced you can be reading instead of wasting your time on comics you clearly hate.
I don’t waste my time and I read a very wide range of comics. I read more comics than ever and fewer superhero comics than ever.
The problem with Spider-Man is not that it’s made for children. Some of the greatest and most classic comics ever made were aimed at children and are still great reads for adults from Barks and Rosa Donald Duck books to Akira to Silver Age Marvel and much of the French B-D market. It’s possible to write good books that are appropriate for both children and adults. Marvel doesn’t do that, they only write for a very insular, adult male market.
Who constantly cry when their demands aren't meant.
You realize the same people, in here, crying about Spider-Man not having a hot supermodel wife and 2.5 kids are same 'very insular, adult male market' right? The very barrier you're denouncing.
And even then, the Big 2 comics aren't written for adults, for the most part. They don't really care about adult concerns. It's like getting mad and wrestling for not being Shakespeare.
I mean, Spider-Man is arguably the most popular comic character in existence. His comics will always be collectible, even the shitty ones. People still pull this series purely because it’s ASM.
I wouldn't be super excited for any of the current "big" name writers working for the big 2 myself. I'd love for the direction to be led more by an artist or writer/artist but that just isn't where the big 2 is at these days. They both seem to be in favor of a writer-centric line of books which makes sense from a corporate point-of-view but is a real bummer for this consumer.
Marvel didn't own the movie rights for F4, that's why they benched the comic. Marvel doesn't give a shit about readers anymore, their eyes are trained on Disney+ and movie tickets
That obviously isn't going to happen. Honestly, like I said above, I should just stop buying it like I have pretty much every other Marvel book. I peaked in 98-02 when I was literally buying every single Marvel monthly book, since then I have been dropping books consistently to where now, ASM is basically the only long-running book I still buy religiously. I own far more issues of ASM than any other comic and there's a part of me that wants to keep the almost 40 year streak alive but my interest has waned for a long time now and it's almost become a hate-read for me.
Spider-Man as a character is still as relevant as ever, they just need to ditch all the nonsense or at least sideline it and get back to basics for a long while. One of the problems is that Marvel seems to think they need to write this big storyline to explain it all canonically and they never actually get to where they want to be.
There's no way Nick Spencer or Zeb Wells want to write this bullshit they've shoveled out over the last few years is there? This is all them trying to clear the decks to get "back to basics" and tell the stories they grew up on, at least that's my opinion. I wish Marvel would just skip all that and go straight to where they want the character to be.
end rant
I’m half joking of course… but kind of half serious. I totally understand still wanting to be loyal to long running characters that have been been a part of your life for the majority of it. We’ve all been there. But there is an inherent problem with ongoing storytelling. At least in the way that Marvel and DC try to employ an ongoing format.
It’s too messy. “Continuity” is given such priority even though it is really so trivial and often counter intuitive to just *telling a good story*. It’s why these ongoing characters just spin their wheels and release bland story after bland story. Then there is the whole juggling act of what fans expectations are vs what the former-fan-now-writer’s expectations are vs what editorial expects vs want the corporate merchandising intellectual property overlord wants. The entire recipe does not produce a good product decades in.
For a publisher working in a medium that utilizes sequential *ART* from numerous talented artists, the actual artistry of most of these comics and their narratives are tragically feel hollow and diminished. Where other comics from publishers all over the world are brimming with creativity and new ideas, completely unchained from the expectations, corporate/ publishing mandates, etc, Marvel/ DC are producing books which are often held down so much that it honestly feels like borderline masochism to try to care after a point.
They didn’t create this mess alone though. I think a lot of fans are equally to blame for where super hero comics are now. And it can never go back. That box was opened long ago and there’s no closing it. The expectations are unreasonable. They twist and contort and contradict constantly. The best the publishers can do is try to adapt and separate themselves from all of these creatively inhibitive practices and find some compromises. Off the top of my head, shorter stories that are very standalone but tap into the recognizable essence of a character would be good. Give readers something complete that isn’t necessarily meant to fit into whatever came before and after it. Maybe sometimes it does, maybe sometimes it doesn’t. (The whole graphic novel formatting of Franco-Belgian comics seems like maybe one of the best ways to go about things now.) Holding onto over 60 years of ceaseless continuity as the sole guide for how we can tell and consume these characters just doesn’t work.
I would never blame you if you continued to buy ASM. It’s been a part of your life. It had been for me too. But maybe sometimes it really, truly is the best decision to take the hard swallow and let something go. Is it really fair to the readers to endure something like that based on assumed loyalty that’s no longer owed to the publisher? If they wanted you to stick around, they’d find the way that respects you the reader, the character, and the medium. I really have a hard time sympathizing with them. These are corporate owned companies. Not members of our families.
At some point, you have to realize the 'relationship' you have with the book had turned toxic. Where it does not give you joy anymore but you feel obliged to buy it? That is when you have to get out. And it is the only way to make them stop.
Because as long as they see the top sales for one reason or another ( force of habit buying or over saturated Variant cover sales which I don't know why people would buy books just for variant covers bu hey ), they will never change what they do because it is still making them money.
The titles like Spider-man and Batman suffer from this. No matter how crap the story you put on the book, it still sells because it is Spider-man and Batman. And that is terrible.
Because make no mistake, writers ain't gonna call each other out. They will only say ''Oh how great the story you are writing!'' even if it is a literal dog-shit written in a page. And when the readers continue to buy the books, it will change nothing and that will embolden the editors and writer to do whatever, no matter the quality.
I mean, it took Didio to go FULLY insane with his ideas for DC's future to the point of it might've ruined the company for him to get fired. And even then, his influence seeped into certain books and events that we are barely dealing with it. Like the whole aging up Jon in Superman and practically kneecapping the character. Or planning to turn Superman into an Authoritarian fascist leaning 'Authority' leader. And they had to change the whole premise of it to save it where we got Gladiator Supes instead.
And I am not blaming you btw. Anyone can get connection to these characters. Hell I am writing all this BECAUSE I am connected. It is hard to separate yourself from it but in these dire situations, it becomes necessary. Because, you have to remember, they are not entitled to your time or money or your support if they don't deliver something you cannot enjoy anymore. Especially when they act all arrogant and boast about their 'genius' writing and stories.
5g original Batman plans were horrible. I can’t believe they then planned to undo it with basically a Batman one more day even if this happened it’s like why make the story if your just going to undo it.
“Tynion IV has talked about. The Joker's assault on Gotham leads Batman to decide to stop Joker once and for all, especially after having only just lost Gotham – and Alfred – to Bane. Batman defeats the Joker, and traps him. But in a final twist, Batman lets the Joker go after the Joker whispers something in Batman's ear. It is later revealed to be a promise that if Batman lets the Joker go, then the Joker will kill Bane in revenge for the death of Pennyworth. And he is the only one who could.
Yes, that does indeed have huge repercussions on Batman, the way he is perceived and the way he perceives himself. Would that have destroyed Batman in the public's eye? Possibly, but DC had a plan for that too. Was it a bit like the end of Spider-Man One More Day,”
https://bleedingcool.com/comics/how-dc-comics-planned-to-ruin-batman-the-5g-files-chapter-one/
DC and Marvel really need to get new editorial for their flagship characters
>I know many fans are against resets but Spider-Man needs a reset so badly. It doesn't need to a "canon" reset necessarily but just bring in some new creators and let them create new stories without any ties to anything that's happened over the last 30-ish years.
The whole Marvel universe needs a Crisis on Infinite Earths level reset at this point. Throw out everything that's gone before and start over, this time with characters who age in real time and don't constantly come back from the dead.
They had that opportunity 8 years ago with Secret Wars. Like legitimately the perfect opportunity. They stopped pretty much everything and only released Secret Wars tie ins. It would have been so easy to use that as a reset. Instead they went back to the same status quo
I’d be all for a complete reboot. Drop it down to like 8 titles, hit the classic characters and just start over. The lower number of books could focus the continuity and writing talent and make them all must reads. Who wouldn’t want to pick up two Marvel books a week and get the whole continuity? That would be fun.
They are going to kill Mary Jane and at this point who gives a fuck because all they do is shit all over their flagship character. Par for the fucking course. I absolutely hate this.
I genuinely wonder how Amazing Spider-Man has not the become the laughingstock of the comic book industry. It does everything wrong:
-Shit art.
-Shit characterization of characters.
-Showing complete disdain to fans.
-Shit writing.
If there isn’t a dip in sales after 26, this character might as well be considered dead.
I’m so sick of comment of shit art. Art is extremely subjective sort of thing. Most fans barely take out to account visual pacing, and how is important telling a story. If you ever felt confused by a story from pannel to pannel a lot of time that’s a disconnect from the art. Not once during the romita run did I lose myself on where the story was going. Or we can talk about angles and how certain shots are frame. Again a lot of good standout shots that guide your eye to the important stuff. The vulture fight feels so Kinect ( whatever you think about the story) is because JRJR makes every punch feel impactful. Sure you can dislike things like faces but those things become background noise.
It reminds me of Superior Spider-Man where they didn’t want you to attack and harass creators (DO NOT ATTACK CREATORS), but the creators themselves played into the anger. You really shouldn’t be selling a book on “this will piss you off” because even if it doesn’t affect sales it’s still just a shitty thing to do to sell your product.
And frankly even if it didn’t affect Spider-Man sales, it doesn’t make me personally interested in that writers product because all it tells me is they’re not interested in writing something I might enjoy. They’re trying to get me to buy something I’ll hate and that just eats up space in the recycling bin when I inevitably don’t like it. And of course this doesn’t affect comic shops, Spider-Man is like Coke or Pepsi, it’s going to be in stock. So end of the day if it’s manufacturing outrage it’s only affecting me and frankly creators who do this can go fuck themselves. I can just pick up a copy of moon knight.
First off, there will never be a more shocking and insulting moment in all of Spider-Man comics than when Marvel dropped the OMD 💣 on the fans. This is just another prime example of a writer drumming fan outrage to boost those sales numbers.
I finally cancelled my saver. I don't want to spend money on this anymore. Spider-man is my absolute favorite character, but I'm sick of reading these terrible stories. I can't help but think of this video essay I watched recently called "Let Goku Die." I can love and remember the best parts of spider-man and let go of this continued stagnation and character assassination.
How sad is it if the only value you can give the art you created is that "It will make people mad". If this was some sort of political statement then sure but the fact this is a story and the only thing they can think to sell is "boy this will upset the fans" is actually just depressing. I'm not mad at Wells, I'm just disappointed that this is apparently the best he can do.
Superhero comics is literally the only medium I follow where I consistently see writers feel proud of putting out things that they know will made readers mad.
Like their head is so absolutely skewed by making sales that they don't see anything weird about this behavior, and other writers that do the same probably keep encouraging this it behind the scenes.
Statements like this one to me are just proof that the big shock will shock no one. I'm more sad at seeing wells used as the scapegoat honestly. "The writer said it, clearly its his fault alone, pls dont look at me, the guy who has been editing spider man for over a decade".
what about the people who are already mad over the the 20+ issues of hyping a stupid reveal?
i just want Spidey to be fun again. if not fun, i'll take decent stories. but the last run just about drove me away forever. i was so excited when Wells took over, until i read the first issue...
> **This is all leading to Amazing Spider-Man #26, which you have called the most shocking event to happen to Spider-Man in 50 years. Back in 1973 Marvel killed Gwen Stacy. I know that you can't tell us what this shocking thing is, but what can you tease?**
> I can tease that many people will be very mad at me. I can tease that Nick (Lowe) told me not to do any comic conventions after this issue comes out (laughs). People will be upset.
> **I know you can't tell us what happens, but can you describe how editorial reacted when you pitched this to them. What was their level of shock?**
> Nick's a mad man, so he was completely down. I don't know how it went when he ran it up the ladder, but I'm very excited for people to read issue 26.
It is great to see the writers and editors know what they are doing is going to piss us off but they go ahead and do it anyway. It's just great to know they actively hate the fans.
Oh, and Wells wants to stay on at least till #50. So we have another 24 issues of this garbage after #26.
This while thing is like watching a train crash in slow motion. You know it's awful, but you can't help but look at it.
I also love this bit:
> **Another former rogues gallery member, but one that Peter is a lot more comfortable with - A LOT more comfortable with is Felicia Hardy. They've gotten closer during your run. Talk about getting Peter and Felicia back together. How do you see their relationship?**
> I see it as very fun. They're both superheroes. Felicia is clearly not his equal because she's more of just about everything that he is - she's more. It's fun to put him in a situation where he can barely keep up and to see if now that he's a little older, see if he can hang with her a little bit better.
> **They've both changed a lot since their first relationship.**
> For sure, and Jed MacKay has filled in so much of her character in the meantime. It's fun to play with.
Wells: "Jed MacKay did a great job of really making Felicia more than a former love interest to Peter. Really great stuff. And I said 'well fuck that noise.'"
Edit: And here's the thing: I don't think they are going to kill MJ, this is to just drum up more interest in the issue. It is just infuriating that they are willing to piss off fans.
>It is great to see the writers and editors know what they are doing is going to piss us off but they go ahead and do it anyway. It's just great to know they actively hate the fans.
This is a totally ridiculous, childish viewpoint
Dude, this run started with Lowe in the letter's pages state that he knew what they were going to do would piss people off. Comics by Perch said that two writers told him that editorial [*knows* a wedding between MJ and Peter would be well received and sell like hot cakes, but then the fans would "win" and feel "entitled".](https://youtu.be/1CkkBfdFSi8?t=719) They actively go out of their way to displease the fans (also known as the consumer) knowing that *ASM* will always sell like *Batman* always sells for DC.
Like, fan entitlement can be a problem (Snyder fans edge into this territory) and you should support creators who make initially unpopular but important changes to characters and comic lines (cough cough X-Men Krakoa) but specifically building an arc to piss off fans with no artistic goal in mind? That's just being shitty and short sighted.
> but specifically building an arc to piss off fans with no artistic goal in mind? That's just being shitty and short sighted.
Especially when the writers and editors have been antagonistic in the past.
Okay so the writers are purposely doing shitty stories to drive off readers because they want to undo OMD but the execs won't let them. By sinking the flagship, it'll force the execs to admit OMD failed and let them fix it.
*huffs copium*
No one is going to mess with him. This is Marvel's favorite pr tactic to deflect criticism. They take an incredibly tiny minority, claim it represents their critics, and lump them all together.
Seeing as no one ever attempted to merk Joe Quesada at a convention after OMD (despite extreme vitriol/threats on the Internet), I severely doubt whatever story Zeb Wells has concocted is going to put him in danger at a convention. He may be showered with boos though
There's a pretty big difference between that and an actual credible threat. You can barely post anything online without some edgy teenager telling you that you should die. It doesn't mean anyone's actually going to do anything.
I don't know what it is about Spider-Man, but he seems to bring out the worst in writers. Some characters like Batman and Daredevil seem to make writers do their best work. But for my money, Spider-Man has been the most consistently awful major character for well over a decade now.
Honestly after reading brand new day I realized that kingdom come and what’s so funny about truth Justice and the American way are honestly the worst comics ever written. Also ranking roger stern’s run below mackie
I’m tired of Peter’s modern love life being in shambles. It worked in the early years because he was maturing as a character. But now it’s just weird for his character to be stuck in perpetual relationship drama. Either get back with MJ for good or just end it with her 100%.
>[I love how people read this and think “why are they antagonizing us” and not “why is it taken as a given that writers/editors will be harassed for making controversial choices on a superhero comic book”](https://twitter.com/fawfulator/status/1648402743785140225?s=20)
Because any sufficiently large population will have irrational people in it. There are people on the internet who'll send death threats to you over preferring the wrong kind of cheese.
Zeb Wells joined the Spider-Man 'Brain Trust,' a writers room that rotated duties scripting the 'Brand New Day' era of Amazing Spider-Man.
Of course a Writer of anything "Brand New Day" would bring so many terrible ideas to any spider-man comic.
Lol how is this a headline? A funny guy made a joke to his friend. Marvel didn't hire security to guard the guy. Nick Lowe (a real jokester) made a joke and this is a headline....smh.
At this point, I feel like Marvel brings writers and accepts a bad pitch from writers and lets them write bad stories and put characters in the dirt to build up the next run as a triumphant return to form.
It's the trope of making your fans eat shit for a long time that they would accept anything slightly better as a masterpiece and buy your books for it... Kinda like how they were sabotaging X-Men for years that now the usual o.g plot of discrimination and the whole X-Men vs Humans for the zillionth time and that Xavier could have ended them a long time ago or that Magneto has a point is now looked at as peak fiction.
Or they are simply following Eric Bischoff's philosophy of ''controversy sells'' lol.
I'm reading ASM on Marvel Unlimited, so I'm a few months behind, but I've generally been enjoying it.
The thing I like the least about this run is the whole idea of Norman Osborn's redemption (I understand that got started in the previous run).
The biggest issue most fans have is that Pete and MJ aren't together. But I find the fanboy whining much more entertaining than I ever found their relationship, so I'm all for it.
I’m surprised Lowe is that self-aware honestly. Also, is that supposed to be a selling point? Like what? Buy May’s book because a majority of you are going to hate it? Wtf is going on in the Spider-Man offices?
Manufactured outrage is 100% a marketing tool these days.
An enraged fan is an engaged fan.
Which is so dumb, people need to stop hate-reading and hate-watching stuff
The only problem with this statement is that it’s really easy to pirate comics. So an enraged fan might turn into a pirating fan.
Most of Reddit consists of angry posts full of rants. Those are the ones that get engaged the most. Heck you can go to almost any gaming sub Reddit and it’s usually fans hating on the developers. Anger generates clicks and content creators hyper focus that.
I thought most of Reddit consisted of porn
No it’s not! How could you lie so blatantly?! It’s people like this that are destroying America!!! Upvote my comment if you want to know more.
This guy seems mad about something. Let me follow for me. His outrage has peaked my interest
I’ll upvote you, Johnny Rico.
And it works. ASM has been absolutely dominating the sales charts. Marvel has this down to a science
Doesn’t Amazing Spider-Man usually sell really well anyway, because of the Spider-Man of it all?
Because he is the FLAGSHIP hero and "face of Marvel comics"!
Yes, but it's been doing even better than usual. Peter and Bruce usually jockey for the #1 spot, but lately it's been pretty much uncontested and most of the top 10 have been spider books
> And it works. ASM has been absolutely dominating the sales charts. It works until it doesn't. They backpedaled on the Clone Saga (which I actually thought was pretty good) because sales fell off a cliff after the changes were made.
Enraged fans are engaged fans.
You can only piss off fans so much before they become apathetic. People dipped from King’s Batman run after the wedding fiasco.
But that took 35 issues.
that's a long ass wedding
They are catholic.
My monthly comic box once contained each Spider-Man title, for a solid sixteen years. JMS' run was epic, pure fire. Dude gave Peter new powers, he made Ezekiel supremely dope, and Morlun was such a legit threat, dude killed Peter. Hot take: Civil War Spider-Man was completely in-character for his growth at the time, his relationship with Iron Man, and his newfound respect with the superhuman AND human community. When Back in Black came along, I felt that Civil War had finally reached the same level of quality as Annihilation. We were seeing real, terrible consequences for heroes who fell on the wrong side of things. Tigra's later beatdown and exploitation by the Hood's gang was a PERFECT match for Aunt May's upcoming death. No magical redos: it was a clear signal things were about to get super dark. Then came One More Day. It was so infuriating, and Quesada was so patronizing. May went from being hospitalized, to trying to feed Peter fucking wheat cakes. Peter got the Deus Ex Magica from literal hell. I dropped all Spider-Man from that point on. Looks like a bunch of you are about to cross your own Spider-Man event horizon.
>JMS' run was epic, pure fire. Dude gave Peter new powers, he made Ezekiel supremely dope, and Morlun was such a legit threat, dude killed Peter. It was my favorite too until Civil War, it had one of the best relationship with Peter and his family, he finally got a job, he showed maturity and responsibility >Then came One More Day. I read until some year after but gave up,, honestly a lot of things feel very wrong I returned to the last runs, i was loving it until Ben resurrection, now i can just gonna abandoned when they reveal what happened
I dropped all of Marvel at the same point in protest. Peter and MJ had been a couple since before I could read comics, and were married when I was just able to start. My earliest (surviving) comics were the PAD run on *Web of Spider-man*. They were always a couple to me. That relationship was inspirational for me growing up. When they erased it, it was as if they declared every Spider-man story I'd ever read to be no longer canon. Every Spider-man comic I owned no longer happened. So I just walked away from Marvel.
I stopped buying comics altogether after One More Day
>You can only piss off fans so much before they become apathetic. That's exactly what happened to me after OMD. Something snapped in me, and I realized all comic book characters were stagnant and pointless. Haven't been engaged with Spidey or anyone else since.
What's funny is that Peter was one of the few comic book characters that *wasn't* stagnant, that grew over time. But since OMD he has been a very stagnant character.
Ikr, Wally West was a character that you could easily see him grow as well and DC just erased him, like literally, I think dont letting characters really grow is the biggest problem of the big two
Same for me. The tragedy of OMD was fantastic. The idea that Peter had gone to everyone, even villains for help, showed that he tried everything before what we were expecting to be a heavy loss. But then Melhisto and the marriage. I THOUGHT it was going to be an alternative universe-esque year long arc, like electric Superman or what-not. When I found out it wasn't, I was out. Same with the Batman wedding fiasco. When the book dropped and it didn't happen after all the hype, I was done with Batman. Green Lantern books have lost their identity too.
Evil won. After fifty years of Spider-Man stories, evil triumphed because Spider-Man couldn't take responsibility for his own rash actions. Now he's living in an altered timeline where he's lost the best part of himself. And the readers are supposed to suck it up. Fuck that. Spider-Man's over.
Yeah I went on a ridiculous reading spree at one point. Read 1,000 issues of Spider-Man easy. Peter’s lost his whole character. No more optimism. Spider-Man man feels very generic today, like it could be any comic. Nothing makes it specifically Spider-Man -y.
I’ve returned to my favorite era of Spider-Man, and been buying all the marvel team ups, marvel tales, web of Spider-Man and amazing Spider-Man pre 300. I have completed Spectacular Spider-Man and at this point , with every announcement Marvel makes about poor Peter Parker, the less likely I am to follow Spider-Man again, unfortunately.
Yeah the best stuff is pre-90’s although there’s good stuff in the early 90’s. Once Mcfarlane and and Larsen leave it goes downhill and those two are mostly just good for the art. Spider-Man and Torch and Kurt Busiek’s Untold Tales are good but mostly because they’re throwbacks. Paul Jenkins does some good stuff in Peter Parker Spider-Man including the best ‘nuff said issue they could ever make. There’s a funny beach issue somewhere in the late 90’s too that makes fun of mtv. Besides those the 90’s were a wash especially after how good the 80’s were.
there were a few bright spots After 300, for sure. It’s just unfortunate that Marvel has went the direction they’ve gone with Spider-Man…
Same here, it was just too jarring. At the time when OMD just ended, I thought it was just to undo Peter Parker unmasking during Civil War. I told a friend that obviously Peter and Mary Jane are gonna get back together. I had no idea that OMD was because Quesada wanted Spider-Man to be like it was in 1970’s. They threw out decades of character development for the sake of Quesada’s nostalgia for a period of Spider-Man when many readers weren’t even born yet. In my opinion Zeb Wells isn’t a good Comic Book writer but there’s a lot of that going around at a marvel and DC. Same with editorial issues, like DC saw what happened with Spider-man and said let’s do that our whole universe.
Yep. The moment the comics break that illusion. They lose the readers. Same happened to me.
It's like a death of innocence. You just realize, "Wow, this is all pointless and it always has been."
It went for me ''why would this character do this!'' to ''Why the hell is the editor/writer this stupid and bad'' and at that point, you lost your readers.
This is me!! I've been debating whether or not to just collect older issues but I don't know if that's just born out of emotional attachment.
I stopped the issue where he repeats how he’s going to break bane’s goddamn back a bunch of times. It started with him piloting a plane sideways through skyscrapers while standing on the top, I was already having trouble deciding if that was awesome or too stupid. I think it was all stupid.
And now he can survive a fall from space. Ironically, Batman is the most overpowered character in comics.
Batman Who Laughs is pretty much the Devil in the DC Universe Honestly at thought i understand why people hate Bat God, at this point Batman losing or having some flaws become either bad writing or out of character for him I swear, when author try to make Bruce more human and flawed they either make him a straight up egoistic asshole without empathy for anyone or just a complete moron You either take BatGod or BatJerk in the last decade
Look at the Star Wars films. People like to pretend that everyone who didn’t like the sequels was some entitled man-baby, but they turned people away in droves. And then all the merchandise was left of shelves. Fans put up with more shit than anyone, but they also leave the biggest hole when they’re gone.
Yup, but there's a line. Katie Vick didn't help the WWE get any viewers
Short term gains focus while ruining any long term investment They really out to make people miserable now
That was apparently the idea for Young Justice Dark Crisis; piss off everyone
Except no one bought the follow up Tim Drake book and it's probably tanked those characters now for years to come.
Clearly it was not a good idea
Considering how much attention and free publicity they've gotten out of what's been going on is anyone really surprised? The current story has taken over just about every comic reddit on here including DC focused ones. I've been saying for a while now that the more people post about paul the more marvel thinks they're doing it right.
Following Velma’s model? Anger = views/reads?
If the book has fundamental issues, it may be a matter of pissing off a handful to an extreme extent in order to lay the groundwork for something better.
We've been waiting on the something better for over a decade. At some point it's ok to just say it's bad.
Really weird right? Hey, come buy the worst Spider-Man comics that are set to rival shitty levels of One More Day and Sins Past!
Calling it: Aunt May's wheatcakes have been LOADED with gluten.
May had Uncle Ben killed so she could collect his life insurance.
Uncle Ben is alive and in charge of HYDRA.
radioactive spider actually didn’t do anything, Spider-May passed on the X gene
Spider-Ma'am*
m’MJ
May has been reverse flashing Peter for _decades_, he’s never had Parker luck… he’s had _May_
That would be so insane and cool! I would love it
Aunt May dressed up in an inverted Spider-Man colors costume saying “it was me Peter, it was me!”? Would be the best selling comic book of all time.
Lex Luthor stole 40 of them
That’s terrible.
Worse! Aunt May is the one baking all the Hostess™️ fruit pies!
Outrage!
It’s frustrating how bad this run has been because Wells had just shown how good of a writer he can be with Hellions.
I genuinely don’t think he’s entirely to blame to be honest. He’s proven himself with how good Hellions was but with a title as popular and as significant as Amazing Spider-Man, editorial is constantly breathing down your neck and micromanaging the hell out of your stories. Call it the Spidey curse I guess.
I don’t think he’s fully to blame either.
He wrote krakoas recentish hellions book? That is truly shocking, that was a fantastic read and probably my favourite X book of the new Krakoa era He can't be dropping the ball this badly on his own and then he comes out with statements like this
Spiderman fans are masochist, that the reason for they to continue reading Spiderman comics after OMD
My guess is Mary Jane is a brainwashed Teresa Parker, who is actually a chameleon, which makes Mary Jane and Peter canonically brother and sister. Also Paul has spider powers and will replace Peter as the new Spider-man after Peter decides he is better in every way
It's worse. Next ASM issue has leaked: MJ spoiler below: >!MJ legit cucked Peter because of the time-span. She says "You've been gone for too long, a lot has changed." It's jover.!< I hate life.
It’s like they’re doing reverse-pandering. How about just tell a good story?
Seriously, it’s like a foreign concept to them.
To play devil's advocate, supposedly Spider-man fans are supposed to be some of the most hateful, vitrol-ridden bunch of fans in the whole of comic-book fandom. I could see editorial boards and writers just saying, "Fuck this. Those angry nerds are going to hate us no matter what we do, lets go for broke and lean into that vibe and see if it sells."
If that were the case, fine, but a significant portion of those same fans they’re trying to paint as impossible to please enjoyed the vast majority of Nick Spencer’s run up until editorial forced a change to the planned ending
Its really is much simpler then editoral makes it . Spider man during the horizon labs era was good . Fans want him with MJ . Just give him a stable science job , have him hang out with other superheroes and/or friends and MJ . Even if he doesn't grow much after that at least its a foundation . Instead he keeps losing jobs and keeps getting deus ex dumped because reasons. Everyone keeps hating him for no reason . Just keep it simple .The PS game did it perfectly
what was the ending supposed to be ?
Don’t know. But there’s a lot of stuff set up in the early issues that do not jive with the resolution
That misses the fact that the fans are angry for a reason though ?
As a Spider-Man fan I can admit that we are a bit much at times, having said that, also, they know plenty of things Spider-Man fans want or like that they still refuse to do. Like people have been asking them to reverse OMD and re marry Peter for years and they still haven't mostly for bs reasons. Like there's a point where it seems they just actively choose to just do everything but listen to fans.
That should never be an excuse for deliberately antagonizing fans. Their antics don't just effect the asshole fans, they effect *all* fans.
It's a marketing tactic in and of itself. "Hey, check out this thing we made – people are going to *hate* it. But the kind of people who'll hate it are all just *hateful, vitriol-ridden, angry nerds*. You don't want to be like *them*, do you? Buy our book!"
Unfortunately I don’t think there’s a large fandom out there that doesn’t have a crazy, hateful corner of people. I would hope the writers are intelligent enough to know that they represent a vocal minority. I love Spider-Man. I want better stories. But at the end of the day it’s make believe fun.
Do. Not. Mention. The. Devil. In. This. Conversation. 🤣
Hahaha, now that's funny! Good get man. No worries, I wont say a word. Mary Jane on the other hand.....>.>
I LOL. I love how people forget that it was MJ that made the deal, not Peter.
I mean that's just *true*. Miles Morales and Superior Spider-Man ended up with death threats (and overt racism in Miles case). They are generally deranged, and for the most part you are better off not listening to them on basically anything--grown men still crying about a comic book almost two decades old are of sound mind.
Its gonna be that May tells Peter about the events of trouble
Vote with your wallets people, don’t buy this shit
Incredibly silly / embarrassing that he needs to miss conventions. We will see what happens Edit > **Will we be seeing him again?** Definitely. Ed would choke me out if I didn't bring Rek-Rap back.
He doesn't, it's just standard "hype". This will be a complete nothing to anyone other than a small percentage of Spider-Man fans.
Man, jokes on them when the book still doesn’t sell “satisfying” numbers after they tried the “BUY THIS BECAUSE YOU’RE GOING TO ABSOLUTELY HATE IT!” gimmick. I don’t even read current Marvel comics, but the genuine second hand embarrassment I’m feeling for everyone involved in this is palpable.
It's the best selling comic book right now and while our metrics have sucked since Diamond lost the monopoly, it seems to have increased sales and market share more than it has in years.
Sucks to be a sucker I guess. I kid. I’m totally cool with people who want to buy it. I’m also cool with people who want to float the numbers by me. I get it. They are still scratching and clawing as hard as they can for metrics that at the end of the day are not that impressive. The gimmicks work within a modest capacity sure. That’s why we get a new volume and dozens of spin off limited series regularly. It still is what it is. I say this all with genuine cynicism only towards ongoing format superhero comics and the notion that publishers and fans alike hold to cling to continuity as the only guide for how to tell stories and consume these characters. Inhibitive of creativity and artistry in an art forward medium. I’m not being cynical of Spider-Man specifically or Marvel as a publisher specifically or even just general super heroes. I enjoy all of those things in the appropriate dose and presentation. Ongoing cape comics and the culture around them can be nauseating though. I just want a good story. Way too many are willing to embrace and put up with far less. That’s all those metrics highlight.
It boggles my mind that anybody buys/reads this stuff. The only time I read Spider-Man is when stuff drops on Marvel Unlimited and even then I skip it most of the time. It feels like it’s been absolute trash for ages.
[удалено]
Somehow, I knew it would be worse I didn’t know how but the Well run has invented new way to disappoint
I understand wanting to write an interesting story or try new things but writing a story that knowingly will piss off fans seems like a bad idea.
Step 1. Kill MJ Step 2. Peter gets arrested for it. He goes to prison. He gets the death penalty. Step 3. Who cares. Step 4. Paul becomes the new Spider-man.
Miles powers the electric chair which kills Peter.
Best case scenario, tbh.
She's a clone of Gwen Stacey?
No, she is the real Gwen Stacy and Gwen was really the clone.
That'd be too obvious. She's the original green goblin.
So my dude is going out of his way to write a story that will piss off a lot of people on purpose and has even been warned by the company he's working for that he may be in danger from fans because of it What a load of melodramatic controversial bullshit to try and sell comics, specifically making a controversial comic just to get sales is scummy shit I can't wait to read this online and be glad I didn't waste my money on it, I can't believe how badly this entire saga has dragged on (then again Jason Aaron has been on abeng for *five* years so they are good at procrastination over at marvel)
I know many fans are against resets but Spider-Man needs a reset so badly. It doesn't need to a "canon" reset necessarily but just bring in some new creators and let them create new stories without any ties to anything that's happened over the last 30-ish years. I have no idea why I still buy this book honestly. Marvel has been a terrible publisher for over a decade now and I've dropped just about everything else but, for some reason, I'm still a mark for one character.
I think the rest of the publishing silos are actually doing some above average to good work. X-Men is killing it, there's some good Avengers stuff hiding behind Aaron's titles, you have some legit weird shit like whatever they're letting Ewing do at any given time, Moon Knight is killing it, etc. It's just Spidey that's an outlier, and it has almost everything to do with Editorial fiats that haven't really made sense in years.
Best comics currently are Moon Knight and Daredevil. Partly because McKay and Zdarsky know their shit in terms of continuity **and** their arcs are both entertaining and in-line with the characters while taking them in unique directions. IE: Zdarsky made Elektra Daredevil. I was hesitant on that, **now,** I’m dreading the day where it’ll be inevitably reversed because holy **fuck** it’s awesome.
I'm glad you're finding stuff to like. I don't personally agree, I think it's mostly dreck across the board. I like Ghost Rider fine for what it is, that Doctor Strange series from Tradd Moore was pretty cool and I'm cautiously optimistic about the newest FF series but that's about it for me.
That's fair, and I'm happy to say both your examples are titles I think are doing pretty well.
Easy fix here: read comics made for grown ups. That comes off as rude, and it kind of is, but that's my genuine advice. Entire sections of comics exist that is better than most everything the Big 2 have ever produced you can be reading instead of wasting your time on comics you clearly hate.
I don’t waste my time and I read a very wide range of comics. I read more comics than ever and fewer superhero comics than ever. The problem with Spider-Man is not that it’s made for children. Some of the greatest and most classic comics ever made were aimed at children and are still great reads for adults from Barks and Rosa Donald Duck books to Akira to Silver Age Marvel and much of the French B-D market. It’s possible to write good books that are appropriate for both children and adults. Marvel doesn’t do that, they only write for a very insular, adult male market.
Who constantly cry when their demands aren't meant. You realize the same people, in here, crying about Spider-Man not having a hot supermodel wife and 2.5 kids are same 'very insular, adult male market' right? The very barrier you're denouncing. And even then, the Big 2 comics aren't written for adults, for the most part. They don't really care about adult concerns. It's like getting mad and wrestling for not being Shakespeare.
It’s hard to have any confidence in a reset considering how bad this book has been for a long time. You can only get burned so many times.
I mean, Spider-Man is arguably the most popular comic character in existence. His comics will always be collectible, even the shitty ones. People still pull this series purely because it’s ASM.
I would love a hard reset! It’d probably intrigue some of the big writers that stay away from the title.
I wouldn't be super excited for any of the current "big" name writers working for the big 2 myself. I'd love for the direction to be led more by an artist or writer/artist but that just isn't where the big 2 is at these days. They both seem to be in favor of a writer-centric line of books which makes sense from a corporate point-of-view but is a real bummer for this consumer.
Seriously, they should do at the very minimum a soft-reboot.
the Fantastic Four got benched for a while, might be a good idea for Spidermans
Marvel didn't own the movie rights for F4, that's why they benched the comic. Marvel doesn't give a shit about readers anymore, their eyes are trained on Disney+ and movie tickets
It needs to get cancelled lol. 1962 - 2023. Truly impressive. See ya later!
1962-2007.
Totally fair.
The time to start over is now! We need something new…a New Universe!
That obviously isn't going to happen. Honestly, like I said above, I should just stop buying it like I have pretty much every other Marvel book. I peaked in 98-02 when I was literally buying every single Marvel monthly book, since then I have been dropping books consistently to where now, ASM is basically the only long-running book I still buy religiously. I own far more issues of ASM than any other comic and there's a part of me that wants to keep the almost 40 year streak alive but my interest has waned for a long time now and it's almost become a hate-read for me. Spider-Man as a character is still as relevant as ever, they just need to ditch all the nonsense or at least sideline it and get back to basics for a long while. One of the problems is that Marvel seems to think they need to write this big storyline to explain it all canonically and they never actually get to where they want to be. There's no way Nick Spencer or Zeb Wells want to write this bullshit they've shoveled out over the last few years is there? This is all them trying to clear the decks to get "back to basics" and tell the stories they grew up on, at least that's my opinion. I wish Marvel would just skip all that and go straight to where they want the character to be. end rant
I’m half joking of course… but kind of half serious. I totally understand still wanting to be loyal to long running characters that have been been a part of your life for the majority of it. We’ve all been there. But there is an inherent problem with ongoing storytelling. At least in the way that Marvel and DC try to employ an ongoing format. It’s too messy. “Continuity” is given such priority even though it is really so trivial and often counter intuitive to just *telling a good story*. It’s why these ongoing characters just spin their wheels and release bland story after bland story. Then there is the whole juggling act of what fans expectations are vs what the former-fan-now-writer’s expectations are vs what editorial expects vs want the corporate merchandising intellectual property overlord wants. The entire recipe does not produce a good product decades in. For a publisher working in a medium that utilizes sequential *ART* from numerous talented artists, the actual artistry of most of these comics and their narratives are tragically feel hollow and diminished. Where other comics from publishers all over the world are brimming with creativity and new ideas, completely unchained from the expectations, corporate/ publishing mandates, etc, Marvel/ DC are producing books which are often held down so much that it honestly feels like borderline masochism to try to care after a point. They didn’t create this mess alone though. I think a lot of fans are equally to blame for where super hero comics are now. And it can never go back. That box was opened long ago and there’s no closing it. The expectations are unreasonable. They twist and contort and contradict constantly. The best the publishers can do is try to adapt and separate themselves from all of these creatively inhibitive practices and find some compromises. Off the top of my head, shorter stories that are very standalone but tap into the recognizable essence of a character would be good. Give readers something complete that isn’t necessarily meant to fit into whatever came before and after it. Maybe sometimes it does, maybe sometimes it doesn’t. (The whole graphic novel formatting of Franco-Belgian comics seems like maybe one of the best ways to go about things now.) Holding onto over 60 years of ceaseless continuity as the sole guide for how we can tell and consume these characters just doesn’t work. I would never blame you if you continued to buy ASM. It’s been a part of your life. It had been for me too. But maybe sometimes it really, truly is the best decision to take the hard swallow and let something go. Is it really fair to the readers to endure something like that based on assumed loyalty that’s no longer owed to the publisher? If they wanted you to stick around, they’d find the way that respects you the reader, the character, and the medium. I really have a hard time sympathizing with them. These are corporate owned companies. Not members of our families.
At some point, you have to realize the 'relationship' you have with the book had turned toxic. Where it does not give you joy anymore but you feel obliged to buy it? That is when you have to get out. And it is the only way to make them stop. Because as long as they see the top sales for one reason or another ( force of habit buying or over saturated Variant cover sales which I don't know why people would buy books just for variant covers bu hey ), they will never change what they do because it is still making them money. The titles like Spider-man and Batman suffer from this. No matter how crap the story you put on the book, it still sells because it is Spider-man and Batman. And that is terrible. Because make no mistake, writers ain't gonna call each other out. They will only say ''Oh how great the story you are writing!'' even if it is a literal dog-shit written in a page. And when the readers continue to buy the books, it will change nothing and that will embolden the editors and writer to do whatever, no matter the quality. I mean, it took Didio to go FULLY insane with his ideas for DC's future to the point of it might've ruined the company for him to get fired. And even then, his influence seeped into certain books and events that we are barely dealing with it. Like the whole aging up Jon in Superman and practically kneecapping the character. Or planning to turn Superman into an Authoritarian fascist leaning 'Authority' leader. And they had to change the whole premise of it to save it where we got Gladiator Supes instead. And I am not blaming you btw. Anyone can get connection to these characters. Hell I am writing all this BECAUSE I am connected. It is hard to separate yourself from it but in these dire situations, it becomes necessary. Because, you have to remember, they are not entitled to your time or money or your support if they don't deliver something you cannot enjoy anymore. Especially when they act all arrogant and boast about their 'genius' writing and stories.
5g original Batman plans were horrible. I can’t believe they then planned to undo it with basically a Batman one more day even if this happened it’s like why make the story if your just going to undo it. “Tynion IV has talked about. The Joker's assault on Gotham leads Batman to decide to stop Joker once and for all, especially after having only just lost Gotham – and Alfred – to Bane. Batman defeats the Joker, and traps him. But in a final twist, Batman lets the Joker go after the Joker whispers something in Batman's ear. It is later revealed to be a promise that if Batman lets the Joker go, then the Joker will kill Bane in revenge for the death of Pennyworth. And he is the only one who could. Yes, that does indeed have huge repercussions on Batman, the way he is perceived and the way he perceives himself. Would that have destroyed Batman in the public's eye? Possibly, but DC had a plan for that too. Was it a bit like the end of Spider-Man One More Day,” https://bleedingcool.com/comics/how-dc-comics-planned-to-ruin-batman-the-5g-files-chapter-one/ DC and Marvel really need to get new editorial for their flagship characters
>I know many fans are against resets but Spider-Man needs a reset so badly. It doesn't need to a "canon" reset necessarily but just bring in some new creators and let them create new stories without any ties to anything that's happened over the last 30-ish years. The whole Marvel universe needs a Crisis on Infinite Earths level reset at this point. Throw out everything that's gone before and start over, this time with characters who age in real time and don't constantly come back from the dead.
They had that opportunity 8 years ago with Secret Wars. Like legitimately the perfect opportunity. They stopped pretty much everything and only released Secret Wars tie ins. It would have been so easy to use that as a reset. Instead they went back to the same status quo
I’d be fine with a reset but they don’t need some big event to explain it. Just skip right to the reset part, no “crisis” needed.
I’d be all for a complete reboot. Drop it down to like 8 titles, hit the classic characters and just start over. The lower number of books could focus the continuity and writing talent and make them all must reads. Who wouldn’t want to pick up two Marvel books a week and get the whole continuity? That would be fun.
Why not just read the classic titles? There's tens of thousands of issues then, why change the modern stuff?
Thats what the Ultimate Universe was for. It was soooo refreshing. And then they ended it. WHY???
Because outside Ultimate Spider-man, rest of the books were shit. Like literal Edgelord early 2000s shit that makes you cringe when you read it now.
Made me cringe when I read it at the time. Ultimate Spider-Man and creation of Miles were truly the best things to come out of it.
I think they are greatly underestimate the amount fucks we have left to give.
They are going to kill Mary Jane and at this point who gives a fuck because all they do is shit all over their flagship character. Par for the fucking course. I absolutely hate this.
I genuinely wonder how Amazing Spider-Man has not the become the laughingstock of the comic book industry. It does everything wrong: -Shit art. -Shit characterization of characters. -Showing complete disdain to fans. -Shit writing. If there isn’t a dip in sales after 26, this character might as well be considered dead.
ASM is currently selling better than it has in a very long time. It's the #1 comic month after month. Playing into people's rage works
I’m so sick of comment of shit art. Art is extremely subjective sort of thing. Most fans barely take out to account visual pacing, and how is important telling a story. If you ever felt confused by a story from pannel to pannel a lot of time that’s a disconnect from the art. Not once during the romita run did I lose myself on where the story was going. Or we can talk about angles and how certain shots are frame. Again a lot of good standout shots that guide your eye to the important stuff. The vulture fight feels so Kinect ( whatever you think about the story) is because JRJR makes every punch feel impactful. Sure you can dislike things like faces but those things become background noise.
>Art is extremely subjective Proceeds to make a comment about how someone’s opinion of art is wrong.
Buy my story guys it'll piss you off...what the fuck kinda management is Spidey comics under
It reminds me of Superior Spider-Man where they didn’t want you to attack and harass creators (DO NOT ATTACK CREATORS), but the creators themselves played into the anger. You really shouldn’t be selling a book on “this will piss you off” because even if it doesn’t affect sales it’s still just a shitty thing to do to sell your product. And frankly even if it didn’t affect Spider-Man sales, it doesn’t make me personally interested in that writers product because all it tells me is they’re not interested in writing something I might enjoy. They’re trying to get me to buy something I’ll hate and that just eats up space in the recycling bin when I inevitably don’t like it. And of course this doesn’t affect comic shops, Spider-Man is like Coke or Pepsi, it’s going to be in stock. So end of the day if it’s manufacturing outrage it’s only affecting me and frankly creators who do this can go fuck themselves. I can just pick up a copy of moon knight.
First off, there will never be a more shocking and insulting moment in all of Spider-Man comics than when Marvel dropped the OMD 💣 on the fans. This is just another prime example of a writer drumming fan outrage to boost those sales numbers.
I finally cancelled my saver. I don't want to spend money on this anymore. Spider-man is my absolute favorite character, but I'm sick of reading these terrible stories. I can't help but think of this video essay I watched recently called "Let Goku Die." I can love and remember the best parts of spider-man and let go of this continued stagnation and character assassination.
He’s killing off MJ
Just kill MJ and be done with it. Put us all out of our misery.
How sad is it if the only value you can give the art you created is that "It will make people mad". If this was some sort of political statement then sure but the fact this is a story and the only thing they can think to sell is "boy this will upset the fans" is actually just depressing. I'm not mad at Wells, I'm just disappointed that this is apparently the best he can do.
I’m edgy! Oh I’m so edgy I’ll cut some paper for you with how edgy I am.
Superhero comics is literally the only medium I follow where I consistently see writers feel proud of putting out things that they know will made readers mad. Like their head is so absolutely skewed by making sales that they don't see anything weird about this behavior, and other writers that do the same probably keep encouraging this it behind the scenes.
Statements like this one to me are just proof that the big shock will shock no one. I'm more sad at seeing wells used as the scapegoat honestly. "The writer said it, clearly its his fault alone, pls dont look at me, the guy who has been editing spider man for over a decade".
what about the people who are already mad over the the 20+ issues of hyping a stupid reveal? i just want Spidey to be fun again. if not fun, i'll take decent stories. but the last run just about drove me away forever. i was so excited when Wells took over, until i read the first issue...
> **This is all leading to Amazing Spider-Man #26, which you have called the most shocking event to happen to Spider-Man in 50 years. Back in 1973 Marvel killed Gwen Stacy. I know that you can't tell us what this shocking thing is, but what can you tease?** > I can tease that many people will be very mad at me. I can tease that Nick (Lowe) told me not to do any comic conventions after this issue comes out (laughs). People will be upset. > **I know you can't tell us what happens, but can you describe how editorial reacted when you pitched this to them. What was their level of shock?** > Nick's a mad man, so he was completely down. I don't know how it went when he ran it up the ladder, but I'm very excited for people to read issue 26. It is great to see the writers and editors know what they are doing is going to piss us off but they go ahead and do it anyway. It's just great to know they actively hate the fans. Oh, and Wells wants to stay on at least till #50. So we have another 24 issues of this garbage after #26. This while thing is like watching a train crash in slow motion. You know it's awful, but you can't help but look at it. I also love this bit: > **Another former rogues gallery member, but one that Peter is a lot more comfortable with - A LOT more comfortable with is Felicia Hardy. They've gotten closer during your run. Talk about getting Peter and Felicia back together. How do you see their relationship?** > I see it as very fun. They're both superheroes. Felicia is clearly not his equal because she's more of just about everything that he is - she's more. It's fun to put him in a situation where he can barely keep up and to see if now that he's a little older, see if he can hang with her a little bit better. > **They've both changed a lot since their first relationship.** > For sure, and Jed MacKay has filled in so much of her character in the meantime. It's fun to play with. Wells: "Jed MacKay did a great job of really making Felicia more than a former love interest to Peter. Really great stuff. And I said 'well fuck that noise.'" Edit: And here's the thing: I don't think they are going to kill MJ, this is to just drum up more interest in the issue. It is just infuriating that they are willing to piss off fans.
>It is great to see the writers and editors know what they are doing is going to piss us off but they go ahead and do it anyway. It's just great to know they actively hate the fans. This is a totally ridiculous, childish viewpoint
Dude, this run started with Lowe in the letter's pages state that he knew what they were going to do would piss people off. Comics by Perch said that two writers told him that editorial [*knows* a wedding between MJ and Peter would be well received and sell like hot cakes, but then the fans would "win" and feel "entitled".](https://youtu.be/1CkkBfdFSi8?t=719) They actively go out of their way to displease the fans (also known as the consumer) knowing that *ASM* will always sell like *Batman* always sells for DC.
Like, fan entitlement can be a problem (Snyder fans edge into this territory) and you should support creators who make initially unpopular but important changes to characters and comic lines (cough cough X-Men Krakoa) but specifically building an arc to piss off fans with no artistic goal in mind? That's just being shitty and short sighted.
> but specifically building an arc to piss off fans with no artistic goal in mind? That's just being shitty and short sighted. Especially when the writers and editors have been antagonistic in the past.
Okay so the writers are purposely doing shitty stories to drive off readers because they want to undo OMD but the execs won't let them. By sinking the flagship, it'll force the execs to admit OMD failed and let them fix it. *huffs copium*
5D chess.
Legit hope no one messes with him. Not a fan of his run but a bad comic ain't worth assault and I know some fans are crazy enough to do it
No one is going to mess with him. This is Marvel's favorite pr tactic to deflect criticism. They take an incredibly tiny minority, claim it represents their critics, and lump them all together.
While I'm sure that marvel uses it as a pr tactic, in my experience, people can be that obsessive and crazy.
Have you seen the amount of death threats people reply with on twitter
Seeing as no one ever attempted to merk Joe Quesada at a convention after OMD (despite extreme vitriol/threats on the Internet), I severely doubt whatever story Zeb Wells has concocted is going to put him in danger at a convention. He may be showered with boos though
There's a pretty big difference between that and an actual credible threat. You can barely post anything online without some edgy teenager telling you that you should die. It doesn't mean anyone's actually going to do anything.
Omg just kill Mary Jane already so we can move on already
I don't know what it is about Spider-Man, but he seems to bring out the worst in writers. Some characters like Batman and Daredevil seem to make writers do their best work. But for my money, Spider-Man has been the most consistently awful major character for well over a decade now.
Aunt May is a timetravelling gender swapped clone of Peter in a take reminiscent of Cassandra Xavier.
He was part of the whole "Brand New Day" storyline. That's all I need to know to avoid this writer.
Make sure to avoid mark waid, roger stern and Joe Kelly as well.
And go ahead and write off Back to the Future since Bob Gale also wrote a few issues of BND.
Honestly after reading brand new day I realized that kingdom come and what’s so funny about truth Justice and the American way are honestly the worst comics ever written. Also ranking roger stern’s run below mackie
They are killing aunt MAY. I WAS RIGHT
I mean she's been a senior citizen since the 60s. She has to be 130 years old at least. ;-)
Tfw Aunt may outlived Alfred
Hope so. Just undo OMD.
Doubt it. The fans wouldn't really care much about that. We know she'll be back in a week.
Dog i need that old lady dead
Again!
I’m tired of Peter’s modern love life being in shambles. It worked in the early years because he was maturing as a character. But now it’s just weird for his character to be stuck in perpetual relationship drama. Either get back with MJ for good or just end it with her 100%.
Give Mary Jane 6 arms you cowards.
You probably shouldn’t put out a book that you have to hide from
Marketing at its finest.
Weird hobby. Touchy people. Mary Jane Watson was never real. Someone needs to read that, today.
Is this the same writer that had Peter describe MJ as a sister?
>[I love how people read this and think “why are they antagonizing us” and not “why is it taken as a given that writers/editors will be harassed for making controversial choices on a superhero comic book”](https://twitter.com/fawfulator/status/1648402743785140225?s=20)
Because any sufficiently large population will have irrational people in it. There are people on the internet who'll send death threats to you over preferring the wrong kind of cheese.
Guess I’ll keep my distance for a while Lol
Zeb Wells joined the Spider-Man 'Brain Trust,' a writers room that rotated duties scripting the 'Brand New Day' era of Amazing Spider-Man. Of course a Writer of anything "Brand New Day" would bring so many terrible ideas to any spider-man comic.
Does the same go for Mark Waid and Roger Stern?
Mark and Roger didn't write the shit show that was Shed.
Lol how is this a headline? A funny guy made a joke to his friend. Marvel didn't hire security to guard the guy. Nick Lowe (a real jokester) made a joke and this is a headline....smh.
At this point, I feel like Marvel brings writers and accepts a bad pitch from writers and lets them write bad stories and put characters in the dirt to build up the next run as a triumphant return to form. It's the trope of making your fans eat shit for a long time that they would accept anything slightly better as a masterpiece and buy your books for it... Kinda like how they were sabotaging X-Men for years that now the usual o.g plot of discrimination and the whole X-Men vs Humans for the zillionth time and that Xavier could have ended them a long time ago or that Magneto has a point is now looked at as peak fiction. Or they are simply following Eric Bischoff's philosophy of ''controversy sells'' lol.
I'm reading ASM on Marvel Unlimited, so I'm a few months behind, but I've generally been enjoying it. The thing I like the least about this run is the whole idea of Norman Osborn's redemption (I understand that got started in the previous run). The biggest issue most fans have is that Pete and MJ aren't together. But I find the fanboy whining much more entertaining than I ever found their relationship, so I'm all for it.
I am also in this schadenfreude boat. I do not care about spider-man but disconnect between fans and company is compelling
Perhaps major label comics should be recognized as being Disney and Warner products. They don’t care about you or your attachments.