Spider-Man character growth vs. staying in high school and Joe Quesada

[Mister Mets]

I don't mean it's a heavy lift to do the story - as you mention, that's easy.

It's a heavy lift because of what DOING that story locks you into. The marraige premise in the "big" universe of Marvel.

And should it be decided once again to get rid of it, Marvel has to go through all that criticism (maybe even moreso) they did than when they ripped the bandaid off the first time.

Editorial has to decide if it's truly worth that.

Keeping it AU allows you way more flexibility with that premise.

None of the stories today is truly reliant on the long-form of storytelling. You're generally provided all you need to process any current story.

I definitely agree that the problem with reversing One More Day isn't the mechanics.

It could be done in the space of a TPB. I'm pretty sure that most fans here could come up with a scenario if a writer is stuck, so if Jed Mackay were the next guy on Amazing Spider-Man and he has permission to reverse One More Day but just didn't have a sense of the mechanics, and he's complaining at a bar by a comic convention, we could help him out.

I don't think the problem is going to be criticism; my sense is that it'll be popular in the short-term. The bigger problem is what they're going to be locked into, and the decisions they'll make the next time they have to shake up the series.

With a commitment to change approach Marvel's also locked into the next changes. If Peter & MJ find Baby May alive and well, raised by acolytes of Norman Osborn, that will also define the series going forward. As would giving her a little brother. Or Peter hitting a milestone birthday.

Yes, plenty of married stories were told. And there were also occasions where MJ really didn't have much role in the story or cases where she was written out to tell a story. None of stories are negated whether she is there or not. But as a writer, you still have deal with that plot point. You're "locked" into dealing with it, whether you want to use the marraige actively in a story or move MJ out the picture to tell a story with just Spidey. And sometimes, you may not want to use that space in your story for that, if you don't have to.

I'm not downplaying long-form storytelling. Just like one shouldn't have to watch all preceeding Star Treks to be able to enjoy all the new Star Trek shows coming out currently, one shouldn't have to know a long history of Spider-man to enjoy his book currently.

There should be enough given (synopsis page, flashback, etc) to jump right in and get it. Maybe that arc lasts for 4-8 issues and those issues build on each other (long form story telling) - perfectly fine. The writer can't assume everyone has been around for the long haul - have to give readers what they need to know to get it.

Tough balance because you do want to "reward" those that have been reading a long time, but you have to make the books accessible as you hope to draw in new readers.

The older readers are going to want to see different types of stories.

For some of them, a hundred issues that tie up all the loose ends and conclude Spider-Man's adventures may very well be amazing comics, and they would rather see that than the series trucking along indefinitely. They may prize stories like the DeMatteis Harry Osborn saga or "To Have and to Hold" and want every Spider-Man issue to have that level of consequence. The main way to get these readers to care about the comics of the last 15 years would be to go with a commitment to change approach because now Superior Spider-Man can be part of Doctor Octopus's larger arc, or they can see if Nick Spencer's run seeds the dismantling of One More Day.

There are also some complicating factors.

This may be a better time to conclude Spider-Man's "story" than anything before. The sliding timescale is stretched to the limit. Marvel introduced a teen version of Spider-Man in Miles Morales. Readers can experience the best of Spider-Man in a way that was pretty much impossible when the options were back issues and occasional reprints. The MCU has also conditioned readers to expect the characters to have some kind of ending.

[Mister Mets]

It’s always funny to me when people talk about Spidey being married as being away from his roots. Like, right now, his entire supporting cast are super heroes. His high school crush has a nightmare slime monster from space giving her super powers. How is “being married” farther away from “the super hero who tries to live a normal life” roots than “every one this guy has ever shared a laugh with can now bend steel with their bare hands?” Just laughable

The marriage freezes an element of the status quo in a way other things don't.

The writers and editors can decide to downplay Peter's superhero friends. You need a narrative explanation if the decision is that MJ is no longer Peter's wife.

Aunt May we are forgetting about Aunt May. If we think about it we lose baby May for Aunt May and the marriage for Aunt May. That old lady aint worth what was lost

I think some fans of the marriage want to get rid of Aunt May to show Peter growing up, but I don't see any reason to deny her a few good years of being a happy grandmother.

How in is there greater flexibility? What stories require no marriage that aren't about other love interests, that we know won't go anywhere for the same reasons One More Day happened? I guess the Superior arc (which I haven't and will never read) but that wasn't actually Peter. I assume there are others that I missed?

The cost of stories is the degradation of the history between Pete and MJ, which I feel is irreplaceable elsewhere.

There are tradeoffs, but there are also stories that involve other love interests or a Peter Parker who is not in a stable relationship with Mary Jane.

MJ's been made out to either be unfaithful or removed from the general high standards of the 'one true love' that she's had since Gwen died. As well as being generally combative towards Peter for a while and comparing genocide to an old man's murder and stated Paul's 'regret' (that we've barely seen a hint of) over it is just like Peter's regret over Uncle Ben. Sorry but that's a terrible handling of a great character for no reason.

"Just following orders" is not a great defense for what happened to Kamala, so I don't see why you would even try?

What does it matter though? It's not like Peter will have to deal with the consequences of his actions in future stories. Or reflect on it at all. Hence it's useless, none of this will matter at all in the future unless a decent writer comes in and is willing to take the messes created since BND and craft a good run.

ASM isn't doing as well as USM though, which suggests ASM could be much better served by indulging in the same type of writing USM is going for.

I do think the idea that MJ's been unfaithful is based on unrealistic expectations.

I get that in comics, there is an expectation for grand examples of positive qualities but the problem isn't that it's unrealistic MJ developed feelings for a guy after several years raising kids with him.

The situation was deeply unfair, although that is kinda the point.

I know Flash is a character you follow. Actually, I use to get the book way back when - I think Waid was writing, but can't remember now...

I don't think Flash (or even Superman) is really that comparable to Spider-man.

You got 2 main Flash(es). They're not clones of each other - they have a connection and lead separate lives. But the Flash, IMHO, isn't a strong seller on a continuous basis.

So, DC interchanges them whenever it makes business sense to do it, or "run" them together if it makes business. It's way easier to "erase" and "restore" with the Flash(es).

One can be trapped in time, one can be in the past or the future, one can be in an alternate universe - and they can stay in those pockets as long as needed until it makes business sense to change it.

Change is the name of the game when it comes to the speedsters of DC! It would not surprise me AT ALL for Wally to go away again.

We shall see if they eventually make the change back to the 616 marraige for Spider-man!

Fair point on the Flashes being essentially interchangeable.

That said, one complicating factor is that both Barry and Wally are family men with true loves, so that makes the resets frustrating.

I actually think Flash is a great comparison to Spidey - since in a very real way, the first “Flash Renaissance” that Mark Waid oversaw for the franchise embraced “Marvel-style” storytelling of prolonged serialization, lore exploitation, and consistent characterization of multiple cast members, which carried on through Geoff Johns’s first time on the book.

Ironically, I’d argue that the Flash comics dip into unstable, and eventually ragged form after the New 52 was the result of most of that entire brand embracing OMD-style thinking - particularly with how the determination to reset things for new creators reared it’s head very shortly in the New 52 and led to the undermining of what had been actually somewhat strong reboots for multiple properties. Flash was simply the third or fourth largest brand to succumb to “OMDization” instead of he only one, as Spider-Man was, and Quesada, to his credit, ran a better ship than Didio.

And again, it’s sort of weirdly self-defeating to argue “Well, what if they have to do it again?” because the entire argument than becomes arguing that no continuity should exist... so why bother defending this older single Spider-Man in particular?

Seriously? Is “30 Year Old Peter Parker going through and endless stream of Debra Whitmans in shallow stories” truly the ideal Spidey anyone wants?

Like, I can *see* the platonic ideal of Spider-Man being a single high school/college kid, and I myself support the idea of a growing character who new readers are encouraged to dig up classic tales form as “must have” events in his life... but just the OMD status quo ad infinitum?

From my understanding the Cary Bates Flash run was also one with prolonged serialization. There were some turns like Flash getting married to someone other than Iris, and getting accused of murder.

Hmm, I'll make a note to read it for, and write about it in the Barry Allen Appreciation thread.

After I finish the early PAD/ Michelinie thread with the one last story.

[Mister Mets]

But you're insisting there is only one way to read the material. That if Peter uses a landline in 1975, then that means the story took place in the real world 1975, and that breaks the world of the story.

That's just your reading. It is not a universal one, either.

It's not that if Peter uses a landline in a comic published in 1975 that I would immediately assume the comic has to be set in 1975. It might be, and that was the intent when it was made, but the story would be set in any time that has these specific cues.

If Peter's on the Johnny Carson show in a comic published in 1988 that dates the story as occurring at a time when it's plausible for Johnny Carson to host a TV show. It could be a few years earlier. It could be a few years later.

A problem gets to be when there are contradictory cues, if one comic has President Reagan and another has President Obama and these are set just a few years apart. There's no in-universe explanation. Readers may have their own headcanon, but that's by definition no longer the same story.

Yes. It is.


Which is your subjective opinion.



That has nothing to do with whether the Marvel Universe is one big story or not. The story itself says it is.

The reader is superfluous to this. The story exists independent of the reader.



It's a retcon. Retcons exists because it's one story.

If it wasn't, if all the stories were stand alones and did not relate each other, then there be no need to retcon anything because continuity doesn't need to be fixed.

If there's no reader who enjoys it in its entirety, that seems to be a knock against the idea that the Marvel Universe can be understood as one story.

The issue with this particular retcon is that it shows that at a given point, a reader will not know what's canon or what's not. The Hulk wasn't part of the world of the Fantastic Four. Then it was. There are similar situations where comics from the golden age or the Atlas era are suddenly established as being in continuity,

It would be quite weird to read a novel and to be unclear whether a particular chapter is part of a larger story. This would make sense primarily if there's a situation with an unreliable narrator, although in that case the uncertainty of what's going on is part of the larger story.

Retcons generally seem to be ways to make several stories fit together. It does seem clear that there's no point where a Marvel fan would be able to say definitively what's canon, so that goes against the idea that Marvel's one story. Rather, it's a vehicle for stories. Because once the canon changes, it's a different story because the context has changed (A Namor who romanced Betty Dean during World War 2 is different from a Namor who never had that experience.)

Thinking about this a bit, the moment you have a retcon, you can argue it's no longer the same story. Because something that was intended by one writer can no longer be taken at face value (obviously it's not a retcon if the writer knew that something's going on behind the surface that most readers are unaware of.)

So? I'm confused why this matters. It's a serial story and it's corporate IP

Soap opera creators are dead and their creations continue, written by many many hands.

This has nothing to do with whether it is one story or not.

Soap operas seem best appreciated as vehicles for stories. It's not about the story of a particular series, but a favorite saga (IE- the time a beloved character was framed for murder, or a mystery of a new neighbor's scandalous secret.

No, not really. Nothing in Dead Language depends on Dark Web. Nothing in Dead Language depends on the Hobgoblin story.

Nothing in Gang War depends on Dark Web or the Spider Who Gobbles I.

You can easily reshuffle the order and nothing of any material note changes.

When you change the order of stories to make Dead Language come out immediately after the Tombstone story, it's not just about whether Dead Language builds on Dark Web, but what happens to Dark Web when it's now set after Dead Language.

Even then things that happen in one story impact another. This isn't silver age DC when inventory stories can be published years later with minimal consequence.s

"Episodic" has a specific meaning when it comes to storytelling: made up of separate, especially loosely connected episodes. Episodic and episodes are not synonymous.

Silver Age DC was episodic

Old TV shows before the dawn of the VCR where audiences might miss an episode or two and reruns in summer were common were episodic.

But not all TV is episodic and not all comic books are episodic. Serials are serial, not episodic. Their episodes are not loosely connected, but highly connected and build upon each other.

I just use episodic to describe anything that has episodes. In TV, this could be series meant to be consumed from the beginning (House of the Dragon, Succession, Better Call Saul) and series where you could jump in at any point.

When I was in college, there was a distinction in films between sequels and series. A sequel would tell a new story where things may change in big ways (The Godfather Part 2 changed Michael's relationship with Kay and Fredo) while a series keeps everything the same. The "sequel" approach seems to have won out in the last few years. Compare how many plot points

An interesting book about how storytelling got more complex is Stephen Johnson's Everything Bad Is Good For You. It gets into these distinctions, and it is more of a spectrum. A big element is the storytelling can be more complex when it's easier for people to catch up, largely due to technological changes that allow people access to earlier installments of a story. Once upon a time something like The Invisibles or Cerebus appealed to a niche audience that was expected to check out earlier chapters in order to what's going on. Now that kind of approach is more the norm.

This is true of Silver Age DC.

This is not true of Stan Lee's Marvel. It is why Marvel started eating DC's lunch. And now most superhero comics are serial, NOT episodic.

That is the crux of what this discussion has been. Spider-Man WAS serial. Now it's episodic.

If you're looking at the number of ongoing stories and complexity of character relationships, Wells' Spider-Man is quite complex in the context of Spider-Man runs.

I'll note one slight complication is that a shift to decompressed storytelling meant that older comics were often denser, but even taking that into account, the current run is quite complex in terms of ongoing stories.

I'm not. I seeing characters being moved like inanimate action figures around a playset at the whim of the author. One clue is how often deus ex machina and coincidence are used to move the story forward or to conclude it.



Since they didn't really deal with her death, that's not an objection.



I gave an example earlier in the thread of how the symbiote and Peter's understanding of it changed over time, based on the adventures building on each other. Even though that was given as an example of bad continuity. But it's actually a very good example of how stories can inform each other and build.



I'm sure that is your opinion!

You might not be satisfied with the execution, but they did deal with the aftermath of Ms Marvel's death on the page.

This may be a change in goalposts since it's different to look at something objectively (Did it happen?) as opposed to whether you liked it.

We should be able to compare different periods. It's worth noting it shouldn't be about one example (unless someone makes a comment without allowing for any exceptions) but about the norms. The symbiote arc should be one of many from that stretch of comics. And there should be more examples than in equivalent sections of the current comics.

[TinkerSpider]

It's not that if Peter uses a landline in a comic published in 1975 that I would immediately assume the comic has to be set in 1975. It might be, and that was the intent when it was made, but the story would be set in any time that has these specific cues.

If Peter's on the Johnny Carson show in a comic published in 1988 that dates the story as occurring at a time when it's plausible for Johnny Carson to host a TV show. It could be a few years earlier. It could be a few years later.

OR...hear me out....The Marvel Universe is fantasy.
It is not our real world.

A problem gets to be when there are contradictory cues, if one comic has President Reagan and another has President Obama and these are set just a few years apart. There's no in-universe explanation. Readers may have their own headcanon, but that's by definition no longer the same story.

OR...the Marvel Universe is a fantasy world where President Reagan and President Obama are fantasy versions and Ed Koch AND the Kingpin AND J Jonah Jameson are all mayors of New York.

Readers understand fiction is fiction. Okay, nearly all readers do.

If there's no reader who enjoys it in its entirety, that seems to be a knock against the idea that the Marvel Universe can be understood as one story.

That is illogical.

A story exists whether it has a reader or not.

The story defines its world.

Retcons generally seem to be ways to make several stories fit together. It does seem clear that there's no point where a Marvel fan would be able to say definitively what's canon, so that goes against the idea that Marvel's one story. Rather, it's a vehicle for stories. Because once the canon changes, it's a different story because the context has changed (A Namor who romanced Betty Dean during World War 2 is different from a Namor who never had that experience.)

Thinking about this a bit, the moment you have a retcon, you can argue it's no longer the same story. Because something that was intended by one writer can no longer be taken at face value (obviously it's not a retcon if the writer knew that something's going on behind the surface that most readers are unaware of.)

Stories are linear. The most recent retcon infoms the earlier story. This is objectively how reading works.

Soap operas seem best appreciated as vehicles for stories. It's not about the story of a particular series, but a favorite saga (IE- the time a beloved character was framed for murder, or a mystery of a new neighbor's scandalous secret.

Again, people should experience a genre first before making pronouncements.

This is objectively not true.

The stories build upon each other and relate to each other to create a larger story that is specifically about that particular world.

When you change the order of stories to make Dead Language come out immediately after the Tombstone story, it's not just about whether Dead Language builds on Dark Web, but what happens to Dark Web when it's now set after Dead Language.

Nothing happens to Dark Web. The story is a self-contained episode. Nothing in Dead Language would affect it.

Even then things that happen in one story impact another. This isn't silver age DC when inventory stories can be published years later with minimal consequence.

I disagree.

I just use episodic to describe anything that has episodes.

And you are using the word wrong in this context. Words have meanings. We read in context. Conversations rely on chains of logic.

This is objectively how humans communicate.

In TV, this could be series meant to be consumed from the beginning (House of the Dragon, Succession, Better Call Saul) and series where you could jump in at any point.

Episodic storytelling is not serialized storytelling.

An interesting book about how storytelling got more complex is Stephen Johnson's Everything Bad Is Good For You. It gets into these distinctions, and it is more of a spectrum. A big element is the storytelling can be more complex when it's easier for people to catch up, largely due to technological changes that allow people access to earlier installments of a story. Once upon a time something like The Invisibles or Cerebus appealed to a niche audience that was expected to check out earlier chapters in order to what's going on. Now that kind of approach is more the norm.

That helps to explain why serialized storytelling is more popular, but that is ancillary to the discussion of episodic vs. serial. Serial stories have existed for centuries. Dickens wrote serialized stories.

If you're looking at the number of ongoing stories and complexity of character relationships, Wells' Spider-Man is quite complex in the context of Spider-Man runs.

No. It is not. There is nothing complex because the relationships shift to suit the whims of the author and do not organically build.

You might not be satisfied with the execution, but they did deal with the aftermath of Ms Marvel's death on the page.

They did not. Peter slept with her mask (intensely gross and problematic) for one panel. Norman said she brought him coffee for one panel. Then it was completely dropped. This is not dealing with the aftermath by any stretch of the imagination.

My liking has nothing to do with the facts of the story.

We should be able to compare different periods. It's worth noting it shouldn't be about one example (unless someone makes a comment without allowing for any exceptions) but about the norms. The symbiote arc should be one of many from that stretch of comics. And there should be more examples than in equivalent sections of the current comics.

There are a myriad of examples. But I have a feeling, based on the current merry go round, even if I exhaustively listed them and pulled panels issue by issue for 600 or so issue, that wouldn't met whatever goalposts you have in mind.

[Xix25]

I do think the idea that MJ's been unfaithful is based on unrealistic expectations.

I get that in comics, there is an expectation for grand examples of positive qualities but the problem isn't that it's unrealistic MJ developed feelings for a guy after several years raising kids with him.

The situation was deeply unfair, although that is kinda the point.

Sorry but no. This just reads like a willfully blind interpretation of the generally shoddy writing to justify incredibly problematic story beats. The comics are already as unrealistic as they come, but for some reason certain emotional beats can't be unrealistic? Come on, at least have the decency to admit this is not about having a realistic or even a good Spidey story.

[godisawesome]

I might actually argue that Wells’s run is sort of torn between the extreme desire by editorial for “safe” plug-and-play stories, the demands for constant content creation, and how no matter how much OMD-supporting writers may speak about a precious status quo, there’s still a powerful impulse to be ambitious and try new things lurking beneath their work.

Wells has to produce a rather grueling pace of strokes to fulfill the bi-monthly story requirements, and likely both for reasons o his won interest and plain old-fashioned marketing reasons, relies on sweeping-but-temporary status quo “shocks.” But... those are only ever going to be temporary “shocks” to a status quo because, yeah, there’s a strong belief at Marvel that long era storytelling is bad for Spidey.

That weird combination leads to this low-on-details, low-on-psychology, intellectually lazy type of storytelling. If Wells stops to focus on any of his shocks and actually establishing what’s supposed to make them work on the macro or micro level, he risks either making them genuine shifts in the status quo, or exposing how much it’s just a gimmick for content creation.

[9AlphaOmega1]

Someone once told me that Marvel is a publishing company, meaning selling prints, as much prints for maximum profit, so the idea of an enrage fan is an engage fan, make sense. ASM is Marvel bread and butter, Spider-Man doing Spider-Man things.

My love for Spider-Man is his adventure, when I was introduce to Spider-Man TAS, but later on Peter and his supporting cast I found to be more interesting. I knew what Spider-Man going to do after years of reading him, but as for Peter he is an unknown, what will he do in a situation with his supporting cast after years of life experience.

6160 USM is something different and something new, different enough to be not ASM. ASM is now rehashing and retelling the same story lines from its greatest hits, it something I am not putting my money in.

[Mister Mets]

Sorry but no. This just reads like a willfully blind interpretation of the generally shoddy writing to justify incredibly problematic story beats. The comics are already as unrealistic as they come, but for some reason certain emotional beats can't be unrealistic? Come on, at least have the decency to admit this is not about having a realistic or even a good Spidey story.

Er, emotional beats should be realistic. That's the way it works.

I may be misreading this, because you seem to be saying that wanting realistic emotional beats is inconsistent with a good Spidey story. I very strongly disagree with this idea.

The situations are unrealistic, but the reactions help ground the story. Writing characters as paragons and not people is shoddy writing.

I am curious as to how many people feel this way, that characters should act in unrealistic ways because comics are already unrealistic.

OR...hear me out....The Marvel Universe is fantasy.
It is not our real world.


OR...the Marvel Universe is a fantasy world where President Reagan and President Obama are fantasy versions and Ed Koch AND the Kingpin AND J Jonah Jameson are all mayors of New York.

Readers understand fiction is fiction. Okay, nearly all readers do.

Sure, but it's very similar to our world. Changes to the universe of a story have implications.

That is illogical.

A story exists whether it has a reader or not.

The story defines its world.

This isn't a case of a buried manuscript that no one's ever read. It's something millions of people have access to, but very few consume it the way a story is meant to be consumed, linearly.

If something isn't meant to be appreciated in its entirety, it's probably not a story, but it can be a container for multiple stories.

Stories are linear. The most recent retcon infoms the earlier story. This is objectively how reading works.

When retcons announce that books in a different series or published years earlier are now part of a story, that's no longer linear storytelling.

It's impossible to read a story linearly if you don't know when it started or whether material that is published concurrently is part of the same story.

Again, people should experience a genre first before making pronouncements.

This is objectively not true.

The stories build upon each other and relate to each other to create a larger story that is specifically about that particular world.

Soap operas seem to represent a type of storytelling that we don't see much anymore, when the audience is meant to cycle in and out.

That allows for retelling stories, because who cares if Peter Parker the Spectacular Spider-Man Annual #1 really rips off beats from Amazing Spider-Man #11 if most readers of a 1979 annual are not expected to be familiar with a comic book from 15 years earlier.

I've mainly seen this argument from older pros like Peter David and John Byrne, and it might reflect an attitude that made sense when they were starting out.

This falls apart when there's a fan culture guiding newcomers to the best older material, and when the older material is readily available in digital copies and physical media.

There are likely fans of things who experience it and then grow out of it, and just read the current stuff, but they're not going to be represented online because it requires a level of ignorance (I mean this neutrally) that doesn't work with the abundance of information online.

Nothing happens to Dark Web. The story is a self-contained episode. Nothing in Dead Language would affect it.

Peter would be in a different headspace if MJ just went through a trauma.

The story builds on Beyond, and has consequences in future adventures.

I disagree.

This is something that can be measured objectively.

We can compare consecutive stories in a silver age DC run to consecutive stories in 1980s/ 1990s Marvel to consecutive stories in Wells' Amazing Spider-Man.

It's a bit time-consuming, and more of interest in figuring out how comics have changed.

And you are using the word wrong in this context. Words have meanings. We read in context. Conversations rely on chains of logic.

This is objectively how humans communicate.

Sure, but some words have multiple meanings depending on the context.

The term "episodic" can refer to series with different levels of ongoing subplots, or long-term stories. Because there are different types of episodic storytelling.

Episodic storytelling is not serialized storytelling.

That gets messy.

If we have a medical drama where the doctors deal with new medical emergencies each episode but there are ongoing romantic and private subplots as well as recurring patients with a specific backstory, it is both serialized and episodic.

You could have something within the same genre that has different levels of serialization. Some legal dramas are much more serialized than others.

There are also very few pure serials, where a 40 minute episode is more like 40 minutes of an ongoing movie rather than something in any way discrete.

That helps to explain why serialized storytelling is more popular, but that is ancillary to the discussion of episodic vs. serial. Serial stories have existed for centuries. Dickens wrote serialized stories.

Dickens would publish the books as novels upon completion.
It took a long time for comics, movies and TV to do that.

It takes a while to have the norm that you can start with chapter one.

The change in technology does make it kind of ridiculous to claim that Wells' stories are like Silver Age DC. It seems like a bad faith argument.

No. It is not. There is nothing complex because the relationships shift to suit the whims of the author and do not organically build.

Now you're departing from objective measures and going into mindreading. It also allows for a comparison of the period when a story built organically and the writer didn't know what was going to happen. Some stories are like that, but not a lot in published comics, partially because many different people are working on the same characters.

They did not. Peter slept with her mask (intensely gross and problematic) for one panel. Norman said she brought him coffee for one panel. Then it was completely dropped. This is not dealing with the aftermath by any stretch of the imagination.

My liking has nothing to do with the facts of the story.

I don't think that's an accurate summary.
If I point out that it was more panels, will that persuade you of anything?

There are a myriad of examples. But I have a feeling, based on the current merry go round, even if I exhaustively listed them and pulled panels issue by issue for 600 or so issue, that wouldn't met whatever goalposts you have in mind.

The goalposts are based on what you say.
For example, "Peter slept with her mask (intensely gross and problematic) for one panel. Norman said she brought him coffee for one panel. Then it was completely dropped. This is not dealing with the aftermath by any stretch of the imagination." is a goalpost that suggests it's relevant for two panels. If I can find a third panel impacted by the death of Ms Marvel, the statement is wrong.

But if you're not meant to be taken literally and talking about your impressions and how you feel, it's a different situation.

Maybe I'm pedantic here but I've done a lot of thinking and reading about these questions. I think it's an interesting topic, well beyond the implications for one run of Spider-Man.

[TinkerSpider]

This isn't a case of a buried manuscript that no one's ever read. It's something millions of people have access to, but very few consume it the way a story is meant to be consumed, linearly.

If something isn't meant to be appreciated in its entirety, it's probably not a story, but it can be a container for multiple stories.

Again, I am going to stress:

Words have meanings. Language has order.

You can say a story is a kumquat all you want.

But a story is a story. Some stories may never end and thus can't be experienced by one person. But it is still a story.

End of story. Literally.

When retcons announce that books in a different series or published years earlier are now part of a story, that's no longer linear storytelling.

Yes, it is.

Because the retcon comes AFTER the previous story and provides a NEW layer of understanding.

That's why it's a retcon.

It is literally in the name.

It's impossible to read a story linearly if you don't know when it started or whether material that is published concurrently is part of the same story.

You are

Soap operas seem to represent a type of storytelling that we don't see much anymore, when the audience is meant to cycle in and out.

Soap operas are dependent upon ratings.

That means they want to CAPTURE the audience, KEEP the audience they have, and GROW their audience. They are NOT meant for the audience to cycle because that would lose them eyeballs.

Tell me, which soap have you watched, what year(s), and for how long?

That allows for retelling stories, because who cares if Peter Parker the Spectacular Spider-Man Annual #1 really rips off beats from Amazing Spider-Man #11 if most readers of a 1979 annual are not expected to be familiar with a comic book from 15 years earlier.

The people who read ASM 11 and recognize the plagiarism, because those issues are readily available today. But then, you're actually describing nostalgia rot and lack of creativity.

Marvel should be concentrating on stories that resonate with current audiences and the current zeitgeist instead of repeating stories that were popular when, frex, GenX writers and editors were first reading.

I've mainly seen this argument from older pros like Peter David and John Byrne, and it might reflect an attitude that made sense when they were starting out.

This falls apart when there's a fan culture guiding newcomers to the best older material, and when the older material is readily available in digital copies and physical media.

The older material being available is precisely why the argument does NOT fall apart and is, in fact, a point in its favor.

Peter would be in a different headspace if MJ just went through a trauma.

But MJ and Peter did go through a trauma before the first arc. I've confused as to your argument.

There is nothing in Dark Web that says it has to come before Dead Language. Nothing in Dark Web impacts any other story where Chasm/Hallow's Eve does not appear.

The story builds on Beyond, and has consequences in future adventures.

Beyond is not the Wells run. We've established Tombstone is the opening arc. But after Tombstone, the big arcs can pretty much be reshuffled and the stories inside the arcs would not be impacted, because they are self-contained.

This is something that can be measured objectively.

We can compare consecutive stories in a silver age DC run to consecutive stories in 1980s/ 1990s Marvel to consecutive stories in Wells' Amazing Spider-Man.

It's a bit time-consuming, and more of interest in figuring out how comics have changed.

If you want to do that, I'd be interested to see your conclusions.

Sure, but some words have multiple meanings depending on the context.

I agree. And in this context you are using the word wrong.

The term "episodic" can refer to series with different levels of ongoing subplots, or long-term stories. Because there are different types of episodic storytelling.

Episodic has a specific meaning in this context. Ask the dictionary. In this context, the meaning is "1: made up of separate especially loosely connected episodes"

If we have a medical drama where the doctors deal with new medical emergencies each episode but there are ongoing romantic and private subplots as well as recurring patients with a specific backstory, it is both serialized and episodic.

It is a serial with episodes that are self-contained. But it is not episodic because the episodes cannot be shown out of order as it would render the ongoing subplots nonsensical.

Dickens would publish the books as novels upon completion.

They were still originally published as serials.

It took a long time for comics, movies and TV to do that.

From a certain point of view, The Bible is a serial, with the New Testament building upon what happens in the Old Testament.

Trade collections of comics exist.

As soon as the technology was available, VHS and DVD box sets were made available.

Film serials such as Buck Rogers existed before TV took over.

It takes a while to have the norm that you can start with chapter one.

I am confused. All stories start with chapter one/the beginning and have since the dawn of storytelling. Even nonlinear stories have a starting anchor point.

The change in technology does make it kind of ridiculous to claim that Wells' stories are like Silver Age DC. It seems like a bad faith argument.

There is nothing bad faith about the apt comparison of the style of storytelling in the Silver Age, where characters do not change or grow and have episodic adventures only, to the Wells run where the characters do not change or grow and have episodic adventures only.

I am lost by your reference to technology. Do you mean the printing methods are different? Sure. Do you mean Peter is now using a computer instead of a pen and paper? Sure. But that's not the comparison and has nothing to do with my point.

Now you're departing from objective measures and going into mindreading.

I am so confused.

There is nothing mindreading about noting that on the page the characters' motivations are not organic to the story and/or the character and instead the characters' motivations shift as it suits the author's needs for the story at hand. That is instead looking at the text and the text only.

This is a very common line of criticism in literary theory.

Again, It also allows for a comparison of the period when a story built organically and the writer didn't know what was going to happen. Some stories are like that, but not a lot in published comics, partially because many different people are working on the same characters.

I am still so confused.

Are you saying the Silver Age built organically but comics today are not organic but are instead corporate IP with all soul and creativity sucked out of them?

I disgree with the first, because the Silver Age was not organic serialized storytelling. I agree with the second part.

Otherwise, I don't think I can parse your point.

I don't think that's an accurate summary.
If I point out that it was more panels, will that persuade you of anything?

Show me how Peter and Norman changed their behavior and/or their plans and/or their motivations and/or their outlook on life because of Kamala's blatant fridging.

The goalposts are based on what you say.
For example, "Peter slept with her mask (intensely gross and problematic) for one panel. Norman said she brought him coffee for one panel. Then it was completely dropped. This is not dealing with the aftermath by any stretch of the imagination." is a goalpost that suggests it's relevant for two panels. If I can find a third panel impacted by the death of Ms Marvel, the statement is wrong.

You're right. I do say completely. My bad. But the actual point is above, especially with regards to the title of this thread.

I might actually argue that Wells’s run is sort of torn between the extreme desire by editorial for “safe” plug-and-play stories, the demands for constant content creation, and how no matter how much OMD-supporting writers may speak about a precious status quo, there’s still a powerful impulse to be ambitious and try new things lurking beneath their work.

Wells has to produce a rather grueling pace of strokes to fulfill the bi-monthly story requirements, and likely both for reasons o his won interest and plain old-fashioned marketing reasons, relies on sweeping-but-temporary status quo “shocks.” But... those are only ever going to be temporary “shocks” to a status quo because, yeah, there’s a strong belief at Marvel that long era storytelling is bad for Spidey.

That weird combination leads to this low-on-details, low-on-psychology, intellectually lazy type of storytelling. If Wells stops to focus on any of his shocks and actually establishing what’s supposed to make them work on the macro or micro level, he risks either making them genuine shifts in the status quo, or exposing how much it’s just a gimmick for content creation.

This is a brilliant observation.