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

[Garlador]

This is not @ you Garlador, just quoting cuz you mention the price thing and I thought it was funny...

Not sure why Marvel (Buckley) even bothered addressing that.

Every price increase ever has always come with the "promise" of higher quality and the company working harder to "earn" that increase...lol!

Always just a test to see if folks will buy and if it works, raise the whole line to the higher price point. Then when other companies see Marvel get away with it, they jump on board.

Gotta luv it!

There's a very good reason I almost always wait for a comic run to conclude, see if it's worth my time to pick up, and grab the trades or omnibus.

USM is an extremely rare exception for me to go with monthly subscriptions.

[Dan Slott]

Each month Marvel has consistently sold two issues of ASM in the Top 10.
At the end of every fiscal year, the overwhelming majority of Marvel's best selling books out of everything they've been doing has been the Wells run of ASM.
The books coming out of Nick Lowe's Spider-Man Office have dominated the American comic book market.

For the Spider Office, doing that is NOT a guarantee. There have been times when the Avengers Office has taken those spots, times when the X-Office has done that.
For the past few years, the Spider Office gets to make that claim.

Ultimate Spider-Man is a runaway success. The creative team and editorial team working on it are both brilliant! And readers are doing what they should be doing-- they're voting with their wallets! I have no doubt that every issue of USM will be in next year's list of Marvel's top selling issues.

Here's the thing tho: ASM is going to be holding its own there too. Yes, USM is blowing the doors off. But that hasn't stopped ASM from being as successful as it has been-- twice a month-- in this market. Whether it's a book you, personally, enjoy or not-- there is a market for it.

When Marvel suddenly has a goose that lays a PLATINUM egg once a month that doesn't mean that they should turn around and possibly kill one of their other geese-- especially one that's laying two GOLDEN eggs a month-- and one that has consistently lain two GOLDEN eggs a month year in and year out for some time.

[TinkerSpider]

USM is outselling ALL books. So every comic company must also be leaving money on the table.

Absolutely correct.

This is why DC is working on Absolute DC, with details rumored to be announced around San Diego Comic Con.

Pun intended.

I wish all those companies, and their respective comic titles, luck in finding all that money that's being left behind.

Markets are not a finite pie. USM taking one slice does not deplete the pie for the rest of the titles.

Markets are an ever expanding or contracting pie.

A rising tide lifts all boats, etc.

There are many ways for companies to increase profits. One way is take market share from existing competitors in an existing market.

One way to make more money off the existing consumers (raising prices, selling variant covers so the same buyer is now buying multiple copies).

And one way is to increase the overall market.

We're seeing USM do the last.

We have anecdotal evidence USM is getting new faces into the store. What USM is revealing is that the market is bigger than previous thought attainable.

No company executive who wants to keep their job just sits on what they are doing when the market shifts like this. Especially not a Disney affiliate, known to be the most metric driven media company around, with armies of Disney biz dev analysts crunching numbers.

And just because USM is outselling all other books, does not mean that folks purchasing those other titles are not liking what they buy.

USM sales are incremental. It's clear ASM sells to its audience. But USM is reaching an incremental audience above that.

In other words, ASM buyers are quite probably buying USM.

USM buyers, however, are very much likely not buying ASM. Or the sales would be more closely aligned.

Therefore, the smart business decision is try and capture the incremental market for ALL titles. What is the Ultimate line doing that the books performing adequately by the previous depressed market's standards are not doing? Why are they bringing new faces into the stores - and bringing people into stores is a priority for Marvel, per Dan Buckley's recent statement.

[wleakr]

LOTS OF GOOD STUFF IN THE RESPONSE ABOVE.

Agree with all of this. Appreciate the response and feedback.

[Garlador]

Each month Marvel has consistently sold two issues of ASM in the Top 10.
At the end of every fiscal year, the overwhelming majority of Marvel's best selling books out of everything they've been doing has been the Wells run of ASM.
The books coming out of Nick Lowe's Spider-Man Office have dominated the American comic book market.

For the Spider Office, doing that is NOT a guarantee. There have been times when the Avengers Office has taken those spots, times when the X-Office has done that.
For the past few years, the Spider Office gets to make that claim.

Ultimate Spider-Man is a runaway success. The creative team and editorial team working on it are both brilliant! And readers are doing what they should be doing-- they're voting with their wallets! I have no doubt that every issue of USM will be in next year's list of Marvel's top selling issues.

Here's the thing tho: ASM is going to be holding its own there too. Yes, USM is blowing the doors off. But that hasn't stopped ASM from being as successful as it has been-- twice a month-- in this market. Whether it's a book you, personally, enjoy or not-- there is a market for it.

When Marvel suddenly has a goose that lays a PLATINUM egg once a month that doesn't mean that they should turn around and possibly kill one of their other geese-- especially one that's laying two GOLDEN eggs a month-- and one that has consistently lain two GOLDEN eggs a month year in and year out for some time.

Gonna poke the bear here a bit.

I have that nice little campaign link below for a campaign that was initiated on the recommendations that to show Marvel Offices that there is a sizable demand for a maturely written, married Peter Parker in the mainstream comics - and to show that while ASM sells, while comparatively impressive to its peers, there was a larger audience being alienated - we should organize, petition for a pro-marriage book, and then overwhelmingly support it more than the 616 alternative to send the strongest message possible - one with dollar signs attached.

We've done so. And it's only escalating and ramping up.

So... what now? Selling more than double ASM's numbers four months in isn't enough? How much higher should that ratio be? How long should it be selling more than two issue of ASM combined per month? 6 months? A year?

I'm not being facetious. We're doing exactly what was asked of us. We're refuting all the "metrics" that argued against it. And with a campaign that's passionately escalating in building momentum, I don't see this changing anytime soon.

The ball is quite literally in Marvel's court to tell us what the next goalpost is, because we're sending the strongest message about a comic than Spider-Man has received in over two decades with the most valuable tool we have at our disposal; our time and money.

As stands, it's "Mission Accomplished" on every step that was suggested to us.

[Konnik92]

When Marvel suddenly has a goose that lays a PLATINUM egg once a month that doesn't mean that they should turn around and possibly kill one of their other geese-- especially one that's laying two GOLDEN eggs a month-- and one that has consistently lain two GOLDEN eggs a month year in and year out for some time.

Or treat "the goose with the GOLDEN eggs" better, because it can lead to having three PLATINUM eggs per month.
Why be satisfied with having a spot on the top 10, when it can do better than that? USM clearly proves that.

[Garlador]

Or treat "the goose with the GOLDEN eggs" better, because it can lead to having three PLATINUM eggs per month.
Why be satisfied with having a spot on the top 10, when it can do better than that? USM clearly proves that.

Echoing this, I have seriously doubts that ASM shifting gears to appeal more to the very fans who are currently so alienated and put off would somehow pose a risk to the title. The diehards will buy the book through hell and high water, but the audience wanting to give their money to the book is sitting here waiting for the excuse with an open wallet, being rebuffed.

Grant Morrison's manifesto on the X-Men from his run has been on my mind a lot lately after it resurfaced:

In the last decade or so, the tendency at Marvel have been intensely conservative; comics like the X-Men have gone from freewheeling, overdriven pop to cautious, dodgy retro. What was dynamic becomes static - dead characters always return, nothing that happens really matters ultimately. The stage is never cleared for new creations to develop and grow. The comic has turned inwards and gone septic like a toenail. The only people read are fanboys who don't count. The X-Men, for all it was still Marvel's bestseller, had become a watchword for undiluted geekery before the movie gave us another eltroshock jolt. And in the last decade, sales fell from millions to hundreds of thousands.

He recognized that the X-Men was still a bestseller, but that it was suffering from so many of the problems I'm hearing about ASM right now. "Nothing that happens really matters". The story can't move forward. Nothing develops. Nothing grows. We keep recycling the same ideas and revisiting the same concepts to diminishing returns. He identified that problem in X-Men and refused to accept the "well, it's still a bestseller" as a valid excuse when the title - and the whole medium - had the potential to be more.

I believe that is true of Spider-Man. And I want a "Grand Morrison" mindset to step up and break the cycle.

[Hurricane Billy]

Each month Marvel has consistently sold two issues of ASM in the Top 10.
At the end of every fiscal year, the overwhelming majority of Marvel's best selling books out of everything they've been doing has been the Wells run of ASM.
The books coming out of Nick Lowe's Spider-Man Office have dominated the American comic book market.

For the Spider Office, doing that is NOT a guarantee. There have been times when the Avengers Office has taken those spots, times when the X-Office has done that.
For the past few years, the Spider Office gets to make that claim.

Ultimate Spider-Man is a runaway success. The creative team and editorial team working on it are both brilliant! And readers are doing what they should be doing-- they're voting with their wallets! I have no doubt that every issue of USM will be in next year's list of Marvel's top selling issues.

Here's the thing tho: ASM is going to be holding its own there too. Yes, USM is blowing the doors off. But that hasn't stopped ASM from being as successful as it has been-- twice a month-- in this market. Whether it's a book you, personally, enjoy or not-- there is a market for it.

When Marvel suddenly has a goose that lays a PLATINUM egg once a month that doesn't mean that they should turn around and possibly kill one of their other geese-- especially one that's laying two GOLDEN eggs a month-- and one that has consistently lain two GOLDEN eggs a month year in and year out for some time.

With all due respect, Dan, this argument makes no sense to me personally.

For starters, the odds that the majority of ASM buyers aren't also going out and buying USM too are most likely very low. Now I'm sure there are a few fans here and there who prefer what Wells and Lowe are cooking up over at the main Spider-Office compared to what Hickman is doing with USM- but I doubt that they make up the majority of ASM's sales, at least going off of the percentages of sales and the admittedly hear-say/anecdotal experiences I've had talking with other comic fans at my local comic shop.

Meanwhile, USM's sales show rather clearly that there's a huge demographic out there of Spider-Man fans who have been silently "voting with their wallets" for years now by not going out and buying ASM due to the status quo set up by OMD. There's quite a lot of money being left at the table by Marvel every two weeks where a new issue of ASM comes out with this current status quo. Like Garlador said, the fans are speaking out and voting with their wallets here. The ball is in Marvel's court now.

Also, as an aside, I actually wanted to run an idea by you, Dan. If OMD were ever undone or Peter and MJ were remarried in 616, couldn't Marvel also just launch a new Spider-Man book in the vein of what DC did with Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight, where all-star talent at the company could come in and do short self-contained prestige stories of three to five issue long stories are set across various points in Peter's early career, be it when Peter is in high school (like what DeMatteis is currently doing with Shadow of the Green Goblin) or in college with Gwen?

Now this is just me speaking here, as I admittedly prefer a status quo of Peter being older and married to MJ... but I personally wouldn't see any problem in also supporting a book that focuses in on the early days and lets talent at Marvel strut their stuff on projects that'd be potentially easier for newcomer readers to pick up and read. Heck, as a Batman fan, some of my favorite comics with the character came from that LotDK title.

Then again, for all I know, I suppose there could've already been a book like that in past and I just never heard about it. Either way, I'd love to hear what you think about that idea, Dan!

[Dan Slott]

Gonna poke the bear here a bit.

No poking detected.

Your posts have continued to be impassioned and positive-- and those are GREAT things to see!

How long should it be selling more than two issue of ASM combined per month? 6 months? A year?

That's a good question. My take: You're running a marathon, not a sprint.

Let me put it this way...
There was a time when another ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN regularly outsold AMAZING SPIDER-MAN.
The main draw for that book was that it was a new/modern day take on one of the most popular and successful eras of Spider-Man: When he was a teenager in high school.

Going back to my previous metaphor: Suddenly having a new goose that lays ONE platinum egg each month doesn't mean that you should kill your other goose that has successfully been laying TWO golden eggs a month, year in and year out, and outperforming all your other geese by a healthy margin.

At what point do you roll the dice and kill that goose in the hopes of getting 3 platinum eggs? Four months? Half a year? Two years?

People on this board were suggesting that trigger should be pulled after 1 issue. And that's kinda silly.

Whatever takes people have been throwing out on this board, imagine if we went back in time and made those suggestions about changing the status quo of JMS's ASM so that it lined up with Bendis' USM. Imagine if some plot device (Cosmic Cube, Shaper of Worlds, Proteus, whatever) was used to change Peter Parker and his entire supporting cast back to the ages they all were when Peter was in high school. Would that have been a prudent and fiscally wise move?

As stands, it's "Mission Accomplished" on every step that was suggested to us.

Well, I wouldn't say every step. If memory serves, a reduction of toxic fan behavior towards the creators and editorial was part of it. And while you've done an admirable job of being above that fray, I still see a lot of bad actors going after people in extremely toxic ways.

[WebLurker]

The pros have often explained their views, and that doesn't fit the description of true motives.

Sorry, come again?

Each month Marvel has consistently sold two issues of ASM in the Top 10.
At the end of every fiscal year, the overwhelming majority of Marvel's best selling books out of everything they've been doing has been the Wells run of ASM.
The books coming out of Nick Lowe's Spider-Man Office have dominated the American comic book market.

For the Spider Office, doing that is NOT a guarantee. There have been times when the Avengers Office has taken those spots, times when the X-Office has done that.
For the past few years, the Spider Office gets to make that claim.

Ultimate Spider-Man is a runaway success. The creative team and editorial team working on it are both brilliant! And readers are doing what they should be doing-- they're voting with their wallets! I have no doubt that every issue of USM will be in next year's list of Marvel's top selling issues.

Here's the thing tho: ASM is going to be holding its own there too. Yes, USM is blowing the doors off. But that hasn't stopped ASM from being as successful as it has been-- twice a month-- in this market. Whether it's a book you, personally, enjoy or not-- there is a market for it.

When Marvel suddenly has a goose that lays a PLATINUM egg once a month that doesn't mean that they should turn around and possibly kill one of their other geese-- especially one that's laying two GOLDEN eggs a month-- and one that has consistently lain two GOLDEN eggs a month year in and year out for some time.

So, then what is the takeaway from the situation, esp. in regards to the ongoing OMD controversy and how the post-2007 ASM and USM 2.0 fit into it?

[Frontier]

With all due respect, Dan, this argument makes no sense to me personally.

For starters, the odds that the majority of ASM buyers aren't also going out and buying USM too are most likely very low. Now I'm sure there are a few fans here and there who prefer what Wells and Lowe are cooking up over at the main Spider-Office compared to what Hickman is doing with USM- but I doubt that they make up the majority of ASM's sales, at least going off of the percentages of sales and the admittedly hear-say/anecdotal experiences I've had talking with other comic fans at my local comic shop.

Meanwhile, USM's sales show rather clearly that there's a huge demographic out there of Spider-Man fans who have been silently "voting with their wallets" for years now by not going out and buying ASM due to the status quo set up by OMD. There's quite a lot of money being left at the table by Marvel every two weeks where a new issue of ASM comes out with this current status quo. Like Garlador said, the fans are speaking out and voting with their wallets here. The ball is in Marvel's court now.

Also, as an aside, I actually wanted to run an idea by you, Dan. If OMD were ever undone or Peter and MJ were remarried in 616, couldn't Marvel also just launch a new Spider-Man book in the vein of what DC did with Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight, where all-star talent at the company could come in and do short self-contained prestige stories of three to five issue long stories are set across various points in Peter's early career, be it when Peter is in high school (like what DeMatteis is currently doing with Shadow of the Green Goblin) or in college with Gwen?

Now this is just me speaking here, as I admittedly prefer a status quo of Peter being older and married to MJ... but I personally wouldn't see any problem in also supporting a book that focuses in on the early days and lets talent at Marvel strut their stuff on projects that'd be potentially easier for newcomer readers to pick up and read. Heck, as a Batman fan, some of my favorite comics with the character came from that LotDK title.

Then again, for all I know, I suppose there could've already been a book like that in past and I just never heard about it. Either way, I'd love to hear what you think about that idea, Dan!

This reminds me of the Spidey comic they had around the time of ANAD era where we had non-continuity teen Spidey stories.

Echoing this, I have seriously doubts that ASM shifting gears to appeal more to the very fans who are currently so alienated and put off would somehow pose a risk to the title. The diehards will buy the book through hell and high water, but the audience wanting to give their money to the book is sitting here waiting for the excuse with an open wallet, being rebuffed.

Grant Morrison's manifesto on the X-Men from his run has been on my mind a lot lately after it resurfaced:


He recognized that the X-Men was still a bestseller, but that it was suffering from so many of the problems I'm hearing about ASM right now. "Nothing that happens really matters". The story can't move forward. Nothing develops. Nothing grows. We keep recycling the same ideas and revisiting the same concepts to diminishing returns. He identified that problem in X-Men and refused to accept the "well, it's still a bestseller" as a valid excuse when the title - and the whole medium - had the potential to be more.

I believe that is true of Spider-Man. And I want a "Grand Morrison" mindset to step up and break the cycle.

Granted there are still people who reject some of the story decisions and ideas Morrison brought to the franchise (even if they've made their way into media adaptions).

[Xix25]

Honestly, how would it be killing ASM to write better stories and avoid relying on insulting tropes and stories to generate interest? I feel like this idea that ASM is perfectly fine is basically relying on a bad faith reading of the actual work being produced.

[Garlador]

No poking detected.

Your posts have continued to be impassioned and positive-- and those are GREAT things to see!

Always appreciate you taking the time to share you insight. Truly.

That's a good question. My take: You're running a marathon, not a sprint.

Thankfully, I think this campaign community is in it for the long haul, and should prove a very economically influential and enthusiastic readership should things change.

Let me put it this way...
There was a time when another ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN regularly outsold AMAZING SPIDER-MAN.
The main draw for that book was that it was a new/modern day take on one of the most popular and successful eras of Spider-Man: When he was a teenager in high school.

Going back to my previous metaphor: Suddenly having a new goose that lays ONE platinum egg each month doesn't mean that you should kill your other goose that has successfully been laying TWO golden eggs a month, year in and year out, and outperforming all your other geese by a healthy margin.

At what point do you roll the dice and kill that goose in the hopes of getting 3 platinum eggs? Four months? Half a year? Two years?

To turn this about, many of us feel that's what One More Day did, effectively taking a consistently supported "golden egg" comic and killing it for enough readers to permanently walk away. The same argument could have been used in defense of the pro-marriage status quo. ASM took on a different form after that and had some upswings, but became effectively a different goose at that point. Why risk killing the married goose with the golden eggs? Why was that permitted, but the current status quo is some sacred cow worth preserving no matter what? I don't follow the double-standard here.

People on this board were suggesting that trigger should be pulled after 1 issue. And that's kinda silly.

Perhaps, but I've been around long enough to see the entire industry shift directions because of one amazing issue. That's all it takes, if it resonates strongly with comic readers.

Whatever takes people have been throwing out on this board, imagine if we went back in time and made those suggestions about changing the status quo of JMS's ASM so that it lined up with Bendis' USM. Imagine if some plot device (Cosmic Cube, Shaper of Worlds, Proteus, whatever) was used to change Peter Parker and his entire supporting cast back to the ages they all were when Peter was in high school. Would that have been a prudent and fiscally wise move?

Being completely transparently, I'm actually rather surprised Marvel HASN'T considered that, given they so clearly long for the high school era and revisiting the teenage years. Beyond that, I've read many of the interviews of how Bendis's USM radically changed the entire trajectory of the brand at large, creating a major push for high school Peter in cartoons, video games, and movies which didn't exist prior. That influence and impact was quite strongly felt, and even was cited as one of the reasons they felt attempting to make Peter feel "younger" in the 616 was a priority for them.

And I like high school Peter too. I'll gladly read Bendis's USM and flashback stories, just as I love reading about younger Batman and Dick Grayson as Robin in flashback stories, Legends of the Dark Knight, and World's Finest. But I wouldn't want the mainline books to regress, which I feel is the differentiator here. Hickman's USM is prioritizing the maturity and relationships building that ASM once thrived on. It wouldn't make narrative sense to suddenly turn back the clock on Peter in the 616 to high school, but it's fully within the themes of the book over decades for him to get back to the starting line of his maturity and marriage that was once a priority.

Well, I wouldn't say every step. If memory serves, a reduction of toxic fan behavior towards the creators and editorial was part of it. And while you've done an admirable job of being above that fray, I still see a lot of bad actors going after people in extremely toxic ways.

Oh, trust me, this is a permanent work-in progress, but the goal wasn't to "eliminate" toxicity entirely (as this was never feasibly, and you know it. Even Stan Lee was fending off the haters by his first letter's page), but to reduce it. And we're doing that. The campaign we do has a staunch "no toxicity" rule. All emails and messages from the campaign have to be respectful. I look over dozens of them every other week and even check for language and messaging to match that mandate. So that's several hundreds of campaigners abiding by this mandate.

I can't control the thousands of fans out there still flying off the handle, but the effort is there. I would hope Spidey Office would be understanding enough to know that 500 dedicated responders being polite and respectful are worth listening to over the random twitter user losing their temper. ... And even then, I'm telling those people as I find them to knock it off and be more productive.

As stands, we'll simply ramp up our efforts. I don't think USM's success is a fluke or a fad, and it has our campaign's full support for a very specific reason. You know exactly what reason that is. After all, it only exists because you suggested it in the first place.

[bat39]

Echoing this, I have seriously doubts that ASM shifting gears to appeal more to the very fans who are currently so alienated and put off would somehow pose a risk to the title. The diehards will buy the book through hell and high water, but the audience wanting to give their money to the book is sitting here waiting for the excuse with an open wallet, being rebuffed.

Grant Morrison's manifesto on the X-Men from his run has been on my mind a lot lately after it resurfaced:


He recognized that the X-Men was still a bestseller, but that it was suffering from so many of the problems I'm hearing about ASM right now. "Nothing that happens really matters". The story can't move forward. Nothing develops. Nothing grows. We keep recycling the same ideas and revisiting the same concepts to diminishing returns. He identified that problem in X-Men and refused to accept the "well, it's still a bestseller" as a valid excuse when the title - and the whole medium - had the potential to be more.

I believe that is true of Spider-Man. And I want a "Grand Morrison" mindset to step up and break the cycle.

That page drives home another point to me.

Leave aside the marriage. Let's say 616 Peter being split from MJ was a good thing. Where does the newly 'free' 616 Peter go then? Why can't his story progress in a different direction?

Why can't he continue working at Horizon Labs? Why can't he continue running Parker Industries? Hell, why can't he be a highly successful staff photojournalist at the Bugle or something? Why must he always be in the dumps?

[Konnik92]

That page drives home another point to me.

Leave aside the marriage. Let's say 616 Peter being split from MJ was a good thing. Where does the newly 'free' 616 Peter go then? Why can't his story progress in a different direction?

Why can't he continue working at Horizon Labs? Why can't he continue running Parker Industries? Hell, why can't he be a highly successful staff photojournalist at the Bugle or something? Why must he always be in the dumps?

Because, apparently, that's the theme for Spider-Man that's been used constantly post-OMD - always struggling and when he succeeds he always ends up losing in his civilian life in the end even when he's winning battles as a superhero. Rinse and repeat. All for the sake of "relatability" for "the younger generation", even though it's funny how the "younger generation" can relate more to pre-OMD Spider-Man than post-OMD Spider-Man.