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

[TinkerSpider]

Spinoffs from ASM are tough to sustain long-term. I don't believe Marvel expects those books to last.

Yet Batman is able to. Superman, too.

If Spider-Man is so successful bringing in younger readers as you said, surely that would extend to spin-offs?

But I do hope Spider-boy can hang in there awhile! Not quite ASM, but it still comes off the same character in 616.

My mistake, I left Spider-Boy off, although it has sadly fallen off the Top 50 chart. I’d love to see it sustain, however. Spider-Man should be able to sustain a second title, one would think. At the least, it would help counter arguments that ASM sales are mostly collectors for whom the story doesn’t matter, just the pristine condition of the issue, and variant covers. But until it does….

However, when looking at data, younger readers tend to gravitate to manga and non-superhero graphic novels (link is to a School Library Journal survey and you can see the breakdown between manga and superhero purchased for school and youth public libraries), with manga showing no signs of slowing down.

If you have evidence younger readers are picking up ASM, by all means do share! I’m fascinated by reader demographics and trends.

[wleakr]

Yet Batman is able to. Superman, too.

If Spider-Man is so successful bringing in younger readers as you said, surely that would extend to spin-offs?

My mistake, I left Spider-Boy off, although it has sadly fallen off the Top 50 chart. I’d love to see it sustain, however. Spider-Man should be able to sustain a second title, one would think. At the least, it would help counter arguments that ASM sales are mostly collectors for whom the story doesn’t matter, just the pristine condition of the issue, and variant covers. But until it does….

However, when looking at data, younger readers tend to gravitate to manga and non-superhero graphic novels (link is to a School Library Journal survey and you can see the breakdown between manga and superhero purchased for school and youth public libraries), with manga showing no signs of slowing down.

If you have evidence younger readers are picking up ASM, by all means do share! I’m fascinated by reader demographics and trends.

Books like Miles Morales, Spider Gwen, and Spider-boy seem more in-line for younger readers, although any age group can enjoy those books. The FCBD also put out a Spidey and his Amazing Friends issue. Granted, DC put out all-ages books, too.

I don't think any comic company is truly successful at bringing in younger readers right now, but that's just based on what I see at one comic store.

While the Spider-man spinoffs are not sustained, it "feels" like Marvel puts out more diverse options along the Spider-line of books in an attempt to draw different ages of readers in.

I'll have to look harder at the DC line - there was definitely a time where they were more all-ages than Marvel.

Regardless of that, just like you posted, young readers are more interested in other options for reading and entertainment, in general, besides comics.

With the current price point, I don't see what can really be done about changing that.

[Garlador]

Spinoffs from ASM are tough to sustain long-term. I don't believe Marvel expects those books to last.

But I do hope Spider-boy can hang in there awhile! Not quite ASM, but it still comes off the same character in 616.

I do think something has "changed" in that regard. Growing up, a great many characters started in Spider-Man books then launched into long-term, successful spin-off titles and enduring appearances outside of the Spider-Man books. Venom, Cloak & Dagger, Morbius, Silver Sable, The Punisher, etc.

If people respond positively to it, these characters can endure, but perhaps they need more originality than just "Spider-something" to carry a book and leave an impact.

[TinkerSpider]

Books like Miles Morales, Spider Gwen, and Spider-boy seem more in-line for younger readers, although any age group can enjoy those books. The FCBD also put out a Spidey and his Amazing Friends issue. Granted, DC put out all-ages books, too.

I don't think any comic company is truly successful at bringing in younger readers right now, but that's just based on what I see at one comic store.

While the Spider-man spinoffs are not sustained, it "feels" like Marvel puts out more diverse options along the Spider-line of books in an attempt to draw different ages of readers in.

Ah, so a feeling. Got it.

Sales and reading surverys/generational cultural studies say opposite.

I'll have to look harder at the DC line - there was definitely a time where they were more all-ages than Marvel.

Don’t have to take too hard a look, the top 50 monthly charts (insert caveat about squishy unscientific unreliable data here) show that Batman and Superman have multiple monthly family titles in the top 50.

Spider-Man…does not. There are minis like Edge of Spider-Verse, and Spectacular Spider-Men is just on its 3rd issue. Miles Morales wasn’t even in the top 50 for April, which is a shame because it’s probably the best monthly book in the 616 Spider-family IMO.

Regardless of that, just like you posted, young readers are more interested in other options for reading and entertainment, in general, besides comics.

With the current price point, I don't see what can really be done about changing that.

All sorts of things can be done!

First of all, studies of discoverability say people find new entertainment primarily through word of mouth. For kids, that would mean having a relative or a peer introduce them to comics. I know I got into comics because of my older relatives. They passed down their back issues and answered my questions about the characters.

You know what I’m not doing? I’m not giving the younger kids in my family 616 Spider-Man comics to read. I love them, after all.

(I am creating collections of USM for them. I’m going to wait to give them the comics until the first arc finishes so they can binge a full story.)

If people aren’t passing down their love of comics, that’s a problem that’s addressed by getting the older buyers back into the stories.

Second, create lower priced collections for school book fairs. Create digests. Print in black and white to lower costs - B&W doesn’t stop manga from being popular. Marvel Unlimited also exists, that’s just ten bucks a month IIRC. Find a way to create a pipeline from those readers to print, if indeed Marvel U isn’t just a supplementary service for people who are already reading print (I don’t think I’ve seen any data on demos/usage).

Marvel does do some of that, but via licensing their characters to Scholastic as I understand it. Miles is actually a pretty good seller for Scholastic. Back in the day, digest collections of Spider-Girl sold very well at school book fairs. But somehow that’s not translating to monthly floppy sales - and Marvel as publisher does TERRIBLE when it comes to graphic novel/trade collections (see link above).

Kids will read stories told in sequential art. GenZ is actually a huge consumer of sequential art. But they are reading manga and non-superheroes. Someone should be asking why. And no, it’s not because Peter once was married.

The second way people discover new entertainment is via browsing. Dan Buckley references some of that in his interview. That's why he wants the Wednesday Warriors back in the stores, because when you just come in to pick up your pull list and walk out, you aren’t glancing over shelves and spying books that look interesting and making purchases on impulse (this is a general publishing industry issue as Amazon/big bookstores closing means people are making surgical strikes - going to Amazon or a small bookstore to purchase one title - and then leaving without browsing the other titles on display. And Amazon’s algorithm is pretty much useless now thanks to their prioritization of serving ads that discoverability is more of a problem than before, but that’s an off-topic discussion). And if adults aren’t browsing in stores, their kids aren’t browsing in stores and finding books that speak to them.

So, yes, there are many things that can be done but it takes being creative, trying new things, and not letting “tradition” "this is the way we’ve always done things and it can’t change” to get in the way.

Much like how hidebound storytelling also leads to diminishing returns.

Editing to add: just realized Dan Buckley talks about how Marvel is going to try to get kids to read more comics here.

I sincerely hope the Spider-Man who is in high school for the middle grade readers is MILES since that's the character who actually IS in high school...

[Mister Mets]

Going off "deaths" alone, they killed Captain Stacy, which was a big deal, then they killed Gwen, then they killed Jean DeWolff, then they killed Harry Osborne, then they "killed" Aunt May, then they "killed?" Mayday.

There was High School graduation, College Graduation, marriage, the first big costume change that create the symbiote saga that shook up the entire Marvel universe... Events that had decades of influence.

I'd argue that every decade up to the late 2000s was full of "something big" that breathed new life into the book, steered it down a fresh path, and changed the character in ways that left a mark on his development from that point forward. Some were retconned and backslid, of course, but many didn't and many weren't created with the intention of being reverted either.

And, personally speaking, it was those eras that changed the book by moving it forward that made it EXCITING for me, both as a young and older reader, because that's what a good narrative does; it respects what came before while steering the characters into new waters in an organic and thoughtful way.

I posted earlier that I watched LEGO: Code Red with my daughter, involving the Avengers fighting The Collector, and how The Collector is painted as this pitiful villain who desperately and futilely is trying to grab characters at their "prime" and preserve them, freeze them in place when they were "perfect", and clings to the idea of them as static and eternal... all for the heroes to roll their eyes and go "why are you afraid of change?" and endorsing the idea that people learn and grow and evolve, and that it's selfish to prevent these characters from moving into something new and unrecognizable, because future generations might embrace that change.

That's a children's cartoon. It has a stronger message endorsing change and growth than 616 Spider-Man with an audience statistically in their 30s. Something's gone wrong here.

With deaths, Captain Stacy mattered although he hadn't been in the book very long.
Jean Dewolff was not a major presence in the Spider-Man comics when she was killed off.

Deaths had been retconned before, although they still keep characters dead. See J Jonah Jameson Sr.

Some of the changes don't seem that important. And firsts can only be done once. So you can't have a second first costume.

Superior Spider-Man affected the Spider-Man/ Doctor Octopus relationship. The spider-verse stories have made alternate universes a part of the 616 Spider-Man and the view of the character in other series.

And then he wrote a treatment where Peter finds Mary Jane.

https://spiderman-animated.fandom.co...inds_Mary_Jane



They “end” it all the time, or come close to the end.

JMS wrote Last Stand
Dan Slott had his story in AF 1000 with an elderly Peter
Chip Zdarsky gave Peter an end in Life Story
Earth X provides another older Peter
Peter has died in numerous stories

Stories are infinite and malleable and expansive. The only limit is human imagination. Stories can come to an end - and then find a new branch and keep going.

What is not infinite and expansive is sealing Peter Parker in early GenX amber and forcing him to repeat the same old story beats over and over to diminishing returns.

No wonder Marvel is having a harder time reaching younger readers and getting people into the comic book stores, as Dan Buckley recently discussed.

There is a difference between an end and the official end.

An official end can come to define the character, which is a problem if it's off-putting to readers.

I do think something has "changed" in that regard. Growing up, a great many characters started in Spider-Man books then launched into long-term, successful spin-off titles and enduring appearances outside of the Spider-Man books. Venom, Cloak & Dagger, Morbius, Silver Sable, The Punisher, etc.

If people respond positively to it, these characters can endure, but perhaps they need more originality than just "Spider-something" to carry a book and leave an impact.

Spider-Boy, Silk, Spider-Gwen and Miles Morales compare favorably to Morbius, Silver Sable and Cloak & Dagger.

It took a decade for the Punisher to get a mini-series. Venom didn't get an ongoing for a while (although it was a series of mini-series that lasted a few years.)

[Mister Mets]

I’m still confused. The story very explicitly states that Spider-Man’s continuity is Marvel U continuity and vice versa. That’s the world built in the story.

It's the question of whether the 616 Universe is one story, or a container for stories.

I continue to be confused. If Spider-Man’s continuity affects Avengers and Daredevil and Fantastic Four, then it is, quite clearly and explicitly, affecting the Marvel Universe.

In fact, the Marvel Universe does not exist as its own separate entity; the Marvel Universe is the collective term for all those books.

For me, the Marvel Universe seems to be a container for stories rather than one story anyone can be expected to follow.

People will read Hickman's run on the Fantastic Four so that is a story, and they want to make sense of continuity in that story. So changing Spider-Man's backstory would have implications for the stories in which he appears. I just think it's impossible to view it as one story.

This is true, from a certain point of view.

There is 616 Spider-Man.

There is 6160 Spider-Man.

There is 1610 Spider-Man.

There are innumerable alt U and alt history Spider-Men.

There are the film versions, the animated series versions, the novelized versions, etc.

However, my understanding is we are discussing 616 Spider-Man.

616 Spider-Man IS a story, and is supposed to be one continuous, uninterrupted story.

And those other Peter Parkers have their stories with a singular continuity specific to them.

The question of character growth vs. staying in high school has been explicitly framed as being about 616 Spider-Man.

If you wish to shift the conversational goalposts to Spider-Man as a character who can be adapted into various stories, that’s an interesting topic to explore, but it’s a side bar.

I think the 616 Spider-Man is increasingly impossible to treat as one story because people are not expected to read it in its entirety. And it's starting to get weird anachronisms given the rate of societal change if we're pretending that comics published and set in the 1960s occurred 10-15 years ago.

Again, it is my firm belief that if people want to use a genre or a medium as a frame of reference, it’s helpful to have engaged with it first.



You should watch Stange New Worlds. It’s awesome. Discovery, too. They both include prime universe Spock.

This is also heavily borrowing trouble from a mythical future than may or may not come to pass. It’s a very fearful, restrictive and unproductive position to take about storytelling IMO. Sure, a story may bomb. But it might also be highly successful and inspire whole new generations. Nothing in art or media is ever, ever guaranteed. Sometimes stories resonant. Sometimes they don’t. That’s just how art and culture work as the zeitgeist moves in mysterious ways and can’t be predicted.

But thank all the deities artists and writers and storytellers take that risk. Or our culture would be reductive and stagnant and so much the poorer.

I'm not against taking risks. They should know what they're doing.

There's greater freedom to take risks when a character isn't an institution. I don't mind something like a relaunch of the Marvel Universe, but these kinds of decisions should be carefully considered.

Peter still learned from his experiences. He moved forward. His adventures built upon each other.

Since BND, it’s just a string of one stale popcorn kernel after another. Peter doesn’t learn. His adventures don’t build upon each other. He’s stuck on an ever diminishing returns hamster wheel. I agree with Nick Spencer in ASM 60, it’s character breaking for Peter.

I'm not sure it's that radically different than it is now.

The world of the story is not the real world.

Readers are able to keep two ideas (and many more) in their head. We understand fiction is an allegory for real world but is a mirror. Fiction has versimilutude but it’s not objective reality, can never be objective reality.

We are able to understand that Peter referring to John Belushi on SNL does not actually mean that adventure took place fifty years ago in Peter’s life and Peter is now fifty years older than he was then. Because real time and Marvel time have never actually lined up. Marvel is its own world, with its own rules.

The reason why Peter should be allowed to grow is because that’s what humans do.

We learn from our experiences (and if we don’t learn, that is a tragedy and another type of story to explore).

We are motivated, inspired, switch our positions, change our minds, create new goals in response to our experiences and how we act and are acted upon by the world.

If Peter Parker is to be a fully dimensional and relatable human character, then he MUST learn and grow. And that’s what he did, until 2007.

This doesn’t mean that big, sweeping changes are made at the end of every story or a major character dies at the end of every arc or Peter gets married one year, divorced the next, remarried the following year.

What it does mean is that Peter’s experiences matter and his reactions are motivated and consistent. If he learns that the symbiote is susceptible to sound in one issue, he uses that knowledge the next time he sees the symbiote.

This isn’t Spider-Man, but let’s look at Jackpot. Mary Jane encountered Francine Frye in ASM 25 by Spencer. She uses her acting skills to disarm Francine.

But in Jackpot #1, MJ acts as if she has never encountered Francine before, and then she overacts and can’t fool Francine - and it’s not explained why MJ suddenly can’t fool Francine and why she’s suddenly a terrible actress.

That’s treating MJ as an inanimate action figure, not a character. And it happens to Peter over and over and over again as well.

We want Peter’s experiences to matter.

Fans have always complained about continuity errors. That's not really a difference with the modern era. We may notice it more since we're reading this stuff, and have access to lots of analysis. There is more continuity to contradict.

It's one thing for Peter to refer to John Belushi and a reader to figure a modern story involves an analogous celebrity. It's messier to try to make allowances for societal and technological changes.

I agree Marvel should reboot, but because they are making a mockery of their continuity - especially in Spider-Man with this insistence over most of the last 17 years that he is just a rubber action figure to be taken in and out of the toy box - and they should just give up the ghost and just pump out the same old, same old ever-so-cyclical hamster wheel stories (to the point that “supervillain taking over Peter as Spider-Man” was done in KLH, then came Superior, and now we’re on our second “Spider Who Gobbles” in a year) since that’s clearly the tack they want to take. But stop trying to pretend this is still a continuous story and the Peter in the issues being published this month has any relation to the Peter published in AF 15 - 2007. The Peter we’re reading today is just a soulless, empty toy, to the extent that he keeps getting unnecessary and immediately forgettable costume changes pretty much just so new toys can be made :shrug

I don't think it's different from before when Peter was revealed as the clone and that got retconned.

Or he got married in the space of a few weeks because of editorial mandates.

Except…that’s what is happening in the current run. Okay, maybe we get an issue of Peter sleeping with a dead teenage girl’s mask that he had to have robbed from her corpse. But nothing seems to affect Peter. He just snaps back into place and it’s barely, if ever, referenced again.

That's not my read of the current run where he's shaken by a bad break-up and develops a working partnership with a former enemy.

[wleakr]

I also believe the Marvel Universe (616) is best thought as being a container for stories.

The issue is Marvel, more so in the past than today, painted themselves as being "one story" where it's all connected and having continuity. And some fans taking that to heart and calling out Marvel whenever they perceive an issue in the one story concept.

But it really is not feasible.

I like this recent answer of Tom Brevoort regarding what is or is not cannon in the Marvel Universe.

His response: "Forgive me, Iioo, but I think you and a few other people online are making things much too complicated on yourselves. Possibly that’s the result of the last few years of multiverses popping up everywhere. We’re doing something fun here, and I really couldn’t care less about the question of “how can they both be canonical”? They are. Trust me, they are. As you’ll see if/when you read the Red Band version of BLOOD HUNT #2. This is one of those areas where I think comic book fans get in their own heads too much. If you watch the director’s cut of a film, are you worrying about how it fits into canon? Relax! This is all entertainment, and if Red Band is your thing, feel free to enjoy it without the hand-wringing of being concerned that it isn’t real. None of this stuff is real—we make it up issue after issue."

If fans could keep the bolded in mind, message boards may actually become a more pleasant place to discuss topics!

[ImOctavius]

we make it up issue after issue.

You can tell by reading the current run.

[TinkerSpider]

Superior Spider-Man affected the Spider-Man/ Doctor Octopus relationship.

Nah. Otto is back to wanting to destroy Spider-Man. Peter, because he is now an action figure who is only allowed three emotions and only one of them at a time, just pretty much forgets what happened. He doesn't even forgive, really, because his mind is wiped clean as he is factory reset at the end of every story. And he certainly doesn't react in any way that can be defined as an understandable human emotion.

Reacting to someone essentially killing you, stealing your life and identity, gaslighting your loved ones, ruining relationships with "Otto is a jerk" and then merrily accepting eveything that was done in your name is no way, shape or form a believable human emotion. Just ask someone who has actually had their identity stolen.

The spider-verse stories have made alternate universes a part of the 616 Spider-Man and the view of the character in other series.

Renew Your Vow is NOT part of 616 Spider-Man.

MCU Spider-Man is NOT part of 616 Spider-Man.

Ultimate Spider-Man - pick which one - is NOT part of 616 Spider-Man.

Marvel had made a story decision that all alt universes exist and are valid, but the alt universes are self-contained and do not inform each other unless they explicitly cross over on page/on screen.

World building is a fundamental component of storytelling. Worlds have rules.

Reading is not a choose your own adventure (unless it explicitly is, and even then the story you "choose" follows basic storytelling rules).

Earlier in the thread I posted a list of storytelling references. You might enjoy them. I'd add Aristotles's "The Poetics" as one of the foundational codifications of what we call plot and story.

There is a difference between an end and the official end.

The discussion was about John Semper and HIS vision of the end.

Obviously, for him the end of the series was not the actual end.

An official end can come to define the character, which is a problem if it's off-putting to readers.

Yeah, killing Darth Vader in Return of the Jedi was SOOOOOOO off-putting to future audiences, absolutely no stories could ever be told about him again--

Oops! Never mind.

This is again borrowing trouble from some mythical future that in all reality will never show up, because future generations will tell their OWN stories. The only thing that keeps future generations from having their stories is past generations hogging the characters and putting rules in place that the characters can never change from their nostalgic version (that never actually was).

And so what if it is offputting to some? The Last Jedi upset a portion of the fanbase. It's not my favorite Star Wars story, I'll admit. But it resonates deeply with others.

Should The Last Jedi not exist? Should Rian Johnson, who is an incredibly talented storyteller, not be given a film?

If storytelling has to please everyone: then we are only going to get the most incredibly bland, corporate, soulless, tepid storytelling. Our culture will be poor and creatively bankrupt.

It's the question of whether the 616 Universe is one story, or a container for stories.

For me, the Marvel Universe seems to be a container for stories rather than one story anyone can be expected to follow.

The story tells us differently, however. The world of the story takes precedence.

People will read Hickman's run on the Fantastic Four so that is a story, and they want to make sense of continuity in that story. So changing Spider-Man's backstory would have implications for the stories in which he appears. I just think it's impossible to view it as one story.

You just descibed an example of seeing it as one story!

I think the 616 Spider-Man is increasingly impossible to treat as one story because people are not expected to read it in its entirety. And it's starting to get weird anachronisms given the rate of societal change if we're pretending that comics published and set in the 1960s occurred 10-15 years ago.

The Marvel Universe is not the real world. That's made pretty clear by all costumed people shooting lasers out of their eyes and webs from their wrists and shiny extraterrestrials on surfboards.

Readers can hold more than one idea in their head.

I'm not against taking risks. They should know what they're doing.

There's greater freedom to take risks when a character isn't an institution. I don't mind something like a relaunch of the Marvel Universe, but these kinds of decisions should be carefully considered.

A character should NOT be an institution.

A character is a character.

But you've neatly summed up the glaring problem with 616 Spider-Man. He's not a character. He's just a toy to be sold to collectors.

It says something when Disney has been more creative and inventive with Mickey Mouse than Marvel is with Peter Parker.

I don't think it's different from before when Peter was revealed as the clone and that got retconned.

Or he got married in the space of a few weeks because of editorial mandates.

The Clone Saga affected Peter. Still affects him, as Ben and Kaine are around. Getting married definitely affected Peter.

He also had identifiably human emotions during those stories.

That's not my read of the current run where he's shaken by a bad break-up and develops a working partnership with a former enemy.

We never saw him develop that relationship. We're still not sure why he's working for Norman. The story has given us several answers (Norman is the only who would help Peter even though Peter was incredibly irrational and unreasonable and wouldn't take ten minutes to clear up a story; he wants to make sure Norman doesn't turn bad again; he sees Norman as a father) but changes its mind every time it comes up.

And the other issue is that we are TOLD all this, but we never shown.

Good storytelling SHOWS us, puts us in Peter's head, makes us see why Peter feels this way. But Peter is an action figure, he just gets moved about the playset at the whim of the writer, with no emotional thru line, nothing building, just thrown hither and yon as the mood takes the writer to fit the story. There's nothing character driven about this story, because Peter has no character. He can't. He's just a doll.

The bad break up - LOLOLOL. First, it wasn't a break up, it was an insane wizard with a magic wand who just deus ex machina proclaimed: "Hey! You're on a break! LOLOLOL." For all that Marvel likes to pay lip service to "Ditko as God" they really like to ignore his proclamation that supernatural shenanigans break Peter's world and turn it nonsensical.

Suffice to say it's another example of Peter being a toy. He has no empathy, no sympathy, he doesn't use his words like a big boy. He can't, because all the characters in this run are just hollow action figures who have had anything human vaccuumed out of them. And again, there is no emotional thru line whatsoever. He stalks MJ, then he pesters her to have coffee with him despite just going through another harrowing ordeal with no thought to how MJ might be affected, then when MJ comes to him and offers to have that coffee he ditches her to look after Norman's emotions, then he says he loves her as a sister only for her to tragically "die" in his arms but sike! It's not MJ heeheehee :rolleyes, then he has zero reaction to seeing her a superhero, then we're back to juvenile sexual tension as she falls on top of him.

That's not a character. That's a toy being marched through a playset.

[Alan2099]

Or he got married in the space of a few weeks because of editorial mandates.

Remember when Spider-man lost his powers, retired from crime-fighting, and moved to the other side of the country? Then he moved back, got his powers back, and nobody made a big deal about it?

[TinkerSpider]

I also believe the Marvel Universe (616) is best thought as being a container for stories.

The issue is Marvel, more so in the past than today, painted themselves as being "one story" where it's all connected and having continuity. And some fans taking that to heart and calling out Marvel whenever they perceive an issue in the one story concept.

But it really is not feasible.

I like this recent answer of Tom Brevoort regarding what is or is not cannon in the Marvel Universe.

His response: "Forgive me, Iioo, but I think you and a few other people online are making things much too complicated on yourselves. Possibly that’s the result of the last few years of multiverses popping up everywhere. We’re doing something fun here, and I really couldn’t care less about the question of “how can they both be canonical”? They are. Trust me, they are. As you’ll see if/when you read the Red Band version of BLOOD HUNT #2. This is one of those areas where I think comic book fans get in their own heads too much. If you watch the director’s cut of a film, are you worrying about how it fits into canon? Relax! This is all entertainment, and if Red Band is your thing, feel free to enjoy it without the hand-wringing of being concerned that it isn’t real. None of this stuff is real—we make it up issue after issue."

If fans could keep the bolded in mind, message boards may actually become a more pleasant place to discuss topics!

Tom might be interested in reading some of the resources I listed previously in the thread.

This is why Marvel needs to just give up the ghost and finally admit their continuity is nonsense, they're just pumping out cartoon episode after cartoon episode like The Simpsons or Looney Tunes.

But until they do, readers are going to expect that Marvel will uphold the story's promise to the reader. If Marvel wants to break that promise, if they want to make their stories nothing but inconsequential "nothing matters LOLOL what is even reading", that's on Marvel, not on the reader.

And the red band: having Tom apparently confirm above that Marvel is selling graphic violence just for graphic violence's sake, no story purpose, and upcharging the consumer just so they can see graphic violence....ugh. Just...ugh.

[TinkerSpider]

Remember when Spider-man lost his powers, retired from crime-fighting, and moved to the other side of the country? Then he moved back, got his powers back, and nobody made a big deal about it?

I remember that was actually part of the story, with a story motivated reason for why and how Peter got his powers back, why Peter needed to move back with MJ's blessing, and Peter was welcomed back to the world of the story by Ben and integrated back into the adventures.

[wleakr]

And the red band: having Tom apparently confirm above that Marvel is selling graphic violence just for graphic violence's sake, no story purpose, and upcharging the consumer just so they can see graphic violence....ugh. Just...ugh.

If they didn't do that, they would be leaving money on the table!

[Daibhidh]

The Last Jedi upset a portion of the fanbase. It's not my favorite Star Wars story, I'll admit. But it resonates deeply with others.

Should The Last Jedi not exist? Should Rian Johnson, who is an incredibly talented storyteller, not be given a film?

If storytelling has to please everyone: then we are only going to get the most incredibly bland, corporate, soulless, tepid storytelling.

Now, why does that last sentence make me think of Rise of Skywalker?
(I think The Last Jedi is trying to do something interesting, but it doesn't actually succeed in hitting the story beats that it's trying for. The Force Awakens on the other hand, manages to do nostalgia by being about the very nostalgia that it's doing.)

[Jman27]

I remember that was actually part of the story, with a story motivated reason for why and how Peter got his powers back, why Peter needed to move back with MJ's blessing, and Peter was welcomed back to the world of the story by Ben and integrated back into the adventures.

there really wasnt a story motivated reason why he regain his powers as he was just dealing with spasms and then he die and got himself revive. Then a few month later Revelation happen