Spider-Man: Major in real life, Minor in-universe?

Honestly, it's hard to say because there's no solid information, at least not much, and what we have is vague statements and those filtered through PR talk, or people who don't know 100% of the story. Anyone who does, is unlikely to tell in an unbiased fashion.

Both bring up good points, so I'll say this:

Joey Q is no Jim Shooter. Jim Shooter gave a golden age of storytelling. We had the X-Men, their spin-offs New Mutants, Excalibur, X-Factor, Alpha Flight, and the minis under him like Magik, Kitty Pryde and Wolverine, Longshot, Firestar, Fallen Angels etc. that really made them stand out. We also had the Avengers, one of the best runs, by Roger Stern. We had Spider-Man, who remained a very strong title in this time, being both independent yet connected to the world thanks to Stern, Tom DeFalco, and David Michelinie. We had Daredevil by Frank Miller, Thor by Walt Simonson, Fantastic Four by John Byrne. We had lesser titles like Power Pack, Cloak & Dagger, Rom: Spaceknight, Squadron Supreme, Moon Knight, Power Man and Iron Fist, West Coast Avengers etc., all of which were beloved and long-running despite not reaching heights like the others. Hell, even Iron Man had his best run here, a character not known for being able to hold his own. Some of the best storylines, like Days of Future Past, Secret Wars, Born Again, Kraven's Last Hunt, and so on, came from his tenure.

He helped to create a great, interconnected continuity that really was a living, breathing world. He also pushed the boundaries of what could be done in the superhero medium, striking somewhere between fun and bright, with dark and mature, without fully committing to either one in a great balance. Finally, Shooter acknowledged that some titles aren't going to sell as well as others. Rather than can titles for not performing on par with X-Men or Spider-Man, or whoever he wants to be big, he focused on making them good to the people who were buying those comics, because ALL comics are needed to stay afloat.

On the other hand, Joey Q has always been about enforcing a specific vision regardless of how bad it was for others. He didn't care. He forced OMD to happen for himself, and no one else. He's also not the biggest master of continuity either, considering the mistakes that began to pile up with him (look at Civil War -- no writer was apparently on the same page when making it). He also did dumb things, like he introduced X-23 from the cartoon and into the comics which is good... but made her a teen prostitute for edge factor, which is bad. Likewise, when the mutants were suddenly shrunk and hampered with restrictions, I don't think it was something the X-writers specifically wanted. Just like when the Inhumans push came to be. I don't think the people writing X-Men were eager to have Inhumans intrude, or be forced to write the Terrigan Mists as being lethal to them, or constantly be sidelined the way they were. Writers have limits they to work with, sometimes very defined and intrusive.

Furthermore, Marvel [I]has[/I] made long-term plans. The Inhumans push was a big plan to get their own mutant equivalent MCU ready, not anticipating they would be getting the [I]actual[/I] mutants later. Likewise, the Avengers weren't a "small title" by any means, but their push to the center of the Marvel Universe with three consecutive stories and being made into Marvel's Justice League in time for when IM1 came out... I can see that they had this in mind. Spider-Man and Wolverine gave star power to the title, which is why they were there. Jack notes how Michelinie wrote the definitive Iron Man run before Spider-Man, and didn't have them interact even when he feasibly could've made it happen. That's telling.

I don't think that they had a specific idea of what the MCU would become, nor did they plan to completely exclude the X-Men and Fantastic Four on the level they did after 2012 up to 2019, but I definitely get a sense they were pushing the Avengers from a collective of lessers to Marvel's Justice League for a reason. My overall view is that this wasn't a "master plan", because no one can predict the future on the level that they could predict the MCU would be a media titan, but things were put into place for the MCU as it was being developed, and they increased as they went further into it, culminating with the X-Men and FF's blacklisting from media and sidelining in the comics after the Avengers movie.

They couldn't plan for the MCU to take off the way it did, because it could've easily backfired, but they did have a sense to try it out, and escalate as they got more successful. It's telling that suddenly the X-Men and the Fantastic Four are important and great again after the Fox buyout. Hell, we're getting a big X-Men/Fantastic Four crossover mini, which I doubt would've happened a few years ago.

That's my take.

[QUOTE=Revolutionary_Jack;4789751]Stern says specifically at the start that "I am sure" about the movie inspiring the miniseries and the editors commission, but obviously the aim was still to do a good story and make it work. And he approached it that way like a true pro. I said this before but let me reiterate that just because something is marketing driven doesn't mean it's bad. SW'84 was driven by a need to sell toys but Shooter and Zeck still told a great story.

Revenge of the Green Goblin is very low on continuity, it vaguely alludes to Gathering of Five and it alludes to MJ's "fake death" and Harry's real death, but otherwise it's a standalone tale of Norman torturing Peter and gaslighting him to drive him mad. That reflects the editorial interest in reintroducing Green Goblin to a wide public. Likewise giving Goblin a characterization that made sense outside the salvage of the Clone Saga that necessitated his resurrection. Why does Goblin obsess over Peter because no matter how many horrible things he undergoes he never gives in to the darkness. This characterization is also there in the movie where obviously Norman doesn't kill Gwen (or for that matter MJ) and Sam Raimi never had any intention of taking the story there. So there needed to be a core to the character that doesn't have to do with "I killed your girlfriend" which was the previous defining thing he had. So in the movie, Goblin's interest and plan is to corrupt Spider-Man, drive him to despair, out of some obsessive sadistic fixation.

Even the Red Goblin in Go Down Swinging, Slott still uses Stern's take. Like that big fight at Times' Square, the Red Goblin can't understand why no matter how many friends and loved ones he hurt, Peter never broke and then he sees Peter saving people at Times' Square and groks that he just has to kill as many people as possible and raise the body count out of his desire to punish Peter for wanting to save everyone ("no one dies").[/QUOTE]Stern had no inside knowledge that the mini-series was commissioned because of the movie.

The mini-series would have made sense even if they weren't going to bring the Green Goblin in the film meant for release an year and a half later. Spider-Man's archenemy had been out of the picture for a while and it made sense to fix that.

It might have been a bonus for Marvel to know they'd have a new Green Goblin TPB in bookstores when the Spider-Man film comes out.
[QUOTE=Hybrid;4789782]Honestly, it's hard to say because there's no solid information, at least not much, and what we have is vague statements and those filtered through PR talk, or people who don't know 100% of the story. Anyone who does, is unlikely to tell in an unbiased fashion.

Both bring up good points, so I'll say this:

Joey Q is no Jim Shooter. Jim Shooter gave a golden age of storytelling. We had the X-Men, their spin-offs New Mutants, Excalibur, X-Factor, Alpha Flight, and the minis under him like Magik, Kitty Pryde and Wolverine, Longshot, Firestar, Fallen Angels etc. that really made them stand out. We also had the Avengers, one of the best runs, by Roger Stern. We had Spider-Man, who remained a very strong title in this time, being both independent yet connected to the world thanks to Stern, Tom DeFalco, and David Michelinie. We had Daredevil by Frank Miller, Thor by Walt Simonson, Fantastic Four by John Byrne. We had lesser titles like Power Pack, Cloak & Dagger, Rom: Spaceknight, Squadron Supreme, Moon Knight, Power Man and Iron Fist, West Coast Avengers etc., all of which were beloved and long-running despite not reaching heights like the others. Hell, even Iron Man had his best run here, a character not known for being able to hold his own. Some of the best storylines, like Days of Future Past, Secret Wars, Born Again, Kraven's Last Hunt, and so on, came from his tenure.

He helped to create a great, interconnected continuity that really was a living, breathing world. He also pushed the boundaries of what could be done in the superhero medium, striking somewhere between fun and bright, with dark and mature, without fully committing to either one in a great balance. Finally, Shooter acknowledged that some titles aren't going to sell as well as others. Rather than can titles for not performing on par with X-Men or Spider-Man, or whoever he wants to be big, he focused on making them good to the people who were buying those comics, because ALL comics are needed to stay afloat.

On the other hand, Joey Q has always been about enforcing a specific vision regardless of how bad it was for others. He didn't care. He forced OMD to happen for himself, and no one else. He's also not the biggest master of continuity either, considering the mistakes that began to pile up with him (look at Civil War -- no writer was apparently on the same page when making it). He also did dumb things, like he introduced X-23 from the cartoon and into the comics which is good... but made her a teen prostitute for edge factor, which is bad. Likewise, when the mutants were suddenly shrunk and hampered with restrictions, I don't think it was something the X-writers specifically wanted. Just like when the Inhumans push came to be. I don't think the people writing X-Men were eager to have Inhumans intrude, or be forced to write the Terrigan Mists as being lethal to them, or constantly be sidelined the way they were. Writers have limits they to work with, sometimes very defined and intrusive.

Furthermore, Marvel [I]has[/I] made long-term plans. The Inhumans push was a big plan to get their own mutant equivalent MCU ready, not anticipating they would be getting the [I]actual[/I] mutants later. Likewise, the Avengers weren't a "small title" by any means, but their push to the center of the Marvel Universe with three consecutive stories and being made into Marvel's Justice League in time for when IM1 came out... I can see that they had this in mind. Spider-Man and Wolverine gave star power to the title, which is why they were there. Jack notes how Michelinie wrote the definitive Iron Man run before Spider-Man, and didn't have them interact even when he feasibly could've made it happen. That's telling.

I don't think that they had a specific idea of what the MCU would become, nor did they plan to completely exclude the X-Men and Fantastic Four on the level they did after 2012 up to 2019, but I definitely get a sense they were pushing the Avengers from a collective of lessers to Marvel's Justice League for a reason. My overall view is that this wasn't a "master plan", because no one can predict the future on the level that they could predict the MCU would be a media titan, but things were put into place for the MCU as it was being developed, and they increased as they went further into it, culminating with the X-Men and FF's blacklisting from media and sidelining in the comics after the Avengers movie.

They couldn't plan for the MCU to take off the way it did, because it could've easily backfired, but they did have a sense to try it out, and escalate as they got more successful. It's telling that suddenly the X-Men and the Fantastic Four are important and great again after the Fox buyout. Hell, we're getting a big X-Men/Fantastic Four crossover mini, which I doubt would've happened a few years ago.

That's my take.[/QUOTE]There were a lot of disagreements between Marvel talent and Jim Shooter. For example, he fired Tom DeFalco from Amazing Spider-Man, allegedly a miscommunication with editor Jim Owsley (who has gone by the name Christopher Priest for the last few decades.)

[url]http://lamerciepark.com/legacy/comics/spidey.html[/url]

It's absurd to say that Joe Quesada was always about pushing his own agenda. Even if you don't agree with a particular decision, most of the people at the other side are coming at it from an honest place and hoping it's going to succeed. Quesada believed One More Day was better for Spider-Man.

It's also worth noting that there were some really good comics during his tenure as EIC. Good stuff happened under Shooter. But under Quesada, we had Millar/ Hitch's The Ultimate, Bendis/ Bagley's Ultimate Spider-Man, Morrison's New X-Men, Whedon/ Cassady's Astonishing X-Men, Bendis/ Maleev's Daredevil, Brubaker's Captain America, Brubaker's Daredevil, JMS/ Romita Jr's Amazing Spider-Man, JMS' Thor, Alias, Fraction/ Larocca's Iron Man, The Runaways, New Avengers, Immortal Iron Fist, X-Statix, Waid/ Wieringo's Fantastic Four, Hickman's Fantastic Four, Peter David's X-Factor revival, Greg Pak's Hulk, Dan Slott's She-Hulk and more.

You could compare Quesada and Shooter on "Best of" lists and both are going to do pretty well.

[url]https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/lists/superhero-comic-books-100-best-934371/item/daredevil-by-frank-miller-others-934499[/url]

The big Inhumans push did come after Quesada had left as EIC. That was a flop, although I do doubt that anyone at Marvel wanted it to fail.

As for the X-Men and Fantastic Four arguments,

No one's saying that Shooter was perfect, as his conflicts with the others are well-known, nor is anyone denying that Quesada's tenure had good comics. It's just the ratio of bad and good, and the overall results, that people remember them for.

Also, he may not have been EiC of Marvel in the Inhumans push, but he was still their as CCO I believe so he was still a big figure.

[QUOTE=Hybrid;4789782]Joey Q is no Jim Shooter.[/quote]

The thing is also to look at the profile. Joe Quesada is an artist of mediocre portfolio (decent with city backgrounds, terrible with faces) and an appallingly bad writer. He's not someone with a proven history as a creator unlike Jim Shooter who in his teens wrote a defining run of Legion of Superheroes at DC. He got the job as EIC out of his success as editor managing the Marvel Knights line (which was outsourced to Quesada's small studio with Jimmy Palmiotti in the same way Heroes Reborn was outsourced to Image comics defectors). So there's no real reason to trust his judgment or believe that he's all about a good story, because there's no evidence of that before. As editor his major creative contribution was Marvel Knights Black Panther where he got Christopher Priest to do a run on it. And that was before he became EIC. The other one was Guardian Devil, a mediocre story with a movie director writing it, and Quesada was the one who asked Smith to kill Karen Page. Karen Page, a star of the greatest Daredevil story (Born Again) killed in a cheap way just for some stunt. That's Quesada in a nutshell. So there's absolutely no reason to believe that Quesada is about good storytelling because if even he did believe in it, his judgment is too uneven for one to respect in any meaningful way. In terms of aesthetics and a sense of what is and isn't good storytelling, which any editor in publishing must have, Quesada didn't really have that a great deal. So there's no reason to respect House of M as "a good idea in theory" and certainly not as a long-lasting status-quo, because the person who defended it doesn't have a track record of good judgment. And I don't think Quesada really believes or cares, as long as he got where it did at the end. He has the important virtue of being an EIC, very thick skin.

Judging an Editor In Chief is hard. But a part of the job requirement is bringing in new talent, managing the continuity, and that requires people to really know the continuity and character history. With Quesada it's plainly evident that he really didn't know a great deal about continuity and that's why the Marvel continuity under his time became this mess, far moreso than the X-Men titles ever were. Quesada did succeed in bringing new talent to Marvel so for instance he got Morrison, later Gaiman came to do 1602, JMS got to write ASM, Warren Ellis and others and of course Bendis was his big discovery, albeit Bendis' major projects were really the brainchild of Bill Jemas. It was Jemas who believed in Ultimate Marvel and MAX for instance, not Quesada. Quesada didn't think Ultimate Marvel would work.

Quesada had some positives when he worked as a legit editor, i.e. stay out of people's way and bring new people in. Less so when he editorialized and astro-turfed continuities. Jim Shooter for instance never did that, nor did Tom Defalco nor did Stan Lee. Shooter and others maybe vetoed a story here and there or had issues with some characterizations but he never tried to jury rig a vision of what the Universe should be.

[quote]Jack notes how Michelinie wrote the definitive Iron Man run before Spider-Man, and didn't have them interact even when he feasibly could've made it happen. That's telling.[/quote]

And Michelinie's early run was under Jim Salicrup (Spider-Man's greatest line editor) and Salicrup gave Michelinie a free-hand. There was nothing truly stopping Michelinie from bringing IM elements into ASM at the time.

[QUOTE=Mister Mets;4789801]Stern had no inside knowledge that the mini-series was commissioned because of the movie.[/quote]

He says, "I am sure". The word "sure" is unambiguous, and not a qualifier. Stern only adds on his part of it which was to write a good story.

[QUOTE=Mister Mets;4789801]It might have been a bonus for Marvel to know they'd have a new Green Goblin TPB in bookstores when the Spider-Man film comes out.[/quote]

I remember because when the movie came out I went to a store and I found the TPB of Revenge of the Green Goblin selling well at the stacks. And they got a lot of copies and prints. So it was definitely something that worked as intended.

[quote]It's absurd to say that Joe Quesada was always about pushing his own agenda.[/quote]

Quesada's job was pushing Marvel Corporate's agenda, or rather make Marvel Corporate's agenda his own, and preferably make his agenda Marvel Corporate's. So obviously there was stuff he would meet them halfway to give to them, and stuff that he might have wanted that he had to build consensus for. Fact is after the Clone Saga and Bob Harras left, people were fairly demoralized about the prospect of ending the marriage. I believe Bob Harras said in an exit interview at the time or later that it's probably hopeless to fight it. And JMS was given full freedom to make it work. So obviously he had to bide his time and that meant deliver successes that made OMD more likely. Quesada himself said that there were backdoors in place to undo OMD and that was his last major stunt, after House of M and Civil War. Two years after that he became CCO and left the EIC job to Alonso.

[quote]The big Inhumans push did come after Quesada had left as EIC.[/quote]

It happened when he became CCO. And editors in chief have had far less say after Quesada and after the Disney buyout than before. of course, now Feige has that job and Quesada is some Executive Vice President or something.

Okay, can we stop writing essays for every reply?! It's nearly impossible to keep up if you all exhaust every word in the dictionary! On top of that, you've all derailed this thread to oblivion and aren't coming to any type of consensus. This is ridiculous.

[QUOTE=Revolutionary_Jack;4789726]The point as in most of the stuff in Quesada's time at EIC was put the end-goal over any other consideration. Make the Avengers great again but do that without any organic demand from readers and genuine interest. So they had to astro-turf it by means of stunts and events.[/QUOTE]

Like HoX/PoX/Dawn of X? Like that?

Is Marvel astro-turfing the X-Men's success?

Is the Hickman era just a stunt or event meant to artificially force readers into loving the X-Men?

How does one determine "organic demand from readers and genuine interest?"

Answer, you can't.

From Marvel's standpoint, they hope that readers will respond to stories that work and that succeed in engaging their attention.

From Marvel's standpoint, it's their job to deliver those kinds of stories.

So events like CW and HoM are no different than HoX/Pox.

It's not about "astro-turfing," it's about putting together stories that will excite readers and hoping that the response back is positive.

[QUOTE=Revolutionary_Jack;4789726]Not so. Carny stunts like this can and do work. People have a hard time accepting that.[/QUOTE]

Carny stunts like the Spider-wedding?

You can't label any story you don't like a "carny stunt" but the ones you do as "organic."

[QUOTE=Revolutionary_Jack;4789726]That was EIC Jim Shooter you are talking about. Joe Quesada had a specific idea of how the marvel universe should be and went about imposing it, regardless of the means it took to get there. Quesada put ends over means. He didn't care about the quality of a story as long as the story's end made the continuity what he wanted it to be.[/QUOTE]

To say that Quesada didn't care about quality is ridiculous. Of course he did.

You're projecting your own dislike onto his EIC reign and suggesting that because he did stories you didn't like that he didn't care about making them good.

[QUOTE=Revolutionary_Jack;4789726]In Shooter's era you had a great run on Avengers under Roger Stern, and a great run on X-Men by Claremont, and a great run on FF by Byrne. The Avengers didn't outsell X-men in that time (nor did anyone else). The better written Avengers runs (Stern, Busiek and others you mentioned before) didn't have success in a competitive marketplace without someone putting the thumb on the scales. That's what Quesada did, and no one can say that he didn't put the thumbs on the scales because he absolutely did.[/QUOTE]

No, he didn't. No one knows which creative teams are going to catch fire on a book.

You're trying to claim that the success of The Avengers has not been due to the creative teams but outside manipulation.

That's patently ridiculous.

A lot of books didn't outsell the X-Men in their heyday.

For years it was the hottest book in comics.

That eventually it slid behind other books in time doesn't mean that it was due to meddling.

Creative teams change. Tastes change.

[QUOTE=Revolutionary_Jack;4789726][url]https://podcasts.google.com/?feed=aHR0cHM6Ly9zcGlkZXJtYW5jcmF3bHNwYWNlLnBvZGJlYW4uY29tL2ZlZWQueG1s&episode=aHR0cDovL3d3dy5zcGlkZXJtYW5jcmF3bHNwYWNlLmNvbS9wb2RjYXN0L1BvZGNhc3QzN0p1bmUyMDA4Lm1wMw&hl=en&ved=2ahUKEwiGnvDAtY3nAhUsrlkKHS8wCC4QjrkEegQIARAE&ep=6[/url]

Here's Roger Stern confirming it. He says it at starting 24:00 minute time stamp, in response to a question, just drag the timer at bottom there.[/QUOTE]

That isn't what he says. He doesn't confirm that at all.

He allows for the [I]possibility[/I] that the questioner's suggestion that the Revenge of the Green Goblin was commissioned by Marvel due to the then-upcoming movie [I]might[/I] be true. He does not confirm that it was due to the movie and, in fact, when he references the call he got from Marvel about doing the series, he states that the movie was never mentioned.

You're projecting rather than actually listening.

[QUOTE=Revolutionary_Jack;4789726]It's not a grand scheme. "Focus attention on characters whose rights we haven't licensed" is a one sentence directive.

The main focus of David Maisel was that the characters whose rights they still had all went on to become Avengers, so they had enough material to do an Avengers movie. The post-credits scene of Iron Man 1 didn't come out of nowhere you know. I mean initially the plans for Iron Man 1 (which also had a long development and production, especially since Favreau shot it without a complete script) also included ideas to include props from Sony's Spider-Man movies like Doctor Octopus' arms to tie it in with Raimi's movies (he hadn't yet walked out of Spider-Man 4 at the time). Thanks to the first wave of marvel movies, the general public was familiar with Spider-Man and X-men or Wolverine. But less so with Iron Man and the Avengers and having Spider-Man and Wolverine show up helped with that.

Having comics where Spider-Man and Tony Stark hung out, which again I have to reiterate was never a thing before. They had no interaction or connection whatsoever. It totally came out of left field. Even David Michelinie who wrote IM's defining run never once brought elements of that or had important crossovers with Tony and Peter in his run on ASM, even if it would have been totally organic for him to have done so. Likewise, Wolverine's always been the X-Man for people who don't like X-Men so he could be safely kept and moved around different teams adding value to Avengers without making it an X-Men story. You can like Wolverine without liking the X-Men whereas you can't necessarily like the X-Men by liking only Wolverine.[/QUOTE]

Sometimes things don't happen until it occurs to a writer to make it happen, like putting Spidey on the Avengers full time.

This does not constitute proof of a conspiracy or of corporate scheming.

You might as well try to claim that Tony and Peter hung out more in the comics in the 00's because the highers ups at Marvel knew that one day Marvel Studios would exist and not only would it become a success but that Sony would at the same time screw up their handling of the Spidey franchise to the point that it would be appealing for them to broker an unprecedented deal between themselves and Disney and that, also, it was already known at the time Bendis was writing Spidey and Tony together in NA that Robert Downey Jr. and Tom Holland would one day be cast as Tony and Peter respectively and that their chemistry together would be so good that their characters would be frequently paired together on screen.

That's how ridiculous your suggestions are. You're suggesting a level of foresight and long term planning that is clairvoyant in nature.

The reality is that stories happen. New connections between characters are discovered by writers. They tend run with those new connections. That's all.

[QUOTE=Revolutionary_Jack;4789726]Before that studio had to come into existence, they needed to get the money for it, they needed to get interest and excitement. It's a huge commitment.[/QUOTE]

You're suggesting that Marvel's goal every month isn't already to generate excitement for all their characters and that somehow an idea that didn't even exist at the time of a studio that no one could have known would eventually come to be - much less become a success - was somehow influencing decisions in the publishing line. Again, before it even happened. Before anyone suspected it might happen.

This does not have even the least stock in reality.

[QUOTE=Revolutionary_Jack;4789726]If your plan is making a movie studio, then definitely you need to think of the really long game.[/QUOTE]

No one was thinking about Marvel Studios when Civil War was conceived.

[QUOTE=Revolutionary_Jack;4789726]There were stories of mutant drugs causing an epidemic that killed mutants, there were targeted killings and hate crimes by U-Men, and even the Xavier's Institute's very own Columbine, and the final issue set in the future, has mutants hunted down by a sentient virus-god who has possessed Beast. To be honest, I read Morrison's run when it came out and found it fairly violent and depressing at the time, as well as the Ultimate X-Men comics, and I avoided X-Men comics at the time preferring the X-Men Evolution cartoon instead. I re-read it in trade later. But this idea that Morrison's run was some sunny and bright time has no foundation. The Evolution cartoon was the sunny take. And it introduced the big new character of X23, and Quesada himself wrote her backstory as a prostitute when she entered 616.

Anyone who says mutants were doing ok under Morrison's watch has obviously not read enough to form an opinion on it.[/QUOTE]

No one said that Morrison's run was some "sunny and bright time." No one.

It starts off with the destruction of Genosha ffs.

The point isn't whether mutants had it easy or whether or not they faced challenges - of course they did.

No run on any book gives the protagonists an easy time.

The point is that the mutant race was not teetering on the brink of extinction during Morrison's run. They seemed to be, despite the challenges thrown at them, here to stay. HoM made their existence seem much less certain.

[QUOTE=Revolutionary_Jack;4789726]If he complains about developments in Morrison's run which happened in his watch then it is hypocritical for him to have done so.[/QUOTE]

HE'S NOT COMPLAINING!!!

FFS, I'm going to put this as delicately as possible when I suggest that you learn how to really pay close attention to the actual words that people are saying and, more importantly, to UNDERSTAND THEM.

[QUOTE=Revolutionary_Jack;4789726]Morrison worked with Marvel and was playing ball and he also wanted to do stuff that X-men fans liked. So for instance Emma Frost was not part of his original plan, but he found out she was popular with some fans and had recently turned sympathetic, so he read that and liked it and incorporated it and Morrison's Emma has ultimately become a fixture of the titles. The reason for Emma having a diamond form is that Morrison couldn't use Colossus so he introduced the secondary mutation element. All Quesada had to do was tell him, "use existing mutants don't create new ones" and he would have accepted.[/QUOTE]

Quesada didn't tell him that because he had no problem with the story that Morrison was telling. Can you wrap your head around that?

Why would Quesada even have a problem with Emma's secondary mutation? If he actually did, he certainly wouldn't have allowed it.

That Quesada wanted to, at some point, when the right pitch was made, reduce the number of mutants in the MU does not mean that he didn't like the story that Morrison told, that he didn't full approve it and that changes down the line were due to any unhappiness with Morrison's work. That is not what HoM was about. How this is difficult for you to comprehend? It's actually really fu*king simple.

[QUOTE=Revolutionary_Jack;4789726]It was in Marvel's interest to encourage Morrison because then they can boast of having characters created by Grant Morrison.[/QUOTE]

It's in Marvel's interest to encourage all their writers. There's no gain in discouraging the people who are contributing to your universe. And to your revenue as well.

[QUOTE=WebSlingWonder;4787609]Yeah, Jack, I honestly think you're trying to convince yourself more than the others. Your points make no sense and the so-called evidence doesn't hold up except for you. That's not debating: it's steamrolling an argument for the sake of being contrary. You talk about consensus, but the main consensus in this thread is that you're not in the right here.[/QUOTE]

[QUOTE=WebSlingWonder;4789821]Okay, can we stop writing essays for every reply?! It's nearly impossible to keep up if you all exhaust every word in the dictionary! On top of that, you've all derailed this thread to oblivion and aren't coming to any type of consensus. This is ridiculous.[/QUOTE]

Co-signed on all counts.

Honestly, I feel like the idea that they had a master plan is out there. I detest a lot of what Joey Q did, I know they had some idea of the MCU and were pushing the Avengers, but they couldn’t have predicted how things would go. It was very much an escalating process. It didn’t happen overnight, nor was the shafting of X-Men/FF itself to the level it was thought of from day one. I agree this has gone on too long though.

[QUOTE=Prof. Warren;4789887]Answer, you can't. [/quote]

Yes you can. HoX/Pox wasn't preceded by "no more avengers, no more FF" nor did it have tie-ins with every other hero. HoX/PoX and the DoX stories started out as a self-contained story and owed its success entirely due to Hickman's fame, the general "X-Men reunion tour, we're putting the band back together" promotion (as with those videos of X-Men Big Moments that Marvel shot, which was terrific), and of course its own word-of-mouth once people got hold of it.

The thing about Spider-Man in the shared universe in the 2000s is that it was not for his benefit, it was not for the benefit of what was best for his stories, it was for the benefit of the Avengers. Stuff like him being in New Avengers or Civil War. A good part of why CIVIL WAR sold was Peter having his identity outed. It made national news and got headlines.

Likewise, the X-Men, House of M wasn't a story that was for the X-Men's best, it wasn't done for its benefit.

House of M and CW were done at the expense of Spider-Man and X-Men for the benefit of the Avengers. That's why the Avengers being at the center of Marvel Universe is an astroturfed event, and Peter should be well away from them, or at the very least should get stuff back from them. After all he did work for them unpaid when this was a team that once paid its members.

[quote]So events like CW and HoM are no different than Hox/Pox. [/quote]

Did Krakoa f--k up Peter's life and out his identity or do a tie-in with him married to Gwen, all in a stunt to raise sales and interests? No it didn't. So obviously it's different, vastly so, from HoM and CW. To pretend otherwise is to be disingenuous.

Of course, It's also different on account of, you know, being good.

[quote]Carny stunts like the Spider-wedding? [/quote]

The Spider-Marriage happened because fans asked for it at a convention to Stan Lee and Jim Shooter and the response to that was instantaneously positive and well received. It came out of genuine fan enthusiasm, it came from below rather than from above. Neither Lee nor Shooter had an interest in it until they turned up at that convention. The Spider-Marriage is more grassroots rather than astro-turfed. It's not any different from fans liking Emma Frost and asking Grant Morrison about her, and Morrison decided to read up to see what the fuss was about, and decided that he can use her in New X-Men after all.

[quote]You're projecting your own dislike onto his EIC reign and suggesting that because he did stories you didn't like that he didn't care about making them good. [/quote]

He wrote OMD and OMIT. Anyone who writes or orders or pushes dreck like that, obviously doesn't care about execution if he gets what he wants out of it. Nor do they really care first and most about good storytelling. If Quesada truly cared about good storytelling, he would never have written or allowed that.

And I am being charitable when I said that he did stories without caring about making them good. Because the alternative, that he thought OMD and OMIT were good stories in themselves, would be far more appalling. Thankfully Quesada has always defended his story from a corporate perspective rather than a creative one.

Quesada's main innovation and legacy as EIC which he did first more than anyone before was using event titles to force the Marvel Universe to be a certain way without any story or logic or foundation or organic interest leading there. There were event storylines before but it was mostly promotional or tied to one team and character and the crossovers largely had impact on say the Avengers, the Fantastic Four, Spider-Man and others while leaving the others untouched. It was fun, it was take it or leave it.

Whereas under Quesada it became deathmatches. The fact that the three most important Marvel stories and longest-lasting impact -- House of M, Civil War and OMD are stories of great importance in terms of how it lasted and what it did...and stories that are bad at the same time, is appalling and disgraceful.

The Marvel Universe was the House of Ideas under EIC Stan Lee all the way to Shooter and Defalco. That was the real authentic Marvel Universe, built by reader engagement, interest, and enthusiasm.

Whereas since the mid-2000s, it's the House of Quesada's ideas. It's not the house Jack and Stan built, but the one Quesada redecorated with tacky colors.

[quote]You're trying to claim that the success of The Avengers has not been due to the creative teams but outside manipulation. [/quote]

Them being at the center of Marvel was manipulated or rather had thumbs placed in their favor. Whereas no thumbs were ever placed on the scales for the success of X-Men, either when Claremont was there or when Hickman is now.

[QUOTE=Prof. Warren;4789888]No one was thinking about Marvel Studios when Civil War was conceived. [/quote]

[QUOTE=Hybrid;4789938]Honestly, I feel like the idea that they had a master plan is out there. [/QUOTE]


An entity called Marvel Studios has been in existence since the 1970s. It was only in 2005 that it became Marvel Entertainment (I made this error myself so this is on me as much as anyone), which produced the movies. David Maisel's plan was in 2003 and he met with Perlmutter, Arad and others to discuss it. And in 2004, he worked with Lionsgate to produce animated DTV movies as proof of concept ([url]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marvel_Animated_Features[/url]). All of them focused on characters they had exclusive rights to, including Iron Man, Thor, Black Panther, Avengers. The loans and detail was all worked out in that time, and they bided their time until 2005 when, as expected, they got the rights back for Iron Man from New Line Cinema to whom they had licensed it and who despite many false starts never made a movie (and really never advanced to a stage when it could get a greenlight so they knew they could bide their time for it).

So I am sorry the evidence is very much that the movies were in the pipeline around 2003 and 2004 as well as encouraging an interest in properties whose rights they own. They commissioned cartoons, and the comics likewise turned that way.




I would also like this to be my absolute last word on this topic.

[QUOTE=Revolutionary_Jack;4789978]Yes you can. HoX/Pox wasn't preceded by "no more avengers, no more FF" nor did it have tie-ins with every other hero. HoX/PoX and the DoX stories started out as a self-contained story and owed its success entirely due to Hickman's fame, the general "X-Men reunion tour, we're putting the band back together" promotion (as with those videos of X-Men Big Moments that Marvel shot, which was terrific), and of course its own word-of-mouth once people got hold of it.[/QUOTE]

HoX/PoX was preceded by an X-Men Disassembled storyline, as well as a sprawling alt world Age of X storyline, with multiple titles involved - all of which fed into the "End of an Era" marketing campaign that set the stage for Hickman's entrance and radical rethinking of the X-line. If that isn't "astro-turfing," nothing is.

[QUOTE=Revolutionary_Jack;4789978]The thing about Spider-Man in the shared universe in the 2000s is that it was not for his benefit, it was not for the benefit of what was best for his stories, it was for the benefit of the Avengers. Stuff like him being in New Avengers or Civil War. A good part of why CIVIL WAR sold was Peter having his identity outed. It made national news and got headlines.[/QUOTE]

It was to the benefit of both.

Bendis' push behind getting Spidey on the Avengers - as well as Wolverine - was that it was weird for Marvel not to put its biggest superstars on its biggest team.

Bendis' argument was that keeping these characters from being Avengers didn't make sense and he convinced Marvel that he was right.

[QUOTE=Revolutionary_Jack;4789978]Likewise, the X-Men, House of M wasn't a story that was for the X-Men's best, it wasn't done for its benefit.[/QUOTE]

But it was. Whether or not the fallout from it was as successful as those involved would have liked, it was - like every story - meant to affect a positive change.

[QUOTE=Revolutionary_Jack;4789978]House of M and CW were stories were done at the expense of Spider-Man and X-Men for the benefit of the Avengers.[/QUOTE]

No, they weren't. That is a false perspective on your part.

[QUOTE=Revolutionary_Jack;4789978]That's why the Avengers being at the center of Marvel Universe is an astroturfed event, and Peter should be well away from them, or at the very least should get stuff back from them. After all he did work for them unpaid when this was a team that once paid its members.[/QUOTE]

This is hard for you to grasp, clearly, but The Avengers were always at the center of the Marvel Universe. They are its #1 team and have been since the beginning.

That the X-Men was a huge seller above and beyond anything else for a number of years doesn't change the in-universe fact that The Avengers are regarded as the most elite gathering of heroes. This was the case long, long before the 00's.

And you don't have to worry about what Peter gets back from The Avengers or whether he's getting paid. He's not a real person. This is all make-believe.

[QUOTE=Revolutionary_Jack;4789978]Did Krakoa f--k up Peter's life and out his identity or do a tie-in with him married to Gwen, all in a stunt to raise sales and interests? No it didn't. So obviously it's different, vastly so, from HoM and CW. To pretend otherwise is to be disingenuous.[/QUOTE]

They are not different. They are all stories meant to generate excitement from readers by promising big changes. To pretend otherwise is disingenuous.

[QUOTE=Revolutionary_Jack;4789978]Of course, It's also different on account of, you know, being good.[/QUOTE]

...In your opinion. Not everyone shares the same opinion about HoM, CW, OMD, HoX/PoX or Dawn of X.

As casual stroll through the X-boards is enough to tell you that the love for the Hickman era is by no means unanimous.

[url]https://community.cbr.com/showthread.php?133986-Gave-up-after-HickXmen-1-have-these-books-gotten-any-better[/url]

[url]https://community.cbr.com/showthread.php?131860-To-those-unhappy-with-the-relaunch-how-would-you-fix-it[/url]

[QUOTE=Revolutionary_Jack;4789978]The Spider-Marriage happened because fans asked for it at a convention to Stan Lee and Jim Shooter and the response to that was instantaneously positive and well received. It came out of genuine fan enthusiasm, it came from below rather than from above.[/QUOTE]

It came from above. It came from Lee, who passed it down to Shooter, who carried out the orders.

[QUOTE=Revolutionary_Jack;4789978]Neither Lee nor Shooter had an interest in it until they turned up at that convention. The Spider-Marriage is more grassroots rather than astro-turfed.[/QUOTE]

It was astro-turfed. Anyone who knows will tell you that, whether they're a fan of the marriage or not.

To claim otherwise is false.

In his afterword in the Michelinie/McFarlane Omnibus, Michelinie talks about how he lobbied against the marriage of Peter and MJ as a married Peter wasn't the version of the character he wanted to write but that "the editor was bigger than me, so he (and Marvel) prevailed."

While Michelinie goes on to say that he eventually warmed up to writing Peter and MJ as a married couple, it was against his initial wishes and it was a from the top decision.

In the Afterword to the ASM Venom Epic Collection, ex-Spidey editor Ralph Macchio makes note that "while many readers never really approved of the marriage of Peter and MJ, David tackles the relationship without flinching, much to his credit."

So the Peter/MJ marriage was not universally loved at the time, or since. It was not a grassroots movement but a sales stunt.

[QUOTE=Revolutionary_Jack;4789978]He wrote OMD and OMIT. Anyone who writes or orders or pushes dreck like that, obviously doesn't care about execution if he gets what he wants out of it. Nor do they really care first and most about good storytelling. If Quesada truly cared about good storytelling, he would never have written or allowed that.[/QUOTE]

Every story that comes out under an EIC watch is not going to be great or well-received. Doesn't mean they don't care. And given the volume of material he presided over, I think the good can be said to far outweigh the bad.

[QUOTE=Revolutionary_Jack;4789978]And I am being charitable when I said that he did stories without caring about making them good. Because the alternative, that he thought OMD and OMIT were good stories in themselves, would be far more appalling. Thankfully Quesada has always defended his story from a corporate perspective rather than a creative one.[/QUOTE]

OMD and OMIT are two of the most mercenary stories ever conceived in comics. But Quesada has always been upfront about that and I'm sure that whatever his disappointments with the execution of those particular stories - mostly OMD - that he believes the end result was worth it and that they made ASM healthier in the long run.

[QUOTE=Revolutionary_Jack;4789978]Quesada's main innovation and legacy as EIC which he did first more than anyone before was using event titles to force the Marvel Universe to be a certain way without any story or logic or foundation or organic interest leading there. There were event storylines before but it was mostly promotional or tied to one team and character and the crossovers largely had impact on say the Avengers, the Fantastic Four, Spider-Man and others while leaving the others untouched. It was fun, it was take it or leave it.[/QUOTE]

I think that simple speaks to a shift in the industry in which the readership became more inclined to invest in stories if they believed they really "mattered."

That isn't just a Marvel thing. It's DC as well.

[QUOTE=Revolutionary_Jack;4789978]Whereas under Quesada it became deathmatches. The fact that the three most important Marvel stories and longest-lasting impact -- House of M, Civil War and OMD are stories of great importance in terms of how it lasted and what it did...and stories that are bad at the same time, is appalling and disgraceful.[/QUOTE]

Opinions do vary on those stories, you know. OMD not so much but certainly CW and HoM have more than their share of admirers.

[QUOTE=Revolutionary_Jack;4789978]Them being at the center of Marvel was manipulated or rather had thumbs placed in their favor. Whereas no thumbs were ever placed on the scales for the success of X-Men, either when Claremont was there or when Hickman is now.[/QUOTE]

That would be false.

The Claremont/Byrne X-Men was a word of mouth hit but that's when everything that did well was a word of mouth hit, with little in the way of outside promotion or comic book press to bolster it. The Avengers had their own successes in that time, too.

But the Avengers in the current age has had no more help or promotion than Hickman's X-Men. The hype for Hickman's arrival on the X-Men was massive and Marvel invested a lot of effort in making sure fans knew this was a big deal and that they couldn't afford to miss out. That's what's called putting your thumb on the scale.

[QUOTE=Revolutionary_Jack;4789978]An entity called Marvel Studios has been in existence since the 1970s. It was only in 2005 that it became Marvel Entertainment (I made this error myself so this is on me as much as anyone), which produced the movies. David Maisel's plan was in 2003 and he met with Perlmutter, Arad and others to discuss it. And in 2004, he worked with Lionsgate to produce animated DTV movies as proof of concept ([url]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marvel_Animated_Features[/url]). All of them focused on characters they had exclusive rights to, including Iron Man, Thor, Black Panther, Avengers. The loans and detail was all worked out in that time, and they bided their time until 2005 when, as expected, they got the rights back for Iron Man from New Line Cinema to whom they had licensed it and who despite many false starts never made a movie (and really never advanced to a stage when it could get a greenlight so they knew they could bide their time for it).

So I am sorry the evidence is very much that the movies were in the pipeline around 2003 and 2004 as well as encouraging an interest in properties whose rights they own. They commissioned cartoons, and the comics likewise turned that way.[/QUOTE]

The fact that Marvel has an interest in promoting characters that will appear in outside media doesn't mean that there is an internal agenda to create stories that will deliberately undermine certain characters in favor of boosting others. And it certainly doesn't mean that CW was conceived with a specific mission of giving the Avengers greater prominence in the MU than the X-Men because one day some movies might happen.

You might as well try and claim that Infinity Gauntlet was only written because they wanted to build excitement for Avengers: Infinity War twenty seven years or so down the road.

There's synergy and corporate strategy then there's clairvoyance.

Marvel does plenty of the former, yes, but in this case what you're talking about is the latter.

[QUOTE=Revolutionary_Jack;4789978]I would also like this to be my absolute last word on this topic.[/QUOTE]

The rest of us would like that as well.

[QUOTE=Prof. Warren;4790059]OMD and OMIT are two of the most mercenary stories ever conceived in comics. [/quote]

The price of writing those stories, and the price of justifying those stories, is the permanent loss of respect for your judgment and taste. And you never get it back.

[quote]To claim otherwise is false. [/quote]

Jim Shooter himself talks about it here ([url]http://jimshooter.com/2011/09/three-comic-book-weddings-or-holy.html/[/url]). If there had been no fan support and agreement to it, if that fan hadn't asked that question then to Stan, it wouldn't have happened. It was a spontaneous and unplanned thing at a public gathering.

Shooter then went to Jim Salicrup (editor of Spider-Man) and asked what he thought about it. And Salicrup agreed that it would be a great idea. Lot of the writers of Spider-Man titles at the time, PAD, and JMD approved it as well, as did Sal Buscema and Todd McFarlane.

[quote]HoX/PoX was preceded...[/QUOTE]

I said specifically whether there were any shakeups in Avengers going "no more Avengers". The answer to that is no. Quit moving the goalpost. That x-men stories were in an editorially mandated rut and stagnation was well known and is of no concern.

[quote]That isn't just a Marvel thing. It's DC as well. [/quote]

Marvel's not supposed to be the company that apes DC you know.

[quote]The rest of us would like that as well.[/QUOTE]

It does take two to delope.

[QUOTE=Revolutionary_Jack;4787487]The implication, intended or not, is that someone who is "resourceful, smart and knows people" cannot be poor. I am sorry to tell you that's just not how things work.

I agree with this in principle.

I disagree with the concept and notion that making money or becoming rich is a form of character development and growth. It's not.

Peter Parker had far more character development and growth as a high school teacher in JMS' run than in any of Slott's issues with him at Horizon Labs and Parker Industries. he was also far more happier as a person since that was a job he was good at and genuinely enjoyed doing.[/QUOTE]

At this point in his "career" no, He shouldnt struggle, it feels like a reset to the character, "we cant make him humble without make him poor even if doesnt make sense" at least for me.

When i said smart, resourceful and knows people, im putting in context with the character, he is ridiculously smart, ridiculously resourceful and know ridiculously powerful people.

At the same time, he doesnt need to be rich or another Tony Stark.

He doesnt need "i have to pay the bills" to be a relatable character.

[QUOTE=Lapsus;4790130]At the same time, he doesnt need to be rich or another Tony Stark.

He doesnt need "i have to pay the bills" to be a relatable character.[/QUOTE]

That I agree with.