Knowing it’s ending, how would you rate Spencer’s run?

[QUOTE=HypnoHustler;5631795]Maybe not quite as bad, but it’d still be REALLY bad. The original idea was Peter would be the father of the genetically accelerated twins iirc. And Gwen would still be the deceased mom.

Does that sound like a good storyline to anyone? Yes, it’s better because it doesn’t involve Norman seducing Gwen, but only marginally and it makes Peter a Dad again… something they were trying to move away from at the time (and even worse, a Dad to two adults… that worked wonders for the FF book when adult Franklin joined the team as PSI Lord /s)[/QUOTE]

Agreed.

The original intention was never going to happen (hence why Editorial vetoed it. Yet they approved the direction it took).

[QUOTE=FFJamie94;5631781]Personally, I think Editorial coming in and changing stuff for the worse can be put onto the editors.
I agree, Sins Past should have been shot down as soon as it was suggested and The Other isn't what I'd call a good Spider-Man story. At the same time, both are written pretty well for stories that are frankly... kind of bad.
And The Other had its moments but was largely over written. I feel that could have been cut down to six issues, take out the nonsense and have a perfectly fine Spider-Man arc.

What I remember most about JMS however was that he wrote Spider-Man like an adult. Peter being a Science teacher is something I wish the comics stuck with, and the fact the marriage was a focal point over the course of the run.
Did every idea he come up with expand the Spider-Man mythos for the best? No, some of them are pretty terrible, but he did a lot more good than bad in my opinion and he did try to expand the Spider-Man mythos.

I can see why he would lose the heart during the second half of his run. There was a sudden shift to include more line wide events, something which never happened too often. All of a sudden, JMS was dealing with Civil War, Back in Black and One More Day, a trifecta of stories that he didn't really have much say in the direction of. That's about a year's worth of stories already dictated for him. There's a reason why after OMD, the main book rarely ever touched the events.

And I refuse to put any blame on him for OMD itself. He was against that story as much as anyone.

It's a classic run, but it has a lot of "buts" attached.

Regardless, Spencer's run has been fun for the most part, but again, it's got a lot of "buts" attached.
The best comparison I can give it is weirdly a recent football one. It's like getting to the final and scoring in the first two minutes, but then losing out on penalties.
It hit early, and while it missed a few times, you're still happy you got it.

It's getting the book in the right direction and will hopefully lead to the next great run.[/QUOTE]

Sins Past as a story could have worked so much better than it did and i could lay it out in a few different ways in which it could. It is what it is though. Marvel have had multiple opportunities to get rid of it, yet they haven't. It's a bit like killing Bobby off on [I]Dallas[/I]. Saying it was all just a bad dream certainly got around it, but it left a big hole in the spin off shows that addressed it. For good or bad, it is here to stay. Best to just forget about it and never address it.

As for [I]The Other[/I]? Definitely should have been 6 issues and kept in ASM. I do like some of the power upgrades it gave Peter (being able to see in the dark, feel vibrations through his webs, extend his clinging ability across his entire body instead of hands and feet). But it needed to be sharper and ended up being a bloated mess.

MJ wasn't with Peter for 20 odd issues at the start. They were separated at the point and didn't reconcile until ASM #50 (And gave us one of my favourite panels in a book) [ATTACH=CONFIG]111484[/ATTACH]

I don't blame that final year or so of JMS on ASM directly with him. As a writer, he had pretty much been left to his own devices for 30 odd issues. But around Sins Past is when editorial really started to interfere. Then, because Bendis had Peter with The Avengers, JMS suddenly had to tailor his plans to deal with that. Then Civil War and so on. If he had been left alone, he might have just gone on doing what he had up until that point. But he was a victim of his own success and Marvel wanting to have Peter front and center of its events. Same thing happened with Thor too.

Spencer's run has been a palette cleanser. It has been focused on trying to put away some of the toys Slott neglected to put back in the box and getting Spidey back to more familiar ground. Which is what was needed after the experimention of Slott in the latter end of his tenure.

I loved Spencer run after it started, praised everything. It was mostly a step up in the right direction:
- Spidey was funny again
- Peter and MJ together
- Interesting new Villain

But after reading Sinister War #4 - I'm tired
The cracks were showing within Last Remains. Chameleon Conspiracy felt like filler, but Sinister War was the last straw for me. 4 issues, that could have been compressed into 2. Nothing really important happens, a cool character moment or two is all.

Also, the constant OMD teasing, the Confess Your Sins™ Kindred talk... Somehow, this run which started so good is rapidly decreasing in quality.

I don't believe Spencer can stick the landing unfortunately.

[QUOTE=Dzika_Sowa;5712026]I loved Spencer run after it started, praised everything. It was mostly a step up in the right direction:
- Spidey was funny again
- Peter and MJ together
- Interesting new Villain

But after reading Sinister War #4 - I'm tired
The cracks were showing within Last Remains. Chameleon Conspiracy felt like filler, but Sinister War was the last straw for me. 4 issues, that could have been compressed into 2. Nothing really important happens, a cool character moment or two is all.

Also, the constant OMD teasing, the Confess Your Sins™ Kindred talk... Somehow, this run which started so good is rapidly decreasing in quality.

I don't believe Spencer can stick the landing unfortunately.[/QUOTE]

I agree with all this. Last story from the run I felt was truly great was Sins Rising/The Return of Green Goblin.

[QUOTE=Batman Begins 2005;5712076]I agree with all this. Last story from the run I felt was truly great was Sins Rising/The Return of Green Goblin.[/QUOTE]

Tru that team up with Norman was the hypest I got for this run. But after that it drag and drag at first I thought it was just the forum usual compliants but the later story arcs haven't done much of anything interesting. Overall I give it a B. Started strong good but ending is looking poor. Plus it's inconsistent art didn't help at all

The run started out really fun and was frontloaded with a lot of Spencer's better stories but it just totally lost steam midway through. I think having Ryan Ottley on board at the start helped it stand out and strived to be as good as it could be because you bring on one of the best superhero artists today and the stories were just elevated having him. Editorial killed this run by testing the waters for thrice monthly again.

[QUOTE=Dzika_Sowa;5712026]I loved Spencer run after it started, praised everything. It was mostly a step up in the right direction:
- Spidey was funny again
- Peter and MJ together
- Interesting new Villain

But after reading Sinister War #4 - I'm tired
The cracks were showing within Last Remains. Chameleon Conspiracy felt like filler, but Sinister War was the last straw for me. 4 issues, that could have been compressed into 2. Nothing really important happens, a cool character moment or two is all.

Also, the constant OMD teasing, the Confess Your Sins™ Kindred talk... Somehow, this run which started so good is rapidly decreasing in quality.

I don't believe Spencer can stick the landing unfortunately.[/QUOTE]

Are you me? Because I feel exactly the same! ;)

And while I’d still rate it higher than Slott’s, at least Slott could pace his stories well (as horrendous as those plots were). Spencer’s biggest flaw is he seems to have no sense of pacing. I just keep thinking “when will we get to the fireworks factory” already. Even if ASM #73-74 knock things out of the park and completely undo OMD (and let’s be real, they probably won’t) I still couldn’t rank this run highly at this point. If those two issues are exceptional, it’ll probably be a C+, if they’re mediocre then probably a C-, and if they’re a true letdown then we are looking at D territory, which is something I never would’ve expected during the beginning of Spencer’s run.

I wished that Spencer had made Jessica Drew and Black Widow reoccurring characters in his run respectively.. It might have helped to raise Jessica's profile with the Spider-readers.

[QUOTE=Spidey_62;5712256]The run started out really fun and was frontloaded with a lot of Spencer's better stories but it just totally lost steam midway through. I think having Ryan Ottley on board at the start helped it stand out and strived to be as good as it could be because you bring on one of the best superhero artists today and the stories were just elevated having him. [B]Editorial killed this run by testing the waters for thrice monthly again[/B].[/QUOTE]

ASM should go back to being monthly as the twice or thrice monthly kills the pace of the story. A lot of writers and artists get burned out. Another problem was the decision of having ASM as the single title for Spider-Man while cancelling the satellite titles. But these days comic books are segregated as the Editorial doesn't work with each other. Nick Lowe could have bought in the Morlocks and the Hellfire Club from the X-Office as he was Editor, as well as a few X-characters into Spider-Man's world like Nightcrawler, The Beast, and Betsy Braddock respectively. Marvel used to do that in the 1980's. Imagine seeing Spider-Man vs The Morlocks, which should be part of his world as well.

[QUOTE=HypnoHustler;5712294]Are you me? Because I feel exactly the same! ;)

And while I’d still rate it higher than Slott’s, at least Slott could pace his stories well (as horrendous as those plots were). Spencer’s biggest flaw is he seems to have no sense of pacing. I just keep thinking “when will we get to the fireworks factory” already. Even if ASM #73-74 knock things out of the park and completely undo OMD (and let’s be real, they probably won’t) I still couldn’t rank this run highly at this point. If those two issues are exceptional, it’ll probably be a C+, if they’re mediocre then probably a C-, and if they’re a true letdown then we are looking at D territory, which is something I never would’ve expected during the beginning of Spencer’s run.[/QUOTE]

The pacing thing is imo not a big problem since who will ever read this run now won't have any problems since they will read it in one go.Even during the run many buy in trades.
Also we got like 3+ issues a month whereas other gets 1.Compare the content are our pace is faster than those by a good margin.
It's a slow burn story and not for the impatient(such as me, I too hate the wait).

The bad is the monologuing, I mean it's not like it's meanigful or gonna tie up into something big

[QUOTE=Dzika_Sowa;5712026]I loved Spencer run after it started, praised everything. It was mostly a step up in the right direction:
- Spidey was funny again
- Peter and MJ together
- Interesting new Villain

But after reading Sinister War #4 - I'm tired
The cracks were showing within Last Remains. Chameleon Conspiracy felt like filler, but Sinister War was the last straw for me. 4 issues, that could have been compressed into 2. Nothing really important happens, a cool character moment or two is all.

Also, the constant OMD teasing, the Confess Your Sins™ Kindred talk... Somehow, this run which started so good is rapidly decreasing in quality.

I don't believe Spencer can stick the landing unfortunately.[/QUOTE]


Unfortunately, I agree. I can’t even put my finger on WHEN it faltered.

I was surprised by Kindred being locked up by Kingpin, but I went along with it and believed it. I thought the mystery of the body was good and the next chapter would be Spidey and Norman uncovering the truth, and the chapter after that would be the confrontation with Kindred where we know everything and we can beat him.

Instead we’ve got…Spidey on the back foot and has deserved NOTHING. He’s not won a single thing, nor has he learned anything. I’m hoping recent leaks aren’t true. I feel like this comes down to editorial…because up until just after Last Remains, this was a pretty good run where it just seemed meticulously plotted out.

[QUOTE=your_name_here;5716067]Unfortunately, I agree. I can’t even put my finger on WHEN it faltered.

I was surprised by Kindred being locked up by Kingpin, but I went along with it and believed it. I thought the mystery of the body was good and the next chapter would be Spidey and Norman uncovering the truth, and the chapter after that would be the confrontation with Kindred where we know everything and we can beat him.

Instead we’ve got…Spidey on the back foot and has deserved NOTHING. He’s not won a single thing, nor has he learned anything. I’m hoping recent leaks aren’t true. I feel like this comes down to editorial…because up until just after Last Remains, this was a pretty good run where it just seemed meticulously plotted out.[/QUOTE]
Spencer’s run started out as a B and has become a D and depending on the outcome can be a C ( if OMD is erased) or an F ( if he does something like make Gwen Kindred).

[QUOTE=NC_Yankee;5717209]Spencer’s run started out as a B and has become a D and depending on the outcome can be a C ( if OMD is erased) or an F ( if he does something like make Gwen Kindred).[/QUOTE]

Yeah. The thing that makes me sad is I don’t think it’s necessarily Spencer’s fault.
It certainly doesn’t seem to be paced the way he wanted, anyway.

I think this run will forever be known as the run that could’ve been. Editorial strikes again, I fear.

[QUOTE=your_name_here;5717462]I think this run will forever be known as the run that could’ve been. Editorial strikes again, I fear.[/QUOTE]
I agree this is the run that could have been, but as I have said before where is the blame on Nick Spencer? He should have finished this story two years ago. I am afraid we will get stuck with a hot mess like Sins Past not being erased by JMS ( as he originally planned): Spencer being aware of this has less of an excuse then JMS did. What is really frightening to me is history repeating itself. JMS leaving and a bunch of writers take over ( OMD followed by BND). Here it is Kindred followed by the Beyond team. You would think people would have learned from history? But unfortunately NOT.