[Serious question] Why does Dan Slott get more criticism than Straczynski

[RD!]

Nobody ever factors in that the marriage has always been active in some or another in spite of OMD, it's just not in the mainline books. Dan always tries to remind those fans of the hand he played in giving it a boost with RYV, and I used to hear rumblings from one fan who met him at a convention that claims he had pitched marriage comeback storylines in the past, but was vetoed several times, with RYV being the winning pitch only because of the nature of Secret Wars.

I haven't heard that before but I would t be surprised.

I've always considered Slott to be a closet marriage fan, despite his supporting the removal.

He needs to keep his job and tow the company line, but can you imagine someone with an encyclopaedic knowledge of Marvel history being happy about the removal of 20 years worth of adventures about his favourite character?

Look to Spider Island, look to Renew Your Vows. The proof is there in his work. Even the way he way he writes MJ as a Spider groupie is so bad it's comical, like his way of saluting OMD with the middle finger, it's in the little details where his true thoughts on the matter are apparent

[SignorMiracolo]

See all previous exchanges between us I'm not getting into this again beyond saying I have indeed seriously considered the use of the word before I threw it out

Do you have a completed academic education in literature that could somewhat substantiate your opinion? I know we are in the Death of Expertise Age but when one says «The stone cold truth is in an English literature class JMS is going to score egregiously higher than Slott because JMS is an objectively better writer.» 1. shows he knows very little about how literary criticism work 2. it implies that he is an expert on the field.

[Miles To Go]

Look to Spider Island, look to Renew Your Vows. The proof is there in his work.

Yeah, plus at NYCC he referenced OMD as the reason the symbiote couldn't remember Peter, rather than point to the revised in-universe mindwipe explanation of OMIT.

[Spidercide]

@Spidercide sorry I'm not reading your college dissertation, paraphrase it and I will probably reconsider.

I go into detail to better illustrate the points and unpack the issues. A lot of the times complex stuff can't be neatly simplified.

But I'll make a concession.

a) 90% of everythign wrong with OMD stems from stuff unconnected to JMS and directly connected to Quesada and the editorial mandate he wanted to enforce and JMS did not. It's not just the idea of the marriage going away or being erased but the method by which it happened too involving Mephisto. So really JMS doesn't even deserve one quarater of the blame for OMD. It was Quesada's baby and halfway through you can kind of tell when he really took over the writing.

b) Slott's been on the book longer and has a vastly larger quantity of issues under his belt. JMS ran from 2001-2007 (not the 90s like you said) but only did 1 issue per month. Slott has had sporadic arcs transpiring across three issues per month from 2008-2010 and then has done 2 issue per month since 2010 to now (barring some exceptions) so he's got way more stories that have drawn on his nergy hence why people feel he's run out of steam

c) JMS is an objectively better writing craftsman than Dan Slott. His command of pacing, dialogue and characetrization is on a much higher wiritng level than Slott's who writes things in a more cartoonish manner

d) Slott's run has consistently misunderstood Spider-Man's character and engaged in stories that damages and reduces his world and the characters within it. Even the ways in which he has been said to 'develop' Peter are either taking him in directions that go against the underlying philosophies of the character (e.g. HORIZOn labs is an over idealzed dream job nobody would have in real life and makes Peter's life easier with no drawbacks whatsoever) or else are superficial examples of character development (e.g. Parker Industries is called development, except Doc Ock ltierally did all the work). JMS developed Peter in organic ways that made sense within his established history AND within the core philosophies of the character, e.g. he had Aunt May learn his identity and made him a science teacher. Peter likes science, Peter's high school years were formative to him, he sees the next generation in need of guidence and recognizes he can give them some in particular since they are under privileged. He can relate to that since he was never well off financially. Plus he's all about being relatively grounded and down to Earth. It's why he's the friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man. At the same time it's a job that isn't easy to balance against being Spider-Man and has much more responsibility than HORIZON labs or arguably even PI because your shaping children's lives. So it made a lt more sense and developed him in a far more substantive way

e) JMS understood realistic, mature emotions and character writing (which is integral to Spider-man even moreos than a lot of other series out there) to a much better degree than Slott. Slott would have Aunt May chastise Peter (a 15 year old) for abandonning her (a 50 year old woman) on the night Uncle Ben died. JMS would have her sit down and hae a frank conversation with Peter over his lying to her for years and that was the enitre issue. Slott would have Mary Jane sit in a scene and have the dialogue say the science conversation is above her head because she's just a model or whatever. JMS would have MJ struggle to be seen as more than a pretty face due to her chosen profession. Slott would have juvenile and rapey bullshit like Doc Ock masturbating in Peter's body to his memories of having sex with Mary Jane or Silk and Peter being compelled to have sex like dogs on heat. Meanwhile JMS after getting Peter and MJ back together spent 3 issues developing their relationship to the point where they'd be comfortable being intimate with one another again and in consequent stories (without being like Game of Thrones explicit) showcased them as a mature sexually active couple and played the sexy scenes as a reaffirmation of the deepness with their relationship and not as "derp, derp sex is kewl dawg hyuk hyuk"

Slott would have Peter act like he was metnally 15 years old. JMS wrote him as a fully grown adult and sum of his experiences. Slott wrote Spider-Manhchild. JMS wrote Spider-MAN.


f) JMS also wrote Spider-Man as more outright heroic and impressive as a hero. Whilst Slott's idea of making Spider-Man impressive is for him to whip out some z-metal webbing or other bullshit gadget JMS showed Peter helping out the children in his school and the day to day problems in their life, beginning to get involved in rehabilitating the people he put in jail and being able to get the job done by digging deep into his raw willpower. All with no super duper gadgets to help him.

Half the time Slott's Peter is undermined by the presence of other characters anyway. Like In power Play it's Iron man and Mj who hold off Regent whilst Peter basically unlocks a door to free the other heroes who then just gang up on the guy. In the last arc he needed other people to help him fight Doc Ock, even leaving them to fight him whilst he did something else.

Meanwhile JMS' Spider-Man rapid fire lived through all his old battles without much rest and won them all over again, then saved the world then went home and told the temporarily resurrected Uncle Ben that deep down he really was happy with his life. Slott meanwhile doesn't celebrate Peter's character but is married to the incorrect 'feat of clay' interpretation of the character which presumes to write him as a screw up no matter what. Even when he succeeds he is screwing up because he becomes arrogant.

[Spidercide]

Do you have a completed academic education in literature that could somewhat substantiate your opinion? I know we are in the Death of Expertise Age but when one says «The stone cold truth is in an English literature class JMS is going to score egregiously higher than Slott because JMS is an objectively better writer.» 1. shows he knows very little about how literary criticism work 2. it implies that he is an expert on the field.

I've got an English Lit A-level and live with an English teacher whom I've consulted about their (and other writers') works.

Slott literally has massive plot and characetrization holes in his stories in ways JMS does not.

He writes clunky, unnatural exposition laden dialogue far too frequently.

He pays off sub plots way too long after he set them up (Silver Sable returned this year, she was presumed dead in 2012, that's 5 years and well over 50 issues ago!)

And he writes most of the characters in ways they would simply never ever act in withint he context of those specific situations.

And he writes in ways that go against the established themes and philosophies of the various characetrs and series over all.

Not to mention engaging in cliches. E.g. Spider-Girl was created in rejection of typical superhero norms because she didn't need a parent dying to motivate her, repeatedly Peter dying was rejected within the office as being too cliche a storyline. Guess what Slott did in Spider-Verse? For no reason because it was obviosu what her character arc would be. She didn't develop because of her Dad's death all she had now was one dead Dad who was integral to her entire concept and a cosmically inserted resurrected Grandfather who could never add anything to the series that Peter couldn't have provided and priovded better.

Of course there are exceptions in his work but those are the norm.

Generally speaking JMS was not guilty of those things and actually had a strong command of story structure, dialogue, characterization, etc.

So yeah...JMS is objectively a better writer than Slott

[oldschool]

I've got an English Lit A-level and live with an English teacher whom I've consulted about their (and other writers') works.

Slott literally has massive plot and characetrization holes in his stories in ways JMS does not.

He writes clunky, unnatural exposition laden dialogue far too frequently.

He pays off sub plots way too long after he set them up (Silver Sable returned this year, she was presumed dead in 2012, that's 5 years and well over 50 issues ago!)

And he writes most of the characters in ways they would simply never ever act in withint he context of those specific situations.

And he writes in ways that go against the established themes and philosophies of the various characetrs and series over all.

Not to mention engaging in cliches. E.g. Spider-Girl was created in rejection of typical superhero norms because she didn't need a parent dying to motivate her, repeatedly Peter dying was rejected within the office as being too cliche a storyline. Guess what Slott did in Spider-Verse? For no reason because it was obviosu what her character arc would be. She didn't develop because of her Dad's death all she had now was one dead Dad who was integral to her entire concept and a cosmically inserted resurrected Grandfather who could never add anything to the series that Peter couldn't have provided and priovded better.

Of course there are exceptions in his work but those are the norm.

Generally speaking JMS was not guilty of those things and actually had a strong command of story structure, dialogue, characterization, etc.

So yeah...JMS is objectively a better writer than Slott

All of that may or may not be true. But, even if it were, it truly doesn't matter one bit just as The Ramones made much better records beloved by many more people than King Crimson.

[boots]

I've got an English Lit A-level and live with an English teacher whom I've consulted about their (and other writers') works.

Slott literally has massive plot and characetrization holes in his stories in ways JMS does not.

He writes clunky, unnatural exposition laden dialogue far too frequently.

He pays off sub plots way too long after he set them up (Silver Sable returned this year, she was presumed dead in 2012, that's 5 years and well over 50 issues ago!)

And he writes most of the characters in ways they would simply never ever act in withint he context of those specific situations.

And he writes in ways that go against the established themes and philosophies of the various characetrs and series over all.

Not to mention engaging in cliches. E.g. Spider-Girl was created in rejection of typical superhero norms because she didn't need a parent dying to motivate her, repeatedly Peter dying was rejected within the office as being too cliche a storyline. Guess what Slott did in Spider-Verse? For no reason because it was obviosu what her character arc would be. She didn't develop because of her Dad's death all she had now was one dead Dad who was integral to her entire concept and a cosmically inserted resurrected Grandfather who could never add anything to the series that Peter couldn't have provided and priovded better.

Of course there are exceptions in his work but those are the norm.

Generally speaking JMS was not guilty of those things and actually had a strong command of story structure, dialogue, characterization, etc.

So yeah...JMS is objectively a better writer than Slott

english teachers are not the same as an english professor or academic.

no less respect for either, but the approaches are wildly different. an high school teacher might be more inclined to say there’s objective standards, since that’s how they mark

[Spidercide]

All of that may or may not be true. But, even if it were, it truly doesn't matter one bit just as The Ramones made much better records beloved by many more people than King Crimson.

There is a difference between quantity and popularity vs quality.

Big Bang Theory is more popular than Community.

Community was still on a craftsmanship level a better show though.

[oldschool]

There is a difference between quantity and popularity vs quality.

Big Bang Theory is more popular than Community.

Community was still on a craftsmanship level a better show though.

That is difficult to argue. And you misunderstood my point about Ramones vs King Crimson; neither of those bands were very "popular". They each had their fans but neither sold very many records; my point was that more people know and appreciate and are influenced by the Ramones' records today while most musical scholars would point to the King Crimson records as more technically adept.

[Spidercide]

english teachers are not the same as an english professor or academic.

no less respect for either, but the approaches are wildly different. an high school teacher might be more inclined to say there’s objective standards, since that’s how they mark

The person I live with is qualified to teach English lit at a college level. I use teacher/professor inteerchangably because I find the differentiation demeaning. At the same time English teachers don't really mark on a set of criteria the way Math is.

It's not binary in that manner but at the same time objecitvely bad stuff and objectively good stuff can in fact be discerned.

When you are taking say Mary jane and having her pretend to be happy when behind the scenes she isn't because she's seperated from her long term partner and you convey all that through the script sans any dialogue, that might nto be something everyone enjoys but it is objectively good.

Meanwhile when you are having Mary jane be entirely passive and oblivious to the man she's in love with and known for over 10 years randomly acting radically different to how he's ever acted in her life and she barely blinks then you are objectively a bad writer.

[boots]

The person I live with is qualified to teach English lit at a college level. I use teacher/professor inteerchangably because I find the differentiation demeaning.

must have been fun to have a gym professor, a cooking professor in high school...

When you are taking say Mary jane and having her pretend to be happy when behind the scenes she isn't because she's seperated from her long term partner and you convey all that through the script sans any dialogue, that might nto be something everyone enjoys but it is objectively good.

Meanwhile when you are having Mary jane be entirely passive and oblivious to the man she's in love with and known for over 10 years randomly acting radically different to how he's ever acted in her life and she barely blinks then you are objectively a bad writer.

that sounds like objectively bad continuity, rather than writing.

wouldn't want to take jobs away from film and art and music critics, so i'm happy to say that, even though i don't believe there is a border between objectivity and subjectivity...there are some largely agreed upon markers of quality in a work that the majority of audience (within a particular group/society/context) tend to enjoy.

[boots]

That is difficult to argue. And you misunderstood my point about Ramones vs King Crimson; neither of those bands were very "popular". They each had their fans but neither sold very many records; my point was that more people know and appreciate and are influenced by the Ramones' records today while most musical scholars would point to the King Crimson records as more technically adept.

but with the ramones and punk rock in general is where a lot of this "objective" carry on falls apart- the markers for technical ability were a secondary concern, or even the enemy of the entire punk art movement. the quality was about something else

[David Walton]

Because he's the current writer.

In the future, the question will be, "Why Does Writer X Get More Criticism than Dan Slott?"

[Miles To Go]

Because he's the current writer."

As already elaborated in this thread, people's problems with Slott extend well beyond the fact he's the current writer.

[suemorphplus209]

Because he's the current writer.

In the future, the question will be, "Why Does Writer X Get More Criticism than Dan Slott?"

Yep, beat me to it. I mean, I don't see why the answer gets any more simple than this, on top of the fact that we probably have more people to comment on comics in forum than back during the late 90s/early 2000s.