Thread Drift: Dan Slott's Legacy

[Hulkout42]

He will be remembered for SpOck, anything else after is debatable, case in point his latest work on "Venom Inc" leaves much to be desired.

[Celgress]

He will be remembered for SpOck, anything else after is debatable, case in point his latest work on "Venom Inc" leaves much to be desired.

Superior Spider-Man is a fantastic accomplishment. It is one of the best Spidey stories of all time bar none.

[Scarlet Spider-Man]

Superior Spider-Man is a fantastic accomplishment. It is one of the best Spidey stories of all time bar none.

The problem with SSM is that it required an extra suspension of disbelief that all those closest to Peter couldn't tell that it wasn't him (especially MJ). Otto didn't even try that hard to hide it. So while I liked the concept of SSM, and I think it put Doc Ock in an interesting place going forward, the actual story falls flat to me.

JJJ suddenly becoming Spider-Man's biggest fan was jarring and implausible.

Peter's "ghost" was also kind of hokey, though I believe "he" was just around for the first few issues to ease the transition for readers irate about ASM #700 (which I thought was terrible, TBH).

Also, I don't think anything ever came of the fact that Spider-Man publicly murdered someone in cold blood (even though he has since been resurrected).

[Rincewind]

The problem with SSM is that it required an extra suspension of disbelief that all those closest to Peter couldn't tell that it wasn't him. Otto didn't even try that hard to hide it. So while I liked the concept of SSM, and I think it put Doc Ock in an interesting place going forward, the actual story falls flat to me.

Peter's "ghost" was also kind of hokey, though I believe "he" was just around for a few issues to ease the transition for readers irate about ASM #700 (which I thought was terrible, TBH).

That criticism ignores the fact that

1. Otto had access to all of Peter's memories and could use them to fake it around his friends and family.
2. Peter has a long history of keeping secrets and acting weird around his friends and family, so Otto doing the same isn't necessarily a red flag.
3. The other heroes did notice he was acting different.
4. MJ and Carlie noticed that he was different and investigated.

[Scarlet Spider-Man]

That criticism ignores the fact that

1. Otto had access to all of Peter's memories and could use them to fake it around his friends and family.
2. Peter has a long history of keeping secrets and acting weird around his friends and family, so Otto doing the same isn't necessarily a red flag.
3. The other heroes did notice he was acting different.
4. MJ and Carlie noticed that he was different and investigated.

1) If you read the story, Otto clearly wasn't acting like Peter at all.
2) Yes, but for those who knew he was Spider-Man, it should have been a major red flag.
3) It took "Peter" murdering someone in cold blood before they started to take it seriously at all. Torch in particularly should have noticed immediately that something was way off.
4) MJ only investigated halfheartedly. Carlie did take it more seriously than pretty much everyone else, but this was also back when Marvel was trying to shove her down our throats as Peter's new love interest and wanted to show us all how smart she was.

[Dan Slott]

It's okay not to like something.
It's okay not to like something for what ever reason you want.
It's okay not to like something for reasons you can't even express.
It's all okay.

[Dan Slott]

The flip-side of this is also true when it comes to liking things. ;-)

[Miles To Go]

Any chance you could pen an episode of the new animated series?

Maybe when you lot get around to adapting Superior?

[John Ossie]

I did enjoy reading Spider-Island a lot. That's a contender for my favourite Slott story. I'll have to go back and check out other issues before I decide which story is my actual favourite though. Alpha...well, the less said about that the better I think

[Rincewind]

1) If you read the story, Otto clearly wasn't acting like Peter at all.
2) Yes, but for those who knew he was Spider-Man, it should have been a major red flag.
3) It took "Peter" murdering someone in cold blood before they started to take it seriously at all. Torch in particularly should have noticed immediately that something was way off.
4) MJ only investigated halfheartedly. Carlie did take it more seriously than pretty much everyone else, but this was also back when Marvel was trying to shove her down our throats as Peter's new love interest and wanted to show us all how smart she was.

1. It was clear because we knew Otto wasn't Peter and could read exactly what he was thinking. From the outside, it may be odd, but nothing that screamed "Someone else has taken over Peter's body"
2. How many people knew Peter was Spider-Man at that point? MJ and Carlie. Who noticed something was different and investigated.
3. Killing Massacre wasn't exactly in cold blood. And the shock of Massacre's killing spree (including Dr. Kafka, an associate of Spider-Man) was a plausible explanation for the change in Spider-Man's MO to the other heroes.
4. The storyline was after Carlie broke up with Peter, so it's not like she was being pushed as a romantic interest at that point. Carlie was the person who knew Peter was Spider-Man and was the most intimate with him prior to Superior, so she was the one who noticed the changes the most. MJ had limited contact with Peter since OMD, but also could tell something was off and helped Carlie. If she honestly thought nothing was wrong, she would have told Carlie that and not done anything.

I understand not liking the story, but these were actual plot points that were addressed. Along with Otto refusing to have his mind read and citing the Civil War conflict for heroes wanting privacy and autonomy.

[Lukmendes]

To be fair, Spider-Man's supporting cast have a surprising competence at sniffing out people pretending to be Peter, I wouldn't say that having his memories is enough for Otto to go by so smoothly if he wasn't impersonating Peter properly, specialy since Skrulls exist and can have someone's memories, so if the supporting cast won't notice it, the other super heroes should be more suspicious because of them, and the "muh privacy" excuse wouldn't really work at the very real possibility that someone was pretending to be Spidey.

I'm not exactly sure about the quality of the story itself since I only read a few issues (And one of them Wolverine is suspicious but Otto gets away with "I was being hero, what's suspicious about that?", maybe it'd be enough to convince other X-Men who may not know Spidey enough, but convincing Wolverine is a different story...) but it's pretty dumb how everyone became less self aware of those things, specialy considering we've had similar in the past with Spidey himself, and I'm surprised that Slott didn't just make Otto act more like Peter around other people by using memories as references to how Spidey acts, it'd solve this dumb issue easily lol.

[Hulkout42]

1. It was clear because we knew Otto wasn't Peter and could read exactly what he was thinking. From the outside, it may be odd, but nothing that screamed "Someone else has taken over Peter's body"
2. How many people knew Peter was Spider-Man at that point? MJ and Carlie. Who noticed something was different and investigated.
3. Killing Massacre wasn't exactly in cold blood. And the shock of Massacre's killing spree (including Dr. Kafka, an associate of Spider-Man) was a plausible explanation for the change in Spider-Man's MO to the other heroes.
4. The storyline was after Carlie broke up with Peter, so it's not like she was being pushed as a romantic interest at that point. Carlie was the person who knew Peter was Spider-Man and was the most intimate with him prior to Superior, so she was the one who noticed the changes the most. MJ had limited contact with Peter since OMD, but also could tell something was off and helped Carlie. If she honestly thought nothing was wrong, she would have told Carlie that and not done anything.

I understand not liking the story, but these were actual plot points that were addressed. Along with Otto refusing to have his mind read and citing the Civil War conflict for heroes wanting privacy and autonomy.

1. When has Peter acted like a complete jerk to Valeria Richards? Or when he acted like a A-hole to Luke and his team when he tried to usurp leadership that didn't stand out? Or even after all Felicia has done to him in the Post OMD timeline has he ever beaten her? Heck he even acted petty towards Cannonball and Sunspot over a sandwich. After years of working with so many people acting like a kidder, a friend or willing to lay his life for them, Otto acting like Otto in his body should have raised a lot of flags.

2. The F4 knew who he is and this was all before "Superior" and they all at some point come into contact with Otto acting in a way that was not like Peter at all, if anything i expect them of all people to figure it out given how close Peter is to the family.

3.- Your premise here would be acceptable except that most of his rogues are murderous psychos, case in point Osborn and Carnage being clear examples of psychos who have gone on killing sprees and who have been in reach for a killing blow an he never once went down that road even when they had him on the ropes like Massacre.

4,- The problem is not whether MJ helped or not but how much, maybe they weren't involved anymore but given that in the Post OMD world they almost married that means she would have known enough to realize that something was terribly wrong and should have been just as involved. But instead that is pushed on Cooper... i mean even Norman figured it out in less time than she did what does that say? That the people closest to Peter can't put 2 and 2 together in time but his greatest foe can just by looking at him?

5.- Yeah citing CW seems like a plausible thing but not after what took place in Secret Invasion, they scanned him for being a Skrull but nothing else? In world with shapeshifters, Telepaths and technology as well as people capable of altering a person's mind the Avengers should have done every possible check but instead they limit it to a single one? And we are supposed to buy that?

Now i won't deny it, i hated the story line, not just because it was Otto stealing Peter's life but because i am expected to give a level of disbelief during the course of it that i just do not find plausible to give. I'm sorry but there is too much here that makes me willing to consider this a good storyline.

But that's the thing isn't it? This moment in the characters history will never be erased, it happened and won't go away. People like me who hated or like you who loved it will never forget it. In that way Slott left his mark. For me it is a tragic in that aspect but for others in won't be. Everything before or after this event will most likely pale in comparison...especially from what came after (Spider-verse, Clone Saga, Venom Inc).

[Spidey5640]

Slott's best work was definitely Superior. Anna Marie is probably his best addition to the supporting cast as well. I think he deserves recognition for trying a lot of different things with Pete, some of which worked well, like Horizon Labs, others not so much, like Parker Industries, Carlie Cooper and Alpha, but he never really left Pete in one place too long.

[Batman Begins 2005]

More hits than misses with some of the great Spider-Man stories in the first Big Time story, Revenge of the Spider-Slayer, No One Dies, Spider-Island, the Superior Spider-Man era and Renew Your Vows miniseries. I loved Superior Spider-Man, SpOck is my second favourite Spider ever behind the one and only original. I pine for that time. I got a SpOck POP! as a result of Dan and Christopher Yost's work on the character.

Like others, I didn't like Alpha. Interesting reading Dan's post about the story in this thread.

My main thank you to Dan Slott is reading a Spider-Man run in real time. The first Amazing Spider-Man Big Time story from my library just grabbed me into finding the others. I still vividly remember where I read it. Fortunately my library collected Big Time through to the end of Superior Spider-Man. I carried on from there when a comic book shop finally opened where I live. Cheers, Dan.

[DragonPiece]

Ya know, I just realized, if dan is indeed leaving the book, both Bendis and Slott will have left their respective Spider-Man books in the same year. Kinda crazy to think about.