Real talk. Was Slott's run HONESTLY better than Michelinie's?

[bob.schoonover]

I'd like to apologize to everyone here for all of the extremely unfair praise I've received for the past 10 years. It was very unfair. It was very extreme. And it went on for 10 years. Sorry.

I'm sorry for giving you unfair praise. I am part of the problem and I have finally seen the light. I regret telling other people to read your run. I'm sure those purchases unfairly vaulted ASM/SSM to being a best selling title. I'm at fault, too.

I don't have a link to any quotes online, but there is a book called Comics Creators on Spider-Man by Tom DeFalco where he interviews David Michelinie (and many others) about their experiences writing/drawing Spider-Man. Michelinie talks about many subjects such as the marriage ("I wasn't keen on the marriage from the start, in fact I was plainly against it.")

Below are excerpts from the book.



For the record, Jim Salicrup was editor up to issue #345. Danny Fingeroth was editor from issue #346 on.

Thanks! That gives me some idea of what he was thinking. I appreciate it

[Lukmendes]

Good for you, but I'd wager a lot of other people on these boards have done similar or have enough knowledge to do similarly. And if it's just a question of knowledge on the character, then that means your entire post was moot since Slott is the writer of Spider-Man and if he thinks those stories are fine then they MUST be fine because he's the writer (which outshines your resume). Anyways, I don't think your knowledge (which is undoubtedly very impressive) or anyone else's is enough to make their opinion into fact like you are trying to do.

I honestly wouldn't say that just because Slott thinks the stories are fine then they "must" be fine, using an extreme example, we have Frank Miller, the guy who redefined most of post-crisis/modern Batman, but also the same guy who wrote the memeticaly horrible All Star Batman and Robin, he thought that story was fine, and for some reason DC did too. Of course, the story isn't canon, but it was supposed to represent what makes Batman special, like how All Star Superman did, and Miller failed horribly. Do keep in mind, I'm not saying Slott is as bad of a writter as Miller was when writing All Star Batman and Robin, or even close to it, just making the point that a writter's point of view isn't so absolute.

This extends to the book that was 'dealing with the fallout' of Superior Spider-Man. Like...did we ever see Peter try and recover from what would objectively be an extremely traumatic event for him? He didn't seem all that upset at all. That's part and parcel of dealing with the fall out, in fact that is probably the most important thing to deal with and again...Conway talked about it more than the main issues of Volume 3.

Peter non ironicaly said he owed Otto because he helped Aunt May since Otto did some **** for her to not need to walk with a cane anymore. It's actualy hard to describe how insane it is for someone to say that while not really holding at least a grudge, Peter got pissed at other people for less lol. Not saying he should go full edgy and become a douche, but him goin all like "Yeah, Otto almost destroyed my life and all, but he helped Aunt May, so I owe him" is just ****.

[blackspidey2099]

Actually this was more about critical analysis of stories not just which one you prefer in your opinion.

I never claimed I was a spider guru. I never claimed to be the ultimate authority. But was I laying out that yeah someone could clearly tell you what types of stories do and don't work for Spider-Man using like basic analysis. Yeah.

Like I said your comments = someone is wrong for saying spaceships shouldn't be in LOTR or Harry Potter.

I already addressed this stuff in my other post.

Also...yeah you seriously could call it boring. For sure Spider-Verse was the biggest scale Spider-Man story ever. I don't remember Spider-Man ever doing anything (in the comics, other media sure) that involved saving countless people from across multiple universes.

But yeah you could call it boring. Scale isn't inherent to anti-boredom. Action for the sake of action alone isn't anti-boredom. The second X-Men movie was on an incredibly smaller scale to virtually all the Transformers movies since 2009 with nowhere near the same amount of action. Those were far bigger in scale and had near hour long action sequences. But they were boring to basically everyone.

Okay, maybe you think it was boring and I'm not going to argue with your opinion, but it was overall super-popular and engaged a ton of people who don't even read the comics. Personally, I wasn't a huge fan of the event either; I enjoyed a few bits of it but for the most part I thought it was kinda mediocre.

Spider-Verse was particularly problemtic in this regard because too many characters were in the spotlight during the main issues of the event and the story overly repetitive (much like Max Carnage was). Worse there was far too little focus upon Peter Parker himself, his thoughts, his feelings in meeting all these different riffs upon himself. We got more of that in Conway's Spiral story than in the actual event.

And if I am harping on about that it's only because in case you hadn't noticed making the stories about or focused upon Peter's thoughts and feelings in response to the events of his life is kinda sorta the thing that has been done by most writers since 1962.

I'm not going to argue about Spider-Verse because I agree. I don't think it was super well done or anything. I just said it wasn't boring, and it clearly wasn't, seeing from how much engagement Spider-Verse had across so many forms of media. Like I see Spider-Verse references in my Insta Explore feed and I know for a fact people posting and discussing those have never read any comics lol.

This extends to the book that was 'dealing with the fallout' of Superior Spider-Man. Like...did we ever see Peter try and recover from what would objectively be an extremely traumatic event for him? He didn't seem all that upset at all. That's part and parcel of dealing with the fall out, in fact that is probably the most important thing to deal with and again...Conway talked about it more than the main issues of Volume 3.

I also agree with this; Slott rushed over the fallout from Superior way too quickly. That's another reason why I really don't like Volume 3 too much.

I mean ever since Civil War II fans and comic journalists have been discussing how event fatigue is one of the single greatest problems with Marvel with the fallout from that+Secret Empire leading to Marvel saying they'd ease off events. Events which more or less have been relentless since 2006.

Events happening ALL the time with just action all the time and high scale all the time isn't anti-boredom. It is in fact very much boring.

Event fatigue is an issue because no one gets a chance to recover from or explore the fallout of events. It doesn't make the events any less "exciting" though. Even duds like Civil War II and Age of Ultron generated a ton of discussion online. So they clearly did engage the audience.

I honestly wouldn't say that just because Slott thinks the stories are fine then they "must" be fine, using an extreme example, we have Frank Miller, the guy who redefined most of post-crisis/modern Batman, but also the same guy who wrote the memeticaly horrible All Star Batman and Robin, he thought that story was fine, and for some reason DC did too. Of course, the story isn't canon, but it was supposed to represent what makes Batman special, like how All Star Superman did, and Miller failed horribly. Do keep in mind, I'm not saying Slott is as bad of a writter as Miller was when writing All Star Batman and Robin, or even close to it, just making the point that a writter's point of view isn't so absolute.

Yes, I completely agree. I was just giving the other guy an example of his reasoning, but in the opposite direction - to show that the reasoning that his knowledge makes him qualified to say what Spider-Man stories should and shouldn't be is not valid.

[Lukmendes]

Yes, I completely agree. I was just giving the other guy an example of his reasoning, but in the opposite direction - to show that the reasoning that his knowledge makes him qualified to say what Spider-Man stories should and shouldn't be is not valid.

Man I'm noticing that I doing this weird pattern, you use something as an example, but I don't notice it's an example, then I write my point which is the one you were making to begin with but with different words. I gotta learn how to read lol.

[Spidercide]

Good for you, but I'd wager a lot of other people on these boards have done similar or have enough knowledge to do similarly. And if it's just a question of knowledge on the character, then that means your entire post was moot since Slott is the writer of Spider-Man and if he thinks those stories are fine then they MUST be fine because he's the writer (which outshines your resume). Anyways, I don't think your knowledge (which is undoubtedly very impressive) or anyone else's is enough to make their opinion into fact like you are trying to do.
Well, as someone who possesses all the skills you mentioned to a high degree, as well as having read all those Spider-Man stories, I can tell you what Spider-Man is supposed to be about. Really, there's only one thing which Spider-Man absolutely has to be about, and that is responsibility.
Looking at the original concept of the character isn't so simple since he was created as a teen hero who didn't have to be a sidekick and could do the job as well as adult heroes. Are you saying he should have never grown beyond being a teen? Because I disagree (and I'd wager you would as well). Furthermore, that's a horrible idea because looking only at the original concept ignore character development and growth. Spider-Man now doesn't have to be the same as the Spider-Man as the 1960s, and I'd say that's a GOOD thing (though, in my view, a lot of the changes have been for the worse - like the fact that 30 year old Spidey is apparently less mature than 15 year old Spidey - but that's because of the shitty management at Marvel that wants Peter to constantly regress; I believe the idea of character growth is still essential).
Peter now is a much more effective (and powerful) hero and scientist than he was at 15 - for obvious reasons. So it makes clear logical sense that he can (and does) take on much more varied threats, including time travel, multi-dimensional wars, global threats, outer space stuff, etc. while still doing the street stuff as well. Slott's run has been good in that it's always been clear that no matter what, Peter always takes the time to do the street stuff, even if it's just in the intro to stories or implied off-panel. Because who wants to read a multi-part story with Peter fighting against some gang members who he could defeat in literal milliseconds? There are ways to go around Peter just physically fighting street threats so it would be a challenge for Peter (like making it a mystery to solve, or something like that), but even they would be repetitive if done all the time. The next bit is just my opinion, but I feel like Peter works better in stories as the underdog, so it makes sense that as he becomes a lot more powerful he should face more serious threats so he can still be the underdog. Spider-Man trouncing gang members every story isn't great for dramatic effect. If you want to treat him like he's still a teen, then read some of the material where Peter is a teen.
Please let me know what "the actual definition" of Spider-Man is so I can either debunk it or have a laugh. Spider-Man is a character who's been around for so long that he has a different definition and different meaning to pretty much everyone who knows him. You may think your interpretation of the character is superior to everyone else's, but that's the only opinion which I'd ever say is 100% wrong.
Sure about that?
Okay, so now you are going on again about the idea there is an objective quality to things. If you are so 100% sure that Michelinie's run is clearly better while Slott's is garbage, and that that's a fact rather than just your opinion, why even make this thread in the first place?
I have no idea how this is related to the conversation.
How is this remotely like anything that's happened in Spider-Man? If I was reading a Spider-Man comic and 2 of the panels in the middle of the story were scenes from an Archie comic, I'd think that was very weird as well.

Just because someone is the writer of a series, even if they are the creator, doesn’t confer onto them a greater degree of knowledge than everyone else. That’s been an accepted thing since the 19th century. The ‘Word of God’ idea behind writing has been disproved a million times since over 100+ years. By your logic Azarello’s Wonder Woman was aokay and didn’t make readers, DC and Greg Rucka desperately desire to erase and fix what he broke. Like God are you even serious? He was the writer so he’d ‘outrank’ a fan therefore he’d be right and the fan would be wrong even though everybody was with the mere fan as opposed to him. A fan who isn’t a writer can still know more than an actual writer. **** the guy who made Wrath of Khan admitted he didn’t know as much as fans of Star Trek!

But you want to play the ‘writer card’ okay...because Steve Ditko agreed with me about how Spidey should be street level and relatively normal. Hence why he vetoed the origin of Green Goblin as an Egyptian spirit or something to that effect.

I never said my opinions are fact. But I also make a distinction between when I am giving an opinion and when I am stating a fact. I said as much above.

Noooooooope.

Spider-Man is critically about POWER+Responsibility within the context of being a relatively grounded relatable character.

Lee/Ditko were trying to create the hero who could be you. The everyman superhero.

I don’t think Spider-Man being a teenager was ever the point of the character at all. I think the point of him being a teen at first was nothing more than a unique quirk because every other teen was a sidekick. He didn’t have that many teen problems though, he was concerned with profoundly adult matters like earning money and supporting his family.

Lee and Ditko themselves had him age indicating it was unlikely that him being a teen was ever THE point of the character at all.

Yes Spider-Man isn’t and shouldn’t be the same type of PERSON he was in the 1960s due to character development but we are not talking about CHARACTER development we’re talking concept stuff.

Harry Potter wasn’t the same guy in book 7 as he was in book 1 but again he also wasn’t fighting aliens or London drug dealers with guns either.

THAT is not the same thing as organic character development, you are creating a false equivalency by claiming otherwise.

You know how pretty much every Wonder Woman fan ever said ‘oh hell no’ to what Azzarello did to the character? Or how everyone who wasn’t Chuck Austin said ‘Oh dear God’ when Nightcrawler turned out to be a literal demon?

THAT is what I am talking about. It’s not that Diana or Curt cannot change or evolve as people but their core concepts that define them? THOSE should not change. THOSE changing=bad writing.

Much the same holds true for Spider-Man.

What you have done though is conflate that the fundamental concept was him being a teen therefore the concept got handwaved when it was decided he wasn’t going to be that anymore. Except him being a teen was never THE point. Him being relatively ordinary was.

In short character development needs to happen within the context of the core concept. Or else you could just say screw it and have Harry Potter ‘develop’ to the point where he is fighting robots in the Andromeda galaxy.

Yeah it could make sense from a purely in-universe POV and he could evolve as a person into the kind of guy who’d do that.

But by a similar token Hal Jordan evolved as a person into a mass murdering psychopath.

Spider-Man evolved as a person into a lunatic who called himself ‘the Spider’.

Characters can and SHOULD develop and grow but not when it involves going against the central core concept of their series. It must occur within the context of the series core concept and how it has been defined.

It doesn’t make sense at all for Spidey to take on more varied threats like you threw out. Putting aside how he’s on occasion (and occasion is the key here, one offs are cool, but not when they’re as frequent in recent years) dealt with that stuff when he’s been younger than he is now your logic is saying DAREDEVIL should routiently deal with such threats.

When he shouldn’t either because again, that’s not the core concept behind the character or how he and his stories have been defined throughout the decades.

Hell even if we were to run with the idea that it’d be fine that doesn’t mean Peter to keep him challenged needs to fight more varied threats. Regular super villains, localised criminal acitivites and street crime can provide him more than enough of a challenge. It’s not like he’s Goku constantly power scaling to the point where he needs to fight demons then aliens then demon aliens then literal gods then entities from alternate universes.

Its an especially ridiculous assertion when you consider that Peter might be smarter and stronger than he was at age 15 but he isn’t significantly smarter or stronger than he was at age 25 (more worldy wise...in theory if not in practice) during the 1980s when he rarely dealt with such things.

Slott having Peter still try to do street stuff (even though he’d never have the time but that’s the fault of team books not Slott) is honestly irrelevant to that because he should not so routinely be doing non-street stuff as often as he is.

Put it to you like this. OCCASSIONALLY something like Spider-Verse is okay. But when you have 31 issues of a mind swap in which a time travel story occurred that followed on only a few months from an end of the world scenario which happened just one year after everyone in NYC is a spider person and maybe dying that is not occasionally at all.

[Spidercide]

Nobody wants Peter to read an event about him fighting weak gang members. But people DO want to read about him fighting FORMIDABLE gang members and maybe addressing how systemic street crime emotionally affects him and the ultimate tragedy of it.

Like Jesus crime stories are one of if not THE most popular form of fictional television in America right now and have been for decades. Yes Game of Thrones is there as the top spot but most fiction TV isn’t fantasy it’s crime based stories. The most critically acclaimed TV show of all time was a crime drama, Braking Bad!

And Spider-Man was DESIGNED to operate within that environment by his co-creators Lee/Ditko.

No one is saying gangland stories need to be done all the time and if you just observe the Ditko run in isolation you see that it DOESN’T do that all the time. It’s a health balance of regular super villain stuff and gangland stuff. You’re misreprenting what I and other people are saying in claiming we want gangsters just ALL the time.

What we want is for Spider-Man to be GROUNDED in the real world pretty much 99% of the time that doesn’t forbide super villains but it does mostly forbid totem vampires from alternate dimensions.

Your argument about Peter needing to upscale his threats as he becomes more powerful is again illogical because peter isn’t Goku. Like his strength and speed stats haven’t drastically increased since 1984 or whatever. He’s more experienced yes but that ignores how his VILLAINS have become more experienced too. Hell HOBGOBLIN was a formidable opponent and he was Inexperienced. He got his ass handed to him in round 1 and then upon gaining super strength was able to nearly kill the far more experienced and technically stronger Spider-Man. And he DID want to be a gangster FFS so your power scaling argument is BS.

Just because Spider-Man has a different definition to different people doesn’t mean none of them can be incorrect (like your one).

I’m also not talking about MY interpretation alone. I’m talking about what the character ACTUALLY is like.



Yes. I am categorically sure about that.

Yes I am going on about there being an objective quality to things...because there is.

I made this thread more out of a numbers game. I wanted to see how many people existed in each camp.

It’s related to this conversation because we were talking about elements that should or shouldn’t be in Spider-Man’s stories and I brought up an element Slott himself disagreed with that is in line with the stuff I was saying didn’t belong in there too.

It’s remotely like anything that’s happened in Spider-Man because Spider-Man’s character and series has been defined as being relatively grounded and relatable dealing with problems typically pertaining to real people and what they commonly deal with.

Which is why him becoming a globetrotting CEO head of the world’s biggest tech conglomerate, fighting a multi-dimensional war against totem vampires, having his mind swapped, outer space stuff and time travel stories, whilst being okay as occasional exceptions, are ultimately NOT good Spider-Man stories.

Which I can deduce because like I said basic literay analysis skills allow anyone to clearly see that when taking Spider-Man’s character, core concept and defined ‘world’ (not the MU as a whole I mean his corner of it) into account.

You say you have such skills to a high degree. I am not saying you do not. But if you did I fail to see how YOU fail to see this as patently obvious especially when the overwhelming majority of Spider-Man readers have said as much throughout the decades.

BTW your post and propositions about Spider-Man didn’t make me laugh but I debunked them anyway.

And I will keep doing so for however long this conversation takes.

Because the situations are different. The Venom appearances kept hitting the same notes. Venom shows up, tries to screw with Peter, then Peter defeats him. The motivation of Venom didn't change. The MO didn't change. The character kept showing up because he was hot at the time. Venom appeared like clockwork about once a year. By the time Erik Larsen was artist, Larsen himself was tired of the character and kept drawing him more and more grotesque as protest.

Doc Ock had a clear ongoing story and development. He starts out dying and wanting to 1. prove his genius 2. get revenge on Spidey when point 1. was thwarted. He then takes over as Spider-Man and tries that until he realizes Peter was in fact better than him. Then he figures out a way to return and tries to take back the company he feels he started.

One case is a writer using the same character in the same way again and again. The other is a writer playing out a long story for a villain over the length of his run.



Being editorially mandated does not mean it is a good story. And it is still part of Michelinie's run. While Maximum Carnage may have tried to be life affirming, it did not succeed in that endeavor. Instead it felt like a joyless slog to me.

As far as Superior and Spider Verse, I think we just have fundamentally different views of those stories. I didn't find the characters killed off in Verse to be particularly beloved. And I found Spider Girl to affirm being a hero despite her loss, not that her her core concept had been destroyed.

As for Superior, when I read that I never got the impression that Ock had been redeemed. I saw it as a story where the villain tried to take over the hero's life and felt he could do it better only to utterly fail and have to admit that the hero was better in the end. I certainly never thought the actions Ock took were meant to be morally justified or pure.



Again, editorial mandate does not make the story better. I am not attacking David Michelinie as a writer or denigrating his writing skills. I am pointing out the weaknesses in his ASM run. And turning a remorseless killer into a hero is a weakness no matter how talented the writer is.



Here's the thing, I can find examples of characters behaving badly or contrary to many of their appearances. That includes Aunt May, MJ, and Peter himself. I could cite example after example of Peter doing something immoral, then changing his mind. That has been a staple of his character and history since Amazing Fantasy #15. All three characters have had wildly varying behavior and motivations long before Slott was ever on the scene.

Instead, I'm going to suggest that you might have a very narrow definition of the characters and are labeling anything that falls out of that narrow definition as OOC. Characters, especially in serial forms over 50 years, can change and evolve. Their motivations and actions from one period may not match a later period. That does not mean the action are invalid or OOC.





Actually, I've been talking about runs this entire time.

*checks thread title* Yup, right there at the top of the page. The subject is which run is better. Michelinie's run was rife with editorially mandated stories. The run suffers because of this. Doesn't matter who's fault it is, the end result is still the same.




Yeah, stating an opinion, then linking to your own posts about that opinion does not prove anything. And me disagreeing with you does not mean that I haven't been reading Amazing Spider-Man for 4 decades. It means that 2 people who have read the character have different views of the character.





Again, I am not talking about fault. I am not discussing who is the more skilled writer. I am talking about the relative pros and cons of 2 respective ASM runs.

And it seems to me that you are deliberately misquoting Slott to criticize him. While he stated that he wanted to stay on the title to reach a milestone, that does not mean it is the ONLY reason he stayed on the title. You are misinterpreting what he said to cast him in a negative light.

[Spidercide]

Not really.

First of all Michelinie WAS developing Venom as you saw his warped morality appear more and more as time went by whilst he remained firmly a villain.

Second of all Otto really didn’t clearly develop. He fell in love with Anna Maria for sure but he started off as an evil jerk and then abruptly and OOC after failing to save one child stopped being an evil jerk and admitted Peter was the superior Spider-Man after all.

Not to mention his consequent appearences post superior regress his ‘character development’ from Superior (and align him with alt-right/Nazi stand ins wtf?)

And when all is said and done Venom still comparatively appeared in a minute number of issues in comparison to Otto. That still counts as overexposure dude.

The double standard for this always shocks me within Spider-Man fandom. Otto appears basically every year in Spider-Man including 31+ straight issues where he is the LEAD character but Venom and Norman sucked because they got ‘overexposed’.

I know being editorially mandated doesn’t make it a good story but the thread was never about their runs but about them as writers. We’re not gonna say Peter David was worse than Michelinie based upon his FNSM run vs Michelinie’s ASm run. It’s about their skills like I said it’s about executing stories and their raw skills. I admit though much like the poll I phrased that badly in the OP.

I’m not saying Max Carnage succeeded in being life affirming but I’m saying ti tried. Spider-Verse was a murderfest. Dude even if you personally disliked them how could you say Ben Reilly and MC2 Peter Parker weren’t beloved. I don’t care about Jessica Jones at all but I know she’s beloved.

Spider-Girl’s core concept was her relationship with her father. Her father was now dead because of Spider-Verse (a plot line her creators vetoed multiple times because of how cliché it was btw). Thus her core concept got wrecked. This is to say nothing of her (relatively) unique name and (definitely unique) costume being taken away from her so she could be just another person in Spider-Man’s outfit and the sixth(?) person to be called Spider Woman.


I’m sorry but that’s BS. Of course you can turn a remorseless killer into a hero there are numerous examples of that.

I’m not saying editorial mandates make stories better but they also aren’t the fault of the writers.

You misunderstand what I am saying when I am talking about Slott writing the characters OOC.

I’m not saying Slott was the first. But he is without question the single most systemic writer to do write people OOC in his work. Like he’s rarely NOT written most of the characters OOC.

And writing charactes OOC is short of like something truly offensive the worst writing sin you can commit because we are reading specifically FOR the characters. And it was a sin Michelinie comparatively was less if at all guilty of. And just because there is a history of that happening doesn’t justify it anymore than there is a history of any given bad storytelling. Bad stories are not justified on the grounds that bad stories have happened before.

Actually May and MJ haven’t varied wildly in their motivations for the most part. Same with Peter. His motivation since AF #15 has been pretty clear and consistent for the most part.

My definition of OOC is this. In the context of this situation based upon a character’s established history would they be acting like this? No? Okay then they are OOC. It’s a common example but the best one, Spider-Man wouldn’t make the deal with Mephisto. That was OOC.

Iagree characters change and evolve but not arbitrarily. In good writing characters ORGANICALLY change and develop. They don’t just randomly ignore stuff from their pasts for the sake of the current arc as the paparazzi arc or the MJ victim blaming or the Aunt May guilt tripping thing is.

What you described is quintessentially OOC. I am going to suggest that rather than me having a narrow definition you perhaps misunderstand the terms actual meaning.

I mean c’mon dude you are saying it’s not OOC for Peter to be a paparazzi photographer in spite of ALL those things I listed? Don’t be ridiculous now.

It’s not an opinion though.

You said the build up to the wedding was OOC and out of nowhere.

In that thread I posted numerous objective evidence showing that that was plain not true.

It’d be like if you said it’d be OOC and nowhere for Wolverine to know how to use a katana and I linked you to a thread I made earlier showing and explaining numerous instances where he did use a katana.

You basically just dismissed it as opinion because I linked to something I happened to have also made.

It isn’t a matter of opinion that the wedding was out of nowhere because it is a historical fact that there was build up to it as stated by creators of the time. Those statements are then corroborated by on the page evidence that I talked about. Those are not opinions. There is nothing to disagree about.

We can disagree about like Hillary Clinton’s credentials as a politician sure.

But we can’t disagree about water being wet.

The stuff related to the wedding is like the latter not the former.

You can believe it was rushed and OOC...but you would on that specific point be legitimately incorrect.

It isn’t a view of the character issue it’s a ‘it’s literally right there on the page laid out clearly for you’ deal.

[Spidercide]

I already addressed this stuff in my other post.



Okay, maybe you think it was boring and I'm not going to argue with your opinion, but it was overall super-popular and engaged a ton of people who don't even read the comics. Personally, I wasn't a huge fan of the event either; I enjoyed a few bits of it but for the most part I thought it was kinda mediocre.



I'm not going to argue about Spider-Verse because I agree. I don't think it was super well done or anything. I just said it wasn't boring, and it clearly wasn't, seeing from how much engagement Spider-Verse had across so many forms of media. Like I see Spider-Verse references in my Insta Explore feed and I know for a fact people posting and discussing those have never read any comics lol.



I also agree with this; Slott rushed over the fallout from Superior way too quickly. That's another reason why I really don't like Volume 3 too much.



Event fatigue is an issue because no one gets a chance to recover from or explore the fallout of events. It doesn't make the events any less "exciting" though. Even duds like Civil War II and Age of Ultron generated a ton of discussion online. So they clearly did engage the audience.




Yes, I completely agree. I was just giving the other guy an example of his reasoning, but in the opposite direction - to show that the reasoning that his knowledge makes him qualified to say what Spider-Man stories should and shouldn't be is not valid.

I wrote that comment before reading your other post. I already responded elsewhere.

A story can be popular but that doesn’t make it good. And of course it engaged a ton of people who didn’t read comic books it was a clickbait sexy concept. It was essentially an autosell concept guaranteed to generate a certain baseline of outside interest because it featured at least one person’s fav.

I’m sorry but it was well beyond mediocre. There were dues ex machinas handed out in the story as part of the resolution.

Oh and let’s not forget how when everyone is regrouping from the Inheritors NO ONE, not even the people with direct experience of dealing with them, seems to remember the way Spidey beat Morlun the FIRST time around. Like correct me if I am wrong please but NOBODY remembered to say ‘Hey...why don’t we just inject ourselves with radiation and then just PUNCH the Inheritors? That is literally the way Spider-Man beat him before right?’ I mean Jesus Lee and Ditko had Spider-Man remember the way he first beat the Vulture in ASM #7!

That isn’t mediocre. That’s just plain bad writing. The characters conveniently ignore/forget the thing that could at least HELP them resolve the plot far more quickly? It’d been fine if it was brought up and we learned it just wasn’t going to work this time because of a new piece of info we didn’t know about. But it was just IGNORED. To compare this to Michelinie, in the debut of Venom Peter deduces he’s dealing with the symbiote and REMEMBERED the Sonic Gun Reed Richards used to subdue it. In the second Venom story he even did the practical thing and went to recruit the F4 to back him up. If your antagonist has an established weakness the protagonists cannot just randomly forget. Again Lee and Ditko didn’t have Spidey do that in 1963-1964.

Just about the only thing I will give Slott props for is providing an explanation for how the Inheritors could come back to life thus resolving that question from the Other.


Superior’s resolution was more than just rushed though. You had MJ’s ridiculous victim blaming BS in the back ups and Norman Osborn running away because he hadn’t prepared to fight Peter. As if he’d ever do that. Norman Osborn is many things and his relationship with Spidey is complex. But he’s not scared of him. And it really makes no sense for him to run away when he was prepared to fight the evil Spider-Man who had more tech and was LESS willing to hold back his full power and MORE willing to use lethal force. It’s like he came prepared for a gun fight but it turned out it was a knife fight. The guy with the gun doesn’t run because he didn’t prep for a knife fight.


Of course it makes events less exciting because it’s action and ‘this will never be the same again’ over and over again. Which means NOTHING matters and if nothing matters it is unexciting.

Oh no Iron man is in a coma and the superhero community are divided and btw the Inhumans and X-Men are at war and monsters are invading NYC shortly before Captain America takes over the USA because he’s a HYDRA agent!

One event’s ramifications do not matter because we so abruptly go into the next one. This is a stark contrast to even the first Civil War wherein we’d not seen anything that scale before or at least in a long time and a lot of people truly believed things were never going to be the same. I remember discussions about how they might reboot Marvel after Civil War because it was so seismic.

But by the time we got to Fear Itself no one felt that way because we’d been bludgeoned by events and knew things would not only revert eventually but more poignantly that they wouldn’t matter because in a few months it will be the NEXT ‘things will never be the same again’ BS all over again.

As for generating discussion can I let you in on a dirty little secret?


Comic book fans will talk about comic books and current stories and where they are going whether they like them or not. Whether they’re excited by them or not.

It’s just what they do. Dragon Ball Evolution generated discussion and EVERYONE expected that to be a disaster and they were right. BvS generated discussion when most people rightly called it a bomb in the making.

Nerds talk about nerd stuff a lot REGARDLESS of whether they’re currently into it or not. I’ve discussed various aspects of G.I. Joe with people despite never seeing an episode or reading a comic about it.


Nerds just talk about nerd stuff.


Engaging in general doesn’t = excitement or liking it.


Except it does. I’m not claiming to know more than everyone else but I can nevertheless see the obvious...and am not alone in that.

[WebLurker]

This's going to be one of the few occasions where I'd agree with Dan Slott. I think any semblance of legitimate comparison went out the window a long time ago, leaving the thread as an author bashing fest. Let's act like the adults that we are and get things on a civil track or table this until we've all chilled out.

[Mister Mets]

A handful of posts were deleted, and others were edited.

There is an older thread on the question of whether Superior Spider-Man's romantic relationships can be seen as rape. It's way too loaded and incendiary for this thread.

[DT Winslow]

Al. I would love to see a thread where you build up something you love instead of trying to tear down something you hate. It’s a much better use of everyone’s time.

[Prof. Warren]

This's going to be one of the few occasions where I'd agree with Dan Slott. I think any semblance of legitimate comparison went out the window a long time ago, leaving the thread as an author bashing fest. Let's act like the adults that we are and get things on a civil track or table this until we've all chilled out.

This.

Al. I would love to see a thread where you build up something you love instead of trying to tear down something you hate. It’s a much better use of everyone’s time.

And this.

Real talk: every Spidey run has its devoted fans who cherish that run above others. Just as every run also has its detractors who don't get that run.

Like what you like but understand that it's not wrong for others to appreciate what you don't.

[Rincewind]

Not really.

First of all Michelinie WAS developing Venom as you saw his warped morality appear more and more as time went by whilst he remained firmly a villain.

Second of all Otto really didn’t clearly develop. He fell in love with Anna Maria for sure but he started off as an evil jerk and then abruptly and OOC after failing to save one child stopped being an evil jerk and admitted Peter was the superior Spider-Man after all.

Not to mention his consequent appearences post superior regress his ‘character development’ from Superior (and align him with alt-right/Nazi stand ins wtf?)

And when all is said and done Venom still comparatively appeared in a minute number of issues in comparison to Otto. That still counts as overexposure dude.

The double standard for this always shocks me within Spider-Man fandom. Otto appears basically every year in Spider-Man including 31+ straight issues where he is the LEAD character but Venom and Norman sucked because they got ‘overexposed’.

I know being editorially mandated doesn’t make it a good story but the thread was never about their runs but about them as writers. We’re not gonna say Peter David was worse than Michelinie based upon his FNSM run vs Michelinie’s ASm run. It’s about their skills like I said it’s about executing stories and their raw skills. I admit though much like the poll I phrased that badly in the OP.

I’m not saying Max Carnage succeeded in being life affirming but I’m saying ti tried. Spider-Verse was a murderfest. Dude even if you personally disliked them how could you say Ben Reilly and MC2 Peter Parker weren’t beloved. I don’t care about Jessica Jones at all but I know she’s beloved.

Spider-Girl’s core concept was her relationship with her father. Her father was now dead because of Spider-Verse (a plot line her creators vetoed multiple times because of how cliché it was btw). Thus her core concept got wrecked. This is to say nothing of her (relatively) unique name and (definitely unique) costume being taken away from her so she could be just another person in Spider-Man’s outfit and the sixth(?) person to be called Spider Woman.


I’m sorry but that’s BS. Of course you can turn a remorseless killer into a hero there are numerous examples of that.

I’m not saying editorial mandates make stories better but they also aren’t the fault of the writers.

You misunderstand what I am saying when I am talking about Slott writing the characters OOC.

I’m not saying Slott was the first. But he is without question the single most systemic writer to do write people OOC in his work. Like he’s rarely NOT written most of the characters OOC.

And writing charactes OOC is short of like something truly offensive the worst writing sin you can commit because we are reading specifically FOR the characters. And it was a sin Michelinie comparatively was less if at all guilty of. And just because there is a history of that happening doesn’t justify it anymore than there is a history of any given bad storytelling. Bad stories are not justified on the grounds that bad stories have happened before.

Actually May and MJ haven’t varied wildly in their motivations for the most part. Same with Peter. His motivation since AF #15 has been pretty clear and consistent for the most part.

My definition of OOC is this. In the context of this situation based upon a character’s established history would they be acting like this? No? Okay then they are OOC. It’s a common example but the best one, Spider-Man wouldn’t make the deal with Mephisto. That was OOC.

Iagree characters change and evolve but not arbitrarily. In good writing characters ORGANICALLY change and develop. They don’t just randomly ignore stuff from their pasts for the sake of the current arc as the paparazzi arc or the MJ victim blaming or the Aunt May guilt tripping thing is.

What you described is quintessentially OOC. I am going to suggest that rather than me having a narrow definition you perhaps misunderstand the terms actual meaning.

I mean c’mon dude you are saying it’s not OOC for Peter to be a paparazzi photographer in spite of ALL those things I listed? Don’t be ridiculous now.

It’s not an opinion though.

You said the build up to the wedding was OOC and out of nowhere.

In that thread I posted numerous objective evidence showing that that was plain not true.

It’d be like if you said it’d be OOC and nowhere for Wolverine to know how to use a katana and I linked you to a thread I made earlier showing and explaining numerous instances where he did use a katana.

You basically just dismissed it as opinion because I linked to something I happened to have also made.

It isn’t a matter of opinion that the wedding was out of nowhere because it is a historical fact that there was build up to it as stated by creators of the time. Those statements are then corroborated by on the page evidence that I talked about. Those are not opinions. There is nothing to disagree about.

We can disagree about like Hillary Clinton’s credentials as a politician sure.

But we can’t disagree about water being wet.

The stuff related to the wedding is like the latter not the former.

You can believe it was rushed and OOC...but you would on that specific point be legitimately incorrect.

It isn’t a view of the character issue it’s a ‘it’s literally right there on the page laid out clearly for you’ deal.

Couple of things. First of all, pretty much everything you posted is an opinion. Not fact. Interpretation of characters, OOC moments, what types of stories should be told and shouldn't, all of these are opinions. And none of what you've posted have convinced me that my opinion is wrong and your opinion is right.

Second, I'm not here to bash any writer. I've pointed out some weaknesses of the David Michelinie run. but I pointed them out because Michelinie himself has gone on the record about what he liked and didn't like about his run. I think DM is a great writer. He wrote the definitive run for Iron Man, then came back and wrote a run that surpassed his first. His Indiana Jones stories were better than some of the movie sequels.

Third. If you want to talk about writer skill level instead of overall run, maybe you should be more clear on your opening post and thread title.

Fourth. I get that you think Dan Slott is a bad writer, but I don't. And I don't want to keep going back and forth about it.

So if you would like to discuss relative strengths and weaknesses about the different runs, I'm up for that. But I have no desire to read pages of why you hate Slott.

[Lee]

This thread title is obnoxious, implying that you're being dishonest if your tastes don't align with those of the OP. This toxic atmosphere is why I rarely lurk, let alone post, on this board anymore.

This's going to be one of the few occasions where I'd agree with Dan Slott. I think any semblance of legitimate comparison went out the window a long time ago, leaving the thread as an author bashing fest. Let's act like the adults that we are and get things on a civil track or table this until we've all chilled out.

And even here, you could have just led with "I agree with Dan Slott".

[WebLurker]

And even here, you could have just led with "I agree with Dan Slott".

Maybe I should've. However, I feel a bit like Black Widow did when realizing she agreed with Iron Man in Civil War, if you get my drift.