Originally Posted by
bob/.schoonover
It's probably be better (and more interesting) if the poll options were:
A. Slott's run was much better than Michelinie's
B. Slott's run was slighty better than Michelinie's (probably what I'd have picked)
C. I like both the same
D. Michelinie's run was slightly better than Slott's
E. Michelinie's run was much better than Slott's
Binary polls never distinguish degrees of things and don't lend themselves well to thoughtful discussion.
*Slott's run is definitely going to end better than Michelinie's (I can say this without knowing how the Red Goblin arc ends because I know Lifetheft was not good at all and The Jury arc before it won't be making any top 20 lists).
*Michelinie's run also weirdly starts with the somewhat . . . rapid proposal and marriage of Peter and MJ. If you just call that an editorially mandated deal and give him the Venom arc to start off, though, that's straight fire. Where you define the start of Slott's run will affect your view of how it began - Big Time is a great opening arc, but Brand New Day is an equivalently weird starting point for a run (having to do the heavy lifting of establishing the post-OMD universe).
*What's their peak? For Slott, No One Dies, Dying Wish, Spider Island, New Ways to Die and Red Goblin (maybe/hopefully) off the top of my head. For Michelinie, Venom, Carnage, Return of the Sinister Six, Cosmic Spidey, and Maximum Carnage (with others).
*Is Lifetheft worse than Clone Conspiracy? I'm not sure if Lifetheft is the worst Michelinie story, but it's clearly bothered me for over 20 years, so . . .
I'd suggest Michelinie was more conservative as a writer of Spider-man - other than (the editorially mandated) marriage, I don't think you can credit his run with any big waves in Peter's life or how he behaves as a super hero (this is not a criticism by any means, and is also probably a product of writing when there were two or three other ongoings with whom he had to coordinate) - the Cosmic stories, perhaps, counter this, but were also written across the other two titles. Slott took some very big swings (Big Time, Spider-verse, Superior, Parker Industries) during his run. As a matter of personal preference, I forgive a few misses when a writer takes big swings, but that's hardly a universal feeling.