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

[Dangerous]

Michelinie- one of the greatest Spidey runs of all time, probably top 3...
Slott- The occasional gem, BUT, considering he was on for 10 years, one of the worst Spidey runs of all time.

[Prof. Warren]

Michelinie- one of the greatest Spidey runs of all time, probably top 3...
Slott- The occasional gem, BUT, considering he was on for 10 years, one of the worst Spidey runs of all time.

Hahaha!!

The fact that Slott was on ASM for ten years only speaks to the sustained popularity of his run.

You're free not to like his Spidey run for whatever reason but pointing to the fact that Slott was on the book for a decade as a reason to dismiss his run as "one of the worst ever" is just laughable.

I know it galls the haters that his run was long, successful and much-loved and that he left on his own terms and on a huge high note but, sorry, you'll just have to learn to live with your own personal bitterness towards that.

This quote from Bruce Canwell, the editor responsible for overseeing the ASM newspaper strip collections, about fans comparing the various incarnations of Spidey seems especially relevant to this thread:

"...think of how many different versions of Spider-Man we’ve now seen — the original Stan/Steve/Romita version, the 1967 cartoon series version, the Spidey Super Stories version, the Nicholas Hammond TV version, the Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends version, and, and, and, and … all the way up to the current Peter Parker (and the current Miles Morales) in the comics and the Tobey Maguire/Andrew Garfield/Tom Holland big-screen versions. I think it’s a Mugg’s game to pass judgment on any of these versions. They all exist, each of them connects with some and aggravates others. Over the years, the trick I’ve learned — when applied to anything, including Spider-Man — is to focus on the stuff I like and spend as little time as possible on the stuff about which I’m less enthusiastic. It’s easy to emphasize the negative, but more rewarding to stress the positive."

Just as Spidey's incarnations across different media all have their own devoted fanbases so too do all the various runs on ASM and the satellite titles. Rather than try to pass judgement on any of these runs, better to simply celebrate the ones you like and accept that the ones you don't are no less valid for that.

[Gnarlly]

I started reading ASM during the Michelinie / McFarlane era as a teenager, continued through the Michelinie / Larsen era, and quit about the time Carnage was introduced in the Michelinie / Bagley era about the time I started college. Nothing against Bagley, who I thought was fantastic later on USM, but the Michelinie era definitely took a nose dive at that point in time (mid 90's), and got worse leading up to the Clone Sage (yes, I've read editorial is to blame). The McFarlane and Larsen eras were a lot of fun, and I have a lot of nostalgia for those eras.

I came back to reading ASM with Superior Spider-Man, and have ended up reading all of USM and most of the ASM eras I had missed since the Micheline/Bagley era (still stuck in the Ben Reilly Epic collections, which I'm not very fond of, though I didn't really mind the 90's clone saga before Ben Reilly took over). That includes rereading all of Michelinie's run while Dan Slott's run was nearing its end. Slott's run on ASM has been more fun for me than Michelinie's, even with the rose-tinted glasses of nostalgia. For me, the best "modern" eras of Spider-Man comics have come from Dan Slott's ASM and Bendis' USM, with honorable mention to JMS's pre-Sins Past run. Michelinie definitely wrote some fun, but not overly deep plots for ASM for about 50 issues, but after that it's pretty bad. Slott has been able to consistently create some great, lengthy plots, all while keeping the book fun.

[Miles To Go]

People throw the word "fun" around and really I think that word's lost all meaning when it comes to Spider-Man comics.

Nothing against personal tastes, because I'm just as guilty of doing it myself, it's just "fun" is used to describe a lot of stuff without really going into detail over why it works for you.

I enjoy Michelin's run without the merits of nostalgia. He is a far better writer in my estimation, and he has influenced a lot of Dan's own writing on other titles, as his interview about Iron Man on Marvel.com today indicates.

[Lukmendes]

People throw the word "fun" around and really I think that word's lost all meaning when it comes to Spider-Man comics.

Nothing against personal tastes, because I'm just as guilty of doing it myself, it's just "fun" is used to describe a lot of stuff without really going into detail over why it works for you.

Describing why someone likes something can be pretty complicated to be fair, sometimes it's just hard to put it in words why you like it, or even put in words why you dislike it, and in both cases when trying to explain, then the person can say shit that is contradictory, but it may not be what they meant. Of course, it could be petty bias for not liking a specific writter or whatever, so the person can say something they don't like and some other shit they love can have something just as bad, but they ignore because of petty bias.

[bob.schoonover]

Describing why someone likes something can be pretty complicated to be fair, sometimes it's just hard to put it in words why you like it, or even put in words why you dislike it, and in both cases when trying to explain, then the person can say shit that is contradictory, but it may not be what they meant. Of course, it could be petty bias for not liking a specific writter or whatever, so the person can say something they don't like and some other shit they love can have something just as bad, but they ignore because of petty bias.

I thought this response was fun

[Miles To Go]

Good point. I probably should'nt have went that far, I just got irked by the dreaded words "rose-tinted nostalgia" indicating you can only enjoy Michelin's run if you were attached to it at an impressionable age and not still enjoy it as an adult today, which I disagree with.

[comicscollector]

Tough to answer this topic.
Both writers had lenghty and great runs in Amazing Spider-Man.
I really can not remember that many bad stories from either writer to say one was much worst that the other one.
To this topic because there are only two options i will vote Dan Slott because he did not had such a rough start in Amazing Spider-Man as David Michelinie,and i remember disliking more the worst stories by David Michelinie (As the Robotic Parents of Peter Parker story arc) that the worst stories of Dan Slott (As the Alpha story arc)
Even so,David Michelinie had equally great Spider-Man as the return of the Sinister Six or the Venom story arcs.
But to this topic i will vote the Dan Slott stories because they have been consistently more fun and more interesting generally speakin(Not that this means David Michelinie stories were bad is just a case that i slightly prefer Dan Slott run in Amazing Spider-Man).

[frogoat]

I look forward to revisiting this question in, say, a decade. It'll be interesting to see how time changes peoples overall feelings because at present, we are right at the end of Dan Slott's run on the character. My impression of media changes over time. I used to think Iron Man 3 was a great movie when I first saw it in the cinema only to revisit it and see all it's flaws in the harsh light of day more recently.

[WebLurker]

I look forward to revisiting this question in, say, a decade. It'll be interesting to see how time changes peoples overall feelings because at present, we are right at the end of Dan Slott's run on the character. My impression of media changes over time. I used to think Iron Man 3 was a great movie when I first saw it in the cinema only to revisit it and see all it's flaws in the harsh light of day more recently.

I've wondered about this a lot, too. On one hand, Slott's era is so defined by it's unorthodoxy, I could see it maintaining at least a cult status because of how unique it is compared to other Spidey stuff. On the other hand, I could see that same thing as being off putting to people who's tastes run more traditional. And as long as OMD remains a stumbling block for any reader, Slott's run will probably suffer from that as well (although I am aware of anti-OMD Spidey fans who still like it despite not conforming to their status quo, so I don't think that's a given).

On a craftsmanship level, I honestly don't think that Slott's work will age well at all. As a for example, I think that Matt Fraction's award-winning and nominated Hawkeye run is a better written series and will easily stand the test of time far better. However, I don't think that writing quality and aging always factor into standing the test of time in comics. For example, I find that the original Lee/Ditko run on ASM has aged pretty badly. I think structure-wise many of the stories hold up, but the actual writing on the page not so much. However, new readers still find and enjoy them (I like them, too, even if I think that I've seen far better written comics since).

Long story short, I have no idea what we'll be saying about Slott years from now, but it'll be interesting to see what happens.

[Bor]

I will take the best of Slott over almost anything from Michelinie. I did read him back in the day and I did and do enjoy his stories, but the sheer amount of good stuff Slott put out will always make me like him more. Yeah Slott did have more and worse stories but he also had a lot more stories I really liked. Micheline on the other hand had very little I enjoyed THAT much.

[Miles To Go]

I used to think Iron Man 3 was a great movie when I first saw it in the cinema only to revisit it and see all it's flaws in the harsh light of day more recently.

Yeah, I think most MCU movies age like milk.

[Lukmendes]

For example, I find that the original Lee/Ditko run on ASM has aged pretty badly. I think structure-wise many of the stories hold up, but the actual writing on the page not so much. However, new readers still find and enjoy them (I like them, too, even if I think that I've seen far better written comics since).

One thing I'm surprised I don't see much about what aged badly in the Lee/Ditko run are the supporting cast, they're mostly agressively one dimensional and most of them are douchebags, when I read that run I just didn't care about them at all since all they did was be annoying, hell, the only supporting characters I kinda liked was Foswell, and he didn't even show up much, and JJ was the only not annoying douchebag, somehow. Flash having that man crush on Spidey sounded cool on paper but it was meh, when Romita came along the characters just, became likable lol.

[TheCape]

One thing I'm surprised I don't see much about what aged badly in the Lee/Ditko run are the supporting cast, they're mostly agressively one dimensional and most of them are douchebags, when I read that run I just didn't care about them at all since all they did was be annoying, hell, the only supporting characters I kinda liked was Foswell, and he didn't even show up much, and JJ was the only not annoying douchebag, somehow. Flash having that man crush on Spidey sounded cool on paper but it was meh, when Romita came along the characters just, became likable lol.

Foswell became a pretty cool characther in the Spec Spidey cartoon, that was a pretty good version.

[WebLurker]

One thing I'm surprised I don't see much about what aged badly in the Lee/Ditko run are the supporting cast, they're mostly agressively one dimensional and most of them are douchebags, when I read that run I just didn't care about them at all since all they did was be annoying, hell, the only supporting characters I kinda liked was Foswell, and he didn't even show up much, and JJ was the only not annoying douchebag, somehow. Flash having that man crush on Spidey sounded cool on paper but it was meh, when Romita came along the characters just, became likable lol.

Yeah, I can see that. I wonder if the lack of subtly had something to do with that? In many cases, we're told what the characters are thinking/feeling, either through the narration or dialogue /thought balloons. The way that Peter's love life was handled was probably the most grating thing for me, given how over the top it got and how thin the girlfriend characters were written (Betty Brant and early Gwen Stacy really lacked a lot of substance, IMHO). This is one point where I will maintain that Ultimate absolutely improved on the source material; while one could roll their eyes at the idea of a fifteen-year-old Peter and MJ thinking that they're going to be partners for the rest of their lives, I think the writing had enough nuance and depth to it to sell the readers that these kids where in love with each other for real. Also, it showed that, not just told it.

Also agree that, esp. in the later stories, everyone seems to get really nasty to each other. Also agree that Jameson remains very entertaining throughout (a lot of scenes where you can just hear JK Simmons delivering the lines).

One think I do think that the old ASM often did pretty well was pacing it's stories. While I do prefer the depth that well-written decompression offers over the done-in-one compression method and do think that the dialogue writing has aged badly, if you take the stories on a narrative level, they do a really good job of covering everything the plot needs to work while having enough room to breathe (the first Vulture story, the Living Brain, and the one with Jameson and the first Spider Slayer are the standouts to me). They also did some really good multi-part stories, too (Crime Master/ Green Goblin turf war and Master Planner, for example), but those aren't one-shots.