I'm still not completely convinced the Peter Parker ; The Spectacular Spider-man has been cancelled
Zdarksy left to focus on Invaders, and they thought it would be better to relaunch with a new title than giving a new creative team the Spectacular name again. We don't know exactly what Friendly Neighbourhood will be like, but I think it's probably safe to say it will be in the same vein.
I was reading DeMatteis' Defenders, where he often dealt with then-contemporary issues, including characters dealing with the aftermath of the Vietnam war and disillusionment with post-60s politics. And this might be something that can work for a Spider-Man satellite book: a focus on contemporary issues. It's something that can get attention and generate stories, but doing it in a satellite book means you avoid affecting the Amazing Spider-Man brand, and the awkwardness when five-year old ASM issues are suddenly anachronistic. Peter's professional interests in journalism and scientific research would allow him to encounter people affected by news events.
Sincerely,
Thomas Mets
By that logic, though, a secondary book just titled Spider-man shouldn't have such a big problem selling. In Action and Detective Comics' cases, the respective characters debuted there before their solo titles (though not by much).
I'm all in favour of satellite titles for characters popular enough to sustain them, especially for Spider-man. Webspinners ran while ASM and PP:SM were unreadable. People who hated JMS' ASM had Peter David's FNSM (and vice versa).
I may be in a minority here, but I find ASM goes through phases of being great for years, then utterly unreadable for years (e.g. Mackie/Byrne unreadable, JMS readable, BND unreadable, Slott readable). It's nice to have a second option. But when both titles are bad... Ouch.
P.S. Sorry, I'm a bit late to the party on this one.
"Has Sariel summoned you here, Azrael? Have you come to witness the miracle of your brethren arriving on Earth?"
"I WILL MIX THE ASHES OF YOUR BONES WITH SALT AND USE THEM TO ENSURE THE EARTH THE TEMPLARS TILLED NEVER BEARS FRUIT AGAIN!"
"*sigh* I hoped it was for the miracle."
Dan Watters' Azrael was incredible, a constant delight and perhaps too good for this world (but not the Forth). For the love of St. Dumas, DC, give us more!!!
Spidey satellites should be stealth solos for random members of the supporting cast. Like Speccy was for J-Roc.
I think it should be expected for Peter's Spider-Man titles to focus on the daily lives and tribulations of his supporting cast, although when I think of "stealth solo's" I think of stuff like when Silk was first introduced and pretty much took over the book in terms of focus and importance.
Slott's run was a Stealth Solo for a lot of things .
That also had alot to do with it being Todd MacFarlane and the speculator boom of that era. Unless a very special creator was involved I don't know if Adjectiveless Spider-Man would be considered as big of a deal. Not to mention it was just used as the title of Miles' solo, and even then most people just referred to it as "the Miles Morales" book anyway.
The Web of Spider-Man series that ran at the end of BND kind of did this, and I wish they brought it back. There is so much potential to have every issue feature one or two stories each focusing on a different character.
And yeah, alot of Slott had a bunch of solo setups during his run, Flash Thompson Venom, Silk, Ben Reilly, and a couple more I can't remember off the top of my head.
Fun fact, originally it was supposed to be a Spider-Ham series that was planned to spin out of Spider-Verse alongside Silk, but Spider-Gwen proved so popular they immediately canned that idea and gave it to her. It's also why Ham plays a kind of supporting role in the series, as a joke to that.
Blue text denotes sarcasm
Prowler was supposed to be a real solo launch out of Clone Conspiracy with some mysterious, radical premise, but ended up joining Morbius in the cancellation hole before they could get to it. Oh Hobie, I weep for thee.
As long as they all offer a different flavor, I’m in. But it’d suck if they were just “more Spider-Man”
I'm wondering how the reception to Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man affects this question. Sales do not seem good, and the book doesn't appear to be popular here despite Tom Taylor's talents in other projects. Is FNSM making mistakes with the focus on new characters and obscure corners of New York that might not doom another satellite book, or is this an indication, with the sales of Spectacular, that Marvel should stick with more Amazing Spider-Man?
Sincerely,
Thomas Mets