Slott v. Spencer: Year One

[Revolutionary_Jack]

Please not I never said Slott not playing it safe meant what he did was good. But it’s how it makes it difficult to compare. Spencer, while you note, has hit some serious things - hasn’t really put Spidey “through it” yet. It’s a slow, character building (and fixing problems from the previous run) start that I have no doubt will pay off.

It takes time to put characters through stuff. And not all writers do that. Like Roger Stern never really put Peter through anything during his run. The only time he did that was in his Post-Run stories like Revenge of the Green Goblin.

I’m excited for Hunted. As a lot of said, I imagine that will be where Spencer takes it up a notch and we can start seeing how he handles the more meaningful stories.

Spencer is going to bring Kraven the Hunter back in a big way. With Goblin decomissioned, Octopus "redeemed", Venom now having a brand new corner to himself, Spider-Man doesn't have a big arch-villain anymore. So it's a chance for the smaller time villains to step up and Nick Spencer loves that.

Kraven the Hunter is that liminal villain, someone who is a minor villain but is also a major figure in Kraven's Last Hunt which elevated him. And nobody has known what to do with Kraven after that. So this is the big chance.

[MajorHoy]

Big Time is maybe not the right comparison for Spencer.

Slott remember wrote the first issue of BND and he collaborated with a bunch of writers for the entire duration of BND before Big Time began.

So we should be comparing Slott's work on BND with Spencer's stuff.

No, not really.

Wasn't "Big Time" the first issue where Slott was really given the keys to Amazing Spider-Man and not just allowed to borrow it for a few issues every now and then?

How much in charge of the ASM franchise was Slott for "BND"? Did he establish a long-running arc then, or were his chances to write ASM somewhat scattered prior to "Big Time"?

[Revolutionary_Jack]

Wasn't "Big Time" the first issue where Slott was really given the keys to Amazing Spider-Man and not just allowed to borrow it for a few issues every now and then?

Technically speaking, every Spider-Man writer borrows the keys of Spider-Man for a few issues. "few" can be a hundred or fifty or thirty.

Slott was one of the writers of the Spider-Man Brain Trust and according to all interviews was the guy who was already "more equal" than others in a group of equals. He was a major contributor to the BND status-quo. He wrote the first story of BND. All the Carlie Cooper stuff was mainly Slott. Michelle Gonzales and Vin was Guggenheim, Norah Winters was Joe Kelly. OMIT was entirely Joe Quesada.

Did he establish a long-running arc then, or were his chances to write ASM somewhat scattered prior to "Big Time"?

Slott says repeatedly he was never in charge of Spider-Man. He aligned himself with editorial and what they wanted and it wasn't always the case that he got to do what he wanted when he wanted. Superior Spider-Man for instance was supposed to on for longer but the second Garfield movie led him to close it and bring Peter back earlier than he wanted.

But essentially, BND was the first time Slott wrote ASM and worked on his run. Of course he wrote Spider-Man in Spider-Man/Human Torch but then Spencer wrote Superior Foes of Spider-Man which is similar, a quirky cult series that is a little standalone. In publications terms, that is the timeline Spencer is at. Spencer never worked on ASM before.

So you need to compare Slott's work on BND to Spencer's first 12 issues and not Big Time.

[Exciter]

I’m surprised to see such love for Spencer. His run has been really off-putting for me. His writing struck me as extremely campy and just cartoonish, especially the Empire State University stuff. I like that he reunited Peter and Mary Jane, but the stuff happening around it just isn’t working for me. I’d take Slott’s first year by a mile.

[MP95]

I’m surprised to see such love for Spencer. His run has been really off-putting for me. His writing struck me as extremely campy and just cartoonish, especially the Empire State University stuff. I like that he reunited Peter and Mary Jane, but the stuff happening around it just isn’t working for me. I’d take Slott’s first year by a mile.

The Peter and Mary Jane stuff has been great. Especially the scenes with MJ and the Lookups, but the highlight of emotional moments in Nick Spencer's run has to be that amazing scene between Peter and Felicia in issue 10. It was everything I ever wanted and more and I didn't expect it to happen.

[WebSlingWonder]

I’m surprised to see such love for Spencer. His run has been really off-putting for me. His writing struck me as extremely campy and just cartoonish, especially the Empire State University stuff. I like that he reunited Peter and Mary Jane, but the stuff happening around it just isn’t working for me. I’d take Slott’s first year by a mile.

Hmm. To each their own.

[Inversed]

But essentially, BND was the first time Slott wrote ASM and worked on his run. Of course he wrote Spider-Man in Spider-Man/Human Torch but then Spencer wrote Superior Foes of Spider-Man which is similar, a quirky cult series that is a little standalone. In publications terms, that is the timeline Spencer is at. Spencer never worked on ASM before.

So you need to compare Slott's work on BND to Spencer's first 12 issues and not Big Time.

I think even then, its not a completely fair to take the whole run in comparison since he still had to share creative duties with 5 or so other people. If you wanna compare the story arcs (Brand New Day, Peter Parker Paparazzi, New Ways To Die, etc.) to Spencer's individual arcs I think that would make more sense.

Of the 102 issues, he personally wrote 23 issues, which is the most out of all those writers and had the most amount of story arcs, but still not even a quarter of the total.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

I’m surprised to see such love for Spencer. His run has been really off-putting for me. His writing struck me as extremely campy and just cartoonish, especially the Empire State University stuff.

When before there was nothing but love? Slott's run was always campy. He kept trying to make catch-phrases happen, like Ock going "die is cast" then you had "no one dies" or MJ saying Peter always said "crazy town banana pants". Heck the entire Peter and Spider-Man split personality thing has the Spider-Man part as one big spoof of Slott's take on Spider-Man, with his lack of ethics and inane spouting of catch-phrases.

And not to put too fine a point at it, but Spider-Man always flirts with camp. It is at heart a comedy series set in a fairly sanitized corner of the Marvel Universe.

Spencer's take returns Peter to a grounded street-level side, which we haven't seen since Pre-OMD.

I’d take Slott’s first year by a mile.

Slott's first year on ASM was Brand New Day, not Big Time.

I don't know why people pretend that Slott didn't write on BND or that he was some new hire who came on with Big Time. In truth, he was one of a series of writers, the webhead brain trust, commissioned by Quesada to create the Post-OMD status-quo, who had to work and front-load their stuff since Post-OMD was going to launch tri-monthly with all sister-titles canceled (including Spectacular Spider-Man which had been continuously published since 1976). Slott was also a very significant part of that braintrust, consistently deferred to by colleagues as per exit interviews and so on.

Slott didn't entirely write BND, but he did write a huge part of that and was a leading part of that.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

If you wanna compare the story arcs (Brand New Day, Peter Parker Paparazzi, New Ways To Die, etc.) to Spencer's individual arcs I think that would make more sense.

And on the whole I prefer Spencer's to all of those. The Boomerang issues alone have more heart and humanity than in Slott's stuff, and that applies for all the issues so far.

Of the 102 issues, he personally wrote 23 issues, which is the most out of all those writers and had the most amount of story arcs, but still not even a quarter of the total.

Roger Stern's Run (ASM#224-252): 28 Issues.

Gerry Conway's Run (ASM#111-149): 39 Issues.

Marv Wolfman's Run (ASM#181-204): 24 Issues

Tom Defalco's Run (ASM #253-285): 33 Issues

Lee Ditko's Run (ASM:1-38): 38 Issues

Until David Michelinie the norm was shorter runs. After Michelinie writers wrote for longer stretches. 23 issues is actually pretty big and significant, and substantial. In Slott's Pre-Big Time run, he already wrote near the average full run. So I don't think it's fair to say, certainly not for the above runs, that Slott's run in BND can be discounted for numerical reasons alone.

Slott of course had to write tri-monthly and bi-monthly unlike any writer before, so he basically had more paper and panels in a shorter time. So that allowed him room to be less economical than others before him.

[WebSlingWonder]

I...am shocked to say that I kind of agree with Revolutionary_Jack here. Slott wrote a good amount of issues before Big Time and had a lengthy head start with the 102 issues of BND.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

Slott wrote a good amount of issues before Big Time and had a lengthy head start with the 102 issues of BND.

And you know in a certain sense, Slott's run proper also involved collaboraton. There's also the fact, a little controversial in some corners, on the fact that in terms of full writing of issues (plotting and script), a good chunk of Slott's run was co-written by Christos Gage. Gage and Slott collaborated together since Avengers: The Initiative. As per Slott, that "man-purse" line in Superior-Spider-Man and revived Peter and Goblin's entire conversation was all Gage.

So Slott didn't really entirely write his own run. Whereas Michelinie wrote his entire run. JMS had help with Fiona Avery for some issues but he wrote most of his run. Spencer likewise wrote all the issues we have plot and script (the dialogue is distinctly his).

[WebSlingWonder]

And you know in a certain sense, Slott's run proper also involved collaboraton. There's also the fact, a little controversial in some corners, on the fact that in terms of full writing of issues (plotting and script), a good chunk of Slott's run was co-written by Christos Gage. Gage and Slott collaborated together since Avengers: The Initiative. As per Slott, that "man-purse" line in Superior-Spider-Man and revived Peter and Goblin's entire conversation was all Gage.

So Slott didn't really entirely write his own run. Whereas Michelinie wrote his entire run. JMS had help with Fiona Avery for some issues but he wrote most of his run. Spencer likewise wrote all the issues we have plot and script (the dialogue is distinctly his).

That Peter/Osborn conversation was Gage?! God dang it on a platter...

[Revolutionary_Jack]

If you look at Slott's Run Post-Big Time, based on an estimate from a post at Crawlspace:

ASM

653 - 654: Script by Fred Van Lente

661-662: Gage completely

677: Mark Waid

679.1: slott & Yost

680-681: slott & Yost

695-697: script by Gage

Superior 11-13: script by Gage

Superior 22-25: script by Gage

Superior 29-33: script by Gage

ASM V3 7-8: script by Gage

ASM V3 16-18: script by Gage

ASM V4 5: script by Gage

ASM V4 15: script by Gage

ASM V4 19-24: script by Gage

ASM V4 29-30: script by Gage

ASM 790: script by Gage

ASM 794-796: script by Gage

Some 36 issues of Slott's run was actually scripted by Gage, which by itself makes Gage one of the most prolific contributors to ASM. He's written more than Roger Stern, than Wolfman, than Defalco and trails Lee-Ditko and Conway by a few issues.

So I don't think BND being a collaboration means that Slott's isn't in it compared to the rest of his run. For one thing all the issues that Slott wrote in BND were entirely by him (script and dialogue), as was BIG TIME. So there's more coherence and consistency there than later.

[Lee]

Heck the entire Peter and Spider-Man split personality thing has the Spider-Man part as one big spoof of Slott's take on Spider-Man, with his lack of ethics and inane spouting of catch-phrases.

Has Nick Spencer actually said that? If not, then why assume such a thing of him?

Spencer's take returns Peter to a grounded street-level side, which we haven't seen since Pre-OMD.

The majority of the Brand New Day era was the traditional Spider-Man formula, with him battling gangsters and science powered villains in New York City.

with all sister-titles canceled (including Spectacular Spider-Man which had been continuously published since 1976).

Spectacular Spider-Man was cancelled in 1998. The second series ran from 2003-2005.

[Inversed]

The problem is it doesn't really make sense to call BND "Slott's run", when you also have every other one of the braintrust inputting to craft the direction that era of the book took. Not to mention the long stretches between when his own personal issues came out (between 601 and 647, he only worked on 5 of those.)

In comparison, even though he still collaborated with Gage & others during Big Time and beyond, he was still the one paving the direction of the story and where it was going to take, and was overall his vision. It's basically like in television, with Slott going from just one of the writers, to the showrunner.

I do think in terms of both him and Spencer as writers, it is interesting looking at the fairly different ways in how they handle writing. Slott not only seems to love collaboration, but it also seems he works better when he doesn't have too much on his plate, which you can see currently with Whitley, Zub, and Simone being brought on to help with his Iron Man. Meanwhile Spencer is known for reaching Bendis levels of writing scripts super fast, first with how he handled the Cap and Secret Empire books, and now with Spider-Man (April has 4 issues written by him!) There's also the rumour that he had the first 20 issues all written before #1 was released, but I don't think that's ever been confirmed.