Slott v. Spencer: Year One

[WebLurker]

This is so fascinating. I would've thought based on the response that it would be in Spencer's favor. It's crazy to know that it's split.

I don't think Slott is as disliked as his critics wish and the poll is comparing the early part of his run, which does tend to be the best-liked part of it.

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.

Is there anything more to do with him after that?

[Revolutionary_Jack]

I don't think Slott is as disliked as his critics wish and the poll is comparing the early part of his run, which does tend to be the best-liked part of it.

Especially since a lot of people aren't sure what his first year is. That should be Brand New Day but everyone thinks it's Big Time and mentioning Big Time when that's actually three years later. It's not an actual poll either where specific boundaries and marks are laid down and most people who vote on polls don't comment.

Slott also wrote for ten years so regardless of anything regular readers and posters on CBR who followed that would be inclined to be favorable to him.

Is there anything more to do with him after that?

There was still stuff to do with the Goblin after The Night Gwen Stacy Died as proven in his Post-Resurrection stories.

So it depends on what Spencer can do with him.

[Mister Mets]

Especially since a lot of people aren't sure what his first year is. That should be Brand New Day but everyone thinks it's Big Time and mentioning Big Time when that's actually three years later. It's not an actual poll either where specific boundaries and marks are laid down and most people who vote on polls don't comment.

Slott also wrote for ten years so regardless of anything regular readers and posters on CBR who followed that would be inclined to be favorable to him.



There was still stuff to do with the Goblin after The Night Gwen Stacy Died as proven in his Post-Resurrection stories.

So it depends on what Spencer can do with him.

This thread is looking at Slott's first year as the main Spider-Man writer. You could try comparing Spencer's work so far to Slott's BND era work, which is a different discussion.

Spencer has also worked on a book with Spider-Man in its name before, so he might have similar well, actuallys when it comes to polls of his earlier work. Though, I did really enjoy Superior Foes.

[Mister Mets]

I don't think Slott is as disliked as his critics wish and the poll is comparing the early part of his run, which does tend to be the best-liked part of it.



Is there anything more to do with him after that?

If Slott was as disliked as his critics said, that would be a resounding endorsement for One More Day, since it would suggest the status quo enabled sales and acclaim under a mediocre writer.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

Spencer has also worked on a book with Spider-Man in its name before, so he might have similar well, actuallys when it comes to polls of his earlier work. Though, I did really enjoy Superior Foes.

I said earlier that Superior Foes was analogous to Slott's Spider-Man/Human Torch. Both are cult standalone titles that are critically acclaimed and get notices.

My cutoff is first year on ASM. Brand New Day had Slott writing on ASM, He wrote 14 issues in the first year of BND and wrote more than any other writer in that period, and was seen by fellow writers as first-among-equals. So BND is Slott's first year and not Big Time.

[Miles To Go]

it depends on what Spencer can do with him.

I know Spencer's spoken a great deal about making Kraven important, and to stay true to KLH and Grim Hunt, I think what stands out is that he regards all the sillier, hokier mateiral Kraven appeared in after Grim Hunt as a "walk in the desert", indicating he'd fallen into narrative dry land that did not benefit his character or primary motivations. If Hunted winds up being the third in the trilogy that "makes" Kraven, it's come almost a decade too late.

People forgot about Kraven and now Marvel expects them to take him seriously...the problem is Spencer's build to this event has been littered with comedic banter between Taskmaster and Black Ant, comedic one liners from villains like Vulture and Scorpion etc, and Kraven's interacted with Arcade. Not a lot of that screams high-stakes to me...though I understand this is all Spencer's forced to work with because Slott has been instrumental in taking so many of the chief villains off the table currently. Kraven stands out entirely by default.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

I know Spencer's spoken a great deal about making Kraven important, and to stay true to KLH and Grim Hunt, I think what stands out is that he regards all the sillier, hokier mateiral Kraven appeared in after Grim Hunt as a "walk in the desert", indicating he'd fallen into narrative dry land that did not benefit his character or primary motivations. If Hunted winds up being the third in the trilogy that "makes" Kraven, it's come almost a decade too late.

People forgot about Kraven and now Marvel expects them to take him seriously...the problem is Spencer's build to this event has been littered with comedic banter between Taskmaster and Black Ant, comedic one liners from villains like Vulture and Scorpion etc, and Kraven's interacted with Arcade. Not a lot of that screams high-stakes to me...though I understand this is all Spencer's forced to work with because Slott has been instrumental in taking so many of the chief villains off the table currently. Kraven stands out entirely by default.

This might be controversial, but I don't see a comedic treatment or something jokey as being entirely at odds or against the spirit or detrimental to a story's purpose or impact.

[WebLurker]

Especially since a lot of people aren't sure what his first year is. That should be Brand New Day but everyone thinks it's Big Time and mentioning Big Time when that's actually three years later. It's not an actual poll either where specific boundaries and marks are laid down and most people who vote on polls don't comment.

Slott also wrote for ten years so regardless of anything regular readers and posters on CBR who followed that would be inclined to be favorable to him.

See the point.

There was still stuff to do with the Goblin after The Night Gwen Stacy Died as proven in his Post-Resurrection stories.

So it depends on what Spencer can do with him.

Sure, but, irregardless that resurrecting both Kraven and Goblin kinda ruined the original stories, Goblin had interesting stuff beforehand. Kraven was a one-trick pony.

If Slott was as disliked as his critics said, that would be a resounding endorsement for One More Day, since it would suggest the status quo enabled sales and acclaim under a mediocre writer.

I don't know what to say to that; it doesn't sound right, but I can't explain why it seems wrong, either.

[Miles To Go]

If Slott was as disliked as his critics said, that would be a resounding endorsement for One More Day, since it would suggest the status quo enabled sales and acclaim under a mediocre writer.

As the MCU has proven, mediocrity is money.

[WebSlingWonder]

As the MCU has proven, mediocrity is money.

Get the heck out of here dude. Are you kidding me right now? Ugh.

[Inversed]

Especially since a lot of people aren't sure what his first year is. That should be Brand New Day but everyone thinks it's Big Time and mentioning Big Time when that's actually three years later. It's not an actual poll either where specific boundaries and marks are laid down and most people who vote on polls don't comment.

Slott also wrote for ten years so regardless of anything regular readers and posters on CBR who followed that would be inclined to be favorable to him.

What's with the condescending attitude? How hard is it to understand that majority of people on here would consider Big Time to be Dan Slott's first year as the MAIN writer of Amazing Spider-Man, because it WAS. It's hard to justify it as HIS run when he isn't even writing half the issues (he wrote more than others but that's also dismissing all the rest of the work they did)

You could compare the individual stories, Brand New Day (the 1st arc), Peter Parker Paparazzi, New Ways To Die, and Mind On Fire to Back To Basics, A Trivial Pursuit, Heist, Lifetime Achievement, Family Matters, and Hunted if you wanted, but that's not exactly what the question of this poll is.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

What's with the condescending attitude? How hard is it to understand that majority of people on here would consider Big Time to be Dan Slott's first year as the MAIN writer of Amazing Spider-Man, because it WAS. It's hard to justify it as HIS run when he isn't even writing half the issues (he wrote more than others but that's also dismissing all the rest of the work they did)

You could compare the individual stories, Brand New Day (the 1st arc), Peter Parker Paparazzi, New Ways To Die, and Mind On Fire to Back To Basics, A Trivial Pursuit, Heist, Lifetime Achievement, Family Matters, and Hunted if you wanted, but that's not exactly what the question of this poll is.

I don't see why it's condescending to point out that Big Time isn't Slott's first year on Spider-Man.

BND was collaborative but it's not like post crisis Superman after Byrne left and they had a full writing team cowriting multiple issues and events. Like Death of the Superman was cowritten by an entire group issue by issue and Superman's wedding issue was written and drawn by an entire smorgasbord including Michelinie and Paul Ryan who worked on the ASM wedding annual.

In BND each issue was done by a specific writer. In fact there's more Slott in BND than his own run since 40 issues of his run including the closing issues of Superior were scripted by Gage. And historically speaking 23 issues is a huge chunk of Spider-Man, virtually an entire run. Since the norm in Spider-Man until Michelinie was shorter runs.

[Inversed]

I don't see why it's condescending to point out that Big Time isn't Slott's first year on Spider-Man.

BND was collaborative but it's not like post crisis Superman after Byrne left and they had a full writing team cowriting multiple issues and events. Like Death of the Superman was cowritten by an entire group issue by issue and Superman's wedding issue was written and drawn by an entire smorgasbord including Michelinie and Paul Ryan who worked on the ASM wedding annual.

In BND each issue was done by a specific writer. In fact there's more Slott in BND than his own run since 40 issues of his run including the closing issues of Superior were scripted by Gage. And historically speaking 23 issues is a huge chunk of Spider-Man, virtually an entire run. Since the norm in Spider-Man until Michelinie was shorter runs.

There is still a pretty big difference between "writing 23 consecutive issues as part of a storyline spearheaded by one person" than "23 issues released over the course of 3 years sandwiched between 75~ other issues by other writers". Also ignoring those 40 issues Gage co-wrote, Slott's run solo issues from #648-801 equals 114 issues.

The OP post literally says "comparison between Slott's first year as a SOLO writer". That's why everyone's talking about Big Time.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

There is still a pretty big difference between "writing 23 consecutive issues as part of a storyline spearheaded by one person" than "23 issues released over the course of 3 years sandwiched between 75~ other issues by other writers".

Tom Defalco and Ron Frenz also wrote a long run where different writers sandwiched and contributed in-between, most notably Peter A David's The Commuter Commuteth, and even Stern's run on ASM had gaps where others came in. That was a shorter run but Slott's run on BND is already 2/3rds of that.

Having an uninterrupted solo run on Spider-Man is an unprecedented thing. So talking about first solo year feels like a weird comparison and bar measured against the breadth of publishing history. Ever since Spectacular Spider-Man launched in 1976, there has always been a team of Spider-Man writers. ASM would claim pride of place but as it happens, there was always an issue when in the same month a Spectacular or Web of Spider-Man dealt with different characters and so on and later authors had to refer to those stories for continuity reasons and editors would insist on it. That wouldn't be a problem if Spectacular Spider-Man was crap, but then in the pages of Spectacular you had The Death of Jean deWolf, you had JMD's Harry Osborn stories, and of course KLH was a story that ran across all Spider-Man titles. All of these are classic stories. Nick Spencer's first issue refers to Matt Fractions' Annual for Sensational Spider-Man. And likewise, Slott's Go Down Swinging depends on Jameson knowing Peter's identity, a development that Chip Zdarsky did in the revived Spectacular Spider-Man.

And even then Spencer has to collaborate with Tom Taylor on FNSM. So it's not like his first year is entirely solo either.

The OP post literally says "comparison between Slott's first year as a SOLO writer". That's why everyone's talking about Big Time.

Again that only makes sense if the issues were co-written or collaborations. Like Roger Stern worked on Superman as part of a big writing team. He wrote some solo issues but most of his work there was collaborations on Superman.

The fact is Slott's first year on BND was as solo as any writer before him. He wrote most of those stories, and certainly the lion's share in the first year. So that's his first year on Spider-Man.

[KC]

Again that only makes sense if the issues were co-written or collaborations. Like Roger Stern worked on Superman as part of a big writing team. He wrote some solo issues but most of his work there was collaborations on Superman.

The fact is Slott's first year on BND was as solo as any writer before him. He wrote most of those stories, and certainly the lion's share in the first year. So that's his first year on Spider-Man.

Slott's work on the BND era was a collaboration of ideas between all the writers involved in the Spidey Brain Trust. The OP is clearly asking fans to compare Slott's run from Big Time and Spencer's first year.