Sins Past vs. One More Day.

[Miles To Go]

Brand New Day was great.A fun era in the Spider-Man stories that brought back the classic larger Suporting Cast of characters and the classsic Spider-Man villains that Spider-Man stories had.

People act as if the supporting cast dried up during the JMS era when that isn't the case at all...when all you needed to do was look at the satellite books. ASM isn't the end-all/be-all.

Flash was still there, Betty was still there, MJ was still there, Jonah was still there etc, the older villains were still there.

And had new suporting characters and cool new villains.

None of which stuck.

The variety that was due the team of writers and artist´s kept the stories a must read

Eh, I feel Kelly, Stern and Slott were the only ones putting an effort in.

It was for sure a Brand New Day in the stories that moved the stories forward to a Status Quo that had not been present in the stories for twenty years in Amazing Spider-Man.

A status quo that ultimately failed to set Peter's world alight and didn't contribute much to the books that the marriage easily could still have. Nobody cared that he was single, everyone rejected his love interests, and there's still commands for him to get married to MJ again. And Marvel wound up still publishing marraige stories throughout the decade anyway, either in niche corners of the medium (newspapers) or in new mainline books (RYV) As a mission statement, OMD/BND ultimately failed. Peter and MJ's relationship, and the marriage to some extent, all outlasted it. It's a status quo that now has thirty-two years behind it, not just the mainstream's twenty.

[comicscollector]

People act as if the supporting cast dried up during the JMS era when that isn't the case at all...when all you needed to do was look at the satellite books. ASM isn't the end-all/be-all.

Flash was still there, Betty was still there, MJ was still there, Jonah was still there etc, the older villains were still there.

I disagree.Amazing Spider-Man is the essential Spider-Man comic book to read.I don´t ever remember reading all the Spider-Man comics at the same time,because ever since the 70´s there have been more that one.So your observation of the satelite titles that had the classic villains and larger suporting cast is not related to what i was saying was missing in Amazing Spider-Man.
And it was with BND that many classic suporting characters returned to the essential Spider-Man comic book as well as the classic Spider-Man villains.

None of which stuck.

Mister Negative,Carlie Cooper,Michele Gonzales,Norah Winters,Lily Holister,Screwball,Paper Doll to say a few.All great new characters.

Eh, I feel Kelly, Stern and Slott were the only ones putting an effort in.

The team of writers brought a amount of variety of stories that was just not possible with the way writers had longer runs in the Amazing Spider-Man comic book in the past.
And all though Bob Gale and Marc Guggenheim stories during BND were not as good as were the Mark Waid,Dan Slott,Joe Kelly and Roger Stern stories.Bob Gale and the Marc Guggenheim stories were still far from being bad stories imo.

A status quo that ultimately failed to set Peter's world alight and didn't contribute much to the books that the marriage easily could still have. Nobody cared that he was single, everyone rejected his love interests, and there's still commands for him to get married to MJ again. And Marvel wound up still publishing marraige stories throughout the decade anyway, either in niche corners of the medium (newspapers) or in new mainline books (RYV) As a mission statement, OMD/BND ultimately failed. Peter and MJ's relationship, and the marriage to some extent, all outlasted it.

Considerating that the stories were set with Spider-Man being single then this Status Quo was something that was important to the stories and with how ASM kept being a Top 20 best selling comic book for the majority of the months being published three times a month (For the first time in the history of the publication of ASM) it´s easy to say that is more likely that people were enjoying the Soap Opera Aspect of the stories that rather not caring for it.And during the times Peter Parker and Mary Jane were married there was comic books with Spider-Man being single as well.

[Kevinroc]

Mister Negative,Carlie Cooper,Michele Gonzales,Norah Winters,Lily Holister,Screwball,Paper Doll to say a few.All great new characters.

I've played Insomniac's Spider-Man DLC.

Like everyone else who played the DLC, Screwball can go off and die and nobody would miss her.

Where was a consensus clearly stated? The current vote tally is 31 to 22, which is too close to be considered a general, unified opinion among the group. The differences in opinion have continued within the topic discussion itself, as displayed in the post that followed yours.

32-22 again. That's nearly 20%. (As of this post.)

Seems like we have a consensus. What else would you call those kinds of numbers? (Beyond discussing how internet polls like this one are unscientific and mostly used for purposes of cute little discussions.)

Edit: And I don't feel like getting into another "discussion" with you, so please note that any response to this post will not have a reply from me.

[Inversed]

Eh, I thought Paparazzi had some great art, a fairly new direction and story to take Peter's photography, and an interesting but sadly under-utilized new villain. And Species I thought was a really fun and chaotic "Spider-Man Vs. Everyone" story, and anytime I see Spider-Man go absolutely nuts against his villains always makes me smile.

[Miles To Go]

Eh, I thought Paparazzi had some great art, a fairly new direction and story to take Peter's photography

By "fresh approach" you mean something Peter would never normally bring himself to do? No, it was horrible, they really should have left the Bugle behind outright when mapping out BND if they were going to drag both it and Peter through the mud like that. I loved that Renew Your Vows threw shade at that bone-headed paparazzi concept. The least said about MJ and Carr the better. Just a horrible story for everyone involved, and you'll never convince me otherwise.

The art was also pretty bad IMO.

And Species I thought was a really fun and chaotic "Spider-Man Vs. Everyone" story, and anytime I see Spider-Man go absolutely nuts against his villains always makes me smile.

It's got lousy art too, and it hinges on you actually caring about Menace and Stanley to care about where the story was going, which I never did. Hell Stanley to me doesn't even register as canon to me, I just pretend he's not there whenever I read about Harry, Liz and Normie these days.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

It was for sure a Brand New Day in the stories that moved the stories forward to a Status Quo that had not been present in the stories for twenty years in Amazing Spider-Man.

Going back to an old previous status-quo is not actually progressing. It's regressing. It's reactionary. You know "Make Spider-Man Lame Again".

I disagree.Amazing Spider-Man is the essential Spider-Man comic book to read.I don´t ever remember reading all the Spider-Man comics at the same time,because ever since the 70´s there have been more that one.So your observation of the satelite titles that had the classic villains and larger suporting cast is not related to what i was saying was missing in Amazing Spider-Man.

That kind of attitude died out when the satellite titles put classic stories of its own. The Death of Jean deWolff was entirely told in Spectacular Spider-Man with not one Amazing logo anywhere. Are you going to tell people that it counts for less because i wasn't in Amazing? Or you know Bill Mantlo's The Owl/Octopus War, Conway's Tombstone Arc, JMD's Child Within, Paul Jenkins' entire run? But in any case it isn't the case that Spider-Man's stories always had "larger supporting cast". The norm has always been smaller casts and concentrated stories especially in the main titles. That was the reason that Spectacular was created to start with by Gerry Conway and it was always understood that supporting casts and bit players get more spotlight in satellite titles than the main one.

In the case of BND, you specifically had newer characters brought in by the truckload, not the old supporting cast.

The team of writers brought a amount of variety of stories that was just not possible with the way writers had longer runs in the Amazing Spider-Man comic book in the past.

Firstly in the JMS era, if you keep the entire 616 continuity in mind, you had at different times, JMS, Paul Jenkins, Peter David, Mark Millar, Robert Aguirre-Sacassia, Matt Fraction, Tom Beland among others working in the same status-quo at different stages. And Dan Slott first made his name known with the Spider-Man/Human Torch series which even his defenders have been known to consider his best work. So you did have a team of writers telling a variety of stories before that. Likewise, JMS' run got affected by Marvel's changes like New Avengers and Civil War, so the status-quo of JMS' Spider-Man got rewritten by other writers too.

Secondly, it's not true that a team of writers can tell a variety of stories single writers can't. The Clone Saga is the definitive example of a team of writers writing a story and it ended up being a bunch of monkeys hitting a typewriter. BND is not as bad as the Clone Saga, but it's not as bad as OMD either...and those aren't exactly great things to boast about.

Considerating that the stories were set with Spider-Man being single then this Status Quo was something that was important to the stories and with how ASM kept being a Top 20 best selling comic book for the majority of the months being published three times a month (For the first time in the history of the publication of ASM) it´s easy to say that is more likely that people were enjoying the Soap Opera Aspect of the stories that rather not caring for it.

The per-reader count of Spider-Man as per Comichron has never gone to Pre-OMD levels. BND and Dan Slott has not brought new readers in for the most part. There are exceptions, like Spider-Verse but mostly there hasn't been any significant increase and improvement. Some minor statistical victory or having a meaningless "#1" in a shrinking comics market (i.e. being king of the ashes) doesn't prove any significant vote from the wallet. Spider-Man still sells well and will always sell, in the same way that even Zack Snyder can't make Superman entirely unusable.

Whereas the period of the marriage and the Wedding Annual itself were all best-sellers that brought in new readers by the buckets. Including some the highest selling comics in Spider-Man's history.

[WebLurker]

Mister Negative,Carlie Cooper,Michele Gonzales,Norah Winters,Lily Holister,Screwball,Paper Doll to say a few.All great new characters.

Not an expert, but my understanding is that Negative was the only one of those characters to have any kind of staying power. The others were either forgotten or remembered as examples of BND's failings.

(Anyone else better plugged into the situation care to clarify or refute?)

[Kevinroc]

Not an expert, but my understanding is that Negative was the only one of those characters to have any kind of staying power. The others were either forgotten or remembered as examples of BND's failings.

(Anyone else better plugged into the situation care to clarify or refute?)

Carlie and Norah have shown up, briefly, in Spencer's run. But that's more like a cameo appearance rather than them being fully integrated into the story.

(Kinda like "remember these characters?")

Speaking frankly, I'm surprised they even got that.

(Also, I think that's the first time I've seen someone say they like Michele Gonzales.)

[Mister Mets]

Firstly, the period right after OMD is Brand New Day, which more or less ended with One Moment in Time and when Slott wrote Big Time. BND was 2008-2011. So if you want to make a case that OMD directly led to good stories you have to look at the four year gap before Slott's solo run really "began". And BND sucks. It has very few defenders and even one of the writers, Marc Guggenheim pointed out that practically nothing he put there has stuck.

For instance, if you compare the period of the Marriage 1987-1994, you have immediately Kraven's Last Hunt, the Venom arc, Carnage, JMD's run on Spectacular Spider-Man, "The Child Within--Best of Enemies", Todd Macfarlane's early issues. And in that case the marriage did cause a number of those stories. JMD has said multiple times that Kraven's Last Hunt wouldn't have had the emotional impact it does without the marriage. Whereas the first years after OMD produced not one real decent story, and the story that closed that, OMIT, is as-bad-if-not-worse than OMD.

Secondly, someone turning a sow's ear into a silk purse doesn't vindicate early messes. Roger Stern's Hobgoblin Lives did tie up and explain the knot of messes left behind in the Hobgoblin Mystery which had a ridiculous conclusion in the 80s. Likewise, there are a number of good stories with the Green Goblin after his resurrection but that does not, by itself, justify the original context and story in which he returned. JMS also wrote a number of issues with Aunt May and great ones but that doesn't vindicate the asinine and inexcusably bad story in which she was resurrected by Byrne/Mackie at the behest of Bob Harras.



If we are to treat the characters as a serial creation with a running continuity than certain norms and rules, and basic stuff needs to be observed. Marvel decided with OMD that the status-quo from #192-292 that most had forgotten and its original audience voted with their wallet to move away from, is now the norm. Most of what happened Post OMD is basically repeating in some cases almost beat-by-beat the stuff that happened in that era, was done far more succinctly and far better written and with immeasurably superior artwork.

OMD utterly shattered and destroyed the essence and core of Spider-Man and replaced it with endless spinning of wheels and generally mediocre comics with the momentary above-average execution here and there.

Unscheduled Stop is on a lot of best of lists, so if your view is that something that's widely considered one of the best ever Spider-Man stories isn't even decent, it's likely that your opinions on artistic merit aren't applicable to others.

https://www.cbr.com/50-greatest-spid...master-list/2/
https://www.complex.com/pop-culture/...scheduled-stop
https://tinyurl.com/y2jwo866

It's reasonable to say that the marriage contributed to some good stories early on (Kraven't Last Hunt, the return of the Sin-Eater and first appearance of Venom are all on best-ofs lists; though all were in the works pre-marriage, there's an argument that the new status quo made it more interesting) but that doesn't address the wisdom of the status quo in the long term. If the marriage was a temporary boost, that's not an argument for it as a permanent institution in the comics.

[Mister Mets]

This is literally the point I am trying to make, and people are giving me grief because we don't specifically see every character in Marvel's publishing line-up.



So, wait, your defense of this terrible storytelling is to try to inject more reality into it? That... doesn't make a whole lot of sense, actually.

(Also, Marvel themselves didn't decide on the mechanics of OMD until well after the fact. So I find it amusing to see someone trying to hold message board posters to a higher standard than Marvel held themselves at the time.)

I was aware of your point. I thought it was kinda funny that people came at it from a different angle, that One More Day didn't go far enough in establishing what other Marvel characters were up to.

I do think anyone who thinks someone another superhero or supervillain should have been able to help should be able to articulate exactly how they could do so.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

Carlie and Norah have shown up, briefly, in Spencer's run. But that's more like a cameo appearance rather than them being fully integrated into the story.

(Kinda like "remember these characters?")

The problem with Brand New Day is the doublespeak at work. Everyone says we are bringing "sexy back" i.e. Peter's classic supporting cast, when in fact what they actually did was introduce a whole new gaggle of characters only to pretend that these characbters have been here the whole time...the whole time. It's basically an army of Poochies. The biggest joke is of course Jameson's Dad, aka Mr. Aunt May, who is more or less Nathan Lubensky if that wedding happened, and basically another turn of the Aunt May Infantilizer Machine as oppposed to Aunt May the actually really good comic character. And it's just really pathetic as an attempt at a joke. Marvel thinks marriage is for old people and ages characters so let's get rid of Peter's and all the actual character development and richness he and Mary Jane developed, have Aunt May get hitched and then have MJ show up at the wedding, and Peter gets schrodinger's alcohol. The tri-monthly issues published managed to give it an unearned and unmerited sense of weight, since rather than proving their mettle over 12 issues, these characters got something like 40-50 appearances in some two years. When JMS introduced Morlun and Ezekiel he had to do all that in a much shorter run of issues and yet those characters still made an impression. But anyway, I think this is off-topic.

The topic is Sins' Past versus One More Day, which is a worse story and more damaging one. Brand New Day is not unrelated to this but making a discussion about its quality and impact, and its necessity is a separate one and also irrelevant. The truth of the matter is that regardless of the quality of BND or even Slott's run, OMD and OMIT is simply the more essential and important story. It created the current status quo and set the beats and all writers can do going forward is spin the wheels and that's more or less what BND and other stories have done.

The idea that Brand New Day or Dan Slott's run somehow justifies One More Day, or even One Moment in Time is being trotted out here and elsewhere but if we are treating OMD as a story then it has to stand on its own legs. Since OMD is a retcon, then it's job is to measure itself against what it is retconning and/or removing. The ability of later writers to make the best of a bad situation and so on and so forth does not absolve or justify that bad situation. Norman Osborn and Green Goblin since his resurrection has been in a number of excellent stories and ultimately that is the only lasting and important thing that the Clone Saga did in the 616 Continuity, but that doesn't justify the Clone Saga itself, nor the ridiculous manner in which it happened. Especially since the early stories after Goblin returned were pretty bad, stuff like Gathering of Fire and the whole "Cabal" thing and then Norman being this shadowy "author of your pain" behind the Clone Saga, and also the guy who hired the Aunt May actress (!) as part of John Byrne's spiteful vandalization of #400. And ultimately that itself was responsible for stuff like Sins' Past, since shady Norman who manipulates from behind the scenes became part of his characterization. IT took Roger Stern's Revenge of the Green Goblin, Paul Jenkins' Death in the Family (basically a sorta sequel to Stern's story), Bendis' Pulse, and Millar's Marvel Knights to finally justify that.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

I was aware of your point. I thought it was kinda funny that people came at it from a different angle, that One More Day didn't go far enough in establishing what other Marvel characters were up to.

I do think anyone who thinks someone another superhero or supervillain should have been able to help should be able to articulate exactly how they could do so.

Isn't that inherent when you bring Mephisto into Peter's corner? Mephisto and Spider-Man had next to no connection to each other and while JMS' run had flirted with magic it was done with care and subtlety, and it was definitely a branch separate from Marvel's mystical-cosmic side. Mephisto is a character who is a villain of Ghost Rider, court jester to Thanos in Infinity Gauntlet, a longtime early member in Dr. Doom's s--tlist, and an enemy of the Silver Surfer.

The situation that led to OMD is Civil War and the aftermath of that, as a direct result of Spider-Man joining the New Avengers and backing the wrong horse in the Civil War, and then being punished for his good deeds when he had issues with the whole N-Zone gulag.

OMD is very much a story that depends on the shared universe for its foundation and context. So the ability of Mr. Fantastic and others to not heal Aunt May's gunshot wound is a legitimate issue people can take with it. AND again, that broader shared universe becomes a problem when you think that Mephisto tried multiple times to corrupt and break Silver Surfer but failed, but succeeded with Spider-Man. Now that means Spider-Man is not as good a person as the Surfer, which okay is not a problem and the Surfer is supposed to be an angelic figure. But then it becomes an issue when you remember that the best story Mephisto has ever been in, Triumph and Torment, has Dr. Doom hoodwinking him into freeing the soul of his mother. By simply using Mephisto, they ended up diminishing Spider-Man morally below Dr. Doom.

Part of my disgust with OMD is the incompetent choice of Mephisto and the can of worms it opens. Because to the extent they have this retcon they want to force through and move past it right away...using Mephisto would ensure that nobody will ever move past it. They should have used a rando mutant with Scarlet Witch's reality warping powers (i.e. "No more mutants") have him/her be across the hall from where Aunt May is at the hospital, and this mutant kid who is dying and who tries to use his powers one final time to help Spider-Man, a hero he likes, and then he dies and the entire timeline is altered. That's it. The story is told, done, moved past. When MJ had the "death"/"kidnapped" story, the bad guy was random mutant. The reason is that the writers hated that plotline, and they wanted to move past it right away. Making the person behind that some serious bad guy or rogue would have ensured that never happened and as such it became easy to downplay and ignore the significant period in MJ's life when she was kidnapped/held hostage.

[Mister Mets]

Isn't that inherent when you bring Mephisto into Peter's corner? Mephisto and Spider-Man had next to no connection to each other and while JMS' run had flirted with magic it was done with care and subtlety, and it was definitely a branch separate from Marvel's mystical-cosmic side. Mephisto is a character who is a villain of Ghost Rider, court jester to Thanos in Infinity Gauntlet, a longtime early member in Dr. Doom's s--tlist, and an enemy of the Silver Surfer.

The situation that led to OMD is Civil War and the aftermath of that, as a direct result of Spider-Man joining the New Avengers and backing the wrong horse in the Civil War, and then being punished for his good deeds when he had issues with the whole N-Zone gulag.

OMD is very much a story that depends on the shared universe for its foundation and context. So the ability of Mr. Fantastic and others to not heal Aunt May's gunshot wound is a legitimate issue people can take with it. AND again, that broader shared universe becomes a problem when you think that Mephisto tried multiple times to corrupt and break Silver Surfer but failed, but succeeded with Spider-Man. Now that means Spider-Man is not as good a person as the Surfer, which okay is not a problem and the Surfer is supposed to be an angelic figure. But then it becomes an issue when you remember that the best story Mephisto has ever been in, Triumph and Torment, has Dr. Doom hoodwinking him into freeing the soul of his mother. By simply using Mephisto, they ended up diminishing Spider-Man morally below Dr. Doom.

Part of my disgust with OMD is the incompetent choice of Mephisto and the can of worms it opens. Because to the extent they have this retcon they want to force through and move past it right away...using Mephisto would ensure that nobody will ever move past it. They should have used a rando mutant with Scarlet Witch's reality warping powers (i.e. "No more mutants") have him/her be across the hall from where Aunt May is at the hospital, and this mutant kid who is dying and who tries to use his powers one final time to help Spider-Man, a hero he likes, and then he dies and the entire timeline is altered. That's it. The story is told, done, moved past. When MJ had the "death"/"kidnapped" story, the bad guy was random mutant. The reason is that the writers hated that plotline, and they wanted to move past it right away. Making the person behind that some serious bad guy or rogue would have ensured that never happened and as such it became easy to downplay and ignore the significant period in MJ's life when she was kidnapped/held hostage.

There are two problems with the idea that someone else should have been able to save Aunt May.

First, you should be able to articulate exactly how they can to do it, if your point is that this is a serious plot hole in the story.

There is also the problem of what it means for stories in which someone is sick if Reed Richards has much more advanced medical technology than the modern world, and is able to save anyone who is sick. Mephisto's promises come with a price, so it's not going to be an automatic fix in the future.

As for the comparison with Norrin Radd, the Silver Surfer's nobility is one of his defining features. He can be more noble than Peter Parker. I also wonder if he's been in a situation where someone else's life is at stake in a deal with Mephisto. He has been willing to do terrible things (IE- become Galactus's Herald) in order to save lives.

And Doom didn't defeat Mephisto by being moral. He won by being crafty.

[boots]

There is also the problem of what it means for stories in which someone is sick if Reed Richards has much more advanced medical technology than the modern world, and is able to save anyone who is sick.

see the authority vol 1

[Noronha]

Mister Negative,Carlie Cooper,Michele Gonzales,Norah Winters,Lily Holister,Screwball,Paper Doll to say a few.All great new characters.

LOL...who?

How many times (besides Mr. Negative who recently had a revival through the game) have they been used afterwards or by other writers besides Slott?
Heck even Teresa Parker who was written in a one off (a excellent one) was used again by Zdarsky

The only good thing about BND is that (thanks to Spencer) you can pretty much jump from the first issue to Spencer´s first issue and not miss a beat.