The current status of the Spider-Man rogues gallery

[Snoop Dogg]

Frank's existence is an in-universe contrivance where if heroes go after him, they can't succeed because the MU is better when he exists as a force of nature. I like to imagine he's just a pain in the ass to track and capture.

[boots]

Frank's existence is an in-universe contrivance where if heroes go after him, they can't succeed because the MU is better when he exists as a force of nature. I like to imagine he's just a pain in the ass to track and capture.

what i was trying to say, but betterer put

[PCN24454]

Frank's existence is an in-universe contrivance where if heroes go after him, they can't succeed because the MU is better when he exists as a force of nature. I like to imagine he's just a pain in the ass to track and capture.

The problem with comics with floating timelines in general

[Tendrin]

i'm not sure what's hyprocritical about it, but i can't speak for the other guys commenting. my only exposure to SpOck was in spider-verse, but on the whole, i have nothing against marvel experimenting with a 60 year old character. it's clear there's been at least some success there.

Yeah, I'm a bit confused as the source of the hypocrisy. Otto's murders of Massacre and Spider-Slayer were illustrations of two different aspects in which he differed from (and was worse than) Peter Parker. While it's useful to compare it to Kraven's Last Hunt, since both involved villains trying to prove themselves superior to the title hero by taking his job, both were very different explorations of Peter Parker. KLH is a great read but it didn't spend thirty issues to explore Peter Parker's morality through the skewed lens of Kraven.

In Otto's case, his execution of Massacre was a take on the 'Why doesn't Batman just kill the Joker?' question. Peter Parker, being Peter Parker, captured an unrepentant mass killer and when he inevitably escaped, as comic book villains do, to kill again, Otto put him down while declaring that men like Massacre are incapable of change. This was to highlight the hypocracy of Otto Octavius saying it, of all people, given the changes he himself had already gone through and to also highlight a major difference between Peter Parker and Otto Octavius' Spider-Men, where the latter was certain and the former relied on empathy and doubt in his own righteousness, alongside a belief that people /can/ change.

No Escape, on the other hand, saw Otto murder the Spider-Slayer in a series of escalating, pressure-cooker gambits that left no alternatives open to either of them. This laid the groundwork for the eventual deconstruction of the Superior Spider-Man in later issues and, while it's a lot of fun to read the mad-scientist duel, illustrated his inability to deescalate any sort of situation before it blew up in his face.

The third situation in which Otto was shown to kill was in his attack on the Shadowland, which was the most 'Punisher' he ever got, honestly was more about the 'reactive' versus 'proactive' nature of Superhero comics, and showed the ultimate flaws in such an approach since the instability created by Otto's attack on the Shadowlands allowed the goblin king to capitalize.

All of this leads me to say that calling Otto 'essentially the Punisher in a spider-suit' is a bit misleading and a shallow caricaturization of the actual events. Otto was willing to kill, but it was not his habit as the Superior Spider-Man, nor his chief weapon.

[Frontier]

I sometimes forget about the people SpOck killed in Peter's body. Oh, and Master Weaver too...

Man, Peter almost has a Saint-like level of forgiveness.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

KLH is a great read but it didn't spend thirty issues to explore Peter Parker's morality through the skewed lens of Kraven.

Because JMD didn't need 30 issues you see, since the moral principles and core concept of KLH is totally clear and precise with him, namely Kraven isn't actually superior.

The reason Dan Slott spent so many issues with Ock in Spider-Man is that he didn't actually believe in the moral idea he was putting out. The story as executed does show Dr. Octopus as a better and capable Spider-Man. The denouement with the return of Peter is so hasty, so perfunctory, and mostly written by Christos Gage i.e. Slott didn't write Peter on his return at the end of his story. He originally wanted to stretch it out even further but the second Garfield Spidey movie stopped that.

In Otto's case, his execution of Massacre was a take on the 'Why doesn't Batman just kill the Joker?' question. Peter Parker, being Peter Parker, captured an unrepentant mass killer and when he inevitably escaped, as comic book villains do, to kill again, Otto put him down while declaring that men like Massacre are incapable of change. This was to highlight the hypocracy of Otto Octavius saying it, of all people, given the changes he himself had already gone through and to also highlight a major difference between Peter Parker and Otto Octavius' Spider-Men, where the latter was certain and the former relied on empathy and doubt in his own righteousness, alongside a belief that people /can/ change.

Point is this is identical to when The Punisher does it i.e. kill villains because they'll only break , and in his case there's a bigger moral challenge because the Punisher isn't a hypocrite. He doesn't kill innocent people so he has a better footing to challenge the heroes on their turf.

I sometimes forget about the people SpOck killed in Peter's body. Oh, and Master Weaver too...

Man, Peter almost has a Saint-like level of forgiveness.

Not Peter. The writers. Mostly because Spider-Man writers and adapters have a bone-dead idea of the concept of redemption. Which has issues because it colors how they write the stories and characters, and also how they use it as a hook to get people to buy into the hype. In general, the concept of redemption in superhero stories, and Spider-Man stories in particualr, is so superficial, so gimmicky, and so fake, that all you do is throw that word around and people get behind that.

Superior Spider-Man isn't really a story about redemption. Take Bendis' Infamous Iron Man where Dr. Doom tries to redeem himself and Victor faces consequences at every step for the man he used to be because the past isn't simply undone when you decide to turn a new leaf. That becomes a genuine story about redemption because the story is about Doom trying to be an Iron Man legacy while other characters comment on this, and we see Victor struggle with that. Victor has him make a legit attempt at becoming the good person he was when he was a child and explore that.

In the case of Superior Spider-Man we don't see Dr. Octopus publicly admit his crimes and attempt to reform and honor Spider-Man, which is what the story would require if it wants to be. What we see is a guy hijacking the life of a younger guy which he finds enviable, try and exploit that out of his own vanity, and use Peter's identity for false pretenses, personal profit, and glory-seeking. That's not a story of redemption, that's a story of identity theft sold as redemption because of Slott's Snyder-esque grasp of morality.

[Zeitgeist]

And I find this whole attempt to sort out Otto and Frank hypocritical since Otto in his time as Superior actually did murder villains. He was basically the Punisher in a Spider-Suit, as was Kraven.

Not hypocritical at all, personally that was exactly my point regarding anti-heroes.

There seems to be an inconsistency here on your side though: you said earlier in the thread that Punisher is morally above Otto (see below), and yet now you're saying Otto as Superior is equivalent to a Spiderized Punisher.

The same applies to Wolverine but at the end of the day both Punisher and Wolverine are morally above scum like Otto and preferable to him.

Unless you're viewing Superior divorced from Otto as a whole?

[Ursalink]

Norman Osborn/Green Goblin is Spider-Man's archnemesis, but Morlun should be considered the worst of them all. Problem is, Morlun is too powerful to use him regularly.

[Tendrin]

Not Peter. The writers. Mostly because Spider-Man writers and adapters have a bone-dead idea of the concept of redemption. Which has issues because it colors how they write the stories and characters, and also how they use it as a hook to get people to buy into the hype. In general, the concept of redemption in superhero stories, and Spider-Man stories in particualr, is so superficial, so gimmicky, and so fake, that all you do is throw that word around and people get behind that.

Superior Spider-Man isn't really a story about redemption. Take Bendis' Infamous Iron Man where Dr. Doom tries to redeem himself and Victor faces consequences at every step for the man he used to be because the past isn't simply undone when you decide to turn a new leaf. That becomes a genuine story about redemption because the story is about Doom trying to be an Iron Man legacy while other characters comment on this, and we see Victor struggle with that. Victor has him make a legit attempt at becoming the good person he was when he was a child and explore that.

In the case of Superior Spider-Man we don't see Dr. Octopus publicly admit his crimes and attempt to reform and honor Spider-Man, which is what the story would require if it wants to be. What we see is a guy hijacking the life of a younger guy which he finds enviable, try and exploit that out of his own vanity, and use Peter's identity for false pretenses, personal profit, and glory-seeking. That's not a story of redemption, that's a story of identity theft sold as redemption because of Slott's Snyder-esque grasp of morality.

Imagine having such a skewed view of an author and his morality that you manage to miss that the story essentially agrees with you.

[boots]

i’m unsure how much causality there is between grasp of morality and page count

if anything the duration of superior appears to have more in common with the precedent set by things like AoA and reign of the supermen

[Tendrin]

i’m unsure how much causality there is between grasp of morality and page count

if anything the duration of superior appears to have more in common with the precedent set by things like AoA and reign of the supermen

I find comparing KLH and SSM to be somewhat weird to begin with.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

Not hypocritical at all, personally that was exactly my point regarding anti-heroes.

There seems to be an inconsistency here on your side though: you said earlier in the thread that Punisher is morally above Otto (see below), and yet now you're saying Otto as Superior is equivalent to a Spiderized Punisher.

I was responding to comments made by fans to defend Superior Otto being better than the Punisher by pointing out that Otto killed people. It's hypocritical of them to make an issue of Frank killing villains while praising Otto.

The Punisher since he doesn't kill civilians and all presents a much stronger ethical challenge. The easiest thing in a story with a no-kill hero is to make the vigilantes who kill into corrupt or insane people. That usually happens in Batman stories. With the Punisher you don't get that so the moral issue remains unresolved and in fact it just makes no-kill heroes decision to use non-lethal means all the more selfless since they have an example of a guy who shows that you can do it and not go insane. Here it's simply a case that "I don't want to do it and I don't like the person it could make myself become".

Unless you're viewing Superior divorced from Otto as a whole?

Superior is a story about a creepy older guy vampirically stealing the life of a younger man and using that body to date girls who wouldn't have come close to him. It also followed a story where Dr. Octopus tried to destroy the planet in Ends of the Earth. There's also the fact that in Dying Wish, Otto's decision to live by Power and Responsibility happened because Peter forced him to have his memories and thoughts in his last moments so it's even debatable if Otto's turn comes from a place of free will. That's maybe a backdoor that Slott kept in to bring classic Ock back. In the same way Magneto lapsed out of his face turn during Claremont's run by having people go that someone altered his memories to make him less of a jerk.

Literally the only earnest, redemptive moment Otto Octavius receives in the Superior Spider-Man is when he kills himself.

1) Too little too late after 20+ issues where Otto got to have his cake and eat it too. So it didn't land or feel earned in any way.

2) Likewise, it's again a copy of Kraven's Last Hunt where Kraven's only redemptive moment is his suicide. Only there the writer executed it clearly and much better.

3) Much of this is negated when you have Otto return again and lapse back into becoming a hero and now get a second series ongoing with the Superior Spider-Man. That means that the entire moral message of that story was executed poorly. You can't do a story about a villain hijacking a hero's body and set out to prove himself the superior, only for the final lame issues to go back to status-quo and then that story returns with...the villain basically being accepted as a legacy character.

I think for a guy who claims to have a clear grasp of Dan Slott's morality,

I never said that, I merely said that the moral message in the story at hand is poorly executed, hollow and insincere. It's not saying anything. It doesn't mean anything.

Slott was, IMO, /very aware/ of the stuff you wrote here and pretty much agrees with you.

I don't think it's actually necessary for an author to be aware of stuff. You know the phrase about Milton's Paradise Lost, "Milton was of the devil's party but didn't know it". It's possible for writers to unconsciously and unintentionally, in the course of writing, to execute their ideas so that the moral message and concept they had going in doesn't work. And in the case of Paradise Lost, it produced a great literary work. It's possible to defend Superior Spider-Ock by pointing out that the comic actually does argue that Otto is better than Peter and he can live his life better than Peter, and to a big extent, Superior Spider-Man is a parody of Peter Parker and his life. It doesn't read too different from Peter Bagge's non-canon The Megalomaniacal Spider-Man.

Slott as even his admirers point out has a tendency to write good concepts but falter in execution before moving on further. It's also a fact as Slott said that his original plans had it go on longer, that the Garfield Spider-Man movie forced Peter back into the titles before he was intended to. Slott also wanted to do Spider-Verse with Otto but everyone at Marvel told him that an event like that absolutely had Peter. So it's dubious that Superior Spider-Man actually ended the way Slott intended to start with. That's another reason why it's such a poor story, especially next to KLH which is compact in 6 issues. It's also another reason why it won't be adapted on the big screen because again it's got nothing other than a hook and gimmick.

[Tendrin]

Remind me of the part where Kraven killed himself because of love. Oh, wait. He didfn't. You can't argue that two things that aren't the same are while ignoring the actual story logic behind them when its convenient. Kraven only killed himself because he won. Otto ended his existence because he lost, and wanted to do the one thing he thought he could to save the only thing he actually cared about: his love for Anna Maria Marconi. This is like arguing that every story where Spider-Man beats a villain by punching him is the same because it involves punching.

A lot of RJ's post is a lot of text trying to declare that Dan Slott couldn't possibly mean what he wrote and that the fact it happens to agree with him is pure coincidence and accident! Occam's razor says otherwise. Either dan slott accidentally wrote a story that contains all the beats of agreeing with Revolutionary Jack's points about why Otto doesn't deserve redemption or he was astutely aware of what he was doing the entire time. I think the latter is... pretty likely, given everything he did with Otto before and after.

As for 'hollow and unearned', man... You either believe Otto loved Anna or you don't. It was one of the only things shown to be genuine in the series. Otto /did/ care about her, and Anna literally calls him a middle aged creeper later on. :P

[Revolutionary_Jack]

Remind me of the part where Kraven killed himself because of love.

You say love. I say it's a dude in denial of the coercive nature of a relationship he started under false pretenses. Peter Parker acted out of love when after realizing he can't get his body back in Dying Wish, he forces his conscience on to Otto in a last-ditch attempt to stop him from abusing his loved ones. He acted selflessly there, far more than trash like Otto can ever fathom.

You can't argue that two things that aren't the same are while ignoring the actual story logic behind them when its convenient.

Kraven's Last Hunt is an obvious influence on Superior. Slott said numerous times that it's one of his favorite stories. Kraven himself says in that story he will prove himself Spider-Man's Superior. The gimmick of removing Peter out of all Spider-Man titles was done for the first time there where for over a month across all three Spider-Man titles you had no Peter and only Kraven. There it was a month, here it's a year.

Numerous people have pointed out KLH's influence and similarity to Superior so it's definitely an obvious point of comparison and reference.

And again between a sleek 6-issue story with a clear beginning-middle-end, all written by one guy, and a meandering 30+ issue series whose finale was co-written by another author, it's clear that the former is the more solid story and has a better structure.

[Tendrin]

You say love. I say it's a dude in denial of the coercive nature of a relationship he started under false pretenses. Peter Parker acted out of love when after realizing he can't get his body back in Dying Wish, he forces his conscience on to Otto in a last-ditch attempt to stop him from abusing his loved ones. He acted selflessly there, far more than trash like Otto can ever fathom.

You seem to think that Dan Slott isn't aware that Otto is still a terrible person. I say he never once forgot that, given that this was followed by Otto obsessively stalking Anna Maria and this being pointed out frequently. Slott never lost track of who Otto was. Does that mean he didn't act out of love towards her when he deleted himself? He obviously did. Both these thingse can be true.

Kraven's Last Hunt is an obvious influence on Superior. Slott said numerous times that it's one of his favorite stories. Kraven himself says in that story he will prove himself Spider-Man's Superior. The gimmick of removing Peter out of all Spider-Man titles was done for the first time there where for over a month across all three Spider-Man titles you had no Peter and only Kraven. There it was a month, here it's a year.

There's some pretty major differences here and the questions the stories ask you to think about ther answers for are markedly different.

Numerous people have pointed out KLH's influence and similarity to Superior so it's definitely an obvious point of comparison and reference.

It's also a fairly shallow take on both tales.

And again between a sleek 6-issue story with a clear beginning-middle-end, all written by one guy, and a meandering 30+ issue series whose finale was co-written by another author, it's clear that the former is the more solid story and has a better structure.

KLH belongs in the all time classics list but I think you're just using it in an effort to diminish SSM. And using him having a collaborator as a way to knock it is silly.