Superior Spider-Man #11

[Desmark]

Ah so superior Otto isn't his favorite character because he dared lay eyes on MJ.(I also don't much like the premise but it doesn't color my views to such a extent.) Explains much.

[Lukmendes]

I've got some therapy for that, if either of you are willing. (Seriously, no joke).

Like, ranting doesn't mean someone needs therapy, it just means they're passionate... Of course, if they take said passion too far, then yeah, maybe therapy, but all they do is rant, then whatever.

And I'm totaly not saying this because I sometimes make paragraphs of rants or anything like that, don't be silly

[WebSlingWonder]

Like, ranting doesn't mean someone needs therapy, it just means they're passionate... Of course, if they take said passion too far, then yeah, maybe therapy, but all they do is rant, then whatever.

And I'm totaly not saying this because I sometimes make paragraphs of rants or anything like that, don't be silly

Lol well Lukemendes, my therapy was more job-based than professional. :P but I admire the enthusiasm!

[Somecrazyaussie]

Jack, what is it about Otto being an anti-hero that gets you so heated? There's no reason to get this up in arms about it (remember what you and I talked about?)

Otto being an anti-hero isn't my preferred stance, of course. But I'd settle for a happy medium. Superior Octopus was calling himself Doctor Octopus in ASM #800, so I don't know why he didn't keep that going. I'm not really in favor of a full on return to classic Ock, because it's too far into his character change/development for that to be the case. But I would like him to be a villain again, albeit in a new and exciting way. Without his mental illness and radiation poisoning, he can have a new lease on life that leads to "altruistic villainy" or something.

I agree with this. I don't think we are going to get a straight up return to classic Ock. Especially if they remove the mental illness and radiation. Sure, he will still think highly of himself. Yes, he will likely do things that will be deemed "villainous." But I think he will be more morally grey.

I don't particularly like Otto (he is nowhere near my favourite.) But I AM intrigued with what they do with him moving forward.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

I think it's a bit of a stretch for Ock to be labeled a terrorist,

In the lead-up to George Stacy's death, Octopus hijacks an airplane with foreign dignitaries, and extorts the world. That's what terrorists did in the '70s (look up Carlos the Jackal), and then in The Owl/Octopus War he plans to detonate a neutron bomb to destroy the city to prove he's smarter than everyone. He has a similar plan in Michlenie's two-parter early in his run. And again in Paul Jenkins' run. And of course there's Ends of the Earth where he plans to blow up the world again.

In the PS4 game he unleashes a bioweapon in the middle of city targeting civilians. I don't know how you cannot call those actions terrorist.

I hope people realize there are other forms of terrorism than the ones in the news.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

Moving on slightly.

This talk of Slott's Superior and its sales and why it succeeded has a possible answer.

Gage's second volume of Superior has declined rapidly. In September, Superior Spider-Man #10 was the lowest ongoing selling Spider-Man title, ranking at #106 (https://www.comichron.com/monthlycom...9/2019-07.html) below Spider-Man City At War at #101. Spider-Man Life Story #6 which had evil Get Out Superior Spider-Man sold double that number being at #50.

Superior Spider-Man's sales have been in tailspin. Meanwhile Tom Taylor's Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man has remained consistently where it was, and sold well. Which is probably why Taylor's FNSM got an extension of an extra few issues while Superior was phased out. Originally both were slated to end at the same time with FNSM #11 supposedly the "Finale".

So what does this mean...well in a competitive marketplace between comics title with regular Spider-Man and satellites, both 616 and AU...Superior Spider-Man failed hard despite it having the same premise, cast, and one of the original co-writers of the first series (Gage who wrote the final issues of the original Superior run and a few fill-ins before that).

So that suggests that Superior Spider-Man by itself isn't an idea that sells by itself. That the reasons for its success was the gimmick and that Peter was removed from the shelves.

[SuperiorIronman]

Superior Spider-man originally sold hard for a number of reasons but most obviously was that it was the main book. Comic readers are fickle but they are also very simple minded customers. If something is new, they tend to pick it up.
It was also at a point the only other Spider-man franchise active that has anything going on in the mainline. Sure Venom and Scarlet Spider ran for a time but those are not Spider-man books. Anyone wanting to read Spider-man had to go to Doctor Octopus. And in this current age you have multiple Peter books out with a completely opposite direction to what Slott was doing. So anybody who just wants to read Spider-man had a wide range to look at and of course isn't going to go for a spin-off. It also doesn't help Superior is a monthly title which makes it easy to overlook if you don't happen to be at the shop during release week.

There was also a push for the character using Dan Slott's own hate-mail against the audience which was done to make Superior Spider-man look better than it actually was and be the "hip new thing" to check out because...., we never got a reason. The prevailing answer was that it was good and that nobody was giving it a chance and that we had been a bunch of grumpy man children. Which in some respects was true, but it was kind of hard to lack Otto seeing as he had more than his fair share of crossovers and guest appearances so you couldn't ignore him. Of course he sells when he is in almost everything. It also didn't help that Dan was also telling people that this was the status-quo which fuels the fire. It was also good in a few areas. While it was guilty of spinning its wheels there are some moments of brilliance on the book and Otto could become a great take on Spider-man, but there was just everything else wrong with it and the kind of push it was getting. It was a fine book but everyone from the audience to Dan himself was being a dick about it which made the faults of the book look even worse. Superior Spider-man is a victim of its own advertisement.

So in a heavily crowded market that is a little more far removed and in hindsight of the market it debuted in..., of course it ships once a month and has **** all to do with the main book which makes it easy to overlook. Amazing Spider-man (the main title) would be the one doing the most relevant content and have a bunch of crossovers and guest appearances which distracts from the spin-offs. Superior in this day is ironically a victim of it's own kind of marketing push.

[jetengine]

Whats frustrating is that its dirt simple to have both Superior and Classic ock exist simultaneously. Ocks brainwaves were double backed up and a cloning facility he salvaged from Jackal will automatically create a body and download it if Ock doesn't hit a switch in X number of days.

Then you get your Ock vs Ock book.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

of course it ships once a month...

As does FNSM, as does Life Story (which is a mini), as does City at War, as does Immortal Hulk and others which are way higher on the list.

Otherwise I do agree with your post, and kudos.

[Ultimate Captain America]

1. Why bother with the mask? Superior Spider-Man's identity has already been outed the previous issue.
2. In the previous issue, the roof had collapsed over Anna. SMM said "she needs a doctor, badly". Now she's fine.
3. Osborn blows up the building and then leaves to have fun elsewhere, allowing the EMS and firefighters to do their job.
4. Also, they all survive this.
5. No.
6. Anna will go to the hospital and keep an eye on Max and Emma. What about all the other people in the building?
7. If this Norman Osborn has Spider-Man powers, including webs, why does he bother with the flying machine?
8. Instead of hiding and calling someone for help (the police, the Avengers, Gwenpool, anyone), James' aunt resorts to the Prometheus school of running away from things.
9. The events of the first Superior Spider-Man comic took place way before the sequel to Spider-Verse (whose name I refuse to say aloud). How dod Norman watch them? Interdimensional travel and time travel are different things.
10. Thinking that he won the fight, Norman leaves Superior Spider-Man behind and tries to grab James. There are several things he could have tried, taking advantage of his distraction. Instead, he just begs.
11. Also, he expected begging to work.
12. "Or I can snap his neck here and now". No, with a single hand you can't.
13. Superior Spider-Man was under care at the hospital, with the mask on. That can't be of any help. And don't give me any secret identity crap, because it has already been outed.
14. Superior Spider-Man refuses the help of Spider-Man and the Avengers. "...and even should they arrive in time, the moment Osborn sees them he'll kill the boy. No". What about the Fantastic Four? Norman would never see the Invisible Woman coming. What about the X-Men? Nightcrawler can teleport next to them, get the kid and teleport away before Norman can react. What about the Champions? Viv can do the Vision's trick of showing up from the floor, behind the villain.
15. "The hero unmasks himself to say something dramatic" cliche.
16. Yes, Norman may be stronger and ruthless, but what about SSM' superior intellect that he always boasted about? Making a working strategy for a hostage situation should be a child's play for the man that defeated all alone an herald of Galactus.
17. Joe freakin' Quesada is back. Or was it Mephisto? Sometimes I confuse them.
18. Also, Mephisto is no longer the lord of hell. That's Johnny Blaze now. With whose's authority does he go around making deals?
19. Also, I know that it's his usual design, but the prince of darkness really needs some pants. And to eat better, he's almost skin and bones.
20. Mephisto can't help against Norman because he's from a parallel world, and he may piss off the parallel Mephisto. But this Norman already left his world to mess with the 616 one, so the jurisdiction card no longer applies.
21. Also, Mephisto made a deal with Miles Morales. Doesn't he fear the wrath of Ultimate Mephisto?
22. Also, infinite alternate Mephistos. Let's hope nobody opens that can of worms.
23. A deal with Mephisto asking him... to be more ruthless? Really? Is that the reason for this? He does not need any deal, he simply has to do the things he thinks he must do but in normal circumstances wouldn't. No need to jump from a metaphorical deal with the devil to an actual one.
24. Get rid of the memories of Peter Parker, and have just those of Otto Octavius? Again, he does not need any deal with the devil for that. Ask Charles Xavier for help. Or Jean Grey. Or Cassandra Nova.
25. Of course, the Devil does not need to renege his deals. That's what the clauses in the fine print are for.
26. "Your are hardly the only one desiring my attention" Makes you wonder who's next in line...
27. Does it have to be the old Octopus body? Ruthless or not, he had agility, super reflexes, super strength and the whole Spider combo. And he can wear the mechanical arms as well if so desired, as he already did. Why change that for an old and fat body whose only power are the mechanical arms?

COMIC BOOK SIN TALLY: 27
SENTENCE: TRAPPED IN A GYM

[Desmark]

26th point isn't a sin.

[Inversed]

Moving on slightly.

This talk of Slott's Superior and its sales and why it succeeded has a possible answer.

Gage's second volume of Superior has declined rapidly. In September, Superior Spider-Man #10 was the lowest ongoing selling Spider-Man title, ranking at #106 (https://www.comichron.com/monthlycom...9/2019-07.html) below Spider-Man City At War at #101. Spider-Man Life Story #6 which had evil Get Out Superior Spider-Man sold double that number being at #50.

Superior Spider-Man's sales have been in tailspin. Meanwhile Tom Taylor's Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man has remained consistently where it was, and sold well. Which is probably why Taylor's FNSM got an extension of an extra few issues while Superior was phased out. Originally both were slated to end at the same time with FNSM #11 supposedly the "Finale".

So what does this mean...well in a competitive marketplace between comics title with regular Spider-Man and satellites, both 616 and AU...Superior Spider-Man failed hard despite it having the same premise, cast, and one of the original co-writers of the first series (Gage who wrote the final issues of the original Superior run and a few fill-ins before that).

So that suggests that Superior Spider-Man by itself isn't an idea that sells by itself. That the reasons for its success was the gimmick and that Peter was removed from the shelves.

Are you seriously saying that Superior didn't actually succeed on its own merit yet Life Story succeeded because it had an evil Ock for a few pages? Really?

[The Negative Zone]

I think there's room for classic and superior Ock. Along with new and more developed takes of classic Ock.

But hey just throwing this out there nobody would really wanna read a comic about classic Ock.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

Are you seriously saying that Superior didn't actually succeed on its own merit yet Life Story succeeded because it had an evil Ock for a few pages? Really?

Just pointing out a head-to-head comparison, in a month where Superior Octopus was on the stands in two different versions, there was a clear winner and it was Life Story #6 which essentially condemns the idea of Otto being redemptive especially given the means used for that.

My overall point is that
-- Superior Spider-Man by Gage is low-selling, which is true. It's in tailspin.
-- It's low-selling in comparison to every Spider-Man title and AU on the market. That's also true.

From there I interpret that this proves that Superior Spider-Man as a concept isn't viable or popular once you remove the strings that held it. That suggests that the overall presentation, gimmick, and marketing played a major part in its initial success. I hope that's a valid view. I think a 616 title with Spider-Man in the name selling lower than a video-game adaptation (City at War) would be evidence of failure.

I honestly don't know if succeeding on merit means much where Spider-Man is concerned. This has always been Marvel's most consistent title and top-selling one. It's more impressive when Al Ewing comes out of nowhere with Immortal Hulk and hits everyone with the chair to become the benchmark of the business, toppling friggin' Batman. That's merit right there. A little known new writer taking a character who while big hadn't been relevant since Planet Hulk and World War Hulk, and then took the title in a new direction and suddenly became the topic of conversation. That's more impressive than even Hickman's HOX/POX which while great and all is essentially marketed as "Guys, we're putting the band back together, for realsies. First big tour since Morrison/Whedon/Ellis".

Having said all this, just because a title or concept is promoted heavily or marketed or so does well, that doesn't mean that it's success is solely or entirely because of that. I said before that a lot of people who bought Superior liked it and kept reading it. That's true. So yeah there was some merit to Superior's success, but that wasn't by any means the sole or main reason for it.

But hey just throwing this out there nobody would really wanna read a comic about classic Ock.

The last time we had classic Ock was the JMS/Jenkins era. Before, Otto was made sympathetic by Defalco and then got killed during the 90s Clone Saga and got resurrected and underused. Then Slott came in and defaced Otto making him look like a living corpse...destroying both the classic look and the movie-influenced Matrix-trenchcoat look he had in JMS.

So the truth is we can't say if audiences will dislike classic Ock regularly or not because that version has been underused in the second 30 years of Spider-Man. Michelinie-Erik Larsen's Return of the Sinister Six was a huge success after all, as was Jenkins-JMS so it's not like the marketplace voted him out.

[CentralPower]

The analogy you're trying to make is idiotic. Films don't "outstay their welcome." Comics storylines that take place over many months can.

A franchise of movies (such as the Bay "Transformers" series) can outlast its welcome (as evidenced by declining ticket sales for the 4th and 5th movies).

Hypothetically, you can value individual comics or storylines, even if they are later forgotten or retconned or whatever.

For whatever reason, a surprisingly high number of comic fans are incapable of doing this. If an issue or run does not weave in to a gigantic OCD tapestry, they cannot handle it.

But Hickman's run featured the noble and tragic Doom, as did Bendis' Infamous Iron Man. The dominant version of Doom is the noble anti-villain who believes it's his duty to rule the world but also accepts that with that entitlement comes the duty to save the world when needed. That's the Doom of Secret Wars '84, in which he became the protagonist of the first and greatest Marvel event.

I would argue that Hickman's Doom is firmly in the reprehensible column. But, I see your over-all point.

Waid's "Unthinkable" pushed too far in the reprehensible direction if somebody wants a redeemable Doom. Waid's Doom is a monster.

Slott's and Gage's Otto has a more believable redemption arc than Doom ever did. Have you ever been or seen a hooligan trying to go legit? Otto's stumbles and fumbles are consistent with that (allowing for the larger scale of comics). Slott gave Otto depth. (And, anything is better than Silver Age cliche. I would rather watch a snuff film starring someone I cared about than read a Silver Age comic.)

Doom and Magneto being victims of oppression were retcons introduced decades after their debut. If you're going to dismiss Otto's redeeming features because they didn't originally exist, then the same applies to Doom and Magneto. The only difference between those two and Otto is Otto's redeeming qualities and tragedies were written later.

I mostly agree.

The other big difference between Otto and the others is that Otto's change was written after stasis-quo had been established.

Earlier in this thread, I argued that when Marvel started to embrace stasis-quo (the point to which all things return, if they change at all), Doom and Magneto were "established" as half-way to redemption. Enough fans had accepted it as the way things were. Otto's change is too new, and is a deviation from standard at a time when change is less accepted.

Yes, and he unleashes a bioweapon on a civilian population and kills hundreds of people including Aunt May. By the end of the game, Otto becomes a monster and Peter accepts that there was never any good in him.

"Never any good" or "no coming back"? There is a difference.

Again, Doom and Magneto have done worse.

Magneto? When? (I honestly do not recall.) Doom, oh, yeah.

My reasons are several. Stuff I haven't gotten into before but why not? To me Superior Spider-Man's entire premise is emblematic of toxic masculinity. And the entire notion that such toxic attitudes are worthy of redemption, even as a straight premise, is beyond disgusting.

The question of Otto deserving another shot was a consistent theme in Sott's work. And, even if you disagree with how Slott handled the question, he addressed it.

I would agree that a monster the scale of Otto would not deserve the chance of redemption, even if they might be capable of it.

Then it repeated that with Anna Maria apparently still in love with otto at the end. And the final issue with the comic saying he did it out of love complete with unworthy and unmerited swipe from ASM #50 was just as bad. If Superior Spider-Man came out in 2016 around the time of Me Too, it would not have been well-received.

You are right about the timing relative to "me too". But, that was not the point of the damned run.

People who tried to spin Otto and Maria as rape are looking for something to be offended by. (For the purpose of this, I am going to use generally understood definitions of crime.)

When Otto met Maria, he had murdered and usurped the identity of another man. (Crimes: identity theft and murder, probably some wire fraud relating to the identity theft.)

Otto was using Peter's name, identity, mailing address and toothbrush. He was also investing time in building what was essentially his life (however he claimed that life to begin with).

There was no indication that Maria had ever met Otto or Peter, meaning that she would have no expectations of Peter. And, Otto was essentially Peter at that point. He lied to her by omission. But, his affection for her was sincere, as were related affirmative statements.

And, it needs to be restated: rape was not the point of Slott's run.

I just want him to go back to robbing banks and blowing stuff up. Why is that too much to ask for?

Because the Silver Age ended ~35 years ago.