Superior Spider-Man #12

[Tendrin]

Clayface is considered an iconic villain?

Three words: Feat of Clay.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

Clayface is considered an iconic villain?

Alan Moore, Bruce Timm, and the developers of Batman Arkham City certainly think so.

[ngroove]

Alan Moore, Bruce Timm, and the developers of Batman Arkham City certainly think so.

No, "Iconic" cannot be thrown around like candy.

He is a "classic" villain, not "iconic" villain.

Only villains of Batman's that iconic, is Joker, Penguin, Catwoman, and Riddler.

Just as Spider-Man only has two iconic foes himself: Green Goblin and Doctor Octopus.

[Mister Mets]

No, "Iconic" cannot be thrown around like candy.

He is a "classic" villain, not "iconic" villain.

Only villains of Batman's that iconic, is Joker, Penguin, Catwoman, and Riddler.

Just as Spider-Man only has two iconic foes himself: Green Goblin and Doctor Octopus.

Venom's gotta be iconic at this point.

There's an argument that these guys are iconic for appearances outside of the Spider-Man comics, but Punisher and Kingpin would be too.

On the Batman front, Two-Face and Harley Quinn are iconic.

[boots]

who or what is clayface

[Jman27]

Venom's gotta be iconic at this point.

There's an argument that these guys are iconic for appearances outside of the Spider-Man comics, but Punisher and Kingpin would be too.

On the Batman front, Two-Face and Harley Quinn are iconic.

I don't consider Punisher and kingpin Spiderman characters anymore seeming as they both move on from him. I feel as if Venom too is about to move on from being a classic Spiderman villian as well but more slowly. So yeah despite the the huge amount of villains Peter had the only ones who mess him up the most is goblin and octopus

[Revolutionary_Jack]

He is a "classic" villain, not "iconic" villain.

Such semantic issues are beside the point. The post in question was clearly dismissive in tone to Clayface as a character. Ask any Batman fan and they will agree that Clayface is one of Batman's major villains. That's what "iconic" means in this context.

Only villains of Batman's that iconic, is Joker, Penguin, Catwoman, and Riddler.

The truth is that Batman's Rogues Gallery is the most iconic in comics and mass culture. Mister Freeze is an iconic villain thanks to the TV Show of the 60s, and the Animated cartoon of the 90s, as well as, for better and worse, the Schwarzenegger movie. Bane is an iconic villain thanks to Tom Hardy's performance and the promotion of TDKR which built him up as dude in jacket, face mask, and weird voice. Thanks to the Arkham Games, Cillian Murphy and Batman Animated Series, Scarecrow is also an iconic villain. Oh and Two-Face is also a major top-tier villain, as is Ra's Al Ghul.

Batman's rogues have a density that no other rogues gallery in comics comes close to, and not Spider-Man.

Just as Spider-Man only has two iconic foes himself: Green Goblin and Doctor Octopus.

And Venom and Carnage. The Sinister Six is iconic, as is Rhino and Electro. Thanks to the MCU, Vulture is an iconic villain, as is Mysterio.

Until the Raimi trilogy, most of Spider-Man's rogues were obscure. The truth is that no Spider-Man adaptation before that point really crossed over the way the Adam West show, Bruce Timm's Batman cartoons or even Superfriends did. DC's stuff was more well known to non-comics fans than Marvel's stuff. Raimi's Trilogy was the first time Spider-Man crossed over, and that elevated and introduced rogues to a new audience. As someone who had no exposure to 616 (the only Spider-Man I knew was Stan Lee's newspaper strip) I will say that Doctor Octopus was maybe the only rogue people knew by name (mostly because it's a catchy moniker rather than stuff about his character), but nobody knew who Green Goblin was until Willem Dafoe (and after him nobody forgot Goblin). Nobody heard of Gwen Stacy.

Now the situation has changed. People do know stuff about Spider-Man. I mean thanks to Into the Spider-Verse, Aaron Davis Prowler is now an iconic villain.

[Jman27]

So to break it down any villian that is adaptated to media is iconic now

[ngroove]

So to break it down any villian that is adaptated to media is iconic now

Due to the fact Brainiac has yet to appear in a Superman movie proper, many people have yet to know who Brainiac is, despite being one of Superman's two top villains.

But No, I would not consider, for instance, Batman & Robin, giving Mister Freeze or Poison Ivy much positive favors either.

Iconic Spidey foes, to me, still stands to me at least, as Green Goblin and Doctor Octopus, helped largely thanks to the Sam Raimi movies. Before the movies, most people, who does not read comics or watches cartoons, knew Spider-Man, as only Spider-Man.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

So to break it down any villian that is adaptated to media is iconic now

Appear in media that has crossover success, some amount of cultural impact, fame and so on. Not a hard and fast one size fits all rule. Clayface appeared prominently in the Arkham games and the animated series which had big crossover success with people outside the demographic. That’s not true of the Fox Spider-Man which wasn’t as big as the Timm cartoons.

Brainiac is an iconic villain by virtue of the fact that the word brainiac has entered the dictionary as a synonym for genius. That’s how big an impact he had in the silver age.

[Obsidian Spider]

I know the idea of villains trying on hero hats is not unique to Otto but there definitely was something different about this case. First and foremost how long it lasted. They went to such great lengths to keep the Superior him going in one way or another for years. In Peter, in that Robot, in a Spiderbot during Spiderverse, back to his cloned original body and then the proto-peter-otto-combo Clone in Dead No More, to having backup Clone bodies in Superior Octopus (God, I love comics...). He’d made such strides and it still felt fresh and interesting and then it was just suddenly over.
Let’s face it, friends, this IS comics so we know that SpOck’s mind is still backed up somewhere and will come back to take on current Ock. It’s just a matter of time.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

I know the idea of villains trying on hero hats is not unique to Otto but there definitely was something different about this case.

"A difference in degree" is not the same or equivalent to "A difference in kind".

In a large measure Superior Spider-Man is basically Kraven's Last Hunt done as an ongoing. Kraven even calls himself "superior" in that story. The entire attempt to clear Peter off the books was also done then. Editor Jim Salicrup mandated that the story run across every Spider-Man title (Amazing, Spectacular, Web of) so that readers would feel the full impact of Kraven killing Peter in Issue #1.

Kraven's Last Hunt was a sleek six issues with a perfect-beginning-middle-end, actual story consequences that lingered for a long time and continues to do so, and which ultimately elevated Kraven by making him star in maybe the best Marvel story ever centered on a villain, certainly the best Spider-Man story centering on a villain. Superior is a mess of a story that lasted an interminable long time and which ended abruptly and anti-climactically in both Vol. 1 and Vol. 2.

First and foremost how long it lasted.

It lasted as long as Dan Slott and Slott's comrade Gage was around and willing to work with it.

He’d made such strides and it still felt fresh and interesting and then it was just suddenly over.

Or you could see it as an attempt at spinning the wheels right from the start. The story of Superior is Otto taking over Peter's life and being forced by Peter to accept the mantle. Now there's basically two paths that story can go...either Otto lives up to Peter's example and takes his place successfully, maybe with the blessing of Peter's "ghost" (which repeats the plot of the 1943 Spencer Tracy movie A Guy Named Joe where Spencer Tracy is a hotshot pilot who dies and then as a spirit must help another guy who turns out to be the rebound for his girlfriend and helps him take his place).

That obviously cannot happen since Otto cannot replace Peter. So you need to do a story where Otto fails and ultimately bows down to Peter and he comes back. So all Slott was doing from Issue #1 of Superior was spinning the wheels, teasing and disrupting stuff but never to a real extent.
-- Otto can mess up Peter's life...but only for a little while, eventually Peter's life will go to a status-quo where Superior Ock might not have occurred as in Spencer's current run.
-- Otto can never attain the level of catharsis and tragic destiny that Kraven did in KLH so eventually in the end he ends up right back where he started.

The truth is that if you think Superior ended abruptly and disappointingly, the fault with that lies in the very premise itself and the blame for that rests on Slott's feet. His concept doesn't work outside the stunt and gimmick of an ongoing storyline.

[Prof. Warren]

Let’s face it, friends, this IS comics so we know that SpOck’s mind is still backed up somewhere and will come back to take on current Ock. It’s just a matter of time.

Of course.

They practically say as much on the last page.

In paying homage to "Spider-Man No More," not only are they referencing a famous moment when Peter hung up his webs but it's also a reminder that it was only temporary. It seems like a delibrate wink to the readers that "hey, you know this isn't really the end."

Yes, Ock had to go back to his classic form. But SSM is an intractable part of his legacy now. It will stage its own return in time.

[Prof. Warren]

The truth is that if you think Superior ended abruptly and disappointingly, the fault with that lies in the very premise itself and the blame for that rests on Slott's feet. His concept doesn't work outside the stunt and gimmick of an ongoing storyline.

SSM was not meant to be a permanent change for Doc Ock. It was a change related to a storyline. That it eventually ended (after seven years - so hardly "abruptly") was part of the plan from the start, not a sign of the concept's "failure."

If anything, it's the unexpected popularity of the SSM storyline kept SpOck in play far longer than was originally intended.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

SSM was not meant to be a permanent change for Doc Ock.

Since that is the case, it raises the issue of what the ultimate worth is of all those human moments, grace notes, and character interaction intended to make him work for the year and more he occupied the main titles?

I mean there are great stories, masterpieces, which explore the characters as they are and don't yank people's chains with character moments and interactions that suggest this could be a lasting thing. Mark Millar's Marvel Knights Spider-Man was a tour-de-force of Peter Parker's world in 12 issues and he didn't really change or disturb anything in the milieu which JMS wrote for those issues.

That it eventually ended (after seven years - so hardly "abruptly")

Whether in Vol. 1 or Vol. 2, at the end Ock lapses back into becoming a villain who promises to attack/hurt/kill Spider-Man again. Otto lapsing from hero to villain happens pretty abruptly in both instances. One minute he's trying to live up to Peter as Spider-Man, then he ends up again working for HYDRA, aka the Nazis. Then Slott sets up Otto becoming part of Spider-Geddon and Gage's volume 2 so abruptly Otto makes a face turn in Go Down Swinging again.

The actual plot and character switches continued to be abrupt and not set-up well. If you disagree, please, for the first time or just this once, actually argue from the story citing scenes/moments and so on.