How good was JMS' Spider-Man overall?

[Sr. Bungle]

Great observations. I have always said that JMS's run didn't age well. I was saying that TEN years ago.

Yeah, same here. Also, the new villains were horrid. From the top of my head, Morlun, the Daughter? Of Loki, that interdimentional drug dealer, the young Octopus corporate wannabe, the grey goblins, Ezekiel and the giant spider-god, Hydra, an awful story with Molten Man, Spider Queen, Digger... all awful, boring and unfit to the main spider-man title

[Uncanny Mutie]

Yeah, same here. Also, the new villains were horrid. From the top of my head, Morlun, the Daughter? Of Loki, that interdimentional drug dealer, the young Octopus corporate wannabe, the grey goblins, Ezekiel and the giant spider-god, Hydra, an awful story with Molten Man, Spider Queen, Digger... all awful, boring and unfit to the main spider-man title

Agreed. Back in the day, since ASM was the main book, it was typically reserved for the popular, big name villains from Spidey's rogues gallery, while satellite books like Web and Spectacular usually got most of the newly created "test" villains or the villains that typically belonged to other heroes but that Spidey would fight as a one-off for an issue or two. In trying to "give the usual super villains a break" so to speak, JMS REALLY brought down the quality of what was supposed to be Spider-Man's flagship book. He did the same with Peter's supporting cast, by taking him away from the Bugle and making him a high school teacher. It made it feel like JMS wrote a poor Spider-Man all the away around, from his civilian life to his superhero adventures.

[Sr. Bungle]

I reread the JMS/JRJr run a few weeks back, as I’d long held the same view as most of you, that that was when the run was good. And I must report that...it has not held up. All the elements that have been lauded here, and that I remembered as strong points, are actually some of the weakest parts. The Ezekiel reveal is so antithetical to what makes Spider-man work as a character. JMS’ voice for Peter is so off. There’s a line in his first issue where he is talking about Aunt May and says “there isn’t a sonar in existence that can sound out the depth of her compassion.” The return of MJ is heavy handed and Peter actually unironically says “you complete me” to her. The run is full of time-wasting in-jokes—there is a multi-panel sequence where security guards discuss how awesome Babylon 5 is (JMS was Babylon 5’s creator and show runner) Even Peter becoming a teacher doesn’t work as well as you think—JMS tries to create the same kind of workplace environment Pete had at the Bugle with his antagonistic relationship with the school’s main office secretary. But where Jonah was a cruel, stingy boss—allowing Peter to “punch up,” watching him grouse and belittle a secretary (when he rescues the secretary as Spider-man and she asks him for an autograph, Spidey autographs a rooftop air conditioning unit and tells her good luck in getting it off the roof) it makes him come across as cruel. (It reminded me of some of the smug, condescending behavior Superman indulged in during JMS’ “Grounded” storyline) I think JMS has some basic scripting and pacing skills that were lacking in the Mackie run that preceded him that made his early issues seem such an improvement, but having reread them now nearly 20 years later they reveal that JMS really didn’t get Spider-man as a character at all.

Do you remember in what issue that happened?

[Marvel Man]

Do you remember in what issue that happened?

Amazing Spider-man (1999) #57.
AS97.jpg

[Sr. Bungle]

Amazing Spider-man (1999) #57.
AS97.jpg

Thanks a lot good sir

[daredevil1]

Great observations. I have always said that JMS's run didn't age well. I was saying that TEN years ago.

The whole high school teacher thing in particular was an especially bad idea. Unless he operates mainly at night like Batman or Moon Knight, How the heck can a SUPERHERO be a high school teacher? The Rhino goes on a rampage in the middle of the day or The Shocker robs a bank around the corner. What does Peter do? Say to his students during 2nd Period, "Ummm...okay, kids. Just open your books and work on pages 220-225 while I go to the restroom. I'll be right back," and go sneak out the side of the school building, battle the bad guy(s), and then come back with mysterious scrapes and bruises all over himself during 4th period?

I did kind of like him as a teacher at the time (and REALLY missed it once Slott regressed him into a man child saying "Parker luck" every other sentence), but you're right, it made no sense. I think JMS has these goofy ideas that are really important to him that he reaaaaalllllyyy pushes hard, and then gets frustrated when no one else "gets" what he's going for and leaves in a huff. Like the Superman Grounded thing where he walked across America- what was that about? JMS has done THREE separate stories about that subject (he just released a book about a group of people going cross country to commit suicide) so it's clearly some thing to him, but he doesn't articulate to the reader why we should care. He never did anything with the teacher premise, just had a lot of "after school special" issues where Peter meddled with hard-luck kids and that was it.

[federicodettofred]

JMS? You mean the "Spider-Man has mystical powers from Spider-Totems/Gwen Stacy cheated on him with Green Goblin/Peter Parker is reborn from a spider/Mary Jane gets sold to the devil/I blame the readers if they don't like my stories" guy? That JMS?

[IamnotJudasTraveller]

Great observations. I have always said that JMS's run didn't age well. I was saying that TEN years ago.

I was saying that twenty years ago... (before it makes me sound like a smug prick, while I in fact was saying that twenty years ago, I'm just trying to josh more than anything else).

I had long checked out of Spider-Man by the time JMS debuted, and I do think that half of the reason his run was successful (at the beginning, if nothing else) is that Mackie was such an absolute nadir that people were happy to get anything that wasn't it (that honestly reflects worse on Marvel than in Mackie - public opinion on his run being a dud was kind of the norm as far as I could tell back then, and apparently Harras even insisted HE do Ultimate Spider-Man before Quesada [I believe?] gave it to Bendis).

I personally think the worst aspects of Straczynki's run comprised of his Messiah Complex (look no further than Sins Past -okay, I know it's a low bar to set, but stay with me- and how ONLY THEN Gwen's murder "made sense"; retroactively look at how he starts to say his creations, like Morlun and Ezekiel, are described alongside the same lengths), the excessive waxing poetic some people already mentioned like almost every interaction Peter and MJ had, and his penchant to flood the book with his newblood as opposed to what people might normally expect of the flagship book. It's not like you can't do it - but as with all things in life, balance is key, right?

Also, there might be a bit of an ulterior motive to why Straczysnki created so many new villains - people contemporary from his work on Marvel, like Brubaker, mentioned even small creations like Darwin on X-Men First Class netted him royalties. I'm inclined to believe that anytime Marvel'd use JMS' new characters, he could stand to get paid. And bless his heart for it, I'm not going to be opposed to someone seeing dividends from their work - but when 80% of his run consists of new characters, well, then you might say he could've dialed it down a little I suppose? But that's me.

JMS? You mean the "Spider-Man has mystical powers from Spider-Totems/Gwen Stacy cheated on him with Green Goblin/Peter Parker is reborn from a spider/Mary Jane gets sold to the devil/I blame the readers if they don't like my stories" guy? That JMS?

The funny thing about that is that JMS managed to arrest control of the narrative largely in his favor since his run ended - the "it's magic, we don't have to explain it" bit from Quesada definitely damned everything altogether that he came out messianic by comparison. But as other poster pointed out, there were delays (Stracyznski's Thor run also had those, and JMS and Quesada began having more public armwrestling matches over that), JMS stood by Sins Past rather fiercely in the beginning (he told people to read MadGoblin's essay on it, an essay that literally started out by saying "You can't make this fit without contradictions", and that basically amounted to Gwen sleeping with Norman being a "stronger female character") and when he saw it was better to abandon ship - well, he sure did that in style.

If it's talking about the points JMS did get a bit testy, like "it's the reader's fault", I do recall when he took over Fantastic Four one of the first things he said was bite at people who said "now Franklin will be Namor's son" with "I've never repeated a single plot idea in my entire life".

[RJT]

Great observations. I have always said that JMS's run didn't age well. I was saying that TEN years ago.

The whole high school teacher thing in particular was an especially bad idea. Unless he operates mainly at night like Batman or Moon Knight, How the heck can a SUPERHERO be a high school teacher? The Rhino goes on a rampage in the middle of the day or The Shocker robs a bank around the corner. What does Peter do? Say to his students during 2nd Period, "Ummm...okay, kids. Just open your books and work on pages 220-225 while I go to the restroom. I'll be right back," and go sneak out the side of the school building, battle the bad guy(s), and then come back with mysterious scrapes and bruises all over himself during 4th period?

I taught at a high school for a number of years and whenever I reread the “Peter is a teacher” years, I’m shocked that any writer thinks a teacher can have as many “unexplained absences” as Peter does and a) keep his job b) be an effective teacher.
There’s a scene during the “Coming Home” storyline where Peter calls out sick on *his second day on the job* because he’s fighting Morlun, and the secretary is kind of curt with him about calling out with such short notice so soon into his tenure in the position. It’s clear JMS wants us to view her as an antagonistic figure for Peter, but unlike if he blows of J. Jonah Jameson, here he’s directly responsible for probably a hundred kids that day. We as the readers knows he’s fighting some interdimensional vampire but from the secretary’s position, she know has to arrange coverage for all of his classes and he’s done nothing to build up any goodwill. Remember he just started there (and when you think about how pompously he went about getting the job: badmouthing the burnt out science teacher and then proclaiming himself the new science teacher only to call out sick days later) For a character whose whole ethos is about responsibility, giving him a job with the amount of responsibility that being a teacher has only to have him routinely bail on it (and never seems to reflect on that) shows JMS just didn’t get Peter at all.

[federicodettofred]

The funny thing about that is that JMS managed to arrest control of the narrative largely in his favor since his run ended - the "it's magic, we don't have to explain it" bit from Quesada definitely damned everything altogether that he came out messianic by comparison. But as other poster pointed out, there were delays (Stracyznski's Thor run also had those, and JMS and Quesada began having more public armwrestling matches over that), JMS stood by Sins Past rather fiercely in the beginning (he told people to read MadGoblin's essay on it, an essay that literally started out by saying "You can't make this fit without contradictions", and that basically amounted to Gwen sleeping with Norman being a "stronger female character") and when he saw it was better to abandon ship - well, he sure did that in style.

If it's talking about the points JMS did get a bit testy, like "it's the reader's fault", I do recall when he took over Fantastic Four one of the first things he said was bite at people who said "now Franklin will be Namor's son" with "I've never repeated a single plot idea in my entire life".

Yes, people tend to forget that JMS DID NOT dissociate himself from Sins Past initially. On the contrary, in 2004 he released an embarassing interview in which he claimed that Gwen was a bland character before the revelation of her affair with Norman and that the readers who criticized were probably "men who had serious issues with women who use their free will". He basically normalized cheating as "a thing most young girls do". Sorry, but to me the guy is a giant dumbass.

[PCN24454]

I was saying that twenty years ago... (before it makes me sound like a smug prick, while I in fact was saying that twenty years ago, I'm just trying to josh more than anything else).

I had long checked out of Spider-Man by the time JMS debuted, and I do think that half of the reason his run was successful (at the beginning, if nothing else) is that Mackie was such an absolute nadir that people were happy to get anything that wasn't it (that honestly reflects worse on Marvel than in Mackie - public opinion on his run being a dud was kind of the norm as far as I could tell back then, and apparently Harras even insisted HE do Ultimate Spider-Man before Quesada [I believe?] gave it to Bendis).

I personally think the worst aspects of Straczynki's run comprised of his Messiah Complex (look no further than Sins Past -okay, I know it's a low bar to set, but stay with me- and how ONLY THEN Gwen's murder "made sense"; retroactively look at how he starts to say his creations, like Morlun and Ezekiel, are described alongside the same lengths), the excessive waxing poetic some people already mentioned like almost every interaction Peter and MJ had, and his penchant to flood the book with his newblood as opposed to what people might normally expect of the flagship book. It's not like you can't do it - but as with all things in life, balance is key, right?

Also, there might be a bit of an ulterior motive to why Straczysnki created so many new villains - people contemporary from his work on Marvel, like Brubaker, mentioned even small creations like Darwin on X-Men First Class netted him royalties. I'm inclined to believe that anytime Marvel'd use JMS' new characters, he could stand to get paid. And bless his heart for it, I'm not going to be opposed to someone seeing dividends from their work - but when 80% of his run consists of new characters, well, then you might say he could've dialed it down a little I suppose? But that's me.


The funny thing about that is that JMS managed to arrest control of the narrative largely in his favor since his run ended - the "it's magic, we don't have to explain it" bit from Quesada definitely damned everything altogether that he came out messianic by comparison. But as other poster pointed out, there were delays (Stracyznski's Thor run also had those, and JMS and Quesada began having more public armwrestling matches over that), JMS stood by Sins Past rather fiercely in the beginning (he told people to read MadGoblin's essay on it, an essay that literally started out by saying "You can't make this fit without contradictions", and that basically amounted to Gwen sleeping with Norman being a "stronger female character") and when he saw it was better to abandon ship - well, he sure did that in style.

If it's talking about the points JMS did get a bit testy, like "it's the reader's fault", I do recall when he took over Fantastic Four one of the first things he said was bite at people who said "now Franklin will be Namor's son" with "I've never repeated a single plot idea in my entire life".

This reminds me a lot of people's reception to Spencer's run of Spider-Man.

As for making new characters, I'm actually ok with that. I think that villains really shouldn't be overused, especially if they're just there to repeat a plot that they've already done before. I'm disappointed that he dropped said characters so easily. Said characters disappeared long before Civil War happened.

While I understand that retconning Peter's origins were unnecessary, having him encounter mystical enemies was a plus for me.

I feel like your talk about Peter and his cast being preachy is why I always felt like his interpretation MJ and Aunt May were somewhat bland and uninteresting.

[Spidey_62]

I liked a lot of the new villains introduced in the run, that mystical door was opened and all these new kinds of threats of that sort started appearing- it was a nice change of pace. The classic villains were still appearing in the side books at the time, it's not like we weren't seeing them at all.

[MisterC]

2 outta 10. The it's all connected Spider-Totem concept stunk. Morlun stunk. The other wasn't even as interesting as the man spider Arc in the animated series. Sina past was an awful nightmare. One More Day is one of the worst comic books ever created.

The guy doesn't even rate in my book.

[daredevil1]

Yes, people tend to forget that JMS DID NOT dissociate himself from Sins Past initially. On the contrary, in 2004 he released an embarassing interview in which he claimed that Gwen was a bland character before the revelation of her affair with Norman and that the readers who criticized were probably "men who had serious issues with women who use their free will". He basically normalized cheating as "a thing most young girls do". Sorry, but to me the guy is a giant dumbass.

JMS was the original SJW? "If you don't like my work, you're a woman hating bigot!" I remember he dismissed similar criticism of the 9/11 issue by saying anyone who didn't like Doom crying was an inept nerd living in the basement.

I was saying that twenty years ago... (before it makes me sound like a smug prick, while I in fact was saying that twenty years ago, I'm just trying to josh more than anything else).

The funny thing about that is that JMS managed to arrest control of the narrative largely in his favor since his run ended - the "it's magic, we don't have to explain it" bit from Quesada definitely damned everything altogether that he came out messianic by comparison. But as other poster pointed out, there were delays (Stracyznski's Thor run also had those, and JMS and Quesada began having more public armwrestling matches over that), JMS stood by Sins Past rather fiercely in the beginning (he told people to read MadGoblin's essay on it, an essay that literally started out by saying "You can't make this fit without contradictions", and that basically amounted to Gwen sleeping with Norman being a "stronger female character") and when he saw it was better to abandon ship - well, he sure did that in style.

If it's talking about the points JMS did get a bit testy, like "it's the reader's fault", I do recall when he took over Fantastic Four one of the first things he said was bite at people who said "now Franklin will be Namor's son" with "I've never repeated a single plot idea in my entire life".

Maybe that's J. Mike's true skill- snatching victory from the jaws of defeat? It's almost like he knew what would happen, uncanny! Love your username by the way.

[Agent Z]

Great observations. I have always said that JMS's run didn't age well. I was saying that TEN years ago.

The whole high school teacher thing in particular was an especially bad idea. Unless he operates mainly at night like Batman or Moon Knight, How the heck can a SUPERHERO be a high school teacher?

Same way a teenage high school student could be a superhero and still be able to attend class and get passing grades.