New Spider-Man Ongoing Title???

[Mister Mets]

I agree. Amazing comes out twice a month. So there really is no need for another "ongoing" (despite the fact I've always enjoyed the satellites more than Amazing at times.) Plus they never seem to last longer than 12 - 24 months at best. The recent Spectacular lasted as long as it did due to getting two boosts in the form of the Legacy renumbering and issue #300.

I feel the best approach is how they are treating Symbiote Spider-man at the moment (which is how they treated Venom in the 90s). They aren't technically calling it on "ongoing" but it is successful enough to receive a follow up in Alien Reality and, according to Bleeding Cool, a third follow-up afterwards. It is a ongoing disguised as a series of mini-series.

I'd add another writer to Amazing Spider-Man, and make it a weekly book with occasional intermissions.

It seems we're going to have 24 issues of Amazing Spider-Man, and 12 or so issues of Title X in a year.

I'd go with 38 or so weekly issues of Amazing Spider-Man (24 by Spencer; 14 by Writer 2) followed by a four month intermission. And repeat.

[Pav]

Sensational is likely what we will get. Ben only starred in the first 11 (12 if you count #0). Peter was the star in the last 22 issues of volume 1 and was the star in the second volume (which was the renumbered Marvel Knights title). Plus, like FNSM, it was last published as a monthly prior to OMD. So the trademark is due for a dusting off.

Away with your rational argument!

Ben is Sensational! Ben is Sensational!

-Pav, who is pretty okay too...

[Frontier]

I'd add another writer to Amazing Spider-Man, and make it a weekly book with occasional intermissions.

I think the BND era showcases why it's probably better to have regular satellite books then to try and make ASM a more weekly book.

[bob.schoonover]

I think the BND era showcases why it's probably better to have regular satellite books then to try and make ASM a more weekly book.

For the life of me, I can't understand why they don't just do two twice-a-month books like Batman and 'Tec. Put real resources into both titles, treat them like they're both important, and just have Spider-man on the shelves every week. DC showed that not only can Batman and Superman sustain w/that model, but so can Green Lantern and the Justice League. Give us SSM with a quality team and mission statement, give it to us twice a month, and whenever it's time for an event, you can knock out 8 issues in two months and move on to the next thing.

[Digifiend]

To be fair, those other books all had different premises. Rebirth Batman was a solo while Detective was a team book about the Gotham Knights. One Green Lantern book was about Simon and Jessica and the other one about everyone else. Justice League currently is three different teams (the main book double ships and the others are monthly). Superman was originally about the family and Action about big threats, but since Bendis took over it's frequency has halved, Action now being about the Daily Planet and Superman now being the big threats book. Spider-Man needs to do the same. Spectacular had Peter team up with his sister, Friendly Neighborhood is supposed to be more street level, while Amazing has gone from event to event. Any second Spider-Man book should have a different focus to ASM. Don't do what they did in the 90s with four books that cross over with each other!

[WebSlingWonder]

I say keep SPEC going as a second title and bring ASM back to monthly. Enough is enough of these inconsistent runs with one writer, 15 artists, and 20 different stories being told in 12 months. It's insane. I just want some consistency in my Spider-Man books again.

[Mister Mets]

I think the BND era showcases why it's probably better to have regular satellite books then to try and make ASM a more weekly book.

I think BND was okay, but that some of the issues could be mitigated if you have less writers (so less people who have to coordinate plot points) and/ or the equivalent of a showrunner (it could even be rotating showrunners to avoid the perception that some issues are more important.) BND definitely had problems with issue to issue continuity, but some of that was inevitable for an early effort at the schedule with 4-7 writers on the book at a given time.

[Frontier]

I think BND was okay, but that some of the issues could be mitigated if you have less writers (so less people who have to coordinate plot points) and/ or the equivalent of a showrunner (it could even be rotating showrunners to avoid the perception that some issues are more important.) BND definitely had problems with issue to issue continuity, but some of that was inevitable for an early effort at the schedule with 4-7 writers on the book at a given time.

Rotatin showrunner just seems like it would lead to the same problem.

I guess you could have someone like Hickman and his orchestration of all the X-Books, but Spencer already kind of does that by setting up teases or spinoffs for other Spider-Books/mini's.

[comicscollector]

I was wondering if Symbiote Spider-Man:Alien Reality would get a sequel.Looking forward to know more about it and the new secondary Spider-Man comic book.

[Prof. Warren]

I think the BND era showcases why it's probably better to have regular satellite books then to try and make ASM a more weekly book.

I think the BND era was pretty cool, for the most part. But what made it exciting - the rotating writers and artists - was also its weakness, with the fact that no one creative team really had ownership on the book so it always had the feel of a relay race where it was constantly being handed off to someone else every three weeks or so and story threads would be left unattended until the writer that started them got back in the race again.

As fun as the variety and pace of BND was, ASM got better once Slott became the sole writer and you just had one person driving the bus again.

So I would much prefer a satellite book that is meant to really stick around and be a viable secondary Spidey book than to try and have ASM go weekly again.

[Mister Mets]

Rotatin showrunner just seems like it would lead to the same problem.

I guess you could have someone like Hickman and his orchestration of all the X-Books, but Spencer already kind of does that by setting up teases or spinoffs for other Spider-Books/mini's.

A rotating showrunner approach should avoid the relay race problem Prof. Warren describes, since there's one guy setting the direction of the larger storylines, with a greater awareness of issue to issue continuity. But a problem with showrunners is that savvy comics readers might start ignoring the work of other writers. So with rotating architects, there is the sense that something that isn't written by the current showrunner could still be important later, because it could seed the next guy's run, or deal with the aftermath of the previous architect's work.

Let's imagine the Amazing Spider-Man writers are Nick Spencer, Matt Fraction and Jason Aaron.
Nick Spencer's the main writer for Amazing Spider-Man #50-67. Matt Fraction writes five of the issues, and Jason Aaron writes three.

Matt Fraction becomes the main writer for Amazing Spider-Man #68-84. Nick Spencer writes six of the issues, and Jason Aaron writes three.

Jason Aaron then has a six issue arc from Amazing Spider-Man #85-90, paying off plot threads he had set up earlier.

The main writer makes sure issue to issue continuity remains tight, that Peter Parker feels the consequences of recent events, and we don't have a Brand New Day situation in which many stories could have been told in a different order with no impact whatsoever.

The problem with orchestrating events for minis/ other titles is that it's going to sell more to have Amazing Spider-Man coming out more often.

[Frontier]

A rotating showrunner approach should avoid the relay race problem Prof. Warren describes, since there's one guy setting the direction of the larger storylines, with a greater awareness of issue to issue continuity. But a problem with showrunners is that savvy comics readers might start ignoring the work of other writers. So with rotating architects, there is the sense that something that isn't written by the current showrunner could still be important later, because it could seed the next guy's run, or deal with the aftermath of the previous architect's work.

Let's imagine the Amazing Spider-Man writers are Nick Spencer, Matt Fraction and Jason Aaron.
Nick Spencer's the main writer for Amazing Spider-Man #50-67. Matt Fraction writes five of the issues, and Jason Aaron writes three.

Matt Fraction becomes the main writer for Amazing Spider-Man #68-84. Nick Spencer writes six of the issues, and Jason Aaron writes three.

Jason Aaron then has a six issue arc from Amazing Spider-Man #85-90, paying off plot threads he had set up earlier.

The main writer makes sure issue to issue continuity remains tight, that Peter Parker feels the consequences of recent events, and we don't have a Brand New Day situation in which many stories could have been told in a different order with no impact whatsoever.

The problem with orchestrating events for minis/ other titles is that it's going to sell more to have Amazing Spider-Man coming out more often.

But if we have as many A-list writers as you cite...it seems like it would just be simpler to have them all write their own Spider-Man titles and just coordinate everything through the office or at the Spider-Summit's I'm sure they have.

[Mister Mets]

But if we have as many A-list writers as you cite...it seems like it would just be simpler to have them all write their own Spider-Man titles and just coordinate everything through the office or at the Spider-Summit's I'm sure they have.

Except there's no indication that their spider titles would sell as much as a new issue of Amazing Spider-Man each month. And there will be still other issues in terms of how the books tackle events in other titles.

With Zdarsky's Spider-Man, he told a story over the course of a short amount of time that took eighteen months to be published (from Peter Parker the Spectacular Spider-Man Volume 2 #1-6, Renumbered #297-307) which complicated coordination with Amazing Spider-Man.

[Frontier]

Except there's no indication that their spider titles would sell as much as a new issue of Amazing Spider-Man each month. And there will be still other issues in terms of how the books tackle events in other titles.

With those writers? Even if it didn't sell as well as ASM, I think it would sell enough to warrant keeping their titles around.

As far as titles coordinating with each other...well, that's what editors and the writers working together is for, right?

With Zdarsky's Spider-Man, he told a story over the course of a short amount of time that took eighteen months to be published (from Peter Parker the Spectacular Spider-Man Volume 2 #1-6, Renumbered #297-307) which complicated coordination with Amazing Spider-Man.

I don't think that negatively impacted the book though since the events were fairly isolated and eventually the timeline got relatively back on-track.

[Digifiend]

Yeah, Amazing didn't use Teresa until Spec was over. There was one problem in Spec though... the first few issues were originally pre-Secret Empire, but it ended up needing to be afterwards, and that led to two mistakes. One, Sam Wilson shows up as Captain America, but he should've been Falcon. And two, Teresa was a fugitive from SHIELD - which disbanded. That's likely why she got out so fast after she turned herself in at the end of the series.