Spidertalk podcast interview with Tom Brevoort

[Snoop Dogg]

I knew we were heading towards the apocalypse as soon as Spencer made a new Instagram post.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

I knew we were heading towards the apocalypse as soon as Spencer made a new Instagram post.

Thanks for sharing this. This was a great interview.

[Snoop Dogg]

does spider-man pour the milk first

[Revolutionary_Jack]

does spider-man pour the milk first

This is mostly him reiterating and defending that bone-headed manifesto of his...

12:42 Tom Brevoort is dead wrong about Ditko not wanting Spider-Man to grow up and go to college. The person who made that decision to do so was Steve Ditko himself. He had full plotting credit from ASM#25 onwards, and it was his decision to have Peter age up and graduate college. Furthermore, not once has anyone traced this quote to Ditko himself. This is basically office gossip and rumor. Ditko never fought it, and was never overruled because again he had plotting credit and control over that decision. He could have kept Spider-Man in high school for the rest of his run and left it for someone else to come afterwards. Ditko confirmed this personally when a fan visited his studio in his final years. Noting that the Master Planner story was planned with Peter in college.
https://popculturesquad.com/2019/03/...io-sanatorium/


Other errors he made...


21:43 The Black Order was introduced in 2013 not 2015.

29:45 Jack Kirby leaving Marvel was a significant setback for the company, one which it recovered mainly through the help of Archie Goodwin licensing Star Wars comics, and Jim Shooter coming in after that.

[Scott Taylor]

Brevoort is delusional about Spider-Man.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

Brevoort is delusional about Spider-Man.

The fact is as he admits on that interview, he only joined Marvel as an intern in 1989...he has never actually been the main editor of Spider-Man titles, and yet somehow mostly for managing to stick around in a company for a decade or more, he's somehow become this respected voice and allowed to have a say, a privileged say, on stuff that he knows nothing about and has little involvement in.

The way Brevoort is trotted out and quoted, you'd think he learned at the feet of Lee and Ditko themselves.

And there's the total lack of irony and self-awareness. Near the end, he talks about top Spider-Man stories -- The master planner saga, KLH, and none of them feature Spider-Man as youthful or in high school and both stories are about him growing up.

[Spidey_62]

Spider-Man can be a lot of things, but I think saying youth is one of the core things can in a way limit creators if they take it the wrong way.

The PS4 game he's 23 years old, a competent superhero and young adult figuring out his place in the world in all new ways that challenge him. Into The Spider-Verse, he's 38 years old and as compelling as ever because it's Peter in a new light and dealing with new circumstances. Life Story he's super compelling because you get snippets of Peter through his youth and going into his later years figuring out all over again how he continues to fit into the world as a superhero dealing with different problems as he ages. Peter is a youthful character and in a way that makes him such a perfect canvas for stretching him into all kinds of scenarios, because we all grow up, that's a part of youth. I think a lot of us as superhero fans like to hold onto the ideals we learn in our youths from characters like Spider-Man, so part of it is how do we hold onto that part of ourselves as we grow older? I don't think the right questions are being answered if the idea is to just always send him to high school for new cartoons and movies again, so it's been nice to see other adaptations legitimately do different things with him in the last few years that all feel true to Spider-Man.

[Mister Mets]

does spider-man pour the milk first

This one is a lot more about his views on Spider-Man.
For the first 13 minutes he talks about his views on Spider-Man, and the manifesto/ memo that was key to Brand New Day.

14 minutes in, he is asked how "Into the Spiderverse" touches on the question of whether youth is key to Spider-Man. His view is that the series is still about youth, just someone other than Peter Parker.
He's curious about what the sequel is going to do.

Then there's a discussion of the impact of the MCU, and how it should influence the comics. His view is that the comics are the raw material for the future films.

24 minutes in there's an interesting question on Disney's role. Brevoort's response was "Disney brought Marvel so Marvel could be Marvel."

32 minutes in, he's asked about the best Spider-Man story. His view is that it's the Master Planner saga, as it's the story all later ones have been chasing. He doesn't think that the people who say Kraven's Last Hunt are wrong.

36 minutes in, he's asked about his favorite story of his tenure. He admits it's difficult because he can't look at any of those objectively. He mentions a few one-offs: the JMS/ Romita Jr 9/11 issue, Dan Slott's last Amazing Spider-Man and Zdarsky's last Spectacular Spider-Man, before praising the run-up to 700, especially the reveal in the Dying Wish Prologue (698) and the whole Superior Spider-Man run.

The final question (38 minutes in) is what it means for him personally to be part of Marvel's legacy, and his answer on being proud to be able to stand on the shoulders of giants is relatively standard but nice.

I'll note in the summaries I am cutting some nuance and comments about others who deserve credit (IE- He discussed Steve Wacker as having a bigger role in Brand New Day than he did; He noted the MCU creators do obviously bring in their own ideas as well.)