What Is Your Verdict On Brand New Day ?

[Mister Mets]

I'm starting a similar thread on the Big Time, so it seems worthwhile to ask for grades on the preceding run. I did a search and didn't find any other polls on the topics.

The Brand New Day era would be Amazing Spider-Man #546-647, as well as the annuals and the Amazing Spider-Man extras. It's marked by a mostly thrice-monthly schedule and rotating writers. What did you guys you think of it? What grade would you guys give it?

To explain the potential scores, as it's possible for one man's B to be another man's C...
An A+ is the highest score. It's meant to be pretty rare, an indication that this run is up there with the best of the medium (Frank Miller's Daredevil, Byrne/ Claremont X-Men, Neil Gaiman's Sandman, etc.)
An A is impressive, but not quite on that level.
A B indicates that the run is good but not great. The majority of the material is still worth rereading. In terms of quality, it's largely a success.
A C is pedestrian. It's neither good nor bad, and most of the material is probably not worth rereading.
A D is poor. It's a flat out failure. Most of the material isn't worth reading in the first place.
An F is worse.

It's also possible that some of the people here might not have an interest in purchasing the bulk of a 102 issue comic book run, or that they may have swore off the book for One More Damn reason or another, so I left another option for those posters.

[MASTER-OF-SUPRISE]

I give it a D. The storylines are slow and uninteresting. The Narrative Difference from before is jarring and the art is usually the only thing that saves it. There just seems too be no focus. Not to mention the Skyscraper sized character regression.

[Metamorphosis]

I wouldn't want to re-read about 90% of it, so option 'C' for me. There were some good moments.

I was excited about getting back into comics and Spider-man at the time of BND, so I gave the whole thing more of a chance then I might normally have.

[Aruran.]

I gave it a C, because there was always a great story for a horrible story in BND. So the ones that were left over were just eh, and not worth rereading.
I think especially with how Big Time came out, you tell a lot of the BND stories scratched the surface, but didn't get deeper for each story.

[Kid A]

C describes my opinion of it perfectly. The whole premise was "back to basics Spider-Man" and the stories are basically as hollow as such a premise can possibly be. The BND stories are generic and just run through the motions. Peter gets a new job. Peter gets a new girlfriend. Who the hell cares.

[Mister Mets]

I'd give it a B. Sometimes there was a lack of issue to issue continuity that was often distracting. However, the lows weren't that bad, the majority of the material is worth rereading and there was some really good stuff (Shed, Unscheduled Stop, The Zeb/ Wells Paolo Rivera Wolverine story from the second Extra, The Character Assassination Epilogue from the third extra, Gauntlet: Rhino.)

[THE DANGER965]

Can't decide between a C or a B here. As we all know, BND sucked at first but it did improve : we had many great stories eventually. But I so agree with Kid A. The whole entire back to basics Spider-man was a nice welcome at first, but after 50 issues of BND he seriously needed to move on. I was glad once Slott instantly made the decision to let Peter finally be a scientist at a well respected company only one issue in through the start of his run.

[Scott Taylor]

C. Even the stuff I liked isn't really something I feel like revisiting. Most of the era suffered from being highly episodic. Connections between storylines were often vague and overall the whole thing lacked a consistent theme or consistent progress across the board. It felt like a bunch of unrelated stories that had nothing to do with each other, so as a result it doesn't feel like any of it mattered.

[jgprime]

I have the entire BND run in volume form. Revisiting it, I think it was decent (though to be fair I was around 13 years old when the run started). For the most part it really is a collection of back-to-basics Spider-Man. New villains, new supporting cast members, new love interest. The stories are self-contained and every creative spins its own take on Spidey's world. it does start off a bit slowly though (The Freak story was the worst) but BND eventually gains momentum. Peter Parker: Paparazzi and Shed were the highlights for me.

[arosenbarger]

BRAND NEW DAY is on par with tv shows in the later seasons - maybe a good episode or two but motly filler till the finale.

[exile001]

I had to go D.

I wanted to be generous and give it a C, but the first six months was so bad I had to quit reading Spider-man comics. I didn't come back until Big Time (saw Hobgoblin on a cover!), and eventually got all the trades for under £100 because they couldn't sell (the average RRP is £10-15).

I would honestly say it is one of the weakest eras of Spider-man history. In a year and a half the highest the book climbed was mediocrity. Thinking on it now, only a few of the stories are remotely memorable, and most of those in a bad way.

Although the writing was the main issue, but a lot of the art was uninspiring although we had some great.

I liked some of the Gauntlet (which still had some really crap sub-plots) and Grim Hunt. That was about it.

[John Ossie]

I liked the Gauntlet story the most from it. A lot of the art was nice, and Mr Negative made for an interesting villain. Grim Hunt was an interesting arc as well. However, some of the changes in art style was quite jarring, particularly in the BND arc where Gonzalez was a completely different colour in the last volume of that story. American Son was kinda ''meh'' personally.

There weren't that many stand out issues for me so I've got to give it a C.

[Horizon]

I have it an F, which maybe wasn't fair, since the book was alright from American Son on. But that first year and a half? Awful. I remember the drop in quality from JMS to the Webheads was huge. Not only did I have to adjust to a status qup change, but we didn't even get good stories out of it for 2 years. I've enjoyed the book since Big Time, though, so that's good. But 2008-mid 2009 was a bad time.

[Vegeta]

Out of the rotation I think I enjoyed Zeb Wells stories the most, although I will admit "New Ways to Die" was pretty exciting when it was coming out every week, even though the ending was rather lackluster. Guggenheim wrote that terrific Flash Thompson issue, which was a really great and moving look at a man coming to terms with a physical impairment, and it was cool to see him in rehabilitation later, not letting his disability define him. (Although now that he has a magic space alien allowing him to not only walk but to do all kinds of incredible things, a bit of that story's power is lost, imo.)

[Metamorphosis]

Out of the rotation I think I enjoyed Zeb Wells stories the most, although I will admit "New Ways to Die" was pretty exciting when it was coming out every week, even though the ending was rather lackluster. Guggenheim wrote that terrific Flash Thompson issue, which was a really great and moving look at a man coming to terms with a physical impairment, and it was cool to see him in rehabilitation later, not letting his disability define him. (Although now that he has a magic space alien allowing him to not only walk but to do all kinds of incredible things, a bit of that story's power is lost, imo.)

Agreed on much of that, and I frequently liked what Fred Van Lente brought to the table with his stories. I found Guggenheim's "Kraven's First Hunt" and "Character Assassination" pretty enjoyable too, minus all the Menace nonsense.