How Bad is JM Dematteis Non-Kraven's Last Hunt Spiderman?

[Timothy Hunter]

I'm a huge fan of JM DeMatteis. He has enough great comics to almost rival Alan Moore in my opinion: Dr. Fate, I Vampire, Justice League International, American Flagg, Seekers in the Mystery, Martian Manhunter, Brooklyn Dreams, Defenders, and Kraven's Last Hunt, considered by many to be the greatest Spiderman story ever told.

How does the rest of DeMatteis' Amazing/Spectacular run hold up? I'm aware that a lot of it is dedicated to the second Clone Saga, which is disturbing.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

I'm a huge fan of JM DeMatteis. He has enough great comics to almost rival Alan Moore in my opinion: Dr. Fate, I Vampire, Justice League International, American Flagg, Seekers in the Mystery, Martian Manhunter, Brooklyn Dreams, Defenders, and Kraven's Last Hunt, considered by many to be the greatest Spiderman story ever told.

J. M. DeMatteis is by general consent one of the greatest writers to ever work on Spider-Man. KRAVEN'S LAST HUNT is his masterpiece, and his best story.

But it's not by any means a one-hit for him.

JMD also wrote "The Child Within/The Best of Enemies" in Spectacular Spider-Man which is also a great story, and this in fact is JMD's most influential story. Harry Osborn was a largely neglected supporting character until JMD arrived. (People forget this, but Flash Thompson, not Harry was best man at Peter's wedding). JMD revived him and the reason for Harry having an elevated status in the Spider-Man Trilogy, Ultimate Spider-Man, and so on and so forth, is down to JMD's story.

How does the rest of DeMatteis' Amazing/Spectacular run hold up? I'm aware that a lot of it is dedicated to the second Clone Saga, which is disturbing.

JMD wrote the best Clone Saga-era stories.

ASM#400 "The Gift" is an all-time classic, one of the greatest Spider-Man stories ever written.

"The Lost Years" is also excellent.

JMD also wrote one of the definitive Mysterio stories in Webspinners, and an iconic Chameleon story in Spectacular.

Collect JMD's output in a single volume and you would have a fairly consistent and diverse and interest body of work.

[TheCape]

His first run on Spec Spider-Man is pretty well regarded, especially the Harry Osborn saga. I do have my problems with it admittedly, i don't like the idea of Peter feeling guilt because of his parents death, because it's frankly nonsensical (i mostly blame that on whateve weird stuff was in Harry's bomb), but i still like it, it even has a pretty funny issue with Frog Man.

His second run on Spider-Man isn't as well regarded, but it is solid for the most part.

Now his ASM run is more mixed, leaning to more bad than good honestly, especially with Judas mysterious mystery aura...of mystery, but it has good moments here and there. I think that his hight points are MJ subplot in Back From the Edge (the Peter parts go between ok and really dumb) and 400.

[TheCape]

Forgot to mention, he is basically the guy that defined Ben Reilly and Kaine as characthers with Lost Years and Redemption (two solid minis).

[HypnoHustler]

I'm a huge fan of JM DeMatteis. He has enough great comics to almost rival Alan Moore in my opinion: Dr. Fate, I Vampire, Justice League International, American Flagg, Seekers in the Mystery, Martian Manhunter, Brooklyn Dreams, Defenders, and Kraven's Last Hunt, considered by many to be the greatest Spiderman story ever told.

How does the rest of DeMatteis' Amazing/Spectacular run hold up? I'm aware that a lot of it is dedicated to the second Clone Saga, which is disturbing.

Have you actually READ the second Clone Saga? I’ve noticed a trend of people dumping on stuff here without even having read it. I can count the number of bad comics DeMatteis has written on one hand. He is my favorite writer, and even the stuff he wrote during the clone saga was excellent. Do yourself a favor and buy ‘The Lost Years’ or ‘Spider-Man: Redemption’ or better yet ASM #400... all of which were written during that period you casually dismissed and all are masterpieces.

[your_name_here]

Fantastic. Really, really good.

Spencer is leaning so heavily - or at least concentrating on that era - on a lot of that stuff with the current run.

Kravens Last Hunt just happened to be the greatest of a great load of stories.

[Pav]

Yeah, I'm not adding anything that hasn't already been said, but the work that JMD did before, during, and after the Clone Saga is all pretty strong. He helped Harry Osborn, Kraven, the Chameleon, and other characters become more three-dimensional, believable human beings. As others have said, his characterization of Ben Reilly and Kaine was defining for each of them, and it's clear in his work during the Clone Saga that he found those characters fascinating.

I've also chatted with him a bit on Twitter and he is one heck of a nice guy. I didn't know it at the time of my purchase, but a year or so ago I actually bought the first issue of his Defenders run, and when I mentioned it to him on Twitter, he was incredibly pleasant and didn't mind discussing that era of his work for a bit.

Great writer, great guy.

-Pav, who enjoyed when he went for funny issues as well...

[HypnoHustler]

Fantastic. Really, really good.

Spencer is leaning so heavily - or at least concentrating on that era - on a lot of that stuff with the current run.

Kravens Last Hunt just happened to be the greatest of a great load of stories.

KLH is great, but I actually prefer the Harry Osborn saga from early 90s SPEC (although it’s spread out over a couple years).

[K7P5V]

Probably doesn't count, but I enjoyed his run on Marvel Team-Up (a personal favorite being MTU #119):



https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/Marvel_Team-Up_Vol_1_119

[Snoop Dogg]

JMS is like the only good 90's Spider-Man writer. He carried the franchise on his back and never got Amazing, and Marvel won't even reprint all his stuff.

[Vortex85]

JMS is like the only good 90's Spider-Man writer. He carried the franchise on his back and never got Amazing, and Marvel won't even reprint all his stuff.

JMD did write Amazing during the Clone Saga and with Mark Bagley at his peak (IMO), unfortunately it wasn't all his since he wrote single issues of a lot of crossover arcs that tied all the books together. But his work on Amazing during the clone saga were the highlights for me. I think he really carried the arcs and I will will always count his work as my favorites during that period. If anyone wants "The Best of the Clone Saga", just look for his name on the writing credits.

[Snoop Dogg]

JMS is like the only good 90's Spider-Man writer. He carried the franchise on his back and never got Amazing, and Marvel won't even reprint all his stuff.

i typed jms and i blame quesada

[TheCape]

JMD did write Amazing during the Clone Saga and with Mark Bagley at his peak (IMO), unfortunately it wasn't all his since he wrote single issues of a lot of crossover arcs that tied all the books together. But his work on Amazing during the clone saga were the highlights for me. I think he really carried the arcs and I will will always count his work as my favorites during that period. If anyone wants "The Best of the Clone Saga", just look for his name on the writing credits.

Hey Mackie did some good things here and there, i know that he gets a bad rap for the reboot, but before that i always thought that his Peter was solid. Still prefer JMD of course.

[your_name_here]

i typed jms and i blame quesada

Thank you for making my Sunday

[Lukmendes]

Forgot to mention, he is basically the guy that defined Ben Reilly and Kaine as characthers with Lost Years and Redemption (two solid minis).

Wouldn't say he defined Kaine, since his current characterization is from Yost's Scarlet Spider comic, and that's still the most liked version of Kaine's character, DeMateis did start the redemption at least, so there's that.