To chime in on HypnoHustler being right and on point...
Nick Spencer's ASM has been a very high-selling title, with #850 (#49 confusingly in VOL.5)
(https://bleedingcool.com/comics/top-...-october-2020/) being the most ordered comic in October.
So it seems what audiences really want isn't gimmicks or costumes but issues filled with character and action and so on.
Nick Spencer's run has done really well for so long without big gimmicks and obvious ambulance chasing.
audiences really want spider-man
cuz he's spider-man
the most popular marvel character
you can write a successful, safe, and slow comic like the spencer run because it's spider-man
changing something like the costume is the definiton of risk because it can either pay off and get the book more attention and a sales spike, or it won't and it'll be disliked by readers
playing it safe is not changing anything because you don't have to, odds are the most popular character functioning like the most popular character will maintain his book's popularity
I don't blind date I make the direct market vibrate
is the implication that recent spider office anniversaries and #25s, which pad out their length with superfluous content to justify a $10 price point, as part of a manufactured scheme by editorial and sales to boost business because they know collectors are more likely to jump on anniversaries (as supported by #49's position above last remains issues), is not a gimmick
I don't blind date I make the direct market vibrate
For me I just don't see the need for another new costume that will probably last maybe 25-40 issues before we get the traditional look back again.
"He's pure power and doesn't even know it. He's the best of us."-Matt Murdock
"I need a reason to take the mask off."-Peter Parker
"My heart half-breaks at how easy it is to lie to him. It breaks all the way when he believes me without question." Felicia Hardy
Well, that’s certainly a take.
Changing a costume is not risky because it doesn’t represent a permanent change to a status quo like a character having a baby. If readers don’t like it, the book simply changes the costume back. But if it takes off, then the book milks it for all it’s worth. In any event, even if the costume is lame, readers will still be curious enough to buy the issue where Spidey changes into it for the first time. So it’s low stakes/ high rewards. Surely by now, you’re familiar with Marvel’s event-focused strategy to increase book sales.
Well, the obvious thing to point out here is that Spidey isn't jewish.
Second thing is that marriage brings extra responsibilities, and unless Spidey is a deadbeat husband, then he'd have to mature to properly be in a marriage, and that limits the kind of "youthful" stories to be told with him.
While I think that aging up Peter to that point isn't a problem, and those guys have this toxic nostalgia to keep him young, but they're still not wrong, it's a fact that getting married does age him up, the thing is that they talk like that's a bad thing, which isn't necessarily the case.
And yeah, the supermodel point is to keep this idea of Peter being an everyman, and while a model dating a normal guy is very possible, it's not something that happens usually, problem is, saying that Peter can't date someone who's a model is a dumbass arbitrary point, guy's a pussy magnet for women who could easily be models, so Peter failed at being an everyman in that point a long time ago, hell, even back in Ditko's era he was in a love triangle with Betty and Liz (Who were attractive enough, and when MJ shows up in ASM#25, she's said to be gorgeous, and she was a potential love interest for Peter too, so even Ditko was okay with Peter having really hot women into him), and then got into another one with Gwen and MJ, not a very everyman thing...
They do yeah, either that, or that outline on the lens is bigger this time around.
The Queens tailor guy being the one who designed the Last Stand costume was interesting, wonder if JMS was planning to have Peter wear it at some point, 'cause Spidey was staring at it in ASM#502, and maybe he was interested (Of course, he could be staring at it 'cause it's the costume he saw in the ASM#500 future).
I think it's nice to change looks once in a while, let an artist be creative with designs, as long as it's good of course lol.
Also that .
I’m a Jewish guy from New York. I got married at 33 and had my first kid at 34. Almost everyone I know got married in their late 20s or 30s (with 1 or 2 exceptions). I have no idea what you’re talking about. Maybe that’s Hasidim, because Reform Jews in NYC definitely aren’t getting married and having kids in their early 20s.
Also, as the other guy pointed out... Peter isn’t Jewish. Unfortunately the number of Jewish Marvel superheroes can be counted on one hand... Moon-Knight, the Thing, Kitty Pryde and one or two others. It’s a sad situation considering so much of the old Marvel talent was Jewish, but that’s the reality!
Early 20thC. Jewish artists and writers, were generally into assimilation, i.e. they tried to assert themselves as Americans and as citizens rather than hyphenated Americans (which is more of a '60s thing, and in general a Post-Holocaust thing). Jewish people, especially Jewish men saw USA as the one country that hadn't shanked the Jewish people en masse unlike everywhere in Europe and that fueled their sense of American-ness. So not all Jewish artists and writers of the Golden Age would have been into "representation". For instance Bill Finger was Jewish but he said many times that Batman and Bruce Wayne had to be an Old Money WASP, a patrician descended from the American Revolution-era general (and actual real-life guy) "Mad" Anthony Wayne.
Jack Kirby was the real exception, he was religious and practised his faith, and had a real sense of Jewishness. He intended Ben Grimm to be Jewish and it would take sometime in the mid-2000s during Karl Kessel's run before that became Marvel canon. In terms of publication history, Kitty Pryde is the first openly Jewish superhero in Marvel, and American comics as a whole, co-creation by Chris Claremont who had a strong sense of Jewish identity and a real post-Holocaust sensibility (as apparent with Magneto).
Stan Lee was secular Jewish from what I read, very much typical of Pre-War mentality (he was born in 1922 remember). When he decided to have Peter and Mary Jane get married, whether in the newspaper strip, or in the actual 616 Annual, or at Shea Stadium publicity, he insisted on a secular wedding where the word "god" wasn't mentioned anywhere.
As I mentioned; I am specifically talking about Georgian Jews and Bukharian Jews. They are definitely not reform Jews and the majority of people I grew up with all got married and had their kids immedaitely after college in their early to mid 20's. I am aware Peter is not Jewish (but then again it depends on who you ask) but the point I was trying to make was that most of the arguments about age and marriage and what not and it making Peter older and unrelatable is complete bull.
It doesn’t depend who you ask. He’s not Jewish. He seems like a non-practicing or semi-practicing Christian. He’s been seen multiple times celebrating Christmas, he was married by a priest in a Chapel iirc, and he’s been seen in a Church a few times over his six decade run.
I agree with you that the notion that marriage “ages” Peter is ridiculous. But I also think Peter being 30 (or even older) and married is fine too. It seems that’s also a red line with Marvel. I really miss the Marvel of my childhood (early to mid 90s) when they weren’t terrified of aging Peter gradually and actually changing his status quo from bachelor to married man to expectant father. Alas, that’s been over for a while and now Peter Parker is more like Peter Pan, a kid who won’t grow up.
He was married at City Hall by a Judge.
ASM Annual #21 - Wedding at City Hall.jpg