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  1. #16
    Ultimate Member Mister Mets's Avatar
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    Interesting question. I'll update a post from an earlier thread ranking eras of the Spider-Man comics.

    https://community.cbr.com/showthread...diate+superior

    The "A" eras.

    Enter JMS)
    JMS's run can be split pretty neatly. This section covers his work with John Romita Jr, when the series was mostly self-contained. Meanwhile, Jenkins was doing some of his work on Peter Parker Spider-Man, and Tangled Web had some interesting stuff. Came out just when I was starting to read good comics elsewhere.

    The Big Time) Amazing Spider-Man #648-700. Started really well, and had Spider Island. The worst was not bad at all.

    Superior Spider-Man) A fun departure. One of the most entertaining mega-arcs ever.

    The "B" eras.

    Brand New Day) Amazing Spider-Man #546-647. Marked by the thrice-monthly schedule and rotating writers. Generally solid comic books with some true standouts (Unscheduled Stop, Shed, Gauntlet: Rhino) but some problems with issue to issue continuity.

    Parker Industries) The tail-end of Slott's run took Spider-Man to some new places, though it was also a period when there wasn't much else going on in the Spider-Man comics.

    New Avengers) The arrival of Mike Deodato to Amazing Spider-Man coincided with Millar's run on Marvel Knights Spider-Man and the Spectacular Spider-Man tie-in to Disassembled. The main change was that Spider-Man got more involved with the rest of the Marvel Universe, paving the way for One More Day. Had some of the worst regarded Spider-Man stories ever, but some real gems as well.

    Nick Spencer Phase 1) It seems Spencer's run is going to have a neat divide with the end of the Kindred saga, or at least the first showdown. I admit I should reread the stuff after the Absolute Carnage tie-ins and might appreciate it more. It's good, but gets really padded and the Kindred showdown leads to a 20+ issue supernatural storyline that doesn't seem like the best fit for Spider-Man.

    The Harry Osborn Saga) I realized that Dematteis kicked off his Spectacular Spider-Man run with Sal Buscema (July 1991) at around the same time Bagley became the official artist on Amazing Spider-Man (September 1991) and Terry Kavanagh became the writer on Web of Spider-Man (June 1991, quickly followed by Busiek and Mackie.) Spider-Man is the least neat but this is around when Mcfarlane stopped with the TPB length stories, and the book essentially became an anthology. This is likely the "era" where I've missed the most material, so it could go up a lot if I suddenly learn that particular stories in the satellite books were better than I expected.

    Intermediate Era) This was the two years between the Clone Saga and the Mackie relaunch. Marked by a lot of crossovers, and solid but unremarkable runs.

    The Rest

    The Mackie/ Byrne Relaunch)
    Chapter One, and Howard Mackie's run on Amazing Spider-Man. Did include some good stuff with Webspinners, and Jenkins's first issues of Peter Parker Spider-Man, as well as some awful material.

    Pre-Clone Saga) This would be the period from Spider-Man Unlimited #1 (the beginning of Maximum Carnage) up until the Clone Saga. Has some of the worst moments in the Spider-Man comics, notably Peter Parker No More.

    The Clone Saga) I read almost every issue of the Clone Saga. There was some good stuff, but it was generally a mess.
    Sincerely,
    Thomas Mets

  2. #17
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    You rank ‘Big Time’ higher than the Harry Osborn saga..? Okay... to each their own I guess.

  3. #18
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    Quote Originally Posted by Spiderfang View Post
    I have nearly all of the JMS run (missing OMD & BND), and just started the Slott run [Spider-Island, Superior, Parker Luck & Clone Conspiracy - yes I am a filthy trade waiter -- sue me!] I've been seeing/hearing good things about Spencer's Spider-Man run so far (I think he started in 2017?) and figured that enough time has passed that I can start collecting trades for reasonable prices (I've searched for Spider-Man Big Time, and Kaine's Scarlet Spider run -- which are apparently out of print and upwards of $120 USD!)
    When you say "Slott's run starts with Spider-Island", do you mean that's when he started writing Spider-Man exclusively? It feels weird that people describe Spider-Island as the start.

  4. #19
    Mighty Member Malachi's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by HypnoHustler View Post
    You rank ‘Big Time’ higher than the Harry Osborn saga..? Okay... to each their own I guess.
    I recently reread J.M Dematteis run on spectacular. He really did some heavy lifting in these issues. The Harry Osborn stories are overall some of the strongest issues of Spider-Man that I have read. I thought my memory was tinted with nostalgia from my childhood but even the Corona issues are good.

    I haven't read Big Time. Can it be better and thereby s huge milestone that everyone should read?

  5. #20
    Mighty Member Mike's Avatar
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    Since "Sins Past" I haven't wanted to pick up a Spider-Book.
    Still don't.
    That story just ruined the character for me.

  6. #21
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    Quote Originally Posted by Malachi View Post
    I recently reread J.M Dematteis run on spectacular. He really did some heavy lifting in these issues. The Harry Osborn stories are overall some of the strongest issues of Spider-Man that I have read. I thought my memory was tinted with nostalgia from my childhood but even the Corona issues are good.

    I haven't read Big Time. Can it be better and thereby s huge milestone that everyone should read?
    Big Time is not even close imo.

  7. #22
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    Quote Originally Posted by HypnoHustler View Post
    Big Time is not even close imo.
    And yet I find it higher than the Harry Osborn Saga.

  8. #23
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    Quote Originally Posted by PCN24454 View Post
    And yet I find it higher than the Harry Osborn Saga.
    That’s why I said “imo.” The great thing about opinions is we all have our own ones. That said, general consensus seems to fall on my side when comparing these two. Some lists even have Harry Osborn saga ranked higher than KLH.

  9. #24
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    Quote Originally Posted by HypnoHustler View Post
    That’s why I said “imo.” The great thing about opinions is we all have our own ones. That said, general consensus seems to fall on my side when comparing these two. Some lists even have Harry Osborn saga ranked higher than KLH.
    The Harry Osborn thing was a pretty influential story. It singlehandedly transformed and elevated Harry.

    This thing people have about Harry being Peter's best "male friend" and so on, wasn't always a certain thing in 616. In the Len Wein era all the way through, Harry had become a background character, with little to do with Peter. In the Wedding Annual, Flash Thompson, not Harry, was Peter's best man.

    So JMD's Harry Osborn run elevated Harry up several levels, and that's more or less why Harry is such a big deal in the Fox cartoon, the Raimi movies, early USM and so on.

  10. #25
    Ultimate Member Mister Mets's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by HypnoHustler View Post
    You rank ‘Big Time’ higher than the Harry Osborn saga..? Okay... to each their own I guess.
    To be clear, I was comparing eras of the character, including satellite books.

    The Harry Osborn Saga is a catch-all for the two years leading up to Maximum Carnage. The saga itself is excellent, although there are some unrelated DeMatteis/ Bagley Spec issues that aren't on that level (an X-Men three parter and the Black Crow VS Puma.) Then there's the Bagley/ Micheline run of Amazing Spider-Man. Which is okay. And the Mackie run of Web of Spider-Man. And some mostly forgotten arcs of Spider-Man.

    Instead of comparing Spectacular Spider-Man #178-190, 200 to The Big Time I was comparing roughly two year periods of the Spider-Man books.

    In this approach, "The Harry Osborn Saga" covers Spectacular Spider-Man #176-200, Web of Spider-Man #77-100, Amazing Spider-Man #351-377, and Spider-Man #15-34.

    "The Big Time era" covers Amazing Spider-Man #648-700, Avenging Spider-Man #1-15 and assorted projects released at that time.
    Last edited by Mister Mets; 01-02-2021 at 09:10 PM.
    Sincerely,
    Thomas Mets

  11. #26
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    Quote Originally Posted by Mister Mets View Post
    The Harry Osborn Saga is a catch-all for the two years leading up to Maximum Carnage.
    A catch-all you have invented yourself. People refer to it if at all as JMD's Spectacular run with Sal Buscema, or by the titles of "The Child Within/The Best of Enemies".

    The saga itself is excellent, although there are some unrelated DeMatteis/ Bagley Spec issues that aren't on that level
    Since all the issues are those by Dematteis/Buscema and nobody has ever included the goings on in ASM until you just now, to make your point...I think it's safe to say this dog doesn't walk.

    Instead of comparing Spectacular Spider-Man #178-190, 200 to The Big Time...
    Which is the expected thing to do after all.

  12. #27
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    It's not done. It's not bad. It's not great. Weak for a Spencer book. OK for a Spider-Man book. Scripts are neat but the pacing is so terrible. Art's inconsistent. Slott was better. (By this I mean Stephen Wacker was better.) Although even when Slott was with Nick Lowe, a plot beat didn't take two years and 50+ issues to pay off (or not pay off) and you had such a pleasant artist rotation.
    I don't blind date I make the direct market vibrate

  13. #28
    Mighty Member Malachi's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Mister Mets View Post
    To be clear, I was comparing eras of the character, including satellite books.

    The Harry Osborn Saga is a catch-all for the two years leading up to Maximum Carnage. The saga itself is excellent, although there are some unrelated DeMatteis/ Bagley Spec issues that aren't on that level (an X-Men three parter and the Black Crow VS Puma.) Then there's the Bagley/ Micheline run of Amazing Spider-Man. Which is okay. And the Mackie run of Web of Spider-Man. And some mostly forgotten arcs of Spider-Man.

    Instead of comparing Spectacular Spider-Man #178-190, 200 to The Big Time I was comparing roughly two year periods of the Spider-Man books.

    In this approach, "The Harry Osborn Saga" covers Spectacular Spider-Man #176-200, Web of Spider-Man #77-100, Amazing Spider-Man #351-377, and Spider-Man #15-34.

    "The Big Time era" covers Amazing Spider-Man #648-700, Avenging Spider-Man #1-15 and assorted projects released at that time.
    While I understand the simplicity, both for you and for us, of presenting a already formatted post, the idea of "Eras" as presented is flawed. Flawed enough that it mucks up the comparassion of Spencer vs other writers.

    The nature of different runs over the years make it very hard to assign eras to them. Should we call Roger stern's run an era? What about other writers who where midrun, had just started and so on during that period. It's hard to find different elements lining up to neatly present them as an era. With one exception. Slott. Simply because Slott was the main writer. Often the only writer. The names of these eras are then names he has assigned them. It goes beyond story, it's publishing plans and marketting. All working with each other.

    So Spencer vs Slott. There we can talk eras because the format is the same. Otherwise it's like a runner racing against 3-4 other medley runners. With the medley runners not being trained as medley runners and in different physical conditions.

    So even though eras may seem like a good comparision it would be better to stick with the idea of Runs. The way the writers intended them to be.

  14. #29
    Ultimate Member Mister Mets's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Malachi View Post
    While I understand the simplicity, both for you and for us, of presenting a already formatted post, the idea of "Eras" as presented is flawed. Flawed enough that it mucks up the comparassion of Spencer vs other writers.

    The nature of different runs over the years make it very hard to assign eras to them. Should we call Roger stern's run an era? What about other writers who where midrun, had just started and so on during that period. It's hard to find different elements lining up to neatly present them as an era. With one exception. Slott. Simply because Slott was the main writer. Often the only writer. The names of these eras are then names he has assigned them. It goes beyond story, it's publishing plans and marketting. All working with each other.

    So Spencer vs Slott. There we can talk eras because the format is the same. Otherwise it's like a runner racing against 3-4 other medley runners. With the medley runners not being trained as medley runners and in different physical conditions.

    So even though eras may seem like a good comparision it would be better to stick with the idea of Runs. The way the writers intended them to be.
    I was pretty clear that it was the post was about eras. A link was provided to an earlier thread, and my post mentioned stuff going on in other titles during the DeMatteis/ Buscema run.

    Thanks to crossovers becoming popular in the 90s, it is easier to distinguish eras for the last thirty years as there are some clear cut-offs: Maximum Carnage, The Clone Saga, The '98 relaunch, JMS taking over, The Big Time, Nick Spencer taking over.

    With some eras of the book it gets really tough to look at one writer's work. The Clone Saga and Brand New Day came to mind. There are also writers who have been on Spider-Man characters for many different runs, and we can do our best to compare, but it's going to have its own problems. Tom Defalco had two runs of Amazing Spider-Man and Spider-Girl. Gerry Conway had a run of Amazing Spider-Man, a run on Spectacular Spider-Man/ Web of Spider-Man, and then had the Renew Your Vows series. Peter David had the 1980s run on Spectacular Spider-Man, the 2000s run on Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man and is about 12 issues into Symbiote Spider-Man. This is before we consider whether his 2099 work counts.

    With the Stern comparison, that was a different publishing period. Most people now aren't going to read Stern's Spectacular Spider-Man comics alongside O'Neil's Amazing Spider-Man or that month's issues of Marvel Team Up (at the time it had a lot of different writers.) There weren't divides as neat as the clone saga suddenly ending, or a new writer taking over Amazing Spider-Man in a relaunch.

    If I was comparing Nick Spencer to all Spider-Man writers at the moment he would be good, but not in my top ten. I would rate Stan Lee, Gerry Conway, Marv Wolfman, Roger Stern, JM DeMatteis, Tom DeFalco, Peter David, Paul Jenkins, Brian Michael Bendis, Dan Slott, Mark Waid, Zeb Wells and Chip Zdarsky higher. Part of it is that at the moment, I don't find his best stories to be that great. Perhaps I'll appreciate it with more distance.
    Last edited by Mister Mets; 01-03-2021 at 08:23 AM.
    Sincerely,
    Thomas Mets

  15. #30
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    Quote Originally Posted by Malachi View Post
    The nature of different runs over the years make it very hard to assign eras to them. Should we call Roger stern's run an era? What about other writers who where midrun, had just started and so on during that period. It's hard to find different elements lining up to neatly present them as an era.
    Merriam-Webster and others have a definition of an era as, "a period identified by some prominent figure or characteristic feature", "a memorable or important date or event" or "a fixed point in time from which a series of years is reckoned" or "a stage in development (as of a person or thing)".
    (https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/era)

    I think the word "era" makes sense if you describe a period that has come and gone, that's never coming back. Based on that, it doesn't really make sense to call runs in Spider-Man "eras".

    Eras in Spider-Man:
    -- AF#15 to ASM#28, i.e. High School Peter. That's gone and that's never coming back in 616 Marvel. At least not without a substantial reboot and change.
    -- ASM#122 to ASM#290. Gwen dies, the end of the Lee-Romita era of innocence and the most charismatic period of Peter's supporting cast. Eventually led to Peter leaving Harry's loft and going to an apartment in Chelsea which remains his "pad" for the next 200 issues or so.
    -- The Spider-Marriage, i.e. Peter and MJ get married in ASM Annual #21 and that era defines Spider-Man for 20 years and literally still defines and colors Spider-Man because the continuity is still defined by its absence as much as its presence.
    -- Within that, the Clone Saga and its aftermath qualifies as a sub-era. Because it was a period of such distinction and disorder which affected the titles for such a long time.
    -- JMS' run is unusual in that it feels like an era in retrospect, i.e. the last time you have a writer approach Spider-Man as a grown up adult hero with character development and change. Since JMS, no version of Spider-Man, in comics, in adaptations, has appeared with as much maturity.
    -- Of course OMD to the present is an era.

    I don't think BND, Slott, or (provisionally) Spencer's run qualifies as an era, because the stuff that happened in their runs didn't really create any changes or actions that will last or is built to last. Almost everything in Slott's run was mightily swept away in Spencer's first issue. OMD still remains the most defining story in the current era of Spider-Man far more important and consequential than anything in BND or Slott, and presumably Spencer's run for the time being.

    Quote Originally Posted by Mister Mets View Post
    I was pretty clear that it was the post was about eras.
    Your post was in fact completely vague and incoherent in terms of defining what an era was and how you categorized it, using private definitions that nobody else, here, recognized or acknowledged.

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