CBR think piece: Best and Worst of Dan Slott's Spider-Man comics

[Batman Begins 2005]

Best:

TASM #648-651.
Superior Spider-Man.
TASM: Renew Your Vows.

Worst:

Alpha.
TASM (Vol. 3). Absolutely awful.
TASM (Vol. 4). Dreadfully dire.

[Batman Begins 2005]

The last two volumes made me drop the book. I couldn't take any more and cancelled my subscription six issues into Vol. 4.

[Batman Begins 2005]

I’d say I agree it with it about 70%. Not exactly sure why the writer thinks ‘Dying Wish’ is his worst story. I think it’s one of his best. But overall the other choices are fairly spot on. Put more simply, all his best work is ‘Superior’ or pre-Superior (although Alpha was his worst work from the pre-Superior era) and all his worst work was post-Superior. Slott’s run would be remembered a lot more fondly if he quit after the conclusion of the ‘Superior’ era instead of lingering around like a bad fart for another 5 years. There’s very little of his post-Superior era to recommend (some like Spiderverse, but I wasn’t a huge fan of it).

Said the same many times. Slott should've bowed out on TSSM. Everything after with one or two exceptions tainted his time in the book.

[Knightmare10880]

I remember back in the day, when Slott was writing She-Hulk and the Thing and thinking how much I wanted to see him on Spider-Man. I think that as with a lot of other fans, that Slott should have ended after either Superior Spider-Man or Spider-Verse. I think that the editorial interference on Spider-Verse affected Dan Slott greatly and after that it seemed like he had ideas but they were either poorly executed, he lost interest in them or in the case of Parker Industries both things seemed to happen. It's sad as I think that Spider-Island is an awesome story as is the original Renew Your Vows. Superior Spider-Man was also very good and really high-lighted at least to me that it is Peter himself not the powers that makes Spider-Man an amazing character.

[Celgress]

Superior (in its entirety), Spiderverse, Spider-Island, and RYV are (easily) my picks (in that order) for his best work with the Webslinger. All four were AMAZING (for different reasons), IMO.

Edit - Anything to do with Queenpin, Clone Conspiracy, Big Time, and Red Goblin (in that order from worst to less so but still bad) were the low points, IMO.

[blackspidey2099]

Spider-Man/Human Torch was the best thing Slott has written IMO.

[Uncanny X-Man]

Dan Slott's Spider-Man is an absolute all-time favourite of mine. There were certainly arcs I didn't love (the Alpha one comes to mind, as well as the beginning of Worldwide) but overall I felt he kept the quality very high for a 10-year run, which is impressive considering how many writers tend to lose steam after a year or 2.

I'm actually a lot more disappointed in his Fantastic Four which has just been above average mostly.

[Sparko]

Interesting article. Like many of you, I would go a different route. I loved most of Slott’s run, and there wasn’t too much I didn’t like. Sometimes I felt the ending to some stories felt rushed. While I particularly loved Superior Spidey and maybe I need to reread it, I thought the last arc felt a bit rushed as I read it. The Clone Conspiracy felt a little convoluted if I remember right. And yeah, I really didn’t care for Alpha, but even Slott has gone on to say that was a good bit of editorial coming down on him to make the story longer.

Loved Ends of the Earth by the way! And a lot of the smaller stories that lead up to Superior. Dying Wish had me sweating! It was great. Anywho, I’m going back to reread it all soon enough.

[Darthfury78]

Spider-Man/Human Torch was the best thing Slott has written IMO.

A real shame Slott was unwilling to write a Spider-Man/She-Hulk series as that would had rivaled Spider-Man/Human Torch...

[Scott Taylor]

Hmm. Well I disagree with a lot of that list.

Goblin Nation was terrible
Dead No More was good
Renew Your Vows was terrible
Power Play (didn't read, but too much relationship drama in Spider-Man is not a thing)
Spider-Man/Human Torch was good
Alpha was meh, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't a serious attempt at giving Spider-Man a sidekick so much as a kind of joke story
Spider-Island was bad
My Own Worst Enemy was good
Spider-Verse was ok
Dying Wish was good (even if I didn't like the end goal)

[Malachi]

Well Clone Conspiracy brought back Ben Reilly. Something I had waited for since his original death. Yet I never picked up his ongoing or any subsequent appearance. It also made me very negative towards reading anything PAD writes. Another all time favorite. So it's rather ironic how it destroyed both for me. What a waste.

Does this list and thread mean that we are finally reaching some sort of general conscensus on that it's not good?

[NC_Yankee]

Well Clone Conspiracy brought back Ben Reilly. Something I had waited for since his original death. Yet I never picked up his ongoing or any subsequent appearance. It also made me very negative towards reading anything PAD writes. Another all time favorite. So it's rather ironic how it destroyed both for me. What a waste.

Does this list and thread mean that we are finally reaching some sort of general conscensus on that it's not good?

I do not think there is much debate about Dan Slott’s tenure not being good. Silk, Queen Pin, Clone Conspiracy, Jackpot, Alpha and I can go on and on. The only question is he the worst writer in Spider-Man history?

[WebLurker]

I do not think there is much debate about Dan Slott’s tenure not being good. Silk, Queen Pin, Clone Conspiracy, Jackpot, Alpha and I can go on and on. The only question is he the worst writer in Spider-Man history?

Dunno abut there not being much debate; seems like Slott was generally well-received except for those of us who disagreed on what he thought Spider-Man was. On the other hand, I think that comic book runs tend to fade into obscurity and his will too (times change, new readers come onboard at later points in time, and few stories remain evergreen in the first place). He might be remembered for the sheer WTF-ness of his run (e.g. "There was that writer who killed off Spider-Man and retooled the series to be about a villain pretending to be Spider-Man; it was another one of those weird phases, like when they were doing all that clone stuff").

Even then, I'm not sure; seems like except for those who really hate him, most readers seemed to have moved on after he did.

[NC_Yankee]

Dunno abut there not being much debate; seems like Slott was generally well-received except for those of us who disagreed on what he thought Spider-Man was. On the other hand, I think that comic book runs tend to fade into obscurity and his will too (times change, new readers come onboard at later points in time, and few stories remain evergreen in the first place). He might be remembered for the sheer WTF-ness of his run (e.g. "There was that writer who killed off Spider-Man and retooled the series to be about a villain pretending to be Spider-Man; it was another one of those weird phases, like when they were doing all that clone stuff").

Even then, I'm not sure; seems like except for those who really hate him, most readers seemed to have moved on after he did.

I do not agree with this analysis. Why? Great stories and bad stories remain. Leaving aside OMD/BND ( bad) and Amazing Fantasy 15 ( good) because they are still in effect, stuff like Silk and Queen Pin are still sore spots with fans ( just like The Other and Sins Past when it comes to JMS). 2: Part of being a hard core fan of something means you are into historical comparisons. For example: Take the Yankees. Was the 1998 team better then 1927? I never saw Ruth, Gehrig etc while I saw Jeter, Rivera etc. But the numbers are there to compare. Same thing for Spider-Man. I did not see the Ditko originals when they came out, but I can easily compare them to the Slott run. Basically Ditko put up Babe Ruth type quality issues ( most of his creations remain ( either as is or in a different form)), while Slott was like the early 90Â’s bad Pre Jeter Yankee teams: Some good games but mostly bad.

[WebLurker]

I do not agree with this analysis. Why? Great stories and bad stories remain. Leaving aside OMD/BND ( bad) and Amazing Fantasy 15 ( good) because they are still in effect, stuff like Silk and Queen Pin are still sore spots with fans ( just like The Other and Sins Past when it comes to JMS). 2: Part of being a hard core fan of something means you are into historical comparisons. For example: Take the Yankees. Was the 1998 team better then 1927? I never saw Ruth, Gehrig etc while I saw Jeter, Rivera etc. But the numbers are there to compare. Same thing for Spider-Man. I did not see the Ditko originals when they came out, but I can easily compare them to the Slott run. Basically Ditko put up Babe Ruth type quality issues ( most of his creations remain ( either as is or in a different form)), while Slott was like the early 90Â’s bad Pre Jeter Yankee teams: Some good games but mostly bad.

I do get that some stuff never seems to go away in terms of "oh, that was bad" (Clone Saga is still remembered as an all-time low and people still aren't over OMD). However, I guess since Slott's run reset everything at the end, I wonder how much of it will remain a sore point as time goes on (it's not like it exactly impacts future issues the way OMD has affected everything since it was published)?

Not sure if that makes any sense, but there it is.