Knowing it’s ending, how would you rate Spencer’s run?

[Naz]

[QUOTEThe list of complaints and negatives is WAY too long and incriminating to pretend that all of a sudden JMS's run is considered one of the best or strongest now. While it's true that it does have its hardcore fans (like YOU, lol),][/QUOTE]

People complaining about JMS run are no different to Tom Breevort who refused to move forward from 1970s Spiderman version. Spiderman is about moving forward and growth. JMS wrote an adult Spiderman not some idiot in a costume like Slott's version.

[HypnoHustler]

[QUOTEThe list of complaints and negatives is WAY too long and incriminating to pretend that all of a sudden JMS's run is considered one of the best or strongest now. While it's true that it does have its hardcore fans (like YOU, lol),]

People complaining about JMS run are no different to Tom Breevort who refused to move forward from 1970s Spiderman version. Spiderman is about moving forward and growth. JMS wrote an adult Spiderman not some idiot in a costume like Slott's version.[/QUOTE]

That’s not why people had a problem with JMS. I liked him turning Peter into a teacher. It was the other stuff mentioned (mystical
Animal totems, Sins Past, OMD, self-serving dialogue meant to pump up his villains and stories, all the magical threats) that I had issue with. I liked some stories he did though!

[Naz]

That’s not why people had a problem with JMS. I liked him turning Peter into a teacher. It was the other stuff mentioned (mystical
Animal totems, Sins Past, OMD, self-serving dialogue meant to pump up his villains and stories, all the magical threats) that I had issue with. I liked some stories he did though!

Fair point. I also did not like those parts. Nevertheless, JMS wrote great issues with his Aunt finding out, getting back with MJ and more importantly writing Peter as an adult. I suppose what I dislike is going back to some version of the character from issues 90 to 220 but with an even worse characterisation. At least then more competent.

[Lukmendes]

The point is that if you just center on this and ignore the rest of the stuff. You also had great moments of poignancy in that run. Like this one where Betty decides to sit with Peter while Aunt May is hospitalized and you have Peter admitting to himself how Betty is really his first real friend:

Betty after like, ASM#10 was just a jealous girlfriend and did little else.

The setting didn't have everyone only being assholes, but it happened too much, and when reading Ditko's run, while I like Peter and JJ, I overall didn't like reading Peter's social life side.

Donny Cates' Venom run has gotten much praise much too fast and it'll likely face a backlash in due course since so much of it is driven by late 2010s cliches (i.e. Eddie as a grizzled Dad with a bad past taking care of his kid, which was a trope you saw in stuff like The Last of Us, LOGAN, GOD OF WAR, among many others). I liked some of the stuff at the start for sure, but certainly not as it developed subsequently.

A problem with Cates' run is how everything surrounds Knull, and Knull himself isn't that interesting...

Also not a fan how he made the symbiote a bigger *******, and, for a while at least, made Eddy into its poor little victim, when Eddy himself is as much of a piece of **** as the symbiote at his worse.

Sins Past and OMD weren't his stories the way they were done.

JMS' original idea for it wasn't much better lol.

[TheCape]

Betty after like, ASM#10 was just a jealous girlfriend and did little else.

The setting didn't have everyone only being assholes, but it happened too much, and when reading Ditko's run, while I like Peter and JJ, I overall didn't like reading Peter's social life side.



A problem with Cates' run is how everything surrounds Knull, and Knull himself isn't that interesting...

Also not a fan how he made the symbiote a bigger *******, and, for a while at least, made Eddy into its poor little victim, when Eddy himself is as much of a piece of **** as the symbiote at his worse.



JMS' original idea for it wasn't much better lol.

I wonder how much of it was Dikto's idea and how much was Stan Lee, because rigth after #38, everyone seemingly took a chill pill and became nicer, except for Jonah of course.

I kind of understand why Cates did it, in my opinion you cannot make Eddie a part of the hero community without some serious rewritting/retconning of his characther, mainly because the original was an ******* who probably was mentally ill. Seeing how Marvel is compromised to make Venom into a good guy, i sort of see the logic behind the decisions in that run.

Also Knull is just the boogeyman, he is less of a characther and more like a force of nature, but writting those is super tricky because you cannot use then too much.

[DrewHLMW]

Not great but not as awful as everyone is currently making it to be.
Peter and MJ are together again.
Sins Past is undone so thats a huge plus for me cause that was by far the worst spider-man story in existance.
There's a lot of good stuff in Spencers run, the first 29 issues are good and then 37-49 are all great. Last Remains doesn't hold up anymore since the story changes by Spencers early exit now but it was pretty good at the time.

I think it's a solid 7/10 its worth reading.

Slott and JMS were better though. dont care what the haters say, the spider totems, morlun, the other saga and peter's improved abilities after it were all fantastic.

[Lukmendes]

I wonder how much of it was Dikto's idea and how much was Stan Lee, because rigth after #38, everyone seemingly took a chill pill and became nicer, except for Jonah of course.

Knowing that the Marvel method had the artist planning the story while Stan Lee wrote the dialogue, it's very probable that Ditko was the one who made everyone into assholes, and once he left, Romita became the artist in ASM#39 vol 1, and suddenly everyone is nicer, I really doubt that's a coincidence.

Whatever were Ditko's original plans, it's impossible to know now, but I doubt the characters would become nicer any time soon, if ever, only one I can see being an exception is Gwen, since she more or less follows the same-ish kind of characterization as Liz, and Liz got a crush on Peter as soon as she learned how brave he is when he "pretended" to be Spider-Man (ASM#12), while one of the reasons Gwen is pissed at Peter is because she thinks he's a coward since she saw him running away when a super-villain showed up (ASM#36), other reasons is that he didn't give her the attention she's used to (ASM#31), blew her off (Same issue), and while both cases weren't intentional, since he was worried about aunt May, she doesn't know, but unlike everyone else, she was wondering if there was a reason for him to be like that, so at the very least, I think if a situation showed that Peter is "brave" she'd be more willing to give him chances, which she once in a while was trying to do so anyways, as she wanted to talk with Peter in ASM#36 before he "ran away" from Looter.

Now I'm not saying that Gwen was a nice girl, she still bullied him despite having a crush on him, and she was just as nasty as Flash and Harry, but again, her similarities with Liz, and how once in a while she actually wondered what was up with Peter, which no one else did, I think it's likely she'd become nice at some point under Ditko if he kept going, and hell, it'd probably be really jarring too if Gwen was that much like Liz, since Liz went from bullying Peter to actually defending him, and it was odd since she basically became another character with how much of an 180º that was lol.

Honestly getting into those "what if" territories is interesting, another thing I wonder is that Norman was part of that "Gentleman club" that JJ shows up in once in a while, and there's a quote around that has Ditko saying he was planning to make drama between Norman and JJ since Norman was always planned to be Green Goblin, and it'd be nice for such a detail to become important later on, since the gentlemen club ended up not doing anything after Ditko left.

Anothet detail is that Norman didn't actually seem emotionally distant from Harry, ASM#38 even has him letting use the car, which Flash points out it's nice of him, though ASM#37 also has him dismissing Harry's questions in rude ways, which's kinda ******* even by Ditko's standards (https://i.imgur.com/pNxEc7M.png), but it sounds like Norman being so emotionally distant from Harry was something Romita came up with.

I kind of understand why Cates did it, in my opinion you cannot make Eddie a part of the hero community without some serious rewritting/retconning of his characther, mainly because the original was an ******* who probably was mentally ill. Seeing how Marvel is compromised to make Venom into a good guy, i sort of see the logic behind the decisions in that run.

The thing is that he was already a hero before this, **** like Spider-Island helps in making him look heroic, so there was no need to make Eddie look like a poor victim, specially since half of what Venom is, is the symbiote, so Cates is not improving Venom by making half of him look worse.

Also Knull is just the boogeyman, he is less of a characther and more like a force of nature, but writting those is super tricky because you cannot use then too much.

The problem is how much he took over the plot, everything symbiote related is very deeply connected with him, even in ways that aren't necessary, and his character is just meh.

If we compare with Immortal Hulk, The One Below All does a similar thing, but he's used to explain the plot holes surrounding Hulk related stuff while also being little more than a force of nature, and TOBA kinda expands stuff about Hulk while Knull suffocates symbiote related stuff with his presence.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

Honestly getting into those "what if" territories is interesting, another thing I wonder is that Norman was part of that "Gentleman club" that JJ shows up in once in a while, and there's a quote around that has Ditko saying he was planning to make drama between Norman and JJ since Norman was always planned to be Green Goblin, and it'd be nice for such a detail to become important later on, since the gentlemen club ended up not doing anything after Ditko left.

Anothet detail is that Norman didn't actually seem emotionally distant from Harry, ASM#38 even has him letting use the car, which Flash points out it's nice of him, though ASM#37 also has him dismissing Harry's questions in rude ways, which's kinda ******* even by Ditko's standards (https://i.imgur.com/pNxEc7M.png), but it sounds like Norman being so emotionally distant from Harry was something Romita came up with.

Great points. There's broad continuity between Ditko and Romita Sr but small quirks of characterization here and there are altered, without explanation sometimes.

[Lukmendes]

Great points.

Thanks.

There's broad continuity between Ditko and Romita Sr but small quirks of characterization here and there are altered, without explanation sometimes.

Biggest victim of this being Gwen lol.

Only some of the earliest issues can excuse her change in character, since Ditko's Gwen was implied she'd be nice to Peter if she got a proper chance to talk with him without either his temper, or her's, getting in the way, but after a while, yeah... "Generic love interest" is what her character became.

Harry all of a sudden got daddy issues, when Ditko's Harry was a brat because, he's a brat, and despite how much Norman was an ass in ASM#37, Harry didn't seem to mind it, and afterwards they talk to each other in a friendly way, so that can make it look like it was just Norman being stressed in that situation, and it isn't the norm.

Flash is an odd one, ASM#39 has him wondering why Peter is being friendly with Harry, and one of the reasons he thinks is "He might be a better man than we thought he was", but after a while he's an ass again, maybe Romita thought that Flash being friendly with Peter was too much, though I'm not sure if he became an ass before, or after he came back from the army temporarily, or maybe he never stopped being an ass despite that comment, not sure now.

One thing that was unfortunately was abandoned is how JJ and Norman seem to be friends, ASM#37 has them talking to each other in a friendly way:

https://i.imgur.com/1FYuwBq.png

https://i.imgur.com/d2yocdO.png

but Romita did nothing to it, I think only ASM#62 has them talking to each other like they're friends, but it doesn't go anywhere for either of their character:

https://i.imgur.com/WDpGgJ4.png

https://i.imgur.com/H9Mnl5D.png

[Huntsman Spider]

I wonder how much of it was Dikto's idea and how much was Stan Lee, because rigth after #38, everyone seemingly took a chill pill and became nicer, except for Jonah of course.

I kind of understand why Cates did it, in my opinion you cannot make Eddie a part of the hero community without some serious rewritting/retconning of his characther, mainly because the original was an ******* who probably was mentally ill. Seeing how Marvel is compromised to make Venom into a good guy, i sort of see the logic behind the decisions in that run.

Also Knull is just the boogeyman, he is less of a characther and more like a force of nature, but writting those is super tricky because you cannot use then too much.

Considering some of the more morally dubious if not downright heinous crap a number of Avengers have gotten up to in the past, not to mention the number of villains who've managed some form of redemption through joining the Avengers, I don't see Eddie Brock/Venom being that much of a stretch for them to accept in relatively good standing.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

Biggest victim of this being Gwen lol.

Only some of the earliest issues can excuse her change in character, since Ditko's Gwen was implied she'd be nice to Peter if she got a proper chance to talk with him without either his temper, or her's, getting in the way, but after a while, yeah... "Generic love interest" is what her character became.

Well except for some of the later Lee-Romita issues where she becomes an even bigger jerk than in the Ditko years, but the problem is that the narrative never acknowledges any of that.

One thing that was unfortunately was abandoned is how JJ and Norman seem to be friends, ASM#37 has them talking to each other in a friendly way

The Green Goblin Reveal issue in ASM#39-40 is a classic and all but I can't help but think it was a little premature because the weird thing is that when Peter finds out Goblin is unmasked, that's when he meets Norman for the first time. So there's not much of any connection between the characters for that reveal to land. Lee-Romita set up a bond and tentative friendship between Harry and Peter in the same issue but it's still way too little to get that Peter would all of a sudden care so much for Harry that he'd let a supervillain crime lord who tried to kill him numerous times worm his way back into civilian life. And then after the reveal, Norman becomes a lame dad and supporting character for most of the L-R run barring the Drug Trilogy where he relapsed and it's almost as if Stan Lee wanted to get the Green Goblin mystery out of his way rather than continue the intricate cat-and-mouse thing you had in the Ditko years.

Ditko's Norman had no split personality and he never conceived any of his villains as mentally unbalanced. So the melodramatic and sentimental touches introduced by Lee-Romita kind of neutered him a bit. Since Norman's resurrection he has somehow become a lot more like Ditko's take. One reason why Weisman's The Spectacular Spider-Man cartoon was so great that it really went with Ditko's original Norman/Goblin. All coolly calculating and sociopathic charm without any of the sentimental split personality stuff from later.

At the same time I also liked how Dafoe's Norman Osborn did the split-personality thing and it worked there too. I certainly don't think the Romita Goblin stuff needs to be retconned or anything. It was great execution and classic comics and more or less following Ditko's ideas but differing a bit.

[TheCape]

Considering some of the more morally dubious if not downright heinous crap a number of Avengers have gotten up to in the past, not to mention the number of villains who've managed some form of redemption through joining the Avengers, I don't see Eddie Brock/Venom being that much of a stretch for them to accept in relatively good standing.

You are implying that Marvel gives the proper narrative weight to most of the crap that the Avengers pulled in the 2000s instead of just sort of ignoring it and go on with their lifes. Sometimes they do, but is not really the rule. Plus, most writters and a good chunk of the fandom prefer to ignore those instances.

[Huntsman Spider]

You are implying that Marvel gives the proper narrative weight to most of the crap that the Avengers pulled in the 2000s instead of just sort of ignoring it and go on with their lifes. Sometimes they do, but is not really the rule.

True enough, I suppose.

[Lukmendes]

Considering some of the more morally dubious if not downright heinous crap a number of Avengers have gotten up to in the past, not to mention the number of villains who've managed some form of redemption through joining the Avengers, I don't see Eddie Brock/Venom being that much of a stretch for them to accept in relatively good standing.

Fact that X-Men accept the likes of Emma and Magneto say it all too lol.

Well except for some of the later Lee-Romita issues where she becomes an even bigger jerk than in the Ditko years, but the problem is that the narrative never acknowledges any of that.

Yeah, the writing surrounding her had, issues to put it lightly.

When I was checking out Romita's run, whenever it was time for her relationship with Peter to show up, I rolled my eyes 'cause I know it would be annoying.

The Green Goblin Reveal issue in ASM#39-40 is a classic and all but I can't help but think it was a little premature because the weird thing is that when Peter finds out Goblin is unmasked, that's when he meets Norman for the first time. So there's not much of any connection between the characters for that reveal to land. Lee-Romita set up a bond and tentative friendship between Harry and Peter in the same issue but it's still way too little to get that Peter would all of a sudden care so much for Harry that he'd let a supervillain crime lord who tried to kill him numerous times worm his way back into civilian life. And then after the reveal, Norman becomes a lame dad and supporting character for most of the L-R run barring the Drug Trilogy where he relapsed and it's almost as if Stan Lee wanted to get the Green Goblin mystery out of his way rather than continue the intricate cat-and-mouse thing you had in the Ditko years.

Yeah, the way stuff happened there was too rushed, it's like Romita wanted to leave his mark while waiting for Ditko to return.

He also "relapsed" in Spectacular Spider-Man Magazine#2, which was also the final issue for that one, and it's not a random filler issue, as ASM itself was hinting that Green Goblin would return, so it's something important to ASM, that happened outside of it for no reason, and at least one ASM issue that happens after it referenced it.

Ditko's Norman had no split personality and he never conceived any of his villains as mentally unbalanced.

Otto was, ASM#3 quite clearly says that his mind was "Permanently damaged" after the accident:

https://i.imgur.com/4zuSkuZ.png

Though that doesn't come up after this lol.

Lizard was too when transformed, he tried to keep the transformation in control to not hurt his family.

Scorpion also had the "Experiment makes him evil":

https://i.imgur.com/KBM04Tl.png

(ASM#20)

And also the Joe guy from ASM#38, though his case only lasted a few hours:

https://i.imgur.com/s5HfHWi.png

So there were a few, the rest were straight forward villains, while the likes of Otto and Gargan had something dumb happen for them to act like straight forward villains, but there's no indication this is what Ditko was planning for Norman, since the earliest scene he shows up as Green Goblin has him finishing that broom.

So the melodramatic and sentimental touches introduced by Lee-Romita kind of neutered him a bit. Since Norman's resurrection he has somehow become a lot more like Ditko's take. One reason why Weisman's The Spectacular Spider-Man cartoon was so great that it really went with Ditko's original Norman/Goblin. All coolly calculating and sociopathic charm without any of the sentimental split personality stuff from later.

To be fair, it wasn't exactly a split personality, it was magic amnesia, only thing that was really stopping Norman from being a super villain was remembering that he's Green Goblin, as he never thinks about the **** the Green Goblin does as bad things like adaptations tend to make him.

It is still weird he was so tame when he did forget that he was a super villain, since he was an ******* before all of that, I think there was something about him kinda trying to redeem himself for Harry? Though that only really should make him stop being so dismissive of Harry, or try to, there's no reason he should stop being a villain when he's forgetting that he is Green Goblin.

About Spectacular, I think Weisman said that it was left in the air if he wasn't affected by the Goblin Serum as he claims, but there's no real evidence to support that he was affected... For an adaptation of Ditko's Norman, yeah, Spectacular Norman was the closest, but also flanderized since he picked Ditko's Norman's "evil businessman", and post return Norman's "super abusive father", but hey, he's fun enough, even if he uses Weisman's trademarked "Super pragmatic villain", he's not as untouchable as YJ's The Light at least...

At the same time I also liked how Dafoe's Norman Osborn did the split-personality thing and it worked there too. I certainly don't think the Romita Goblin stuff needs to be retconned or anything. It was great execution and classic comics and more or less following Ditko's ideas but differing a bit.

Not to mention that trying to adapt that goofy silver age amnesia just wouldn't work well lol.

You are implying that Marvel gives the proper narrative weight to most of the crap that the Avengers pulled in the 2000s instead of just sort of ignoring it and go on with their lifes. Sometimes they do, but is not really the rule. Plus, most writters and a good chunk of the fandom prefer to ignore those instances.

Yeah, never forget that Avengers were being real assholes during and after AvX, Cap in particular became such an *******, he kept blaming Cyke for killing Xavier, ignoring, y'know, that was the Phoenix fucking him over mentally lol.

Sure, he wasn't the only one, but he's supposed to look like an example of a great hero, but he's just an ass there.

[Snoop Dogg]

i am glad that kindred finally made you all realize the truth, that ditko/lee is this character's only good run