Has there been any word as to why Spencer is leaving?

[RJT]

Yes, because statistics only make sense in context. To use slang that's become a little dated...duh!!!!

The comics market shrunk badly thanks to the speculator bubble, of which the Clone Saga was both beneficiary and victim. At the same time, the Clone Saga's massive unpopularity when they said Peter was a clone and Ben was the real Spider-Man was completely skated over by you. Ben Reilly had far greater success as sidekick and supporting member than he did as franchise protagonist, which has always been my point. Calling it "Ben Reilly Spider-Man" is disingenuous in extreme.

Consolidation (leaving the title in a better place than when you started) and attrition (the opposite) are things that happen in an ongoing title. Ditko's Spider-Man didn't sell as well as John Romita Sr's for instance but does that mean Romita is more popular or merely that Ditko who started the title and built word of mouth, whose sales rose steadily, especially after the hero graduated high school left the title far better than he found it...which you know he literally found it. So the Spider-Man title has had periods of attrition followed by consolidation. In the case of Clone Saga, it came in a period of consolidation and left the title in high attrition. Some of that is changes in industry, so when JMS came in when the comics market had shrunk more or less to what it is now. In the case of BND, you see attrition year by year, which doesn't vindicate its mission claim that BND would automatically see a sales spike higher than the marriage years, nor generate any exceptional success that vindicates the extreme retcon.

So anyway...to get back on topic, we're still not clear on why Nick Spencer has leaving. Sales generally doesn't seem to be a problem with him, since his first or second year was apparently higher than Slott's first two years, and his final year or so.

So the comics industry had a big contraction during this period, but the Ben Reilly Spider-Man run operated outside this system at the time and was not affected by this contraction?

At one level, I’m not really a big fan of the Ben Reilly era of Spider-Man—I’m really taking issue with you using sales figures absent context to prove one point (sales of Spider-Man dipped when Ben Reilly tool over the book) but then insisting on contextual analysis when using sales figures to prove another (Ben Reilly outsold JMS.) The whole thrust of my argument is that you’re insisting that these things aren’t a matter of opinion but a matter of fact, but in fact you are working backwards from your personal opinion and then inconsistently using data to support that opinion. You can’t say JMS’ lower sales numbers were because he was building back up from the unpopular, divisive Mackie run, but then ignore that BND had to follow the unpopular, divisive One More Day storyline. You tend to pull in all sorts of contextual background to explain away problems in the JMS run, but the bankruptcy of Marvel or the country entering the Great Recession in the middle of BND have no place in explaining a loss of sales; it’s only the one thing you didn’t like about those runs that caused the drops.
Ben Reilly was popular in some quarters, reviled in others.
JMS was popular in some quarters, reviled in others.
BND was popular in some quarters, reviled in others.

The fact remains that Marvel would not be bringing back Ben Reilly (or doing a summer crossover event named Heroes Reborn) if they didn’t think that there would be people nostalgic for those books and that it would make Marvel money.
They might be wrong, and this run might absolute crater sales. But the ONLY reason Marvel would be doing this is that they think it will make them money.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

At one level, I’m not really a big fan of the Ben Reilly era of Spider-Man—I’m really taking issue with you using sales figures absent context to prove one point (sales of Spider-Man dipped when Ben Reilly tool over the book) but then insisting on contextual analysis when using sales figures to prove another (Ben Reilly outsold JMS.)

2nd Clone Saga (1994) is closer in time to 1993-1994, then JMS (2001) is to the period when the Clone Saga ended (1996). The context changed significantly for the latter.

To be as pedantic as I like to be, 1 year (in the case of the 2nd Saga) is a shorter interval than five years, a half-decade (for JMS). So I would say I am fair when I argue that these two ought to be seen in different contexts. I will concede (especially your point about the Recession) that BND probably deserves some contextual acknowledgement as well.

JMS came in a period of attrition and low morale, and he built a period of consolidation, the first time since Michelinie that readership didn't shed and drop over four years. So I measure that to be a significant achievement, which cannot be claimed for the Clone Saga or BND. 2005 saw a drop off (Sins Past started in October 2004 and continued early 2005 so that's probably why).

You can’t say JMS’ lower sales numbers were because he was building back up from the unpopular, divisive Mackie run, but then ignore that BND had to follow the unpopular, divisive One More Day storyline.

Well at least you admit that OMD was unpopular and divisive, so I'll give you that. Usually BND defenders play-act as if it was irrelevant and didn't have an effect at all.

You tend to pull in all sorts of contextual background to explain away problems in the JMS run, but the bankruptcy of Marvel or the country entering the Great Recession in the middle of BND have no place in explaining a loss of sales;

That's a valid point, I'll give you that. Obviously when we look at Spencer, three months of 2020 had no comics and post-Pandemic sales would need to be considered differently than Pre-Pandemic ones.

it’s only the one thing you didn’t like about those runs that caused the drops.

My defense is that I am only reflecting, somewhat ironically, the defenses and arguments editors/publishers do all the time and my point is to disprove the idea of "voting from the wallet" as an industry principle. The fact is nobody actually listens always to "votes from the wallet" especially when it's not in the favor or interests of marketers/publishers.

Ben Reilly was popular in some quarters, reviled in others.

Ben Reilly was widely popular as a sidekick and supporting character, and widely reviled as a replacement and franchise lead.

JMS was popular in some quarters, reviled in others.

Until Sins' Past he was and still is quite popular, and deservedly so (not a single bad issue in the entire JRJR era which is the bulk of his run). Sins' Past made him unpopular. The post-Sins Past stuff where he didn't have a regular artist collaborator is more hit and miss...at least until Back in Black (with Ron Garney) which is a masterpiece.

BND was popular in some quarters, reviled in others.

BND is polarizing and uncharismatic.

This post will continue because responding to your last point would make it longer than it is...

[RJT]

My defense is that I am only reflecting, somewhat ironically, the defenses and arguments editors/publishers do all the time and my point is to disprove the idea of "voting from the wallet" as an industry principle. The fact is nobody actually listens always to "votes from the wallet" especially when it's not in the favor or interests of marketers/publishers.

This makes no sense to me. Marvel does not do anything for any other reason than making money. They might misjudge and make decisions that end up losing them money, but the only reason they made that decision is that they believed the end result would be more money for them.

It’s like how people were arguing that Marvel was publishing so many issues of Spider-Man recently because they hated what Spencer was doing and wanted to “burn off” the rest of his run. I argued that that made no sense and that they were publishing three issues a month because it made them money. It looks like this most recent announcement with the return to the thrice-monthly shipping proved me correct.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

The fact remains that Marvel would not be bringing back Ben Reilly (or doing a summer crossover event named Heroes Reborn) if they didn’t think that there would be people nostalgic for those books and that it would make Marvel money. They might be wrong, and this run might absolute crater sales. But the ONLY reason Marvel would be doing this is that they think it will make them money.

A company isn't always rational, nor should they be assumed to act rationally. It can be infected with bad ideas and dubious assumptions. And that applies to the successful companies too. In this case, the most successful comics company owned by the most successful entertainment company in the world. Nobody is exempt.

To give you an example. Take Teenage Spider-Man:
-- Until the 90s, teenage Spider-Man was absent in Spider-Man media. Every single cartoon featured Spider-Man past high school, no exception (which continued until 2008's Spectacular Spider-Man cartoon).
-- In the comics of course, Spider-Man had been known, introduced to generation after generation and young people after young people as an adult.
-- In the mid-90s you had Kurt Busiek's Untold Tales of Spider-Man, which expanded on the Lee-Ditko high school status-quo by in fact featuring far more high school than Lee-Ditko ever did (most of the stories with teenage Peter, even before Peter graduated, happened at the Daily Bugle). A cult favorite but not a major seller.
-- Then you had John Byrne's Spider-Man Chapter One which was an attempt to update and retcon the original Lee-Ditko run and that was a failure.

So by Year 2000, Teenage Spider-Man was absolutely not representative of the franchise and character, and certainly had no major success to prove market viability and demand. And what happens next...well Bill Jemas, one year after the axing of John Byrne's CHAPTER ONE decides to commission Ultimate Spider-Man. Joe Quesada is skeptical because of Chapter One's failure but Jemas as President overrules him and pushes for Ultimate Spider-Man and Bendis is drafted to write it with the first plot being co-written by Jemas. And lo and behold, Ultimate Spider-Man succeeds. Third time's the charm.

Now the thing is that Marvel editorial/marketing/leadership came to believe that Spider-Man was best as a teenager and high school long before there was evidence of market viability and demand, and in fact, in the face of the absence of that evidence.But they believed this was better so often that they kept giving it second chances until it worked. The question becomes why do some ideas get second chances and second rolls with the dice. Why is second chances not given to say a female superhero to the same extent, or non-white characters to the same extent? In that case you are told the people voted...well when audiences voted against teenage Spider-Man the first two times, did they listen, did they back down from their ideas that Teenage Spider-Man was best and support a grown-up married Spider-Man who at that point was easily the better selling version of the character I mean Quesada would hypocritically use Ultimate Spider-Man to justify OMD and BND down the line.

Marvel is driven by profits and sales but that doesn't mean they rationally function by that principle. Sometimes they will see an idea in need of a market and contrive ways to make the market bend to the idea. Other times, they won't. Because it's not always rational.

[RJT]

A company isn't always rational, nor should they be assumed to act rationally. It can be infected with bad ideas and dubious assumptions. And that applies to the successful companies too. In this case, the most successful comics company owned by the most successful entertainment company in the world. Nobody is exempt.

To give you an example. Take Teenage Spider-Man:
-- Until the 90s, teenage Spider-Man was absent in Spider-Man media. Every single cartoon featured Spider-Man past high school, no exception (which continued until 2008's Spectacular Spider-Man cartoon).
-- In the comics of course, Spider-Man had been known, introduced to generation after generation and young people after young people as an adult.
-- In the mid-90s you had Kurt Busiek's Untold Tales of Spider-Man, which expanded on the Lee-Ditko high school status-quo by in fact featuring far more high school than Lee-Ditko ever did (most of the stories with teenage Peter, even before Peter graduated, happened at the Daily Bugle). A cult favorite but not a major seller.
-- Then you had John Byrne's Spider-Man Chapter One which was an attempt to update and retcon the original Lee-Ditko run and that was a failure.

So by Year 2000, Teenage Spider-Man was absolutely not representative of the franchise and character, and certainly had no major success to prove market viability and demand. And what happens next...well Bill Jemas, one year after the axing of John Byrne's CHAPTER ONE decides to commission Ultimate Spider-Man. Joe Quesada is skeptical because of Chapter One's failure but Jemas as President overrules him and pushes for Ultimate Spider-Man and Bendis is drafted to write it with the first plot being co-written by Jemas. And lo and behold, Ultimate Spider-Man succeeds. Third time's the charm.

Now the thing is that Marvel editorial/marketing/leadership came to believe that Spider-Man was best as a teenager and high school long before there was evidence of market viability and demand, and in fact, in the face of the absence of that evidence.But they believed this was better so often that they kept giving it second chances until it worked. The question becomes why do some ideas get second chances and second rolls with the dice. Why is second chances not given to say a female superhero to the same extent, or non-white characters to the same extent? In that case you are told the people voted...well when audiences voted against teenage Spider-Man the first two times, did they listen, did they back down from their ideas that Teenage Spider-Man was best and support a grown-up married Spider-Man who at that point was easily the better selling version of the character I mean Quesada would hypocritically use Ultimate Spider-Man to justify OMD and BND down the line.

Marvel is driven by profits and sales but that doesn't mean they rationally function by that principle. Sometimes they will see an idea in need of a market and contrive ways to make the market bend to the idea. Other times, they won't. Because it's not always rational.

You seem to be confusing what rational means in this context. There are inherent biases and blind spots but the organizing principle is always profit. Sometimes they make decisions that are unprofitable but that IS NEVER the intent. What they think might be profitable might seem irrational, but their rationale is always profit. The reasons they think putting Ben Reilly in the book will be profitable may be irrational, but the reason why they’re doing it is not irrational:it is to make money.

Also, it is the height of internet hubris to assume that Marvel is making fly by the seat of their pants decisions when there are probably at least a dozen executives who have to sign off on all of this stuff. It seems like you’re falling into the same auteur fallacy a lot of posters here fall into—that it’s Dan Slott alone who did x, it’s Nick Spencer alone who decided y. In truth, Marvel publishing is a multimillion dollar corporation so there are lot of checks in place. That doesn’t mean all their decisions are right, they are only human—but I guarantee you they’ve thought about this longer and put more market research into this than any of us have.

[charliehustle415]

Spider-Man is his favorite character and he had a ridiculous sweatshop shipping schedule. Occam's Razor.

This and also the Substacks deal probably gives him so much freedom to do what he wants.

I cannot even imagine the pressure he is under by editorial and the corporate stooges.

He wrote the flagship character of Marvel for over 74 issues, that's a pretty huge feather in one's cap

[Revolutionary_Jack]

You seem to be confusing what rational means in this context.

What I mean by rational is presuming that Marvel as a company will always be guided by past successes and be warned away by past failures.

You look carefully you'll find a lot of examples countering that. Teenage Spider-Man is one localized effective example.

There are others: Iron Man was never a top seller or major superhero but he was kept in print on the assumption that someday somehow his character and type (rich white WASP industrialist playboy) will find favor with the male teenage audience they were targeting. But they never made that assumption and allowance for Black Panther that even if he might not be a major tier character ought to be kept in print and given smaller goals to still remain in print. In actual fact, Iron Man who is the most traditional and conventional Marvel hero of the 1960s didn't find the fame and audience that subsequently came for Daredevil in the 1980s, and for the X-Men a title that was canceled and went into reprint only from the mid-70s to 90s become the biggest thing in superhero comics. This doesn't mean that Iron Man hasn't had interesting runs like Michelinie's or Fraction's of course but the point is that he's an example of a famous superhero who practically doesn't really have great defining stories on the level of Kraven's Last Hunt, Born Again, The Dark Phoenix Saga, Batman Year One, All-Star Superman, Captain America: Madbomb. The greatest Avengers story Under Siege doesn't feature him, Marvel's first big event (and biggest comic in the 1980s) -- Secret Wars 1984 actually has his legacy Rhodey as Iron Man.

Did Marvel learn from the past failure of Iron Man and the past success of X-Men? No they didn't. They just gave Iron Man second chances after second chance after second chance, in 2004, they had Spider-Man, a character whose boots Tony isn't fit to shine, look at Iron Man as some mentor figure (when they never had significant interactions any point before and Spider-Man is in fact Tony's senior in publication terms and continuity, Spidey was an active superhero before Tony became IM and before the founding of the Avengers).

There are inherent biases and blind spots but the organizing principle is always profit. Sometimes they make decisions that are unprofitable but that IS NEVER the intent.

The point is they aren't rationally guided by past success and past failure.

Also, it is the height of internet hubris to assume that Marvel is making fly by the seat of their pants decisions when there are probably at least a dozen executives who have to sign off on all of this stuff.

Maybe back before they were owned by Disney. These days I assume that executives in charge of comics are people trying to get promoted to the theme park section or the movies or marketing. After all if there's success in comics, they don't get much credit and chances to senior executive promotion because the business isn't likely to turnaround and go back to the 1980s and early 90s, so meager profit lines from a year or two which makes less money than the full royalties that say Don Cheadle earns (leave alone the bigger stars of the MCU) isn't gonna impress anyone. Executives are people too and anthropologically as a class they are quite mundane and banal types. Not at all someone one can assume to be rational (especially since a lot of them tend to be on cocaine a good portion of the time, not that I've heard stuff from Marvel, but it's a safe presumption).

It seems like you’re falling into the same auteur fallacy a lot of posters here fall into

I do think in fact that good writing more often than not is responsible for success. That doesn't mean that there aren't case of great stories that did badly or bad stories that do well (CIVIL WAR by Mark Millar is a good example of a terrible story having inexplicable success) but generally for X-Men level success -- taking a title that had gone into cancellation-reprint into becoming so big that it constituted the third largest publisher in the market share taken as a separate entity from the Marvel universe -- that success over 15 years can only be credited to the writing of Chris Claremont.

In the case of JMS and JRJR, it's demonstrable that their collaboration had most to do with their success. There were factors like the 2002 and 2004 Raimi movies but it's not like the readership doubled dramatically in-between. More importantly he retained readership between movie releases and generally, retention is always to the writer's credit. And his sales were strong in 2001-2004 where there weren't event storylines in ASM, and you didn't have a lot of the classic rogues feature there...so people followed his run for his writing of the characters, and for JRJR's art (which is the most beautiful ASM has ever looked).

That doesn’t mean all their decisions are right, they are only human—but I guarantee you they’ve thought about this longer and put more market research into this than any of us have.

If market research and so on, and all that data empowered these people to make brilliant decisions, how come they haven't restored the comics market to the way it was in the '80s and '90s? That means they have to work and live in the same reality as consumers do, right? Right! And we can look at past examples and see that the decisions taken aren't always rational...and if past is prologue, human nature is constant, and the business hasn't fundamentally changed, then it stands to reason that they aren't perfectly rational today either.

[Somecrazyaussie]

This makes no sense to me. Marvel does not do anything for any other reason than making money. They might misjudge and make decisions that end up losing them money, but the only reason they made that decision is that they believed the end result would be more money for them.

It’s like how people were arguing that Marvel was publishing so many issues of Spider-Man recently because they hated what Spencer was doing and wanted to “burn off” the rest of his run. I argued that that made no sense and that they were publishing three issues a month because it made them money. It looks like this most recent announcement with the return to the thrice-monthly shipping proved me correct.

They might have been testing to see if people would be willing to buy it 3x a month again (the books were cheaper the last time they did it). Conversely, they may have been easing the fans into buying it 3x a month again.

[RJT]

They might have been testing to see if people would be willing to buy it 3x a month again (the books were cheaper the last time they did it). Conversely, they may have been easing the fans into buying it 3x a month again.

Yes, either way itÂ’s about attempting to publish more Spider-Man comics per month, not a scheme to burn off the remaining Spencer issues as folks were suggesting last week.

[RJT]

What I mean by rational is presuming that Marvel as a company will always be guided by past successes and be warned away by past failures.

You look carefully you'll find a lot of examples countering that. Teenage Spider-Man is one localized effective example.

There are others: Iron Man was never a top seller or major superhero but he was kept in print on the assumption that someday somehow his character and type (rich white WASP industrialist playboy) will find favor with the male teenage audience they were targeting. But they never made that assumption and allowance for Black Panther that even if he might not be a major tier character ought to be kept in print and given smaller goals to still remain in print. In actual fact, Iron Man who is the most traditional and conventional Marvel hero of the 1960s didn't find the fame and audience that subsequently came for Daredevil in the 1980s, and for the X-Men a title that was canceled and went into reprint only from the mid-70s to 90s become the biggest thing in superhero comics. This doesn't mean that Iron Man hasn't had interesting runs like Michelinie's or Fraction's of course but the point is that he's an example of a famous superhero who practically doesn't really have great defining stories on the level of Kraven's Last Hunt, Born Again, The Dark Phoenix Saga, Batman Year One, All-Star Superman, Captain America: Madbomb. The greatest Avengers story Under Siege doesn't feature him, Marvel's first big event (and biggest comic in the 1980s) -- Secret Wars 1984 actually has his legacy Rhodey as Iron Man.

Did Marvel learn from the past failure of Iron Man and the past success of X-Men? No they didn't. They just gave Iron Man second chances after second chance after second chance, in 2004, they had Spider-Man, a character whose boots Tony isn't fit to shine, look at Iron Man as some mentor figure (when they never had significant interactions any point before and Spider-Man is in fact Tony's senior in publication terms and continuity, Spidey was an active superhero before Tony became IM and before the founding of the Avengers).



The point is they aren't rationally guided by past success and past failure.



Maybe back before they were owned by Disney. These days I assume that executives in charge of comics are people trying to get promoted to the theme park section or the movies or marketing. After all if there's success in comics, they don't get much credit and chances to senior executive promotion because the business isn't likely to turnaround and go back to the 1980s and early 90s, so meager profit lines from a year or two which makes less money than the full royalties that say Don Cheadle earns (leave alone the bigger stars of the MCU) isn't gonna impress anyone. Executives are people too and anthropologically as a class they are quite mundane and banal types. Not at all someone one can assume to be rational (especially since a lot of them tend to be on cocaine a good portion of the time, not that I've heard stuff from Marvel, but it's a safe presumption).



I do think in fact that good writing more often than not is responsible for success. That doesn't mean that there aren't case of great stories that did badly or bad stories that do well (CIVIL WAR by Mark Millar is a good example of a terrible story having inexplicable success) but generally for X-Men level success -- taking a title that had gone into cancellation-reprint into becoming so big that it constituted the third largest publisher in the market share taken as a separate entity from the Marvel universe -- that success over 15 years can only be credited to the writing of Chris Claremont.

In the case of JMS and JRJR, it's demonstrable that their collaboration had most to do with their success. There were factors like the 2002 and 2004 Raimi movies but it's not like the readership doubled dramatically in-between. More importantly he retained readership between movie releases and generally, retention is always to the writer's credit. And his sales were strong in 2001-2004 where there weren't event storylines in ASM, and you didn't have a lot of the classic rogues feature there...so people followed his run for his writing of the characters, and for JRJR's art (which is the most beautiful ASM has ever looked).



If market research and so on, and all that data empowered these people to make brilliant decisions, how come they haven't restored the comics market to the way it was in the '80s and '90s? That means they have to work and live in the same reality as consumers do, right? Right! And we can look at past examples and see that the decisions taken aren't always rational...and if past is prologue, human nature is constant, and the business hasn't fundamentally changed, then it stands to reason that they aren't perfectly rational today either.

Jack, why do you think Marvel is putting Ben Reilly in Amazing this fall?

[NC_Yankee]

Jack, why do you think Marvel is putting Ben Reilly in Amazing this fall?

I cannot speak for Revolutionary Jack, but there are reasons why Marvel is doing this besides economics. One of which is Marvel is stubborn. They keep bringing back bad ideas, and keep reworking and repeating them expecting success. Another problem is on the creative side. Look at Spencer’s run: Three years and one new character ( Kindred). Even Dan Slott tried to do better then that and he succeeded with Mr. Negative. I said this before and I will say it again: Unless you are a Ben Reilly fan what is the incentive to follow Amazing if Peter is removed from the book? Everyone knows damn well Peter will be returning in anywhere from a couple of months to a year. Like it or not at least Superior was an attempt to try something different: A supervillain becoming a superhero. Besides it led to a great new character in Anna Maria. If Marvel wanted to be creative and replace Peter what about Miguel? It could have built upon the 2099 Spencer story. He could have learned on the job and yes made mistakes ( but those errors would not seem forced ). Last but not least and I hate agreeing with Revolutionary Jack on this, but it would give a minority a chance to be Spider-Man in the main book. Will he be as good as Peter? I doubt it but even a 1% chance is still better then the 0% chance you are getting with Ben Reilly.

[RJT]

I cannot speak for Revolutionary Jack, but there are reasons why Marvel is doing this besides economics. One of which is Marvel is stubborn. They keep bringing back bad ideas, and keep reworking and repeating them expecting success. Another problem is on the creative side. Look at Spencer’s run: Three years and one new character ( Kindred). Even Dan Slott tried to do better then that and he succeeded with Mr. Negative. I said this before and I will say it again: Unless you are a Ben Reilly fan what is the incentive to follow Amazing if Peter is removed from the book? Everyone knows damn well Peter will be returning in anywhere from a couple of months to a year. Like it or not at least Superior was an attempt to try something different: A supervillain becoming a superhero. Besides it led to a great new character in Anna Maria. If Marvel wanted to be creative and replace Peter what about Miguel? It could have built upon the 2099 Spencer story. He could have learned on the job and yes made mistakes ( but those errors would not seem forced ). Last but not least and I hate agreeing with Revolutionary Jack on this, but it would give a minority a chance to be Spider-Man in the main book. Will he be as good as Peter? I doubt it but even a 1% chance is still better then the 0% chance you are getting with Ben Reilly.

I think it’s clear there is a contingent of readers who buy Amazing Spider-Man because they’ve always bought Amazing Spider-Man. And if Marvel is able to parley x-number of months of a Ben Reilly-led Amazing into a solo Ben title after Peter inevitably returns, that will be a success for them. They’ll have successful expanded the franchise. Both companies have done this trick before; Azrael took over the Batman titles for a year, and then was able to have a 100-issue run of a solo title after Bruce came back. Both Steel and Superboy had successful runs after the Reign of Supermen storyline. Marvel has done Ironheart and Superior Spider-Man books after those characters turns in the main book. Rhodey has mixed success headlining his own series, but War Machine wouldn’t be a character in the MCU right now if not for his introduction as the “New Iron Man” back in the 80s. There are probably a bunch more examples that I’m not thinking of right now.

Talking about “why don’t they use Miguel?” is fine for fan talk, but it isn’t evidence that Marvel is being stubborn or isn’t doing this for economic reasons. That they didn’t pick the character that you like isn’t evidence that they’re making an “irrational decision.” They might be right and this will be successful, or they might be wrong and it bombs, but they are only doing it because they think the former will happen.

And let’s also not discount the idea that Zeb Wells came in with a specific idea for using Ben, and Marvel thought it would work in the aftermath of the Spencer run. For all we know Marvel asked for pitches for a replacement Spider-a man storyline and they liked the Ben pitch the best.
I just refuse to believe that a multimillion dollar publishing company would make decisions capriciously or out of spite or stubbornness or whatever else. There are too many people that have to green light something like this, and most of them do not care about the same things we care about. If Nick Lowe does something in Spider-Man that leads to a huge decrease in sales, he runs the risk of losing his job. Why would he intentionally tank the book?

That isn’t to say this is necessarily a good idea or that it is a guarantee of success. But the absolute ignorance some posters have about how publishing works is staggering. Nobody at Marvel is green lighting such a big change on their top book unless they believe it will be successful.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

Jack, why do you think Marvel is putting Ben Reilly in Amazing this fall?

-- 30 year nostalgia cycle. 2010s was '80s nostalgia, 2020s will be '90s nostalgia (we already had the FRIENDS reunion special). Problem with the 90s is that the 2nd Clone Saga isn't a good story and its biggest contribution to 616 Spider-Man was Norman's resurrection at the end, with everything before being irrelevant nonsense, so it's hard to be nostalgic of something that was never good in the first place, so that's why this has to be a placeholder event stunt for the most part.
-- It's a low-investment risk. You have largely low-profile writers, none of whom have ever written a major banner ongoing before*. People point to the diverse bunch in this writing team compared to BND, and it's great but it would be greater if all of them got a chance to write the real Peter Parker then invest in Peter's failed clone, but then it's unlikely they would have been considered for prime IP real estate anyway and in fact it's because it's Ben Reilly that they've gotten a chance.

Something like this entered the business calculations but fundamentally it's not based on rational assumptions and considerations. For instance, "the nostalgia cycle" is folk sociology and chicken-and-egg legacy boosting and not really an actual thing. It's also for the most part totally selective and BS, and it amounts to corporations and media companies telling you "be nostalgic for this" (usually white affluence and security -- hence the FRIENDS Reunion) rather than dealing with the actual nostalgia people might or might have for that period. The idea of Ben Reilly given another chance to headline an event for a title that has always had far more civilian eyes than any other Marvel title isn't based on rational considerations (i.e past success/past failure) i.e. readers who know nothing of Ben Reilly on account of his total media absence, and his most recent revival as a bad guy in the Clone Conspiracy was also unpopular.

* Admittedly this is also true of BND at the outset (with only Mark Waid who came in later being an exception) but BND was packed completely with enough white guys to start a Hell's Angel Motorbike Chapter, so there's that.

...it isn’t evidence that Marvel is being stubborn or isn’t doing this for economic reasons.

Economic decisions are based on assumptions and those assumptions do not have to be, and often aren't, rational in the strict philosophical sense. Economics isn't a perfect science after all, and actual economics are infected time and time again with what Paul Krugman (the Nobel Prize winning guy at the NYT) calls "Zombie ideas".

I just refuse to believe that a multimillion dollar publishing company would make decisions capriciously or out of spite or stubbornness or whatever else.

They don't have to be personally capricious or spiteful or stubborn. The assumptions factored into their decisionmaking will do that on their behalf without any personal input on their part.

There's a line from Pynchon, "If they have you asking the wrong questions, they don't have to worry about the answers."

That isn’t to say this is necessarily a good idea or that it is a guarantee of success. But the absolute ignorance some posters have about how publishing works is staggering.

So is the presumption of innocence to a large corporation, and the idea that executives who create nothing and whose income derives from them siphoning money from exploitation of IP and unfair labor conditions, are fundamentally to be trusted with rational decisionmaking.

[PeterParked]

In the end all these sales comparison are meaningless, especially because in different moments the market had different sizes, 200k 15 years ago and 50k today are basically the same thing when market size is taken into account. Comparing sales from different eras to gauge appreciations or interest is totally useless and wrong.

Plus, obviously Spencer is leaving because he got a better, definitely more paid gig, the rest are projections.

[RJT]

So is the presumption of innocence to a large corporation, and the idea that executives who create nothing and whose income derives from them siphoning money from exploitation of IP and unfair labor conditions, are fundamentally to be trusted with rational decisionmaking.

Jesus, I'm not talking about guilt and innocence. You're bringing a whole lot of loaded terminology that isn't really applicable to a discussion of the publishing decisions of Marvel Comics. If you really had an issue with "executives who create nothing and whose income derives from them siphoning money from exploitation of IP and unfair labor conditions" then you should have stopped reading Spider-Man comics decades ago. So stop using it as a cudgel to make your preferred publishing outcomes seem morally superior to others.

You already admitted that 90s nostalgia is probably a large factor in this. Marvel is hoping to capitalize on that nostalgia for a property that may or may have not been popular 25 years ago, but as we have seen time and time again, nostalgia doesn't behave "rationally" to borrow your word--90s characters are popular now that were considered spent or no longer viable (like Deadpool and Venom, for example, both of whom went periods of time after their initial popularity without books of their own only to surge in popularity 15-20 years after their introductions.) Marvel is making a calculation that Ben Reilly might be able to do the same thing. They might be misreading the level of his popularity/nostalgic appeal and the book will not be successful. That doesn't mean they aren't acting rationally. They are seeing a trend in the marketplace and following that trend. I don't really think adding value judgments like "guilt and innocence" and "unfair labor conditions" are really parts of this discussion.

YOU don't like this decision. But you yourself admitted rational reasons why Marvel would be pursuing it. So stop equating--"I want them to do something else" with "they are acting irrationally."

I hate that you've made it seem like I'm shilling for a corporation like Marvel. Your insistence that "rationality" has some kind of moral dimension to it has really derailed this conversation. Here's an example--I am not pleased with Marvel's decision to get into the NFT market, but I wouldn't say it's an irrational decision. Their rationale is that they can make money in the short term--that isn't a defense of what they're doing. Saying something is irrational implies there is no rationale for it, not that I dislike the rationale.

Likewise, I'm not saying "trust Marvel;" my point is that their entire publishing hierarchy has checks and balances against someone behaving "irrationally." Again--I'm not assigning a moral valence to the term "rationality", I'm using it as a counter to the idea of "capriciousness." Every decision Marvel makes as a company has been thought out. That doesn't mean they are always the right decisions, or that they are making morally sound choices. It means there were multiple emails, memos, meetings about Ben Reilly taking over as the main character in Amazing Spider-Man. It wasn't done on the fly, and it wasn't done without consideration for the financial impact it would have on the book and the publishing line. No system involving human decision making is perfect, and no one can 100% see the future. DC made a decision to have Bart Allen become the new Flash back in 2006 and the book tanked horribly and they had to reverse course. That isn't an admission that selecting Bart Allen was irrational. It was that it was wrong, they misread the market, they made errors in the creative assignment on the book, or with the marketing. Nobody at DC said "people are going to hate Bart Allen as Flash but we don't care." They believed it could work, and were wrong. So me saying "I trust that Marvel has thought about this more than we have" is not the same as me saying "Trust Marvel." I just refuse to believe that for something as important to their bottom line as their (for all intents and purposes) number one ongoing book, this decision wasn't a considered one. We'll see whether their calculations were right or wrong over the next year. I'm hoping it works out because I like reading good comics. What I've taken issue with throughout this whole discussion is the idea that they haven't made any calculations at all, which is what "irrational" implies.