Amazing Spider-Man 74 - Preview - LET'S GOOO!

[TinkerSpider]

Sigh...

See now you don't get STORYTELLING, when Mephisto took their Marriage away they broke up, it wasn't just a legal thing.Think like when you divorce someone you are broken up and not just dating again.And that was how it was meant to be, they would not get back together, but as strange said they fought the circumstances created by deal and came back toegther.
Hence Mephisto put in motion his back up plan, aka Kindreds as soon as they got back together but that didn't work.

You can keep talking about Dictionaries and you would be right, but when talking to someone imagine telling them we broke our marriage up.Do you think they are still dating?Same here, Mephisto even said he was after their love which was very rare, the marriage thing was just the punchline.

And as you will point out that they got back together, and you'd be right, they were strong enough to come back together despite the deal(as told by Doc Strange).But as soon as that happened Mephisto put his back up in motion.So clearly it's not just marriage that's the problem and it's just used in a sentence as a punchline.

Oh, don't you worry, I understand storytelling

If Mephisto wants their relationship, then taking away a piece of legal paper is stupid, because a relationship does not equal a marriage and a marriage does not mean a relationship is present. And yes, people do date again - even marry again - after a divorce. And in this case, Mephisto forced a supernatural divorce on them to prevent a child from being conceived, which is not how that works. That's not how any of this works.

Nor has it been made clear that Kindred appearing now is a result of Mary Jane and Peter dating again. That's never been established, to the best of my knowledge. In fact, Kindred - as in the creation of Gabriel and Sarah - were established before OMD, and they appear more to be some sort of twisted Osborn family long game being played by Mephisto than a "Mephisto wants to meddle in Peter's sex life" game.

I talk about dictionaries because words have meaning. And words should especially have meaning to a demon who trades in tricky deals based on nuances in language. But then, that's also part of world building and consistent characterization, two other things absent from ASM 74.

[Lukmendes]

I will be extremely disappointed if Peter doesn't learn about the deal though...

So, how disappointed are you?

editors suck in both manga and comics feel like they do more harm than good

To be fair, in a lot of cases we only heard about the editors fucking up stuff.

A more positive example of editors doing good stuff is Dragon Ball, Toriyama had 3 over time, and the most strict ones helped make the story more consistent, while the less strict ones made the story have more nonsense, the last one was from Boo saga, and him being less strict explains why Boo saga feels so directionless at times.

I think endings were very open ended.I would have liked more definite stuff like what happens w/ rose or Ock, and Teresa.

Who's Rose?

It's definitely a beneficial in the long run, if writers take advantage.The next big run will tell if they will, I would say they already didn't w/ beyond but it seems they had to pull that up last minute so it's unfair to judge their long term plans from that.

It can be fine on the long run, but at times Spencer's ASM was just doing cleanup with not much more substance, and Sinister War is definitely a case like that.

Spider-Man's greatest enemy remains Marvel Editorial.

Hah, love this.

As a rule most writers of ASM leave stuff hanging, leave prematurely, and never on their own terms.

It seems Nick Spencer will be in the same company as JMS, Michelinie, Defalco, Stern, Ditko.

To think Slott's the only exception .

Where is SpiderFan to defend this and say this was 100% what Spencer played and this will go down as the definitive Spider-Man era?
Anyhow… as others have mentioned, this was a convoluted mess. As someone who started reading Spider-Man with Harry’s original death, I’m ashamed to admit that I forgot that Mendel Stromm was dead and would have been Gaunt” at the time of Harry hiring him to make the clones or whatever. And Stromm wasn’t in his robotic body until way later during Jenkins’ run. More F’n clones. Some BS Mephisto/Strange page wasters. Can someone break down all the “fixes” Spencer’s done? I already heard about Black Cat’s relationship with Peter. Some act as though killing Kraven and replacing him with (yet another) clone is “fixed”. Yeah Sins Past is gone but what was really fixed?

You already mentioned Black Cat's and Kraven's (And Kraven's is, not good but at least it makes sure the original is dead), and the only other major "fixes" are MJ not being a bitch anymore and being with Peter again (Though that one can be temporary), and Harry's death being acknowledged and hopefully it sticking.

I feel like Immortal Hulk might be the one big extended run recently that stayed pretty consistent in people's minds up til recently, but that has also been marred by the controversy of its dumb artist. Maybe Donny Cates on Venom? I feel like that had some ups and downs but it seemed like it connected with a larger audience/ felt more legitimacy than that character has before in comics.

For me IH got boring with Dario's plot, but it became interesting again once that was done.

I don't think it was the entire second half tbf.It's was the entire Zorneto thing+Jean's death and how it happened+ the last "live scott" arc.It messed up worse than Spencer did IMO.

There's also the whole thing about Emma raping Cyclops, which aged badly, and I think it's gonna age even worse with time lol.

Hey guys, sorry to barge in but I just had a quick question; where is the place to start to get this entire saga? I haven't read any of it, hell havent' read any Spider-Man in a long time, but what I've heard of this intrigues me a lot and I'd like to consume it start to finish. Would it be the very beginning of Spencer's run, or a little before or after?

Very beginning of Spencer's run helps for a while, but you also need to know stuff like Harry becoming Green Goblin and dying, and now Sins Past, to understand the meaning of the stuff related to Kindred, knowing about Back in Black (Aunt May getting shot) also explains why Mephisto is even here, also Zdarsky's Spectacular run so you even know who Peter's sister is, since she does get a decent amount of focus in Chameleon Conspiracy, also JJ knowing Spidey's identity and being helpful.

I think that covers for the bare minimum required to understand this mess overall without without feeling like you're missing a huge detail.

If you read just Spencer's run without knowing stuff related to Harry and now Sins Past, and to a much smaller extent Zdarsky's Spidey (And again, that's just for Teresa and JJ), then Kindred will be just a confusing mess, well, an even bigger one lol.

So to sum up the last three years of the "Kindred Saga":

That about sums up the mess with Kindred lol.

Here's something else for folks to ponder: if Sarah and Gabriel were in control the entire time and not being used by Demon Harry or AI Harry as meat puppets, then why did they take the Chameleon serum to make themselves look like Harry? Why not just show themselves to be Gabriel and Sarah back in Last Remains? Also, how is it that Norman Osborn mistook Kindred for Harry if they were Sarah and Gabriel pretending to be Harry?

I thought they were taking that immortality serum to slow down the clone degeneration.

That makes even less sense. So if Mephisto is worried about a child conceived on Oct. 16, 2023 at 10:43:54 PM -

Easy. Appear as a pigeon, make sure Peter gets hit in the head with a brick, and ensure he has a headache so bad the only thing he’ll want to do in bed is sleep. Or ensure MJ stays out and doesn’t come home until 11:32:12 PM.

Or just have that guy from OMIT do a super brick throw at Spidey again to make him be later, again .

[Spiderfan001]

Oh, don't you worry, I understand storytelling

If Mephisto wants their relationship, then taking away a piece of legal paper is stupid, because a relationship does not equal a marriage and a marriage does not mean a relationship is present. And yes, people do date again - even marry again - after a divorce. And in this case, Mephisto forced a supernatural divorce on them to prevent a child from being conceived, which is not how that works. That's not how any of this works.

Nor has it been made clear that Kindred appearing now is a result of Mary Jane and Peter dating again. That's never been established, to the best of my knowledge. In fact, Kindred - as in the creation of Gabriel and Sarah - were established before OMD, and they appear more to be some sort of twisted Osborn family long game being played by Mephisto than a "Mephisto wants to meddle in Peter's sex life" game.

I talk about dictionaries because words have meaning. And words should especially have meaning to a demon who trades in tricky deals based on nuances in language. But then, that's also part of world building and consistent characterization, two other things absent from ASM 74.

I'm sure, but not in this instance

But he didn't.I'm sure you've read it.Mephisto says he wants their love, the marriage here means their relationship but that doesn't make a good punchline.Mephisto cearly lays out the deal is their relationship which is a marriage.And when they do get back together, which as Strange said Mephisto didn't think could happen since the deal but they overcame it, Mephisto brings his back up.

He appears soon after as they start getting back together.Mephisto says he made deals like the Norman one to make sure Mayday never happens, and he literally tortured Kindreds in hell to prepare them to take Peter out.

The problem is you focus on one word instead of the whole deal.Mephisto clearly states he wants their love, it's a punchline.

Listen, I'm done.You can go on but I'm not explaining this to you again.

[bob.schoonover]

Having read the BC article a couple times, here's what I think the original plan would have been (presuming, say, 100 issues) (and keeping in mind all the teases we had and parts of plots that were cut out)(this is all conjecture):

We still get the big ASM 74/875 stand off against Kindred/the Stacy twins in Europe but without any of the Sinister War stuff tied in. Most of the actual ASM 73/74 content is spread out over a couple more issues, and we get a better mechanistic description of how AI Harry, SSM 200 Harry's soul, and Mephisto intertwine (and possibly weird tie-in stuff like Ned Leeds being held by AI Harry, because why not). BND Harry's death probably still happens, but the Strange/Mephisto stuff is more straightforward and clear about souls/deals. The following 25 issues (starting with maybe oversized ASM 75) would be, in part, Peter and Norman trying to figure out how to free SSM 200 Harry from Norman's deal, as well as tie-in the deals made by some subset of Miles, Ben, and Ock that had been previously made (We know Ben was going to be part of the story at some point). Mephisto (via AI Harry or Kindred - not sure if they'd still die in ASM 74) then enacts the Sinister War* to distract Peter and keep him from confronting Mephisto about SSM 200 Harry. ASM 99/900 and/or ASM 100 would then have lined up with whatever Jason Aaron is doing with Mephisto, allowing him to really pitch the "let's end OMD HERE AND NOW" that he'd been continuing to argue for during the entire run**

*Sinister War as an idea for later in the story that was just plopped in so that Spencer got to tell it makes a lot of sense to me since it served little purpose other than killing Fred. This new version of Sinister War would also do a better job of establishing Doc Ock's new status quo - the end of Superior + Ock being essentially off stage since then makes me think Spencer had a bigger plan for him.

**My assumption is not the one many on here have (that Spencer had a plan approved and then editorial reneged), but that Spencer and editorial had a bit of a détente about the story (just keep going, we'll see) and Spencer kept hoping that he'd get his last act approved if *something* shifted in his direction (sales, popular acclaim, Aaron's story needing it, someone getting fired, whatever). Spencer had a backup plan (basically, what we saw in ASM 74 which could be read as the deal being over but being sufficiently ambiguous that editorial didn't feel boxed in) that was always known by both he and editorial, which was the compromise position until and unless something broke Spencer's way. This would allow everything in Rich's piece to be true (from a certain point of view)

[Spiderfan001]

So, how disappointed are you?



To be fair, in a lot of cases we only heard about the editors fucking up stuff.

A more positive example of editors doing good stuff is Dragon Ball, Toriyama had 3 over time, and the most strict ones helped make the story more consistent, while the less strict ones made the story have more nonsense, the last one was from Boo saga, and him being less strict explains why Boo saga feels so directionless at times.



Who's Rose?



It can be fine on the long run, but at times Spencer's ASM was just doing cleanup with not much more substance, and Sinister War is definitely a case like that.



Hah, love this.



To think Slott's the only exception .



You already mentioned Black Cat's and Kraven's (And Kraven's is, not good but at least it makes sure the original is dead), and the only other major "fixes" are MJ not being a bitch anymore and being with Peter again (Though that one can be temporary), and Harry's death being acknowledged and hopefully it sticking.



For me IH got boring with Dario's plot, but it became interesting again once that was done.



There's also the whole thing about Emma raping Cyclops, which aged badly, and I think it's gonna age even worse with time lol.



Very beginning of Spencer's run helps for a while, but you also need to know stuff like Harry becoming Green Goblin and dying, and now Sins Past, to understand the meaning of the stuff related to Kindred, knowing about Back in Black (Aunt May getting shot) also explains why Mephisto is even here, also Zdarsky's Spectacular run so you even know who Peter's sister is, since she does get a decent amount of focus in Chameleon Conspiracy, also JJ knowing Spidey's identity and being helpful.

I think that covers for the bare minimum required to understand this mess overall without without feeling like you're missing a huge detail.

If you read just Spencer's run without knowing stuff related to Harry and now Sins Past, and to a much smaller extent Zdarsky's Spidey (And again, that's just for Teresa and JJ), then Kindred will be just a confusing mess, well, an even bigger one lol.



That about sums up the mess with Kindred lol.



I thought they were taking that immortality serum to slow down the clone degeneration.



Or just have that guy from OMIT do a super brick throw at Spidey again to make him be later, again .

Rose is Kingpin's son.He was dead and is now ressurected by Kingpin at the end of Kings Ransom.

He fixed the characters, that's more important than anything.Reading Peter and it feeling like Peter is a win for me.

Thing is they were a popular couple too, I'm sure it's only going to get worse but I think they might just ignore it.

[RJT]

Oh, don't you worry, I understand storytelling

If Mephisto wants their relationship, then taking away a piece of legal paper is stupid, because a relationship does not equal a marriage and a marriage does not mean a relationship is present. And yes, people do date again - even marry again - after a divorce. And in this case, Mephisto forced a supernatural divorce on them to prevent a child from being conceived, which is not how that works. That's not how any of this works.

Nor has it been made clear that Kindred appearing now is a result of Mary Jane and Peter dating again. That's never been established, to the best of my knowledge. In fact, Kindred - as in the creation of Gabriel and Sarah - were established before OMD, and they appear more to be some sort of twisted Osborn family long game being played by Mephisto than a "Mephisto wants to meddle in Peter's sex life" game.

I talk about dictionaries because words have meaning. And words should especially have meaning to a demon who trades in tricky deals based on nuances in language. But then, that's also part of world building and consistent characterization, two other things absent from ASM 74.

If Mephisto saw a vision of his downfall at the hands of Spider-Girl, and Spider-Girl is the child that Peter and Mary Jane had during the Clone Saga (which is what the Spider-Girl series by DeFalco, Oliffe & Frenz suggests) then their marriage being erased means no Mayday Parker. Yes, they could get together again, or have a child outside of a marriage but that child *would not be Mayday Parker* Not to get all “miracle of life” but each human is the result of a million to one shot, people who have multiple children don’t get carbon copies of the first child each time. So Mephisto erasing Peter and Mj’s marriage erased the existence of Mayday Parker forever.

[TinkerSpider]

I'm sure, but not in this instance

But he didn't.I'm sure you've read it.Mephisto says he wants their love, the marriage here means their relationship but that doesn't make a good punchline.Mephisto cearly lays out the deal is their relationship which is a marriage.And when they do get back together, which as Strange said Mephisto didn't think could happen since the deal but they overcame it, Mephisto brings his back up.

He appears soon after as they start getting back together.Mephisto says he made deals like the Norman one to make sure Mayday never happens, and he literally tortured Kindreds in hell to prepare them to take Peter out.

The problem is you focus on one word instead of the whole deal.Mephisto clearly states he wants their love, it's a punchline.

Listen, I'm done.You can go on but I'm not explaining this to you again.

Wait...Mephisto got Norman to sell his soul because it will *ahem*-block Peter Parker twenty or so years later?

HAHAHAHA. Well, that's certainly a long game. A convoluted, lots of domino pieces have to fall into precise place to make it happen, game. In other words, a stupid one - and stupid is the word I'm concentrating on when it comes to this story, not marriage.

And just how did Mephisto think Kindred was going to continue to keep MJ and Peter apart, since he wants their "hippy hoppy doodad," for lack of a more precise term, so bad? Kindred pretty much ignored MJ, aside from creepily looking at her while she slept, and I suppose manipulating Mysterio to send her out of town on a movie from which she returned. None of that had anything to do with MJ's feelings about Peter and vice versa.

I will say that trying to make ASM 74 fit into the greater story is a truly inspired piece of creative writing. Just has nothing to do with the comics.

[Lukmendes]

Rose is Kingpin's son.He was dead and is now ressurected by Kingpin at the end of Kings Ransom.

I have no fucking idea why I read "Rose" and thought it was a female character lol.

Just completely forgot about Rose being Fisk's son for some reason, can't even say it's because he's not much of a presence in Spencer's run, I thought of him while writing the comment and failed to make the connection... Fucking brain lol.

He fixed the characters, that's more important than anything.Reading Peter and it feeling like Peter is a win for me.

Well, I think in this case the positions the characters are in is more important.

Peter, MJ, JJ, Felicia, they're written well, but that's Spencer's talent, nothing really guarantees they're staying that way once the next guy comes around, but leaving them in a position where they're more likely to stay that way, that's more important.

For an easy example in case I'm not explaining my point well, Queenpin, that was a bad position for Felicia, and now she's on the anti-hero side and knows Spidey's identity again, so her character is in a better position and her knowing his secret identity again means they can be better friends.

Thing is they were a popular couple too, I'm sure it's only going to get worse but I think they might just ignore it.

As always in comics, wait and see lol.

[TinkerSpider]

If Mephisto saw a vision of his downfall at the hands of Spider-Girl, and Spider-Girl is the child that Peter and Mary Jane had during the Clone Saga (which is what the Spider-Girl series by DeFalco, Oliffe & Frenz suggests) then their marriage being erased means no Mayday Parker. Yes, they could get together again, or have a child outside of a marriage but that child *would not be Mayday Parker* Not to get all “miracle of life” but each human is the result of a million to one shot, people who have multiple children don’t get carbon copies of the first child each time. So Mephisto erasing Peter and Mj’s marriage erased the existence of Mayday Parker forever.

A) That's not Mayday from the Spider-Girl series; Mayday has brown hair. The little girl who was erased in OMD had red hair, however.

B) If Mephisto has already won, then what is the Kindred story? Just more confirmation he won and Peter still doesn't know how badly he's been manipulated and defeated? Gee, that's awfully upbeat and optimistic and such a heroic ending, Marvel.

C) Those issues happened. Marvel likes to pretend MJ was never pregnant, but I have ink and paper that say differently. And Baby May was born (and supposedly died) long before Mephisto came at them with One More Day. So why did he come after their marriage, again, if the baby he fears is dead? And if the baby isn't dead and instead is being raised elsewhere - then, gee, Marvel, that's an even darker and more depressing story. And also begs the question, again, of why Mephisto wanted the deal in story? Why not just take out Baby May while she's an infant? (Out of story, we all know it's because of Quesada).

[IamnotJudasTraveller]

And also begs the question, again, of why Mephisto wanted the deal in story? Why not just take out Baby May while she's an infant?

Jesus Christ, man, who do you take Mephisto for?

The king of hell or something?

[lordozone]

Personnaly, I have nothing against "one more day". It was a stupid story, but it didn't change Spider-man for the worst, some of my favorites spider-man stories are after one more day. But if you want to use this subject, the bait and switch in these issues are simply infuriating. It was too long just for this. After ten issues I was already bored by Kindred. You want to use Mephisto and the events of one more day ? Cool, but do not skirt the issue. Even people like me who don't really care about one more day are angry, because it seems that we have been played. And nobody care about sins past, it was a bad story, that everybody want to simply forget.

[Mister Mets]

Nah, all Rich says is that he "asked around." Odds that he actually spoke to Spencer? Not good. Odds that he spoke to a "source" in Marvel editorial, since he references Spencer's original pitch? Pretty good.

And Rich does say the following:

"Now Nick Spencer did leave Amazing Spider-Man sooner than he would have liked, and was asked to wrap up his story up much faster than he had originally intended"

Which means Spencer did not leave on his own accord on his own timeline...

"His using One More Day as red herring to deal with Sin's Past and then bring One More Day back again was always the plan"

But Spencer didn't do that. The story ends with dealing with Sins Past. He didn't bring back OMD into the story.

"So Nick Spencer may not have been allowed to reverse the events of One More Day as he might have wanted to, but that was always the case at Marvel rather than a sudden reversal of policy…"

That sounds like reversing OMD was part of his original pitch, but when senior editorial heard about the proposed story, they put the kibosh on it. Which I'm guessing happened midstream, since Nick Lowe likes to let his writers do pretty much whatever they like (case in point, much of the excesses of the Slott run that really could have benefitted from a tighter hand).

The last issue has Mephisto pop up. It definitely brings One More Day back again.

It doesn't reverse One More Day, but no one's claiming that.

[Vortex85]

So, how disappointed are you?

I was disappointed but honestly I'm kind of over the whole thing. I'm just burnt out on Spider-Man going in that direction after Spencer's run. I think I'd actually prefer if Marvel don't go back to OMD at this point and just move on. After using it to tease fans and stuff it's become a bore for me. It's not going to accomplish anything to reference it again so why bother you know? Just tell good stories and maybe I'll enjoy the book again.

I may check back in after Beyond cuz I'm not really excited on that format and story. I'd rather see Peter so I may check back around 900. We'll see.

[The_Sneezing_Stormtrooper]

The worst part about Marvel dangling OMD like this and then chickening out and derailing into Sins Past is that it takes any impact out of any story that actually wants to address OMD down the road. Next time I'll probably assume that it's like the boy that cries wolf. I don't know how we're supposed to take it seriously the next time OMD gets pulled out by Marvel for some shock value.

The way I see it there are two scenarios here: 1. If he knew that he wouldn't do anything with it then he should have maybe teased it out for an arc or two and then brushed it away and not drawn it out for three years with knowing that there would be very little payoff. 2. If editorial swept the rug out from under him at the last minute then there is nothing stopping them from doing it again and again in the future. Either way, this feels disappointing to me.

I liked that BND Harry turned out to be a clone as Harry's death is one of my favorites but I think that killing him off was throwing out the baby with the bathwater. There could have been some interesting places to go with him after all of this.

I think I'll be dropping ASM for a bit. I like Ben but I feel like asking me to buy three issues a month after putting this issue out is almost kind of obnoxious. I'll definitely be buying the JMD Ben book though as I have very high hopes for that but I think I need a break from the main book for a good long while.

Man, this issue really made me miss Mayday though. I would kill to see a revival of her book. Maybe it's time for a Spider-Girl reread.

[Hypestyle]

Well at least we get an answer as to why the devil is interested in poor ol' Petey

I still don't understand what all is going on. Peter isn't a cosmic hero compared to Silver Surfer or Thor, or pan-dimensionally important like Dr. Strange. Heck, even (I hate saying this) Venom recently got upgraded to neo-cosmic status when it came to the fight against Knull. So I don't get what all this Mephisto intervention is about.

I want Peter to be able to clobber Mephisto physically someday soon.
Peter deserves an extension to his life in return for all of this bizarre mayhem.