Who was a better Spider-Man writer: Dan Slott or Nick Spencer?

[Kanos]

Dan Slott run:
I like the Big Time era, Superior, the Red Goblin arc and ASM #801, but since the third volume the story has become bad. Terrible Peter, terrible MJ. There were a lot of good ideas in the third and fourth volumes that were poorly implemented. Stories like Clone Conspiracy are just disgusting. Slott is to blame for the fact that Ben was resurrected and became a villain and now Marvel does not know what to do with him. He also killed Ashley Kafka. But i don't agree with people who constantly write that ALL Slott's runs were bad, it's not true. For example, ASM 655 was a great issue. But people continue to pretend that this and other good comics from Slott do not exist, preferring to remember only bad works (the same thing is happening with Wells now, everyone remembers Shed, but everyone ignores the good works like Avenging Spider-Man. And yet people do not remember the bad work of Nick Spencer, who created the Hydra Cap and turned Harry into a clone, and then killed him). It was a good run, but starting with the third volume, the quality dropped.
Nick Spencer run:
I like all Nick's run except Kindred Saga. He had a great Peter and MJ, he got back Peter and Felicia's friendship and more. He fixed a lot. But the whole Kindred arc was terrible. I especially hate the way Nick treated Harry. It was terrible. The whole Sinister War arc was really bad. I love how Sins Past was destroyed and the twins turned out to be clones, but this retcon was confusing (ahem, Mendel Stromm). But Spencer had a lot of good issue, he understood the characters, he loved Peter/MJ. Apart from Kindred Saga, it was a good run.
I mean, Nick Spencer and Dan Slott did a good job. Everyone has ups and downs. I'll pick Spencer run, but that doesn't mean I hate Slott run and think he didn't have a good job.

[Spiderfan001]

Spencer, Slott had much more time and destroyed so much more than he built.He killed multiple characters of for shock value in 616 and otherwise in the multiverse, and destroyed many others leaving them w/ a faith worse than death.

Spencer fixed so much of what he broke, and other stuff like Sins Past while also delivering great characterization

[The Urge]

Spencer's run felt like marvel just went "Okay, for this run we want you to fix everything that previous writers messed up", and he did exactly that. I feel like he wasn't given a clean slate like Slott was but still turned out to be better than Slott in the long run. That's just because he's a better writer in general. And he wrote Peter and other characters better too. Now imagine giving him a clean slate, we'd probably have one of the best runs in spidey history. His run on spidey is already one of the best of this century, even though that's not saying much. As for Slott, if you write a character for a decade and not even one of your stories can be considered great to amazing, that says a lot about your writing. Yes Slott has written a lot of good stories for spidey but i don't think he has written any amazing ones.

[federicodettofred]

I liked Spencer more, but I must remind everyone that Slott wrote Spider-Man for 10 YEARS, while Spencer for 3. Maybe Nick would have declined badly if he stayed for 10 years, or maybe he would have written better stories: we will never know.

[Matt Rat]

I liked Spencer more, but I must remind everyone that Slott wrote Spider-Man for 10 YEARS, while Spencer for 3. Maybe Nick would have declined badly if he stayed for 10 years, or maybe he would have written better stories: we will never know.

I think Spencer is proof you don't need to have longevity to have a well received run, but who knows what could have been achieved if he'd been allowed to resolve the Kindred arc in the way he(?) or everyone wanted, and went on to write more with the marriage restored.

[The Kid]

Slott for me. His highs were much better for me than Spencer who started well but I was over it after a bit

[Mister Mets]

I think Spencer is proof you don't need to have longevity to have a well received run, but who knows what could have been achieved if he'd been allowed to resolve the Kindred arc in the way he(?) or everyone wanted, and went on to write more with the marriage restored.

Nick Spencer had nearly a hundred issues, if you add all the tie-ins, many of which were giant-sized. He certainly had longevity. If it doesn't feel that way, it may be due to the length of some of his arcs.

A lot of people hated Black Cat's turn as Queenpin.

Sure, but I'm not one of them.

[Celgress]

Slott was better, IMO, but then I do love big events so my assessment is a bit biased.

[Frontier]

Sure, but I'm not one of them.

But why tho...

[Hulkout42]

Spencer, it wasn't perfect but his run gave me the Peter and MJ i loved and made me like Felicia again...plus at least he fixed Gwen in a manner of speaking.

[Lukmendes]

But why tho...

If you don't really care about a character, them being taken into a bad direction is whatever.

Hell in my case, I don't really care about the bullshit Marvel just did with Ben, I just recognize it as bad writing and that his treatment can be seen as a preview for Peter, but, ultimately, I don't really care, so yeah lol.

And that's assuming a specific direction is seen as a bad one too, look how divisive Spider-Otto is, some hate him enough that he's seen as worse than OMD, while others think he's better than Peter, and whatever's in-between lol.

Also I'm surprised how the poll is tied, thought it'd be more one sided for either one or the other.

[Batman Begins 2005]

All tied up, 16 a piece.

[Mister Mets]

But why tho...

I thought there was stuff to appreciate in that overall story. It also came out concurrently with Learning to Crawl, so I could favorably compare this six months of Spider-Man with the worst stretch of Spencer's run.

[Kevinroc]

I thought there was stuff to appreciate in that overall story. It also came out concurrently with Learning to Crawl, so I could favorably compare this six months of Spider-Man with the worst stretch of Spencer's run.

If people can talk about Learning to Crawl in Slott's favor, is it fair to talk about Superior Foes?

I ask because LTC was not the main book when it was being published. It was a side project that tied into the main book. Superior Foes did eventually tie into Spencer's run on ASM. (This also means Slott's Spidey/Torch mini should also be fair game to discuss as it eventually tied into his own work on ASM.)

Also, I'm curious what you think there was to appreciate in the Queenpin story. I've not seen many positive reactions to that and so I am curious.

[Lee]

Spencer, Slott had much more time and destroyed so much more than he built.He killed multiple characters of for shock value in 616 and otherwise in the multiverse, and destroyed many others leaving them w/ a faith worse than death.

Slott frequently built things up. He set up multiple spinoff titles throughout his run (Agent Venom, Scarlet Spider, Spider-Man 2099, Web Warriors, Silk, Morbius, Spider-Gwen etc.), created new supporting cast members at Horizon Labs, Parker Industries and so on. He used Clone Conspiracy as a way to bring back characters like Ned Leeds, Montana and Ox.

How many characters did he actually kill off? Real characters, not the Spider-Man from the alternate universe where he lives on the moon.