Amazing Spider-man 9 Preview

[Batman Begins 2005]

Like I read that 900th issue and I'm like "This is the story they choose for such a long issue, a Sinister Six Adaptoid?"

Its all very underwhelming.

Also miserable, its all so joylessly miserable. Peter can't even have a birthday party without everyone giving him weird looks.

It all feels like they are just running through the motions.

Worst anniversary issue I've ever read. This run sucks. Book has sucked since Spencer left.

[Ursalink]

Worst anniversary issue I've ever read. This run sucks. Book has sucked since Spencer left.

I expected more too. But I have to admit, it was really funny how the Sinister Adaptoid defeated itself because of the conflicting personalities of the villains. And when the villains were perplexed about how they can't look like that, Spider-Man definitely confirms they are just like that.

[Matt Rat]

Worst anniversary issue I've ever read. This run sucks. Book has sucked since Spencer left.

There hasn't honestly been a decent anniversary issue since 500 for me.

[Waldo]

Book has sucked since OMD/Ends of Earth/Spiderverse(depending of what you tolerate).
At least Wells felt like is writing something (bad but something), while Spencer run was memberrys tier of 'member that'.
Also, his peter felt like even more than a child than Slott, the only part of his personal life was 'I like MJ and Boomerang/Felicia are good friends' , he was SpiderGeorge Constanza, a jobless dude who prefer to be with his friends than anything

[Matt Rat]

he was SpiderGeorge Constanza, a jobless dude who prefer to be with his friends than anything

Cool, I'd rather be that person too. Jobs suck.

[Waldo]

Cool, I'd rather be that person too. Jobs suck.

Yeah , but people have been complaining about JMS's teacherPeter being erased and he was a manchild since OMD.

But with Spencer it was even worse, no career, barely any friends outside Boomerang , no man and all spider.
Like, with that run I started to believe that what people care about Peter life is that he should fuck MJ, the others traits from an adult life are ignored mostly.

[Matt Rat]

I am generally taking the mickey with that answer BTW, obviously jobs are necccersary, but I was glad to see the back of super scientist Pete and having him focus on his social and romantic life. you don't need to make every run about a career prospect.

As for 'member that', I disagree, there were still fresh ideas in Spencer's run, and even if it was a bit like memberberries...so what? Why is that a con? If you can mix the familiar with the new when weaving a story together you stand a fairer chance of retaining all audiences and educating new ones. Wells is very much 'member berries' also so I fail to see your point. 'Member Tombstone? 'Member gang wars? 'Member Vulture? 'Member Felicia/Peter?

[Waldo]

I am generally taking the mickey with that answer BTW, obviously jobs are necccersary, but I was glad to see the back of super scientist Pete and having him focus on his social and romantic life. you don't need to make every run about a career prospect.

As for 'member that', I disagree, there were still fresh ideas in Spencer's run, and even if it was a bit like memberberries...so what? Why is that a con? If you can mix the familiar with the new when weaving a story together you stand a fairer chance of retaining all audiences and educating new ones.

What social life? What fresh ideas? Getting mad at Harry is a good guy now but end his run with GoodNorman is not something fresh is something stupid.Endint Kraven story but getting scared about that so he revealed that Fit tony became Fat Fit Tony is not fresh is stupid. The Peter Sister we barely cared but he NEEDED to use her isn't fresh is stupid. If he didn't insert most of those oh so fresh ideas and instead gave time with other characters that weren't Boomerang or MJ, maybe and only maybe the run wouldn't been a garbage fire tier of pacing and writing since issue 10-13.
The only thing that Spencer had that neither Slott and Wells had was MJ. He didn't has a career, he didn't has a job, he barely had regular friends outside Boomerang...And no dude, having Betty in 2 issues or Felicia in like 4 after hunted aren't regular they are here to yell like a child 'those are friends, I barely am going to do shit with them but that made me better than Slob'.
Spencer believe that having a gf made you an adult and no, it made you being a manchild, even the worst Slott's Peter was better which is sad.

. Wells is very much 'member berries' also so I fail to see your point. 'Member Tombstone? 'Member gang wars? 'Member Vulture? 'Member Felicia/Peter?

Typical reaction "this writer did it too so Spencer can't be critized'.
Also both Tombstone and Vulture are things from Spencer, that wells decided to not ignored.
Like Wells runs is shit and had bad drama, but the member issue isn't the problem, it was Spencer's problem.

So tldr, fresh ideas are the JMS ones or Defalco or even early slott one. Spencer fresh 'ideas' are Mackey ones and late Slott one

[hoth82]

Book has sucked since OMD/Ends of Earth/Spiderverse(depending of what you tolerate).
At least Wells felt like is writing something (bad but something), while Spencer run was memberrys tier of 'member that'.
Also, his peter felt like even more than a child than Slott, the only part of his personal life was 'I like MJ and Boomerang/Felicia are good friends' , he was SpiderGeorge Constanza, a jobless dude who prefer to be with his friends than anything

Glad I don’t have your tastes.

[Kanos]

What social life? What fresh ideas? Getting mad at Harry is a good guy now but end his run with GoodNorman is not something fresh is something stupid.Endint Kraven story but getting scared about that so he revealed that Fit tony became Fat Fit Tony is not fresh is stupid. The Peter Sister we barely cared but he NEEDED to use her isn't fresh is stupid. If he didn't insert most of those oh so fresh ideas and instead gave time with other characters that weren't Boomerang or MJ, maybe and only maybe the run wouldn't been a garbage fire tier of pacing and writing since issue 10-13.
The only thing that Spencer had that neither Slott and Wells had was MJ. He didn't has a career, he didn't has a job, he barely had regular friends outside Boomerang...And no dude, having Betty in 2 issues or Felicia in like 4 after hunted aren't regular they are here to yell like a child 'those are friends, I barely am going to do shit with them but that made me better than Slob'.
Spencer believe that having a gf made you an adult and no, it made you being a manchild, even the worst Slott's Peter was better which is sad.


Typical reaction "this writer did it too so Spencer can't be critized'.
Also both Tombstone and Vulture are things from Spencer, that wells decided to not ignored.
Like Wells runs is shit and had bad drama, but the member issue isn't the problem, it was Spencer's problem.

So tldr, fresh ideas are the JMS ones or Defalco or even early slott one. Spencer fresh 'ideas' are Mackey ones and late Slott one

1) Peter had a career, he accepted Connors' offer and went back to college to become a graduate student again. Peter's return to graduate studies is a character evolution because he has to become a scientist on his own, not with Otto's help. 2) Peter had a job, he worked for Jonah and earned money, which he gave to renovate Aunt May's shelters.
3) There is nothing wrong with Peter interacted to a few people. In Straczynski's run, he only interacted with MJ and May, which was interesting. But during Spencer's run, he interacted with MJ, May, Randy, Jonah, Fred, Teresa and other characters. You also say that Spencer didn't do anything to these characters, but that's not true. Randy started living with Peter again, worked for May, started dating Janice. Spencer developed Peter and Jonah's friendship by confronting Jonah with his ghosts of the past. Then there was arc about the interview and Peter's work on Jonah. And much more.
4) Spencer got new ideas, Fred became Peter's friend, Carly became friends with MJ, Randy and Janice started dating, Carly and Overdrive started dating too. Ned is back and he and Betty will have a baby, Gogg is Peter's pet, the concept of sins (without him there was no Queen Goblin), Robbie and Tombstone's truce, good Norman and more. These ideas are related to character development, which is good. Spider-Man comics aren't about who comes up with a cool new concept/job/costume, it's about the characters.

[lefthanded]

At least Wells felt like is writing something (bad but something), while Spencer run was memberrys tier of 'member that'.

I agree that Spencer seemed to just be trying to weaponize nostalgia, and ended up with a chaotic mess. But, at the very least, Spider-man felt like Spider-man.

Wells does seem to have a more focused story, but it is feeling like Spider-man is a prop for the story and is just being lead around based on what plot point Wells wants to hit.
This has the side effect of characters feeling out-of-character. This Spider-man seems more like an amateur, emotionally volatile superhero.

[bob.schoonover]

1) Peter had a career, he accepted Connors' offer and went back to college to become a graduate student again. Peter's return to graduate studies is a character evolution because he has to become a scientist on his own, not with Otto's help.

That's . . .not character evolution, at least not how you mean. Peter is a scientist. He's been a scientist, and was in fact a rather capable one on his own both before* and after Superior. The PhD that Otto earned under his name had very little, maybe even nothing, to do w/the success of Parker Industries after SSM. Parker Industries was something Otto created, sure, but Peter had to figure out how to run it (well, he never really did figure that out), and Peter was the one that developed (w/his team) the various apps and devices that put PI on the map. Also, and more to the point, Spencer didn't do *anything* with Peter being in grad school. Peter didn't learn anything, didn't grow as a person, didn't become friends w/a person who became an integral part of the cast. He just regressed Peter's state back to the 80s.

I like Spencer's run well enough, but the plagiarism and back to school stuff was not an example of good writing, character building, or world building. You can tell how important Spencer thought that stuff was because it was basically never referenced after Sins Past started - he put Peter in his preferred "status" and then left him there w/o moving that plot along for, what, 40 issues? The stuff with Fred or MJ, yeah, that was good work, and you can tell Spencer was invested in it because they kept appearing and being integral to the plot. The stuff w/grad school, nah.

And this is neither here nor there, since Peter getting a PhD is an editorial issue and not a real-world one, but Peter could more or less walk into any school in the country and get his PhD in about a year, maybe two. It wouldn't be difficult for him in the least - just string together papers on the work he did at Horizon, defend it, and he's got his PhD.

*Working for Tony Stark during JMS's run and Modell during Slott's would be the two highlights, but Peter's inability to get a long term job doing R&D has never once been shown to be seriously impeded by him dropping grad school in the 80s - the bigger issue is being late to interviews, forgetting them, etc.

[Triniking1234]

The funny thing is, MJ doesn’t even enter into the top ten complaints.

1) Stale mystery boxes with zero movement since ASM 1. That’s a lot of money to spend on a story that refuses to move forward
2) Spidey is consistently nerfed and shows little of his smarts, resourcefulness or cleverness; he begs for a high tech suit after only one round with the Vulture
3) Peter is working for Norman Osborn, with only the slightest of qualms which he easily overcame
4) Wolverine drives all the action in ASM 9, Spider-Man is a sidekick in his own book
5) ASM 900 featured some of the worst supporting cast characterization this side of Dan Slott, with Flash, Felicia and Anna Maria, among others, horribly out of character
6) Emoji goblin suit helmet is the definition of cringe
7) What little character development there is goes to the villains, who are the stars of the book at the expense of Spider-Man/Peter Parker
8) Because Wells has to rely on the mystery boxes to keep readers coming back, he can’t let readers know what Peter and the others are thinking and feeling, because the characters know what happened and the mystery would be over. This means the characters can’t speak naturally to each other and the reader is held at arm’s length without insight or cues to parse the situations
9) Because Wells won’t give us context, because it would spoil the mystery box, there are no real stakes to the stories. We don’t know if Peter stole Reed’s favorite unstable molecules suit from the Fantastic Four or if Peter stole a device that will end life in the multiverse as we know it. We don’t know know why Peter decided a suit made by Norman was necessary, so when the suit appears it’s just a big okay, so what, Peter has yet another corporate suit, yawn. But if we knew the context then it might have hit much, much harder.
10) Peter seems to have replaced his responsibility with misplaced compassion. Yes, Peter’s compassion is one of his strongest suits, but he pretty much lets Tombstone walk away free even though he knows Tombstone gunned down the Crime Master’s men. The Vulture story and the Living Brain story end with the same “forgiveness is cool” message, which, yeah, it is, but it’s starting to feel like these are one-off stories that are “very special episodes” of Spider-Man - with the same very special message - instead of building on each other. The Tombstone story had nothing to do with ASM 900 had nothing to do with the Vulture story had nothing to do with the Wolverine team up.

So there you have it. Not even in the top ten.

I agree with everything except no. 10. The story ended at a point where Peter and Tombstone reached a limit to how far they can push each other especially since Randy and Janice are involved.

[TinkerSpider]

[QUOTE=Ursalink;6199215]

MJ had a villain inside her head.

Moira was NOT inside her head. Moira's consciousness was in Moira's arm.

That was made clear first by Moira explaining it, then by Wolverine being able to talk to MJ without Moira overhearing with the help of the Cuckoos.

Which only raises the question: why didn't MJ broadcast asking for help at the Hellfire Gala when she was surrounding by Omega-level telepaths?!?!?!?!?!!!!?!

How do you expect her to fight that on her own? Peter has experience facing creeps who invade his mind (Venom, Doc Ock...), but MJ doesn't. And without weapons or any form to fight, how do you expect her to fight against a psycho-killer robot, which is exactly what Moira is now?!

Again, Moira is not in her mind.

So I expect MJ to at least show some resistance. Some fire. Some sass. Some smarts and intelligence.

NOT "incessant whining" as Moira puts it, which is portraying her as a helpless damsel whose only recourse is begging. It's demeaning.

Would you expect Lois Lane, who is usually a normal human being, to be capable of going hand-to-hand against Metallo, for example?

I would expect Lois Lane - or any character - to be looking for ways to get out of the situation, to look for ways to assist the powered good guys, to look for ways to at least get herself out of danger so the powered good guys don't have to add worry about her safety to their concerns as they take down the bad guys. I would expect Lois to at least be consistently defiant and intelligent and not whine and cringe like a stereotypical damsel.

I would expect MJ to act like she has in other situations where she is facing a powerful villain: show some smarts, situational awareness and courage.

But no, MJ just sat on the ground. She didn't even scramble to her feet and get to cover so Peter would be free to help with the fight. And because Peter was so concerned about her helpless little damsel @$$ that couldn't even get to safety once Moira's arm was off her, he lost track of the EMP and Moira got away (which we knew would happen because the Hellfire Gala issue shows her after this issue takes place).

This issue sucked for Peter and MJ. Only Wolverine and to some extent Greycrow (and if they were tracking MJ psychically to get to Moira, why did they need Greycrow anyway?) were somewhat effectual.

As for the nonsense at the end of the issue, I totally agree with you. Only, how can we understand any of it when they haven't told us anything about what the Hell happened here? How much longer are they going to keep that mistery box closed?!!

For as long as they can, because it's the only thing sustaining reader interest from issue to issue aside from those who buy ASM on auto-pilot.

I agree with everything except no. 10. The story ended at a point where Peter and Tombstone reached a limit to how far they can push each other especially since Randy and Janice are involved.

The problem is Peter is letting Tombstone get away with a mass execution-style shooting with only the promise to "play nice," which doesn't sit well with me personally but I see your point.

I like Spencer's run well enough, but the plagiarism and back to school stuff was not an example of good writing, character building, or world building.

I respectfully disagree; I thought it was excellent world building because it demonstrated that Peter's world wasn't going to let him get away with blithely accepting work that Ock did, which was a blight on Peter's character from the Slott era. I cheered to see Peter receive and accept consequences and it restored his character as being responsible for his mistakes/his own work.

Peter's work in the lab informed the first arc; it's true Spencer did not spend a lot of subsequent time there but it wasn't wholly dropped (when MJ was filming, Peter had to get off the phone with her because his lab mates wanted him to see an experiment, for example). It at least gave Peter a job/place to go during the day so readers weren't left wondering, so I was okay with it. Personally, I wish Spencer had done more with "The Look Ups" group MJ attended, but it seems the Mysterio storyline took precedence.

[Kanos]

That's . . .not character evolution, at least not how you mean. Peter is a scientist. He's been a scientist, and was in fact a rather capable one on his own both before* and after Superior. The PhD that Otto earned under his name had very little, maybe even nothing, to do w/the success of Parker Industries after SSM. Parker Industries was something Otto created, sure, but Peter had to figure out how to run it (well, he never really did figure that out), and Peter was the one that developed (w/his team) the various apps and devices that put PI on the map. Also, and more to the point, Spencer didn't do *anything* with Peter being in grad school. Peter didn't learn anything, didn't grow as a person, didn't become friends w/a person who became an integral part of the cast. He just regressed Peter's state back to the 80s.

I like Spencer's run well enough, but the plagiarism and back to school stuff was not an example of good writing, character building, or world building. You can tell how important Spencer thought that stuff was because it was basically never referenced after Sins Past started - he put Peter in his preferred "status" and then left him there w/o moving that plot along for, what, 40 issues? The stuff with Fred or MJ, yeah, that was good work, and you can tell Spencer was invested in it because they kept appearing and being integral to the plot. The stuff w/grad school, nah.

And this is neither here nor there, since Peter getting a PhD is an editorial issue and not a real-world one, but Peter could more or less walk into any school in the country and get his PhD in about a year, maybe two. It wouldn't be difficult for him in the least - just string together papers on the work he did at Horizon, defend it, and he's got his PhD.

*Working for Tony Stark during JMS's run and Modell during Slott's would be the two highlights, but Peter's inability to get a long term job doing R&D has never once been shown to be seriously impeded by him dropping grad school in the 80s - the bigger issue is being late to interviews, forgetting them, etc.

I'm not saying Peter needs a PhD to become a scientist or start Parker Industries. But it's still evolution. Peter made the adult and responsible decision to return to college. This is character development. He returned to college in issue 25 and the 2099 arc focused on Peter's studies. Jamie appeared there, I liked this character, and his invention helped Peter in the fight against Doom. Then the Kindred story began, and for that reason we couldn't show Peter in class until the Chameleon arc. In Superior Spider-Man, Otto went back to college in issue 4, got his PhD in issue 22 (can't remember exactly). The college scenes with Otto were short, but people were fine with that. But Otto didn't even have development. There were two good moments, this is the appearance of Anna Maria and the sacrifice of Otto's former friend, but Otto's memory copy does not even remember this sacrifice. I don't have a problem with how Peter's studies were shown in Spencer's run and I think he got off to a good start and Wells should have taken that idea further, but it looks like Peter dropped out of college again.