The Problem With Spider-Man Comics Today

[RJT]

This is not excuse for you acting as you are. You don't need to come in guns blazing against people who disagree with you on the direction the Spider-Man comics are in.

So, you folks just get to insult and harangue the people on this board to whatever extent you feel like but pushing back with facts is considered bad manners?

I am sincerely sorry that these comic books upset you guys so much. I really am. I think you need to find things you enjoy because this level of high dudgeon can't feel good.

[Kevinroc]

So, you folks just get to insult and harangue the people on this board to whatever extent you feel like but pushing back with facts is considered bad manners?

I am sincerely sorry that these comic books upset you guys so much. I really am. I think you need to find things you enjoy because this level of high dudgeon can't feel good.

I didn't insult you. If you feel that I did, I apologize. My intentions were the same as they ever were. To enjoy my time on CBR.

[Lee]

And that audience continues to shrink.

https://twitter.com/Comixace/status/1585770372900732928

Dan DiDio is saying that the comics industry put too much time and energy into catering to older existing readers and not enough into appealing to younger new readers. That's the lost generation he's talking about. He's repeatedly said that super-heroes shouldn't be married. If he was running Marvel he would have unmarried Spider-Man too.

They are clearly quite happy with the Spider-Man comics they have published in the last fifteen years and unless sales really crater they have no reason to reinstate a status quo that they spent the better part of 14 years (From the Clone Saga to OMD) trying to get rid of.

Even if sales suddenly cratered in 2023, they'd have no reason to assume it was a decade and a half late response to a story they published in 2007. At this point the storm has been weathered, and it was nothing more than a tempest in a teapot.

[Kevinroc]

Dan DiDio is saying that the comics industry put too much time and energy into catering to older existing readers and not enough into appealing to younger new readers. That's the lost generation he's talking about. He's repeatedly said that super-heroes shouldn't be married. If he was running Marvel he would have unmarried Spider-Man too.

I'm sure he would have. Doesn't change that the industry isn't attracting new readers in the numbers these companies want. So who are they appealing to exactly if their existing fanbases are unhappy and they aren't receiving new fans?

Even if sales suddenly cratered in 2023, they'd have no reason to assume it was a decade and a half late response to a story they published in 2007. At this point the storm has been weathered, and it was nothing more than a tempest in a teapot.

Sales across the industry have cratered.

[WebLurker]

Dan DiDio is saying that the comics industry put too much time and energy into catering to older existing readers and not enough into appealing to younger new readers. That's the lost generation he's talking about. He's repeatedly said that super-heroes shouldn't be married. If he was running Marvel he would have unmarried Spider-Man too.

How in the name of all that is holy is having married characters a turn off to the younger readers? I will concede that mainstream comics are not new-user friendly, so there is that (have "How start reading XYZ" guides on your corporate website in big friendly letters, for example), but I don't follow how specific creative choices inherently skewer one way or another.

Even if sales suddenly cratered in 2023, they'd have no reason to assume it was a decade and a half late response to a story they published in 2007. At this point the storm has been weathered, and it was nothing more than a tempest in a teapot.

Yeah, too far removed, not to mention way too many variables over the years to make a case that one thing caused everything to slump. I think OMD is interesting in that it's an issue that has not gone away (not to mention being a bit out of step with the franchise branding as a whole) and doesn't look to be going away anytime soon, unlike how most other incredibly unpopular retcons eventually fade into the background except for the occasional "what the heck where they thinking?!" clickbait and the like. However, that's a different topic.

[Lee]

Sales across the industry have cratered.

https://www.comicsbeat.com/report-pe...up-49-in-2021/

[Kevinroc]

https://www.comicsbeat.com/report-pe...up-49-in-2021/

So sales are higher than they were during the 1990s?

(Perhaps I should have been clearer in my older post. This industry's sales cratered a long time ago. And it never fully recovered. I am aware that sales were better than they had been compared to recent years during the height of the pandemic.)

[Kaitou D. Kid]

Yeah, too far removed, not to mention way too many variables over the years to make a case that one thing caused everything to slump. I think OMD is interesting in that it's an issue that has not gone away (not to mention being a bit out of step with the franchise branding as a whole) and doesn't look to be going away anytime soon, unlike how most other incredibly unpopular retcons eventually fade into the background except for the occasional "what the heck where they thinking?!" clickbait and the like. However, that's a different topic.

One of the reasons it's not going away is because OMD/BND was a bad relaunch even by relaunch standards. It didn't add anything and nothing memorable came out of it.

It's obvious when we compare BND to DC's Post-Crisis, which gave us classics like Batman Year One. Heck, even the New 52 was better than BND. The New 52 was hated and was a regression, but it at least gave us some new stuff. Scott Snyder's Batman gave us Court of Owls (a story you can only do with a younger Batman) and a great Riddler origin that was a huge influence on Reeves' film. Morrison's Action Comics run returned Superman to his left-wing roots and is one of the best Superman comics in modern history. Well, alright, at least that's something, even if the New 52 as a whole was a mistake. (Funny, DC admits the New 52 was a failure, even though it technically still left more of a mark than BND... common sense suggests this makes BND a failure too).

BND as a relaunch gave us nothing like that. Its biggest contribution was Mr. Negative, who isn't even that big of a villain anyway (nowhere near as big as Court of Owls or the new take on Riddler), and who could have existed without OMD.

Same thing can be said about Miles Morales and Spider-Verse. Not only did they not need OMD/BND... even worse... they didn't need 616. Miles first got big in Ultimate Spider-Man and was later exported in 616 because of popular he was, while Spider-Verse first got popular through ITSV (and to a lesser extent through the 90's show and the video games).

BND specifically doesn't even get talked about independently the way other great eras get talked about. Slott is the only writer everyone remembers from that era, even though there were several writers on ASM. The other writers either don't get mentioned, or only get mentioned when comparing their work to older writers. In other words, BND as a whole is defined as an era that undid another era, and that's it.

I'm not even going to get into sales, since we know BND had a huge sales drop.

It feels like the only reason BND isn't objectively viewed as a failure is because Editorial has more-or-less pretended and gaslighted the fans for 14 years that it somehow wasn't.

[Kevinroc]

The problem is Marvel are still releasing mid-tier Spider-Man comics. And people will defend these mid-tier comics by saying "sales are good" (relative to the rest of the industry in the current era).

You can't look at the current book's Black Cat romance and tell me "this book is good, actually." The romance is incredibly underdeveloped and comes completely out of left field. But Marvel is certainly trying to market it as if it were actually important and significant. (In the end it won't be, but let's not pretend Marvel isn't doing this.)

[Lee]

Marvel published thick "Complete Collection" trade paperbacks of the Brand New Day era of Spider-Man a few years ago. They're about the publish an Omnibus edition. They wouldn't republish those stories in new formats if there wasn't an audience for them.

So sales are higher than they were during the 1990s?

(Perhaps I should have been clearer in my older post. This industry's sales cratered a long time ago. And it never fully recovered. I am aware that sales were better than they had been compared to recent years during the height of the pandemic.)

This discussion is almost as silly as the "Amazon Top 100" one. Comic sales were not normal during the 1990s.

The problem is Marvel are still releasing mid-tier Spider-Man comics. And people will defend these mid-tier comics by saying "sales are good" (relative to the rest of the industry in the current era).

Nobody is saying the comic is good because sales are good. Whether a comic is good or not is largely subjective.

Sales are brought up when people say silly things like "The fans hate this! Marvel isn't giving the fans what they want! The fans agree that this run is terrible!".

Amazing Spider-Man is one of Marvel's best selling titles. So there are either a lot of fans who like it enough to keep buying it, or there are tens of thousands of fans who go out of their way to pay money for a comic they hate.

[Kevinroc]

Marvel published thick "Complete Collection" trade paperbacks of the Brand New Day era of Spider-Man a few years ago. They're about the publish an Omnibus edition. They wouldn't republish those stories in new formats if there wasn't an audience for them.



This discussion is almost as silly as the "Amazon Top 100" one. Comic sales were not normal during the 1990s.



Nobody is saying the comic is good because sales are good. Whether a comic is good or not is largely subjective.

Sales are brought up when people say silly things like "The fans hate this! Marvel isn't giving the fans what they want! The fans agree that this run is terrible!".

Amazing Spider-Man is one of Marvel's best selling titles. So there are either a lot of fans who like it enough to keep buying it, or there are tens of thousands of fans who go out of their way to pay money for a comic they hate.

I just want good Spider-Man comics. And right now I am not getting good Spider-Man comics. Maybe JMD's Lost Hunt will be something I find enjoyable. But the people who argued for the current status quo are the same people making the current mid-tier Spider-Man comics.

[Serving Size]

If this is really about Gwen Stacy, then a full reboot was the only solution.

[Lukmendes]

It's impressive how quickly this thread went to **** since my last post lol.

Mr. Mets has taken the pill. He's seeing the matrix.

If I may introduce another theory on reader habits, I believe a substantial chunk of the audience in these difficult last-stage capitalism times view consuming comfort media as a kind of back yard gardening ritual. The MU is our comfort place, where our imaginary friends live, and it gives us dopamine to see them do okay. When Spidey's fighting Kraven or the Lizard, we know he's gonna be okay, so there's no real stress there. But when a major shift happens--say, Superior Spider-Man or OMD, the uncertainty of whether our fave hero will be okay is like a nasty weed we can't pluck out. It gives off this negativity-tinged incentive to read on "hoping it gets better" only to get disapointed every issue when it doesn't. Pete and MJ being married is, to many, an essential part of feeling that their comfort place of "spidey comics" is doing alright.

This is a stress that a lot of bad faith actors like to take advantage of. Remember when Riri took over for Tony as Iron Man? A lot of people were probably a tad stressed about losing Tony, but the loudest voices were capital R-racists straight fearmongering about wokeism or the great replacement or Marvel going bankrupt and other nonsense.

Unless you want Spidey comics to end, Pete's gonna go some major trouble. Part of that trouble will be with people closest to him, MJ especially. The garden will always be weed-infested, otherwise there's nothing for our heroes to do. That's the feature of endless storytelling.

The problem is that even characters like super-heroes are allowed to change with times.

After all, nowadays Batman is a lil' bitch who hates guns, when in the very first issues he had no problems with having guns (Although the same writer had him stop using 'em), and then he went to that campy era, and after Miller he's a douchebag.

Characters hardly need dumb gimmicks like the ones you mentioned too, OMD is a disaster as a story, Superior is pretty bad if you keep everyone's previous characterization in mind, and Riri replaced Stark too suddenly when he normally has trust issues.

So yeah, if characters are going to change, do it in a more organic way, not with garbage gimmicks like those.

The real problem with Spider-man comics is not enough Big Wheel.

The problem is that Big Wheel is a lot like Morlun, in the sense that he's too powerful to keep showing up, so his appearances being rare are better otherwise he'll be cheapened.

Oh, I got a surefire way to bring the marriage back, btw--READ MILES's BOOK!

Read it, love it, tell everyone about it. Buy it and give it to your mates! See his movies, play the games! Show Marble with your cash-money that he's got what it takes to be the #1 Spider-Man of the MU.

Peter's trouble is that he's the face of the franchise. If he were a B-lister off in his own corner, he'd be without the pressure to be all things to all people.

Look at X-Men, for example. The franchise's leads--Cyclops and Phoenix--can hardly stay alive at the same time to consummate any relationship. Meanwhile, Rogue and Gambit, the B-listers, get married ON PANEL, get a solo or mini every couple years, guest-star in each other's team books, and generally have a good time being in love.

Make Miles the face of Spider-Man and watch Pete become the happiest he's ever been.

From what I hear Gambit is being written badly and is just being dragged in Rogue's adventures, although I'm not sure if that's true.

Either way, Miles being the face of Spider-Man is ridiculously difficult considering not even Iron Man has upstaged Spidey in popularity, and even if it does happen, it's naíve to believe Marvel will treat Spidey well considering that all the other Spiders get treated like **** in general, plus, it could potentially really suck for Miles for that to happen as well, 'cause would Miles fans want him to have the kind of disrespect Spidey gets?

I'm not saying it would fail guaranteed, but Marvel isn't a "B-listers get treated better" company.

MJ is more than a supermodel. How are we mysognistic for wanting things to work out between Peter and his soul mate?

It depends on how people want 'em together, 'cause there are shippers out there who want her to be with Spidey just because it's how it used to be, just for her to be Spidey's arm candy.

On the first point, I was noting an argument that people could make, not something people could believe. But it does seem important for Spider-Man fans that Mary Jane is conventionally attractive, and seen as a bombshell within the context of the Marvel Universe.

You talk like her being beautiful is a problem.

Sales still aren't as high as they were during the marriage years. The 'many' in today's comics climate are still very few.

Sales drop over time with comic books, so that's not much of an argument.

I don't think Peter was married in any of the movies except for "Into the Spiderverse" where the first Peter is killed immediately and the other one is divorced. He is also not married in the Insomniac Playstation game where Aunt May dies, although he IS married in the old Genesis game, as well as "Maximum Carnage," and "Return of the Sinister Six." Probably the game boy games too, but I never played them.

A rule of thumb with Spidey's games betweem 90's and 2010's is that he was generally with MJ 'cause marriage was a thing at the time, although MJ's appearances may be glorified cameos, if she's even part of the plot, and since the games only really showed the Spidey side, she generally wasn't.

Actually Spider-Man is like James Bond. Hot chicks and Great villains FF is not as good ( Doom and Galatus excluded). Some of Peter’s enemies can be easily shifted to Miles like Scorpion to strengthen his rogues gallery

I think Miles would benefit more from being his own thing instead of stealing Spidey's stuff lol.

The thing is a lot of the best X-Men villains end up joining the X-Men, lol.

Sinister of all people is part of Quiet Council now... Which's completely ridiculous since he hasn't changed at all as far as his morality goes (His personality is pretty different on the other hand).

Mystique is another ridiculous example of that.

And the fans bend over backwards to justify it .

Some cases can make some sense, but cases like Mystique, Sinister, Apocalypse are ridiculous lol.

Hell, Magneto himself was also rather silly since Claremont practically replaced him with another character.

And the irony of not knowing the wedding was pushed through by an embattled editor in chief who had had a major commercial disaster trying to create a “New Universe” and was dealing with new owners, against the wishes of every current Spider-Man creator because he was desperate for a huge sales event and then blaming this on editorial is lost on you.

The editors and editors-in-chief who oversaw OMD are gone from the company, so who exactly is keeping this going? Do you really think Cebulski is so committed to keeping Joe Quesada happy even after he’s left the company and working for DC comics now? Why would he risk his job since apparently according to you folks the removal of the marriage is responsible for the entire market downturn?

I think Cebulski has said Gwen is number#1 and some bullshit about how Spidey has to be relatable™, so also he also has this mentality that Spidey has to be single, or at least he uses the same excuses.

It's also worth pointing out that trying to undo the marriage is older than OMD, Clone Saga eventually became an attempt at doing that, if it didn't start as an attempt anyways.

[Kevinroc]

I just want good Spider-Man comics. And the people at Marvel who argued for, or still argue for, the current status quo have continuously delivered mid-tier quality Spider-Man comics. But if the sales are good (for whatever that means in this industry), then Marvel has no reason to actually make good Spider-Man comics and are perfectly content with these mid-tier quality books.

[HypnoHustler]

I just want good Spider-Man comics.

I know. Why is this concept so difficult? Daredevil has been on a winning streak for 20+ years, and we can’t even get one decent run (no, Spencer wasn’t it).