The Problem With Spider-Man Comics Today

[Mister Mets]

Thought on the video...

The main argument is that Spider-Man's no longer about responsibility. I've heard that one before and I think there's more to it.
About a minute in, he complains about One More Day. He focuses on Dan Slott's Spidey more in the context of the type of stories told since OMD. I don't agree with his point that Dan Slott's Spider-Man is about why Peter and Mary Jane's relationship would never work (about 2 minutes in; he sees this as a bad thing.)
He goes on a detour about Dan Slott's twitter habits, and decision to block critics, which seems like a waste of time in a piece about the quality of the comics. That rubbed me the wrong way.

I do think there is a view that the Spider-Man comics are about growth, though the description is a bit one-sided, because there is also a need to preserve the series going forward.

5 minutes in, we get into the current run, although he talks about the story potential in the DeMatteis run. The stories he calls original are better versions of stories that were told before, like the first Harry Osborn saga or the Lee/ Ditko story where Kraven framed Spider-Man.

5:30 in, he brings up the Spider-Verse, which is a major development in the comics and something that's part of the Spider-Man toolkit. High casualty rates aren't unique to Slott, and I don't buy the argument that the spider-verse stories hurt the supporting cast, since there are so many other Spider-Man stories available. Spider-Geddon and End of Spider-Verse are both outside of Amazing Spider-Man.

Suggesting Marvel's misogynistic for their decisions about Mary Jane is a dick move. You could make a similar argument about all the people who want Peter married to a supermodel.

It seems ignorant or bad faith to be surprised that a convention panel would talk about the new run, rather than a previous run that ended badly from a writer who left Marvel.

He's making a big prediction that the mystery box story will last anywhere near as long as the Kindred plot.

Marvel doesn't want to copy Invincible, as good as that was, because there are needs for a finite creator-owned book, and a flagship title that's been going on for 60 years, and might go on for more.

I think a big conflict is that some fans don't mind if a series reaches a satisfying end, while Marvel's mindful of how to get Spider-Man into the best status quo for Amazing Spider-Man #1145. Some readers see it as one big story, but there are other perspectives in a series that many of the original fans have not lived to see end. It's possible to look at stories in the short term (IE- the current Hobgoblin story is a three parter) or to consider longer arcs that still have a complete beginning, middle and end, which is what the Wells/ Romita/ McGuiness run may end up being.

[Venomous Mask]

I really want to see the Peter Parker go back to growing and maturing, but I can't lie that the direction that he's been going in has helped me save a ton of money in buying comics.

[Mister Mets]

I don't disagree. The problem is Spider-Man is essentially "too big to fail" (for whatever that means in the comic book industry) so nothing is going to change.

The sales of the X-books before Hickman show that nothing in comics is too big to fail.

IMO, they have two options… let Spidey finally age like he was doing until the 1990s and achieve new milestones, like being married again, having a baby and *shock* maybe even enter his 30s… this will open up new avenues for fresh storylines…. or reboot the whole Spidey line and start over fresh (kind of like Ultimate, but for 616). This zombie Simpsons approach of just recycling a bunch of stock storylines that give the illusion of change but never actually change anything makes the comics depressingly meaningless. Like I’m watching someone stuck in a never ending cartoon. Which I think Spencer joked about at one point.

The illusion of change is an option, where Peter Parker has been Spider-Man for a while (which some readers like) but the series will try to avoid permanent developments.

The problem is that the character is controlled by a whole bunch of people who act only on the principle "the character should be the way we remember him from our childhood, everything else is wrong, if you don't agree with us, you can go to hell."
That's the problem. They're not writing comics for fans, they're writing for themselves. Unfortunately, Spider-Man is too big for sales to start drastically declining, so, they're gladly using that.

The marriage occurred when many of these people were kids, so that doesn't quite work. They're writing comics for different fans than you, with a belief that it's better in the long term.

Joe Kelly is doing a mini arc after Dark Web.

I want to know what happened at the end of Nick Spencer's run that Marvel has completely retreated to bringing back BND writers to take control of ASM?

It may just be a matter of going with people they know and trust.

Zdarsky hinted that he wouldn't take Amazing Spider-Man because some of the fans are so toxic.

So? This is about Spider-Man. Other forums can be used to discuss the problems of other books/characters.

It can be relevant to note other series if you think it explains concerns about the Spider-Man comics.

Fans of the marriage often bring up series where characters have families to argue that it could work for Spidey.

That's not what a monopoly is. There are many, many comic publishers in North America, and even more worldwide. If you don't like Spider-Man comics, you can read comics about other characters.

Yea. Creator owned books have the advantage that they're not making compromises to keep the series going for a decade. Or more.

[Refrax5]

Thought on the video...

The main argument is that Spider-Man's no longer about responsibility. I've heard that one before and I think there's more to it.
About a minute in, he complains about One More Day. He focuses on Dan Slott's Spidey more in the context of the type of stories told since OMD. I don't agree with his point that Dan Slott's Spider-Man is about why Peter and Mary Jane's relationship would never work (about 2 minutes in; he sees this as a bad thing.)
He goes on a detour about Dan Slott's twitter habits, and decision to block critics, which seems like a waste of time in a piece about the quality of the comics. That rubbed me the wrong way.

I do think there is a view that the Spider-Man comics are about growth, though the description is a bit one-sided, because there is also a need to preserve the series going forward.

5 minutes in, we get into the current run, although he talks about the story potential in the DeMatteis run. The stories he calls original are better versions of stories that were told before, like the first Harry Osborn saga or the Lee/ Ditko story where Kraven framed Spider-Man.

5:30 in, he brings up the Spider-Verse, which is a major development in the comics and something that's part of the Spider-Man toolkit. High casualty rates aren't unique to Slott, and I don't buy the argument that the spider-verse stories hurt the supporting cast, since there are so many other Spider-Man stories available. Spider-Geddon and End of Spider-Verse are both outside of Amazing Spider-Man.

Suggesting Marvel's misogynistic for their decisions about Mary Jane is a dick move. You could make a similar argument about all the people who want Peter married to a supermodel.

It seems ignorant or bad faith to be surprised that a convention panel would talk about the new run, rather than a previous run that ended badly from a writer who left Marvel.

He's making a big prediction that the mystery box story will last anywhere near as long as the Kindred plot.

Marvel doesn't want to copy Invincible, as good as that was, because there are needs for a finite creator-owned book, and a flagship title that's been going on for 60 years, and might go on for more.

I think a big conflict is that some fans don't mind if a series reaches a satisfying end, while Marvel's mindful of how to get Spider-Man into the best status quo for Amazing Spider-Man #1145. Some readers see it as one big story, but there are other perspectives in a series that many of the original fans have not lived to see end. It's possible to look at stories in the short term (IE- the current Hobgoblin story is a three parter) or to consider longer arcs that still have a complete beginning, middle and end, which is what the Wells/ Romita/ McGuiness run may end up being.

A lot of good points. I definitely believe the 616 versions of these characters are supposed to be timeless and available for the next generation of fans and the generation after that and so on. I feel like there has to be some middle ground between having Peter become a family man that grows old and Marvel's insistence on keeping him a total immature mess.

[Lukmendes]

This was the angle some characters advocated in Civil War... and something that some characters do in fact use in Marvel.

Generally it's characters without their own setting though, even the likes of Stark does things without the Avengers getting involved in his own comics, same for Thor and Cap.

Hmmm which reminds me of how Civil War briefly ponder what RW law would think of super-heroes who are masked vigilantes. Short version: you're all criminals! Legally the whole deal of "we don't know who you are" is a major problem.

In real life, yes, in comics the secret identities are hardly an actual problem lol.

Like if you think about both Marvel and DCs by real life standards, both worlds are dystopian nightmares.

The police force is so incompetent that they have to rely on a bunch of untrained civilians with super powers to be able to keep up with super-villains.

The prisons are jokes since villains escape all the time.

Death sentence apparently doesn't exist.

Even the nicest super-heroes are destructive assholes who wreck half the city in a battle with a super-villain and then they leave without helping for the most part.

It's surprising that New York in particular is still populated, place is practically a war zone.

True. Thing is I never said ''ignore the problem'' but ''see the whole picture''.

And nobody is ignoring the whole picture, we're just focusing on Spidey because this is a Spidey forum lol.

It'd be like if I went to the Black Panther thread, saw how people are complaining at Marvel actively fucking over his character and pointed out that they should see the whole picture and that it's not just T'Challa who has it bad.

OMD/BND fails even by reboot standards.

When DC did the New 52, it was a step down from what came before, but it's not like we got nothing new or good. With Batman, we got Scott Snyder's Court of Owls and a great Riddler origin story. With Superman, we got Morrison's Action Comics.

OMD/BND were nowhere near as good as either one of those.

The closest new big thing or addition to the mythos since OMD is Miles Morales and Spider-Verse, but those would have existed without OMD. Even then, Miles Morales and Spider-Verse first got big outside of 616.

We also got Mr. Negative from this, and he can exist without OMD too.

Hell, even if we pick more insignificant stuff like Sasha and Ana, they still could mostly happen without OMD lol.

Mostly because Ana's introduction had her kidnapping that Vin guy 'cause she thought he's Spidey, and that can only happen if Spidey is not living with MJ.

Yeah, good idea, I've done this in recent years as I suspect many other formerly exclusive American Comic Book Readers have done so. I also suspect this is why in part Manga sales are through the roof, just a thought.

That's just a coincidence, western comic books have had sales drops since at most the 70's, and it's been only getting worse with time, mangas are popular independently from super-hero comics, and that's not hard to notice if you think a little bit about weeb culture.

I'm talking about former DC boss Dan DiDio talking about how the mythical new reader didn't materialize to support superhero comics. This doesn't mean no new readers didn't come in. But by and large new readers didn't materialize in the numbers that these companies needed.

So the question is who is Marvel trying to appeal to exactly?

Brevoort's disgusting sales method lol.

[Alex_Of_X]

I think a big conflict is that some fans don't mind if a series reaches a satisfying end, while Marvel's mindful of how to get Spider-Man into the best status quo for Amazing Spider-Man #1145.

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.

I wanna reach out across the aisle a lil bit--I like the marriage! 87-~94 Spidey and the JMS run go hard AF. Lovely books. Peter + MJ forever.

At the same time, I think it's bonkers to assume everyone reading spidey today is a disgruntled marriage fan angry since 2008. Pretty sure the past 15 years have yielded some new spidey fans who like BND or Slott or Spencer or Wells. And we, Old school fans, get some love, too--RYV, OMD, MC2 Spider-Girl, hell part of Spencer's whole signaling (unfulfilled as it went) was directed at us. Now marriage fans get JMD's Lost Hunt!

Spidey comics (1962-1987) were fine without the marriage. Hell, Ditko's run was fine without MJ. She's "a top-5 best things about spider-man" candidate, easy, but she isn't the end-all of them.

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

[Alex_Of_X]

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.

[Matt Rat]

You could make a similar argument about all the people who want Peter married to a supermodel..

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

You can either accept it for what it is, and keep reading, or you can stop reading Spider-Man comics and read comics that aren't cyclical.

Or we can demand a better product, none of this "obey and consume" crap. That's how we get pretty mediocre Marvel movies and shows.

[Mister Mets]

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



Or we can demand a better product, none of this "obey and consume" crap. That's how we get pretty mediocre Marvel movies and shows.

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.

Comic fans aren't going to have a major impact on the movies. 100,000 fans staying home is a percentage point change in first weekend opening box office.

[Matt Rat]

I don't agree with his point that Dan Slott's Spider-Man is about why Peter and Mary Jane's relationship would never work (about 2 minutes in; he sees this as a bad thing.)

He's not wrong.

The stories he calls original are better versions of stories that were told before, like the first Harry Osborn saga or the Lee/ Ditko story where Kraven framed Spider-Man.

Better written and the most remembered/celebrated.

[RJT]

"Read something else" is a very, very weak argument when Marvel and DC have a monopoly on these characters.

That argument will never fly with any other monopoly, and it ain't gonna fly now.

This is such a great argument because it allows folks to ignore metrics that don’t support their position that fans really really want Peter and Mary Jane married. Clearly, there are plenty of real world examples of Marvel/DC superhero books where the sales cratered enough that a drastic status quo change occurred (someone mentioned the pre-Hickman X books as an example.) But If one says “sales pressure can’t work on a Marvel book” then you never have to address the sales argument against your position. It’s basically the “ I have a girlfriend, she just goes to a different school” defense: there are legions of readers who want Peter and Mary Jane married, but they’re still buying the book because Marvel has a monopoly. Sales of Spider-Man comics have stayed relatively high comparatively to the industry as a whole—if the marriage was such a dealbreaker for so many of them, we would have seen Spider-Man’s sale position drop and we haven’t. Most readers really don’t care one way or the other.
Characters like Deadpool and Punisher held multiple monthly titles, and now routinely go through periods where they don’t even have one; Spider-Man went through low sales periods in the late 90s/early 00s that led to all sorts of drastic status quo shifts. So saying “voting with your wallet doesn’t work” (when there’s evidence plenty that it can) is just a way to insulate your argument from the reality that there really aren’t a significant enough number of people willing to drop reading Spider-Man comics over the marriage issue.

[Matt Rat]

the reality that there really aren’t a significant enough number of people willing to drop reading Spider-Man comics over the marriage issue.

Marvel have never stopped publishing comics with the marriage. We're getting five months of the marriage starting next week (Lost Hunt) and the daily strip is still in reruns with the marriage showcased. That's why people still read. We still get what we want even if it isn't the core continuity. That part of Spider-Man's saga has never been shelved or forgotten. Noone has any real motivation to drop the books because the chances always exist of the premise returning to the core title or we get something very close to it, like with Spencer's run.

[Lee]

Or we can demand a better product, none of this "obey and consume" crap. That's how we get pretty mediocre Marvel movies and shows.

I'm literally telling you NOT to consume the product if you dislike it.

You're saying a "better" product, but the thesis of this thread, and the most vocal unsatisfied fans on this particular forum, is that Spider-Man comics are bad because Marvel won't age Peter up, won't make him a married man again, won't make him a mature and sensible grown-up who has his life together. That's not about "good comics" or "bad comics". That's about wanting to read a particular type of comic, one where characters get older and older and all of the big changes stick and don't get undone. That's not Marvel's wheelhouse. That's not the nature of the beast. They have to ensure that their characters are still viable 10, 20, 50 years down the line.

You can demand that McDonald's starts serving steak, or you can go to a steak restaurant.

[RJT]

Marvel have never stopped publishing comics with the marriage. We're getting five months of the marriage starting next week (Lost Hunt) and the daily strip is still in reruns with the marriage showcased. That's why people still read. We still get what we want even if it isn't the core continuity. That part of Spider-Man's saga has never been shelved or forgotten. Noone has any real motivation to drop the books because the chances always exist of the premise returning to the core title or we get something very close to it, like with Spencer's run.

If Marvel is giving you what you want, then what’s with all the complaining?

[Matt Rat]

If Marvel is giving you what you want, then what’s with all the complaining?

Because the core books suck without it.