Quote Originally Posted by TinkerSpider View Post
My sincere belief is that Spencer’s run was greatly impacted by the pandemic, with the order to go pencils down coming about halfway through the run which coincides with the dip in artist quality and the tonal dissonance of the latter half. Remember, the pandemic forced the cancellation of the Amazing Mary Jane comic, which had previously been extended, which was just one unexpected event that probably caused a behind the scenes scramble. The pandemic threw everyone’s income into question, as artists and writers aren’t going to be paid - or their payments will be delayed - during a time of pencils down. And there are many accounts from creators, from every creative industry, who found the pandemic negatively impacted their creativity and productivity. I’m sure Marvel editorial also found the pandemic difficult, as it threw their schedules and operations into disarray (they’re still dealing with paper shortages and printer capacity issues). And we all know Spencer started to work with Substack because of the pandemic, which soured his relationship with Marvel.

I would love to see a run by Spencer that wasn’t so impacted by a major world shutdown - I have a feeling the result would be very different.
That's a good point, and yeah, would have been nice. As for the run we did get, could have been better, especially near the end, though it did start well enough in some respects, and it was still better than much if not most of what we got afterwards.