Is there any way Wells can turn the negative fan reception around?

[bob.schoonover]

Wasn’t this the exact reason everyone compared BND sales to Batman al the time. Batman is such a consistent seller. Spider-man might be doing better at the box office and toys but Batman still remains the comic king kind of thing.

Actually, the reason everyone compared it to Batman is that Batman's sales were so steady everything was compared to it. Batman's sales were a "100" every month and every other title got scaled to that.

[Mister Mets]

Wasn’t this the exact reason everyone compared BND sales to Batman al the time. Batman is such a consistent seller. Spider-man might be doing better at the box office and toys but Batman still remains the comic king kind of thing.

There is also an argument that DC is letting other franchises slide while keeping Batman going.

[Alex_Of_X]

ASM has lost a healthy percentage of its sales since 2006 while Batman remained consistent/grew.

Using Comichron, and pulilng the highest selling issue of the title that month, and avoiding #1s and big anniversary issues, etc:

Jan 2006 - picking a month before OMD and before Civil War started and goosed sales:
Amazing Spider-Man 528 95,383
Batman 649 62,358

December 2016:
Batman 12 111,391
Amazing Spider-Man 63,359

January 2018:
Batman 38 98,440
Amazing Spider-Man 794 (near the end of Slott's run) 51,412

March 2020 (last month where we have reliable figures from Diamond, as DC shifts distributors after this)
Batman 91 88,735
Amazing Spider-Man 42 (Spencer) 53,428

This isn't the most scientific look - I tried to randomly select without #1s and anniversary issues, but to be really useful a regression of every month's sales should be run to scientifically kick out outliers and arrive at a real baseline/trend and yeah, this is interesting to me but not that interesting.

But still, it shows that Batman has been able to maintain/grown its audience while ASM's audience has shrunk. ~50K seems to be ASM's baseline.

And now, of course, we don't have access to reliable figures at all.

Nice! Finally, some hard data.

I think comparing Bats and Spidey blow for blow, we should give context to what's happening. Say...

December 2016:
Batman 12 111,391
Amazing Spider-Man 22 63,359

Here, Bats is 10 issues ahead of Spidey since the big, fat #1 by a Hot Hot writer, while Spidey's on Slott's...third relaunch? Also, Bats is only 2.99! That surely matters.

If we, say, throw KingBats vs SpencerSpidey, on the first issue sales we see:

Amazing Spider-Man 1 $5.99 Marvel 289,102
Batman 1* $2.99 DC 280,360

Pretty close race, there! And that was before we knew about the MJxPeter reunion, too!

[dornwolf]

There is also an argument that DC is letting other franchises slide while keeping Batman going.

That is definitely true. All the new titles seem to be minis. Except for Batman stuff. Ongoings it is.

[exile001]

I guess my perspective I guess the question is "if, by the end of the run, Wells has fully restored/redeemed Ben, managed to reveal, explain and resolve the big "what did peter do/what do people think Peter did" angle and, preferably, reunited him with MJ, will I be satisfied?"

The answer is no because I haven't enjoyed the journey to get there.

I read the first third-ish of Beyond (through Kraven) as I would a regular Spidey book, but dropped down to reading at my LCS as I wasn't getting much enjoyment from it. Since then, the quality of the book has actually gotten worse (except for the May/Otto issue of Beyond, perhaps the worst Spidey comic in a decade) and I now more skim read (out of pure habit) than actually take Wells' books in. There's nothing there to make me invested as I believe these are bad comics that don't reflect the characters, world or, frankly, quality I expect from a Spider-man comic.

Other people's enjoyment will vary, and that's fine.

It's not just than I'm annoyed with Ben's use, I got used to him being dead for 20 odd years, or that Pete isn't with MJ, that was gone for 10+ years, it's that Wells is writing a superficial, throwaway Saturday morning cartoon and I'm not enjoying it. I like the past to have some relevance to now, I like each book to feel like progress, I like characters acting somewhat in line with the way they've been for decades and I like the villains to be threatening.

The big crossover has swearing vehicles with faces. How am I meant to take that seriously as a threat? Put it in an Etrigan book and I'm all over it, but I can't take that seriously as a threat to New York.

ASM 900 treated the Sinister Six like they're nothing and those are supposed to be his greatest enemies. Two Hobgoblins vs Norman wasn't a problem (just 3 issues?!?!?). Tombstone got Peter on his worst day, at his weakest and still just managed manipulate him a bit.

None of this is satisfying to me as a reader and, coupled with the return of Loser Peter, which I despise, there is absolutely nothing for me to pay for let alone revisit.

[Matt Rat]

or that Pete isn't with MJ, that was gone for 10+ years.

It was only gone in 616. Marriage was very much still active elsewhere.

That's a large reason Marvel constantly fail to sway fans into moving on from Peter and MJ after OMD. There is always marriage/family content being published, sometimes it's just a small thing, and in other instances it finds itself nack in the mainline limelight. Even now with Wells, we had Dark Ages during Beyond and then now with The Lost Hunt for his current run building to whatever Peter did. The newspaper strip is in reruns currently, but all the stories repeated are from 2014-2019 and are about a married Peter and MJ. You can even make the case for Slott using married versions of Peter and MJ as well as their kids in cameos for his current book (OK, their roles are minimal but there you are)

[Jman27]

I guess my perspective I guess the question is "if, by the end of the run, Wells has fully restored/redeemed Ben, managed to reveal, explain and resolve the big "what did peter do/what do people think Peter did" angle and, preferably, reunited him with MJ, will I be satisfied?"

The answer is no because I haven't enjoyed the journey to get there.

I read the first third-ish of Beyond (through Kraven) as I would a regular Spidey book, but dropped down to reading at my LCS as I wasn't getting much enjoyment from it. Since then, the quality of the book has actually gotten worse (except for the May/Otto issue of Beyond, perhaps the worst Spidey comic in a decade) and I now more skim read (out of pure habit) than actually take Wells' books in. There's nothing there to make me invested as I believe these are bad comics that don't reflect the characters, world or, frankly, quality I expect from a Spider-man comic.

Other people's enjoyment will vary, and that's fine.

It's not just than I'm annoyed with Ben's use, I got used to him being dead for 20 odd years, or that Pete isn't with MJ, that was gone for 10+ years, it's that Wells is writing a superficial, throwaway Saturday morning cartoon and I'm not enjoying it. I like the past to have some relevance to now, I like each book to feel like progress, I like characters acting somewhat in line with the way they've been for decades and I like the villains to be threatening.

The big crossover has swearing vehicles with faces. How am I meant to take that seriously as a threat? Put it in an Etrigan book and I'm all over it, but I can't take that seriously as a threat to New York.

ASM 900 treated the Sinister Six like they're nothing and those are supposed to be his greatest enemies. Two Hobgoblins vs Norman wasn't a problem (just 3 issues?!?!?). Tombstone got Peter on his worst day, at his weakest and still just managed manipulate him a bit.

None of this is satisfying to me as a reader and, coupled with the return of Loser Peter, which I despise, there is absolutely nothing for me to pay for let alone revisit.

hold up now they are his greatest enemies yet when vulture manages to get the drop on Spider-man a few issues later people were piss cause vulture under any circumstances shouldn't beat spider man

[TinkerSpider]

hold up now they are his greatest enemies yet when vulture manages to get the drop on Spider-man a few issues later people were piss cause vulture under any circumstances shouldn't beat spider man

That’s not why people found that story asinine.

The issue is that the Vulture picked up Spider-Man, shredded his webshooters, dropped him from a high height, then picked him again and slammed him into a chimney.

And Peter’s response was to basically curl into a fetal ball and sob to Norman Osborn that he needs his sugar daddy to rescue him because he’s gonna die.

No one has an issue with the Vulture getting the drop on Peter or that the Vulture can’t be a deadly foe - go read JMD’s Funeral Arrangements in Spectacular Spider-Man. The issue is that the Vulture barely went two rounds with Peter before Peter turned into a whiny quitter who wants the murderer of Gwen Stacy to save his little damsel self.

And yeah, it is hard to take the Vulture as a serious threat when in just the previous issue the entire Sinister Six was played for laughs. It’s called tonal dissonance.

[Alex_Of_X]

I guess my perspective I guess the question is "if, by the end of the run, Wells has fully restored/redeemed Ben, managed to reveal, explain and resolve the big "what did peter do/what do people think Peter did" angle and, preferably, reunited him with MJ, will I be satisfied?"

The answer is no because I haven't enjoyed the journey to get there.

I read the first third-ish of Beyond (through Kraven) as I would a regular Spidey book, but dropped down to reading at my LCS as I wasn't getting much enjoyment from it. Since then, the quality of the book has actually gotten worse (except for the May/Otto issue of Beyond, perhaps the worst Spidey comic in a decade) and I now more skim read (out of pure habit) than actually take Wells' books in. There's nothing there to make me invested as I believe these are bad comics that don't reflect the characters, world or, frankly, quality I expect from a Spider-man comic.

Other people's enjoyment will vary, and that's fine.

It's not just than I'm annoyed with Ben's use, I got used to him being dead for 20 odd years, or that Pete isn't with MJ, that was gone for 10+ years, it's that Wells is writing a superficial, throwaway Saturday morning cartoon and I'm not enjoying it. I like the past to have some relevance to now, I like each book to feel like progress, I like characters acting somewhat in line with the way they've been for decades and I like the villains to be threatening.

The big crossover has swearing vehicles with faces. How am I meant to take that seriously as a threat? Put it in an Etrigan book and I'm all over it, but I can't take that seriously as a threat to New York.

ASM 900 treated the Sinister Six like they're nothing and those are supposed to be his greatest enemies. Two Hobgoblins vs Norman wasn't a problem (just 3 issues?!?!?). Tombstone got Peter on his worst day, at his weakest and still just managed manipulate him a bit.

None of this is satisfying to me as a reader and, coupled with the return of Loser Peter, which I despise, there is absolutely nothing for me to pay for let alone revisit.

Friend, you see the light. I'd drop the book in a heartbeat if It wasn't doing it for me (As I have Gold Goblin at issue 2).

Too many good comics out there, and 3.99$'s no joke!

(Not that I think you should drop anything: you do you. Spend your hard earned coin!)

btw I should get on the Dan Watters' Azrael train: the art looks STUNNING! Gonna grab the first issue on a sale

[Matt Rat]

ComicPop discuss the state of the Spider-Man books

[CaptainUniverse]

Zeb Wells and his bosses deserve to be fired after this is all over. They literally drove Spider-Man into the fucking ground and took his entire cast down with him. There is no excuse for idiots like this to be steering the ship.

[Matt Rat]

Such a shame these guys consider MJ a non-character now and more a macguffin/prize. That's where we're at now, but I also think Peter's just as much a macguffin, his book is a constant back-door pilot for other characters and developments that are of more interest.

[Zeitgeist]

You can gauge how this forum will react to a run by Peter and Mary Jane's relationship status.

You rarely ever see any posts along the lines of "This isn't what I want, and it's not for me, but it's decently written", but you do see a lot of "This isn't what I want, so everything about it is terrible".

Like Mets said, it's for the most part about each poster's preferred outcome more than anything else.

Mmhmm

I was pretty much instantaneously told by people on one side of the coin when I was curious about what's been going on that "it's terrible" and yet the posters who bought and did mini-reviews of the book have been a lot more positive. Obviously there's a vocal section of the fandom that isn't happy about what's happening, but how much does this "negative fan reception" actually account for? Is it a fair assessment or are people just using their immediate surroundings/like-minded friends as a barometer?

[PCN24454]

Such a shame these guys consider MJ a non-character now and more a macguffin/prize. That's where we're at now, but I also think Peter's just as much a macguffin, his book is a constant back-door pilot for other characters and developments that are of more interest.

Don’t most writers view them that way?

[Matt Rat]

Is it a fair assessment or are people just using their immediate surroundings/like-minded friends as a barometer?

You say that and yet you argue the case for the 'positive' reviews of the book from shills, so you're just as likely to read more into what you'd like to hear than concede that there's a majority that don't like it.

Lee assumes that people only hate this run because Peter and MJ aren't together, but that's a very easy thing to say and requires minimal use of critical faculties in regards to the book's quality. There has been several arguments here made that people hate this run because of everything about it besides that.

I liked a bit of the Tombstone arc, but it worsened with each chapter, and it's arguable no long-term planning has been put into this and there has been continuous course corrections, which has derailed Dark Web entirely. These are easy things to observe.

Why is it that people can say the book is considered terrible only because Peter and MJ aren't together? I could argue that they are intentionally putting up with total crap because it's a status quo they like

But that's too easy and I prefer to look at it from all angles. There is more bad than good, and no amount of 'positive' reviews are going to change my mind. I have read the comics, I have made up my own mind, and I find the quality lacking.

You shouldn't listen to either side if you're on the fence. Get off that fence, take the dollars out of your wallet, and pay for the experience, good or bad, it's up to whatever your mind makes of it.