15th anniversary of Brand New Day. Hooray?

[Kevinroc]

From Marvel's perspective, Brand New Day was a clear success.

Since then, they've gotten major new characters and concepts (Spider-Gwen, Superior Spider-Man, Miles Morales, the spider-verse) and kept the main comics going as a top comics franchise.

Are you crediting BND for Miles Morales?

[PCN24454]

Are you crediting BND for Miles Morales?

They’re from the same era if not continuity.

[Kevinroc]

They’re from the same era if not continuity.

The election of Barack Obama has more to do with Miles Morales existing than BND.

Anyone trying to say BND is responsible for Miles Morales is trying to stretch further than Reed Richards.

[Frontier]

Yeah, the only characters I would say really came into their own because of BND was Agent Venom, Kaine and Anya as Spider-Girl, and even the former took until Slott's run to become the new Scarlet Spider.

[TinkerSpider]

The election of Barack Obama has more to do with Miles Morales existing than BND.

Anyone trying to say BND is responsible for Miles Morales is trying to stretch further than Reed Richards.

Exactly. BND had nothing to do with Miles. Here’s an interview with Bendis:

https://www.nydailynews.com/entertai...icle-1.2265591

[Mister Mets]

The election of Barack Obama has more to do with Miles Morales existing than BND.

Anyone trying to say BND is responsible for Miles Morales is trying to stretch further than Reed Richards.

There would be all sorts of unpredictable consequences if Marvel hadn't gone for Brand More Day. That would have implications for every Spider-Man title. Think of the butterfly effect except this is in the context of one publishing company where changes reverberate.

There is also less need to change Ultimate Spider-Man if there are more differences between the 616 Peter Parker and the Ultimate Peter Parker.

[Kaitou D. Kid]

There would be all sorts of unpredictable consequences if Marvel hadn't gone for Brand More Day. That would have implications for every Spider-Man title. Think of the butterfly effect except this is in the context of one publishing company where changes reverberate.

There is also less need to change Ultimate Spider-Man if there are more differences between the 616 Peter Parker and the Ultimate Peter Parker.

The butterfly effect is not a good argument because you can use that to literally defend (or criticize) any change.

Your defense boils down to "Well we don't have 100% certainty that Miles Morales wouldn't have happened without BND, therefore BND is justified." I can just as easily say "Well we don't have 100% certainty that Miles wouldn't have existed without BND, therefore BND isn't justified." See how this sort of point goes nowhere?

[Mister Mets]

The butterfly effect is not a good argument because you can use that to literally defend (or criticize) any change.

Your defense boils down to "Well we don't have 100% certainty that Miles Morales wouldn't have happened without BND, therefore BND is justified." I can just as easily say "Well we don't have 100% certainty that Miles wouldn't have existed without BND, therefore BND isn't justified." See how this sort of point goes nowhere?

But my point isn't that Brand New Day justifies Miles Morales. Miles Morales was one of several developments in the Spider-Man comics since Brand New Day.

My point was that Marvel would likely be happy with the Spider-Man comics since Brand New Day. If you showed Joe Quesada or the people at Marvel circa 2005 when they were coming up with One More Day the comics since the unmasking (which only occurred because they knew a retcon was coming), they would probably look at it as a success.

We have no idea what the Spider-Man comics would have looked like if Marvel decided to keep Peter and MJ's marriage intact. That's a black box. But I think Brand New Day and the comics that came as a result were enough of a success that if there was the opportunity to reverse it so completely that entirely different comics were published since October 2005 ("The Other" crossover seems like an appropriate dividing line) they wouldn't want to risk it.

[Kaitou D. Kid]

But my point isn't that Brand New Day justifies Miles Morales. Miles Morales was one of several developments in the Spider-Man comics since Brand New Day.

My point was that Marvel would likely be happy with the Spider-Man comics since Brand New Day. If you showed Joe Quesada or the people at Marvel circa 2005 when they were coming up with One More Day the comics since the unmasking (which only occurred because they knew a retcon was coming), they would probably look at it as a success.

We have no idea what the Spider-Man comics would have looked like if Marvel decided to keep Peter and MJ's marriage intact. That's a black box. But I think Brand New Day and the comics that came as a result were enough of a success that if there was the opportunity to reverse it so completely that entirely different comics were published since October 2005 ("The Other" crossover seems like an appropriate dividing line) they wouldn't want to risk it.

As if the Wells run hasn't gotten them in trouble and made them lose complete control of the narrative, and as if it would be a surprise if Marvel undoes OMD in the near future.

[TinkerSpider]

There would be all sorts of unpredictable consequences if Marvel hadn't gone for Brand More Day. That would have implications for every Spider-Man title. Think of the butterfly effect except this is in the context of one publishing company where changes reverberate.

There is also less need to change Ultimate Spider-Man if there are more differences between the 616 Peter Parker and the Ultimate Peter Parker.

There is empirical, factual proof - straight from the mouths of Brian Bendis and Axel Alonso - that Miles was created because:

1) Social attitudes were shifting in the US
2) The population of the US was becoming more diverse but Marvel Comics wasn't. This was especially true of the Millennial generation, which was coming of age at that time, and Marvel didn't have books to capture these readers
3) Bendis has two adopted Black daughters and he wanted them to be able to see themselves represented and reflected in comics
4) Alonso identifies as Latino and also wanted to see more representation

Nothing to do with BND. Nothing.

No other character at Marvel has been subjected to a magical reset button that wiped out 20 years of continuity. That's how you can tell BND had little to no effect on Marvel Comics as a whole.

But I think Brand New Day and the comics that came as a result were enough of a success that if there was the opportunity to reverse it so completely that entirely different comics were published since October 2005 ("The Other" crossover seems like an appropriate dividing line) they wouldn't want to risk it.

Amazing Spider-Man has lost a substantial fraction of its sales while Batman has remained steady and even grown in the time period between 2006 to 2020 (2020 is the last year for which we have reliable public sales numbers). I pulled the numbers in other threads.

That to me does not say it has been a success. It certainly has not achieved Marvel's goal, which is to capture even more new readers than it lost old readers. Going by the letters pages in Wells's run, where most of the readers refer to the decades they have spent reading Spider-Man comics, it appears mostly only old timers are still hanging on. Granted, that's only anecdotal evidence, but it's still telling those are the letters they choose to publish.

[KyleWayne]

I stopped reading Spider-Man when they ended the marriage, so f*** Marvel. A decade and a half later, and they STILL haven’t restored the marriage. I was sure it would be restored when Slott and later Spencer left but nope. How long must I wait until Marvel starts catering to readers like me?

I wouldn’t be so upset if Marvel launched a new Tom DeFalco-penned Spider-Girl series for me to get my marriage fix, but they won’t even do that.


And Renew Your Vows sucked after Gerry Conway left and Annie was aged up into Mayday-lite.

[Matt Rat]

I wouldn’t be so upset if Marvel launched a new Tom DeFalco-penned Spider-Girl series for me to get my marriage fix, but they won’t even do that

Stephanie Williams was assigned a Mayday story over on the Infinity comics for Marvel Unlimited. It wasn't a bad story, at least her dad's happy there.

[WebLurker]

But my point isn't that Brand New Day justifies Miles Morales. Miles Morales was one of several developments in the Spider-Man comics since Brand New Day.

In other words, there is no point. Something that explains everything explains nothing.

Amazing Spider-Man has lost a substantial fraction of its sales while Batman has remained steady and even grown in the time period between 2006 to 2020 (2020 is the last year for which we have reliable public sales numbers). I pulled the numbers in other threads.

That to me does not say it has been a success. It certainly has not achieved Marvel's goal, which is to capture even more new readers than it lost old readers. Going by the letters pages in Wells's run, where most of the readers refer to the decades they have spent reading Spider-Man comics, it appears mostly only old timers are still hanging on. Granted, that's only anecdotal evidence, but it's still telling those are the letters they choose to publish.

However, even if it's correct that OMD has cost Marvel both sales and general fan goodwill over the years, the fact that they haven't reversed course (esp. in a medium where reseting things back to the default status quo is the norm) strongly suggests whatever losses they're suffering aren't enough to motivate them to see it as a failure or make a change. Even if OMD was all about the people in charge just wanting "their" version of Spider-Man in print, there is a point where money speaks louder than creative biases.

And Renew Your Vows sucked after Gerry Conway left and Annie was aged up into Mayday-lite.

Dunno, while I generally liked the original batch of stuff better (although the Goblin plotline fell flat in the final act), can't say the teen years stuff was that bad; it was interesting to see the changing times and I did like the emotional beats in the clone story (like MJ opening up to Annie about her miscarriage and how Peter's experiences with the Jackal and Wolverine's with X-23 gave them different perspectives on the possibility of Annie having been cloned).

[Kaitou D. Kid]

However, even if it's correct that OMD has cost Marvel both sales and general fan goodwill over the years, the fact that they haven't reversed course (esp. in a medium where reseting things back to the default status quo is the norm) strongly suggests whatever losses they're suffering aren't enough to motivate them to see it as a failure or make a change. Even if OMD was all about the people in charge just wanting "their" version of Spider-Man in print, there is a point where money speaks louder than creative biases.

Tbh, I suspect we are reaching that point. Especially since Wells' run started.

Spider-Man in other mediums (which we know Marvel cares about) is also increasingly looking more and more like Pre-OMD in the sense that he is older and with MJ.

I don't exactly expect Marvel to undo OMD ("expect" is too strong a word), but I wouldn't be surprised at all at this point if it happens within the next 10 years. It took a while because ASM is a book that's very, very hard to crash.

[TinkerSpider]

However, even if it's correct that OMD has cost Marvel both sales and general fan goodwill over the years, the fact that they haven't reversed course (esp. in a medium where reseting things back to the default status quo is the norm) strongly suggests whatever losses they're suffering aren't enough to motivate them to see it as a failure or make a change. Even if OMD was all about the people in charge just wanting "their" version of Spider-Man in print, there is a point where money speaks louder than creative biases.

I don't think sales of ASM have fallen to such a critical point that people like Tom Brevoort, who is still very much high up at Marvel, would swallow their entrenched pride and take the public "L." And Quesada may no longer be at Marvel, but he still has lots of friends in high places and he's still working in comics, which is quite a small community. My point is that, while ASM still sells well in a relatively depressed market, OMD is a failure from the stance that it didn't accomplish what it set out to do: bring a tidal wave of new readers to Spider-Man. It may have brought a ripple, but to borrow from Mets, who is to say those new readers wouldn't have come along anyway? And who knows how many readers at the time - whose dollars are still green - didn't leave for good thanks to OMD?

Shouldn't ASM sell as well as Batman?

Nor do I think Disney cares so much about the comics publishing business that Disney brass would intervene (although one wonders how all the consumers clutching their pearls over Disney featuring a brief same sex kiss in Lightyear would feel if it were more general public knowledge that one of Disney's most popular characters made an active deal with a Satan figure to erase his marriage - in favor of knocking boots without the sanctity of marriage!! - and the company frames that as a positive for his life).

Give it ten or fifteen years when the audience continues to dwindle due to attrition and the costs continue to rise and I think we'll see a different story. At that point, nostalgia audiences might be the only ones willing to pay the high price for comics.