When does your Spider-man canon end?

[Xenon]

Clone Saga is when the canon started to frey, OMD is when they started to cut the rope of canon in a middle figure

And that makes sense, since both were attempts to undo the marriage and get rid of the canon. They were assaults on that canon in concept so of course in execution they made it worse.

[The_Sneezing_Stormtrooper]

Clone Saga is when the canon started to frey, OMD is when they started to cut the rope of canon in a middle figure

And that makes sense, since both were attempts to undo the marriage and get rid of the canon. They were assaults on that canon in concept so of course in execution they made it worse.

Even then though, regardless of what the clone saga set out to do it ended up fixing it by the end of the story and didn't actually break anything big in the long run except bringing Norman back at the end.

[Kaitou D. Kid]

I'm a sucker so I can't say I have an "end", that's part of why I care about the story being better and getting back what it had.

I think there are a lot of possible "endpoints" though. The two biggest that come to mind are "The Night Gwen Stacy Died" and ASM #500. You could I suppose also argue for OMD if you're a sadist and want a bad end.

ASM121-122 is a short run but there's some poetry in its ending. As ol' George Lucas said, "it rhymes". The story of Spider-Man starts because someone he loved died because he did nothing. The Night Gwen Stacy Died as an ending mirrors that, as it means the story "ends" with someone he loved dying because he DID something. I think MJ has a speech somewhere about Peter accepting that Uncle Ben may have died even if he did do something, and this is sort of that in story form. There's also just this sense of finality and change in it. Gwen is dead. GG is dead. Peter left Harry to his addictions, and MJ stays behind to take care of Peter. It would take a long time for everything that happened here to play out, but the only thing that didn't stick was GG being dead, and that took twenty years an an incompetent EiC to undo.

ASM500 makes a good ending because I think it's the last truly great Spider-Man issue. There have been good ones since, to be sure, but between the mess that is civil war, OMD, Slott's bad cahracterization, and now Wells' garbage I don't think the main title has ever achieved greatness since (which is pretty sad since it was twenty years ago). But it's a look at a potential future, a look through his past, and he gets to talk to Uncle Ben. It's not an ending ending, but it's a celebration of Spider-Man and the sort of tale that you can "end" on knowing he just kept on having adventures. You also avoid most of the bad stories in Spider-Man's story. You get the Mackie reboot boredom, you get Lifetheft (robot parents) you get the 90s clone saga, but 90% of what you get is good. The hit rate goes way down after this.

OMD is an end of sorts as well, as up until that point everything basically counted. Like sure, sometimes someone would fake a death or whatever. But there was always an explnation, it was always part of the story. and they were pretty good about letting things stick. Harry stayed dead. Norman almost did. OMD though was about undoing everything. Some of these things were recent and probably only let through because they were going to undo them, but others were decades old and had no real purpose in undoing (the marriage). It's an ending in a literal sense, the end of the long story being treated a certain way, of his progress, but of course it's an ending where the devil wins. It kind of reminds me of Persona 5 Royal's bad ending. Where everything seems good, but of course, it really isn't.

But, like I said, I don't think it really has ended. I'm not letting them off the hook. They should do a better job.

100% Agreed.

Honestly, at this point it's not enough to just undo OMD. To make Peter's story feel back on track, you have to address Miles Morales and Spider-Verse. Like, you don't have to do multiverse stuff. You don't even need Miles in Peter's book. But there's gotta be a clearer idea of how Peter feels about the gazillion heroes that took up his name, if he still has moments he feels like a screwup, what his archenemy's opinion of all the Spiders is, etc. If Peter gets back to the JMS status quo (married and a teacher) but the world around him still acts like there's only one Spider-Man, it wouldn't feel like we're fully caught up yet.

[clonegeek]

They're pretty minimal for a long time. Again. Norman stayed dead for twenty years. Harry stayed dead. Gwen Stayed dead. Peter's graduation from high school and college stuck. Ned had been dead for twenty years. Of course there were still fake outs and revivals, especially for villains, and the clone saga nonsense had a decent amount of bad stuff. But it was largely kept to a minimum and there's was always an explanation and it generally made some sense. Meanwhile, OMD undid Peter's organic webshooters, and no reason has ever been given.

I'd just have Mephisto just transfor the originic webs to Silk

[Spider-Tiger]

That's me.

I voted for OMD, but only because everything after that is intentionally unimportant. Editorial literally wanted everything after that to stagnate and to just be action figures moving on page. But all of that is reversible. If someone were to undo OMD and write a great run, I wouldn't consider their work any less "canon" than pre-OMD stuff.


I like to divide the comics in 3 periods: The Classic era, the Modern era, and the 21st Century era (or 'Modern Era 2').

The Classic era is everything between Lee/Ditko and Wolfman. Self-explanatory, right? At least everything between AF#15 and Gwen's death counts as "canon" from this era.

The Modern era starts with Roger Stern and lasts all the way to Mackie. Roger Stern's Spidey is more-or-less where Spidey starts to sound like the Spidey we know, and it's also what kickstarts the second great era of Spidey comics. Since after Conway left, things became kinda "meh".

The 21st Century era starts in 2000 with Roger Stern's Revenge of the Green Goblin, but reaches its peak from JMS. I say it counts because there is too much from 2000-2007 that informed our idea of Spidey. Norman seeing Peter as a son and being obsessed with hurting him (which Raimi and NWH both adapted) is now iconic. Aunt May finding out Peter is Spider-Man is iconic. The 9/11 issue is iconic. Peter's job as a teacher is his second most iconic job after photography - to the point that Peter's role as a mentor in ITSV/ATSV and Insomniac is informed by it. Some Civil War stuff is iconic too, like Cap's "You Move" speech or the Iron Man connection - yeah, the MCU missed the point there and turned Pete into Iron Man Jr., but people don't have to "get" it for something to be iconic. Look at how Zack Snyder missed the message of Watchmen, but the Watchmen comic is still iconic.


There is obviously a bit of overlap. You can group the Wolfman run with the Stern stuff (since it introduces Black Cat), and you can almost group Byrne/Mackie with the 21st Century stuff (since it's late 90's and a pseudo-reboot ... so practically a 21st Century reboot).


I'm maybe pulling these numbers out of my ass, but I think most fans (about 3 out of 4) consider everything up to OMD canon. Out of the ones that don't, most of them consider only those first two eras canon. And an even smaller minority (the pro-OMD crowd) consider only the Classic era relevant.

Those are some interesting distinctions that I can agree with. I suppose my distinction was less about the stylistic approach to writing and more about the timeframe in which there was mainly one Peter Parker Spider-man canon that was (mostly) linear to a period in which there were multiple Peter Parker canons with divergent paths for and interpretations of the character (be it Ultimate or JMS Spider-man or BND era Spider-man or MC2.)

I think they could definitely rebuild a story that was largely abandoned with OMD with a great new run. However, I also believe that the MC2-verse, as others have mentioned, is a pretty true-in-spirit continuation of the 60s to 90s canon.

[Jely4me]

Death of Aunt May in #400. I jumped off there.

[Mister Mets]

This is a good question. Er, I suppose I don't view anything after the Death of Gwen Stacy as essential. Though, maybe there should be an option for the people who thought that was a bad move.

Bendis and Ditko have implied going to college might have been the wrong move for the series.

[Alan2099]

Those are some interesting distinctions that I can agree with. I suppose my distinction was less about the stylistic approach to writing and more about the timeframe in which there was mainly one Peter Parker Spider-man canon that was (mostly) linear to a period in which there were multiple Peter Parker canons with divergent paths for and interpretations of the character (be it Ultimate or JMS Spider-man or BND era Spider-man or MC2.)

I went back and checked some dates on this just out of my own curiosity.

The first issue of Spider-girl started August '98
The LAST issue of Chapter One released Aug '99
The first issue of Ultimate was September 2000.

That's a lot of alternate Spider-titles really close together.

[MaydayStan]

I have always considered Amazing Spider-Man #439 (the last issue of Tom DeFalco's late 90's ASM run) as the perfect jumping off point for canon (headcanon? IDK) and jumping on point for reading Mr. and Mrs. Spider-Man/Spider-Girl. The issue hints at Mayday becoming Peter's successor in the future and in case you absolutely need to know what happens in Gathering of Five/The Final Chapter, just wait until Spider-Girl #47-50, the events of MC2's Gathering of Five/The Final Chapter are laid out in flashbacks and puts a nice little bow on ASM vol.1 as opposed to "ZOMG, Aunt May was alive the whole time and the baby is actually dead! Now go read John Byrne's run to watch as MJ dies in a plane explosion, Peter kisses a fifteen year old girl and Venom eats Carnage!" That's just me though.

Took the words right out of my mouth

[clonegeek]

This is a good question. Er, I suppose I don't view anything after the Death of Gwen Stacy as essential. Though, maybe there should be an option for the people who thought that was a bad move.

Bendis and Ditko have implied going to college might have been the wrong move for the series.

I think having Peter gradulate makes him into a finite character so I get where they get that from

[Xenon]

100% Agreed.

Honestly, at this point it's not enough to just undo OMD. To make Peter's story feel back on track, you have to address Miles Morales and Spider-Verse. Like, you don't have to do multiverse stuff. You don't even need Miles in Peter's book. But there's gotta be a clearer idea of how Peter feels about the gazillion heroes that took up his name, if he still has moments he feels like a screwup, what his archenemy's opinion of all the Spiders is, etc. If Peter gets back to the JMS status quo (married and a teacher) but the world around him still acts like there's only one Spider-Man, it wouldn't feel like we're fully caught up yet.

I can understand that feeling, but it's not quite as bad as that. The thing is there have always been half a dozen Spider-women floating around as they try to make one successful. Jessica, Julia, Maddie, Anya, they were always there. Miles does take his name, but not really? Like he took the name of a different version of him that died fighting. Ultimately Peter does what he does because he feels like he should, regardless of what other do. The one conversation i did always think needed to happen was Peter and Gwen, just because for Gwen especially that would be a weird situation. Peter too, though in Peter's case he has (un) fortunately seen Gwen a few times since she died so it's going to blunt the impact.

This is a good question. Er, I suppose I don't view anything after the Death of Gwen Stacy as essential. Though, maybe there should be an option for the people who thought that was a bad move.

Bendis and Ditko have implied going to college might have been the wrong move for the series.

I mean they're wrong but with the caveat they probably moved too quickly. Like Spider-Man was in high school for...26 issues? IIRC? Any time you're burning two years of his life that quickly you're probably burning them too quickly. You could triple his high school time and it wouldn't have felt too quickly.

I'd also agree there's a way you can take this question that The Night Gwen Stacey Died marks the end of this foundational period for Spider-Man that defined him and the people around him into their roles. It's not ALL original writer but most of it is and that story in particular does shift people into the roles they will play over time, with MJ staying with Peter, Harry never able to put his life together, and Spider-Man's no killing ethos fully tested and held.

[Alan2099]

I can understand that feeling, but it's not quite as bad as that. The thing is there have always been half a dozen Spider-women floating around as they try to make one successful. Jessica, Julia, Maddie, Anya, they were always there. Miles does take his name, but not really? Like he took the name of a different version of him that died fighting. Ultimately Peter does what he does because he feels like he should, regardless of what other do.

Jessica and Julia I think are in a very different position than Miles. While they were Spider-women, they never felt like they were trying to follow in his footsteps and they pretty much did there own thing. (Peter even copied Julia's costume. That's something that everybody always seems to forget.)

With Miles though, he's Spider-man because of Peter (maybe an alternate version, but the comics kind of muddy that up whenever possible) and he tends to look up to Peter and goes and does Peter things.

If Jessica or Julia ever went on an Avengers mission and never came back, I really don't feel like it would effect Peter that much, but if anything happened to Miles, he'd be blaming himself for it.

Bendis and Ditko have implied going to college might have been the wrong move for the series.

Honestly, I feel that once you get him into college, you can pretty much leave him there. Occasionally he misses some classes, or takes some time off, but college years don't feel like they pass the same way highschool years do.

[Lee]

Please, let's not pretend they didn't undo character deaths or developments anytime it pleased them with only the slightest bits of justification.

The first one was the Vulture, back in the 1960s.

Canon hasn't ended.

Some people's headcanons may have ended, but that's a different thing altogether. I'm not saying that's a bad thing either. There's nothing wrong with seeing something saying "this isn't for me," and walking away.

As for where "classic Spider-man" ended... I would put the end of it at the point where Spider-man discovers his parents are robots. After that, it goes into his "I am the Spider!" phase and then the Clone Saga, which I feel was an entirely different thing from anything that could be considered "classic".

For me the Todd McFarlane era has a very different look and feel to "Classic Spider-Man", as did Kraven's Last Hunt before it. From that perspective, the wedding issue would be The End. The resolution of the Hobgoblin mystery and the proposal/wedding both had big "We're cancelled, wrap everything up ASAP" energy to them. (Though that wasn't actually the case, obviously.)

[bat39]

Obviously the 616 comics have been designed to continue forever. However, ATSV’s approach to serialized canon events had me wondering where the definitive classic Spider-man era might have “ended” for different readers of the book. Recently, I’ve seen some fans claim the finale of Nick Spencer’s run to be that end. Over the years, many fans have argued that OMD was their end. In the past, I’ve seen people claim Peter and Mary Jane’s wedding and/or the Death of Gwen Stacy to be an end. Etc.

Personally, I would have to say the “end” of the classic Spider-man saga was with the Clone Saga. The Clone Saga marked the initial attempts at retcon to try and revert the comic to an earlier status quo. And since then, we’ve had a sea of retcons that have undone or undermined several stories: Aunt May’s resurrection, MJ’s death, Harry’s return, Sins Past, OMD, the Kindred arc, etc. In conjunction, these retcons have muddied the overall flow of the 616 story.

The mid-90s also marked the first attempt to seriously adapt the Spider-man story with the Animated Series and was prior to any live action films (these adaptations would put their own spin on Spider-man that would influence future adaptations.) This period was also prior to the creation of Ultimate Spider-man which has had a significant influence on retellings of the character’s story and modern perceptions of the mythos (Ultimate itself basically put its own spin on the 616 continuity of the 1960s-1990s.)

The mid-90s is also a period that marks the genesis of several probable alternate futures for Peter Parker. Virtually all au’s that follow an older Peter Parker consider Peter’s marriage to Mary Jane canon, but they tend to involve different children and/or different circumstances that follow (MC2, RYV, Abram’s Spider-man, Spider-man Reign, etc.) Being that there are so many plausible futures for the story of 616, it makes any potential “true” canon events after the 90s hazy.

So where/when does your canon (or headcanon) end? Or for the folks who don't necessarily believe that canon has ended: is there a demarcation between classic Spider-man comics and modern Spider-man comics? And where exactly does that demarcation exist?

Edit: I meant to add an "It has never ended" option, if one of the mods can throw that in there! Thanks

Great thread!

I generally tend to agree with you that the mid-90's are a good 'cut-off point'. Though personally, I'd go with the wedding, and some of the stuff that happened immediately after, like Kraven's Last Hunt and the emergence of Venom.

When it comes to 'canon' in a superhero franchise, I tend to a lay a lot of emphasis on what's the material that adaptations tend to focus on, or which the source material itself keeps trying to regurgitate - which I feel is very close to how ATSV presented 'canon' events in a meta way. And if you think about it, most Spider-Man adaptations tend to be a take on the Lee/Dikto/Romita eras, with a few elements from later eras making it in - namely the Peter-MJ relationship/marriage and Venom.

If you look at what the pop-culture perception of Spider-Man is, there's very little from after the introduction of Venom that really resonates. Carnage (but I don't think he's ever been as popular as Venom). Spider-Man being an Avenger (which is still far from being an 'iconic' status quo for the character, and is really something more external to the Spider-Man mythos). Miles Morales, arguably (and even he's a take on the Lee/Dikto/Romita Spider-Man with a new diverse lead). The whole concept of a Spider-Verse and multiple versions of the character, which is mainly down to the Spider-Verse movies, and is again less about 'canon' and more about how we get endless variations of the Spider-Man canon from the 60's to the 80's (or maybe the 90's).

Canon hasn't ended.

Some people's headcanons may have ended, but that's a different thing altogether. I'm not saying that's a bad thing either. There's nothing wrong with seeing something saying "this isn't for me," and walking away.

As for where "classic Spider-man" ended... I would put the end of it at the point where Spider-man discovers his parents are robots. After that, it goes into his "I am the Spider!" phase and then the Clone Saga, which I feel was an entirely different thing from anything that could be considered "classic".

I would mark the beginning of modern Spider-man with the first appearance of Ezekiel and the beginning of the Spider-totem stuff, which led way to more mystical aspects of Spider-man and his time with the Avengers, which in turn led to things like One More Day, the Spider-Verse, and Superior Spider-man.

Not a bad take either!

I went back and checked some dates on this just out of my own curiosity.

The first issue of Spider-girl started August '98
The LAST issue of Chapter One released Aug '99
The first issue of Ultimate was September 2000.

That's a lot of alternate Spider-titles really close together.

Funnily enough, all three of these series were my first exposure to Spider-Man comics after watching the first film!

[Xenon]

Jessica and Julia I think are in a very different position than Miles. While they were Spider-women, they never felt like they were trying to follow in his footsteps and they pretty much did there own thing. (Peter even copied Julia's costume. That's something that everybody always seems to forget.)

With Miles though, he's Spider-man because of Peter (maybe an alternate version, but the comics kind of muddy that up whenever possible) and he tends to look up to Peter and goes and does Peter things.

If Jessica or Julia ever went on an Avengers mission and never came back, I really don't feel like it would effect Peter that much, but if anything happened to Miles, he'd be blaming himself for it.

I can agree with this. They definitely treat Miles as Peter's ally and the Spider-Women just sort of do their own thing. I was mostly just commenting on the idea that there are a ton of Spider-Men now, and while on a multiversal scale that's true, in Peter's home universe it's realy just the girls and Miles, and the girls have always been there.