Is the Zeb Wells run on Amazing Spider-Man the worst run in the history of ASM?

[Xenon]

Slott in general (and Spidey editorial at the time) had a bunch of crazy, over-the-top ideas that didn’t involve MJ or tweaking that sore spot. I swear, sometimes when I’d check in on the Spidey comics, I felt like I was seeing some kind of pseudo-cocaine fueled brainstorming machine without any patience to stick with anything for longer than a year or two (a relative “blink of an eye” in comic editorial time).

So I kind of think there was just too much stuff happening for any one story idea to percolate into the “worst thing ever” for critics, and so much new or new-ish ideas for fans to find fascinating or cool - with Superior being the one thing that stuck around long enough to sort of become the most defining element of the run that got both the most heat and the most praise.

Style-wise, Wells’s decision to start off with an anger-inducing mystery box and try to unfurl that over a longer period of time leaves him with fewer “defenses” than Slott had structurally for dealing with general critics. And he’s coming after the “sinful glut” of spin-off characters and rotating list of new ID for villains that Slott had; we’ve reached a point where one of the main comments about the spin-off Spider-characters is more a desire for at least a half-dozen characters that already have a fanbase to get a book and more confusion at the creation of more - and Spider-Boy is still Slott’s, not Wells’s. So there’s also fewer “distractions” or “alternative focus points” in other characters.

I never liked Slott's run, at least once I caught up, but yes, he did a better job of only needling the MJ issue occasionally. To the point where someone else felt they needed to import her cause she was languishing. If only there were a simple way to keep her in Spider-Man's world full time that the majority of the fanbase has been demanding since it was taken away.

[CaptainUniverse]

I never liked Slott's run, at least once I caught up, but yes, he did a better job of only needling the MJ issue occasionally. To the point where someone else felt they needed to import her cause she was languishing. If only there were a simple way to keep her in Spider-Man's world full time that the majority of the fanbase has been demanding since it was taken away.

I wonder what that could be? Hmm...oh yeah!

[ARkadelphia]

I feel like that poll is pretty damning evidence as to a greater dissatisfaction with this run than most could argue against. Sure, a forum poll is in no way indicative of the fanbase as a whole. But I would say that this forum, specifically, is at least a decent pool of the fanbase to get a solid idea of how it could be handling things overall. More an idea than an actual concrete answer, but still, you get my drift.

60 people voted Yes Its the Worst, or One of the Worst. That's not nothing, my dudes. That's a substantial chunk of people on here. I think it's fair to say Marvel has a big problem on their hands.

Comics are already a niche audience, you don't want to turn away and shrink that audience even more.

Then you have the fact that kids are not, nor will they be, buying ASM. I was in Walmart the other day and I saw Spider-man EVERYWHERE. He's on party favors, backpacks, cups, towels, tons of toys, that's where the real money for Disney is. So I don't understand why they can't let the fanbase have the marriage, at least let Peter and MJ be together, try and keep happy what fans you still have reading. Maybe it's just random speculation but I can't help but feel like this could have serious ramifications on the the series in the long run. Just pissing off and scaring away what few devoted hardcore fans they really have left, until it's just the spectators/variant buyers giving you any money.

But wait. Over on the sales thread, you’re claiming that the store data we do get isn’t enough to make any determinations regarding ASMs performance. But you think a poll of fewer than 100 people (not stores) on a single website is enough to be “damning evidence” of anything?

[Kurus]

The truth is their’s no way to get accurate data about how this run is received. The very fact that this is the internet skews the data. Maybe if you did something like CinemaScore but for comics, then you might get an accurate picture of how buyers feel. But comics make so little money that it just isn’t worth it.

[godisawesome]

The truth is their’s no way to get accurate data about how this run is received. The very fact that this is the internet skews the data. Maybe if you did something like CinemaScore but for comics, then you might get an accurate picture of how buyers feel. But comics make so little money that it just isn’t worth it.

The closest thing to a Cinemascore for comics is Comicbook Roundup: https://comicbookroundup.com/comic-b...der-man-(2022)

…but you’re exactly right that the comic marketplace is too small for it to have anything like a reliable read; a dozen or so sites alone make up the “professional reviews”, and a few dozen respondents are the only “viewer” reviews - and much like Rotten Tomatoes, the viewer reviews have few requirements, and could be entered by people who haven’t bought or read the comic.

Now, what the site has gathered matches probably the expected result: the run was more positively received at first, and has dropped a bit in both categories as the run’s gone one, with a nadir for the issue where Kamala died, and by the end there’s a significantly lower score for the user reviews when the run’s rep has entered public discourse.

[Mister Mets]

I would say that active creators here has never been the norm.

No clue about the age of people posting. It’s not something I think about or try to remember.

Slott and Wacker were pretty common here years ago, along with occasional appearances by Roger Stern and Kurt Busiek.

But wait. Over on the sales thread, you’re claiming that the store data we do get isn’t enough to make any determinations regarding ASMs performance. But you think a poll of fewer than 100 people (not stores) on a single website is enough to be “damning evidence” of anything?

The data that supports your point of view is the data that matters.

The closest thing to a Cinemascore for comics is Comicbook Roundup: https://comicbookroundup.com/comic-b...der-man-(2022)

…but you’re exactly right that the comic marketplace is too small for it to have anything like a reliable read; a dozen or so sites alone make up the “professional reviews”, and a few dozen respondents are the only “viewer” reviews - and much like Rotten Tomatoes, the viewer reviews have few requirements, and could be entered by people who haven’t bought or read the comic.

Now, what the site has gathered matches probably the expected result: the run was more positively received at first, and has dropped a bit in both categories as the run’s gone one, with a nadir for the issue where Kamala died, and by the end there’s a significantly lower score for the user reviews when the run’s rep has entered public discourse.

Cinemascore asks ordinary audiences about their impressions of movies they paid to see. it's different from Comicbookroundup which is a collection of reviews like Metacritic or Rotten Tomatoes.