Asm 41 preview

[Frontier]

No remember this run is literal hell on earth nothing from it can be right.

Well, things tend to not go that well in this run unless it's the Judgement Day issue, the Black Cat two-parter, or Rek-Rap. But it feels like that's the smallest portion of the run.

It builds character.

I couldn't get into Miles new run. I think the writer has a nice voice for Miles, but I found the villains uninteresting and silly, I found the upgraded powers to be ridiculous (I viscerally hate the sword). Miles already has awesome powers, he doesn't need more to make him seem cool. There's no real tension in his fights now. Feels like a writer trying to do cool moments and leave their mark but is not really advancing Miles.

And I really need some clarity on this "Peter doesn't ever win any fights". You guys act like he's Daredevil when it comes to the misery. And isn't losing a fight but finding a way to come back and win a classic Spidey trope? From as long I can remember reading its been that way. Most times he loses the "first confrontation" and them comes back right? Slott, Bendis, Spencer all did this. I can remember clearly during JMS's run that Peter got his butt kicked a ton of times. The thing is though he doesn't quit and finds a way to win. He gets This is in contrast to modern Miles who's solution is just to come up with a new random power. But thats just my personal preference.

I think there's a fine balance to be had from having your hero believably struggle while also having them actually succeed and make that struggle mean something.

Slott and Wells are both often guilty of having Peter struggle but not giving him wins that mattered. Either his victories weren't through his own efforts or he had to have another character bail him out or save him in the process, basically stealing the show or he got to do the bare minimum of actually succeeding. And narratively I just don't find that very satisfying.

Spencer had him struggle but he also let him win and actually beat the bad guys.

In this issue alone he comes off like a total joke and the least useful of all the other characters involved when he is literally the main character.

[Lifetap]

From what I gather from a lot of people that don't are largely impartial on the run a lot of them felt that the downward spiral Peter was going through would eventually lead to building up Peter back up again and have him work through his issues. I know the run isn't isn't over yet, but I just don't see a lot of time in order to do this, so I think this run is largely a lot falling downhill with no end in sight, especially with the return of the goblin being one of the only arcs we know about post Gang War. With the current Gang War arc issues that have come out so far, I would wager if Amazing Spider-Man wasn't on the cover there would be people that thought the main character in the book was someone other than Peter.

[Batman Begins 2005]

Thank God for Ultimate Spider-Man.

[MisterTorgo]

From what I gather from a lot of people that don't are largely impartial on the run a lot of them felt that the downward spiral Peter was going through would eventually lead to building up Peter back up again and have him work through his issues. I know the run isn't isn't over yet, but I just don't see a lot of time in order to do this, so I think this run is largely a lot falling downhill with no end in sight, especially with the return of the goblin being one of the only arcs we know about post Gang War. With the current Gang War arc issues that have come out so far, I would wager if Amazing Spider-Man wasn't on the cover there would be people that thought the main character in the book was someone other than Peter.

Agreed. There doesn't feel as though there's a good enough balance between tragedy and triumph. The word that keeps coming to my mind to describe this run is cruel.

Well, there are a lot of other words, too, but they're less charitable.

[marvelprince]

I think there's a fine balance to be had from having your hero believably struggle while also having them actually succeed and make that struggle mean something.

Slott and Wells are both often guilty of having Peter struggle but not giving him wins that mattered. Either his victories weren't through his own efforts or he had to have another character bail him out or save him in the process, basically stealing the show or he got to do the bare minimum of actually succeeding. And narratively I just don't find that very satisfying.

Spencer had him struggle but he also let him win and actually beat the bad guys.

In this issue alone he comes off like a total joke and the least useful of all the other characters involved when he is literally the main character.

Can you give an example, cause it really comes across as semantics to me. Wells, Slott, Spencer, et all as far as I can remember have essentially used the same structure that we're used to where peter is usually caught unawares, loses the initial confrontation then comes back later and mananges to win. Standard hero trope stuff. Slott early on actually made it into the plots of his stories where Peter would make a new costume or a new tool to help him win when that happened. Those early days with him particularly I remember he was getting more hate cause of the lack luster love interests and making Peter more of a man child than he did for making him lose too much. Actually wasn't a big complaint back then that he wasn't interacting with the larger universe (which was due to the 3x a month shipping) and other heroes but now we complain that he gets too much help.

Also I'm curious, do you follow the current Miles title? Cause there I can't into it cause I don't feel any of the fights matter. Curious how you feel about that one.

And re the arc, if it ends and Peter is still getting strung around and being reactive sure I'll give you that but I can't judge a currently ongoing story where the point now is to show that the heroes are overwhelmed and reacting and then getting mad when the heroes are overwhelmed and reacting. Thats the point.

[marvelprince]

From what I gather from a lot of people that don't are largely impartial on the run a lot of them felt that the downward spiral Peter was going through would eventually lead to building up Peter back up again and have him work through his issues. I know the run isn't isn't over yet, but I just don't see a lot of time in order to do this, so I think this run is largely a lot falling downhill with no end in sight, especially with the return of the goblin being one of the only arcs we know about post Gang War. With the current Gang War arc issues that have come out so far, I would wager if Amazing Spider-Man wasn't on the cover there would be people that thought the main character in the book was someone other than Peter.

You've essentially explained the lifecycle of long term popular characters. No character ever gets too removed from the status quo, and more or less gets through a cycle of growth and then being reset. How many times does Batman have to the learn the same lesson about not pushing away his partners and having his city taken over by one of his bad guys? How many times will Tony fall off the wagon? How many times will Daredevil lose a love interest? Peter's most popular and recognizable with general audiences as a young guy, either in high school or just out of it so naturally they're going to want to keep their character in comics close enough to that.

Now I think there's a question to be had on the whether that's important or if characters should be allowed to grow with their fans. Or you could go the DC route and fresh the main hero but just keep adding more and more legacy characters (although I guess they have continued to do that as well). But at least with DC they're not afraid to let their main heroes have kids, but I can see how that would be easier to do with Batman and Superman vs Spider-Man.

[TinkerSpider]

Can you give an example, cause it really comes across as semantics to me. Wells, Slott, Spencer, et all as far as I can remember have essentially used the same structure that we're used to where peter is usually caught unawares, loses the initial confrontation then comes back later and mananges to win. Standard hero trope stuff. Slott early on actually made it into the plots of his stories where Peter would make a new costume or a new tool to help him win when that happened. Those early days with him particularly I remember he was getting more hate cause of the lack luster love interests and making Peter more of a man child than he did for making him lose too much. Actually wasn't a big complaint back then that he wasn't interacting with the larger universe (which was due to the 3x a month shipping) and other heroes but now we complain that he gets too much help.

Also I'm curious, do you follow the current Miles title? Cause there I can't into it cause I don't feel any of the fights matter. Curious how you feel about that one.

And re the arc, if it ends and Peter is still getting strung around and being reactive sure I'll give you that but I can't judge a currently ongoing story where the point now is to show that the heroes are overwhelmed and reacting and then getting mad when the heroes are overwhelmed and reacting. Thats the point.

Let’s turn it around.

Name ONE fight Peter won on his own, without any help or deus ex machina devices, using his brains and/or skills, in this entire run. All of it. Name one arc where he battles adversity and comes back unequivocally triumphant.

I’ll spot you two minor fights: he drove away a regressed, mindless Venom with a manga he stole and lit on fire

He caused RePo to swallow himself (but only after ReKrap saved the day multiple times).

[Jman27]

Let’s turn it around.

Name ONE fight Peter won on his own, without any help or deus ex machina devices, using his brains and/or skills, in this entire run. All of it. Name one arc where he battles adversity and comes back unequivocally triumphant.

I’ll spot you two minor fights: he drove away a regressed, mindless Venom with a manga he stole and lit on fire

He caused RePo to swallow himself (but only after ReKrap saved the day multiple times).

yup too bad he couldnt done that in the 80s and 90s

[TinkerSpider]

yup too bad he couldnt done that in the 80s and 90s

Peter used his smarts and wits many times to beat Venom in the 80s and 90s. Don't recall him stealing manga to do that, however, if that's what you're referring to.

[Jman27]

Peter used his smarts and wits many times to beat Venom in the 80s and 90s. Don't recall him stealing manga to do that, however, if that's what you're referring to.

https://community.cbr.com/showthread...on-2023/page21

on that page I gave a run down of all the old Peter and Eddie fights before their truce. Besides the first fight where Peter manages to outsmart venom every other confrontation was not in his favor. The first time Spider-Man beat down Venom is when Ben did it at the start of the Clone saga to prove how he is different from Peter. Now I'm not all caught up to my readthrough of ASM still in the Mackie Run but even there he lost to Venom there. When it comes to Venom its among his toughest opponents doesnt really matter if Venom was smart or not.

[TinkerSpider]

https://community.cbr.com/showthread...on-2023/page21

on that page I gave a run down of all the old Peter and Eddie fights before their truce. Besides the first fight where Peter manages to outsmart venom every other confrontation was not in his favor. The first time Spider-Man beat down Venom is when Ben did it at the start of the Clone saga to prove how he is different from Peter. Now I'm not all caught up to my readthrough of ASM still in the Mackie Run but even there he lost to Venom there. When it comes to Venom its among his toughest opponents doesnt really matter if Venom was smart or not.

Venom is usually smart. Or at least Eddie Brock smart.

Peter beat Venom:
With his smarts, using sound (ASM 300)
With his smarts, using tramautic rejection (ASM 317)
With his smarts, tricking him into thinking Spider-Man was dead (ASM 347)

and that's off the top of my head.

[Frontier]

Can you give an example, cause it really comes across as semantics to me. Wells, Slott, Spencer, et all as far as I can remember have essentially used the same structure that we're used to where peter is usually caught unawares, loses the initial confrontation then comes back later and mananges to win. Standard hero trope stuff. Slott early on actually made it into the plots of his stories where Peter would make a new costume or a new tool to help him win when that happened. Those early days with him particularly I remember he was getting more hate cause of the lack luster love interests and making Peter more of a man child than he did for making him lose too much. Actually wasn't a big complaint back then that he wasn't interacting with the larger universe (which was due to the 3x a month shipping) and other heroes but now we complain that he gets too much help.

It was a pretty common complaint of Slott's run how often Peter would get beat up and have to be saved through the help of another character (usually one Slott was promoting at the time), it was so prevalent that it also became common in the 2017 Spider-Man cartoon based on Slott's run where Peter was getting saved or needed help beating bad guys practically every episode.

Also I'm curious, do you follow the current Miles title? Cause there I can't into it cause I don't feel any of the fights matter. Curious how you feel about that one.

I have, I think the sword can be a bit much at times but I think Rabble was fairly intimidating as an antagonist up until the point he brought the sword out.

And re the arc, if it ends and Peter is still getting strung around and being reactive sure I'll give you that but I can't judge a currently ongoing story where the point now is to show that the heroes are overwhelmed and reacting and then getting mad when the heroes are overwhelmed and reacting. Thats the point.

If Wells brings things around by the ending, great, it's just his track record up to this point isn't very convincing to me. Especially when we have issues like this one where Spidey barely does anything and gets manhandled by the Kingpin.

[marvelprince]

It was a pretty common complaint of Slott's run how often Peter would get beat up and have to be saved through the help of another character (usually one Slott was promoting at the time), it was so prevalent that it also became common in the 2017 Spider-Man cartoon based on Slott's run where Peter was getting saved or needed help beating bad guys practically every episode.

What I'm saying is I don't remember how what Slott was different from what others did with Peter. Peter loses, comes back and finds a way to win. Often by using gadgets or building something. He did that with Massacre, Anti-Venom, etc. To me that's peak Spider-Man.

I have, I think the sword can be a bit much at times but I think Rabble was fairly intimidating as an antagonist up until the point he brought the sword out.

I wish I could explain how much I just don't like the sword. And Rabble was interesting till I learned her backstory. Just another pointless power when the strength of Miles is his personality.

If Wells brings things around by the ending, great, it's just his track record up to this point isn't very convincing to me. Especially when we have issues like this one where Spidey barely does anything and gets manhandled by the Kingpin.

Fair enough.

[Frontier]

What I'm saying is I don't remember how what Slott was different from what others did with Peter. Peter loses, comes back and finds a way to win. Often by using gadgets or building something. He did that with Massacre, Anti-Venom, etc. To me that's peak Spider-Man.

To me peak Spider-Man is him using his brains and abilities to overcome and defeat villains not "what gadget am I going to build to save the day this time?"