Mary Jane Watson-Parker Appreciation 2024.

[Kaitou D. Kid]

I thought Wells was going to have Peter and MJ reconcile at the end of his run (or at least leave it for the next creative team to decide) since the beginning. The BND creators are obsessed with Spider-Man 2 (Raimi) even if they don't understand that movie.

The thing is there is nothing to prevent another break-up after this. For all this talk of a PR backlash, ASM remains one of Marvel's best-selling titles. Things aren't going to change. Peter and MJ will continue to be on-again/off-again from now until Marvel stops publishing comics.

That was the real mission statement of OMD.

We don't know how well it's selling, though. It's possible that from Marvel's POV, it's underperforming.

Again, we don't know much, but we do know that things can't be all rosy. Lowe and Cebulski are clearly more upset with Spider-Man fans than they were just a year ago. If things were going their way, the reactions wouldn't make sense. There's a frustration they show that wasn't there during the first BND.

[Kevinroc]

We don't know how well it's selling, though. It's possible that from Marvel's POV, it's underperforming.

Again, we don't know much, but we do know that things can't be all rosy. Lowe and Cebulski are clearly more upset with Spider-Man fans than they were just a year ago. If things were going their way, the reactions wouldn't make sense. There's a frustration they show that wasn't there during the first BND.

I think if the situation were truly dire for Marvel, then Wells would have been removed like Tom King was removed before the conclusion of his intended 100 issue Batman run.

[Tuck]

We don't know how well it's selling, though. It's possible that from Marvel's POV, it's underperforming.

Dan Slott's been on CBR a number of times telling us this is not the case.

[Spider-Tiger]

I thought Wells was going to have Peter and MJ reconcile at the end of his run (or at least leave it for the next creative team to decide) since the beginning. The BND creators are obsessed with Spider-Man 2 (Raimi) even if they don't understand that movie.

The thing is there is nothing to prevent another break-up after this. For all this talk of a PR backlash, ASM remains one of Marvel's best-selling titles. Things aren't going to change. Peter and MJ will continue to be on-again/off-again from now until Marvel stops publishing comics.

That was the real mission statement of OMD.

Yup. Current Marvel leadership is all about maintaining the "status quo" whereby nothing can change too significantly long term. The toys must be "put back in the box" by the end of every run for a soft reset and relaunch at the beginning of the next run. This is how they've operated for at least two decades now. (Arguably a bit longer.) You can see this not just in Spider-man, but in Brevoort's approach to the X-men relaunch. They've been incredibly consistent about this approach. And Spider-Man getting married is seen as too significant a change in the status quo in that it would require divorce, death, reboot, or retcon to remove.

Unfortunately, Marvel would have to change their entire approach to their books. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely think they should. I'd argue that the 1960s and 1980s of Marvel comics were so successful because they saw meaningful evolution, character growth and progression. This "never can change" approach has not grown the comic book reading audience by attracting new readers. If anything, it has led to an attrition of older readers and perhaps even turned off potential customers who would prefer to read stories with more weight as in manga.

But this will likely not change until leadership changes.

I'll give you the perfect gif to use.

Lol, yes indeed

[Jman27]

Dan Slott's been on CBR a number of times telling us this is not the case.

People still deny it though

[Konnik92]

Dan Slott's been on CBR a number of times telling us this is not the case.

Dan also said that OMD is "all encompassing", but we all know that's not the case - it's just a select few in the office who keep holding on OMD to stay.

He also said that Spencer wanted to undo OMD, but the editorial didn't give him "permission", and yet 98% of the run pointed that it was going toward just that, only leading to a 180 degree turn in the last two/three issues. What's up with that?

[Dan Slott]

We don't know how well it's selling, though. It's possible that from Marvel's POV, it's underperforming.

If it is, then you're living in a world where EVERYTHING ELSE is underperforming too. Because, if you go here... https://icv2.com/articles/markets/vi...full-year-2023

...you'll see that OVER 30 of the TOP 50 comics that sold last year came from Nick Lowe's Office (or Offices that he directly oversees). And most of those are from the Wells run of ASM.

Yes, the ICV2 numbers are not 100% accurate because of the sample size.
But they ARE a damn good indicator to how the books chart. The RANKINGS are pretty spot on.
And the fact that these are Point of Sale purchases to the CONSUMER, they make a pretty good argument that the book does well REGARDLESS of rare incentive variants. It kind of puts the lie to the idea that the book moves issues because retailers want one hard-to-get copy and are willing to buy extras to burn (or put in a dollar bin) in order to get that one, high end book.
Because here you have a healthy sample size of stores that are selling ACTUAL COPIES of the book at the register and putting them into the hands of customers.

I know some of us like to live in worlds of "alternate facts", but this is pretty good hands on PROOF-- even for die hard haters of this run-- that it sells VERY well. There's no secret conspiracy between Marvel, ICV2, or over a hundred comic shops to fake this. This isn't a "fake moon landing" scenario going on. These are actual sales figures from real shops.

And before some of you jump in and say, "But Amazing Spider-Man always sells well..." Please go over to https://www.comichron.com/monthlycomicssales.html and look at AMAZING SPIDER-MAN's rankings for the past 20 years and you will see that is NOT the case. Yes, it's a flagship book. Yes it will always sell a safe amount. It's a hard book to sink. But it is NOT a guaranteed Top 10 seller. There are times when Avengers outsold it, X-Men outsold it, and so on. There are times ASM hasn't placed in the Top 10. So let's just kill that "Spider-Man always sells" nonsense once and for all.

And this isn't just a case of the Spider-Office doing well.
Over 30 of the Top 50 issues of last year.
C'mon.

Screen Shot 2024-04-08 at 2.49.55 PM.jpg

Yes. USM is a phenomenal book. It deserves all the praise it rightfully gets. And its sales are off the charts.
But this isn't a see-saw.
The runaway success of USM does not suddenly make a phenomenally selling ASM-- a book that charts great TWICE a month-- something that Marvel is "disappointed" with.

If you're a parent, being proud of one of your kids doesn't mean you think the other one is failing-- especially when they're doing very, very well.

[Kaitou D. Kid]

Dan Slott's been on CBR a number of times telling us this is not the case.

Dan said RYV is all we are getting and now we have USM.

[Dan Slott]

Dan said RYV is all we are getting and now we have USM.

So you're saying that I said that all you were getting was a non-616 version of Peter Parker who was married to MJ...

...and now you have a non-616 version of Peter Parker who is married to MJ?

[Spider-Tiger]

It is probably a death knell for the Jackpot concept if not even pairing it with Black Cat could make it sell.

Crunching the numbers according to Bleeding Cool's metrics, if this week's ASM sold roughly 70k issues then the number 10 book on the list sold around 45k issues. Which means Jackpot and Black Cat #1 did even less than that, and will likely continue to see significant attrition (as most books do) for issue #2. So yeah, hopefully that puts an end to that.

[Frontier]

Crunching the numbers according to Bleeding Cool's metrics, if this week's ASM sold roughly 70k issues then the number 10 book on the list sold around 45k issues. Which means Jackpot and Black Cat #1 did even less than that, and will likely continue to see significant attrition (as most books do) for issue #2. So yeah, hopefully that puts an end to that.

Yeah, if a book with her and Felicia can't sell, there really isn't much more point in pushing the concept.

The "push" was half-hearted enough as is.

[Kevinroc]

I think we've gotten way off-track.

[Celgress]

Crunching the numbers according to Bleeding Cool's metrics, if this week's ASM sold roughly 70k issues then the number 10 book on the list sold around 45k issues. Which means Jackpot and Black Cat #1 did even less than that, and will likely continue to see significant attrition (as most books do) for issue #2. So yeah, hopefully that puts an end to that.

Pathetic, even by the anemic standards of modern Western comic book sales, but not surprising. When you change everything about a beloved character and saddle them with a supporting character everyone hates following an equally hated letdown bait-and-switch gimmicky storyline (the most important issue of Amazing in fifty years, please, give me a break) what do you think is going to happen? If MJ was still with Peter or at least in his orbit with no Paul to be seen, I have a hunch this book would have sold much better than it did. Still, Jackpot's look, powers, characterization, etc. are dull and nonsensical to put things mildly so marketing that would be an uphill battle even without the dead weight aka Paul.

[Astroman]

MTU79-3.jpg

Maybe this will get things back on track.

[Kaitou D. Kid]

Yup. Current Marvel leadership is all about maintaining the "status quo" whereby nothing can change too significantly long term. The toys must be "put back in the box" by the end of every run for a soft reset and relaunch at the beginning of the next run. This is how they've operated for at least two decades now. (Arguably a bit longer.) You can see this not just in Spider-man, but in Brevoort's approach to the X-men relaunch. They've been incredibly consistent about this approach. And Spider-Man getting married is seen as too significant a change in the status quo in that it would require divorce, death, reboot, or retcon to remove.

Unfortunately, Marvel would have to change their entire approach to their books. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely think they should. I'd argue that the 1960s and 1980s of Marvel comics were so successful because they saw meaningful evolution, character growth and progression. This "never can change" approach has not grown the comic book reading audience by attracting new readers. If anything, it has led to an attrition of older readers and perhaps even turned off potential customers who would prefer to read stories with more weight as in manga.

But this will likely not change until leadership changes.



Lol, yes indeed

I don't disagree that nothing will fundamentally change until the old guard is gone, but I think Hickman's X-Men might be an example of the opposite.

The thing is that Hickman wanted to move X-Men to a new status quo, but the editors wanted to keep Krakoa going longer because it was popular. That's the main reason Hickman left early. So even though they're backtracking right now, that wasn't the case initially. They wanted to keep Hickman's new status quo longer than he did.

Second, the main reason why the X-Men are gping back to the mansion is probably for brand synergy with X-Men '97 and the upcoming MCU take. ASM isn't in that situation. If anything, it looks off-brand compared to the adaptations, like others brought up already.