What was the worst year of the Spider-Man Comics?

[Mister Mets]

I remember an interesting discussion about this on the old board.

I may regret asking this, but what do you guys think are the worst years in history of the Spider-Man comic books?

The contenders I've come up with...
1995-Amazing Spider-Man #400 towards the beginning of the year was excellent, though I'd argue that it was a story that shouldn't have been told. But this was also the year with "Mark of Kaine" (especially the Final Chapter), the revelation that Peter Parker was not the real Spider-Man, an already convoluted storyline becoming a chaotic mess, Planet of the Symbiotes, Maximum Cloneage and the rushed two month Scarlet Spider mini-series, after Ben Reilly had already become the new Spider-Man (which wasn't exactly the most universally accepted decision). The readers who hate the clone saga point to this year as the reason.

1998- The first half was okay, but unremarkable, with the Spider-Hunt and Identity Crisis crossovers. But then we had "The Gathering of the Five," "The Final Chapter," the first issues of Mackie's relaunch and the start of Chapter One.

1999- The majority of Chapter One, and 27 more issues written by Mackie at his worst (including an annual, and a Webspinners tale.) Probably the winner, if that's the appropriate term. Even if Webspinners and Spider-Girl were usually good.

2000 has more awful Mackie stories (including the fifth Green Goblin reveal), but more than enough good comics to make up for it (Spider-Girl. Death and Destiny. The Revenge of the Green Goblin. Jenkins's Peter Parker Spider-Man, except for Typeface. Defalco/ Frenz's Webspinners arc. The debut of Ultimate Spider-Man.)

The spiderfan.org indexes can help you calculate what year a book came out. Keep in mind that the cover date is usually two months after the issue ships.

[oldschool]

I remember an interesting discussion about this on the old board.

I may regret asking this, but what do you guys think are the worst years in history of the Spider-Man comic books?

The contenders I've come up with...
1995-Amazing Spider-Man #400 towards the beginning of the year was excellent, though I'd argue that it was a story that shouldn't have been told. But this was also the year with "Mark of Kaine" (especially the Final Chapter), the revelation that Peter Parker was not the real Spider-Man, an already convoluted storyline becoming a chaotic mess, Planet of the Symbiotes, Maximum Cloneage and the rushed two month Scarlet Spider mini-series, after Ben Reilly had already become the new Spider-Man (which wasn't exactly the most universally accepted decision). The readers who hate the clone saga point to this year as the reason.

1998- The first half was okay, but unremarkable, with the Spider-Hunt and Identity Crisis crossovers. But then we had "The Gathering of the Five," "The Final Chapter," the first issues of Mackie's relaunch and the start of Chapter One.

1999- The majority of Chapter One, and 27 more issues written by Mackie at his worst (including an annual, and a Webspinners tale.) Probably the winner, if that's the appropriate term. Even if Webspinners and Spider-Girl were usually good.

2000 has more awful Mackie stories (including the fifth Green Goblin reveal), but more than enough good comics to make up for it (Spider-Girl. Death and Destiny. The Revenge of the Green Goblin. Jenkins's Peter Parker Spider-Man, except for Typeface. Defalco/ Frenz's Webspinners arc. The debut of Ultimate Spider-Man.)

The spiderfan.org indexes can help you calculate what year a book came out. Keep in mind that the cover date is usually two months after the issue ships.

I vote for 1999 without hesitation and for the reasons you stated. Even upon re-reads, it is an odious time for the titles, which is of course far worse than just "unremarkable". Webspinners was the sole bright spot for me.

[Webhead]

2000 for 616 SM prolly.

Also, Typeface needs more love.

[normanosborn]

The only good thing in '99 were the classic Pokémon ads in the book.

[Rob London]

1999 was the closest I ever came to quitting Spider-Man. It wins. Paul Jenkins' PP:SM saves the year 2000.

(1995 was when I started reading Spider-Man, so it was good enough to keep a nine-year-old hooked.)

[Metamorphosis]

2007 contained OMD, which is quite simply one of the worst comics ever published (if not the worst). But the rest of 2007 was excellent for the most part, with JMS/PAD/RAS pretty much killing it on their respective titles.

1995 was pretty terrible. But you also had ASM #400. 1996 marks the year I dropped all the titles for the first time, but some of the Ben as Spidey issues were pretty good, and Dan Jurgens' Sensational Spider-man was stellar.

1999 / 2000 are certainly contenders. The Mackie / Bryne reboot was rather awful, with Captain Power and the Senator Ward stuff. 2000 had the bulk of the Mary Jane dying in the plane explosion fake-out, other stories that just couldn't get going, and the terrible Green Goblin V reveal (spoiler: he was a faceless "genetic construct"). I have to go with 2000. Just a total lost in the woods time for the titles, the character, and Marvel in general. Fortunately they brought in JMS and Jenkins the following year.

Edit: And while I can't call it the worst, 2012 was an exceptionally underwhelming year for the character: a 50th anniversary that fell flat on its face, a mediocre movie reboot in theaters, one of the poorest anniversary issues ever (#700). 2013 marks the year I dropped the title yet again. 2014 also seems like its been a less than impressive year thus far also, with yet another super-weak ASM volume relaunch.

[Darth Kal-el]

End of 2007 to 2008. Basically OMD part three through the first year of BND. I like part 1 and 2 of OMD, the iron man fight was awesome

[Keeper of the Crows]

I remember 1998 very fondly. While it’s true that the ‘Gathering of Five’ wasn’t a satisfactory conclusion to what they’d been building up to following the return of Norman Osborn (or a proper sendoff for the first ‘volume’ of the series), there were some great stories in the titles at that time.

DeMatteis’ Spectacular run was one of my favorite runs of Spider-Man, and “Through the Looking Glass” is one of the funniest issues ever, in my opinion. I thought “Spider-Hunt” was pretty entertaining on the whole, especially the last three parts. “Goblins at the Gate,” by Roger Stern featured the first return of the original Hobgoblin following Hobgoblin Lives, along with his first encounter with Norman Osborn. I thought the multiple identities concept was neat.

Although not all the titles rose to the level of Spectacular (there were four satellites at the time, an interesting experiment), I don’t think they were offensively bad—and certainly not in comparison with 1999.

[Mike]

2004 -- Sins Past -- Not much else needs to be said.

[oldschool]

2004 -- Sins Past -- Not much else needs to be said.

Terrible story but ASM also had "Book of Ezekiel" that year; while it wasn't JMS' best work, it was far from bad IMO. Also, Spectacular had a solid Doc Ock story with the 5-part "Countdown" by Jenkins and Ramos so, while 2004 is not a contender for best year in my mind, it certainly wasn't at or near the bottom either.

[Metamorphosis]

2004 -- Sins Past -- Not much else needs to be said.

Terrible story but ASM also had "Book of Ezekiel" that year; while it wasn't JMS' best work, it was far from bad IMO. Also, Spectacular had a solid Doc Ock story with the 5-part "Countdown" by Jenkins and Ramos so, while 2004 is not a contender for best year in my mind, it certainly wasn't at or near the bottom either.

It was also the year Marvel Knights: Spider-man started, its first 12 issues comprising one of the greatest stories of the last 15 years.

Also, here is the link to the Spider-Fan year index:

http://www.spiderfan.org/comics/year/index.html

[Spider-Brit]

I'd go with the shout for 1999, i just cannot stand Mackie's Spider-Man run. even now i can't get through more than 5 issues without skipping ahead to the start of JMS. OMD is bad but it never stops me reading it.

[Pav]

1999 was the closest I ever came to quitting Spider-Man. It wins. Paul Jenkins' PP:SM saves the year 2000.

(1995 was when I started reading Spider-Man, so it was good enough to keep a nine-year-old hooked.)

This is also true of me, except I actually quit reading all comics for awhile due to the awful taste in my mouth from Byrne's work on the Spidey titles. Actually, I think I finally quit in 2000. Even Jenkins's early work couldn't make up for Genetic Construct Goblin.

-Pav, who gets comics and food confused all the time...

[Randumbz]

The entire decade of the 90s. When I read through every issue of ASM, that was the only point where it was a struggle to keep reading.

[Pav]

I remember 1998 very fondly. While it’s true that the ‘Gathering of Five’ wasn’t a satisfactory conclusion to what they’d been building up to following the return of Norman Osborn (or a proper sendoff for the first ‘volume’ of the series), there were some great stories in the titles at that time.

DeMatteis’ Spectacular run was one of my favorite runs of Spider-Man, and “Through the Looking Glass” is one of the funniest issues ever, in my opinion. I thought “Spider-Hunt” was pretty entertaining on the whole, especially the last three parts. “Goblins at the Gate,” by Roger Stern featured the first return of the original Hobgoblin following Hobgoblin Lives, along with his first encounter with Norman Osborn. I thought the multiple identities concept was neat.

Although not all the titles rose to the level of Spectacular (there were four satellites at the time, an interesting experiment), I don’t think they were offensively bad—and certainly not in comparison with 1999.

QFT. The post-Clone Saga / pre-reboot stories were solid and entertaining. Perhaps none of them will ever be remembered as great stories, but I thought all four main titles produced solid stories month after month. In fact, I found Tom DeFalco's work on Amazing to often be my least favorite, and I enjoy his work as a rule. Sensational was fun, Spectacular was intense and psychological, and PP:SM was more street-level (and had JR Jr).

-Pav, who likes a lot of Mackie stories even if his reboot stuff was blech...