BND Era Recap

[Rob London]

I found JMS's run way too pretentious, and his Spider-man stories seemed less Spider-man and more Doctor Strange lite. Spider-man is a character who faces sci-fi based villains who have simple motives, not a mystical character fighting personified abstractions. Plus, The Other story should have been 4 issues shorter, I found myself yelling at the comic book to tell me what was in the @#$%@# letter already.

Although his scene with Spider-man talking to the random guy on a fire escape about popcorn does remain one of my favorites. There he was a "Friendly Neighborhood Spider-man" instead of weird mystical totem thing.

When JMS was good, he was great. When he was bad, oof.

[Metamorphosis]

I find the current run a bright sci-fi action movie that does not take itself to seriously, which has a Peter Parker to is dedicated to helping others even if he screws it up sometimes. Basically exactly what I want in a Spider-man comic.

I can see how people who prefer a more serious and street level Spider-man would not like Slott's run, but to me the tone is perfect.

Fair enough--except when the book tries to do vaguely grim and serious, like Clonespiracy (touted by Nick Lowe as akin to Kraven's Last Hunt--do you like the tone of stories like that?

[MetalWoman]

Fair enough--except when the book tries to do vaguely grim and serious, like Clonespiracy (touted by Nick Lowe as akin to Kraven's Last Hunt--do you like the tone of stories like that?

That may have been what Nick Lowe said, but the book remained humorous and sci-fi movie like, despite some darker undertones. Plus I have been awaiting Ben's return for 20 years, so that alone will make me bias for the story. Do not even mind that he is crazy evil, as I am excited to see where PAD will take the story.

[oldschool]

When JMS was good, he was great. When he was bad, oof.

Yeah, I found that there wasn't much middle ground with JMS; as you say, his good stuff was brilliant and his not-so-good stuff was pretty awful. Which is a pretty start contrast to some past Spidey writers like Denny O'Neill and David Michelenie who, for me anyway, had large chunks of their time on the title churning out merely average stories.

[WebLurker]

Question: is there a difference between the "Brand New Day" and "Big Time" Spider-Man comics? (I hear both terms thrown around a lot with little context of if they're stories or arcs, or runs, or what.)

[Bor]

Question: is there a difference between the "Brand New Day" and "Big Time" Spider-Man comics? (I hear both terms thrown around a lot with little context of if they're stories or arcs, or runs, or what.)

Brand New Day: The period right after OMD with rotating writers and artist + 3 times a month shipping of ASM.
Big time: The start of Slotts solo run of the title. He had been on it since BND as one of the different writers but this marked him as being lone writer on the title. Although others have contributed or worked with him, such as Gage.

[WebLurker]

Brand New Day: The period right after OMD with rotating writers and artist + 3 times a month shipping of ASM.
Big time: The start of Slotts solo run of the title. He had been on it since BND as one of the different writers but this marked him as being lone writer on the title. Although others have contributed or worked with him, such as Gage.

Got it, thanks.

[Bor]

Got it, thanks.

Brand New day, while having some pretty great stories to, where at times very inconsistent because of the rotating creative teams.

[Alan2099]

I'm aware the parts of JMS's run have been followed up on by Slott. And while I do enjoy a lot of the followups, it doesn't mean I like JMS's run more.

The Spiderverse appearances of Morlun are the only times the character even comes across as tolerable to me.

Even then he's not a great character, especially considering how much JMS pushed him.

[comicscollector]

Brand New Day made the Amazing Spider-Man stories better because it brought back lots of things that are essential to good and consistent stories.
As#
.Return of classic villains.(Before BND,classic Spider-Man villains were missing from ASM)
.A new status quo (Peter being single again) that made possible many new romantic interests in the stories.(Carlie,Black Cat,Michelle)
.Spider-Man secret identity being a secret again.
.The return of the mechanical web shooters.Sure story wise the organic webs did not played that much diferently in the stories,but i think the mechanical web shooters are better because they reflect Peter Parker intelegencie and even the Peter Parker "luck" as when he runs out of webs.
.New writers making the best possible Spider-Man stories with their writing capacity,as Dan Slott,Joe Kelly,Van Lente,Mark Waid,Guggenheim ...
.New artist or classic artists in ASM,made it possible to have ASM a exciting comic book to read in each issue.

[WebLurker]

Brand New Day made the Amazing Spider-Man stories better because it brought back lots of things that are essential to good and consistent stories.
As#
.Return of classic villains.(Before BND,classic Spider-Man villains were missing from ASM)
.A new status quo (Peter being single again) that made possible many new romantic interests in the stories.(Carlie,Black Cat,Michelle)
.Spider-Man secret identity being a secret again.
.The return of the mechanical web shooters.Sure story wise the organic webs did not played that much diferently in the stories,but i think the mechanical web shooters are better because they reflect Peter Parker intelegencie and even the Peter Parker "luck" as when he runs out of webs.
.New writers making the best possible Spider-Man stories with their writing capacity,as Dan Slott,Joe Kelly,Van Lente,Mark Waid,Guggenheim ...
.New artist or classic artists in ASM,made it possible to have ASM a exciting comic book to read in each issue.

As someone who's not read all the way through BND, most of those sound really good (the artists and classic villains, esp.). Unfortunately, the bolded point is a deal breaker for me and reason numero uno why I don't want to follow ASM as of right now. You can't have everything, can you?

[comicscollector]

As someone who's not read all the way through BND, most of those sound really good (the artists and classic villains, esp.). Unfortunately, the bolded point is a deal breaker for me and reason numero uno why I don't want to follow ASM as of right now. You can't have everything, can you?

The artists and writers rotating on Amazing Spider-Man during BND,made it a must read to me.
As Bachalo or Marcos Martin that illustrated great stories.
Before BND,ASM had one high profile artist,and that was it.With the team of writers and artists of BND,the stories had a much better variety in terms of art style and stories.

[Prof. Warren]

Brand New Day made the Amazing Spider-Man stories better because it brought back lots of things that are essential to good and consistent stories.
As#
.Return of classic villains.(Before BND,classic Spider-Man villains were missing from ASM)
.A new status quo (Peter being single again) that made possible many new romantic interests in the stories.(Carlie,Black Cat,Michelle)
.Spider-Man secret identity being a secret again.
.The return of the mechanical web shooters.Sure story wise the organic webs did not played that much diferently in the stories,but i think the mechanical web shooters are better because they reflect Peter Parker intelegencie and even the Peter Parker "luck" as when he runs out of webs.
.New writers making the best possible Spider-Man stories with their writing capacity,as Dan Slott,Joe Kelly,Van Lente,Mark Waid,Guggenheim ...
.New artist or classic artists in ASM,made it possible to have ASM a exciting comic book to read in each issue.

BND was a great era that marked a substantial improvement over the JMS years. JMS came out of the gate hot with the Morlun arc but never quite had the same energy again.

Not a terrible era, by any means, but a somewhat flat one.

BND, on the other hand, was incredibly lively, bubbling with creativity and excitement. While the rotating writers and string of different artists did hobble forward momentum at times (in that each writer seemed to have their own favorite story threads and supporting characters and until that writer came back around in the rotation, those aspects would be on hold until their next arc) it also led to a bracing mix of styles. And with the rapid release schedule, if one writer/artist combo wasn't your cup of tea, another would on the way before you knew it.

By the time BND ended, I think it was time for ASM to have one consistent voice again but I have very fond memories of the BND era.

[Miles To Go]

A new status quo (Peter being single again) that made possible many new romantic interests in the stories.(Carlie,Black Cat,Michelle)

None of that was good, consistent, or led anywhere. Felicia had to be turned heel to stay relevant to the writers, and Carlie and Michelle were rejected by fandom and are long forgotten.

As someone who's not read all the way through BND, most of those sound really good (the artists and classic villains, esp.). Unfortunately, the bolded point is a deal breaker for me and reason numero uno why I don't want to follow ASM as of right now. You can't have everything, can you?

As someone who did read most of BND, most of it really wasn't that good. Dan and Kelly's stuff was pretty much the era's saving grace, but it's largely disposable garbage, and you could have told most of the stories with him married.

Before BND,ASM had one high profile artist,and that was it.With the team of writers and artists of BND,the stories had a much better variety in terms of art style and stories.

Art? Maybe, stories? Subjective.

You see more threads discussing Clone Saga, the marriage era, and Slott's ongoing run than you ever normally find BND era material. There's a reason for that. It just isn't that memorable, and nothing of particular interest developed from it. Even stories regarded as it's "peak", like Grim Hunt, are rendered meaningless because Kraven has been treated like a joke ever since.

[Prof. Warren]

You see more threads discussing Clone Saga, the marriage era, and Slott's ongoing run than you ever normally find BND era material. There's a reason for that. It just isn't that memorable, and nothing of particular interest developed from it. Even stories regarded as it's "peak", like Grim Hunt, are rendered meaningless because Kraven has been treated like a joke ever since.

Kraven's fine. Even if you want to say he's treated like a joke now, which I don't think is the case, it only takes one good story to right the character.

After all, the whole impact of Last Hunt was based on turning the long-running conception of Kraven as a joke around and making him a credible threat.

And you can hardly judge an era based on how many threads are dedicated to it. The Clone saga and the marriage era get a lot of attention because opinions are so sharply divided on them and people love to keep arguments going and Slott's era is ongoing so of course it's going to get a lot of attention.

You don't see a lot of threads devoted to the Lee/Ditko, Lee/Romita Sr, or Stern/Romita Jr runs either.