BRAND NEW DAY: Good, Bad or just Mediocre?

[Blacksuit]

I share the same OP thoughts.

The Brand New Day era was a mix bag at best, there was some good stories, but they were few and far between, with a lot of passable and some awful. The book had three rotating writers and that was like three guys at the same boat, each one rowing into different directions. They were only interested in their own characters, storylines and romantic interests, so you read one issue starting a storyline, tackling some characters and championing the creator's OC love interest, but after that the next writer ignores what the previous creator was doing and this characters and story would only be addressed in the following month. The artists rotation also gave inconsistency in quality, also each writer/artist depicted the original character in a different way, a classical example was Carlie Cooper that changed the hair color and style from one issue to the other. That didn't help to establish this new creations and status quo at all. No wonder this lasted only two years.

Other thing Masked Guy mentioned was the lack of staying-power the new characters had and how badly most of them were handle. Some of them had potential like Lilly Hollister, Dexter Benett, Michelle Gonzales, but they were completely mishandled and were showed the door pretty quick. Only Mr Negative kinda of remained. I think the main reason is because they changed too much things at once after OMD, without offering good set up or barely explanations. From the start, the marriage is gone and we don't know what happened to Mary Jane, Aunt May's houses was reconstruct (how?), Harry was back from the death (only explained a long time after), Peter's characterization was changed without no explanation, many of the classical villains were MIA and the relationship of Peter with the rest of the superheroes was deeply changed. If they didn't changed that much while introducing new stuff they would have a better change to thrive.

The main problem tough is that like any type of sequential storytelling, it doesn't happen in a vacuum, this new status quo have a umbilical tie with One More Day, the worst Spider-Man story of all time that committed major character assassination of its protagonist and was deemed a "necessary evil" to what happened next to happen. If you judge for its stories alone Brand New Day is how I said lackluster, however it is alost impossible to read this wile remembering OMD and ask "All this **** was for this?". Unhappily, Marvel itself put the franchise and the efforts of the creators in trouble.

[Masked Guy]

It was Spectacular Spider-Man quality. Less than I expect from ASM, felt like a satellite title. Unevenly paced with the rotating artists. Some stories were good, some bad, but all felt like they weren't really going to count for much long-term.

So I take it you'd place Brand New Day in the "mediocre" category?

[Masked Guy]

Bland New Day was **** then, and it's still **** now.



To me Bland New Day never ended, and it never will till Marvel comes to their senses, does the right thing, and brings the marriage back, and makes Spider-Man great again.

Renew Your Vows is the closest we'll get for the time being.

[Masked Guy]

I probably could've gone with mediocre,but I decided on bad. It was a massive drop from pre-OMD,and as other's have stated,was the beginning of the horrible elements(such as manchild Peter) that plague the book to this day.

I really thought most of the Brand New Day stories paled in comparison to JMS's.

[Masked Guy]

While there were some arcs that weren't particularly memorable I really enjoyed the era, especially during the gauntlet\grim hunt arcs. Those Rhino issues would have to rank as some of the characters best. I'd picked up ASM for various stages over the years but BND was where it become a steadfast part of my pull list.

Rage of The Rhino was definitely one of the few standout arcs from that era.

[Masked Guy]

Mediocre. While there were some good stories (New ways to die, unscheduled stop, shed come to mind immediately) all in all it was a failure. The stories were mostly forgettable retreads of stuff from the 70s and 80s. It undid a lot of fantastic developments (Kraven, Harry) for nothing and every time it looked like doing something new, it went in the same bland direction.

It is easily the worst period in the history of the character

I wouldn't go that far, but it was definitely a disappointing time in the character's history.

[Vixx]

BND felt to me like when your mom forced you to write a thank you card to your grand mother for the birthday socks and underwear.

It was an opportunity to sculpt the turd that was OMD into something more - but Michaelangelo couldn't work that magic. Technically it was fine ... But you could almost feel editorial staring over the creative teams shoulder wanting it "fixed"

It came across as a thinly veiled - "but you just don't understand .."

Kind of like how Sin Remembered tried to do something with the wondertwins that was cool; but just wound up digging in a bit deeper.

Just my 2 cents

[Masked Guy]

I would had voted great in this tyopic but there is no option like that to vote so i voted good.
It was a run of stories that i enjoyed Reading a lot and keep re-Reading them every so often.
And there should be one more positive option to vote,because Bad and Mediocre are quite similiar and then there is just the option to vote good.

You're right; bad and mediocre are pretty similar in this instance. Here, "bad" will translate to "not enjoyable" while "mediocre" will translate to "forgettable".

[Masked Guy]

I share the same OP thoughts.

The Brand New Day era was a mix bag at best, there was some good stories, but they were few and far between, with a lot of passable and some awful. The book had three rotating writers and that was like three guys at the same boat, each one rowing into different directions. They were only interested in their own characters, storylines and romantic interests, so you read one issue starting a storyline, tackling some characters and championing the creator's OC love interest, but after that the next writer ignores what the previous creator was doing and this characters and story would only be addressed in the following month. The artists rotation also gave inconsistency in quality, also each writer/artist depicted the original character in a different way, a classical example was Carlie Cooper that changed the hair color and style from one issue to the other. That didn't help to establish this new creations and status quo at all. No wonder this lasted only two years.

Other thing Masked Guy mentioned was the lack of staying-power the new characters had and how badly most of them were handle. Some of them had potential like Lilly Hollister, Dexter Benett, Michelle Gonzales, but they were completely mishandled and were showed the door pretty quick. Only Mr Negative kinda of remained. I think the main reason is because they changed too much things at once after OMD, without offering good set up or barely explanations. From the start, the marriage is gone and we don't know what happened to Mary Jane, Aunt May's houses was reconstruct (how?), Harry was back from the death (only explained a long time after), Peter's characterization was changed without no explanation, many of the classical villains were MIA and the relationship of Peter with the rest of the superheroes was deeply changed. If they didn't changed that much while introducing new stuff they would have a better change to thrive.

The main problem tough is that like any type of sequential storytelling, it doesn't happen in a vacuum, this new status quo have a umbilical tie with One More Day, the worst Spider-Man story of all time that committed major character assassination of its protagonist and was deemed a "necessary evil" to what happened next to happen. If you judge for its stories alone Brand New Day is how I said lackluster, however it is alost impossible to read this wile remembering OMD and ask "All this **** was for this?". Unhappily, Marvel itself put the franchise and the efforts of the creators in trouble.

There were actually at least eight writers in the Brain-Trust, which led to an even greater inconsistency in terms of quality. But yes, Brand New Day's biggest blunder was its failure to justify the atrocity that came before it. One More Day was a completely self-centered and unnecessary decision on the part of Marvel editorial and their lack of caring towards the many upset fans still leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

[Masked Guy]

BND felt to me like when your mom forced you to write a thank you card to your grand mother for the birthday socks and underwear.

It was an opportunity to sculpt the turd that was OMD into something more - but Michaelangelo couldn't work that magic. Technically it was fine ... But you could almost feel editorial staring over the creative teams shoulder wanting it "fixed"

It came across as a thinly veiled - "but you just don't understand .."

Kind of like how Sin Remembered tried to do something with the wondertwins that was cool; but just wound up digging in a bit deeper.

Just my 2 cents

I would agree with you there. Marvel editorial forced their personal desires for the franchise onto their readers and didn't care that many of them liked the way things were.

[Nick Miller]

I jumped in and out throughout the BND era, the first issues, before John Romita jr came on, were downright awful.

After jrjr, I thought we got a lot of good comics, due mostly to the amazing artists, mentioned earlier.

I don't have a connection to spider comics like most of you guys, I started gettting comics around 1998 when the heroes returned, so I was 23.

Consequently OMD and the followup by Joe Q, OMiT, did not destroy my favorite character I grew to love. I actually liked those stories!

Please don't tar and feather me.

[Masked Guy]

I jumped in and out throughout the BND era, the first issues, before John Romita jr came on, were downright awful.

After jrjr, I thought we got a lot of good comics, due mostly to the amazing artists, mentioned earlier.

I don't have a connection to spider comics like most of you guys, I started gettting comics around 1998 when the heroes returned, so I was 23.

Consequently OMD and the followup by Joe Q, OMiT, did not destroy my favorite character I grew to love. I actually liked those stories!

Please don't tar and feather me.

I'll respect your opinion, though I certainly don't understand it in this instance. One More Day and One Moment in Time are two of the worst comics I've ever read.

[comicscollector]

You're right; bad and mediocre are pretty similar in this instance. Here, "bad" will translate to "not enjoyable" while "mediocre" will translate to "forgettable".

Ok,it was just nitpicking about the options of this topic.

[Masked Guy]

Ok,it was just nitpicking about the options of this topic.

It's alright, I'm open to suggestions.

[WebLurker]

The main problem tough is that like any type of sequential storytelling, it doesn't happen in a vacuum, this new status quo have a umbilical tie with One More Day, the worst Spider-Man story of all time that committed major character assassination of its protagonist and was deemed a "necessary evil" to what happened next to happen. If you judge for its stories alone Brand New Day is how I said lackluster, however it is alost impossible to read this wile remembering OMD and ask "All this **** was for this?". Unhappily, Marvel itself put the franchise and the efforts of the creators in trouble.

That is a very interesting observation. It seems the final verdict on BND with many readers is where they fall on the OMD question and less so than BND itself. In effect, ask the question "is BND good?", you tend to get an answer of "OMD was good/bad/whatever." (Taking OMD out of the equation, I get the impression that BND generates very little feelings of its own. It's when Dan Slott took over as the sole writer that people really have strong opinions on the quality or lack thereof.

I jumped in and out throughout the BND era, the first issues, before John Romita jr came on, were downright awful.

After jrjr, I thought we got a lot of good comics, due mostly to the amazing artists, mentioned earlier.

I don't have a connection to spider comics like most of you guys, I started gettting comics around 1998 when the heroes returned, so I was 23.

Consequently OMD and the followup by Joe Q, OMiT, did not destroy my favorite character I grew to love. I actually liked those stories!

Please don't tar and feather me.

If you like it, you're a-okay. No shame in that.