Characters even pointed out to Peter how naíve it was for him to try that "No one dies" shit, like, sure, his heart was definitely in the right place, and trying harder to be a better hero is admirable, but shit happens, can't save everyone...
I dropped King's run before it got really bad, so my experience is limited, but Spencer can be comparable with King in how some issues can be pretty damn boring, but not the character destroying shit with bad dialogue that King does... Or at least not in ASM so far, 'cause Spencer did make Hydra Cap lol.I only caught the back half of King's run but I will say I found it to be pretty disappointing, honestly. So this comparison Scares me.
While it's nice that Spencer's run restores some other stuff and removes annoying shit, he should really avoid playing too safe, otherwise we get another run like Byrne's, where it was mostly a bunch of dull stories with no consequences, or anything lol.I think this is a fair criticism of Spencer's run. It's been a run that fixes everything in the past decade (or two) that's gone wrong with the character. I'd also agree that it's not that exciting. But...it's also kind of enough for me right now? Like after seeing the character be abused for so long and juust so many stupid things happen it's just satisfying to see so many things set right...and in a quiet non-bombastic way, too. It's not some hyped thing, it's just "yeah we're not doing that anymore". Now, I do think he's coasting on that fact. This is not a spectacular book right now. It's kinda dull. But I'd take dull over it breaking crap all the time.
Spencer's run is not on Byrne's level of boring, but sometimes it gets close, and that shouldn't happen.
"Reads better in trade" may mean "The story is good but it's even better in trade", or "The story has bad pacing and the only good shit happens near the end", and unfortunately, Last Remains is the second kind.
It's debatable, but think like this, you buy a comic or manga issue, nothing fucking happens, next month or week or whatever you buy another, nothing fucking happens again, now you buy the next issue, stuff starts to become interesting for a bit, and the question is, was this a good reading experience? Were the issues where nothing happened worth the money you wasted? These kinds of questions is why this is very subjective.
I'm on the opinion that super-heroes shouldn't divide stories too much, because honestly, super-hero comic books can be really bad at decompressed pacing, so having issues where nothing happens and the next issue is a repetition of the previous issue, only with stuff actually happening? This is why one may hate writing for trade, 'cause pages are filled with pointless filler that ads nothing to the experience besides wasting time.