Real talk. Was Slott's run HONESTLY better than Michelinie's?

[Spidercide]

Slott's better. It's not even close.

I think a lot of people started reading Spider-Man during Michelinie's run, so it's inflated in their assessment.

Dude...Slott barely qualifies as a writer period.

He systemically writes everyone OOC to fit around whatever plot he has going.

Michelinie rarely if ever did that which alone should make him egregiously superior.

I think a lot of people don't realize how Slott is mostly sizzle with very little steak but get taken in with the flashiness of his ideas in spite of their pay off rarely if ever being anything beyond shallow and superficial.

Michelnie also wrote Peter as the sum of his experinces whereas Slott's Peter is in his own words mentally 15 years old.

Michelinie also rarely took Spidey outside of the types of stories his character is supposed to be about. Pseudo science which is an expansion upon grounded real world science is well within Spidey's wheelhouse. Slott though? Time travel, pan dimensional wars with totem vampires, routine global threats, mind swaps and stuff in outer space.

Michelinie did that stuff too but far, far, far, far less often. Even Venom and Carnage's alien status was more incidental to their characters than anything. They functioned as glorified power suits for the all too realistic and human Eddie Brock and Cletus Kasady.

This isn't even getting into how Michelinie created grossly more successful spin off characters. Venom and Carnage alone are infinitely more popular than any of Slott's spin off characters...and Michelinie at least was the guy to MAKE them popular whereas the spin off Slott has generated were made good by OTHER people.

Silk under Slott is laughable and rapey. Robbie Thompson is who made her worth anything.

Why is it not even close again?

[Spidercide]

Changing the poll one more time, since I think it needs a question phrased positively (who is better?) rather than negatively (who is worse?)

To go with the real talk theme, I think Slott's work as writer is better.

Michelinie has a style that's rather dated, and didn't repeat the heights of his early Todd McFarlane Venom stories. There's also a lot of his stuff in his later run that's just forgettable.

I'd rate Spider-Man/ Human Torch, No One Dies, and the first ten issues of Superior Spider-Man above anything Michelinie did as writer.

Your mileage may vary. Some people really like the marriage annual, and the Return of the Sinister Six.

Superior Spider-Man and No One Dies never made sense though.

Spidey/Torch also isn't a legit Spider-Man story. It's a team up mini-series that's half an FF story

[Spidercide]

I don't know what issues Michelinie wrote, any story arcs worth mentioning?

Er yeah...he created these guys you might have heard of called Venom and Carnage.

[Rincewind]

I prefer Slott over Michelinie and it's not close.

The problem is that the Michelinie run had a few big flaws that the Slott run did not have.

While Michelinie created Venom, he used the character excessively. It became repetitious and culminated in Maximum Carnage, one of my least favorite Spider-Man stories ever. Also turning Venom, who killed many innocent people, into an anti-hero who protects the helpless seemed in bad taste to me. I think this is a far greater OOC behavior than anything Slott did.

Michelinie also had a lot of editorial mandates that hurt his run. The proposal/wedding happened with little build up and was OOC for what came before. The plot of Peter's parents returning was written without any idea of how it would proceed. Michelinie's last few years seemed rather lifeless and devoid of joy. It ended with a whimper, not a bang.

While I understand people not caring for Slott's run, almost all of his stories have an energy and enthusiasm that was missing in half of Michelinie's run.

[Lukmendes]

Er yeah...he created these guys you might have heard of called Venom and Carnage.

Oh, he's that guy, cool. Can't really say much of his quality as a writter overall since I didn't read much of his run, but the few I've read was fun, except Maximum Carnage. (Was that made by him? Not sure now...)

While Michelinie created Venom, he used the character excessively. It became repetitious and culminated in Maximum Carnage, one of my least favorite Spider-Man stories ever. Also turning Venom, who killed many innocent people, into an anti-hero who protects the helpless seemed in bad taste to me. I think this is a far greater OOC behavior than anything Slott did.

I hear that Venom becoming an anti-hero was an editorial mandate though, and while it's contradictory for Venom to have gone into anti-hero territory at all since he was more of a psychopath with some excuse to protect innocents, Slott also did some really bad out of character ****, the most obvious example being Felicia, which Slott amplified her pettyness to the point she stopped making sense, MJ when he decides to write her being a bitch, to the point something like, MJ in ASM#796 and #797 look like two very different people, there's also what he did to Ben, though at the very least that one has some excuse, I hear that the way he wrote Bobbi is against her stabilished character, but since I don't know her much, can't confirm, and then everyone in Superior not realizing something was wrong with Peter, which contradicts when they were able to sniff out someone who actualy tried to pretend to be Peter.

I'm not saying Slott didn't do good **** with characters, but when he makes them go out of character it can be bad, or really bad.

[Rincewind]

Oh, he's that guy, cool. Can't really say much of his quality as a writter overall since I didn't read much of his run, but the few I've read was fun, except Maximum Carnage.



I hear that Venom becoming an anti-hero was an editorial mandate though, and while it's contradictory for Venom to have gone into anti-hero territory at all since he was more of a psychopath with some excuse to protect innocents, Slott also did some really bad out of character ****, the most obvious example being Felicia, which Slott amplified her pettyness to the point she stopped making sense, MJ when he decides to write her being a bitch, to the point something like, MJ in ASM#796 and #797 look like two very different people, there's also what he did to Ben, though at the very least that one has some excuse, I hear that the way he wrote Bobbi is against her stabilished character, but since I don't know her much, can't confirm, and then everyone in Superior not realizing something was wrong with Peter, which contradicts when they were able to sniff out someone who actualy tried to pretend to be Peter.

I'm not saying Slott didn't do good **** with characters, but when he makes them go out of character it can be bad, or really bad.

I'm not bothered by Felicia's turn. Even when she was going straight, she still had a toe in illegal activities. While there are Felicia as crimeboss stories that show a murdering ruthless side, they are not written by Slott. I haven't read the current arc, but MJ's post OMD appearances never struck me as being OOC or acting like a bitch. Bobbi never struck me as OOC during her appearances either.

As far as the criticisms of Superior go, remember that 1. Peter has been living a double life and lying to everyone around him since he first got his powers. Acting suspicious is not OOC for him. 2. Otto had access to all of Peter's memories, so he at least tried to fake it. 3. Numerous characters did notice that he was acting differently.

[bob.schoonover]

It is possible to for two people to read the same story and have different impressions of it. It is even possible to discuss the different impressions without insulting the reading comprehension of the other person. You may want to try that approach.

To be fair, he's keeping in tone w/the OP's dismissiveness and contempt for Slott's run, neither of which I expect to lessen as long as the poll results stay where they are

[Rincewind]

Just read how she is in MC2 (which follows the backstory of 616 MJ from her first appearance through to the end of 1998), the newspaper strip and RYV, the difference is night and day to how she acts in all three vs how she acts post-OMD, but then, all three of those continuities represent MJ as she's meant to be and to what she's evolved into. Post-OMD MJ is an insult and a throwback



Weak argument. Ock did a terrible job of posing as Peter, and the fact some characters had their suspicions but didn't act too much on them (especially MJ, who should have been the one investigating and not Carlie) made them look like hearltess or ignorant imbeciles

No version of MJ is what is meant to be. She is a fictional supporting character. The original version was a superficial party girl. But the character changed over the years. Pointing to alternate versions that diverged from the 616 decades ago does not prove the current version is not valid.

As far as the Superior criticism goes, it was originally stated that no one noticed Peter begin different. That is false. Several characters noticed. They investigated. They even figured out what happened. All of this directly contradicts the complaint that no one noticed. You may not like the story or how characters were used in it, but the story did address this issue.

[Miles To Go]

To be fair, he's keeping in tone w/the OP's dismissiveness and contempt for Slott's run, neither of which I expect to lessen as long as the poll results stay where they are

So far it's 8 pro David against 11 pro Slott, the latter is only up 3 votes. Hardly a landslide.

[Lukmendes]

I'm not bothered by Felicia's turn. Even when she was going straight, she still had a toe in illegal activities. While there are Felicia as crimeboss stories that show a murdering ruthless side, they are not written by Slott.

He did write Felicia as a petty bitch who wanted to kill Peter and even going as far as not caring about the mind swap. So even if we don't count the Queenpin ****, what he did before was still ****.

Also during that same story Peter didn't seem to care much about Felicia trying to kill him, which makes no sense.

I haven't read the current arc, but MJ's post OMD appearances never struck me as being OOC or acting like a bitch.

Well, for #796 she said she missed the Spidey **** and just looked happy to be with Peter, then comes #797 and while making out she opens his shirt, sees the costume and starts to rant about how she doesn't wanna deal with Spider-Man **** again, which, completely contradicts how she acted in #796, and #796 completely contradicts how she acted in Power Play (Which was a worse version of how she acted in #797)

As far as the criticisms of Superior go, remember that 1. Peter has been living a double life and lying to everyone around him since he first got his powers. Acting suspicious is not OOC for him. 2. Otto had access to all of Peter's memories, so he at least tried to fake it. 3. Numerous characters did notice that he was acting differently.

Having the memories is not enough if you don't even try to act like the person, which as far as I've seen, Otto made no effort, let's keep in mind there are at least two times Chameleon pretended to be Peter and MJ sniffed him out in one, and Aunt May in the other. Then we have Kraven's Last Haunt which MJ only saw Kraven pretending to be Spidey once and immediately was able to tell it wasn't Peter, and Kraven beat up criminals while saving her.

[Rincewind]

As someone who grew up on Micheline, I can call outright B.S on this one. His run had a sense of energy, stake and sincerity in it that Slott's mixed run had trouble replicating even before Superior.

I also read the Michelinie run when it came out. In the book Comic Creators on Spider-Man, David Michelinie talks about how the end of his run was driven by editorial mandated plots and how he no longer had the same drive on ASM that he had when he began. His loss of energy and drive in his stories was confirmed by the writer personally.

Slott, even if you don't like his ideas and direction, has always had an energy and drive to it. His run is filled with big idea plots that he is eager to explore. Can you honestly state that Slott is not excited or eager about his stories?

[Scarlet Spider-Man]

Venom & Carnage alone is better than anything produced in Slott's run, by a fairly wide margin. I'd be shocked if anything from Slott's run became anywhere near as iconic as Venom (and Carnage, to a lesser extent).

Slott's better. It's not even close.

I think a lot of people started reading Spider-Man during Michelinie's run, so it's inflated in their assessment.

I often theorize the same with Slott's run.

For me, Slott shines far more as an idea man than a writer. Most of his ideas have had me intrigued, at the least. But the vast majority of the time, I felt underwhelmed when the story was over. And what he did to Ben Reilly and Felicia Hardy is downright criminal.

[Miles To Go]

I often theorize the same with Slott's run.

If I recall, even Slott's made note of the various young Marvel interns graduating to the company growing up on his ten year stint.

[blackspidey2099]

I'd definitely say Slott. While both runs were similar in that they started very strong and degraded a bit over the years, I'd say Slott has kept up the quality better than Michelinie's run (although I think the beginning of Michelinie's run was a bit better than the start of Slott's run). The latter parts of Michelinie's run were absolutely sleepworthy IMO, and some of the most boring Spider-Man stories I've had the misfortune of reading. Whatever people say of Slott, I don't think anyone can say his run has ever been boring.

[blackspidey2099]

Michelinie also rarely took Spidey outside of the types of stories his character is supposed to be about. Pseudo science which is an expansion upon grounded real world science is well within Spidey's wheelhouse. Slott though? Time travel, pan dimensional wars with totem vampires, routine global threats, mind swaps and stuff in outer space.

Who exactly are you to say what type of stories Spider-Man's character is supposed to be about? Laughable.