ProjectX2
Don't expect me to take you with me when I go to s
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I've always wanted Spider-Man to become a white supremacist.
Spider-Man Amazing Spider-Man general series discussion (spoilers)
- Thread starter ultimatedjf
- Start date
Captain Canuck
The poster formerly known as captaincanuck65
I just remembered that there was some conversation in the Marvel NOW thread (or maybe the general marvel your universe thread) about the "superior" teaser. We mentioned the idea of a Magneto comic or at least a brotherhood of Mutant comics.
I don't get how the phrase superior has anything to do with Spidey. What, is Doc Ock going to somehow convince him to turn into a megalomaniac?
I really hope threw title isn't called Superior Spider-Man...
I don't get how the phrase superior has anything to do with Spidey. What, is Doc Ock going to somehow convince him to turn into a megalomaniac?
I really hope threw title isn't called Superior Spider-Man...
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Gemini
Well-Known Member
Doc Ock proves his superiority over spider-man by cursing him with the unremovable Octopus Limbs. Pretty much turning him into the Steel Spider (remember him in Thunderbolts?). This also completely destroys any chance at a normal life. Also echoes 6 arm storyline wich Slott adores.
Captain Canuck
The poster formerly known as captaincanuck65
Gemini said:
Yeah I was thinking that too. There's that comment about Spidey and doc Ock having something in common. Either that or they mutate him again and go back to six arms for a while...
*sigh*
I hope that's not as in "Superior Spider-Man".
And they should have cancelled it before this Alpha garbage. That story undid every good thing that has come from Brand New Day. That was a crap story and it brought a premium title down to the level of a lower-tier, third-rate book.
And they should have cancelled it before this Alpha garbage. That story undid every good thing that has come from Brand New Day. That was a crap story and it brought a premium title down to the level of a lower-tier, third-rate book.
Captain Canuck
The poster formerly known as captaincanuck65
E said:
I agree it wasn't a great story, but how did it undo every good thing that has come from Brand New Day?
E said:
And I'm not trying to be snarky at all, but as I understand it you've been pretty unsatisfied with Slott's run on Amazing Spider-Man in general, haven't you? Did you actually consider ASM to be a "premium title" before the Alpha arc?
Captain Canuck
The poster formerly known as captaincanuck65
I read #695 today. I liked it. I always love Hobgoblin stories.
And the way this Spider-sense jammer/booster is affecting Spider-Man is pretty interesting. I never would have thought of him being paralyzed by his Spider-sense being kicked into overdrive. Creative.
And the way this Spider-sense jammer/booster is affecting Spider-Man is pretty interesting. I never would have thought of him being paralyzed by his Spider-sense being kicked into overdrive. Creative.
Absolutely. It was Marvel's flagship title (or at least one of them).
Captain Canuck
The poster formerly known as captaincanuck65
E said:
For sure. I thought you were referring to quality. I know you haven't really been digging it for a while.
Is your point that this story arc was just particularly bad?
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Yes. It was wimpy...even when it hasn't been particularly good (and I *liked* pretty much the first half of everything between Brand New Day and this) they've had some interesting ideas and the guts to do them, changing characters and whatnot. But Alpha is not that...it is a copout character and a copout story. Everything about it was lazy and dumbed-down. Having everything cleaned up by the end of the story so neatly made it worse.
And you're right, I haven't been digging it for a while. And I hate that. I pretty much got started in comics with Spider-Man and Amazing in particular. I want to like ASM. I hate not liking it. But this was just the latest (and worst) in a series of bad arcs.
Captain Canuck
The poster formerly known as captaincanuck65
Fair enough. That's too bad. I felt similarly during Brand New Day, I didn't like almost anything they did until Joe Kelly and Fred Van Lente started writing it. The Alpha story wasn't great, but I've really been enjoying ASM overall since Slott took over. Not every issue knocks it out of the park, but he writes Peter Parker and the supporting cast well. I've particularly enjoyed the stuff with Hobgoblin, Doc Ock, and Spider-Island.
It reads to me like Slott is out of ideas and is just mailing it in. Alpha had zero imagination.
Also, it feels to me like with Peter getting on well with MJ, having a good job, and being part of a couple different teams like they've gotten away from the "sad sack" beginnings in BND. It might not have been expressly stated but it felt like, in getting rid of MJ, they were getting away from the overall feeling that Peter was doing well. Now it seems that apart from no longer being married (which doesn't count because he doesn't even know that he lost it) that he's doing even better.
I realize that's probably just me and that how well he's doing has nothing to do with what OMD and BND was about, but that's just what I get out of it. Maybe it's just that I like Peter as a photographer (or teacher, to a lesser extent) and the whole Horizon thing just makes it too convenient for him. Plus a lot of the characters involved are majorly weak.
Or maybe I'm just a malcontent.
Also, it feels to me like with Peter getting on well with MJ, having a good job, and being part of a couple different teams like they've gotten away from the "sad sack" beginnings in BND. It might not have been expressly stated but it felt like, in getting rid of MJ, they were getting away from the overall feeling that Peter was doing well. Now it seems that apart from no longer being married (which doesn't count because he doesn't even know that he lost it) that he's doing even better.
I realize that's probably just me and that how well he's doing has nothing to do with what OMD and BND was about, but that's just what I get out of it. Maybe it's just that I like Peter as a photographer (or teacher, to a lesser extent) and the whole Horizon thing just makes it too convenient for him. Plus a lot of the characters involved are majorly weak.
Or maybe I'm just a malcontent.
Bass
Nexus of the World
I got really bored of it with SPIDER ISLAND. Six-part "events" that have Spidey leading the Avengers against omnipotent villains from the 1990s are repugnant to me. I read (and hated them) when they first came out and I was a teenager. They keep brining these crappy characters back to make them work.
I feel the whole series has become childish, rather than child-like. I used to love it, but now I can barely stomach it. It feels just like the 90s comics I stopped buying fifteen years ago. But there was a moment when it was like the old Spidey comics I loved. That's something, I suppose.
I feel the whole series has become childish, rather than child-like. I used to love it, but now I can barely stomach it. It feels just like the 90s comics I stopped buying fifteen years ago. But there was a moment when it was like the old Spidey comics I loved. That's something, I suppose.
Captain Canuck
The poster formerly known as captaincanuck65
I actually had no idea who the actual villain pulling the strings was (the lady that Jackal was working for). I had to look her up on wikipedia. And now I don't remember who she was. And old Cap villain I think? It was kind of weird that in the end she didn't even matter. (ha! Linkin Park).
I guess I found it fun, even if the premise was absurd. And I really liked the moment that Peter & MJ had at the end of the story. And I liked that Kaine was sort of redeemed as a result of it.
Bass, I remember you defending Spider-Island at the beginning when everyone else was bashing how stupid it was. What made your opinion change? Was it the villain that bothered you?
I guess I found it fun, even if the premise was absurd. And I really liked the moment that Peter & MJ had at the end of the story. And I liked that Kaine was sort of redeemed as a result of it.
Bass, I remember you defending Spider-Island at the beginning when everyone else was bashing how stupid it was. What made your opinion change? Was it the villain that bothered you?
It's not the bringing back of the characters I don't like; it's the crappy stories surrounding them.
Yeah, that's kind of what I was trying to say. It's the tone more than anything, to me, but the stories suck too.
As for Spider Island...I probably said this before but the entire premise of that story is exactly everything that a Spider-Man comic should NOT be. It was the worst Spider-Man story I've ever read, and because of how wrong it was for the character, pretty much one of the worst stories I've ever seen.
Bass
Nexus of the World
Neither did I. I looked her up.
There was some fun bits with Kaine.
Because I had just read pretty much all of Slott's run and was still on the high from it. And there was some nice elements to it. I think lots of people in Manhattan getting spider powers is a kind of fun thing. I recall I suggested SPIDER ISLAND would've been better had Mysterio been behind it and it was smaller in scale. But now, I look back, and see it was the beginning of a downfall Slott hasn't recovered from. The Alpha and Lizard stories were really boring, and the Doc Ock six-parter has a nice premise but it could be any crappy 1990s comic with any superhero and be the same. What I enjoyed about Slott's run was that it was Spider-Man. These stories felt like stories one could only tell with Spidey. That's what I wanted. There's an element of that in SPIDER ISLAND; lots of civilians getting the superhero's powers really works for Spidey. It doesn't work for Batman, or Superman, or Wonder Woman, or Flash, or the X-Men, and so on. That core idea is a great Spidey premise. But the big event stuff was not. The Doc Ock six-parter could be a Justice League, Avengers, X-Men... it would be a better Superman story than Spidey. Lex turns the world against Superman works much better. SPIDER-ISLAND had a nice idea in it, but it was buried underneath the weight of Marvel continuity. And now even the smaller stories which aren't crossovers feel like that. The Lizard story had Morbius and what not, the Alpha story featured the Avengers and Fantastic Four all through it... I hate cross-title continuity like this. I don't mind team up books like The Avengers, but I dislike it when Spidey is "Spidey and his Fantastic Avenging friends" because it destroys the reality for me. When Spidey shows up in the Avengers, fine. Everyone's talking about the end of the world and everything's about that and so you go with it. But when Iron Man and Mister Fantastic show up in a Spidey story along with Beast and Hank Pym and they're doing experiments I think, "Wait. How can no one know Spidey is Peter Parker? How is Peter Parker not a nobel prize winner with his own research grant? How can Alpha truly end up being more powerful than Franklin Richards who just rebuilt a sun? Why on Earth does Spidey even want to keep his secret identity? Why does he go on patrol? When does he have time?" And so on. The whole illusion shatters. When he shows up in a team book, his personal life is barely mentioned, so when it crops up you go, "I'm buying THE AVENGERS to see these guys save the world, I don't care about what's going on with MJ, so it's okay". But with a Spidey book you're reading it precisely for the elements this cross-title continuity ends up hamstringing.
I forget what your question was.
It's really melodramatic.
Captain Canuck
The poster formerly known as captaincanuck65
Bass said:
How much of that has been due to outside influences though? Spider-Island is the first major Spider-Man "event" since Maximum Carmage (and we all remember how blown out of proportion that got!) Big crazy event comics with tie-ins sell well, so of course Marvel wanted Spider-Island to be on a huge scale. This year is Spidey's 50th anniversary so Marvel wanted a big, high stakes Spidey story (Ends of The Earth). But also the Avengers movie came out so they had to throw them in EVERYTHING! (you noticed which Avengers showed up in Ends of the Earth, right?). And the Lizard story was written b/c the Amazing Spider-Man movie came out and it had the Lizard in it. Slott had been building up to it, though, so if it was boring... I don't know. I didn't find it boring. And Alpha was an attempt at an homage to Spidey's origin but it just got dumb really fast.
I really like the more personal down to earth Spider-Man stories too. But I don't mind that he gets a big event every once in a while. Even in those, I feel like Slott still managed to make the stakes personal for Spidey.
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Bass
Nexus of the World
To me, it doesn't matter who has what say over what franchise tie-ins occur. If it stops me enjoying a comic to the point where I don't read it anymore, I don't care whose fault it is, really. :-/
Assuming I'm understanding the gist of what you're saying here, I agree with Bass in that I'm not affected by fatigue from character usage. The stories just haven't been good lately.
It's all about the quality of the story. Uncanny X-Force is a great example of this; it's filled with characters that I basically care nothing about and would never bother reading ongoings of, but the story is so good that it doesn't matter.
Captain Canuck
The poster formerly known as captaincanuck65
Man I love the Hobgoblin!!
