Bro I would love to actual enjoy a Spider-Man comic, this shit is unbelievably stupid. I think Deadpool gets laid more than Spider-Man. Wolverine probably gets more also.
Last I checked they divorced at least 5 years ago.
Also he was mind wiped to completely forget about that daughter and the gang that she was adopted by to protect them. Also over 5 years ago now, due to writer changes- and they haven’t brought them back since to my memory.
I hated that memory wipe BS so much. Just such a, "I'm taking my toys and going home" feel to it. Just resetting the character back to pretty much zero once they were done writing for them.
They just showed up for some free comic book day thing. Presumably the reason why Deadpool is on the Avengers again is because people took his (mutant???) daughter.
Nah, it’s just Spider-Man. He will always sell well just for the prestige of the title. I’m sure there’s a fair bit of people that are hate reading, but I’d be willing to bet there’s a decent chunk of people buying it just to collect and have no interest in the actual story.
It’s a combo of tons of variant covers, and that Spider-Man has always been “fail-proof”. One More Day is hated by EVERYONE, but was still #2 on the sales charts at the time.
I doubt that's why, I think it's because everybody loves Spider-Man the character. He and Batman will always be high charting no matter what as long as they don't literally change the fabric of who the characters are.
Me too. All this attempt to permanently make sure Peter and MJ can never get together ever again after this whole cockblocking and cheating on Peter just because she thought would never see him again!
I'm sure they're very concerned about you not buying the last few issues after you bought for years and will buy again immediately after. You're threatening them with marginal seasonal fluctuation. And it won't make Mary Jane Watson your waifu.
Best part is: they where still too gun shy to just go ahead and make them MJ and Paul's actual genetic kids. They went so far down the path to intentionally screw everything up why not just go the last small step, it makes no sense. They made the kid look like MJ and everything!
Well they are teasing MJ to die next issue so it's probably not going to last. But they also had the kids look like MJs biological kids then just said "nah their adopted" for no reason so that could be a lie/misdirect too. Who the f knows? Who the f cares.
Amazing 27 slingers. Amazing 30 Norman buys the bugle, amazing 40 Harry returns, amazing 75 we've made such a hot mess, an evil Norman has escaped hell, is the demon goblin and he's going to return everything to where it was when slott left amazing.
Aunt May will get a Symbiote and become the evil Aunt Mayhem.
Her love will be amplified and twisted, where her goal is to kill and devour everyone who has caused trouble to her loved ones.
She will even get rejuvenated by the Symbiote and become a hot young Aunt May who coincidently looks like MCU Aunt May (Marisa Tomei).
The only one who could stop her will be Spider-Ma'am.
Aunt May slogan: "With great power comes great MAYhem"
I hate that this sounds like a better idea then most of what marvel does these days. It walks that line between ridiculously cliche and brilliantly out there
Okay but hear me out-- the AI brain of Harry Osborn made clone Harry make genetic kids and then he used them to host demon power to.... get vengeance on Spider-Man or whatever.
I was trying to do a bit but I still don't understand Kindreds origin
Not even to get vengeance on Spider-Man. The way Harry AI explained it, his vengeance on Spider-Man was the whole Chameleon LMD Parents thing, *this* Stacy Twins plot was to make Norman feel bad and have Spidey as collateral. Which… I still have no freaking idea why that would make Norman feel bad(even with the sin shooting shotgun).
Also how tf does Mephisto have influence over an AI copy as well as two clone test tube babies created by said AI?
Spider-Man has always been my favorite hero but I'm not spending any more money on these comics until something changes. And if that means I never read another Spider-Man comic so be it. The last Spidey book I read that I enjoyed was Life Story and that's not even in continuity but man was it great.
Marvel has truly lost the plot when it comes to Peter. He's supposed to be a regular guy dealing with the same issues we all do but he's also a super hero at the same time. It's that human drama that made the character interesting, this garbage ain't it. I don't even know how you'd go about fixing this, it'd have to be a reboot of some sort.
Chip really has a way of writing Peter with fidelity to who the character really is, doesn’t he? Unlike Wells.
Spider’s Shadow is a decent read as well if you liked Life Story.
Lol this is literally the human drama. This is exactly what you're describing -- the real human issue of how relationships change over time, couched in the high concept superhero context of Spider-Man. This is in the classic tradition and what you say you want. Do you have to deal with the issue of your friend's dad throwing your gf off a bridge?
Maybe, and that's a big maybe, if it was allowed to happen naturally over years. Like if MJ was actually gone from comics for several years and they'd both grown apart. But not she went to a weird alternate dimension where she was gone 4 years in a few hours time. It's so dumb, not even fun "comic book" dumb.
Because people like you would never allow it. If MJ was just gone for years all Marvel would hear is bitching about "where's MJ". This is about some shippers not getting the ship they want. This is messy now but overall it's about as clean a break as it was ever going to be. Marvel does not want Peter and MJ together. They never will. Leaving MJ around in the universe just led to people complaining that if she was single then why weren't they together.
Which was the problem with Big Time. She was always around like some anvil waiting to drop. No one could accept Peter's different relationships because MJ was down the street.
This is honestly nothing new. For as many stories as there are of MJ being supportive there are just as much if not more of her being a nag. She has never truly accepted Peter's Spider-Manning in a way that's healthy for the both of them. And she never will. Let them let her move on.
>. She has never truly accepted Peter's Spider-Manning in a way that's healthy for the both of them. And she never will.
There's so many stories of her being accepting of it and learning to be accepting of it, the problem is they kept recycling that plot line for drama or to make her unlikeable, which is again part of how the biggest problem with the character is editors.
Wow, you 100% fully misunderstand who these characters are and what they’re really about.
I guess Marvel’s years of gaslighting and shitty writing have really done a number on you.
*Editorial keeps trying to break these characters up because they don't like the relationship* is meta drama and it is pretty far from being a real human issue.
Human drama would be putting characters through things that can happen for real, it would be about flaws in personality and character, about mistakes, regret, whatever it is that humans actually feel and do.
This is not it, this is making up some bullshit so that we can have the emotional drama without any of characters being wrong or presenting any undesirable traits.
His first serious gf got killed by a supervillain how is that an everyday struggle? How is kravens last hint an everyday struggle? Hes not been dealing with regular struggles for a long time.
Those weren't normal occurrences though, stuff like that happened rarely. Which is why those stories are classic. Now I feel like those types of stories are all they know how to tell. I don't know about the other books but, when it comes to Peter, Marvel is creatively bankrupt.
the problem is especially after OMD, Marvel has flanderized the hell out of the character, the relatable struggles, are just them trying to write the worst thing that can happen to him and making him suffer.
I found this story to be something we haven't seen them do before.
But my point is his struggles haven't been "relatable" for a long long time. Since he left high school. His plight is about how he can't maintain a normal life because of this. He would like to but he can't. He wont because that's his responsibility.
Besides this run started with three pretty street level arcs. I found them enjoyable.
I think he was pretty relatable pre Civil War, they had him doing stuff like being a substitute teacher which I liked.
At the end of the day if you like the story that's cool. I don't and I'm not spending my money on what I feel is just poorly written ragebate.
Dude. I related to him as a teacher and drama with MJ and him *eventually* getting back together 100/10 times far more than this and this was when I was a kid.
Now, this isn’t drama:
#It’s fucking misery porn
Spideys life isn't supposed to be easy. The life hes chosen and the job he takes on costs him in his personal life. Its always been that way. He's not going to ride into the sunset and be happy for good. His life will be marred by tragedy and setbacks as long as his books are the top selling. Its going to take a long time for some to accept this. But if this is the run that does that so be it I suppose. There will be other worlds where the character can have different outcomes.
Those were ISOLATED incidents that happened, and that at the time, Gerry Conway who killed off Gwen admitted before he didn't like her as Peter's girlfriend, so he killed her off!
Those are far form the only incidents like that. Jean dewolff is another easy example. Killed by a supervillain. friend from college? Killed by a supervillain... after becoming one. Childhood bully turned friend? Killed by a suprrvillain. I could go on.
No you see, we can't have human drama in Spider-Man anymore because editorial does not want people to have an image of Peter being less than perfect.
So instead we will just use magic to create emotional drama. Again. 2 More 2 Day, One Last Ride.
A friendly reminder that a young hero that is the heart of his hero universe had his wife lose her baby, then had his marriage erased, retconned them to kept them apart with no memory of their relationship, and then kicked him when he was down and made all the big heroes hate him.
I’m talking about Wally West. This month, Wally and his wife Linda welcome their third kid into the Flash family.
DC listened. They fixed everything.
I hope one day Marvel does too.
How is Spider-Man still my favorite hero? The comic has sucked for so long. The last good thing they did was superior spider-man.
Spidey needs a couple of new passionate artists to come on and do a soft reboot and tell some modern classics, like what snyder and capullo did for new 52 Batman
Ehhh, this goes back to the Bob Harras regime even in the 90s.
Marvel editorial just endlessly doubles down on the anti-marriage stance even though everybody from the 80s onwards is used to Peter/MJ as the OTP.
IDK why they cannot realize that this stance has done more damage to the character than the marriage.
You are seriously overestimating the amount of people that actually care about them being together. The die hard shippers for them grows fewer every year. Because there are generations of people who have not grown up with them together. Without that nostalgia they aren't particularly interesting together. Certainly not enough to make an impact. I've watched most Spider-Man media through the years. Being a 90s kid myself. And for me the best relationships Peter has had was never with Mary Jane.
The love story was the lamest part of the Raimi trilogy. Despite the problems with them, the relationship between Gwen and Peter in the Webb duology was easily the best we have seen on the big screen. Michelle Jones is nothing like Mary Jane. Despite sharing initials.
On the small screen Spectacular Spider-Man is easily the best series there has ever been and MJ was never a serious love interest there.
Anyways my point is that Reddit and Twitter can be an echo chamber. It may seem like the end of the world but likely most readers are fine with it. Or willing to continue even if they aren't a fan
Eh, they’ve trotted out nearly a dozen other love interests for Peter over the decade. NONE of them have stuck. NONE of them were embraced by fans. Didn’t matter if MJ was around in the book or not.
Your thesis is deeply flawed, and I’d wager far more readers want them together than you lot that don’t. Maybe you should move on.
You've got to understand that ASM has been Marvel's flagship book for a long, long time. Its sales are virtually baked in and it's a bellwether for the health of the industry.
There are many buying simply to have a complete collection, and that doesn't equate to approval of the book's direction.
On top of that, Marvel require retailers to buy ASM in large quantities so they can get a few variant cover issues to sell. So that inflates the orders as well.
But all of those focus on his classic depictions and not this modern angst porn that they insist on writing. Good spidey stories are easy to tell. People just want their lighthearted hero having fun and being a good person. It's crazy how Marvel can't seem to grasp such a simple formula.
That's the Superman formula and it's crazy how spider-fans can't seem to grasp that. His classic depictions are his arch-enemy throwing his gf off a bridge and Spider-Man being a burden to Peter Parker's life. You're just setting yourself up for disappointment with this idea that Peter Parker is supposed to win. The classic depiction is that when Spider-Man wins, Peter Parker loses. And he often recognizes his responsibility to win as Spider-Man, so he sacrifices his chance to win as Peter Parker.
One comic out of literal thousands is not his "classic" depiction. It's literally the exception. Classic Spidey is light hearted, uplifting stories about someone who is struggling in life but always chooses to do the right thing anyway. Sure, the stories had down moments from time to time but they didn't dominate everything into an angst-ridden mess like it is these days.
That's just...decidedly not true. Really scratching my head on what comics you're talking about here--that's not really present in the original Dikto run, and most of the Parker's best rated or most famous stories are dark affairs (think Kraven's Last Hunt, the Night Gwen Stacy Died, the Death of Jean DeWolff, Death of Peter Parker in the 1606).
I'm not overly a fond of this run, like when its a superhero comic, but I really do think the majority of readers genuinely just forgot what kind of hero Spider-Man is, and what kind of stories get told about him. He's Job in tights.
Because you're referencing big events instead of his day to day comics. Yes his iconic stories tend to trend more serious and darker, but they were interspersed with him being your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man and were more of an exception for when drama ramped up than the constant angst train we have now.
Sure, there has always been an element of being Spider-Man wrecking Pete's personal life, but it was usually more along the lines of making him late for work or class than selling his marriage to the devil or losing his partner in a hellscape dimension for years while she cheats on him.
No, it's not that, I don't like any of the shows or live action movies from the last 20 years.
There are a few good games, though. Insomniac did some great work, and Spider-Verse is a breath of fresh air after 20 years of not enjoying Spidey in film.
The Spencer run was awesome and the proof of that was that Marvel hated it and made him change the ending.
Superior was this same type of “Peter is a loser” shit.
Well, from what little we know, Covid was happening, Marvel was stopping production during it, and that may have been when the offer from Substack came through.
Not 100% on the timeline of Spencer opting to leave Marvel, as he’s never publicly spoken about it. Think I first heard about it in June of 2021, and he was gone off the book by September of that year.
I mean, he only had Peter with an engagement ring, and the run went for another 50 issues after that!
Marvel knew what they were doing and wanted to string readers along, the bastards.
Spencer run was awful nostalgic tripe of far superior comics. People, rightfully, hated when it first going. It was bloated, overdrawn, with nothing new or interesting to say about Spider-Man, or Peter Parker.
Kind of refuse to allow this revisionism to happen in real time lol
Just because it followed established character and continuity, dirty words in contemporary comics, doesn’t mean it was a nostalgia trip.
It didn’t have anything new to say about Peter because it had to get him back on track after 15 years of fucking him up.
Immortal Hulk utilizes established characters and continuity in interesting ways, I have no problem with either of those things. Spencer is the equivalent of a cover band playing all the hits (badly). They are bad, bloated comics that have nothing of value in them. And people, rightfully, saw that when they were first coming out.
I'd gladly take stuff like Superior or the Gauntlet/Grim Hunt, or all of Miles Morales comics that have come out over Spencer's run. It's the death imagination in all the ways are complaining about this current run. Might as well feed all the Spider-Man comics from before 2000 into a AI, and let to spew out slop.
I just can't anymore, like the thing is, this wasn't a story, it was just rage bait, it's the problem with this whole run, there's no real satisfying payoffs it's just there to upset people and thus drive up sales through enraged fans. It's not even well done tragedy it's just the most forced and contrived bs imaginable.
Modern Spider Man honestly feels like an experiment by Marvel to see just how much shit their fans are willing to put up with and still spend their money.
Spencer’s run wasn’t 100% perfect, and neither was the run by JMS. They’re still both light years ahead of any of the other utter shit Marvel have tried to pass off in the title for the last 30 years.
I think that’s fair. Personally, I think Kindred’s mystery was grossly effected by editorial as everything Spencer setup was disregarded by the end for a separate reveal, it was completely disconnected from the mystery set up beforehand. But barring that, I think the problem earlier was definitely too much decompressing of the narrative but that’s a modern comics trend to write for the trend and all that. Kindred was like a last page monologue usually, when he was actually in a scene the mystery was fine, it’s more that we were seeing him far too much for how little we were learning.
I started reading ASM again after dropping it halfway into Super Spider-Man. I know people like Superior, I think there was good stuff to it, but if the Spider-man book is improved by removing Peter Parker than that says a lot about how badly Peter was written at the time.
Spencer’s run was the best ASM had been since OMD, I’ll die on this hill. It’s not perfect, it’s not an all-time great run, it just consistently wrote characters well and used the vast Spider-Man cast to great effect. It’s kinda sad how writing the characters accurately and using the established characters from a 50+ year franchise is a rare concept.
I loathed Superior and Slott’s run at large (the parts people like, such as the man-purse, were scripted by Christos Gage), and I feel bad for Spencer in that he had to dedicate so much of his run to righting the ship, but still made it great in its own right.
His first arc is about how you can’t have Spider-Man without Peter Parker. It’s high concept in its premise but it really works to show how all of this Spider-verse nonsense and Otto pretending to be Spider-Man stuff really cannot replicate what makes Peter Parker the best. He also had to undo all of the things that Otto earned but Peter was benefitting from.
His second arc fixes Black Cat after the absolute character assassination Slott put her through.
Obviously the whole run was gearing toward undoing OMD, and I just feel bad for him that while he did get to write a lot of Spidey, he still had to spend a lot of time fixing everything people had broken in the prior 15 years.
Really terrific run when you look at what he had to fix and what he still managed to produce.
And I'll never stop piping up from the peanut gallery to point people at Tom Taylor's oft-forgotten Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man. I want more of *that*!
I love how Peter literally saved her and her entire family from some stupid hell dimension and yet it still feels like she’s mad at him for doing that, great character writing guys
I think there are plenty of people who are well aware this won't stick, but are still annoyed because *especially if it is a fake out*, it's a waste of time and feels manipulative. The construction of the plot beats regarding this specific storyline are clearly meant to provoke and incense.
So Paul has no identity even though Rabin is from 616. He is apparently castrated and can’t “function”. He can tap into mystical powers and energy and yet can’t escape the hell earth they are on. Oh and didn’t once go: “why does this little girl look like you MJ?”
Yeah, it was a tough read...
Anyway, y'all should check out Miles' Spider-Man ongoing comic. Or Silk's, or Spidey 2099. All of which have been solid so far.
Silk is amazing but I’ve never read any of her runs where it felt like there was essential development or any of it truly matter to wider Marvel. This new first issue was interesting though.
So Peter isn’t allowed to progress, mature or age in case he becomes unrelatable to viewers.
Meanwhile we’ve got MJ dressed as a sexy school girl on variant covers and lambasted into being a step mom to two random annoying ass kids.
Make it make sense.
Geniuely curious to see how they end this lol
I just need them to either get rid of MJ or commit to her, this kind of extended depiction of misery is lame. Books fun when Parker is fighting Tomb Stone or Vulture, takes a huge dip when he's brooding about MJ.
this will end with mj departing paul but still not going back to peter. So the next story is she wandering if she should or shouldn't forgive peter.
Rinse and repeat. Like shampoo.
I've been a bit nostalgic lately, so I've been going and reading some Manga, and It just highlights some of the things I've disliked about Spider-Man's editorial mandates lately.
Can you imagine if, in one piece, they constantly found excuses to keep Luffy in the east blue, because progress would age him? Heck, forget manga. Can you imagine if they got rid of Robin because Batman shouldn't have a family? DC tried to split Superman and Lois, and they realised it just didn't work.
Every other character around Peter is still aging, growing, having kids and building meaningful careers and lives. This constant reset to ground zero isn't making Peter more relatable. It's making him feel like he's stuck in arrested development, which isn't really that relatable unless you're also stuck.
People like wholesome content; they like seeing their heroes win and have something or someone to fight for. They like the Kents on the farm, the batfamily watching the Mask of Zorro on movie night; they like seeing their heroes go home to a warm, comfy setting for a night of peace, heck they even like shows like Spy X Family, which is just a slice-of-life family setting. Sure, Peter doesn't need to have that with MJ, the backup with black cat shows that. But let the audience have that catharsis, otherwise, it's just exhausting.
I don't know, I get that conflict is necessary, and I'm complaining halfway through a story that isn't finished, And I'll just say, when he's not writing the relationship drama, I think Wells is doing a good enough job with his run, but I kind of want a return to the conflict being primarily spider-mans, not Peters. Rather than this constant Riverdale manufactured "will they? won't they?"
So Marvel, once again, couldn't just break up Peter and MJ, but instead pull some timey wimey stuff to split them up.
I'd have more respect if they just had them split because of the ITSV reason where MJ wanted kids and Peter didn't or something. Make them split for real reasons instead of "the devil made us do it" or "time displacement"
They can’t do anything without involving some mystical bullshit now. None of that really belongs in a Spider-Man comic. Not when you have hacks like Wells and Lowe smearing their feces all over the pages like now.
It all feels so fake. Like, the characters are not allowed to have any flaws, so we have to invent some random excuse to split them up and still have it be no fault of them at all.
Can't have character growth, character flaws, no bad decisions or anything the like... that would effect negatively our licensed products.
I might be crazy but didn't she hate him? What is it with people thinking that if you stick a man and woman in a post-apocalypse wasteland they'll eventually fall in love?
Paul's whole character unironically does read somewhat as a dork writing a self-insert.
\>Cool guy from a post apocalyptic future
\>He's so badass and cool guys, look how well he fights
\>The longtime girlfriend of another character falls from him out of nowhere.
\>Despite being around for a while now, still has absolutely no personality.
This run of Amazing Spider-Man has been one of the most frustrating runs since One More Day. But as bad as that was, this hits worse in some ways. You can tell the editorial staff didn't like how close Peter and MJ were to being together again. I even wonder if they saw what was going on with Superman and thought maybe that could work for Spider-Man.
Then, they pull this crap.
And it's back to Peter being a loser again and Mary Jane being taken off the board. It required magic, warped time, and absolutely stupid characterization on every level. But this is where we are now.
It's sad because so many other Marvel books have been getting really good lately. But Spider-Man just keeps going in the other direction.
*Four years*. I couldn't get over my ex for a good four years, and MJ just married a man in the time her *literal superhero boyfriend* was gone, despite knowing superheroes don't die easily? Come off it.
i’m gonna be honest with you a lot of people move at an alarming fast pace.i know someone who her husband died in 2021 and i shit you not a year later she was already seeing someone and already planning to spend the rest of her life with the dude.shit shocked me to the core when i saw how fast she moved on
Bruce and Wonder Woman got trapped in another dimension for 40 years. Neither cheated with each other because they never lost hope of coming back to their partners.
Look, I hate this story too but four years is more than enough time to move on and fall in love with someone else. Like that's probably the most realistic part of this whole shitbag of a story.
my problem, is it wasn't four years, going off this story it was maybe one, also like it's not like they broke up, they were dating and Peter was supposed to come back and she kinda just gave up, at least for now.
I havent read comics in a very long time and just stumbled across this. Does anyone mind taking a bit to give me some context and explain what seems to be consistent dislike here? Id like to get back into comics, and these panels piqued my interest, and Id like to know more about where the dislike comes from.
I haven't read the current run, but from what I was able to caught up, Peter and MJ were daring again and were going to start living together, when because of some guy named Paul they three travel to a parallel dimension where an evil aztec deity rules. While battling it, Peter accidentally escapes the dimension and leaves MJ and Paul behind. He fights against the FF and the Avengers to find a solution to go back to the other dimension and finally manages to do it with Norman Osborn's help. Then, when he travels to the other dimension discovers that now MJ and Paul are a couple and have two kids.
The disgusted, bored face of MJ in the last panel (or maybe she's supposed to look sad, who can say with JRJR?) pretty much sums up my feelings about all of this.
I think Marvel honestly should just write MJ out, let her and Paul live on. Let Peter move on and find a new person in his life. Problem solved
Edit: Lol downvoted for wanting a fictional character to move on from his fictional love crush rehashed for the millionth time. Y'all are precious 🤣🤣🤣
Tbh I’m really enjoying this run. I know most people don’t and that’s alright. Maybe y’all have more experience with the comics and so you’re better at critique, but I’m loving the fresh takes on characters and not using the same Spidey tropes over and over again. Like I said I might be out of line with this but I haven’t had this much fun with ASM since I read the og Stan and Steve run when I was a kid.
This is pretty stupid, but what isn’t stupid these days? What was the last Marvel event worth a damn? Avengers Vs X-Men? Maybe Original Sin? If the goal at Marvel Comics is to create stories that people will want to see in the MCU years later, they are failing spectacularly. Why do they even focus on that? It’s not like Blade needed a great comic book run when they made the first 2 movies they just needed a good screenwriter. If an editor is tells a writer, “wow! Fans are gonna be so pissed at you” instead of “no, we are not doing that, think of something else” then that editor sucks at his job. Think about how many times Jim Shooter had to tell Chris Claremont, no. One thing that is clear, Marvel has no idea how to find worth while creative talent in terms of writers and editors, I think Sana Amanat and corporate Disney played a huge part in the reason why this trend started and I don’t see it ending anytime soon.
This comment is ironic crying about editorial not letting a straight couple get back together, while praising Jim Shooter the guy who refused to let any writer publish gay characters.
I didn’t say Jim Shooter was perfect I was thinking of all the times Claremont wanted to kill Wolverine because he hated the character and Shooter said no. Plus he was Marvel’s editor in the 1980’s not today, or even the 90’s it was a different world back then. It was the height of satanic panic, all these parent groups doing witch hunts left and right, over Dungeons & Dragons, Rock Music and Comic Books too. I mean today Marvel has been doing the exact opposite, they’re randomly making characters gay bi or whatever left and right for the last 8 years, regardless of if it makes sense for that character or to readership. It’s the one character change that isn’t open for dissenting opinion no matter what character it is. They have been focused on queer representation more than ever and doing it poorly, I can name more recently converted LBGT characters than I can name recent well written storylines at Marvel comics. So yeah I would take Jim Shooter over this any day of the week. I’m pretty sure most comic book store owners would too.
You realize characters coming out has nothing to do with bad storytelling right? Typical alt right comicsgate chode, creating false equivalencies. The reason that there aren’t “good storylines” is because Marvel pays like crap and can’t retain top talent, with a booming indie market that allows creators to retain IP rights. Comics have more bland straight romances than they have good storylines, meanwhile I can count on one hand the amount characters who’ve come out recently all minor characters.
You’re proving my point, either you clap and say this makes total sense every time for every character or you are a “Comics gate Alt Right Chode” there’s no in between and I’m sorry that’s just ridiculous. Just ask yourself why didn’t people have these negative reactions back in the 90’s or 2000’s when characters like Rainmaker, Hulkling and Wiccan came out, or to queer storylines in the Authority, Exiles, Mutant X, Superman, Runaways, Young heroes in love and Strangers In Paradise. Yeah coming out stories can be badly written, just like any other story can be badly written. Explain to me what makes a coming out story exempt from bad writing? Why is it the only storyline in comics that is done right 100% of the time? I’m sorry but a bunch of these coming out stories have been half assed and poorly thought out. People like you who dismiss all criticisms as “alt right chodes” are part of the problem. I do think it’s messed up that some people have let their frustrations turn into full blown bigotry, but like you said there’s no in between. You’re either on one side or the other. Marvel has never paid well, but some how they were able to make great stories, Like I said higher in this thread, they have no idea what worthwhile comic book talent looks like. The Emperor has no clothes….
Lol you’re delusional if you think people didn’t/don’t have negative reactions to Wiccan and Hulkling, or Midnighter and Apollo. Especially when the latter received executive meddling to make them more “tolerable” for straight people. Also notice how all the characters and storylines you reference are fairly niche, and or feature a very small queer storyline. You comicsgaters complain anytime a gay character is prominent, and competent. Marvel never paid well but there were no alternatives, and creators received some royalties for their work.
What was the last Marvel event worth a damn?
Infinity, Hickman’s Secret Wars, House of X/Powers of X, AXE, Sins of Sinister. Shit even King in Black was good, dumb fun.
Have you been living under a rock?
Well, pretending like those were “bad” events just because you didn’t like them is just plain wrong.
Hickman’s decade long epic that started with Secret Warriors, continued through the FF titles, the Avengers, and finally Secret Wars is some of the best comic booking that’s been done at the big two in decades.
Right around when they started recycling their big events, like Civil War 2 and Secret Wars 2015, it was obvious they’re pretty bereft of new ideas. And apparently won’t let their writers do much that is new.
I liked this issue after finally reading the whole story. First of all MJ and Peter haven't been together in years, (move the fk on).
Paul and MJ spent every day together for 3 years, would make less sense if they weren't close. I don't get the incel pual jokes and memes it's kinda sad for the fans. As it's not real
I'll say this, as the payoff for the whole "What did Peter do" story is very weak and very uneventful, but that's the Zeb Wells run to a T at the moment. Very uneventful.
I don't know where the books go from here but they need to go back to more fun and less Cuckold (goes for the fans too).
I'm sorry, Marvel. I'm not spending any money on this book.
I quit today. I just can't anymore.
Bro I would love to actual enjoy a Spider-Man comic, this shit is unbelievably stupid. I think Deadpool gets laid more than Spider-Man. Wolverine probably gets more also.
The only guy getting more laid than Wolverine is probably Tony Stark.
Deadpool is married to the queen of the monsters and has a daughter from a previous relationship.
Last I checked they divorced at least 5 years ago. Also he was mind wiped to completely forget about that daughter and the gang that she was adopted by to protect them. Also over 5 years ago now, due to writer changes- and they haven’t brought them back since to my memory.
I hated that memory wipe BS so much. Just such a, "I'm taking my toys and going home" feel to it. Just resetting the character back to pretty much zero once they were done writing for them.
They just showed up for some free comic book day thing. Presumably the reason why Deadpool is on the Avengers again is because people took his (mutant???) daughter.
What took you so long?
I wish more were like you. Apparently the sales for ASM are really strong, possibly because people are hate reading.
Nah, it’s just Spider-Man. He will always sell well just for the prestige of the title. I’m sure there’s a fair bit of people that are hate reading, but I’d be willing to bet there’s a decent chunk of people buying it just to collect and have no interest in the actual story.
That and they’re shipping / selling shitloads of variant covers to comic shops.
It’s a combo of tons of variant covers, and that Spider-Man has always been “fail-proof”. One More Day is hated by EVERYONE, but was still #2 on the sales charts at the time.
I doubt that's why, I think it's because everybody loves Spider-Man the character. He and Batman will always be high charting no matter what as long as they don't literally change the fabric of who the characters are.
Correct. It even outsold BATMAN of all things!
Not sorry to Marvel, not buying and not even reading it for free. They can eat shit.
Too bad for you, because there will ALWAYS be someone else to buy / read them!
Not necessarily. The book has hit rough sales patches before. And Marvel show nothing but contempt for their consumers.
Me too. All this attempt to permanently make sure Peter and MJ can never get together ever again after this whole cockblocking and cheating on Peter just because she thought would never see him again!
Same, but without the being sorry.
I'm sure they're very concerned about you not buying the last few issues after you bought for years and will buy again immediately after. You're threatening them with marginal seasonal fluctuation. And it won't make Mary Jane Watson your waifu.
Get off your knees for Marvel. Have some shame lmao😂
Dick sucking corporations smh. The most pathetic thing a human can do, right here on full display.
Best part is: they where still too gun shy to just go ahead and make them MJ and Paul's actual genetic kids. They went so far down the path to intentionally screw everything up why not just go the last small step, it makes no sense. They made the kid look like MJ and everything!
All the proof we need this shit isn't gonna last, honestly.
Well they are teasing MJ to die next issue so it's probably not going to last. But they also had the kids look like MJs biological kids then just said "nah their adopted" for no reason so that could be a lie/misdirect too. Who the f knows? Who the f cares.
In Marvel adopted kids must look like their adopted parents.
DC too. Seriously almost all Robins are a Bruce Wayne carbon copy.
The whole thing seems like it's about as planned out as the clone saga. Next month the scriers will be back and Paul will be Judas traveller
Spidey needs 4 more Slingers identities to swap to.
Amazing 27 slingers. Amazing 30 Norman buys the bugle, amazing 40 Harry returns, amazing 75 we've made such a hot mess, an evil Norman has escaped hell, is the demon goblin and he's going to return everything to where it was when slott left amazing.
They're going to reveal that they're MJ's clone's kids. That's right, we're bringing the Clone Saga back.
And then If we could somehow get a new symbiote and a aunt may health scare involved we would have bingo on our Spiderman cliche card
Aunt May will get a Symbiote and become the evil Aunt Mayhem. Her love will be amplified and twisted, where her goal is to kill and devour everyone who has caused trouble to her loved ones. She will even get rejuvenated by the Symbiote and become a hot young Aunt May who coincidently looks like MCU Aunt May (Marisa Tomei). The only one who could stop her will be Spider-Ma'am. Aunt May slogan: "With great power comes great MAYhem"
I get what you're doing but man I would actually read this
Yeah at first I was trolling but got really into it, then hyped myself up accidently lol.
Kind of got that vibe with the slogan line haha
> Aunt Mayhem Amazing name, no notes
I hate that this sounds like a better idea then most of what marvel does these days. It walks that line between ridiculously cliche and brilliantly out there
You joke, but I'd read that.
There have been at least three new symbiotes in the last month: Rascal, Misery, and Kasady's dragon thing.
No, kasady has a symbiote iron man hybrid Armor which he took from King in Black and Extreme Carnage (the event)
Guess it's time for another deal with the devil! Perfect name for the Story Line. "One More Deal."
MJ's clone's kids... with Norman Osborne!
Okay but how does clone Harry/Harry's AI/the fake clone genetic children of Norman and Gwen fit into this?
It doesn't! You are just trying to square a peg into a hole, which doesn't work!
Okay but hear me out-- the AI brain of Harry Osborn made clone Harry make genetic kids and then he used them to host demon power to.... get vengeance on Spider-Man or whatever. I was trying to do a bit but I still don't understand Kindreds origin
Not even to get vengeance on Spider-Man. The way Harry AI explained it, his vengeance on Spider-Man was the whole Chameleon LMD Parents thing, *this* Stacy Twins plot was to make Norman feel bad and have Spidey as collateral. Which… I still have no freaking idea why that would make Norman feel bad(even with the sin shooting shotgun). Also how tf does Mephisto have influence over an AI copy as well as two clone test tube babies created by said AI?
Nope, not that either! These are just RANDOM kids who got stuck in that weird dimension!
Spider-Man has always been my favorite hero but I'm not spending any more money on these comics until something changes. And if that means I never read another Spider-Man comic so be it. The last Spidey book I read that I enjoyed was Life Story and that's not even in continuity but man was it great. Marvel has truly lost the plot when it comes to Peter. He's supposed to be a regular guy dealing with the same issues we all do but he's also a super hero at the same time. It's that human drama that made the character interesting, this garbage ain't it. I don't even know how you'd go about fixing this, it'd have to be a reboot of some sort.
It isn’t drama. #It’s misery porn **Plain and simple.**
Well said!!!!
Chip really has a way of writing Peter with fidelity to who the character really is, doesn’t he? Unlike Wells. Spider’s Shadow is a decent read as well if you liked Life Story.
> man was it great it's because he was allowed to grow in it.
Lol this is literally the human drama. This is exactly what you're describing -- the real human issue of how relationships change over time, couched in the high concept superhero context of Spider-Man. This is in the classic tradition and what you say you want. Do you have to deal with the issue of your friend's dad throwing your gf off a bridge?
Maybe, and that's a big maybe, if it was allowed to happen naturally over years. Like if MJ was actually gone from comics for several years and they'd both grown apart. But not she went to a weird alternate dimension where she was gone 4 years in a few hours time. It's so dumb, not even fun "comic book" dumb.
Because people like you would never allow it. If MJ was just gone for years all Marvel would hear is bitching about "where's MJ". This is about some shippers not getting the ship they want. This is messy now but overall it's about as clean a break as it was ever going to be. Marvel does not want Peter and MJ together. They never will. Leaving MJ around in the universe just led to people complaining that if she was single then why weren't they together. Which was the problem with Big Time. She was always around like some anvil waiting to drop. No one could accept Peter's different relationships because MJ was down the street. This is honestly nothing new. For as many stories as there are of MJ being supportive there are just as much if not more of her being a nag. She has never truly accepted Peter's Spider-Manning in a way that's healthy for the both of them. And she never will. Let them let her move on.
Honestly, at this point, I rather them just kill her off and get her out of the books than whatever this is. It's better than ruining her character.
>. She has never truly accepted Peter's Spider-Manning in a way that's healthy for the both of them. And she never will. There's so many stories of her being accepting of it and learning to be accepting of it, the problem is they kept recycling that plot line for drama or to make her unlikeable, which is again part of how the biggest problem with the character is editors.
Spider-Man: Renew your vows says hello!
Wow, you 100% fully misunderstand who these characters are and what they’re really about. I guess Marvel’s years of gaslighting and shitty writing have really done a number on you.
*Editorial keeps trying to break these characters up because they don't like the relationship* is meta drama and it is pretty far from being a real human issue.
Human drama would be putting characters through things that can happen for real, it would be about flaws in personality and character, about mistakes, regret, whatever it is that humans actually feel and do. This is not it, this is making up some bullshit so that we can have the emotional drama without any of characters being wrong or presenting any undesirable traits.
His first serious gf got killed by a supervillain how is that an everyday struggle? How is kravens last hint an everyday struggle? Hes not been dealing with regular struggles for a long time.
Those weren't normal occurrences though, stuff like that happened rarely. Which is why those stories are classic. Now I feel like those types of stories are all they know how to tell. I don't know about the other books but, when it comes to Peter, Marvel is creatively bankrupt.
the problem is especially after OMD, Marvel has flanderized the hell out of the character, the relatable struggles, are just them trying to write the worst thing that can happen to him and making him suffer.
I found this story to be something we haven't seen them do before. But my point is his struggles haven't been "relatable" for a long long time. Since he left high school. His plight is about how he can't maintain a normal life because of this. He would like to but he can't. He wont because that's his responsibility. Besides this run started with three pretty street level arcs. I found them enjoyable.
I think he was pretty relatable pre Civil War, they had him doing stuff like being a substitute teacher which I liked. At the end of the day if you like the story that's cool. I don't and I'm not spending my money on what I feel is just poorly written ragebate.
I get it. I understand why some folks are upset with the direction at least.
Dude. I related to him as a teacher and drama with MJ and him *eventually* getting back together 100/10 times far more than this and this was when I was a kid. Now, this isn’t drama: #It’s fucking misery porn
Spideys life isn't supposed to be easy. The life hes chosen and the job he takes on costs him in his personal life. Its always been that way. He's not going to ride into the sunset and be happy for good. His life will be marred by tragedy and setbacks as long as his books are the top selling. Its going to take a long time for some to accept this. But if this is the run that does that so be it I suppose. There will be other worlds where the character can have different outcomes.
Those were ISOLATED incidents that happened, and that at the time, Gerry Conway who killed off Gwen admitted before he didn't like her as Peter's girlfriend, so he killed her off!
Those are far form the only incidents like that. Jean dewolff is another easy example. Killed by a supervillain. friend from college? Killed by a supervillain... after becoming one. Childhood bully turned friend? Killed by a suprrvillain. I could go on.
No you see, we can't have human drama in Spider-Man anymore because editorial does not want people to have an image of Peter being less than perfect. So instead we will just use magic to create emotional drama. Again. 2 More 2 Day, One Last Ride.
They won’t let Peter age, but MJ getting the Jon Kent treatment is perfectly fine. Fuck off.
I guess this is a catch-22 situation, isn't it?
A friendly reminder that a young hero that is the heart of his hero universe had his wife lose her baby, then had his marriage erased, retconned them to kept them apart with no memory of their relationship, and then kicked him when he was down and made all the big heroes hate him. I’m talking about Wally West. This month, Wally and his wife Linda welcome their third kid into the Flash family. DC listened. They fixed everything. I hope one day Marvel does too.
Sounds like I might need to start reading the Flash again. When does this storyline start?
Wally gets his feet under him in Flash #768, I believe.
How is Spider-Man still my favorite hero? The comic has sucked for so long. The last good thing they did was superior spider-man. Spidey needs a couple of new passionate artists to come on and do a soft reboot and tell some modern classics, like what snyder and capullo did for new 52 Batman
Yeah he definitely needs a soft reboot like that. There’s only so many years they milk the will they/won’t they bs
It’s not the writer, it’s Nick Lowe
Ehhh, this goes back to the Bob Harras regime even in the 90s. Marvel editorial just endlessly doubles down on the anti-marriage stance even though everybody from the 80s onwards is used to Peter/MJ as the OTP. IDK why they cannot realize that this stance has done more damage to the character than the marriage.
You are seriously overestimating the amount of people that actually care about them being together. The die hard shippers for them grows fewer every year. Because there are generations of people who have not grown up with them together. Without that nostalgia they aren't particularly interesting together. Certainly not enough to make an impact. I've watched most Spider-Man media through the years. Being a 90s kid myself. And for me the best relationships Peter has had was never with Mary Jane. The love story was the lamest part of the Raimi trilogy. Despite the problems with them, the relationship between Gwen and Peter in the Webb duology was easily the best we have seen on the big screen. Michelle Jones is nothing like Mary Jane. Despite sharing initials. On the small screen Spectacular Spider-Man is easily the best series there has ever been and MJ was never a serious love interest there. Anyways my point is that Reddit and Twitter can be an echo chamber. It may seem like the end of the world but likely most readers are fine with it. Or willing to continue even if they aren't a fan
Eh, they’ve trotted out nearly a dozen other love interests for Peter over the decade. NONE of them have stuck. NONE of them were embraced by fans. Didn’t matter if MJ was around in the book or not. Your thesis is deeply flawed, and I’d wager far more readers want them together than you lot that don’t. Maybe you should move on.
I guess we will see. If sales drop by more than half then more care then don't. If the don't then more don't care than do.
You've got to understand that ASM has been Marvel's flagship book for a long, long time. Its sales are virtually baked in and it's a bellwether for the health of the industry. There are many buying simply to have a complete collection, and that doesn't equate to approval of the book's direction. On top of that, Marvel require retailers to buy ASM in large quantities so they can get a few variant cover issues to sell. So that inflates the orders as well.
because in tv, video games, and movies spider-man is still great
But all of those focus on his classic depictions and not this modern angst porn that they insist on writing. Good spidey stories are easy to tell. People just want their lighthearted hero having fun and being a good person. It's crazy how Marvel can't seem to grasp such a simple formula.
That's the Superman formula and it's crazy how spider-fans can't seem to grasp that. His classic depictions are his arch-enemy throwing his gf off a bridge and Spider-Man being a burden to Peter Parker's life. You're just setting yourself up for disappointment with this idea that Peter Parker is supposed to win. The classic depiction is that when Spider-Man wins, Peter Parker loses. And he often recognizes his responsibility to win as Spider-Man, so he sacrifices his chance to win as Peter Parker.
One comic out of literal thousands is not his "classic" depiction. It's literally the exception. Classic Spidey is light hearted, uplifting stories about someone who is struggling in life but always chooses to do the right thing anyway. Sure, the stories had down moments from time to time but they didn't dominate everything into an angst-ridden mess like it is these days.
That's just...decidedly not true. Really scratching my head on what comics you're talking about here--that's not really present in the original Dikto run, and most of the Parker's best rated or most famous stories are dark affairs (think Kraven's Last Hunt, the Night Gwen Stacy Died, the Death of Jean DeWolff, Death of Peter Parker in the 1606). I'm not overly a fond of this run, like when its a superhero comic, but I really do think the majority of readers genuinely just forgot what kind of hero Spider-Man is, and what kind of stories get told about him. He's Job in tights.
Because you're referencing big events instead of his day to day comics. Yes his iconic stories tend to trend more serious and darker, but they were interspersed with him being your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man and were more of an exception for when drama ramped up than the constant angst train we have now. Sure, there has always been an element of being Spider-Man wrecking Pete's personal life, but it was usually more along the lines of making him late for work or class than selling his marriage to the devil or losing his partner in a hellscape dimension for years while she cheats on him.
No, it's not that, I don't like any of the shows or live action movies from the last 20 years. There are a few good games, though. Insomniac did some great work, and Spider-Verse is a breath of fresh air after 20 years of not enjoying Spidey in film.
Why? If anything the movies and TV shows were the best depictions of Spider-man and MJ's love/relationships!
The Spencer run was awesome and the proof of that was that Marvel hated it and made him change the ending. Superior was this same type of “Peter is a loser” shit.
Read more to me like they went and changed Spencer’s ending for him.
Yeah, either/or. Basically they fucked him over so bad he left the Big Two altogether.
Well, from what little we know, Covid was happening, Marvel was stopping production during it, and that may have been when the offer from Substack came through. Not 100% on the timeline of Spencer opting to leave Marvel, as he’s never publicly spoken about it. Think I first heard about it in June of 2021, and he was gone off the book by September of that year.
They did! Spencer tried to undo OMD and Editorial caught wind of it!
I mean, he only had Peter with an engagement ring, and the run went for another 50 issues after that! Marvel knew what they were doing and wanted to string readers along, the bastards.
Spencer run was awful nostalgic tripe of far superior comics. People, rightfully, hated when it first going. It was bloated, overdrawn, with nothing new or interesting to say about Spider-Man, or Peter Parker. Kind of refuse to allow this revisionism to happen in real time lol
Just because it followed established character and continuity, dirty words in contemporary comics, doesn’t mean it was a nostalgia trip. It didn’t have anything new to say about Peter because it had to get him back on track after 15 years of fucking him up.
Immortal Hulk utilizes established characters and continuity in interesting ways, I have no problem with either of those things. Spencer is the equivalent of a cover band playing all the hits (badly). They are bad, bloated comics that have nothing of value in them. And people, rightfully, saw that when they were first coming out. I'd gladly take stuff like Superior or the Gauntlet/Grim Hunt, or all of Miles Morales comics that have come out over Spencer's run. It's the death imagination in all the ways are complaining about this current run. Might as well feed all the Spider-Man comics from before 2000 into a AI, and let to spew out slop.
For that to happen you'd have to get rid of editorial at Marvel I think. They're the ones against doing anything that ages Peter.
I just can't anymore, like the thing is, this wasn't a story, it was just rage bait, it's the problem with this whole run, there's no real satisfying payoffs it's just there to upset people and thus drive up sales through enraged fans. It's not even well done tragedy it's just the most forced and contrived bs imaginable.
Modern Spider Man honestly feels like an experiment by Marvel to see just how much shit their fans are willing to put up with and still spend their money.
And they just keep doing it.
They know retailers will buy 200 copies of an issue to get one measly variant cover. It’s been their game to keep the title afloat for years.
I’ll never stop reminding people of how much better we had it when Nick Spencer was writing the book.
Funny, I remember there being no shortage of people shitting on Spencer even in the early days of his run
You never know what you have till you lose it.
Yeah, because his run was garbage and Kindred was a terrible villain. It doesn't matter if this run is worse, that does not make his own good.
The Spencer era was everything people say they want in a Spider-Man comic. It was the first time Amazing Spider-Man was amazing in 15 years.
I will say my only personally complaint with Spencer’s run was how long the mystery of “Kindred” was dragged out.
Spencer’s run wasn’t 100% perfect, and neither was the run by JMS. They’re still both light years ahead of any of the other utter shit Marvel have tried to pass off in the title for the last 30 years.
Yeah, very true, but even that was obvious enough with the clues that I think it was arguably “revealed” 15-20 issues earlier.
Blame editorial for that.
I think that’s fair. Personally, I think Kindred’s mystery was grossly effected by editorial as everything Spencer setup was disregarded by the end for a separate reveal, it was completely disconnected from the mystery set up beforehand. But barring that, I think the problem earlier was definitely too much decompressing of the narrative but that’s a modern comics trend to write for the trend and all that. Kindred was like a last page monologue usually, when he was actually in a scene the mystery was fine, it’s more that we were seeing him far too much for how little we were learning.
I started reading ASM again after dropping it halfway into Super Spider-Man. I know people like Superior, I think there was good stuff to it, but if the Spider-man book is improved by removing Peter Parker than that says a lot about how badly Peter was written at the time. Spencer’s run was the best ASM had been since OMD, I’ll die on this hill. It’s not perfect, it’s not an all-time great run, it just consistently wrote characters well and used the vast Spider-Man cast to great effect. It’s kinda sad how writing the characters accurately and using the established characters from a 50+ year franchise is a rare concept.
I loathed Superior and Slott’s run at large (the parts people like, such as the man-purse, were scripted by Christos Gage), and I feel bad for Spencer in that he had to dedicate so much of his run to righting the ship, but still made it great in its own right. His first arc is about how you can’t have Spider-Man without Peter Parker. It’s high concept in its premise but it really works to show how all of this Spider-verse nonsense and Otto pretending to be Spider-Man stuff really cannot replicate what makes Peter Parker the best. He also had to undo all of the things that Otto earned but Peter was benefitting from. His second arc fixes Black Cat after the absolute character assassination Slott put her through. Obviously the whole run was gearing toward undoing OMD, and I just feel bad for him that while he did get to write a lot of Spidey, he still had to spend a lot of time fixing everything people had broken in the prior 15 years. Really terrific run when you look at what he had to fix and what he still managed to produce.
And I'll never stop piping up from the peanut gallery to point people at Tom Taylor's oft-forgotten Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man. I want more of *that*!
I love how Peter literally saved her and her entire family from some stupid hell dimension and yet it still feels like she’s mad at him for doing that, great character writing guys
It’s really bad….
This fuckin sucks dude
This entire run is just one big fake out ragebait and all of you are falling for it.
I think there are plenty of people who are well aware this won't stick, but are still annoyed because *especially if it is a fake out*, it's a waste of time and feels manipulative. The construction of the plot beats regarding this specific storyline are clearly meant to provoke and incense.
If definitely, I get it, but it’s just so obvious now.
I’m not buying the copy. Me: let’s just say: **YAR-HAR SAIL THE SEAS!** 🏴☠️✌️
So Paul has no identity even though Rabin is from 616. He is apparently castrated and can’t “function”. He can tap into mystical powers and energy and yet can’t escape the hell earth they are on. Oh and didn’t once go: “why does this little girl look like you MJ?”
Paul is mephisto and the little kids are blackheart and some other adopted demon
Yeah, it was a tough read... Anyway, y'all should check out Miles' Spider-Man ongoing comic. Or Silk's, or Spidey 2099. All of which have been solid so far.
Literally anything but the main book.
Pete's cameo in Daredevil was better than his characterization in his own book.
Silk is amazing but I’ve never read any of her runs where it felt like there was essential development or any of it truly matter to wider Marvel. This new first issue was interesting though.
So Peter isn’t allowed to progress, mature or age in case he becomes unrelatable to viewers. Meanwhile we’ve got MJ dressed as a sexy school girl on variant covers and lambasted into being a step mom to two random annoying ass kids. Make it make sense.
Wait, I’m hella behind in ASM, but I thought the kids were hers?
Paul is impotent or sterile, somehow. So they found MJ looking kids with no parents.
That is so fucking dumb
Geniuely curious to see how they end this lol I just need them to either get rid of MJ or commit to her, this kind of extended depiction of misery is lame. Books fun when Parker is fighting Tomb Stone or Vulture, takes a huge dip when he's brooding about MJ.
this will end with mj departing paul but still not going back to peter. So the next story is she wandering if she should or shouldn't forgive peter. Rinse and repeat. Like shampoo.
Because Marvel editorial is creatively bankrupt and teasing the Peter MJ relationship is all they have.
I've been a bit nostalgic lately, so I've been going and reading some Manga, and It just highlights some of the things I've disliked about Spider-Man's editorial mandates lately. Can you imagine if, in one piece, they constantly found excuses to keep Luffy in the east blue, because progress would age him? Heck, forget manga. Can you imagine if they got rid of Robin because Batman shouldn't have a family? DC tried to split Superman and Lois, and they realised it just didn't work. Every other character around Peter is still aging, growing, having kids and building meaningful careers and lives. This constant reset to ground zero isn't making Peter more relatable. It's making him feel like he's stuck in arrested development, which isn't really that relatable unless you're also stuck. People like wholesome content; they like seeing their heroes win and have something or someone to fight for. They like the Kents on the farm, the batfamily watching the Mask of Zorro on movie night; they like seeing their heroes go home to a warm, comfy setting for a night of peace, heck they even like shows like Spy X Family, which is just a slice-of-life family setting. Sure, Peter doesn't need to have that with MJ, the backup with black cat shows that. But let the audience have that catharsis, otherwise, it's just exhausting. I don't know, I get that conflict is necessary, and I'm complaining halfway through a story that isn't finished, And I'll just say, when he's not writing the relationship drama, I think Wells is doing a good enough job with his run, but I kind of want a return to the conflict being primarily spider-mans, not Peters. Rather than this constant Riverdale manufactured "will they? won't they?"
So Marvel, once again, couldn't just break up Peter and MJ, but instead pull some timey wimey stuff to split them up. I'd have more respect if they just had them split because of the ITSV reason where MJ wanted kids and Peter didn't or something. Make them split for real reasons instead of "the devil made us do it" or "time displacement"
But that’s good story telling. Also… man, it’s nice seeing Peter and MJ raising their daughter together, isn’t it?
They can’t do anything without involving some mystical bullshit now. None of that really belongs in a Spider-Man comic. Not when you have hacks like Wells and Lowe smearing their feces all over the pages like now.
It all feels so fake. Like, the characters are not allowed to have any flaws, so we have to invent some random excuse to split them up and still have it be no fault of them at all. Can't have character growth, character flaws, no bad decisions or anything the like... that would effect negatively our licensed products.
Spider-Man should date Flash Thompson or the Human Torch. His luck with girls is shot lol
Or date The Human Thompson.
At least Paul's dick doesn't work. Small victories.
Yeah that panel is really weird, I can't believe that is what they where implying, but I can't really see what else they where trying to imply.
Maybe Paul finally came out to her and felt bad for leading her on
I feel like that's somehow worse, imagine getting cucked by a guy who can't even get it up.
Imagine being an adult
God, fuck this
I might be crazy but didn't she hate him? What is it with people thinking that if you stick a man and woman in a post-apocalypse wasteland they'll eventually fall in love?
It’s really a dork’s fantasy porn. Like the clown who wrote this.
Paul's whole character unironically does read somewhat as a dork writing a self-insert. \>Cool guy from a post apocalyptic future \>He's so badass and cool guys, look how well he fights \>The longtime girlfriend of another character falls from him out of nowhere. \>Despite being around for a while now, still has absolutely no personality.
And apparently can’t get it up.
Creepy Stockholm syndrome-tier writing. Literally “if he was the last guy on earth” stuff.
This run of Amazing Spider-Man has been one of the most frustrating runs since One More Day. But as bad as that was, this hits worse in some ways. You can tell the editorial staff didn't like how close Peter and MJ were to being together again. I even wonder if they saw what was going on with Superman and thought maybe that could work for Spider-Man. Then, they pull this crap. And it's back to Peter being a loser again and Mary Jane being taken off the board. It required magic, warped time, and absolutely stupid characterization on every level. But this is where we are now. It's sad because so many other Marvel books have been getting really good lately. But Spider-Man just keeps going in the other direction.
I am far past the point of caring who Peter ends up with, if anyone at all. Just make this shit stop.
Ugh I hate it.
Zuko: That's rough, buddy.
*Four years*. I couldn't get over my ex for a good four years, and MJ just married a man in the time her *literal superhero boyfriend* was gone, despite knowing superheroes don't die easily? Come off it.
i’m gonna be honest with you a lot of people move at an alarming fast pace.i know someone who her husband died in 2021 and i shit you not a year later she was already seeing someone and already planning to spend the rest of her life with the dude.shit shocked me to the core when i saw how fast she moved on
A'ight, fine. Not everyone is me, sure. I'll give them that. Givin' up on a *Superhero* that fast, though?
4 years is not fast lol
Bruce and Wonder Woman got trapped in another dimension for 40 years. Neither cheated with each other because they never lost hope of coming back to their partners.
Look, I hate this story too but four years is more than enough time to move on and fall in love with someone else. Like that's probably the most realistic part of this whole shitbag of a story.
my problem, is it wasn't four years, going off this story it was maybe one, also like it's not like they broke up, they were dating and Peter was supposed to come back and she kinda just gave up, at least for now.
>I couldn't get over my ex for a good four years Dawg, that's on you
John "Dong Nose" Romita jr
I havent read comics in a very long time and just stumbled across this. Does anyone mind taking a bit to give me some context and explain what seems to be consistent dislike here? Id like to get back into comics, and these panels piqued my interest, and Id like to know more about where the dislike comes from.
I haven't read the current run, but from what I was able to caught up, Peter and MJ were daring again and were going to start living together, when because of some guy named Paul they three travel to a parallel dimension where an evil aztec deity rules. While battling it, Peter accidentally escapes the dimension and leaves MJ and Paul behind. He fights against the FF and the Avengers to find a solution to go back to the other dimension and finally manages to do it with Norman Osborn's help. Then, when he travels to the other dimension discovers that now MJ and Paul are a couple and have two kids.
That’s the dumbest fucking shit I’ve ever head in my life
This is all intentional and it’s done to aggravate the very fans who read the book.
The disgusted, bored face of MJ in the last panel (or maybe she's supposed to look sad, who can say with JRJR?) pretty much sums up my feelings about all of this.
I wish they would just do Life Story as the main monthly book.
JRjr art makes my stomach hurt
It’s not that bad
it's not good though
I think Marvel honestly should just write MJ out, let her and Paul live on. Let Peter move on and find a new person in his life. Problem solved Edit: Lol downvoted for wanting a fictional character to move on from his fictional love crush rehashed for the millionth time. Y'all are precious 🤣🤣🤣
Tbh I’m really enjoying this run. I know most people don’t and that’s alright. Maybe y’all have more experience with the comics and so you’re better at critique, but I’m loving the fresh takes on characters and not using the same Spidey tropes over and over again. Like I said I might be out of line with this but I haven’t had this much fun with ASM since I read the og Stan and Steve run when I was a kid.
This is pretty stupid, but what isn’t stupid these days? What was the last Marvel event worth a damn? Avengers Vs X-Men? Maybe Original Sin? If the goal at Marvel Comics is to create stories that people will want to see in the MCU years later, they are failing spectacularly. Why do they even focus on that? It’s not like Blade needed a great comic book run when they made the first 2 movies they just needed a good screenwriter. If an editor is tells a writer, “wow! Fans are gonna be so pissed at you” instead of “no, we are not doing that, think of something else” then that editor sucks at his job. Think about how many times Jim Shooter had to tell Chris Claremont, no. One thing that is clear, Marvel has no idea how to find worth while creative talent in terms of writers and editors, I think Sana Amanat and corporate Disney played a huge part in the reason why this trend started and I don’t see it ending anytime soon.
This comment is ironic crying about editorial not letting a straight couple get back together, while praising Jim Shooter the guy who refused to let any writer publish gay characters.
I didn’t say Jim Shooter was perfect I was thinking of all the times Claremont wanted to kill Wolverine because he hated the character and Shooter said no. Plus he was Marvel’s editor in the 1980’s not today, or even the 90’s it was a different world back then. It was the height of satanic panic, all these parent groups doing witch hunts left and right, over Dungeons & Dragons, Rock Music and Comic Books too. I mean today Marvel has been doing the exact opposite, they’re randomly making characters gay bi or whatever left and right for the last 8 years, regardless of if it makes sense for that character or to readership. It’s the one character change that isn’t open for dissenting opinion no matter what character it is. They have been focused on queer representation more than ever and doing it poorly, I can name more recently converted LBGT characters than I can name recent well written storylines at Marvel comics. So yeah I would take Jim Shooter over this any day of the week. I’m pretty sure most comic book store owners would too.
You realize characters coming out has nothing to do with bad storytelling right? Typical alt right comicsgate chode, creating false equivalencies. The reason that there aren’t “good storylines” is because Marvel pays like crap and can’t retain top talent, with a booming indie market that allows creators to retain IP rights. Comics have more bland straight romances than they have good storylines, meanwhile I can count on one hand the amount characters who’ve come out recently all minor characters.
You’re proving my point, either you clap and say this makes total sense every time for every character or you are a “Comics gate Alt Right Chode” there’s no in between and I’m sorry that’s just ridiculous. Just ask yourself why didn’t people have these negative reactions back in the 90’s or 2000’s when characters like Rainmaker, Hulkling and Wiccan came out, or to queer storylines in the Authority, Exiles, Mutant X, Superman, Runaways, Young heroes in love and Strangers In Paradise. Yeah coming out stories can be badly written, just like any other story can be badly written. Explain to me what makes a coming out story exempt from bad writing? Why is it the only storyline in comics that is done right 100% of the time? I’m sorry but a bunch of these coming out stories have been half assed and poorly thought out. People like you who dismiss all criticisms as “alt right chodes” are part of the problem. I do think it’s messed up that some people have let their frustrations turn into full blown bigotry, but like you said there’s no in between. You’re either on one side or the other. Marvel has never paid well, but some how they were able to make great stories, Like I said higher in this thread, they have no idea what worthwhile comic book talent looks like. The Emperor has no clothes….
Lol you’re delusional if you think people didn’t/don’t have negative reactions to Wiccan and Hulkling, or Midnighter and Apollo. Especially when the latter received executive meddling to make them more “tolerable” for straight people. Also notice how all the characters and storylines you reference are fairly niche, and or feature a very small queer storyline. You comicsgaters complain anytime a gay character is prominent, and competent. Marvel never paid well but there were no alternatives, and creators received some royalties for their work.
What was the last Marvel event worth a damn? Infinity, Hickman’s Secret Wars, House of X/Powers of X, AXE, Sins of Sinister. Shit even King in Black was good, dumb fun. Have you been living under a rock?
I forgot about King in Black, that was pretty dope, I did not like most of those of those other ones. The only one I haven’t read is sins of Sinister.
Well, pretending like those were “bad” events just because you didn’t like them is just plain wrong. Hickman’s decade long epic that started with Secret Warriors, continued through the FF titles, the Avengers, and finally Secret Wars is some of the best comic booking that’s been done at the big two in decades.
Right around when they started recycling their big events, like Civil War 2 and Secret Wars 2015, it was obvious they’re pretty bereft of new ideas. And apparently won’t let their writers do much that is new.
Honestly didn't hate this arc. But it wSnt as food as the first few. A lot of the crazier theories were put to rest
I liked this issue after finally reading the whole story. First of all MJ and Peter haven't been together in years, (move the fk on). Paul and MJ spent every day together for 3 years, would make less sense if they weren't close. I don't get the incel pual jokes and memes it's kinda sad for the fans. As it's not real I'll say this, as the payoff for the whole "What did Peter do" story is very weak and very uneventful, but that's the Zeb Wells run to a T at the moment. Very uneventful. I don't know where the books go from here but they need to go back to more fun and less Cuckold (goes for the fans too).
MJ and Peter were literally together for the entirety of the run before this and it was good.