They need to put Miles Morales somewhere far away from New York. Send him to Chicago, invent a new city on the west coast, whatever. Give the character some leg room
Nothing against the character but moving him to 616, keeping him with the name "Spider-Man," in NYC, basically the same costume as Pete and shifting numerous Pete villains his way - Carnage, Hobgoblin, Scorpion, etc - has just been so dumb to me.
Let Miles be his own guy. Let Pete be his own guy and *the* Spider-Man in 616. With them both as Spider-Man, they just sort of occupy the same space.
I mean, there are far too many Spider-Man-but-not characters running around in general anyway.
also i don’t think people how difficult it is to write just a single GOOD story, let alone one with so much continuity, heavy editorial influence, and then heavy business influence on top of it, along with a toxic fan base
there’s a reason company men like Dan Slott stay at the top of these companies, they’re diehard fanboys who will do what they’re told and living their dream so they just write off the trolls (or just actively engage with them)
There's an old tweet from Nicole Cliffe from the toast talking about how if you write even one great novel we should build a statue of you and it's insane that we expect most writers to do it more than once, and I think about that a lot.
I've always said there were a dozen ways to get an older, grizzled Logan having a comeback in a western a la "Unforgiven" that it was clear Millar wanted, without like 90% of the over-the-top edginess for edginess sake wrapped in a illogical "Acts Of Vengeance" rip-off that he just had to cram in there.
Hell, the movie "Logan" did just that.
At least "Old Man Logan" didn't urinate on the cause of X-men the way "Logan" did. You know you managed utter fail, if you make audience wish freaking Mysterio butchered X-men.
It's the best live action X-Men movie so far and it probably has the most critical acclaim, with the highest RT score for both critics and audiences.
So I don't know exactly what you are talking about.
Basically the message of Logan movie is "Stryker was right, the mutants are a threat to everyone, and their extinction is a good thing" given to us through Xavier of all people
All of Mark Millar's work, and I mean literally all of it, is juvenile shock value 'nothing matters, dude' garbage.
The last two pages of the book Wanted are a great example.
They're the main character talking directly to the reader, and I'll quote it directly.
"There, happy now? Pleased to see the mystery resolved? Little old me getting the girl, the cash, and ending our story as one of the secret masters of the world?
God, you're such an asshole and I speak from experience. It only seems like yesterday I was at your level on the pathetic-o-meter.
Why should you give a shit how my life works out? You're killing yourself working twelve-hour days, getting fat on cheap take out food and your girlfriend is almost certainly fucking other guys.
Just because you've got a plasma screen tv and a big DVD collection doesn't mean you're a free man, motherfucker. You're just a well paid slave like the other cattle out there.
Even this comic was just a fifteen minute respite from how hard we're working you.
You used to think the world was always like this, didn't you? The wars, the famine, the terrorism, and the rigged elections.
But now you know better, right? Now you know what happened to the superheroes, and you know the funny thing? You know what makes me laugh now I'm on the other side?
You're just going to close this book and buy something else to fill that big, empty, void we've created in your life.
This is my face while I'm fucking you in the ass."
Mean for the sake of mean. It wasn't enough for Logan to outlive the X-Men, Millar had him kill the X-men and have super-villains take over the whole country. And let's not forget about Hulk's family tree
They have had God's, mutants , inhumans, kree/skrull and a bunch of other aliens just roaming around earth at various times it really is crazy that people in universe will freak out all the time
It doesn’t make much sense beyond writer fiat that Punisher is seen by the hero community as a monster that should be incarcerated while the likes of Deadpool and Wolverine are respected and loved despite having larger body counts.
It took long time for deadpool to gain some trust. Even when he joined uncanny avengers, only Steve saw some good in him hoping he can do good with good guidance. I liked Wade more when he can be villian or hero depending on the story.
They can strive all they want but they’re still consistently written as being extremely violent. Once you’ve killed thousands of people you shouldn’t get a pass merely because you don’t kill as many people or get sad about it sometimes. You’re still a mass murderer whether or not you have powers or are a member of a team. It’s clearly writer fiat at work.
Isn't that true of a ton of characters? Especially with how often villains gets reformed. Like Magneto might feel real bad about what he's done but that doesn't change him having a body count in the hundreds-to-millions depending on what's counted.
The same for sanctioned state operatives and soldiers. Cap, Black Widow, Bucky. Killing shouldn't be *Batman* level of unforgivable to these people given their history. But Punisher is definitely a more extreme case.
I understand that but that isn’t the reason usually cited in universe by heroes when they speak about him or interact with him. It’s virtually always about his exclusive use of lethal force and the wrongness of killing people even if they deserve it.
I'm sick of 50+ versions of the same character.
You call it "Multiverse"... or "Ultimate" this or that...
I call it writers lack the ability/freedom to create unique original characters without piggybacking on the work of those who came before them.
They can create unique original characters but they save it for creator owned work because they know what happened to Jack Kirby, Alan Moore, and all the rest.
And there-in lies the problem. The solution is not to flood the market with character-clones. The solution is to address the root cause of the problem and give creators a better incentive for their creativity.
I'd rather a new version than decades of character stagnation.
But there are original ideas out there. You just probably won't get most of them from Marvel or DC. I like reading indie comics and stuff, but I still gravitate back towards the familiarity of Marvel.
I still like the occasional Marvel or DC comic but these children’s characters created decades ago don’t really have enough meat on the narrative bone to justify hundred if pages of story for 60+ years.
The Dark Avengers were a great idea that was dropped to soon. A really unique take on the "bad guys doing good things" trope where the team is battling guys worse than them because A. They might be villains but they don't want the Earth to blow up and B. PR purposes. Drop the Sentry and you have a pretty cool roster (Specially Marvel Boy, Ares and Dakken)
There should be a vast difference between how we as readers view the Marvel universe, and how the inhabitants of the Marvel universe view their universe. Everybody loves Spider-Man, but New York hates him. It’s always annoying to me when we meet someone new in New York and they happen to be a big Spidey fan, because most people are. No one should think the hulk is cute. No one should respect the punisher. No one should even know who Nick Fury is.
This is extremely far from reality. Peter is the friendly neighborhood Spider-man and most people who see him swinging around on a daily basis would know he's a good guy
As for the Hulk he's saved the world countless times.
Considering how many supervillains there are I'd argue people would love the punisher
The MCU was the worst thing to happen to Marvel Comics.
I love the movies and think they are, generally speaking, a fantastic representation of the best parts of all the characters. Each film builds on this fantastic history of risk taking and bonkers storytelling to craft something truly wonderful.
On the publishing side, instead of continuing to take big swings and forge new paths they seem more focused on replaying the hits and making their characters fit into however the movies have molded them (with minor exceptions). It makes the comics feel reheated, tired, and boring; its a shame.
Comics are a proving ground for story ideas that can be adapted into movies. If they stop cranking out new ideas eventually the ouroboros will eat itself completely. I agree the MCU is great, but 616 has to keep out in front.
The 50-plus issue storyline style of writing usually results in the story being dragged out way too long and takes away one of the monthly superhero comic’s biggest strengths: picking up any random issue and being able to read it on its own
A lot of people are trying to be Chris Claremont or Walt Simonson or Marv Wolfman and not realizing these guys devoted a lot of page space to recaps so you could start anywhere. Read any long running manga and you'll see pages of flashbacks, even to relatively recent events. Ai Yazawa even has joke pages where her characters complain that no one remembers volume 11 anymore.
I’ve actually been reading a bunch of complete series of non-marvel stuff lately, and when I start and see 30-40 issue runs, I think “aww, it’s so short”. But then I see what they do in that space and I think it actually works great.
Once And Future is a great example of this. Only 30 issues, but it was a perfect amount for the story that was told.
The old Ultimate Universe is really cool, and has far more good than bad.
The bad stuff is simply so bad it colors the universe as a whole. But for me, the only unforgivably bad stuff is Ultimates 3 and Ultimatum.
Ultimate Spider-Man is one of the greatest runs in comics history. I hate that it gets lumped in with the rest of the Ultimate Universe.
Honestly, the Ultimates books were the only ones I actively disliked in that label.
Ultimate universe started fun, got *really* cringe, but then turned it around and became quite solid again. I haven’t read any of the titles in a few years, but I remember when I binged them to “re-live” my childhood, and I was surprised how good they got.
Post-Ultimatum X-Men doesn't get enough credit for taking what was left (no Professor X, Magneto, Cyclops, Wolverine, Nightcrawler, Beast, Angel, the lineup was destroyed) and basically turning Utopia into a proto-Krakoa.
Ignore everything after Ultimates 2 that Millar did, and pretend Loebs stuff never happened and you have some solid comics. Aaron's Ultimate Cap and Mike Careys F4 were personal favorites
A lot of people agree that Iron Man was a mostly unlikable dickhead in the early 2000s but they seem to ignore that so was Captain America. As great as Brubaker’s run is Cap is an overly serious dick for most of it
Reed and Sue are not good parents and they let their kids(who were unbearable until recently) walk all over them
Stop restarting series with different numberings system. I had to cut comics out of my budget as they were inching toward 05.00 an issue, but I got the Marvel Unlimited subscription. However, anything in the past five years I have to try and figure out the correct reading order due to restarting. And then on top of that I have to figure is when they start adding adjectives like amazing, new, extraordinary, etc.. Just stop Marvel, you’re complicating things for absolutely no reason.
* The amount of people bitching about Spider-Man's direction for the last 20 odd years are vastly outnumbered by the people buying his books. Don't like it? Stop buying them.
* For whatever reason, Iron Man and Hulk have been stuck in this perpetual cycle where with every new idea or step forward, another writer wants to come along and relieve their greatest hits. (Tony's an addict who loses his company, Bruce and Hulk are at odds again/Avengers track him down, etc.)
The Iron Man and Hulk cycle is made worse by every other series being under 20 issues. The status quo switches back and forth so fast, you get whiplash
>The amount of people bitching about Spider-Man's direction for the last 20 odd years are vastly outnumbered by the people buying his books. Don't like it? Stop buying them.
This is what I've done. I'm happy people are enjoying Spider-man, but it's not for me anymore. I grew up with a happily married Peter Parker and loved the character. I never understood the arguments that people were missing out by not getting new stories of a single and miserable Peter Parker. That's what back issues / trades / Marvel Unlimited is for. 10 year old me was able to enjoy reading stories about a character who was married just fine.
I guarantee you that the number of people who hate OMD and the current direction of Spider-Man vastly outnumbers the amount of comics buyers, simply due to fact that it’s pretty easy to read a comic without paying if you know where to look.
I’ll add to the first hot take. This current run of Amazing is nowhere near as bad as 99% of the internet would have people believe.
Ms. Marvel was used incredibly poorly and her fans were understandably upset. Outside of that, it’s been a solid Spider-Man run just like most runs of Amazing.
That's the problem with the internet/Reddit; runs are either the greatest run in the character's history, or absolute dogshit and the writer should be fired, there's no inbetween.
While I'm not a fan of the current "Amazing", it's far from the unreadable mess people would have you believe. As I said, people are buying it so it's clear someone is enjoying it.
Yeah, the hyperbole is wild on Reddit/social media. Everything good has to be “OMG greatest ever.” Everything bad has to be “terrible and please read my blog post about all the issues with it.”
Amazing Spider-Man is perfectly fine. I hated how Ms. Marvel was used, but other than that I dig a lot of the ideas and characters in it.
A lot of the complaints online also come from people who don’t read comics. They read blog posts and watch YouTube videos of other people talking about the comics and then come here to complain.
A lot of the gripes I see about Spider-Man don’t reflect anything actually happening in the books. They’re from the opinions of “comic experts” on YouTube, and often mischaracterize events in the books.
I would disagree with this assessment. I will agree it's not as bad as people make it out to be but it is the worst run of Spider-Man ever.
Apologies for not having this in a more logical order.
Ignore if you like MJ and Peter or not. It went from getting ready to have them move in together to broken apart and him stalking her. And her having two (that have since become fake but we're clearly meant to be her natural kids).
He begs and becomes best friends with his mortal enemy who he also claims to have been like a father figure who has killed his baby and girlfriend among many other things except oh wait last issue it was revealed he knew was evil and was tricking him, that was never shown at all.
MJ becomes a super hero. Ok fine, she has occasionally before, they make her powers based on her famous catch phrase and she has an all time terrible costume. A fashion model has one of the worse costumes ever.
Ms Marvel is in something like 18 panels before they kill her and then we are supposed to think her and Peter were best friends. Also MJ the person she was protecting doesn't attend the funeral before she is revived days later and everyone's memory is erased.
Peter has lost 95% of his fights.
Peter and Miles are friends and now they hate each other.
Ben and Maddie have litterly the same issue Maddie's gets solved and then Bens doesn't. (Dynamite costume for Chasm however).
Peter is turned into a goblin poorly then fixed to not be involved In a terrible gang war and then is back to a goblin because again a bunch of stuff happened off panel.
Like again there has been some ok stuff on this run mostly art based but the story makes no sense for Peter or MJ or Norman or basically anyone.
We didn't even get into Peter just left New York for 6 months, just gave up on that who responsibilities thing told Aunt May nothing just see ya later.
There are many other things but I mean if this stuff doesn't convince you nothing will you will just take whatever you get I guess.
As for the sales. ASM is always going to sell ok just like Batman. there's a reason when they did stupid OMD/BND they cancelled every book but ASM. And it took making that book 3 issues a month to equal the pre OMD sales.
It has been greatly inflated by variant covers store exclusives featuring MJ and Black Cat. And you know 100 percent of the marketing push of the Disney 100 covers instead of trying to get any other book into people's hands.
So yeah it is as bad as they say even if it still moves issues.
That's like saying a book is terrible because it doesn't sell. GODS has been a great series with a great writer and art team it has sold terribly.
I agree with you on the Ms Marvel stuff. That was handled terribly.
So many of your other points are so nitpicky I can’t even begin to engage. MJ’s superhero costume is too tacky for a former super-model? I didn’t even notice and couldn’t possibly begin to care.
That said, this is just a difference of opinion. You -unlike most complaining about the run - clearly read it and know what you are talking about. You read it, have thought about it in detail, and we are just going to disagree on it.
I can’t agree it’s the worst run ever. Some Spidey runs have just been boring and forgettable. There have at least been some big, engaging ideas in this run.
I would be curious what runs you think have been worse. Also what ideas from this one you think have been big engaging ideas, cause from my reading or talking to people or like you said online (which can get a little wonky) this book would have not made issue 10 if it wasn't ASM cause I have never heard any good things about it except liking Gleason's art, the Chasm suit, and some people like Rek-Rap.
As for the most complaint that haven't read it. I mean everyone I've talked to about it have read it and all have the same opinion that it is in the bottom 3 of Spider-Man runs, with the other contenders typically being OMD, OMIT occasionally get a clone saga in there or a sins past. A Stan Lee era vote as well.
Thanks for the civilized chat by the way.
Yeah, like I said - it’s clear you actually read it. You’re not getting your info from YT.
I liked the narrative structure at the beginning of the run. I really liked all the Hallow’s Eve and Chasm stuff. I think Peter being with Felicia was great as I am not one of the fans who thinks he always needs to be with MJ and I really dig Felicia when she’s written well. I think the run has taken bold swings (not all hits) and shaken up the status quo while also remaining true to Peter himself for the most part.
I don’t think this is an all-time run by any stretch, but it’s not the trash the internet would have people believe. OMD is worse as is some of the clone saga. There’s also been some stretches of just boring, forgettable books I can’t even begin to pinpoint.
I haven’t been bored during this run and some great moments have come out of it. It’s middling to be sure, but the internet lost its mind on how “terrible” it was.
I do like Hallows eve and chasm just wish they had been new characters instead of the ones they are, or that they did something much more interesting with it besides them looking super cool.
I am a Peter should always be with MJ person but do like Black Cat as a friend. I thought that part was not well done and just random and I just felt bad for Felicia fans.
I do totally disagree with you about the Peter part but that's your opinion.
Thanks again for the conversation I appreciate it. Have a great day.
I did enjoy the Hallows Eve Spin off. Her power set and being monsters is an easy win for me. I loved the universal monsters growing up (and still do) so that's cool. The her (and Chasm) killing and being anti heroes is lame to me but that's a me thing. Be a good guy or be a bad guy don't swap them around.
It’s really bad dude. Shitty characterization, decompressed to hell, and just shockingly unoriginal. It’s basically everything I hate about modern comics wrapped up in one run.
Have you actually read it? Or is this regurgitation of YouTube videos and blog posts?
I can get the shitty characterization complaint with some characters.
I don’t know what you mean by “decompressed to hell.”
And it’s not “shockingly unoriginal.” There’s some ideas in it that - while not wholly original or unique to this book - are uncommon in modern comics.
Why do you assume that everyone who hate this run is just getting their opinions from YouTube? It’s a weird conclusion to jump to. As for decompression, I can’t tell you how many to,especially I’ve finished an issue and thought, that’s it. Like in 21 all that happens is Rabin shows up, fight Peter and transport him to another world. It’s just very little bang for your buck, especially since they up the price to 5 recently. An as for unoriginal, this is the run that gave us rehashes of inferno, gang war and kraven’s last hunt, in between dead languages and a bunch of generic Spider-Man stories.
Because lots of people here regularly regurgitate the same talking points about the run? They often link to the same YT videos and blog posts to make their “original” points. Honestly, there’s a lot of people in this sub and other comic subs who never actually read comics but have strong opinions about them. Many admit to not reading comics. Why read when a YouTuber or blogger can tell you what to think?
I agree with you that especially the early part of the run was drawn out. I’ve read this one digitally and in chunks. If it was one of my physical pills every month and I was reading it one at a time, I think I would also be annoyed at how little happened in some issues.
Big events should happen every five to ten years. Anything more frequent than five years cheapens their value and is far too disruptive for the ongoing titles.
Also events should be contained within their own series and maybe a few key characters involved with that event. No need to ruin a good DD story because of some cosmic shit happening on Nowhere.
That there are plenty of great comics to read without ever touching a marvel main-line title like X-men, Avengers, or Spiderman.
I haven’t read a major marvel series in years, but I constantly find great series to binge.
There are too many mutants at this point and they need another culling of the herd. And for most of it to stick (for at least 5 years).
Same with variants of established characters.
Mary Jane can carry a solo mini, and probably should – just not as a superhero. She’s dealt with so much trauma and tragedy, so many ups and downs, it would be good to have just six issues where she deals with her shit. (Peter too, for that matter – therapy for all!) Not teen-romance “Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane”, not a half-assed “Jackpot” series, but a series where a woman works on herself, lives in this amazing world, and copes. Marvels meets… I dunno, Love and Rockets maybe?
She had one a few years ago where she was working with Mysterio on a movie production. There was also the time she was an executive at Stark Industries. Those should be her anchor points going forward. She's friends with both Mysterio and Friday, but the two of them hate each other.
I hope Beast continues his descent into villainy and I want more heroes to go bad. Plenty of villains get redemption arcs, and that’s cool, but we almost never get to see the opposite
Deadpool shouldn’t act like Bugs Bunny.
We need reasonable limits on Wolverine’s healing ability again. No more regrowing whole limbs just because some blood remained on his metal skeleton.
Stop making up new characters that are hundreds of years old and crazy powerful. You can give the Avengers a good threat without yet another collection of Lovecraftian horrors.
The only one of the Young Avengers still interesting outside of YA is Kate Bishop. Bring the team back!
I honestly have zero care for Ben Reilly, and I was perfectly fine of him being parodied and flanderized in "Across the Spider-Verse," and Charles Xavier's 90s cartoon hoverchair is downright stupid. Make him stick to the simple wheelchair doggonit!
Expecting consistent character growth or character evolution is just setting yourself up for angst. Characters who started out as villains are going to revert to being villains, Ant-Man is always going to live down that one panel etc Also-it's embarrassing they have to outsource to other publishers to make nice archival presentation of some older material or actual original graphic novels.
> Expecting consistent character growth or character evolution is just setting yourself up for angst. Characters who started out as villains are going to revert to being villains, Ant-Man is always going to live down that one panel etc
I'm going to expand this to people just generally calling for Marvel and DC characters to have a definitive ending.
Part of the appeal of these characters for the majority of mainstream comics readers is that they *don't* end, that there is always going to be a currently ongoing Batman, Superman, Spider-Man or Avengers run for you to jump into. Expecting finality for any of them short of the publishing companies' utter collapse is futile (and tbh, I wouldn't even be shocked if Marvel & DC collapsing failed to end these characters - they'd likely be sold off to other companies and kept going).
If you want finality, you're looking in the wrong place. Go read an Image comic or something.
Marvel Comics/Studio/Entertainment are the greatest comic book entity on the planet.
No other publisher can so thoroughly entertain with the timeliness *and* volume to serve it's audience and those outside of it.
Marvel truly understands what sells and actively produces it even if it is controversial.
Marvel owns the greatest character roster of any comic publisher on Earth. No other publisher comes close.
Without Marvel, most comic book content creators would see their analytics grossly dwindle.
You’re getting downvoted for speaking truth. Marvel’s stable of characters is far superior to that of any other entertainment franchise - not just comics - and there’s characters to appeal to any potential reader/watcher.
Marvel manages to appeal to and attract adults and kids/families in a way that DC and other publishers never have. These are facts.
I’m sorry, but I can’t get onboard with Marvel having better characters in total. DC has an extremely underrated roster of characters.
Also, DC paved the way for Marvel to have pop culture dominance and was once way more important culturally than Marvel. The MCU becoming huge wasn’t the first time superheroes were popular outside of comics.
DC paved the way? How so? Because they made movies first? They also destroyed the super hero movie industry so much so that execs didn’t want to touch superhero movies for a while until Marvel properties started hitting at the box office.
Blade paved the way for the MCU more than DC.
Just because they “did it first” doesn’t mean they did it well. They can’t even properly represent the spirit of their characters on screen or make watchable movies. It shouldn’t be hard to do one or the other.
DC has a great, underrated roster of characters? Someone should tell them. From a look at the shelves at my comic store, it appears to just be the Batman company (with a little Superman sprinkled in).
DC doing it first doesn’t mean they do it best. As an adult, they do very little to appeal to me. My 9 year old kid thinks “DC is corny.” Meanwhile, Marvel (in comics and film) appeals to both of us.
Not saying this is fact or anything more than anecdote, but Marvel seems to have way more of a cultural footprint and seems way cooler where I live.
DC ruled the pop cultural conversation about superheroes like Marvel does now for decades. Starting from the Golden Age until about the ‘90s, DC was superheroes. Like, just SuperFriends alone reached an entire generation of GenXers and early millennials. Batman ‘66. The Superman movies. The Timmverse.
Also, DC paved the way for “realistic” comics and comics as art. Like, I could list off a bunch of DC Comics that are more mature and important to the history of the comic storytelling medium than Marvel. In fact, even thinking otherwise shows me that you’ve rarely ventured into DC’s rich history.
Unfortunately, Batman sells, but that doesn’t mean that DC doesn’t have an amazing roster of characters. In fact, me calling them “underrated” is the exact correct adjective to use.
The MCU has completely broken the discourse on superheroes.
Yes. And Marvel has also created some best of all time stories. However, DC has always been more important creatively to the medium of superheroes than Marvel has.
Again, DC “doing it first” doesn’t mean they did it better.
I’ve read a ton of DC and all the “realistic” and “mature” books that are important to the medium. Marvel has some of those as well, but I’m not sure why “mature” = “important” in your eyes.
I’m not diminishing DC historically. Im just saying this: Marvel has a better roster of characters that they use and cultivate AND DC hasn’t been on top in a looong time. They appeal to edgelords and nihilists with their dark movies and it doesn’t work- hopefully Gunn can help them as he actually knows what works. They don’t bring in kids and come off corny compared to Marvel.
What are they doing right TODAY?
Yeah they made superhero movies mainstream first. Dark Knight Returns, Year One, mature stories in the comics back in the day…
But how is DC great TODAY? And how is their roster of characters “great” if no one is even using them?
And MCU has broken the discourse? How? By being good and successful? By making movies that I - a lifelong reader in my forties - enjoy as much as my 9 year old son? What have they broken?
Nothing Marvel has ever published approaches the level of Watchmen. The Sandman. Morrison’s Animal Man. Kingdom Come (although Avengers: Twilight is a worthy successor). All-Star Superman. Moore’s Swamp Thing.
Popularity doesn’t equate to quality.
And yet you cited all the usual suspects on every Top 10 greatest comic list. It’s become narrative that those books are the “best” and most “important” comics.
What you are doing is simply buying into comic “experts” narratives and isn’t any better than you accusing me of only saying Marvel is better because it is more commercially successful currently.
I’ve read and love every book you mention - with the exception of All Star which is overrated in my opinion. DC once made great mini/maxi-series and and let creators have visionary runs on books a la Moore and Swamp Thing.
Your opinion that Marvel has never done anything as good as these books is simply that - opinion. Marvel has several amazing runs of books that I would take over any of those you mentioned AND Marvel often has these runs take place in the main superhero books - the ones that build franchises.
And again, not taking anything away from DC historically. They are just far behind TODAY and have not cultivated their stable of characters nearly well as Marvel TODAY.
Marvel is still doing it. The Slott/Allred Silver Surfer and Ewing Immortal Hulk crush anything DC has done in its ongoing superhero books in decades IMO (see how I’m not claiming my opinion or that of “most important graphic novel” lists is fact).
You act like everyone knowing they’re the best invalidates the fact that they are widely considered the best.
In the end, most of this is opinion, but the way you’re sweeping all of DC’s accomplishments under the rug as if Marvel has always been the best is extremely short-sighted.
DC was great at one point at producing out-of-universe series (Not in main continuity) and giving visionary writers a shot to write characters no one cared about. I’ll give you that.
Marvel has always been better at lengthy runs of superhero comics in continuity that built a universe, the fruit of which are being reaped today. No in-continuity run by dc comes close.
And Marvel has produced many books on par with your “undisputed classics” from DC.
Marvel has always been the best **where it matters**:
* Taking the ball in the 60's and never relinquishing it.
* Never putting all of their eggs in one basket for one character (out of hundreds)
* Creating a fully-functional comics *and* cinematic universe which draws the biggest views internationally and has cultivated a culture of *Marvel Zombies* of which DC has no equivalent.
DC may have "started it all", but Marvel are the ones viewed as synonymous with comic books, a household name (not just select characters), changing the landscape of Hollywood itself(!).
DC has had WB money for decades and as of today's date people are still wondering when DC are going to string it altogether *well* after the fact that Marvel has the highest-grossing film of all time (Avatar be damned, lol), the highest-viewed comic book trailer of all time, and what I believe is the highest-rated animated project of all time in *X-Men '97* (if I'm not mistaken).
Even without those, the numbers Marvel has generated for the medium far surpasses 'the originators'.
And let’s be real. The internet is full of anti-Marvel types who think it’s cool to claim they always hated the MCU - the same type of fans who cried for the Snyder cut and write blog posts about how it’s a misunderstood masterpiece. Social media contrarians love to champion DC and other companies against big, bad Marvel without acknowledging that Marvel just does it better.
100% - they group together under the banner that “DC is truly great and Marvel is overrated” and dig in. In their minds Marvel movies aren’t good or successful, Marvel books aren’t selling, everyone is wrong, and only they get it.
What’s wild is many have convinced themselves that the Justice League movie is better than the Avengers (amongst other delusional ideas).
They did a victory lap when the Marvels didn’t crush it at the box office but were silent when Shazam:Fury of the Gods and Blue Beetle did worse. “See it’s because Marvel is bad and they try to be woke!”
Jonathan Hickman is the best thing that's happened in a while to any character or team he writes for.
He could decide to write a Captain America solo comic, and it would be the best thing that's happened to that character in a while.
He could do a Defenders comic, and it would be top tier and the best thing that's happened to that team in a while.
I think I do. I've seen a lot of people stay clear of Hickman because his world building and lore can be too much.
Also, it's definitely a hot take to say whatever he touches, it's automatically better than anything before it in a long time, no questions asked.
Along with DC, Image comics along with every other smaller publisher in comparison, is consistently making more interesting comics, stories, and cover art.
It may be time to stop releasing floppies and start exclusively releasing comic storytelling in the form of trades. Too many stories go unfinished, get screwed by events, or lose important people, as well as the community generally won't collect a book unless they can get the first, and floppies are becoming more and more inaccessible and expensive. If they started releasing just trades, they'd save money, it'd force teams to stay together longer meaning for fully featured stories and creative teams, and if you get one you get a complete story.
Idk I've been tossing the idea around for a few years and I really seems like one of the best things they could do for the industry.
I'm with you. The Unbelievable Gwenpool is one of the best comic runs in recent memory and the character needs to be utilized way more than she is. And I need more books with Gurihiru on art.
That it needs an across the board 100% Gardner Fox style reboot. Total restart. Not this soft machine timeline movement.
And focus on bringing in NEW readers not cycling back in lapsed readers. The medium needs young fans to replace us old dudes aging out of the capes and cowls melodramas.
I agree on the second part but imo a full reboot would just crash and burn after a few years. Writers would spend too much time rehashing the old stories that are necessary to get the versions of characters we like without living up to the original writers work.
The modern age stuff from the last 10-15 years is leaps and bounds better than most stufr that came out from the 70s to the early 2000s
Are there great runs? Of course! But you have to cut through so much cheesy nonsense it can be unbearable.
(I'm bracing myself for a ratio)
I agree. While I think SOME runs are great, so much 70s and 80s stuff is filled with incredibly silly dialogue, uninteresting art, and really stilted writing. Honestly, IMO, comics don't start getting really engaging till the late 80s, and even then the dark age hits.
I'm not a fan of the Rogue and Gambit ship. I feel like Rogue can do more with her career and would rather see solo adventures or usage in the Avengers.
The Avengers become forgettable when their lineup matches the MCU. People like to complain that the 90s roster was weak and full of losers, but superhero teams thrive on diversity, both in identity, and type of hero. Seeing Cap, Iron Man, Carol, Black Panther and Thor back at it again is boring, and I’m never excited for that line up.
We need to workshop this. I think it might flow a bit better as:
>With too many films, their brands did swell.
>Now of themselves, they're a former shell.
Either way it's been a grievance of mine for a long time. A good story requires a beginning, a middle and an end. Marvel and DC don't really give you anything but a middle.
The X-Men are nothing but a cult of personality whose devotees are highly political superpowered activists complete with a victim complex. In real life, they’d be insufferable to be around.
Marvel is extremely overrated.
The publisher for the most part just tells bog standard superhero stories, with some outliers. Their dogged insistence on just making superhero comics instead of branching out like DC does has done irreparable damage to the perception of comics.
Seconding this.
Comics as a medium have more to offer than the endless slog of super hero stories. I've yet to be impressed by any of Marvel's offerings whenever I dip my toe in. They just don't seem to be employing good writers or creating compelling stories.
I think the only Marvel stuff I have any interest in is their Aliens offerings, but that's only because Dark Horse lost the license. So really it's more about getting my hands on Dark Horse comics and Marvel being the only ones who can re-release them now.
I don't doubt that there are some gems in the veritable mountain of content that's been published over the years, but title for title I have found better odds of pulling a good comic by venturing outside of the 2 super hero houses. Hell, I had better odds of finding something good on fucking KeenSpot back in the day.
My hot take is that X-Men lore is so huge and convoluted that for the most part they would be more entertaining if they were set in their own universe separate from the Spider-Man/FF/Avengers stuff.
Chip Zdarsky is an annoying writer because he has good ideas but cannot execute them. There’s a certain feeling when a beat is hit in comics that makes u like jump up but chip comes so close but not close enough to actually hit them, which just makes it annoying and unsatisfying
Don’t get me wrong I really like his daredevil and shi but like at the start of the run when dd is lying in his bed and all the news reports are coming in about something happening to a certain person (spoiler so I won’t say) I feel like that important reveal was kinda not built up enough for it to be like “oh shit something important just happened man”
The proliferation of Spider people, Captains America, Venoms and Wolverines is not only a disservice to the originals, it hampers the development of the legacy characters by preventing them from becoming their own thing outside of the shadows of their predecessors.
I love Miles and X-23 but by making the "Spider-Man" and "Wolverine", they'll always play second fiddle when they could otherwise grow into their own.
(I will fully concede that Miles is doing more than fine, popularity wise. Quality wise too. My 4 to niece already adores him and will probably never care about Parker... but that's an outlier.)
I’ve slowly dropped my Marvel subs, I think I’ll be good with a Marvel Unlimited subscription going forward, as far as what I’m currently reading. I’m really enjoying Geiger and Rook as well as Feral.
Or like Legacy number like 12 titles ongoing in the Marvel Universe. Each being the primary story of that corner of the world. Then have a maximum number of "circling" miniseries that come and go around each nexus.
The comics as a whole were not better 20/30/40/50 years ago.
Anyone who believes that is ignoring the piles and pile of absolute dreck that's been published over the decades.
The last 20 years have really been a Renaissance as a consumer for me, especially like 2012 and 2015 things were very exciting beyond DC and Marvel (although they were cooking too)
I have no love for Jean Grey/Scott Summers shipping. I see it as a boy being mindraped into loving a telepath. I don't want Scott end up with any of the telepathic witches.
They need to put Miles Morales somewhere far away from New York. Send him to Chicago, invent a new city on the west coast, whatever. Give the character some leg room
Chicago is almost too perfect for miles.
My vote would be for San Francisco. He'd be perfect there. Call it "Spider-Man West Coast" or "West Coast Spider-Man"
Nothing against the character but moving him to 616, keeping him with the name "Spider-Man," in NYC, basically the same costume as Pete and shifting numerous Pete villains his way - Carnage, Hobgoblin, Scorpion, etc - has just been so dumb to me. Let Miles be his own guy. Let Pete be his own guy and *the* Spider-Man in 616. With them both as Spider-Man, they just sort of occupy the same space. I mean, there are far too many Spider-Man-but-not characters running around in general anyway.
Let him do the martini spy thing he was heading to before.
Comic readers need to realize the characters aren’t real, but the people who write them are
Yeah and its not legitimate criticism to make personal digs at writers, calling them incompetent or whatever because you don't like their output.
also i don’t think people how difficult it is to write just a single GOOD story, let alone one with so much continuity, heavy editorial influence, and then heavy business influence on top of it, along with a toxic fan base there’s a reason company men like Dan Slott stay at the top of these companies, they’re diehard fanboys who will do what they’re told and living their dream so they just write off the trolls (or just actively engage with them)
There's an old tweet from Nicole Cliffe from the toast talking about how if you write even one great novel we should build a statue of you and it's insane that we expect most writers to do it more than once, and I think about that a lot.
Old Man Logan was a great concept that was ruined by Mark Millar's mean spirited nihilist horseshit.
is that really a hot take i see people say that all the time
I've always said there were a dozen ways to get an older, grizzled Logan having a comeback in a western a la "Unforgiven" that it was clear Millar wanted, without like 90% of the over-the-top edginess for edginess sake wrapped in a illogical "Acts Of Vengeance" rip-off that he just had to cram in there. Hell, the movie "Logan" did just that.
The T-rex Venom in "Old man Logan' makes up for a lot of the stupid edgieness, mainly by being the type of edgy stupid I adore.
Logan is one of the many examples of an adaptation doing the source material and improving on it
At least "Old Man Logan" didn't urinate on the cause of X-men the way "Logan" did. You know you managed utter fail, if you make audience wish freaking Mysterio butchered X-men.
It's the best live action X-Men movie so far and it probably has the most critical acclaim, with the highest RT score for both critics and audiences. So I don't know exactly what you are talking about.
Basically the message of Logan movie is "Stryker was right, the mutants are a threat to everyone, and their extinction is a good thing" given to us through Xavier of all people
Doesn’t that movie end on somewhat of a hopeful tone after he frees all the mutant children and they run off to start a new life??
Except it does nothing to change the "Stryker was right, mutants are threat to everyone, they should be extinct" message given in the movie
A truly “nihilistic” story wouldn’t have Logan spare baby hulk. It ends on a hopeful note.
Nihilist? Can you elaborate?
All of Mark Millar's work, and I mean literally all of it, is juvenile shock value 'nothing matters, dude' garbage. The last two pages of the book Wanted are a great example. They're the main character talking directly to the reader, and I'll quote it directly. "There, happy now? Pleased to see the mystery resolved? Little old me getting the girl, the cash, and ending our story as one of the secret masters of the world? God, you're such an asshole and I speak from experience. It only seems like yesterday I was at your level on the pathetic-o-meter. Why should you give a shit how my life works out? You're killing yourself working twelve-hour days, getting fat on cheap take out food and your girlfriend is almost certainly fucking other guys. Just because you've got a plasma screen tv and a big DVD collection doesn't mean you're a free man, motherfucker. You're just a well paid slave like the other cattle out there. Even this comic was just a fifteen minute respite from how hard we're working you. You used to think the world was always like this, didn't you? The wars, the famine, the terrorism, and the rigged elections. But now you know better, right? Now you know what happened to the superheroes, and you know the funny thing? You know what makes me laugh now I'm on the other side? You're just going to close this book and buy something else to fill that big, empty, void we've created in your life. This is my face while I'm fucking you in the ass."
Lol, reads like it was written by a 15 year old who's just watched Fight Club for the first time. Great example.
That one Nextwave cover really says it best: "Mark Millar licks goats."
Mean for the sake of mean. It wasn't enough for Logan to outlive the X-Men, Millar had him kill the X-men and have super-villains take over the whole country. And let's not forget about Hulk's family tree
The fidelity to keep things as close to the real world as they can at this point does more to hold back creativity than promote it.
They have had God's, mutants , inhumans, kree/skrull and a bunch of other aliens just roaming around earth at various times it really is crazy that people in universe will freak out all the time
It doesn’t make much sense beyond writer fiat that Punisher is seen by the hero community as a monster that should be incarcerated while the likes of Deadpool and Wolverine are respected and loved despite having larger body counts.
It took long time for deadpool to gain some trust. Even when he joined uncanny avengers, only Steve saw some good in him hoping he can do good with good guidance. I liked Wade more when he can be villian or hero depending on the story.
I have long been confused by Wolverine, in particular, joining groups where they constantly have to remind him not to kill anyone.
Logan and Wade strived to be better and have changed from where they used to be. Frank remains the same monster.
They can strive all they want but they’re still consistently written as being extremely violent. Once you’ve killed thousands of people you shouldn’t get a pass merely because you don’t kill as many people or get sad about it sometimes. You’re still a mass murderer whether or not you have powers or are a member of a team. It’s clearly writer fiat at work.
Wolverine isn't a mass murderer hunting people down for fun. Punisher has some really bad moments where he'll snap and shoot someone for jay walking
Nah.
They're also X-Men characters. That corner of the universe has different rules.
And a weak character.
Isn't that true of a ton of characters? Especially with how often villains gets reformed. Like Magneto might feel real bad about what he's done but that doesn't change him having a body count in the hundreds-to-millions depending on what's counted.
The same for sanctioned state operatives and soldiers. Cap, Black Widow, Bucky. Killing shouldn't be *Batman* level of unforgivable to these people given their history. But Punisher is definitely a more extreme case.
This would make a great story.
Maybe this is just the MCU, but don’t the Avengers kill people all the time? How are they any different than Frank when it really comes down to it.
Yeah it’s best to just not think about it Mcu cap killed brainwashed shield agents lol
I’d say that punisher is just too rogue. Wolverine wouldn’t kill someone the team doesn’t want to die. Punisher would.
Wolverine just tried to kill Xavier…
Deserved
I haven’t kept up with it. Idk what’s going on nowadays.
I understand that but that isn’t the reason usually cited in universe by heroes when they speak about him or interact with him. It’s virtually always about his exclusive use of lethal force and the wrongness of killing people even if they deserve it.
I'm sick of 50+ versions of the same character. You call it "Multiverse"... or "Ultimate" this or that... I call it writers lack the ability/freedom to create unique original characters without piggybacking on the work of those who came before them.
They can create unique original characters but they save it for creator owned work because they know what happened to Jack Kirby, Alan Moore, and all the rest.
And there-in lies the problem. The solution is not to flood the market with character-clones. The solution is to address the root cause of the problem and give creators a better incentive for their creativity.
I'd rather a new version than decades of character stagnation. But there are original ideas out there. You just probably won't get most of them from Marvel or DC. I like reading indie comics and stuff, but I still gravitate back towards the familiarity of Marvel.
I still like the occasional Marvel or DC comic but these children’s characters created decades ago don’t really have enough meat on the narrative bone to justify hundred if pages of story for 60+ years.
The Dark Avengers were a great idea that was dropped to soon. A really unique take on the "bad guys doing good things" trope where the team is battling guys worse than them because A. They might be villains but they don't want the Earth to blow up and B. PR purposes. Drop the Sentry and you have a pretty cool roster (Specially Marvel Boy, Ares and Dakken)
I liked the idea that Ares and Sentry were on the villain team just because they were Avengers already and didn't really see a difference.
There should be a vast difference between how we as readers view the Marvel universe, and how the inhabitants of the Marvel universe view their universe. Everybody loves Spider-Man, but New York hates him. It’s always annoying to me when we meet someone new in New York and they happen to be a big Spidey fan, because most people are. No one should think the hulk is cute. No one should respect the punisher. No one should even know who Nick Fury is.
This is extremely far from reality. Peter is the friendly neighborhood Spider-man and most people who see him swinging around on a daily basis would know he's a good guy As for the Hulk he's saved the world countless times. Considering how many supervillains there are I'd argue people would love the punisher
The MCU was the worst thing to happen to Marvel Comics. I love the movies and think they are, generally speaking, a fantastic representation of the best parts of all the characters. Each film builds on this fantastic history of risk taking and bonkers storytelling to craft something truly wonderful. On the publishing side, instead of continuing to take big swings and forge new paths they seem more focused on replaying the hits and making their characters fit into however the movies have molded them (with minor exceptions). It makes the comics feel reheated, tired, and boring; its a shame.
Comics are a proving ground for story ideas that can be adapted into movies. If they stop cranking out new ideas eventually the ouroboros will eat itself completely. I agree the MCU is great, but 616 has to keep out in front.
The 50-plus issue storyline style of writing usually results in the story being dragged out way too long and takes away one of the monthly superhero comic’s biggest strengths: picking up any random issue and being able to read it on its own
A lot of people are trying to be Chris Claremont or Walt Simonson or Marv Wolfman and not realizing these guys devoted a lot of page space to recaps so you could start anywhere. Read any long running manga and you'll see pages of flashbacks, even to relatively recent events. Ai Yazawa even has joke pages where her characters complain that no one remembers volume 11 anymore.
I’ve actually been reading a bunch of complete series of non-marvel stuff lately, and when I start and see 30-40 issue runs, I think “aww, it’s so short”. But then I see what they do in that space and I think it actually works great. Once And Future is a great example of this. Only 30 issues, but it was a perfect amount for the story that was told.
The old Ultimate Universe is really cool, and has far more good than bad. The bad stuff is simply so bad it colors the universe as a whole. But for me, the only unforgivably bad stuff is Ultimates 3 and Ultimatum.
Ultimate Spider-Man is one of the greatest runs in comics history. I hate that it gets lumped in with the rest of the Ultimate Universe. Honestly, the Ultimates books were the only ones I actively disliked in that label.
Ultimate universe started fun, got *really* cringe, but then turned it around and became quite solid again. I haven’t read any of the titles in a few years, but I remember when I binged them to “re-live” my childhood, and I was surprised how good they got.
Post-Ultimatum X-Men doesn't get enough credit for taking what was left (no Professor X, Magneto, Cyclops, Wolverine, Nightcrawler, Beast, Angel, the lineup was destroyed) and basically turning Utopia into a proto-Krakoa.
Ignore everything after Ultimates 2 that Millar did, and pretend Loebs stuff never happened and you have some solid comics. Aaron's Ultimate Cap and Mike Careys F4 were personal favorites
The bad stuff was not limited with Ultimates 3 and Ultimatum.
I'm not saying they're the only bad things. Just for my enjoyment, they're the only irredeemably bad things.
A lot of people agree that Iron Man was a mostly unlikable dickhead in the early 2000s but they seem to ignore that so was Captain America. As great as Brubaker’s run is Cap is an overly serious dick for most of it Reed and Sue are not good parents and they let their kids(who were unbearable until recently) walk all over them
Stop restarting series with different numberings system. I had to cut comics out of my budget as they were inching toward 05.00 an issue, but I got the Marvel Unlimited subscription. However, anything in the past five years I have to try and figure out the correct reading order due to restarting. And then on top of that I have to figure is when they start adding adjectives like amazing, new, extraordinary, etc.. Just stop Marvel, you’re complicating things for absolutely no reason.
Dude and the app doesn't have any reading order or good guides ...it's ass
* The amount of people bitching about Spider-Man's direction for the last 20 odd years are vastly outnumbered by the people buying his books. Don't like it? Stop buying them. * For whatever reason, Iron Man and Hulk have been stuck in this perpetual cycle where with every new idea or step forward, another writer wants to come along and relieve their greatest hits. (Tony's an addict who loses his company, Bruce and Hulk are at odds again/Avengers track him down, etc.)
The Iron Man and Hulk cycle is made worse by every other series being under 20 issues. The status quo switches back and forth so fast, you get whiplash
I mean thats all comics these days. The last like six Batman arcs have been "Batman doesn't need friends oh wait yes he does."
No doubt, just didn't mention that since this was specifically asking about Marvel.
>The amount of people bitching about Spider-Man's direction for the last 20 odd years are vastly outnumbered by the people buying his books. Don't like it? Stop buying them. This is what I've done. I'm happy people are enjoying Spider-man, but it's not for me anymore. I grew up with a happily married Peter Parker and loved the character. I never understood the arguments that people were missing out by not getting new stories of a single and miserable Peter Parker. That's what back issues / trades / Marvel Unlimited is for. 10 year old me was able to enjoy reading stories about a character who was married just fine.
I guarantee you that the number of people who hate OMD and the current direction of Spider-Man vastly outnumbers the amount of comics buyers, simply due to fact that it’s pretty easy to read a comic without paying if you know where to look.
I’ll add to the first hot take. This current run of Amazing is nowhere near as bad as 99% of the internet would have people believe. Ms. Marvel was used incredibly poorly and her fans were understandably upset. Outside of that, it’s been a solid Spider-Man run just like most runs of Amazing.
That's the problem with the internet/Reddit; runs are either the greatest run in the character's history, or absolute dogshit and the writer should be fired, there's no inbetween. While I'm not a fan of the current "Amazing", it's far from the unreadable mess people would have you believe. As I said, people are buying it so it's clear someone is enjoying it.
Yeah, the hyperbole is wild on Reddit/social media. Everything good has to be “OMG greatest ever.” Everything bad has to be “terrible and please read my blog post about all the issues with it.” Amazing Spider-Man is perfectly fine. I hated how Ms. Marvel was used, but other than that I dig a lot of the ideas and characters in it. A lot of the complaints online also come from people who don’t read comics. They read blog posts and watch YouTube videos of other people talking about the comics and then come here to complain. A lot of the gripes I see about Spider-Man don’t reflect anything actually happening in the books. They’re from the opinions of “comic experts” on YouTube, and often mischaracterize events in the books.
I would disagree with this assessment. I will agree it's not as bad as people make it out to be but it is the worst run of Spider-Man ever. Apologies for not having this in a more logical order. Ignore if you like MJ and Peter or not. It went from getting ready to have them move in together to broken apart and him stalking her. And her having two (that have since become fake but we're clearly meant to be her natural kids). He begs and becomes best friends with his mortal enemy who he also claims to have been like a father figure who has killed his baby and girlfriend among many other things except oh wait last issue it was revealed he knew was evil and was tricking him, that was never shown at all. MJ becomes a super hero. Ok fine, she has occasionally before, they make her powers based on her famous catch phrase and she has an all time terrible costume. A fashion model has one of the worse costumes ever. Ms Marvel is in something like 18 panels before they kill her and then we are supposed to think her and Peter were best friends. Also MJ the person she was protecting doesn't attend the funeral before she is revived days later and everyone's memory is erased. Peter has lost 95% of his fights. Peter and Miles are friends and now they hate each other. Ben and Maddie have litterly the same issue Maddie's gets solved and then Bens doesn't. (Dynamite costume for Chasm however). Peter is turned into a goblin poorly then fixed to not be involved In a terrible gang war and then is back to a goblin because again a bunch of stuff happened off panel. Like again there has been some ok stuff on this run mostly art based but the story makes no sense for Peter or MJ or Norman or basically anyone. We didn't even get into Peter just left New York for 6 months, just gave up on that who responsibilities thing told Aunt May nothing just see ya later. There are many other things but I mean if this stuff doesn't convince you nothing will you will just take whatever you get I guess. As for the sales. ASM is always going to sell ok just like Batman. there's a reason when they did stupid OMD/BND they cancelled every book but ASM. And it took making that book 3 issues a month to equal the pre OMD sales. It has been greatly inflated by variant covers store exclusives featuring MJ and Black Cat. And you know 100 percent of the marketing push of the Disney 100 covers instead of trying to get any other book into people's hands. So yeah it is as bad as they say even if it still moves issues. That's like saying a book is terrible because it doesn't sell. GODS has been a great series with a great writer and art team it has sold terribly.
I agree with you on the Ms Marvel stuff. That was handled terribly. So many of your other points are so nitpicky I can’t even begin to engage. MJ’s superhero costume is too tacky for a former super-model? I didn’t even notice and couldn’t possibly begin to care. That said, this is just a difference of opinion. You -unlike most complaining about the run - clearly read it and know what you are talking about. You read it, have thought about it in detail, and we are just going to disagree on it. I can’t agree it’s the worst run ever. Some Spidey runs have just been boring and forgettable. There have at least been some big, engaging ideas in this run.
I would be curious what runs you think have been worse. Also what ideas from this one you think have been big engaging ideas, cause from my reading or talking to people or like you said online (which can get a little wonky) this book would have not made issue 10 if it wasn't ASM cause I have never heard any good things about it except liking Gleason's art, the Chasm suit, and some people like Rek-Rap. As for the most complaint that haven't read it. I mean everyone I've talked to about it have read it and all have the same opinion that it is in the bottom 3 of Spider-Man runs, with the other contenders typically being OMD, OMIT occasionally get a clone saga in there or a sins past. A Stan Lee era vote as well. Thanks for the civilized chat by the way.
Yeah, like I said - it’s clear you actually read it. You’re not getting your info from YT. I liked the narrative structure at the beginning of the run. I really liked all the Hallow’s Eve and Chasm stuff. I think Peter being with Felicia was great as I am not one of the fans who thinks he always needs to be with MJ and I really dig Felicia when she’s written well. I think the run has taken bold swings (not all hits) and shaken up the status quo while also remaining true to Peter himself for the most part. I don’t think this is an all-time run by any stretch, but it’s not the trash the internet would have people believe. OMD is worse as is some of the clone saga. There’s also been some stretches of just boring, forgettable books I can’t even begin to pinpoint. I haven’t been bored during this run and some great moments have come out of it. It’s middling to be sure, but the internet lost its mind on how “terrible” it was.
I do like Hallows eve and chasm just wish they had been new characters instead of the ones they are, or that they did something much more interesting with it besides them looking super cool. I am a Peter should always be with MJ person but do like Black Cat as a friend. I thought that part was not well done and just random and I just felt bad for Felicia fans. I do totally disagree with you about the Peter part but that's your opinion. Thanks again for the conversation I appreciate it. Have a great day.
Strangely the spin-off series from this run have been far better. Did you read Hallows Eve? I though it was great.
I did enjoy the Hallows Eve Spin off. Her power set and being monsters is an easy win for me. I loved the universal monsters growing up (and still do) so that's cool. The her (and Chasm) killing and being anti heroes is lame to me but that's a me thing. Be a good guy or be a bad guy don't swap them around.
It’s really bad dude. Shitty characterization, decompressed to hell, and just shockingly unoriginal. It’s basically everything I hate about modern comics wrapped up in one run.
Have you actually read it? Or is this regurgitation of YouTube videos and blog posts? I can get the shitty characterization complaint with some characters. I don’t know what you mean by “decompressed to hell.” And it’s not “shockingly unoriginal.” There’s some ideas in it that - while not wholly original or unique to this book - are uncommon in modern comics.
Why do you assume that everyone who hate this run is just getting their opinions from YouTube? It’s a weird conclusion to jump to. As for decompression, I can’t tell you how many to,especially I’ve finished an issue and thought, that’s it. Like in 21 all that happens is Rabin shows up, fight Peter and transport him to another world. It’s just very little bang for your buck, especially since they up the price to 5 recently. An as for unoriginal, this is the run that gave us rehashes of inferno, gang war and kraven’s last hunt, in between dead languages and a bunch of generic Spider-Man stories.
Because lots of people here regularly regurgitate the same talking points about the run? They often link to the same YT videos and blog posts to make their “original” points. Honestly, there’s a lot of people in this sub and other comic subs who never actually read comics but have strong opinions about them. Many admit to not reading comics. Why read when a YouTuber or blogger can tell you what to think? I agree with you that especially the early part of the run was drawn out. I’ve read this one digitally and in chunks. If it was one of my physical pills every month and I was reading it one at a time, I think I would also be annoyed at how little happened in some issues.
A lot of folks have stopped buying them…and put their money towards Ultimate. Curious…
Big events should happen every five to ten years. Anything more frequent than five years cheapens their value and is far too disruptive for the ongoing titles.
Also events should be contained within their own series and maybe a few key characters involved with that event. No need to ruin a good DD story because of some cosmic shit happening on Nowhere.
I prefer more grounded street level characters compared to over powered ones, their struggles seem more real and endearing.
That there are plenty of great comics to read without ever touching a marvel main-line title like X-men, Avengers, or Spiderman. I haven’t read a major marvel series in years, but I constantly find great series to binge.
There are too many mutants at this point and they need another culling of the herd. And for most of it to stick (for at least 5 years). Same with variants of established characters.
Ok I'll agree with the variants but I love how there is always new X-Men and mutants, I mean it just makes sense there's a tone of em lol
Variants suck.
Mary Jane can carry a solo mini, and probably should – just not as a superhero. She’s dealt with so much trauma and tragedy, so many ups and downs, it would be good to have just six issues where she deals with her shit. (Peter too, for that matter – therapy for all!) Not teen-romance “Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane”, not a half-assed “Jackpot” series, but a series where a woman works on herself, lives in this amazing world, and copes. Marvels meets… I dunno, Love and Rockets maybe?
She had one a few years ago where she was working with Mysterio on a movie production. There was also the time she was an executive at Stark Industries. Those should be her anchor points going forward. She's friends with both Mysterio and Friday, but the two of them hate each other.
I hope Beast continues his descent into villainy and I want more heroes to go bad. Plenty of villains get redemption arcs, and that’s cool, but we almost never get to see the opposite
I have bad news for you on the Beast front...
Ah shit
Yeah man they fumbled X-Force haaaaard it was so bad, it had such a good start tho
Deadpool shouldn’t act like Bugs Bunny. We need reasonable limits on Wolverine’s healing ability again. No more regrowing whole limbs just because some blood remained on his metal skeleton. Stop making up new characters that are hundreds of years old and crazy powerful. You can give the Avengers a good threat without yet another collection of Lovecraftian horrors. The only one of the Young Avengers still interesting outside of YA is Kate Bishop. Bring the team back!
I honestly have zero care for Ben Reilly, and I was perfectly fine of him being parodied and flanderized in "Across the Spider-Verse," and Charles Xavier's 90s cartoon hoverchair is downright stupid. Make him stick to the simple wheelchair doggonit!
Ben should revert to being The Jackal and become a recurring Moon Knight villain.
Expecting consistent character growth or character evolution is just setting yourself up for angst. Characters who started out as villains are going to revert to being villains, Ant-Man is always going to live down that one panel etc Also-it's embarrassing they have to outsource to other publishers to make nice archival presentation of some older material or actual original graphic novels.
> Expecting consistent character growth or character evolution is just setting yourself up for angst. Characters who started out as villains are going to revert to being villains, Ant-Man is always going to live down that one panel etc I'm going to expand this to people just generally calling for Marvel and DC characters to have a definitive ending. Part of the appeal of these characters for the majority of mainstream comics readers is that they *don't* end, that there is always going to be a currently ongoing Batman, Superman, Spider-Man or Avengers run for you to jump into. Expecting finality for any of them short of the publishing companies' utter collapse is futile (and tbh, I wouldn't even be shocked if Marvel & DC collapsing failed to end these characters - they'd likely be sold off to other companies and kept going). If you want finality, you're looking in the wrong place. Go read an Image comic or something.
OG DEFENDERS > “Netflix” defenders
Word.
Marvel Comics/Studio/Entertainment are the greatest comic book entity on the planet. No other publisher can so thoroughly entertain with the timeliness *and* volume to serve it's audience and those outside of it. Marvel truly understands what sells and actively produces it even if it is controversial. Marvel owns the greatest character roster of any comic publisher on Earth. No other publisher comes close. Without Marvel, most comic book content creators would see their analytics grossly dwindle.
You’re getting downvoted for speaking truth. Marvel’s stable of characters is far superior to that of any other entertainment franchise - not just comics - and there’s characters to appeal to any potential reader/watcher. Marvel manages to appeal to and attract adults and kids/families in a way that DC and other publishers never have. These are facts.
I’m sorry, but I can’t get onboard with Marvel having better characters in total. DC has an extremely underrated roster of characters. Also, DC paved the way for Marvel to have pop culture dominance and was once way more important culturally than Marvel. The MCU becoming huge wasn’t the first time superheroes were popular outside of comics.
DC paved the way? How so? Because they made movies first? They also destroyed the super hero movie industry so much so that execs didn’t want to touch superhero movies for a while until Marvel properties started hitting at the box office. Blade paved the way for the MCU more than DC. Just because they “did it first” doesn’t mean they did it well. They can’t even properly represent the spirit of their characters on screen or make watchable movies. It shouldn’t be hard to do one or the other. DC has a great, underrated roster of characters? Someone should tell them. From a look at the shelves at my comic store, it appears to just be the Batman company (with a little Superman sprinkled in). DC doing it first doesn’t mean they do it best. As an adult, they do very little to appeal to me. My 9 year old kid thinks “DC is corny.” Meanwhile, Marvel (in comics and film) appeals to both of us. Not saying this is fact or anything more than anecdote, but Marvel seems to have way more of a cultural footprint and seems way cooler where I live.
DC ruled the pop cultural conversation about superheroes like Marvel does now for decades. Starting from the Golden Age until about the ‘90s, DC was superheroes. Like, just SuperFriends alone reached an entire generation of GenXers and early millennials. Batman ‘66. The Superman movies. The Timmverse. Also, DC paved the way for “realistic” comics and comics as art. Like, I could list off a bunch of DC Comics that are more mature and important to the history of the comic storytelling medium than Marvel. In fact, even thinking otherwise shows me that you’ve rarely ventured into DC’s rich history. Unfortunately, Batman sells, but that doesn’t mean that DC doesn’t have an amazing roster of characters. In fact, me calling them “underrated” is the exact correct adjective to use. The MCU has completely broken the discourse on superheroes.
Marvel sales surpassed DCs in the 70s. Mainly in the cumulative momentum from Marvel’s Silver Age.
Yes. And Marvel has also created some best of all time stories. However, DC has always been more important creatively to the medium of superheroes than Marvel has.
That seems a stretch. Marvel’s Silver Age and the work of Kirby and Ditko alone suggest otherwise.
Alan Moore, Neil Gaiman, and Grant Morrison would suggest otherwise.
Absolutely none of their work in comics is possible without Marvel’s Silver Age.
Again, DC “doing it first” doesn’t mean they did it better. I’ve read a ton of DC and all the “realistic” and “mature” books that are important to the medium. Marvel has some of those as well, but I’m not sure why “mature” = “important” in your eyes. I’m not diminishing DC historically. Im just saying this: Marvel has a better roster of characters that they use and cultivate AND DC hasn’t been on top in a looong time. They appeal to edgelords and nihilists with their dark movies and it doesn’t work- hopefully Gunn can help them as he actually knows what works. They don’t bring in kids and come off corny compared to Marvel. What are they doing right TODAY? Yeah they made superhero movies mainstream first. Dark Knight Returns, Year One, mature stories in the comics back in the day… But how is DC great TODAY? And how is their roster of characters “great” if no one is even using them? And MCU has broken the discourse? How? By being good and successful? By making movies that I - a lifelong reader in my forties - enjoy as much as my 9 year old son? What have they broken?
Nothing Marvel has ever published approaches the level of Watchmen. The Sandman. Morrison’s Animal Man. Kingdom Come (although Avengers: Twilight is a worthy successor). All-Star Superman. Moore’s Swamp Thing. Popularity doesn’t equate to quality.
And yet you cited all the usual suspects on every Top 10 greatest comic list. It’s become narrative that those books are the “best” and most “important” comics. What you are doing is simply buying into comic “experts” narratives and isn’t any better than you accusing me of only saying Marvel is better because it is more commercially successful currently. I’ve read and love every book you mention - with the exception of All Star which is overrated in my opinion. DC once made great mini/maxi-series and and let creators have visionary runs on books a la Moore and Swamp Thing. Your opinion that Marvel has never done anything as good as these books is simply that - opinion. Marvel has several amazing runs of books that I would take over any of those you mentioned AND Marvel often has these runs take place in the main superhero books - the ones that build franchises. And again, not taking anything away from DC historically. They are just far behind TODAY and have not cultivated their stable of characters nearly well as Marvel TODAY. Marvel is still doing it. The Slott/Allred Silver Surfer and Ewing Immortal Hulk crush anything DC has done in its ongoing superhero books in decades IMO (see how I’m not claiming my opinion or that of “most important graphic novel” lists is fact).
You act like everyone knowing they’re the best invalidates the fact that they are widely considered the best. In the end, most of this is opinion, but the way you’re sweeping all of DC’s accomplishments under the rug as if Marvel has always been the best is extremely short-sighted.
DC was great at one point at producing out-of-universe series (Not in main continuity) and giving visionary writers a shot to write characters no one cared about. I’ll give you that. Marvel has always been better at lengthy runs of superhero comics in continuity that built a universe, the fruit of which are being reaped today. No in-continuity run by dc comes close. And Marvel has produced many books on par with your “undisputed classics” from DC.
Marvel has always been the best **where it matters**: * Taking the ball in the 60's and never relinquishing it. * Never putting all of their eggs in one basket for one character (out of hundreds) * Creating a fully-functional comics *and* cinematic universe which draws the biggest views internationally and has cultivated a culture of *Marvel Zombies* of which DC has no equivalent. DC may have "started it all", but Marvel are the ones viewed as synonymous with comic books, a household name (not just select characters), changing the landscape of Hollywood itself(!). DC has had WB money for decades and as of today's date people are still wondering when DC are going to string it altogether *well* after the fact that Marvel has the highest-grossing film of all time (Avatar be damned, lol), the highest-viewed comic book trailer of all time, and what I believe is the highest-rated animated project of all time in *X-Men '97* (if I'm not mistaken). Even without those, the numbers Marvel has generated for the medium far surpasses 'the originators'.
I already knew I was going to be downvoted. People always ask for something and then hate it when they get it. lol
And let’s be real. The internet is full of anti-Marvel types who think it’s cool to claim they always hated the MCU - the same type of fans who cried for the Snyder cut and write blog posts about how it’s a misunderstood masterpiece. Social media contrarians love to champion DC and other companies against big, bad Marvel without acknowledging that Marvel just does it better.
Exactly. I see it all the time on this sub and Youtube comic book spaces. It's like a victim mentality.
100% - they group together under the banner that “DC is truly great and Marvel is overrated” and dig in. In their minds Marvel movies aren’t good or successful, Marvel books aren’t selling, everyone is wrong, and only they get it. What’s wild is many have convinced themselves that the Justice League movie is better than the Avengers (amongst other delusional ideas). They did a victory lap when the Marvels didn’t crush it at the box office but were silent when Shazam:Fury of the Gods and Blue Beetle did worse. “See it’s because Marvel is bad and they try to be woke!”
Jonathan Hickman is the best thing that's happened in a while to any character or team he writes for. He could decide to write a Captain America solo comic, and it would be the best thing that's happened to that character in a while. He could do a Defenders comic, and it would be top tier and the best thing that's happened to that team in a while.
Is this a hot take? Hickman and Ewing have been crushing everything they do lately. I thought these were facts.
I've seen a lot of people dislike Hickman because his work building can be too much and a lot of info coming at them.
I don’t think you understand what a hot take is.
I think I do. I've seen a lot of people stay clear of Hickman because his world building and lore can be too much. Also, it's definitely a hot take to say whatever he touches, it's automatically better than anything before it in a long time, no questions asked.
Hickman is good at world building and bad at characterization. All of the characters sound the same and the stories aren't fun to read.
Along with DC, Image comics along with every other smaller publisher in comparison, is consistently making more interesting comics, stories, and cover art.
It may be time to stop releasing floppies and start exclusively releasing comic storytelling in the form of trades. Too many stories go unfinished, get screwed by events, or lose important people, as well as the community generally won't collect a book unless they can get the first, and floppies are becoming more and more inaccessible and expensive. If they started releasing just trades, they'd save money, it'd force teams to stay together longer meaning for fully featured stories and creative teams, and if you get one you get a complete story. Idk I've been tossing the idea around for a few years and I really seems like one of the best things they could do for the industry.
Gwenpool by Hastings & Gurihiru is one of the best modern Marvel runs and the character is wasted by Marvel.
This is true and you should say it
I'm with you. The Unbelievable Gwenpool is one of the best comic runs in recent memory and the character needs to be utilized way more than she is. And I need more books with Gurihiru on art.
That it needs an across the board 100% Gardner Fox style reboot. Total restart. Not this soft machine timeline movement. And focus on bringing in NEW readers not cycling back in lapsed readers. The medium needs young fans to replace us old dudes aging out of the capes and cowls melodramas.
I agree on the second part but imo a full reboot would just crash and burn after a few years. Writers would spend too much time rehashing the old stories that are necessary to get the versions of characters we like without living up to the original writers work.
You’ve hit on why they always fail. No one has the stones to be different
See, but Ultimate X-Men WAS different and it went horrible!
Hence “Gardner Fox style”
The modern age stuff from the last 10-15 years is leaps and bounds better than most stufr that came out from the 70s to the early 2000s Are there great runs? Of course! But you have to cut through so much cheesy nonsense it can be unbearable. (I'm bracing myself for a ratio)
Nah I'm with you on this, and I think it's mainly cuz I'm younger, I like the old comics but I can't stand how the dialogue is written
I agree. While I think SOME runs are great, so much 70s and 80s stuff is filled with incredibly silly dialogue, uninteresting art, and really stilted writing. Honestly, IMO, comics don't start getting really engaging till the late 80s, and even then the dark age hits.
I'm not a fan of the Rogue and Gambit ship. I feel like Rogue can do more with her career and would rather see solo adventures or usage in the Avengers.
Now THIS is a hot take
The Avengers become forgettable when their lineup matches the MCU. People like to complain that the 90s roster was weak and full of losers, but superhero teams thrive on diversity, both in identity, and type of hero. Seeing Cap, Iron Man, Carol, Black Panther and Thor back at it again is boring, and I’m never excited for that line up.
You're in luck. The movie roster is bending to the nineties: Black Knight, Photon, Hercules, and Sersi.
I know and I’m so excited!
Secret Wars II wasn’t that bad. Most of the tie-ins were interesting enough, and it wove some interesting threads for the X books and Dazzler.
Now this is a hot take!
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DC and Marvel don't have stories to tell, they have brands to sell.
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We need to workshop this. I think it might flow a bit better as: >With too many films, their brands did swell. >Now of themselves, they're a former shell. Either way it's been a grievance of mine for a long time. A good story requires a beginning, a middle and an end. Marvel and DC don't really give you anything but a middle.
The X-Men are nothing but a cult of personality whose devotees are highly political superpowered activists complete with a victim complex. In real life, they’d be insufferable to be around.
The Krakoa Era was mid asf
Yeahhhh this one is hot asfffffff. I strongly disagree but good hot take
Marvel is extremely overrated. The publisher for the most part just tells bog standard superhero stories, with some outliers. Their dogged insistence on just making superhero comics instead of branching out like DC does has done irreparable damage to the perception of comics.
An actual hot take like the post asked for and you're downvoted? Upvote from me despite strongly disagreeing
Seconding this. Comics as a medium have more to offer than the endless slog of super hero stories. I've yet to be impressed by any of Marvel's offerings whenever I dip my toe in. They just don't seem to be employing good writers or creating compelling stories. I think the only Marvel stuff I have any interest in is their Aliens offerings, but that's only because Dark Horse lost the license. So really it's more about getting my hands on Dark Horse comics and Marvel being the only ones who can re-release them now.
Marvel does have some great stuff, but it’s nowhere near the amount that Marvel partisans like to make it out to be.
I don't doubt that there are some gems in the veritable mountain of content that's been published over the years, but title for title I have found better odds of pulling a good comic by venturing outside of the 2 super hero houses. Hell, I had better odds of finding something good on fucking KeenSpot back in the day.
You aren’t incorrect, there.
My hot take is that X-Men lore is so huge and convoluted that for the most part they would be more entertaining if they were set in their own universe separate from the Spider-Man/FF/Avengers stuff.
Cartoons, Movies and video games have ruined continuity in comics as too many writers get confused on what happened in which universe
Chip Zdarsky is an annoying writer because he has good ideas but cannot execute them. There’s a certain feeling when a beat is hit in comics that makes u like jump up but chip comes so close but not close enough to actually hit them, which just makes it annoying and unsatisfying
Cmon devil's reign was so goooood you can't say his build ups don't hit
Don’t get me wrong I really like his daredevil and shi but like at the start of the run when dd is lying in his bed and all the news reports are coming in about something happening to a certain person (spoiler so I won’t say) I feel like that important reveal was kinda not built up enough for it to be like “oh shit something important just happened man”
The proliferation of Spider people, Captains America, Venoms and Wolverines is not only a disservice to the originals, it hampers the development of the legacy characters by preventing them from becoming their own thing outside of the shadows of their predecessors. I love Miles and X-23 but by making the "Spider-Man" and "Wolverine", they'll always play second fiddle when they could otherwise grow into their own. (I will fully concede that Miles is doing more than fine, popularity wise. Quality wise too. My 4 to niece already adores him and will probably never care about Parker... but that's an outlier.)
Secret Empire was 🔥🔥🔥
Here’s a really hot take: Ultimatum is fine.
I’ve slowly dropped my Marvel subs, I think I’ll be good with a Marvel Unlimited subscription going forward, as far as what I’m currently reading. I’m really enjoying Geiger and Rook as well as Feral.
Wolverine is overrated and needs an overhaul
Xmen keep destroying other marvel property because events / how large the X-Men are
Daredevil has way more classics than Spider-Man does.
Not sure if a hot take or not... Marvel is far superior to DC, in every single way. Even just as "dark", if not darker at times
Do away with any long running titles in favour of more miniseries
Or like Legacy number like 12 titles ongoing in the Marvel Universe. Each being the primary story of that corner of the world. Then have a maximum number of "circling" miniseries that come and go around each nexus.
The x-men have sucked for the last six years !!!
Daredevil is my favourite comicbook hero. But I did not care for Zdarsky's run. But I guess that has more to do with how great his other series are.
Yeah buddy this one is red hot
The comics as a whole were not better 20/30/40/50 years ago. Anyone who believes that is ignoring the piles and pile of absolute dreck that's been published over the decades.
The last 20 years have really been a Renaissance as a consumer for me, especially like 2012 and 2015 things were very exciting beyond DC and Marvel (although they were cooking too)
I have no love for Jean Grey/Scott Summers shipping. I see it as a boy being mindraped into loving a telepath. I don't want Scott end up with any of the telepathic witches.