Is JMS' Spider-Man run really the best one?

Pretty sure most consider the Ditko/Lee run as the best.

BB

@billy_batson: Perhaps I should edit it to include that one. What was I thinking?

Damn it I can't edit it. To all newcomers, it's supposed to say "After the Lee/Ditko or Lee/Romita Sr run, people consider JMS' run one of the best Spider-Man stories."

I didn't enjoy a lot of JMS's run...the whole mystical animal totem stuff was ridiculous....The Other was completely unnecessary...it was kind of like he didn't know how strong Spider-man already was so he made him stronger....he wasn't responsible for the unmasking he played a large role in it....all of that stuff painted Spider-man into a corner with no way out making OMD kind of necessary...they shouldn't have gotten rid of the marriage but they really had no place else to go

@lvenger: Like i said in the other topic....ONE of the best,not the best,so No.

Exacly.

@lvenger:

CBR did a year ago poll about Spider-Man creators. Here's a link if you're interested: http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/2012/05/21/50-greatest-spider-man-creators-master-list/

BB

Lee/Ditko, Lee Romita, Stern/Romita Jr, Michilinie/McFarlane are some other great runs of Spidey.

@billy_batson: Thanks for the link!

I think I'm far too biased to vote. I started reading Spidey with Straczynski's first issue, so his work pretty much went on to define how I think of the character.

Dan Slott had a decent ASM run..........(hate in 3....2...1..)

No he did actually. But after Amazing, that's when things turned sour.

@lvenger: Didn't this get locked before ?

@z3ro180: I asked for that one to be locked so that this one could replace it instead. I'd rather have a poll that shows the stats.

Yeah,i extremely liked the run.I had a good time and i didnt want him to quit the title in no way...Spider-Island was nonsense,but everything else,quite good!

Agreed!

JMS is a mixed bag for me.

I like his first couple of books but then he wrote about GWEN STACY and started saying all this made up b.s. about her and Norman Osborn which is the reason why I hate jms!!!!

Actually I read up to interesting things about JMS.

1. Sins Past: He actually pitched a story where Gwen apparently had his kids and he never knew. I don't know about you guys I liked this idea. But editorial (Mainly Joe Quesada) hated Peter Parker having pre marital sex and being a illagitamate father. So they went with that Gwen and Goblin nonsense.

2. One More Day: Though he agreed to write the story, he actually advocated the marriage. He enjoyed writing them together. But said that ending the marriage was also an editorial decision.

JMS's run was only good up until Ezekiel died. After that it went downhill really fast. And really, that's only if you don't hate the spider-totem idea to begin with.

I think SM comics were terrible, and uninspired for a long time before JMS' run. His stories sparked life into SM again. However, Sins Past was horrible.

What!? So Green Goblin's Last Stand/The Night Gwen Stacy Died was bad? Kraven's Last Hunt was bad? Hobgoblin sagas bad? The Death Of Jean DeWolff?? Master Planner Saga? The list could go on, but I do agree that there has been bad Spider-man comics over the years.

@punyparker: slotts run was one of the main reasons i got back into marvel. from 2000 on i mainly read dc. although i never gave up daredevil which never dissappoints. but slotts run and then remenders venom got me back into marvel so when i hear ppl diss slott i say yo man read big time and then stick your foot in your mouth

I read somewhere that it was mostly editorial interference on Quesada's part that led to Sins Past and One More Day. Apparently JMS wanted to tell a different story in Sins Past, and he hated OMD so much he wanted his name off it. Least that's what I heard.

Oh well. At least this run gave us Norman Osborn's sex face, because we all just had to see that......

I would add Gerry Conways run as one of the best!!

I had read that somewhere as well

@veshark: The different story JMS wanted to tell with Sins Past was still terrible. Peter would have been the father to Gabriel and Sarah. As for One More Day, JMS's original version was far, far, FAR worse than what we got. According to Quesada:

When I was halfway through issue three of OMD, we received Joe's script for issue 4. After reading it, we (Axel, Tom and myself) all quickly realized that we had a problem -- the script we had just received was not the one we were expecting, and the events that were being set forth in that issue were going to conflict with the work that was already being done on "Brand New Day." I thought that perhaps Joe had forgotten some of the stuff discussed at the summit meetings and the subsequent e-mails and discussions that followed, but that didn't seem to be the case; this was the story he wanted to tell. In his story, Mephisto was going to change continuity from as far back as issues #96-98 from 1971. In Joe's story, Peter drops the dime on Harry, and that helps get him into rehab right away. Consequently, MJ stays with Harry, and Gwen never dies and never has her affair with Norman, etc., etc. And in the end, Peter and MJ are never married.

.....and then read Superior and get it out of your mouth again...

Slott did good on amazing

@punyparker: lol!

@punyparker: did u actually give superior a fair shot? if you go into without intending to hate it it is actually pretty good for a limited run which we know it will be. but if you go into anything planning on hating it you will hate it because you only focus on the negatives in the book. sure ock has done some things peter would never do but ock isnt peter

Stop it right there.11 issues bro.It is more than a fair shot.

Everyithing is set up like that,so Ock can get his way.Even Aunt May isnt suspicious if something is,even a little,wrong with her child,accually.She knows him all his life.Not to mention MJ,who is a stupid damsel in disstress.In other words=Dum b*tch.This isntr my MJ,this isnt my Avengers(as portrayed),and of cource this isnt my Spider-Man.

@lvenger:Selected stuff are great.

His early stories that added mysticism to spidermans origin and purpose are amazing, The Other was good.
But sins past and OMD are plain simple bad.
Also OMD was a editorial forced story that's why JMS quit the title

BY FAR LEE/DITKO!!!!!!!! Then maybe todd mcfarlane ....... VENOM

Not the best, but definitely one of them.

I actually really like Slott as well, though I haven't been keeping up with Superior.

Bendis has a great Ultimate run as well. Never read a bad issue with him on Spider-Man.

Can we get a source on this? I'd love to read the full interview/blog or whatever it was that you pulled this from.

oh yes. gwen boning osborn in a moment of pity. greatness!!!

@baron_bj: http://www.spidermanreviews.com/2011/08/infinite-spider-man-part-17-jmss-one.html

Aside from Lee and Ditko my favorite is Roger Stern and David Michelinie

I liked how it began. It went out with more fizzle than bang. I did enjoy it. I will admit to liking JMS' work, but also not worshipping everything he does.

I like seasons 2-4 ish of b5. Some fo the rest is okay. I started reading Rising stars, but lost track of it. I thnk the idea behind grounded was interesting. I am not saying I agree with execution. I dislike Superman Earth one, with a burning passion.

Basically, JMs has his own tropes that he reuses a lot. If you like or tolerate them, you are probably more able to go along for a ride. He tends to have fated arcs, that start in the middle with a defined begining and end. He likes evils that are more ancient than ancient. also, his evils tend to be more mysterious than mysterious. walkabout are common. I could probably make a drinking game.

I don't think this makes him bad, by any means. Whedon has his own habits. Every writer I follow does. So, his recurring themes are fine, but there are stories where they feel better.

JMS had a solid run but at the end Quesada just had to go over him and screw up everything. I mean how many people think of all the good JMS stories? When Sins Past and OMD are so infamous for being the worst Spidey stories ever.

I've been rereading my older Spider-Man comics recently and here are my thoughts

Despite the fact that Sins Past and OMD are bad concepts - they were excited brilliantly to be honest. If you were going to do those stories, they probably could not have been written much better. I think people often confuse the two. I mean if you were going to write OMD, how could you do it better? Peter and MJ holding each other in the Dark and then MJ ultimately making the choice, knowing Peter never could...that was brillaint execution of a terrible concept.

Moreover, the real crime of OMD was not that it happened - its what happened afterwards. We sacrificed MJ for Aunt May...and then Auny May is pretty much neglected going forward. We barely see her at all and they even marry her off to a different city so they don't have to write her.

So we lost MJ and lost Aunt May at the same time and Peter loses both of his best supporters going forward. THAT is what pissed me off.

Ironically, I think JMS writes the best Peter/MJ romance of anyone...and its kind of not close. The way he handled their reconciliation as well as their time during Civil War was beautiful. Some of the most touching moments between them are his works.

As far as other runs go...Lee/Ditko is obviously the one people will think of, and while they were great for their time - they're simply out dated for me. I've read his run and its very charming but its simply hard to get emotionally attached to it for me.

I've only read select things from the 80's and 90's (mostly stories involving Black Cat, Venom and Carnage) so I can't comment too much on any of those runs, though I wasn't exactly blown away save a few stories here and there.

And outside of a few stories, such as Kraven's First Hunt, New Ways to Die, Grim Hunt and anything with Black Cat (<3 her) - everything post OMD was pretty mediocre to be honest. I especially hated One Moment in Time where they say the reason for MJ and Peter splitting up was because she wasn't "strong enough" to bear his burden - when she was pretty much the pillar of his support prior to that. That really just pissed me off, because it basically shit on the character.

So for me...especially as he was writing the run while I was growing up, JMS is the best Spidey writer - as far as 616 is concerned anyway. BMB run on USM up to Peter's death is probably the best Spider-Man run ever as far as I'm concerned (even if its not quite the same after Bagley leaves and especially during Ultimatum, ugh). Though I don't really care for Ultimate MJ. Ultimate Gwen was way better for me personally.

@billy_batson: how the hell did they leave todd mcfarlane out of the writers list!!!!????!!!!

I would just like to go on record and say Doomed Affairs and Moving up are two of my favorite Spidey stories.

First of all, I am a fairly new fan, and the only Spider-Man run I have read that's over fifteen years old is the Stan Lee stories. That being said, I don't like JMS very much, although I only read The Other, Sins Past, and OMD, which people say are his worst stories. I do like how he writes Pete and MJ, though. I got into comics with Ultimate Spider-Man, so I only really read Ultimate Peter until Dan Slott's run got me into mainstream Marvel. Overall, my three favorite Spider-Man writers are Stan Lee, Brian Michael Bendis, and Dan Slott.

As far Recent spider-man writers go, only joe kelly can compare

How about J. M. DeMatteis

DeMatteis is great. Spectacular Spider-Man #200 would belong on any top ten Spidey Stories list.

He's the "big" Spider-Man writer I probably have the least experience with.

I've only read Back in Black, and the 9/11 issue, both were cringe-worthy and cliche-ridden as far as I'm concerned.

The parts I've seen of Sins Past were some of the worst stuff I've seen in Spider-Man comics.

My first instinct is that JMS was someone who was embarrassed to be writing Spider-Man, everything in it seems to be trying to revise or explain something that needs no explaining, its also trying to be "gritty" or "realistic" and there's no real humour or fantasy.

It feels like Spider-Man is being shoehorned into a Batman style character, and JM Dematteis did that better 10 years earlier, and with a lot more intelligence, integrity, and understanding of the character (well, most of the time LOL).

I'll reserve final judgement until I've picked up "Coming Home" though.

Roger Stern's run was the best.

He did some interesting things and went in new corners with the character but he is not my all time favourite. However somewhere in a mid tier in top ten.