In terms of Spidey books, I stopped purchasing after ASM #700.

Family Business, Conway's point one issues and RYV have been my only Spidey related purchases since.

Didn't care for SSM & current ASM looks just as terrible. They're the ones I read for free at the comic book shop.

For Amazing Spider-Man, I finally stopped after Spider-Verse. Favorite hero and all, yet Slott made me finally drop the book. Should've stopped after Big Time. I can't honestly recommend anything Slott has wrote for Spidey, which is a statement since he's been on the book since 2010.

I'm probably not going to read the new Amazing Spider-Man title coming out after Secret Wars since it's still Slott.

The only Spider book I haven't missed an issue for is Ultimate Spider-Man.

Since OMD and I miss my spidy but until that gets sorted out I'm done.

I took a break after OMD. I've barely read any issues spanning between #545 - #700 even then I mostly skimmed through, read the first few of issues of Superior then couldn't be bothered (because it was rubbish). I read all of Vol.3 properly (again, awful). I still try to keep up with current events so I sorta know whats going on, because I don't really have an alternative Spider-Man comic.

Pretty much the same here.

I have been been reading Spider-man since Big time. The only time I wanted to to take a break was around no turning back, but up to that point I have loved what I read.

I haven't stopped since I started.

i took a huge break after BND, i have only read a few books after that. i read grim hunt, and a few titles after that. i am still on my break. i will probably read some of the ones after secret was and miles.

Warning this is not an insult, but this makes sense to me based on your views of the character. I challenge you to read some books before the 90's I think you will see why some of us have very different opinions on the character, and I think you will find them to be a great read:)

I quit reading 616 during the clone saga in the 90's. I got back on board with Ultimate Spider-Man. I quit reading that when Pete was killed.

Sure I pick up a trade at the store from time to time and skim it, but nothing good enough to buy.

I actually know a guy that liked BND, but once I introduced him to the years of backstory, he soured on it pretty quickly. He became a fan of Spider-Girl afterwards instead though.

That said, Kcomic seems fully aware Dan hasn't been at his best in recent months.

My post was in no way intended as a negative on the person it was just an enlightenment of understanding on a point of view. With that said I can see how your friend felt differently after reading past work. I have found that many of the current readers only (ones that have not read things much from the past) seem to be fine with the character since they never had decades of continuity to show them otherwise.

I would almost tell someone not to read the older stuff because it may ruin them on what we have now, yet do they not deserve to see how good it used to be.

I did not and would not take your comments as an insult, so don't worry. I have read some Spider-man comics from the 90's and I have read the JMS run but I still prefer Big time.

Slott lost it around "no turning back" but his run picked up again for "Superior Spider-Man" and then it made a noise dive for the relaunch.

Have you read anything from the Dematties Spectacular Spider-Man run from the 90s? Like "The Child Within", "The Death of Vermin", "Funeral Arrangements" and anything to do with Harry Osborn in that book? I would recommend all of them if you haven't. If you like that, also check out "The Gift" from ASM#400, it's a pivotal point of the Clone Saga, wrote Aunt May out of the books for four years, and is still of lasting consequence to the Spider-Girl series. And it's from the same writer as all the stories I mentioned.

JMS is great up until "Book of Ezekiel", then Romita Jr. left and we got "Sins Past" (ugh), after that it's just nothing but crossovers and editorial mandates up the wazoo. Less stories and more means to an end, I stuck with Peter David and the writer of Sensational, but I barely touched JMS after Sins Past, and consider Fraction's "To Have and to Hold" the end of his era rather than anything by him in the lead up to or including OMD.

@zarius: I might read The spectacular spider-man, but I doubt it will change my position on Slott. However I am sceptical about anything that involves The Clone Saga.

I agree with you about JMS. But I don't really mind mandates, if they serve an end. Spider-man Black in black was a good mandated JMS story.

Many have said that, Slott seems to write Doc well but he tends to not write a good Peter Parker. I am speculating here but I would say that he just does not understand the character or he refuses to write people in character and modifies them to fit the narrative.

@spider11211: I disagree. Slott writes A decant Peter Parker.I think that he understands the character, it is just for the sake of making the character accessable, he reduced the character to his core components and plays on the comedic elements.

I've read a lot of Spider-Man titles since 1974 and I wholeheartedly disagree. Slott writes a very immature Peter Parker, one who doesn't learn that from "great power comes great responsibility". Slott's Peter Parker is a regressive character, a shell of his pre OMD self, a devil dealing, ineffective, indecisive support character in his own book, relying on others to help him.

Gone is his intellectual wit, his physical strength and prowess to independently sort out his problems and overcome his enemies. Where's the drama? the action? the slice of realism? the witty humor? the substantial character development? the progression of mature sophisticated stories? The Spider-Man mythos is a whole lot more than just silly lighthearted comedic adventures.

The comedic element is just one of many core components that makes Spider-Man tick. Over emphasizing that with cheesy goofball humor as Slott tends to do does not make Spider-Man any more accessible. It makes him a fairly bland one-dimensional character. It turns Peter into a man-child, a buffoon starring in a comic-book sitcom.

RYV proves that Slott can write a reasonably decent Peter Parker, but that's an alternate universe.

I agree 100%.

I concur. Spider-Man is so completely detached from what made him what he is now, and it's the result of a desperate office trying any gimmick to camouflage the fact they have no true enduring vision for the character out of a fear only they have that it makes him "unrelatable". Yes, the most relatable thing in the world to people from their late teens and beyond, succeed or fail, is "unrelatable". Go figure.

Dan works best with what is familiar about Peter Parker, when he goes off on his own tangents and is'nt kept in check, we get far too left-field, and his attempts at "deconstructing" certain characters come off as mean-spirited and far out-of-sync with who they are in the context of history. I don't think there's one cast member in ASM I've liked in Dan's work outside of Anna Maria, and even she's starting to try on my nerves a bit, as I'm just expecting her to be the conduit for Ock's comeback.

The Mephistoverse take on Peter, MJ, Felicia, Aunt May, etc, all of them I think need to be hit by a bus whenever I read them under Slott.

I think you feel this way since you have not read much from the past, if you did you may gain a new perspective.

i stopped again when after i bought the comic when peter decided to build a prison. that was just looney. peter is also responsible for all the people working for them and their families. i don't get it. that was just dumb and out of character for him.

@spider11211: I have read comics from the past and I still maintain the same opinion.

It's just interesting how you don't seem to care much for Renew Your Vows, which is an example Dan actually writing a decent, mature, prioritized and familiar Peter Parker of old with a unique parental direction, vs a completely immature and clueless and emotionally-fragmented Peter Parker in the main books.

I know you've said in the past you don't want Peter to have kids or be that settled, probably that's why you find Dan so appealing because you yourself agree with this regime's present policies (which will no doubt change when marriage fans eventually take over editorial)

@zarius: This is how I feel, I have never denied this, Slott writes a character that I want to read about.

Peter is not as clueless and useless as you think, he is getting in more difficult fights, so he is taking longer to beat the villain. But he still wins fights and now he puts his intelligence to good use when doing it, for example out smarting Doc Ock multiple times and creating suits to defeat the hobgoblin and a new sinister 6. the direction RYV puts him in is not that unique, Slott writes a boring Peter who is still doing what the character did in the 80's and 90's, married and not putting his intelligence to good use in a job that is beneath him. the only difference between RYV and the 90's peter is a child (yawn) and being a super hero is outlawed.

The Spider-man writing team was clearly trying to get rid of the marriage Way before OMD. And The key players of the Spider-man editorial ,for example Joe Quesada, are going nowhere.

@kcomicfan: "The key players of the Spider-man editorial ,for example Joe Quesada, are going nowhere."

Hey we can hope:)

They're going nowhere alright. Going nowhere with the character, rofl..

Kcomic, noone here is calling for a swift and immediate dismissal of the regime, but It is a pretty naive thing to think this will last forever. A long time to come perhaps, but not forever. And it won't be like you'll care, because you've said yourself they'll come a time where you will be complaining about how Spider-Man is written. Even then the marriage will probably still be kicking about for some fans (that said, I don't think the daily strip will ever bite the bullet and give Peter and MJ a kid there, otherwise they'd have done it by now)

Put it this way: Marvel couldn't even go ten years without using Jean Grey again. And that includes the Endsong stories that came almost a year after Planet X. Yeah, the adult version is still "dead" (aka ascended to the White Room of the Phoenix crown), but they still eventually choked and made the character a fully functional part of the universe again via time-displacement.

There's not been one decade outside of the 60s and 70s (roughly only 20 years of Peter's 53+ years of existence) where the marriage hasn't been a persistent element in Spider-Man. Even after OMD, newspaper strip universe included, the marriage stuck around right through to the end of the BND portion of the Mephistoverse (Spider-Girl's conclusion in 2010) and little more than four years later, the infant son of Peter and MJ was made a vital plot point of Spider-Verse, and RYV took over as the summer story, with promises that elements of it will remain in the All-New Marvel reality (which will likely be Annie and maybe the inhibitor patches). Really, regardless of whether they use time displacement or alternate realities that factor into the main narrative, Marvel have never truly detached themselves from Peter and MJ's relationship or it's legacy, and there's little doubt that will change even if this finite editorial regime does'nt for the time being. They know how to milk that element and can count on it making them loads of cash when the time comes to properly reinstate it.

The marriage is still about, so as far as I'm concerned, regardless of how long Quesada, Alonzo, etc are around, the fact they only succeeded in demoting it, not destroy it, says it all really.

After watching Linkara's video on One More Day, I'm probably going to be on an indefinite hiatus until the deal with Mephisto is retconned or given the treatment it deserves. And Spider-Man's my third favourite superhero so missing out on his current comics is still ticking me off. Yet I refuse to pay money towards a character I like being treated so poorly by people who don't know what to do with him.

I never said that they will be there forever, you are assuming I said that. I think that you underestimate the power Quesada and Alonzo have, both of them have just started there traditionally long tenures as the heads of marvel (Chief creative officer and editor in chef respectively), both men are not going anywhere soon,I would guess about 10-15 years. and in this time they will have there thumb over spider-man. And after that there is no way of knowing who will get these positions, you are just speculating when you say that a new team will come along and reinstate the marriage.

You are overestimating the marriage, the newspaper strip is not a well known mainstream Spider-man universe.The MC2 only became relevant again with the Spider Verse event and Benjy was not a key part of the story, he was a plot devise this is blatant because he was not one of the characters who had the spotlight. Renew your vows is the only relevant one you mentioned, and that universe will be destroyed and we don't know what will survive. The marriage has survived, but in its little,not known, side story corner.

Did my other reply's tag you. there is about two responses that you have not replied to. it is ever that,or you can't think of a response so you ignore it to save your dignity

@spider11211: I was not being rude, It is an honest question. randomly dropping debates and starting new ones, then dropping the debate that was just started is a little suspect.

You would say that because his views line up with yours, TBH the arguments have been good from both sides.

@kcomicfan: Actually I do not agree with all of his views. I just want to see the discussion remain civil, I respect everyone here. With that said I do think he understands the character more, I still can't grasp some of your views unless it is from a person with little history of the character. With that said I appreciate your views, maybe a fresh view is what they want. Just remember at the end of the day we are all here to enjoy discussion about the character.

Question, what would you think is the best stories for Spider-man? This may help me to understand your view of things.

@spider11211: I did not say that you agree with him 100%, but you share some of his opinions on the topics we debate about. I have read Spider-man and I understand the character, I clearly have the knowledge if I can hold a debate. I prefer a non-married peter that is not crazy, and there are veteran fans who share my opinion. I am being civil, I was just asking a question.

I want a Peter who spends his time juggling his job as a scientist and as spider-man. I don’t mind him having interactions with adults. Its just I hate MJ.

@kcomicfan: Fair enough, thank you for not taking it as I was trying to be offensive. I really wanted to see what led you to this view. When you say you have read Spider-man I still am not clear, around what issue did you start of what stories have you read?

You're entitled to your dislike, but MJ has done plenty of good for the character and can continue to do so when Marvel write her on-point, hence why she is so beloved.

One of the best Spider-Marriage and MJ writers, Tom DeFalco, actually wanted MJ to leave Peter at the altar when plans came for the wedding, but came around and later on revealed how much he had enjoyed writing MJ and that it defined a good chunk of his Spidey writing afterwards. Other professionals who share your opinion include Roger Stern, who wrote some great interactions with Peter and MJ before and during the marriage (interestingly, despite being opposed to Peter and MJ, he was a strong advocate for Lois and Clark in Superman and was an architect of their engagement), Stern was also the one that got the ball rolling on fleshing out MJ's origins.

There are vintage fans who share your belief, but that's just the same as saying there are vintage fans who want Gwen back, or want Peter to be a photographer forever, or want Peter to stay in High School. All nice thoughts, but they're steps backwards. Peter used to go through life without a reset button. Now that is no longer the case, it's all pretty much a lie. I haven't bought into that lie. Nothing crazy about doing the opposite, but it's a lie.

These vintage fans want Peter to be in a specific "idealized" place and a few don't want him to budge in terms of maturity, which is what marriage and fatherhood provides for him. Despite disagreeing with your views on Peter being with MJ, I feel your type of fan is definitely ahead of a few of those fans in particular because you're going to be in a position to see Peter overachieve for a bit, where as they want him more to underachieve. Married fans want a fine balance, naturally going forward and being more grounded. I feel like Peter being a teacher or a police scientist allows him to still achieve great things within his limits. I do not think he should be limitless, as you can only have Roseanne win the lottery once before the magic is lost. This feels very much like the unmasking deal in 2006/2007...it's something that may well be reversed in the cheapest way possible and take Peter so many steps back, and I just hope you're prepared for that.

I do respect your views, you haven't been rude for the most part and you're doing a respectful job holding your own, sometimes (this is due to my aspergers) I get bull-headed and say things I don't mean in between all the things I do. Just cut through that, as it's just banter.

Bravo sir, I love how we can disagree yet have a meaningful conversation:)

@zarius: you just said it all right there. I love spiderman, nightwing and others like them because of all the others characters in comics these are the ones who have grown up and evolved in front of our eyes but always staying true to their origins. Peter and MJ together with a child would have been a great step forward like everything else he did but this magic button you were talking about just derailed him. Hopefully with the anniversary of the marriage (or OMD, I forget which) he'll get back on track. Renew your vows is the first spidy comic i've gotten sine OMD and I'm so happy things are looking up.

Didnt read superior spider-man. Looked sucky.

I've only read Superior Spider-Man.

I'm actually currently on a break form Spider-Man. I really don't like Slott's run, that and two failed film series has kind of killed my enthusiasm as a Spidey fan. I was going to keep reading Ultimate Spider-Man but Marvel destroyed the Ultimate Universe, and I don't think Miles in the main universe will be all that interesting. Maybe the MCU film will reignite my interest in the character, we'll see.

I agree with you for most of this. And I agree that you should have your opinion even if I disagree with it. and I concur you are also doing a decent job holding your own in this debate.

Fans of the marriage have the same problem, they want peter to stay married forever. which can be a step back because a marriage is a tricky thing to write and it wont always be interesting to read about. And who knows if it will work out in the long run. The marriage might come back in a cheap story like OMD I agree.

I think that peter can have a balanced life even if he is overachieving. it is good to expand the characters limits so that he gets his due, like saving the world twice working at horizon labs. and keep him at a grounded level by making him interact with people. when he uses his smarts to over achieve, he gets respect from the avengers and shows why he is a great superhero, I don't feel like this would happen if he was a teacher. And him being a teacher or a police scientist takes away the possible story's that can come with Peter being a scientist. being a teacher is not exactly a spark for interesting plots.

@spider11211: I started reading at Big time.I have read all the resent stuff starting at Straczynski and going to vol.3. I have sparsely read select story arcs from the 90's and 80's. and I have read all of the classics like Stan Lee's run.

Great, I have to say I love the classics, do you have a favorite time period?

Being a teacher puts him into contact with students involved in all kinds of personal hang-ups, the state of the student body and education system is ripe with strive and it often makes for compelling reading in the news, and many of the best Marvel and DC Comics have been rife with commentary on these issues. If a writer can find time for it, there is plenty to tell, but it is as you would suggest, a gamble on a writer's specific interests.

Dan likes to think in the grander schemes, and took a fast lane approach to getting there, where as I would have preferred it slowly built up. A few years at Horizon maybe, learn the trade, work your way up etc.

Just for clarification, I did'nt suggest the marriage could return in a "cheap way", more that Parker Industries and Peter's fame could be taken in a "cheap way".

sure,Peter as a teacher can tell an interesting sub-plot, but how would it cause conflict with a super villain? unless say the rhino crashes into the school,there would be no natural plot build up for peter to become spider-man. for example: Spider-man fighting the lizard, because peter Parker was need to take pictures of the mysterious monster in Florida or the hobgoblin stealing Horizon labs technology. it also limits the type of story's that can be told. for example big stories like Spider-island worked only because of peter working at Horizon.

A slow build up could work and it could evolve the character. peter could mature as he works his way up to being the top scientist.

Honestly I can see both happening, Parker Industries and the return of the marriage both happening in cheep lazy story's.

I took a break for a few years during BND. The stories had terrible pacing and didn't entertain me. This combined with some financial issues had me cancel my subscription. I did try to come back much later and read the awesome Scarlet Spider title by Chris Yost but that got canceled and I think I've made my dislike for Superior abundantly clear. I plan on getting Renew your Vows when I can though I might have to trade wait.

Sometimes the biggest and boldest stories yet to come can be told by building up elements within a social platforum like a college. Get to know certain characters, and then pull them in different directions. Miles Warren, The Jackal, first fell in love with Gwen Stacy when professoring there and dabbled in cloning with his partner, also committing his first murder there too. That spring-boarded him into greater things.

Alternatively, you could have Curt Connors, teaching at the same place as Peter, and build from there a battle with The Lizard.

@zarius: Again that could be an interesting sub-plot. But it is a comic book not a drama TV show, there needs to be conflict from villains. And apart from the two you mentioned, that would be difficult to add from a school setting, especially compared to what can be done when peter is a scientist.

This.