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.
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