Is Spidey history a thing of the past?

[Steve Saffel]

We haven't had much traffic here lately, but I'm really curious. How do you think recent events have impacted the web-slinger's rich history? After all, there are relatively few people buying the title today who were also buying it in, say, 1970. Does the reworking of the title open it up to more new readers?

[spidertour02]

It's tough to say.

I'm 23, so I grew up reading about a married Spidey. However, with Omnibus hardcovers, Essentials collections, etc., it's easy (relatively speaking) to get your hands on some of the older stories. In that regard, I don't believe that this relaunch necessarily opens Spidey up to a new audience, because people that wanted to read stories about an unmarried Spidey could have had access to other outlets -- both the old stories and "reimagination" books like Ultimate Spider-Man and Marvel Adventures Spider-Man. However, I would argue that this move actually HURTS new readers. Suddenly, large portions of the aforementioned back catalog are mired in a grey area continuity-wise -- Marvel's stance of "they happened, but differently" just won't cut it.

Here's an example of what I mean ... Suppose Timmy walks into a comic book store and gets the newest issue of Amazing Spider-Man. Timmy really enjoys it, so his mom comes back a couple of days later to get some back issues. Timmy's mom comes home with a trade paperback of, say, the middle of Straczynski's run. Timmy reads it ... and the questions start. "Why is Spider-Man married in this comic, but not this one? It's the same series, rght? How come Harry Osborn is dead in this older comic, but alive in this newer one?" Things really so for s<aaa>hit if Timmy's mom comes home with a collection of, for argument's sake, DeMatteis' "Death of Harry Osborn" story, in which Harry dies AND the marriage plays a huge role. Yes, comics are fluid in terms of life and death, but there are usually definitive points to which you can look for answers.

"Norman Osborn was dead, right?" "Well, check out Peter Parker, Spider Man #75."

"Since when does Peter have organic webshooters?" "Find Jenkins' Disassembled arc in Spectacular Spider-Man."

"Spidey's identity is public now?!" "Yeah, read Civil War #2."

Now, though, there are a lot of questions, but not a lot of answers. You can sate the longtime readers with, "It will all be explained later," but will new readers stick with it long enough to find those answers? I kind of doubt it, based on my experiences of trying to get my friends to read comics.

We'll probably never know, just looking at sales numbers, if this brought in new readers, as opposed to bringing back old ones. What I can say, though, is that in the immediate future, this actually makes it difficul to cultivate new fans. Perhaps, down the line when more answers are to be had, this move will pay dividends. For now, though, it's tough to see how mucking around with major continuity points won't confuse new readers if they seek out old stories.

[Habitual]

We haven't had much traffic here lately, but I'm really curious. How do you think recent events have impacted the web-slinger's rich history? After all, there are relatively few people buying the title today who were also buying it in, say, 1970. Does the reworking of the title open it up to more new readers?

With the editorial stance that Marvel has taken in this instance I don't see how it can. How can anyone take any type of personal relationship that Peter Parker has moving forward seriously if we know without a doubt that it will not/can not develop into any type of serious relationship?

It's a joke.

Hab

[Grievous]

We haven't had much traffic here lately, but I'm really curious. How do you think recent events have impacted the web-slinger's rich history? After all, there are relatively few people buying the title today who were also buying it in, say, 1970. Does the reworking of the title open it up to more new readers?


you just need to make a choice,

do you want to read spiderman comics or not?

One more day happened, and Brand new day is in place.

I'm not defending the direction at all, I'm just saying that they have already crossed the Rubicon so to speak, so jump onboard now, or get left in the cold, well not really, there are great titles like captain America, Daredevil and X-men for you to read about going forward.

choose the Superhero Mythology you want to invest in and follow it devoutly.

mine are Captain America,daredevil,Batman, Superman, Booster gold, Green lantern, JSA, JLA, Titans, and many more.

[DarkKnight08]

It's tough to say.

I'm 23, so I grew up reading about a married Spidey. However, with Omnibus hardcovers, Essentials collections, etc., it's easy (relatively speaking) to get your hands on some of the older stories. In that regard, I don't believe that this relaunch necessarily opens Spidey up to a new audience, because people that wanted to read stories about an unmarried Spidey could have had access to other outlets -- both the old stories and "reimagination" books like Ultimate Spider-Man and Marvel Adventures Spider-Man. However, I would argue that this move actually HURTS new readers. Suddenly, large portions of the aforementioned back catalog are mired in a grey area continuity-wise -- Marvel's stance of "they happened, but differently" just won't cut it.

Here's an example of what I mean ... Suppose Timmy walks into a comic book store and gets the newest issue of Amazing Spider-Man. Timmy really enjoys it, so his mom comes back a couple of days later to get some back issues. Timmy's mom comes home with a trade paperback of, say, the middle of Straczynski's run. Timmy reads it ... and the questions start. "Why is Spider-Man married in this comic, but not this one? It's the same series, rght? How come Harry Osborn is dead in this older comic, but alive in this newer one?" Things really so for s<aaa>hit if Timmy's mom comes home with a collection of, for argument's sake, DeMatteis' "Death of Harry Osborn" story, in which Harry dies AND the marriage plays a huge role. Yes, comics are fluid in terms of life and death, but there are usually definitive points to which you can look for answers.

"Norman Osborn was dead, right?" "Well, check out Peter Parker, Spider Man #75."

"Since when does Peter have organic webshooters?" "Find Jenkins' Disassembled arc in Spectacular Spider-Man."

"Spidey's identity is public now?!" "Yeah, read Civil War #2."

Now, though, there are a lot of questions, but not a lot of answers. You can sate the longtime readers with, "It will all be explained later," but will new readers stick with it long enough to find those answers? I kind of doubt it, based on my experiences of trying to get my friends to read comics.

We'll probably never know, just looking at sales numbers, if this brought in new readers, as opposed to bringing back old ones. What I can say, though, is that in the immediate future, this actually makes it difficul to cultivate new fans. Perhaps, down the line when more answers are to be had, this move will pay dividends. For now, though, it's tough to see how mucking around with major continuity points won't confuse new readers if they seek out old stories.

Poor Timmy.

But yeah, if you're just getting into Spider-Man comics and looking for old issues, you'll have to do research to see what the hell is going on. But if they learn what happened, they may not buy them anymore.

[Sano]

I dunno. It seems Marvel's actions are -

1. For newer/younger readers. This I don't really understand. There are no real 'new' readers. I never see children in comic book stores and when I do, it's either to pick up manga, Sonic or something kid friendly comics. The audience really isn't there. I'm 32 now, and I think right now the audience is like 20 and older. There are just more things for children to do with their time.

I don't know if anyone watches "Who Wants To Be The Next Soap Opera Star" but Bruce when talking about soaps said something like, "There are no new fans of soaps. Everyone who has been watching soaps has been doing it for years. So it's better if soaps appeal to the older fans by bringing back lots of older characters." I feel that comics right now are the same way. There is no new generation of readers. It's us and companies should be catering to us.

2. People who are about, oh 10 years older than me, think fondly of unmarried Spider-Man and were outraged when he got married. This class also involves most of the Marvel staff. What they don't seem to get is they are doing the same exact thing to us by unmarrying Spidey, heck this is even worse because when he got married it didn't retcon a lot of events.

3. People who just like unmarried Spider-Man for whatever reason. That's fair, but poll after poll proves that this is either the minority or they just aren't as loud as all the people who want Spidey to stay married.

4. Writers. A lot of writers are single and don't know how to write for married characters in the first place. There are also lots of writers who don't want to deal with continuity at all and this is a good way for them to jump in and tell any story they want.

I admit to being a continuity whore myself even though I understand that there are going to be contradictions and things that don't fit here and there, but I always prefer that people try to tie things together as best as possible.

I'm a freelance artist. No one really big or major, I've done a few projects here and there and I'm not here to plug myself. I'm not at the point where I can support myself solely doing that and sometimes freelance for me means, "Free" but I don't exactly live with my parents and I have to support myself with a 9 to 5.

Sometimes I'll get assignments that I don't want to do. Either the pay is good or it's an opportunity to get free publicity, something to spruce up my resume and so on.

But as an artist I find ways to deal with things and make them fun for me. I'll reference something really obscure that I like, alter it drastically and put it in the work. That makes things fun for me. It's difficult for me to explain, think of the times you got an annoying HW assignment and found ways to make it fun.

So in many ways I view writers the same way. If you don't want to work with a marriage / continuity / what not, make it fun for yourself. Sometimes perimeters are good, you have to think around these problems. Sorry, this is difficult for me to explain.

I never really understand why a lot of writers throw continuity out the window really. You're dealing with a character that's 40 + years old, wouldn't you want to do as much research as possible and at least look up some of the best stories of the character? Today we even have endless resources you can check. Marveluniverse.com, Marveldatabase.com, Wikipedia, hell even Marvel's own Marvel Universe Encyclopedias. Why wouldn't you want to check these things out? It's like writers feel that these things limit the stories they can tell, but they don't, sometimes they can even enhance a story you want to tell if you think around it.

At best sometimes I wish writers would use plain old common sense. In the Toxin mini, why oh why did Milligan have Black Cat say she didn't know who Venom was? Okay, maybe he didn't want to look up Michelinie's run but wouldn't you just naturally assume that Black Cat either knows Venom or at best knows of Venom to not say something like that? Or when Austen wrote Mystique and Sabretooth's first meeting. Um, they have a child together. Wouldn't you just naturally assume that someone already wrote the story of how the two met? Things like that REALLY piss me off.

Now of course mistakes are going to happen here and there and I don't think anyone can keep track of Spidey's past one bajillion appearances but I prefer it when they at least try.

And when mistakes came up, well that's what No-Prizes were for so us fans could clean things up. But Marvel doesn't even print letters anymore. Then of course there are some mistakes so big that No-Prize explanations wouldn't work.

Myself I write crappy fan fiction lol for fun. I love doing research and including as many references to things as I can. Of course it's impossible for me to be able to reference every single comic but I do as much as I can, because it's just enjoyable for me. Obviously whatever I write won't be considered continuity so I have some leeway but working things out and thinking ways to explain things is fun, the same process I go through went doing Freelance assignments I don't like. My fan fics are in regards to the Capcom Marvel games and I'm sure neither Capcom or Marvel gave too much thought into where things fit and so on, so it's quite enjoyable for me to work in things from both worlds when I can. Though yeah because both companies didn't make the games that way it's impossible for me to say this happened in 616 and so on but the more things from other worlds I can get it to my personal time killer story then hey why not. :p

------

In the end, I dunno and it's pretty early for BND. Marvel at least appears like they will fill a lot of the gaps and retell the stories that need to be told and adjust the changes when necessary. I'm not among the new BND readers, but if Marvel handles things right this new era may play much closer to continuity than previous runs solely on the fact that there's a lot of repair work that needs to get done. We'll see how things play out. Well, I'll see on some website or another how things play out because I'm not a BND reader. It's cool, I still have Spider-Girl and Stan Lee's strip for my married Spidey adventures. :D

[Gumbydunzeet]

you just need to make a choice,

do you want to read spiderman comics or not?

One more day happened, and Brand new day is in place.

I'm not defending the direction at all, I'm just saying that they have already crossed the Rubicon so to speak, so jump onboard now, or get left in the cold, well not really, there are great titles like captain America, Daredevil and X-men for you to read about going forward.

choose the Superhero Mythology you want to invest in and follow it devoutly.
I did. And it just got wiped.
Now what do I do?

[TF_Loki]

We haven't had much traffic here lately, but I'm really curious. How do you think recent events have impacted the web-slinger's rich history? After all, there are relatively few people buying the title today who were also buying it in, say, 1970. Does the reworking of the title open it up to more new readers?

Maybe in trades in the big bookstores later on. The release schedule and format for that would be interesting. There has been some hype so MDCU and maybe the subscriptions have increased as a result. I think the new fan is going to come in through the doors of the LCS anymore. He/She will get it through other areas which means that we'll never know.

[Battlestone]

They should have just killed her ass. Its as simple as that but marvel is to cowardly to make that move.She holds spidey back as far as Im concerned.It could have been a major moment in civil war if she was killed in it.And spidey should never have revealed his secret identity.Now nobody can remember his face?Thats just damn stupid.Everything that was done should have been done but in a better way.

[Steve Saffel]

It seems as if there are a couple of clear problems. One is that, to save his aunt, Peter did a deal with the devil. A lot of people seem to feel as if that's waaaay out of character.

Logistically, it seems like a bad idea to make this huge change, then switch the frequency of Amazing to three times a month. Many a fan might have considered dropping the title because of the storyline. Many others might have considered the cost too great each month.

One or the other might be overcome. Put the two togther, and it might make the decision easy. And the investment this will require every month might just drive away new readers.

What do you think?

[Steve Saffel]

And how many folks here have actually stopped buying Amazing?

[spidertour02]

It seems as if there are a couple of clear problems. One is that, to save his aunt, Peter did a deal with the devil. A lot of people seem to feel as if that's waaaay out of character.

Logistically, it seems like a bad idea to make this huge change, then switch the frequency of Amazing to three times a month. Many a fan might have considered dropping the title because of the storyline. Many others might have considered the cost too great each month.

One or the other might be overcome. Put the two togther, and it might make the decision easy. And the investment this will require every month might just drive away new readers.

What do you think?

I agree 100%. It seems like a tough sell to try to get people to buy into the changes AND the increased cost -- with the latter affecting the new readers much more than the former. Pairing the two together simultaneously would seem like an easy way to scare off readers, but we'll have to wait and see. The first few months will likely sell like hotcakes, but the real test will be what sales are like six months from now.

I'm still on board with Amazng as of now, but unless they address the continuity issues soon, I'll probably stop buying. It's just too much money to put into a book that I no longer believe in.

[Sano]

It seems as if there are a couple of clear problems. One is that, to save his aunt, Peter did a deal with the devil. A lot of people seem to feel as if that's waaaay out of character.

Logistically, it seems like a bad idea to make this huge change, then switch the frequency of Amazing to three times a month. Many a fan might have considered dropping the title because of the storyline. Many others might have considered the cost too great each month.

One or the other might be overcome. Put the two togther, and it might make the decision easy. And the investment this will require every month might just drive away new readers.

What do you think?

I can't say I'm an overly religous person so Spidey making a deal with Mephisto in an entirely different setting wouldn't bother me. Like, let's say it happened in a Spider-Man movie, or a cartoon for example. That Spider-Man may not necessarily know anything about Mephisto and 'might' take his word at face value. Pretty hard to swallow that 616 Spider-Man would make a deal with um, you know Thanos' buddy during the whole Infinity Gauntlet thing among countless other stories. I mean, even in another setting it's still hard to swallow that Spidey would make a deal with the devil, but still.

Again, it was just the way the story was handled. The devil wanting a marriage instead of a soul? So NO ONE in Marvel could save Aunt May from a bullet? How in the blue blazes does losing a marriage equal a burned house returning, Norman Osborn coming back to life, web shooters coming back and even Kraven the Hunter and Slyde coming back to life? Well hey both of them can be spotted in the 'Swing Shift' issue that Marvel felt like re-releasing, you tell me... I still don't understand how Spidey losing a marriage gets Betty Brant to lose her job as a reporter and turns her back into JJJ's secretary, I mean seriously WTF....

It was just a gigantic excuse so new writers could ignore continuity and tell pretty much any story they wanted and that's kind of it. Still doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

There might be an explanation for all of this later, there might not. Marvel's promised quite a few times to explain certain things and didn't follow through.

The same thing could of been achieved by removing Amazing Spider-Man from 616 continuity and that would be all that was needed, or just say the book now takes place during the 5 years that MJ was absent from the book when Spidey was single and dating. That's all it would take and I wouldn't have a problem with either scenario, heck I'd still be buying the book.

The three books a month thing, well there has always been about 3 books a month based on Spidey or so. Sometimes I got them all, sometimes I didn't. Of course I was never forced to get them all, except for omega crossovers like "The Other" and so forth. Being forced to buy 3 books a month isn't a bad thing, and if it was under better circumstances I'd be down with the idea.

In the end, there are circumstances that have nothing to do with Marvel in the real world. We are heading towards a recession. The price of EVERYTHING is going up. Even the government realizes how bad things are getting and want to give us all an extra $600 bucks. So any excuse to give someone to not spend nine dollars a month is going to be taken easily. If comics were 25 cents a piece hey, I might stick with BND for a while. That's just not the case for me. Like I said, it's not a move I really support.

I've read some of BND in store. I have minor complaints that I won't bore you with, but not the worst thing I've ever read. I honestly don't even think it lives up to Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man by my favorite writer Peter David, but I may be biased. Something like that or better is going to get me to support this book and buy it three times a month. MAYBE... Still kind of upset by the way Marvel went about doing things...

After OMD I've dropped lots of books, both from Marvel and DC. It wasn't entirely conscious, it just kind of happened. Sure, DC has pulled the continuity rug out from under us but at least I've always gotten a laugh out of how they did it with Superboy Prime knocking out reality or Alexander Luthor mixing and matching different Earths like Punky Brewster's socks. Marvel has done it in such a way that makes me ashamed that I still read comics. OMD just really went to show me the kind of power they have by erasing stories you've just read at their leisure. Like I said, the price of everything going up isn't really helping things.

I understand that a good story is still a good story whether or not it fits into continuity, and as long as you enjoyed it, well that's the important thing. Marvel's not exactly coming to my house and throwing my comics away. Still, I would think they would go about bringing on BND in a much better way than it came about. I mean come on, a big summit with all of their top writers and that is what they came up with? Spider-Man making a deal with the devil? That's just plain old insulting on so many levels. Both Eric Larsen and Steven Grant came up with better ways to achieve the same effect, JMS did too even, but JQ forced him to write the story a different way. I might of still been upset with the marriage disolving but it just would of ended with me dropping Spidey like I did during the Clone years, not me dropping lots of different comics all together.

That's just with the big 2 however, hasn't really affected me reading independent comics or manga. Course they don't really do the gigantic retcons like the other two.

One thing Marvel had over DC is never doing these gigantic crisis style retcons and now they've lost it.

Ah well, I can read Stan Lee's comic strip FOR FREE and still get my married Spidey, go Marvel saving me a few extra bucks every month. :p

http://amazingspider-blog.blogspot.com/

[macchupichu]

ok sano that was a loooooong post

[Yulian]

Really I have little to add except this:

Vote with your wallet.

Marvel isn't getting my money now. Simple as that. I get Thor[I] right now because I like it, but that's it. I was a huge Marvel fan through the 80s and 90s, they lost me, then I started getting back into it, then Civil War came, they started losing me, and now this is pretty much it.

The marriage existed for almost half the character's existence. 20 years. Most readers grew up with it, it's in the movies, the general public thinks of Spidey as married. Frankly, this is someone up in editorial (we all know who) being dictatorial because of his own personal preferences while ignoring the fans, the general public, and his own staffers (we also know who objected to this).

I expect and can handle a lot of left-field crap from comics. DC's doing it a lot right now, but they certainly aren't doing it to this extent or so boldly turning to the readers and essentially saying "We know almost none of you asked for this, most of you don't like it, and it'll undo events of the past 20 years, but since I want it, I'm doing it anyway."

I get enough of that from the government.

Seriously, vote with your wallets, books that hemmorage readers either adapt or die and that's the only way it goes. That's why, no matter how much I want to watch the train wreck, I don't buy [I]All Star Batman and Robin. It'll only encourage people.

- Yulian

[Sano]

ok sano that was a loooooong post

LOL doesn't even come close to a record for me. :D

[macchupichu]

LOL doesn't even come close to a record for me. :D

oh. i never post so much, i thought there was a limit or something

[Sano]

Yeah most sites have them. If you exceed something like 5,000 letters they won't accept your post until you cut it down some.

Spider-Man's history is a thing of the past. Whoa another on topic post from Sano. ;)

[macchupichu]

Yeah most sites have them. If you exceed something like 5,000 letters they won't accept your post until you cut it down some.

Spider-Man's history is a thing of the past. Whoa another on topic post from Sano. ;)

go figure. anyway, i could never come up with thousands of words.

[Steve Saffel]

"Marvel's not exactly coming to my house and throwing my comics away."

It reminds me of the rumors back in the '70s, when DeLaurentis released his version of KING KONG. It was reported that he wanted to locate every copy of the original Willis O'Brien version and destroy them all. That way DeLaurentis's KING KONG would be the only one in existence.

So if the books chase away all of the readers, what will keep the Web-slinger swinging? We've got the animated series coming up--how do you folks feel about that?

[Sano]

Greg Weisman of Gargoyles fame is working on the cartoon and I read before on 'Rama how it's going to be a modern take on Lee/Ditko, with some more recent stuff like Eddie Brock / Venom. Really looking forward to it!

I'm a little sad that once again it is not starting out with an Origin Episode like the 90s series (they did it eventually) but I'm hoping that they are just airing the episodes out of sequence.

Spider-fix for me now will be Stan Lee's strip, Spider-Girl, New Avengers (until they start ramming single Spidey down my throat), the new cartoon and the Amazing Spider-Man DVD-Rom. I'm up to 1966 now, yeah reading like an issue a week and going really slow, but I'm enjoying it since I haven't read these stories in years! :D

Hopefully the fourth Spider-Man movie isn't too far off. I suppose opinions are everywhere on the third movie, but I liked it a lot, seen it about 10 times already, five times in Imax theaters lol! Totally biased. :cool:

Hoping that BND won't do so well and they can turn things back to him being married, all while saying they planned on doing that all along lol! :D

[Princesa]

BND was Superboy Punch-esque in its execution.

[spidertour02]

BND was Superboy Punch-esque in its execution.

That's putting it nicely.

I don't want to go into detail again, but suffice to say, it was very poorly written. I don't think they thought it through thoroughly, because there's too much about it that doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

"Thought it through thoroughly ..." Wow, that just looks odd. :)

[macchupichu]

"Marvel's not exactly coming to my house and throwing my comics away."

It reminds me of the rumors back in the '70s, when DeLaurentis released his version of KING KONG. It was reported that he wanted to locate every copy of the original Willis O'Brien version and destroy them all. That way DeLaurentis's KING KONG would be the only one in existence.

So if the books chase away all of the readers, what will keep the Web-slinger swinging? We've got the animated series coming up--how do you folks feel about that?

oh, king kong
__________________

[Lemurion]

Yes, spidey history is a thing of the past. It no longer matters.

[macchupichu]

Yes, spidey history is a thing of the past. It no longer matters.

lemurion is such a kewl name ;) ;) ;)

[The D]

No<nnnnnnnnnnnnn00000000000>

[macchupichu]

No<nnnnnnnnnnnnn00000000000>

no ? :confused: :confused: :confused: :confused:

[Rasdock]

And how many folks here have actually stopped buying Amazing?

I dropped it like a rock. I read the myspace preview of the first BND and despised it. I read Spider-Man for about 25 years, but I don't mind moving on. Ultimate Spidey and Invincible is filling the void nicely.

Disclaimer: I've vowed to not complain about Spider-Man over and over on these boards because the decision is made and I'm not interested in browbeating those who are liking the new direction. I only answer now because it sounds like you are maybe doing research for an update to your book or something.

Eh, and now I notice I am bumping an oldish thread. Well, I didn't even know this section existed until about five minutes ago.

[turkproverb]

And how many folks here have actually stopped buying Amazing?

I did. Unfortunately, alot of the drops aren't noticed at this point because the SHOPS buy the books from diamond and as such have to GUESS what demand will be.

[macchupichu]

I dropped it like a rock. I read the myspace preview of the first BND and despised it. I read Spider-Man for about 25 years, but I don't mind moving on. Ultimate Spidey and Invincible is filling the void nicely.

Disclaimer: I've vowed to not complain about Spider-Man over and over on these boards because the decision is made and I'm not interested in browbeating those who are liking the new direction. I only answer now because it sounds like you are maybe doing research for an update to your book or something.

Eh, and now I notice I am bumping an oldish thread. Well, I didn't even know this section existed until about five minutes ago.

uir avatar is like so cool :cool:

[Rasdock]

If you're being serious, thanks. That's some Frank Cho action for ya.

[macchupichu]

If you're being serious, thanks. That's some Frank Cho action for ya.

yeah im serious. what issue is it, dint know cho made ms marvel coverds

[Rasdock]

It's issue 4 of the current series. He did the covers for the first several issues.

[Steve Saffel]

The Saturday morning cartoon is good, and the stories remind me of the way I felt when I was reading Spidey in the mid-'60s. The animation takes a while to get used to, though.

It makes me wonder if Marvel rebooted Spider-Man more for the sake of the animated series. Given that we now have the Amazing Spider-Man, Ultimate Spider-Man, Marvel Adventures Spider-man, and animated Spider-Man, is there likely to be confusion?

Back when the only other-media version was the Bakshi cartoon, there also was only one comic book series. No confusion, no conflict. If you watched the 'toon, then read the comic, you were nothing but happy.

[ronnieramone]

Spidey history took the shot in the gut that was meant for Aunt May. We lost twenty years of classic stories with this most recent retcon. Say what you will about the Clone Saga or Sins Past (I'll say they were both terrible) but we also lost Kraven's Last Hunt, Venom, the entire Todd McFarlane era, Carnage, the Parker pregnancy, Harry's redemption at his own death, Mary Jane living with the Avengers, Morlun vs. Ezekiel, and so much more. Sure, many of these stories still happened (in some surreal, not-the-way-anyone-remembers-it way), but only the most patient of readers can forgive this disregard towards continuity.

The reboot wasn't done to attract "kids" (tweens & under) either. If it were, Brand New Day wouldn't have opened with Peter sucking face with a random girl in a nightclub and referencing "Girls Gone Wild." Page two wouldn't have had a person in a Spidey mask pointing a gun at the reader (an image that would even be banned from MTV) and shouting "SHUT THE #$%@ UP AND GIVE ME YOUR MONEY!" Clearly, kids who watch the animated show will be shocked to see the comic, which is rated 9 & up when it should be 13 & up.

I did drop ASM by about 8 copies per issue. As a retailer, I used to sell 10-12 copies of ASM consistently. I now sell only 2 per month and have dropped the book from the shelves. Sad, considering I've been a lifelong fan of Spider-man. this Brand New Spider-man simply isn't the same Spider-man. Too much has changed, and far too quickly.

Spider-man: The Icon is now an Icon who makes deals with the devil. The bitterness that I and many other fans share will not fade any time soon. I very nearly closed my comic store over this, and I am still thinking I may do just that.

[Lemurion]

Brand New Day is for people who don't like the same Spider-Man stories I do.

[ProfC]

I'm willing to bet I like many of the same stories as the posters here. And I like BND. It's the addition of history, not the removal. This is where the character is now.

I have a hard time believing any character can ever be destroyed (or that character's history, for that matter). Hal Jordan comes to mind.

I completely understand those who don't enjoy this at all. But no character is ever beyond redemption.

[macchupichu]

Brand New Day is for people who don't like the same Spider-Man stories I do.

yeah but where is thart people now?