I’ll come out straight with a controversial opinion by saying that the Lee/Ditko wasn’t really doing it for me, despite introducing all the best villains and themes (which is why I still rank it highly). But it is much more formulaic than the Romita stuff or the Lee/Kirby comics. Every issue follows the same pattern without much change. And, importantly, Betty Brant and Liz Allen are not Gwen Stacy, Harry Osborn and Mary Jane Watson. So in the debate between Ditko or Romita era, I’m firmly Romita. Those late ‘60s comics are fantastic and stand the test of time. The issue where they go dancing is deservedly so iconic that it’s since been retconned both in the comics and the readers’ consciousnesses that the gang went dancing all the time in that era even though it really was only one issue! I agree with the consensus that Gwen was dull as dirt by the time she became Peter’s girlfriend (although MJ would suffer from this as well, though not nearly as bad). She was better when she was uptight and snippy. I should also say that Marvel is wrong in thinking that Peter should always be in high school, because he in fact should always be in college, be that as a student or TA or going for his PhD or whatever (which is actually how the writers handled it until Roger Stern had him drop out due to money issues even though the money issue was solved an issue later but then he never returned to college). There’s plenty of late-20 somethings still in college and by keeping him in that setting you can always introduce new characters, the lack of which is a real problem with the Spider-Man books, but which writers and editorial wrongfully blame on the Spider-Marriage.
Moving on to the ‘70s, you get Gerry Conway, who is my favourite Spider-Man writer and who of course killed Gwen etc, I don’t need to get into that. But his stuff feels like a natural progression of the decade Lee wrote the book and he tells some great stories, including the introduction of the Punisher and the whole Jackal saga (which imo succeeds much better at the identity reveal than the Green Goblin did). Obviously, I’m a huge MJ mark but that’s entirely because Lee and Conway imbued her with a deep well of charisma without even having to fall back on a dramatic backstory (that came way later). Conway’s run ends way too soon (there was a lot of behind the scenes drama going on, read Marvel Comics: The Untold Story), but the Clone Saga almost has a natural end point, with Peter returning to MJ and realizing he’s in love with her now.
Another reason why that works as a natural endpoint is because the next ~7 tears of Spider-Man comics is baaaaaad. Like, extremely bad. Len Wein’s run is extremely mediocre and goes back to the formulaic villain of the week storytelling of the early ‘60s. I think he tries to make Peter and MJ’s relationship more complex, but it’s mostly just them bickering every issue. Other characters don’t get much attention. The fact that Wein is ranked so high among my writer rankings sadly says enough about the general quality of Spidey comics. But things don’t really fall of a cliff until Marv Wolfman, who is an overrated hack, don’t read New Teen Titans, it’s a trap. Anyway, Wolfman turns MJ into a monster (she mocks Peter for proposing to her, dumps him and says he was just a quick lay) and gets her kicked out of the books for half a decade because he considers her a party girl too good for Peter (a view upheld internally by Marvel virtually since they started dating in Conway’s run and that would of course never really go away). Wolfman also brought married Betty Brant back and she started having an affair with Peter. So scandalous! I guess that’s better than dating a party girl. Wolfman also did the first fake Aunt May death. He also brought the burglar back as a main antagonist and explained why he was at the Parker house. It was actually a pretty good story, but I’m of the view the Spider-Man origin story should remain untouched. Wolfman was succeeded on Amazing Spider-Man by Denny O’Neil, an incredible writer, but his Spider-Man sucked ass and so there's another meandering run that last 2 years.
At this point it’s around 1982, 7 years since Conway quit, when Roger Stern leaves the Spectacular Spider-Man book (which was mostly okay and better than Amazing) for Amazing Spider-Man, while Spectacular is taken over by Bill Mantlo, who had done a pretty long run on the book already before Stern. Here starts a splendid two year-run of Spidey comics as both writers knock it out of the park on their respective books, supported by John Romita Jr’s first Spidey tenure among other great artists. Hobgoblin! Cloak and Dagger! The return of MJ! The only good Juggernaut story! I only wish they stayed on longer, but they were scared of by the editorially mandated black suit, which many writers expected to be such a flop that they wanted to be as far away from it as possible.
So Stern and Mantlo leave and are replaced with Tom DeFalco and [fill-in writers] by the time the Secret Wars fracas comes and goes. So I’ll throw in a couple more hot takes. Tom DeFalco is bad and the beloved Symbiote Saga is also just kind of okay at best. I had already endured DeFalco’s stint on Fantastic Four, but I always assumed that was just a result of ‘90s editorial expectations. Sadly, that is not the case. DeFalco has an overreliance on masked villains and other mystery plots that he has no real intention of solving that get worse and worse the longer any of his runs go on. Indeed, DeFalco’s run starts off well and he’s the one that finally gives MJ that tragic backstory and reveals she’s always known Peter is Spider-Man (a retcon that doesn’t make much sense in continuity, but it is a GOOD retcon so the former shouldn’t matter). It’s only until about halfway through that things fall apart.
The Symbiote Saga is fine, it only really flops because fans hold it up as one of the all-time great stories. Can’t believe the iconic church tower scene was preceded by 17 pages of Peter fighting some Vulture rip-offs that would never appear again. This also happens in the first issue of the THIRD non-team up Spider-Man ongoing, which lasted for 129 issues and did not manage to hold on to an ongoing writer once. The real good shit comes right after the Symbiote Saga, with Peter David writing a fantastic Spectacular run that sadly only lasted 20 or so issues. I did really love Jean DeWolff so I wished PAD just killed off Liz Allen or something (but then again, I also love modern semi-amoral girlboss CEO Liz, which is such a great progression over 60 years of storytelling). David's little run is a godsend, because ASM completely falls apart with DeFalco quitting the book with multiple plotlines left unanswered and having them haphazardly resolved by David and Christopher Priest in a couple issues.
So by this point we’re at the mid to late ‘80s and to my gobsmacking surprise, Peter and MJ still haven’t started dating again ever since she so cruelly rejected him in 1978! Of course, Stan Lee came to the rescue, because according to Marvel Comics: The Untold Story, it was in the middle of a convention panel that he learned MJ had learned Peter’s identity in the comics a couple years ago, so he asked the fans at the panel if it would not make sense if they got married as well. Fans were so enthused about it that editorial haphazardly rushed them into the marriage as well (over John Romita’s opposition) and Marvel would spend the next 20 years trying to undo it. The enduring ambivalence about Peter and MJ is apparent in the marriage issue in which the marriage only takes up 3 pages (compare it to any other A-list superhero marriage and they always spend the full issue on the proceedings). Also they spend a whole three issues in ASM having them go from not dating at all to being engaged. All this yammering makes me sound like a Spider-Marriage anti but I actually am really fond of it and am glad it happened. I'm just sad that it didn't feel like a true progression of their relationship but I blame Wolfman for that (who married himself to a college-aged superheroine lest we forget).
Anyway, got bored of writing for now, will just say that Kraven’s Last Hunt sucks ass BUT J.M. DeMatteis will return with a spectacular Spectacular run later on, that follows up on KLH so it’s fine.
Re: Western Comics thread
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Originally Posted by Kaiolino
