With Spider-Man celebrating the big five-oh this year, editor Steve Wacker (The man who has edited more issues of Amazing Spider-Man than anyone else, somewhat surprisingly considering he’s only been on the book for five years) goes over what makes the character work:
In terms of the status quo of the ongoing book, I don’t think it’s a good idea to have Peter get completely over that guilt that he feels about letting his Uncle Ben down. I think what makes him a great hero is that he’s trying to make up for that fatal flaw every day. It’s Greek drama… I think [with the "Nobody Dies" decision last year,] writer Dan Slott was playing with the clay of the character; the same sort of guilt that’s in the original big bang of the character with Uncle Ben. Dan played that with Marla Jameson, Jonah’s wife, who died last year in a super villain attack. Spider-Man felt guilty, and because he’s Spider-Man he felt guilty about something that really wasn’t his fault. It’s not the same as Uncle Ben, but he feels these things so deeply. He has such empathy for his fellow human beings and it led him to make a decision that, as long as he was around, no more people would die. Throughout the book’s 50 year history, there have been a lot of people that have died around Peter Parker and he carries each death with him.
Thankfully, comic books are a fantasy because if as many people had died in your life as they have in Peter Parker’s, you’d probably jump off a bridge yourself. I think “Nobody Dies” is Dan trying to bring that core of the character back to the forefront.
I have no idea whether the comics internet en masse has gotten over One More Day yet – Surely it has, that was five years ago now – but, for me, Amazing as a series and Spider-Man as a character hasn’t been as consistently good as it has under Wacker’s editorial purview since the Tom DeFalco/Ron Frenz era of the mid-80s. Clearly, I prefer my webheads guilt-ridden and idealistic.
April 26th, 2012 at 9:21 am
1. Wacker’s edited more ASM than anyone because there are more issues a year than ever before. I suspect he doesn’t come close to editing the most issues of any Spidey comic, since there have been plenty of times Spidey had three or four different titles in a month. (The current system, however, works a lot better.)
2. I routinely enjoy Spidey now. The slow, steady evolution of Spidey into a more capable hero and of Peter into an adult is satisfying. The books never get too heavy, and the art is routinely strong. Slott, and most of the people who worked on BND with him, are good writers. Taken on its own terms, it’s a huge success.
But I sometimes remember that once upon a time, Peter was married and a lot more mature, and didn’t need to grow up all over again. The current era only works for me if I don’t think about what was lost with the re-launch. And for a while, it was really frustrating to read a comic about a man who was an adult and yet such an utter loser. I love Peter when he’s a teen struggling with his responsibilities, but as a grown man those struggles seem depressing. Which is probably why I love finally seeing Peter in a great job.
But I miss the marriage. And sometimes, I think Slott does, since there is still such amazing chemistry between Peter and MJ.
April 26th, 2012 at 10:23 am
In terms of the status quo of the ongoing book, I don’t think it’
April 26th, 2012 at 10:55 am
You need to let it go. The marriage retcon was five years ago and it isn’t coming back anytime soon, so if you want to revisit that time reread some old comics.
April 26th, 2012 at 1:24 pm
“The marriage retcon was five years ago”
The marriage was 20 years old when Quesada retconned it.
Talk to me in another 15 years, and THEN I’ll concede that it’s as permanent.
Oh, and the sales for ASM hit 50K right before “Ends of the Earth,” a new low for the post-OMD era and only 2K higher than the title’s lowest sales ever.
April 26th, 2012 at 4:45 pm
Wow, that’s some pretty convincing sales data! You’re right, Boxy McBoxerson, the Spidey titles must suck now!
You conveniently neglect to factor in that the ENTIRE COMIC BOOK ECONOMY is in the toilet. Spidey’s sales have lagged the same rate that everyone else’s has. It’s Marvels 5th highest selling title, currently, and is selling better than 42 of the new 52, according to March’s estimates.
April 26th, 2012 at 8:34 pm
Except that the last time the entire comic book industry was in the toilet, back when Bob Harras was Editor-in-Chief of Marvel, Amazing Spider-Man never scored a monthly sales rank below 18, and in fact, the lowest-selling issue of Amazing Spider-Man in history (Amazing Spider-Man #469, by Howard Mackie and Joe Bennett) had a sales rank of 16 for that month, for 48,559 copies sold. And Howard Mackie and Bob Harras were STILL fired, in spite of their relative “success.”
By contrast, the HIGHEST monthly sales rank for Amazing Spider-Man from March of 2012 all the way back to September of 2011 was only 15, and its lowest monthly sales rank during that time was 29, a low that, once again, not even the lowest-selling issues of Amazing Spider-Man in history even managed to achieve (indeed, 29 is the lowest monthly sales rank in the title’s 50-year published history), so you are OBJECTIVELY wrong, by YOUR OWN STATED STANDARDS.
April 26th, 2012 at 11:19 pm
The Box guy! I love this!
(And thanks for the nice words, Graeme.)
SW
April 27th, 2012 at 7:02 am
yep character guilt is stupid and its been done before. Marvel is just beating a dead horse instead of doing something new. This is why Manga outsells American Comics.
April 27th, 2012 at 8:00 am
Wait, Box, how am I wrong? Is ASM not Marvels 5th highest selling title in March? Is it not beating all those DC titles?
You’re skewing the overall context of the market to fit some ambiguous point that, what? The book sucks now?? Grow up. I’m pretty sure that being a company’s 5th highest selling title, behind 2 event books, btw, is no small matter.
April 27th, 2012 at 8:04 am
Wait, I can’t say the f word here but neither the author of the post nor Newsarama is going to delete Fed Up’s comment wishing death on a creator he doesn’t like?? That’s disgusting. Fed Up, Graeme and Newsarama should be ashamed.
April 27th, 2012 at 10:21 am
“Wait, Box, how am I wrong? Is ASM not Marvels 5th highest selling title in March? Is it not beating all those DC titles?”
It’s still getting a decreasing share of the market within an already shrinking market. Anyone who thinks that amounts to any kind of decent market performance needs to go back to free market economics 101. Once again, even the lowest-selling issues of Amazing Spider-Man in history never scored a monthly sales rank this low, so it’s not even doing well in RELATIVE terms.
“I’m pretty sure that being a company’s 5th highest selling title, behind 2 event books, btw, is no small matter.”
It is when your title is named “Amazing Spider-Man,” since Marvel itself admitted that the reason that it initially replaced the two other Spider-Man titles from before “One More Day” with two extra issues a month of Amazing Spider-Man from “Brand New Day” forward is because more people will buy that comic simply because its title is “Amazing Spider-Man,” regardless of its content.
Ask Coca-Cola how they would feel if Pepsi started outselling them, and I’m pretty sure anyone at the company who said, “Hey, being the second largest-selling soda brand in the world is still pretty good” would get laughed out of the room, if not fired outright by their bosses.
April 27th, 2012 at 11:09 am
“Ask Coca-Cola how they would feel if Pepsi started outselling them, and I’m pretty sure anyone at the company who said, “Hey, being the second largest-selling soda brand in the world is still pretty good” would get laughed out of the room, if not fired outright by their bosses.”
Apples and oranges, my angry Box friend. Coincidentally I dated a girl in high school nicknamed Angry Box. Any relation? Anyways, you’re still taking all this sales data out of context with the market as a whole, and I get it. You prob don’t like where the title is at creatively and are trying to justify that viewpoint with saying the sales aren’t there, when, objectively, Spidey’s literally selling better than 80% of all other comics released, regardless of publisher. That might not be an all time high, but again, in context: only 4 titles that Marvel put out in March outsold it. One was a brand new launch of a huge franchise, TWO were the launches of the biggest event of the year, and one was its best selling ongoing. No one at Marvel would look at that as a bad selling title in comparison with their other output and the market as a whole. Less people may be buying the title, but less people are buying comics as a whole. So be angry, it’s ok. I miss Jean Grey, but I don’t cry about it on the interwebs. Only into my pillow. And my “happy-time” sock.
April 27th, 2012 at 11:48 am
Mr. Kirk “K-Box” Boxleitner,
There are MANY, MANY, MANY basic flaws in all of the “data” and “analysis” you’ve been perpetuating around the net.
Before we even get to the point where the many “informational” charts that you’ve posted around the web throw out a HALF to TWO-THIRDS of the data that you DO have…
THAT data is false in the first place. It is based on faulty Diamond estimates that do NOT reflect actual sales of ANY books in the direct market (Marvel, DC, Image, Dark Horse, what-have-you).
And even if it DID give an accurate account… it would only be for a PORTION of overall sales. (Or to put it another way… In the old fable of “The Blind Man and The Elephant,” you’re blindly groping at an elephant’s trunk and thinking you’re getting an accurate picture… of a snake. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blind_men_and_an_elephant ).
AMAZING SPIDER-MAN’S sales come from other sources as well.
For example, since the start of Brand New Day all the way up through the Big Time run, AMAZING SPIDER-MAN has been the HIGHEST SELLING mainstream Marvel title for subscriptions– EVERY month, month-in and month-out, coming up on 4 and half years! And NONE of those sales have been reflected in your skewed and incorrect “analysis.”
Since the start of last year’s SPIDER-ISLAND, ASM has been available day-and-date for DIGITAL sales– where it does exceptionally well. And NONE of those sales have been reflected in your skewed and incorrect “analysis.”
ASM has also performed incredibly well in collected volumes. Its last hardcover stayed in the NY TIMES Top 10 Graphic Novel Sales for a number of weeks in a row. One of ASM’S upcoming collections remained as the number one ordered Graphic Novel at Amazon.Com for a number of weeks too. And NONE of those sales have been reflected in your skewed and incorrect “analysis.”
And, again, even if the Diamond estimates that you’re using WERE accurate (which they’re NOT), you don’t amend them when issues of ASM sell-out and go back to press for 2nd printings. And the current run of ASM has done that A LOT. TWELVE of its initial thirteen issues had to go back to press because they sold out at Diamond. As did many of the issues of Spider-Island. And yet NONE of those sales have been reflected in your skewed and incorrect “analysis.”
When you post your “analysis” online, you often cite a number Paul O’Brien mentioned as a cut off point for measuring ASM’s success. What you fail to mention is the state of the economy and the industry WHEN Paul made that statement. I’ve had the pleasure of talking with Paul recently, and he thinks that it’s bizarre that you would use his statement so wildly out of context– especially as a means to prop up your skewed take. In his own words, you have “certainly been missing the point.”
Here is what your regular cited reference, Paul O’Brien, says about Amazing Spider-Man in TODAY’S market, “It is OBVIOUSLY Marvel’s best-selling solo title.” And on the subject for how you, Kirk Boxleitner, compile your infamous charts, Paul has said, “…he’s just cutting off the top half of the data, I don’t get the logic of that at all.”
I know you don’t want to hear this or accept this, but when you have all of the ACTUAL data, and you see it all together, ASM is one of the BEST performing titles in the industry today. Sorry that doesn’t play well with through your lens where you like to compare it (through a SECTION of INCOMPLETE and INACCURATE DATA) to other runs from other times when there was a completely different economy AND different outlets for selling the books.
I know you’re still angry over changes to Spider-Man. But is putting up faulty, inaccurate, skewed, and illogical “sales analysis” really the best outlet for that internet anger?
April 27th, 2012 at 11:52 am
Graeme,
No offense, man, but do you think Newsarama could block the IP of the guy who “supports” my death? I’d really appreciate that.
But whatever you do PLEASE keep letting K-Box post. His whole “black is white”/”white is black”/”I really don’t know what the hell I’m talking about– but, HEY, LOOK! NUMBERS!” approach to posting is ALWAYS good for a laugh.
April 27th, 2012 at 12:13 pm
Actually, fed up, I’m NOT in the way of Zeb Wells writing Spider-Man. Zeb has a lot on his plate with other projects (like Robot Chicken). You should start wishing for his Robot Chicken work to crash and burn– AND my death– And probably for Spider-Man sales to go down (right now, it’s the best selling title that HASN’T had to resort to a reboot in the last 2 years).
Maybe instead of wishing for me to get cancer and dying… wouldn’t it be easier to wish for a magic spell that could turn you from an internet troll into a real boy?
April 27th, 2012 at 12:29 pm
I twittered Graeme and Newsarama about Fed Up before, Dan, and the deleted his first comment. I don’t think they actively check these things, which is sad. I twittered them again, hopefully they’ll take some action. Sorry you have to deal with this garbage.
And Boxy the K Boxer is just mad that his Free Market Economics degree came from the bottom of a Lucky Charms box. Oh well!
April 27th, 2012 at 1:11 pm
Okay. Now, honestly, I feel sad for you, “fed up.” To go out of your way to try to spoil something like that for so many people, you must have a very unhappy life. Seriously, it’s okay. Whatever’s hurting you, whatever makes you feel that bad, you have to know that there are other outlets out there for you– other things you can be doing with your time that to hide behind a screen name and lash out at others. And I’m sure that there are people out there that DO care for you and would like to know what they can do to help you get through whatever it is that’s REALLY troubling you.
April 27th, 2012 at 1:13 pm
Fed Up/Iamironman/whatever other name you want to try to use, your IP has been logged as spam and recorded. If you make another threat/support/whatever other bs you want to call it, we’ll move on to reporting the abuse to your service provider and the authorities. Thanks for reading, now never comment here again.
-Lucas Siegel, Newsarama Editor
April 27th, 2012 at 1:26 pm
Thanks, Newsarama!
April 27th, 2012 at 2:19 pm
For those of you who didn’t see it (THANK YOU NEWSARAMA for taking it down), the previous poster (aside from wishing ill/cancer/death on yours truly… which is one thing), spoiled beat-for-beat everything in the upcoming AVENGERS movie– just for the sake of trolling and getting a rise out of people.
Now THAT is a crappy thing to do to comic fans. At that point, you’re just being a jerk.
Ah well… it’s not like he was Howard-Hughes-like obsessively compiling faulty statistics for 4 and a half years, lobbing off the TOP half to 2/3rds of his “data” to juke those stats DOWN and then comparing THEM to a product from a completely different time & context in the marketplace JUST as an asinine way to VENT about a status quo change in a comic that he didn’t like from 2007. ‘Cause THAT would just be CRAZY!
April 27th, 2012 at 7:22 pm
Dan Slott and Steve Wacker, may you both live long and healthy lives. I wanted to let you gentlemen know that I am enjoying “Ends of the Earth” like crazy and I wouldn’t really call myself a Spider Man fan. That’s some good comics guys. Thank you and keep it up!
April 27th, 2012 at 8:16 pm
Mr. Slott- Great run on Spider-Man. Keep it coming.
April 28th, 2012 at 10:17 am
I had dropped Amazing Spider-Man somewhere around the Civil War arc, and I wasn’t reading it. Brand New Day brought me back, and I’ve been reading it for five years. So they must have done something right.
I still don’t like how we got here with One More Day, but I have been consistently pleased with Amazing Spider-Man since Brand New Day began. It’s just fun comics. There were a full lulls and less than fantastic issues in there, but overall, it’s been a really good 150-ish issues.
Although I have all the issues, I would love to buy an Omnibus of Brand New Day Year 1 (ending right around the end of the mayoral election).
April 28th, 2012 at 8:20 pm
Dan, I love what you do on ASM. But please, stop running around telling people they are wrong when they say ASM isn’t successful. I’m sure you’re telling the truth, but I often see you or Stevie W. running around message boards correcting everyone who says otherwise, and it just has an air of desperation.
If you are the most successful Marvel book, then you shouldn’t give a toss what people are saying, especially if they are wrong – you don’t have an image problem to fix. By constantly running around and correcting people on it, saying ‘There heaps of sales you don’t know about’, well, it makes you guys seem like you do have a problem.
If you’re number one, act like it – kick back and chill out.
April 28th, 2012 at 9:29 pm
While with Brand New Day my opinion ping ponged between “Hey that’s great” to “This is the worst Spider-Man Story concieved by human mind that is not Howard Mackie’s” I must say Amazing Spider-Man since Big Time has been a consistently good, entertaining title.
April 29th, 2012 at 9:30 am
Dan & Steve,
I grew up reading my older brother’s copies of the Stern/JRJr and DeFalco/Frenz and I gotta say your run captures the same feeling. Sure I miss the marriage but these are some fun Spidey stories. Thanks.
April 30th, 2012 at 8:34 am
Haven’t gotten over One More Day and haven’t bought a Spider-Man comic since. Disappointing since he was my favorite Marvel character, but I’ve survived just fine without him.