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I truly enjoy listening to comic reviews every week and Weekly Comics Spotlight #281 was great.

I am not thrilled with Marvel's decision to replace Peter Parker as Spider-Man with Peter Parker/Otto Octavius as Spider-Man. What I find ironic, the Ultimate Spider-Man's death and replacement was done, for lack of better term, correctly (IMO). The Ultimate Spider-Man Peter Parker re-told his story with a beginning and an end. The new Ultimate Spider-Man (Miles Morales) is similar to Valiant Entertainment's telling NEW stories with old characters. Some of the characters and supporting cast with a familiar feel but a NEW take.

Spider-Man #700 was an attempt to "make" something work to fit into Marvel "Now". This is worse than the Clone Saga or the deal with Mephisto. We now have the Man with Two Brains. Really?

I know we will one day have Peter Parker back as Spider-Man, what about Doc Ock? Doc WAS the Spider-Man's greatest enemy. When DC and Marvel did the Superman/Spider-Man crossover Treasury Edition (am I right?), it was Lex Luthor and Doctor Octopus as the villains.

HipHopHead wrote:We now have the Man with Two Brains. Really?

I know we will one day have Peter Parker back as Spider-Man, what about Doc Ock?

I liked the idea John had on the show that Peter is too nice to just hose out Ock's consciousness and that he'll probably come up with some repository for it.

I just hope he's not a big metal robot, kind of like the 80s Brainiac at DC.

SO Bob, now that we know Peter Parker IS in a (co-)starring role in Superior Spider-man (as I understood it, your primary reason for NOT buying it was b/c it wasn't Pete under the mask, and now we know he IS there), are you back on board?

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ctowner1 wrote:SO Bob, now that we know Peter Parker IS in a (co-)starring role in Superior Spider-man (as I understood it, your primary reason for NOT buying it was b/c it wasn't Pete under the mask, and now we know he IS there), are you back on board?

Nope.

I'll come back when they rename it back to Amazing.

BobBretall wrote:

ctowner1 wrote:SO Bob, now that we know Peter Parker IS in a (co-)starring role in Superior Spider-man (as I understood it, your primary reason for NOT buying it was b/c it wasn't Pete under the mask, and now we know he IS there), are you back on board?

Nope.

I'll come back when they rename it back to Amazing.

Shouldn't be too long a wait!

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BobBretall wrote:

ctowner1 wrote:SO Bob, now that we know Peter Parker IS in a (co-)starring role in Superior Spider-man (as I understood it, your primary reason for NOT buying it was b/c it wasn't Pete under the mask, and now we know he IS there), are you back on board?

Nope.

I'll come back when they rename it back to Amazing.

Shouldn't be too long a wait!

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ctowner1 wrote:

BobBretall wrote: Nope.

I'll come back when they rename it back to Amazing.

Shouldn't be too long a wait!

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I think Marvel will just wait until Superior sales are around 60k like ASM was. They'll wait a little and then depending on how long the run is at that point, either bring back Peter with ASM or do some other gimmick until they get close to a good number, like 750 or 800.

They just have no reason to blow a money grab like ASM coming back until sales have dropped to the stable line.

abysslord wrote:They'll wait a little and then depending on how long the run is at that point, either bring back Peter with ASM or do some other gimmick until they get close to a good number, like 750 or 800.

Oh there is little doubt that when they bring Peter back, they bring AMAZING back, but I see no way that they wait until the equivalent of issue #750 to do so.

50 issues of Spider-Doc or some other ploy to delay AMAZING until that number is reached is just too long. Even twice monthly that is two years. The ending of SUPERIOR #1 being what it was, I just can't see Peter being out of the suit that long.

Perry wrote:

abysslord wrote:They'll wait a little and then depending on how long the run is at that point, either bring back Peter with ASM or do some other gimmick until they get close to a good number, like 750 or 800.

Oh there is little doubt that when they bring Peter back, they bring AMAZING back, but I see no way that they wait until the equivalent of issue #750 to do so.

50 issues of Spider-Doc or some other ploy to delay AMAZING until that number is reached is just too long. Even twice monthly that is two years. The ending of SUPERIOR #1 being what it was, I just can't see Peter being out of the suit that long.

Agreed. I'd be surprised if it were more than 1 year. And I think they will then go to ASM #1, not 712 (or 725 or whatever).

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Obviously, I'm in the minority of this this board. I really enjoyed the last few issues of Amazing Spider-Man, I didn't and don't usually read back-ups so I can't comment on those included in issue 700. I even enjoyed the story that Dan Slott is setting up in Superior Spider-man, a lot. I'm just not enjoying Ryan Stegman's art in this series. It's not a deal breaker at all, it just too loose and sketchy for my tastes.

GABE! wrote:Obviously, I'm in the minority of this this board. I really enjoyed the last few issues of Amazing Spider-Man, I didn't and don't usually read back-ups so I can't comment on those included in issue 700. I even enjoyed the story that Dan Slott is setting up in Superior Spider-man, a lot. I'm just not enjoying Ryan Stegman's art in this series. It's not a deal breaker at all, it just too loose and sketchy for my tastes.

Different people will like different things. Obviously Marvel thought doing this Superior Spider-Man thing would increase sales & I've seen a lot of people on the net expressing love for it & saying they were now reading the book & loving it. I've seen a lot of positive feedback on Marvel NOW, but we got the same initial surge of interest with the New52 and it slipped off over the course of the 1st 6 months or so. How long will MarvelNOW sustain before the next stunt is required to bolster sales? Time will tell.

The only constant is change. Change a character, tell some stories, change them back, rinse, repeat. Such is the soap opera that is comics. Shake up the status quo and hope that whatever you did will gain more readers than it loses.

Time will tell. I have no doubt that starting a new #1 with a bunch of variant covers will spike sales. The question is how long it takes for them to slide back down & they formally bring Peter back in a new ASM #1.

For my own part, I'm just at a point where I've been reading for so long and I see the "man behind the curtain" stuff and it really kind of bugs me when I can see the manipulation happening. It's always been there, I just haven't been so aware of it. That detracts from my enjoyment of the stories since I see exactly where they are driving to before they even get underway. For others, that's not a problem & they can just sit back & enjoy the ride.

BobBretall wrote: The question is how long it takes for them to slide back down & they formally bring Peter back in a new ASM #1.

I understand your overall point of ... frustrated melancholy, as do all of us older readers, but here, on this front, I really think declining sales are not the reset point for this series. I think there is already a set amount of issues, or time, that this series will stand until AMAZING takes its place.

Unless of course this title does something that no comic from the big 2 has done ... maintain sales relatively close to it's opening foray onto the market. Then of course they will over-extend this title. But as attrition occurs, as it will, I think they will go forth with the timetable that is, I believe, predetermined. Which again, having read the first issue, I don't think will be too long.

BobBretall wrote:
Different people will like different things. Obviously Marvel thought doing this Superior Spider-Man thing would increase sales & I've seen a lot of people on the net expressing love for it & saying they were now reading the book & loving it. I've seen a lot of positive feedback on Marvel NOW, but we got the same initial surge of interest with the New52 and it slipped off over the course of the 1st 6 months or so. How long will MarvelNOW sustain before the next stunt is required to bolster sales? Time will tell.

The only constant is change. Change a character, tell some stories, change them back, rinse, repeat. Such is the soap opera that is comics. Shake up the status quo and hope that whatever you did will gain more readers than it loses.

Time will tell. I have no doubt that starting a new #1 with a bunch of variant covers will spike sales. The question is how long it takes for them to slide back down & they formally bring Peter back in a new ASM #1.

For my own part, I'm just at a point where I've been reading for so long and I see the "man behind the curtain" stuff and it really kind of bugs me when I can see the manipulation happening. It's always been there, I just haven't been so aware of it. That detracts from my enjoyment of the stories since I see exactly where they are driving to before they even get underway. For others, that's not a problem & they can just sit back & enjoy the ride.

I've been interested with your options of what's been happening with Spidey. I've heard your review on the show about #700, and I like that you hated the issue. Not that I'm happy about it, but I enjoy that you have the polar opposite reaction that I did. It makes for good conversations.

Everything is not for everyone. I've shared your frustration before with Spider-man before. When Marvel did the stolen baby story line, I throw my hands up and quit reading Spider-Man for years, until Ultimate Spider-man came around. Then Marvel killed Ultimate Peter Parker and I stopped reading that title.

Don't be surprised if Marvel "splits" Spider-Man into two books just like they did with Daredevil, Captain America, and Fantastic Four. What sells better than a Spider-Man book? Two Spider-Man books!

Marvel was in love with this tactic last year and I could see them doing it again.

Gilgabob wrote:Don't be surprised if Marvel "splits" Spider-Man into two books...

Possibly, and it wouldn't shock me, but with all the ancillary Spider based titles, wouldn't they have to shut down Avenging to do so? I just don't see them bringing yet another Spidey solo book to the stands, when Amazing will prabably, upon its inevitable return, still be bi-weekly.

Again, not saying they won't throw a third out there, they have before and Marvel, like most companies, love to make customers buy stuff.