QUOTE: The artist whose name you can't recall on Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man's portion of "The Other" was indeed Mike Wieringo.

Whoops.  Thinking of the other title then.

Edit: looked up the other title; it was Marvel Knights SPIDER-MAN; artist was Pat Lee.

Figured it was something like that, but didn't want to assume.

Myself, I didn't bother with "The Other."

Unfortunately, I'd been looking forward to Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man since it was announced.  PAD & Ringo on a Spider-Man book?  Sounded like heaven.  But, I didn't start picking up the series until #5.  Not only did I not have interest in "The Other," not only did I not have interest in the other two titles, but with the creative team "stunt" Marvel pulled with "The Other," even if I'd resigned myself to getting only 1/3 of the story by picking up FNSM, I still would've gotten only two of those four issues by PAD/Ringo.  I mean, I can understand the logic of launching the new series as part of a crossover with the two existing series, but I certainly don't understand the logic of launching a new series, then having the second and third issues by different writers and going back to the regular writer with the fourth.

Anyway, that's why I disliked "The Other."  Aren't you glad you asked?  :-)

Thanks Paulo!  I am glad I asked.  I share some of your assessments.

Jim Starlin (Jim Starlin?!? Are you guys serious? Classic super-hero writer if there is one!)

I agree with you Pedro !  Starlin's a great creator/artist/writer !

Grant Morrisson is someone whose work I like but I'm not incredibly enthused about.

Though that can probably be attributed to his fans and Wizard Magazine, he delivers a pretty good story and they all jump up and down like it's the second coming and all I can say is that it was pretty good or even really good.

Seven Soldiers of Victory was really good but essentially it boiled down to big evil guys and we need seven unlikely heroes to save the world. Not sure what was groundbreaking about that.

It's kind of odd but it isn't like Alan Moore fans who can often be really stuck up and snobbish, more like Morrison's fans just have incredible enthusiasm for his work and don't understand why others might not be as enthused.

It's almost like Millar for me, I really enjoy a lot of Millar's work but he comes across in interviews as a bit of a wank and at times it makes me eye his work a little skeptically. Instead of hoping the work is good, or expecting the work to be good I'm thinking the work had better be good to justify his statements.

My only real problem with Grant Morrison is that he has some kind of disdain for super heroes, or at least costumes, and apparently feels the need at some point to have characters mention that in the comics he writes.

He's doing a decent job on Batman, but unless they replace him with someone lousy (Man, I hope DC never hires JMS or Paul Jenkins), I won't miss him when he eventually leaves.

*edit* Forgot to mention this, but a few months back, at another board I go to someone was criticising Chris Claremont for being too wordy (and I don't agree, but I can see where they might be coming from) but was verbally fellating Brian Michael Bendis. I'd take someone who uses too much words (as long as its not a pure talking heads comic with no actual action) over someone who takes six issues to do something that could be done in one or two any day.

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Aren't they all writing for the Trade Paperbacks now?  The big panels, the long,drawn out stories.  Perhaps they need to flesh the stories out more and still get the story in an issue or two, but still write for the TPB.

I've found Geoff Johns to be disappointing recently. For me, his "Sinestro Wars" bloated and maudlin. He's let DC's crossovers derail his Teen Titans and JSA. It's great that he's a team player, but it's making his stories unenjoyable.

"David, don't want to dispute tastes but can you explain why you liked it?  I'm trying to get an idea of its appeal."

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Paulo, I can try to explain why I liked the Other, but I must, first, admit that there were many, many parts of it that didn't work for me. I can agree with the poster that said the May and MJ in Iron Man armor was silly. I'll add that JMS ressurecting his villain, Morlun, without detailing how in the hell the villain returned to life is lazy writing. But I do think that Spider-Man believing that he is dying makes for comeplling storytelling.

And the scenes that had to do with Peter and MJ's marriage were some of the best moments that the character has, in my opinion EVER had. The fact that these quiet moments were interspersed in a adequately (at best) plotted crossover, I think, makes people neglect or ignore them. But the issues where the Avengers sneak Mary Jane into the hospital so that she can say her goodbyes to Peter, the sequence where Peter takes his wedding ring back, and a few of the other character driven moments that all three writers (even Hudlin) wrote, I thought, made up for everything that had preceded it. The action centerpiece of the crossver, the infamous eyeball-eating battle between Spider-Man and Morlun, was also probably the best fight scene of 2005.