That story doesn't exist. It's stupid, just ignore it.

That story doesn't exist. It's stupid, just ignore it.

That story doesn't exist. It's stupid, just ignore it.

That story doesn't exist. It's stupid, just ignore it.

The clone saga, instead, wasn't so bad. Actually, I loved it. There was some very good storyline, and, most of all, a "new" great character was introduced: Ben Reilly. He was a superhero for young readers. And I was a young reader (13), so Ben became a sort of "fictional friend" for me, just like Peter Parker before. With a difference: that Peter I was following in the clone saga was always sad, depressed. His optimism was almost erased. Ben, despite his bad luck (hey, he lived on the road, alone, for 5 years!) was still able to smile. He gave a positive message to the readers: life can be bad, but you can keep your head up if you want.

But, of course, I can't forget the problems. Infinite lenght: 2 years. I mean, 2 years! In the early months I was reading a 2 parter entitled "Players and pawns". I thought "So, how many months should this storyline go on?". I couldn't imagine, on a Spider-Man comic book, a storyline which hadn't a planned finale ready to be released soon.

Then, the crossovers. In Italy we were lucky: we had the main stories in our biweekly series and the secondary ones in the parallel monthly series (with some exception: for example, that amazing storyline entitled "The greatest responsibility"). But you Americans had to buy 4 titles a month, plus the quarterly, the miniseries, specials, annuals... I think it was a nightmare!

Last, but not least, the end of Peter Parker. Aw, sure, there still was a man called Peter Parker around... but he wasn't Peter Parker. Just Spider-Man without his mask. In a superheroes comic book I want civilian and superheroic lives separated. In that moment, Spider-Man's secret identity hadn't any importance.

By the way, I fondly remember the clone saga. That was published in my Golden Age, so... 'nuff said. And, I cannot forget this, it was written by people who cared about Spider-Man. DeMatteis, DeFalco, Mackie... I KNOW that they loved and still love the character. And, in the following era (thr Osborn storyline) they made me see that they could still write great stories featuring the original Spider-Man.

Question:  During this time, I seem to remember Peter dying from something and had Doc Ock helping him.  He was laying on a table unmasked and was going through some type of treatment.  Soon after, there was a female Doc Ock.  Any clue as to what happened and if the original Doc Ock remembered Pete's identity?

At the time, the story seemed interesting but I was already off of the book and had no idea what had come before.

Do you think part of the problem is that the comics industry is letting Hollywood infiltrate the writing duties?

JMS on Spider-Man:  Took the character and made major, major changes. (Aunt May finding out the ID, SINS PAST, etc...) M***** just gave him carte blanche to do what the f*** he wanted.

Reginald Hudlin on Black Panther & Spider-Man...Not a big fan of his Panther work and absolutely hated THE OTHER storyline...

Richard Donner on Superman:  Yeah, he made a couple of great Superman films, but does that really give him license to write the book?

I can go on and on, but it seems like the comic companies as a whole, are just trying to attract big names to their books...even if it's not the best fit for the team. And unfortunately, some of these Hollywriters don't have a freakin' clue to the characters they are writing about.  Just because you read a Spider-Man comic when you were 12, doesn't mean you are best equipped to write it.

The best way to fix Spider-Man ( and the industry ) is to just start writing better stories that make sense.

Matt Reed wrote:  Dave Phelps wrote: Sins Past I can at least understand, even if I think it was wrong headed. What do you understand about it?  There's nothing in that story that I remotely understand.

See the posted CBG excerpt. 

The basic idea of "dark secret of someone who you deeply cared about" is okay.  Having the secret be "Gwen Stacy boinked the Goblin and got knocked up" is what I had a problem with.  As opposed to the Other where from the basic idea on up I just scratch my head and wonder how the hell he thought THAT was a Spider-Man story.

And just to be clear - I am in no way saying anything nice about Sins Past - the preview covers and first issue (fortunately presented online as a free preview) alone were enough to get me to drop Amazing for the first time since #253.  Heck, if hadn't been for a really convincing interview from Mark Millar and Marvel putting Peter David on FNSM, I wouldn't have read a new current continuity Spider-Man book since then.

This has been an interesting topic to follow. I haven't followed Spider-Man comics since 2001, just before JMS started on the book so I can't comment on "Sins Past" or recent storylines.

Regarding the Clone Saga, I don't think it's that bad. It did go on far too long and there were some moments I found tedious, but it did give us Ben Reilly and I think there were some good moments in with the bad. If it had been shorted and hadn't dragged on so long, I would be even more of a fan of it.

There were 2 sets of SINS PAST detractors.  The people who hated what was done to Gwen's character and the people who thought there was no way to believably fit the pregnancy into the original timeline.

+++++++++

JMS thinks there's a 3-month timeline "gap" because ASM # 116-119 were reprints of the story in Spectacular Spider-Man Magazine # 1. Of course, he fails to realize that those issues were altered so as to fit into the then-current Spider-Man continuity (for example, Spider-Man is wearing the cheapie mask he obtained during the gang war story a few issues prior). And, y'know, three issues of a series don't automatically equal three months in "comic-time".

Also, I have yet to see an explanation from JMS of when this indescretion of Gwen's actually occurred in the timeline. The gent who wrote the "Squandered Legacy" articles about the Hobgoblin (which we're discussing in that other thread) theorized that it happened when Gwen went to thank Osborn (off-panel, of course) after he helped rescue her from the Kingpin in ASM # 61, and this fan explanation was officially adopted by M***** in one of the OHOTMU: Spider-Man one-shots!

Thanks for the response Taavi.

<<<Richard Donner on Superman: Yeah, he made a couple of great Superman films, but does that really give him license to write the book?>>>

I agree about the Donner issues of Superman.  Some of the better issues in recent memory.  I think there is a more collaborative effort there with Johns. I was just thinking of DC's thought process (or any company's, for that matter) in hiring a Hollywriter to write a comic book. 

Yeah I know readership is supposed to turn over every 5 years or so, but aren't they risking alienating the reader who's been there for 15 - 20 years by bringing in  a guy who just wants to tell stories that sound cool and don't neccessarily fit into the overall history of the character?