Comics Poll: If you've dropped the title, why have you dropped it?

[Miss Webb]

b) The destruction of the timeline
c) The de-evolving of the character's maturity and perspective
d) The erasure of growth elements like his power-base

I actually LIKED the "other" and the previous back in black storylines. This drek is hard to swallow, even if you drink first.

And for the record, Lily reminds me of Ero. (dang wacky double post)

 

[chris moore]

You have to wonder. If the end of the marriage and how it was to come about was planned at a spidey summit like, a year to 18months prior, then why even bother with the near to the end stories like "The Other" and the identity reveal? Its almost like they did them to grip us so that we might, might hold on through the big change that ballsed everything up. If they'd just done filler issues that meandered along, then the numbers might not have been that strong for when the end happened.

 

[Arkady Rossovich]

The timeline. If you take out OMD and put the original Stan Lee-Steve Ditko timeline back in,there are classic events..but because of OMD,that's basically gone.

 

[carnageehw]

WEll, since it appears they are still insulting readers with the "I have bad luck with marriages" line in New Ways to Die....guess I'm not coming back for a while.

 

[chris moore]

Yeah, I flick through an issue in the store from time to time. Maybe once a month to see if that arc is starting to sway away from "college kid Pete". But so far, nothing has made me remotely consider returning. I know its business and people need to be paid. But the numbers we're seeing are probably new readers because the character is accessible again what with not being bogged down with any kind of continuity. The long time fans however, not so much buyers. At least thats the feeling I get. It would be interesting to have all retailers report how many standing orders were dropped after the first three issues of BND - because the creators and editors saying that each issue sells 70K+, so they must be doing something right doesnt show how many long term fans they have alienated.

There should be a balance between just making money, and putting out a faithful medium that will capture people for decades to come.

 

[Themanofbat]

WEll, since it appears they are still insulting readers with the "I have bad luck with marriages" line in New Ways to Die....guess I'm not coming back for a while.

I never realized that you had such porcelain feelings... really... a line like that is "insulting"?



These are comic books people....

 

[Doc_OCK_4MUGEN]

well it's not insulting... it's just rubbing the retcon in our faces... like flipping the bird at us... ok it's insulting...

 

[Styleshift]

no, it actually feels more like a move to ground BND into reality.

doing something like INTERNET ANGRY OVER COMIC BOOK. (which was at the end of asm 564)

is flipping the bird to us.

 

[farmernudie]

I dunno....they lose a bunch of long time loyal buying customers and then keep pointing that out and rubbing it in.

When coke changed its formula years back...they listened to fans and brought back classic. THey didn't print labels reminding their customers they made things different and that labels that poked the badger and labels on Coke saying..."customers are mad"...

I just don't get marvel. They almost take it as a badge of honor to disinterest their long term customers or anyone that doesn't like their product who loyallly bought it for all this time form the beginning or whenever. I don't like that attitude towards customers. It boggles me.

Sure,....they totally changed their product...but why rub it in that you've ticked off a chunk of your clientele???

 

[kguillou]

I understand to a degree why Marvel did it, i mean Quesada sorta had a point when he said that they needed to preserve Spiderman for generations to come. Its true that Peter has grown quite old, and at the pace they were going, he'd be in his 40's by 2050. I personally want to see peter progress through life, get married and have a child, but i understand why that wont be possible. On the other hand, i dont think it was necessary regressing him this much and having him act like a stupid teenager. They really should have just made Peter and MJ separate and go their separate ways and then somewhere down the line, they'd reunite. Marvel could still keep Peter mature, and never actually age him. I thought the sales from JMS' run proved that that's the kind of Peter Parker the readers like??

 

[Doc_OCK_4MUGEN]

I understand the notion of Preserving Peter for future Generations defense, but wasn't Ultimate Spidey created for that same purpose?

Why do we have Ultimate Peter Parker on Earth 666? When the Ultimate Universe has its own Earth...

We should have a parallel universe like the M2 where the One Moronic Deal never happened

 

[ScottishFogg]

I voted "other" because that was the closest thing to an "all of the above" that I could find.

 

[jabbatheridge]

I voted "other" because I dropped the title some time ago, after the awful Norman Osborn and Gwen Stacy had secret love children storyline. That was a step too far for me. Gwen Stacy has been a scab Marvel have picked at for far too long as it is. Her death was shocking but happened quite a few years ago so Marvel really needs to get over it and move on a bit as it's featured in far too many stories. Also the revelation that she was secretly "getting it on" with Norman all these years is beyond ridiculous and ruins a number of previous stories in the Spider-Man canon, sometimes they should leave well enough alone.

I wasn't surprised much by the remasking, as I had a feeling his identity being revealed would only be a temporary measure. In actual fact, it was quite nice to get to see everyone's reaction to Peter Parker being Spider-Man before things were reset. Kind of like a cool, prolonged what if story. But Marvel need to stop trying to build big continuity changing shocks into Spider-Man, it never works, they did it in the ninties with the Clone Saga and ended up going back on almost everything they did in the lamest of ways possible. The Aunt May that died was an actress anyone? Instead they should concerntrate on just telling good stories about the hero and villains of that universe like in Ultimate Spider-Man.

 

[UK_Stu]

I have a question about the sales figures, are marvel subscriber figures included in the sales figures published?

 

[kainedamo]

There's an update on the sales in the 'sales are dropping celebration fun time' thread.

The book has suffered a further drop. We could still do with more cancelations and boycotters. So if you're reading this, not enjoying BND, then now would be a good time to stop buying the book.

 

[chris moore]

Do. not. see. why Peter cannot. have scenes. like in. new preview. with. MJ.... Couples. have. friends...

 

[Robbie]

I bailed during One More Day, which sucked because at 27 years old, I've been actively collecting ASM since I was like 8 or 9...

I picked the destruction of the marriage for the poll, but in reality it was several factors that made me bail. First, Pete would never sacrifice his marriage for his aunt who is older than dirt. Maybe I'm wrong, but the guy I've been reading for most of my life has always valued his marriage more than anything. Spidey was always the one guy in the Marvel U who could pull off a marriage (Crap, look at what they did to Cyclops), despite constantly getting beat down in every other area. Besides, Mephisto himself told him how rare and special his marriage was. I know my first reaction would be to get rid of something like that...

Second, did my favorite hero of all time just make a deal with the devil (proverbially speaking)? Yeah, it's bad for Pete to be a widower or a divorcee, but a guy that makes deals with the devil to avoid the repercussions of his actions is DEFINITELY my kinda hero. If I were to ever meet this Pete, I would kick him square in the business for being such a tool...

Third, the retcon...come on, seriously?!? 20+ years out the window to help short-term sales? Every Spider-Man comic I ever read as a kid featured married Pete...Guess what, I didn't care! I didn't say, "Oh, this guy's married, I can't relate to that. The spider-powers sure, but the marriage thing, that's too much"! Freaking A people, are we married folk that boring? Is it really that hard to come up with a good story involving a married man? Wow, what kind of message does that send about marriage. Hey kids, remember, you'll only be interesting and relevant if your single!

Sorry, I didn't mean to rant this long but I'm really upset at what's been done in ASM. Yeah, it's a comic book, and yeah, it's a fictional character, but it's one that I've invested almost 20 years of my life and money into reading and supporting and I feel betrayed. There are plenty of ways for Spidey to grow without making him a child again. Hell, it would have been nice to see how Pete would have handled Aunt May's death. Talk about having to mature...It's been so bad I was really hoping Skrull Spidey would be revealed to be the real deal, that would have been less insulting and a more interesting way to revert Pete back a handful of years...

Anyways, I dropped not only ASM, but ALL Marvel books, and I was buying 10+ titles a month. I can forgive a bad decision, but I can't support it...

 

[chris moore]

You know what kind of character people should be able to relate to, and to aspire to be like?

A guy, a smart guy, a guy who never really gets a break. A guy who never gets a break even when blessed with spider-powers which make him all kinds of freaky cool. A guy who despite his drawbacks, despite the pressure of being a superhero and it affecting his personal and professional relationships manages to find happiness with someone who rocks, and who makes him stronger.

Oh wait, we've had that guy for the last 20years and now he's dead...

 

[RAMORE]

I've stolen this poll from another message board because I feel it would be interesting to see the results. I pose this question to people who are no longer buying ASM. Please vote for the option you feel is most important to you, and then in a post list any other reasons.

1. Why have you stopped buying?

a) The destruction of Spider-man's marriage
b) The destruction of the timeline
c) The de-evolving of the character's maturity and perspective
d) The erasure of growth elements like his power-base
e) The remasking
f) The fact that Peter and MJ made a deal with Marvel's equivalent of the devil
g) A reaction to Marvel's perceived "dissing" of the readers
h) The 3x/month publication schedule
i) The current stories just aren't good enough to keep me in
j) Other (explain)

So that you don't have to just just one, vote for the option that is most important and then list other options. But then order your answers from strongest influence to least strong...don't bother including anything that is not a factor. Explain your reasoning and thoughts.

And then, a SECOND question:

If they fixed the elements you listed in the very near future, would you return to buying the book?

Again, elaborate where necessary to clarify.


For those of you who are buying the book now, this thread will get muddied if you start listing why you ARE reading. I will make that a seperate thread.

I haven't bought anything spidey since OMD and i won't. They should undue it again. Hell if Joey wanted to piss people off bring back the clone (ben reilly we miss you) at least that I would like.

 

[RAMORE]

I bailed during One More Day, which sucked because at 27 years old, I've been actively collecting ASM since I was like 8 or 9...

I picked the destruction of the marriage for the poll, but in reality it was several factors that made me bail. First, Pete would never sacrifice his marriage for his aunt who is older than dirt. Maybe I'm wrong, but the guy I've been reading for most of my life has always valued his marriage more than anything. Spidey was always the one guy in the Marvel U who could pull off a marriage (Crap, look at what they did to Cyclops), despite constantly getting beat down in every other area. Besides, Mephisto himself told him how rare and special his marriage was. I know my first reaction would be to get rid of something like that...

Second, did my favorite hero of all time just make a deal with the devil (proverbially speaking)? Yeah, it's bad for Pete to be a widower or a divorcee, but a guy that makes deals with the devil to avoid the repercussions of his actions is DEFINITELY my kinda hero. If I were to ever meet this Pete, I would kick him square in the business for being such a tool...

Third, the retcon...come on, seriously?!? 20+ years out the window to help short-term sales? Every Spider-Man comic I ever read as a kid featured married Pete...Guess what, I didn't care! I didn't say, "Oh, this guy's married, I can't relate to that. The spider-powers sure, but the marriage thing, that's too much"! Freaking A people, are we married folk that boring? Is it really that hard to come up with a good story involving a married man? Wow, what kind of message does that send about marriage. Hey kids, remember, you'll only be interesting and relevant if your single!

Sorry, I didn't mean to rant this long but I'm really upset at what's been done in ASM. Yeah, it's a comic book, and yeah, it's a fictional character, but it's one that I've invested almost 20 years of my life and money into reading and supporting and I feel betrayed. There are plenty of ways for Spidey to grow without making him a child again. Hell, it would have been nice to see how Pete would have handled Aunt May's death. Talk about having to mature...It's been so bad I was really hoping Skrull Spidey would be revealed to be the real deal, that would have been less insulting and a more interesting way to revert Pete back a handful of years...

Anyways, I dropped not only ASM, but ALL Marvel books, and I was buying 10+ titles a month. I can forgive a bad decision, but I can't support it...

Wow I agree with this I picked marraige in the poll and wanted to say all this but didn't Except I still have a few marvel titles.

 

[farmernudie]

Yeh, I agree with Robbie....

Peter could not accept the natural progression of old age and death in his Aunt pretty much, and needed to extend her life a "little tad more", and was willing to deal his wife and marriage to the devil FOR THAT...!?!??!!!

that is a dumb and horrible deal.

Not to mention he threw the ENTIRE PLANET under the bus to the devil too!

The whole world got their minds partially tampered with.

Time/history was altered.

Harry bourght back to life.

So Aunt May can live until her next heart attack. What's that...5 months..?.......and gave up his entire life of MARRIAGE and MJ and happiness??

What a selfish loser/bum they've made him into.

 

[mre]

I understand the notion of Preserving Peter for future Generations defense, but wasn't Ultimate Spidey created for that same purpose?

Why do we have Ultimate Peter Parker on Earth 666? When the Ultimate Universe has its own Earth...

We should have a parallel universe like the M2 where the One Moronic Deal never happened

I don't think Ultimate was created with the mindset that it would take over the main Marvel U.

Also, maybe they are trying to tell us that if we want to read a married Spider-Man then we should read Spider-Girl.

Which is a great book BTW, I started reading it a year ago.

 

[Doc_OCK_4MUGEN]

I don't think Ultimate was created with the mindset that it would take over the main Marvel U.

Also, maybe they are trying to tell us that if we want to read a married Spider-Man then we should read Spider-Girl.

Which is a great book BTW, I started reading it a year ago.

I'm not saying that it would take over the 616 (I hope it never does...) But Ultimate Spider-man was created for the very same reason that OMD/BND was created.

To have a Spidey without the decades of continuity baggage...

I know S-Girl is great but my LCS rarely brings her... But what I meant was a What If? mini series dealing with the current universe but it starts with Peter telling Mephisto to shove the deal up... you know where this is going... A parallel Universe opposed to the OMD/BND 616... Kinda like Spider-Girl does with the aftermath of the Clone Saga and Baby May...

 

[Robbie]

I'm not saying that it would take over the 616 (I hope it never does...) But Ultimate Spider-man was created for the very same reason that OMD/BND was created.

To have a Spidey without the decades of continuity baggage...

I know S-Girl is great but my LCS rarely brings her... But what I meant was a What If? mini series dealing with the current universe but it starts with Peter telling Mephisto to shove the deal up... you know where this is going... A parallel Universe opposed to the OMD/BND 616... Kinda like Spider-Girl does with the aftermath of the Clone Saga and Baby May...

I would by a What If? where Peter actually manned up and put the smack down on Mephisto...