I'm sure you all suffer from this problem: The company that produces your favorite comic book character suddenly changes creative team or direction through editorial decision, and you slowly read as they slowly destroy and desecrate all you loved about the character until you no longer recognize them and you end up canceling the title and moving on. (Case in point on a personal perspective was when Peter David's legendary twelve year run on the Incredible Hulk sadly came to an end, a run that has yet to be equaled! and Daniel Way's revamp of Ghost Rider after Howard Mackie's classic run; even though Jason Aaron had a great run after Way, picking up the scraps Way left in his absolute demolition of the character, even thinking about what he did leaves a bitter taste in my mouth; GHOST RIDER IS NOT A ******* ANGEL!!)
And in the same vain there's character's you'd like to start reading but are scared cause of either the amount of titles the character has or such a convoluted history that it gives you a migraine (i.e Superman, you needed to work a second job to keep on track with all the titles he had! Thankfully each of his title's have gone off in their own direction with different characters (Lex Luthor now has the reigns of Action Comics if you haven't picked it up already)
A character that's kinda suffered over the years with both problems I've found is Spider-man!
From the virtual swamp of titles under the Spider-man umbrella with writers and artists coming and going like the tide, only the die hard Spider-man fans kept on with their titles, (second & third jobs aside) but even they started to crack under the arc titled "Brand New Day" (That's definitely another story to tell with all the problems that raised!) but from an outsiders perspective, you could see problems with the title (the number of titles were reduced to just Amazing Spider-man at this point, but coming out a whopping three times a month :S) To politely summarize the problems of "Brand New Day" - "Too many cooks spoil the broth" Too many writers and artists were on the title, leaving their own mark on the book and ignoring what others had written, throwing continuity out of the window and losing hardcore fans (a noticeable number of my customers were dropping Spider-man as a result)
But fear not True Believer's, there is a happy ending to this tale of woe. Marvel noticed the drop in sales of Amazing Spider-man and acted accordingly by ending their "Brand New Day" run, with "Big Time" written by Dan Slott (count them, writers = 1!) and art by Humberto Ramos and two other artists and coming out twice a month now. A thankful end to all the previous debacle that's surrounded Spider-man over the years and a perfect jumping on point for new readers and returning die hards (demand for this issue has been high!) But other than the relief of the end of "Brand New Day", "Big Time" is a great book! a fun for all ages title chock full of costumed villains, dangling plot threads and basically getting back to the essence of the Spider-man mythos, adding his status as a member of the Avengers to strengthen the book rather than confusing his title (Notice how any of Wolverine's teams are not mentioned in his own title).
So in conclusion, with Slott & Ramos at the helm, Spider-man's ready to retake his crown as premiere Marvel character from the grumpy old man and the unfunny whack job to truly take Marvel to it's "Heroic Age".
From the virtual swamp of titles under the Spider-man umbrella with writers and artists coming and going like the tide, only the die hard Spider-man fans kept on with their titles, (second & third jobs aside) but even they started to crack under the arc titled "Brand New Day" (That's definitely another story to tell with all the problems that raised!) but from an outsiders perspective, you could see problems with the title (the number of titles were reduced to just Amazing Spider-man at this point, but coming out a whopping three times a month :S) To politely summarize the problems of "Brand New Day" - "Too many cooks spoil the broth" Too many writers and artists were on the title, leaving their own mark on the book and ignoring what others had written, throwing continuity out of the window and losing hardcore fans (a noticeable number of my customers were dropping Spider-man as a result)
But fear not True Believer's, there is a happy ending to this tale of woe. Marvel noticed the drop in sales of Amazing Spider-man and acted accordingly by ending their "Brand New Day" run, with "Big Time" written by Dan Slott (count them, writers = 1!) and art by Humberto Ramos and two other artists and coming out twice a month now. A thankful end to all the previous debacle that's surrounded Spider-man over the years and a perfect jumping on point for new readers and returning die hards (demand for this issue has been high!) But other than the relief of the end of "Brand New Day", "Big Time" is a great book! a fun for all ages title chock full of costumed villains, dangling plot threads and basically getting back to the essence of the Spider-man mythos, adding his status as a member of the Avengers to strengthen the book rather than confusing his title (Notice how any of Wolverine's teams are not mentioned in his own title).
So in conclusion, with Slott & Ramos at the helm, Spider-man's ready to retake his crown as premiere Marvel character from the grumpy old man and the unfunny whack job to truly take Marvel to it's "Heroic Age".
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