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Post by Icctrombone on Oct 10, 2020 10:33:17 GMT -5
As far as I care Spider-man died beside Aunt May in Amazing Spider-man #400 and the rest is just delusional comic book writers still pretending he’s alive.
There I said it! Edit: Opps wrong thread. That’s the last time I pay attention to the poster above me and not the thread title lol This is something that maybe is worthy of its own thread, but we can bat it around here for a bit. As the reader and consumer of these comics, we can determine where your favorite series' end. I read in another forum where Spider-man ended at issue # 38, the last Ditko issue. COIE ended after issue # 12. The subsequent mini's where Superboy and Luthor become bad guys never happened for me. Also, Avengers ended at issue # 300 for me.
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Post by profh0011 on Oct 10, 2020 11:10:34 GMT -5
I came in on the 1967 Grantray-Lawrence TV cartoons (which I'm currently watching again right now), before discoverting John Romita's stunning art on "AMAZING SPIDER-MAN". Steve Ditko was a very slow burn for me, as I saw very few of his stories in the early days. I got HOOKED big-time on his "DR. STRANGE", but not so much his Spidey. And for decades, I felt that EVERYTHING on "ASM" after when Gil Kane got on the book the first time (the completely-uncalled-for death of George Stacy), was drastically inferior to when Romita was in charge.
I only really gained an appreciation for Ditko's 41 issues (including the pilot and the 2 Annuals) when MARVEL TALES reprinted the entire run in the mid-80s. It started "EH!" but steadily improved as he went.
So I used to wonder when I'd read online comments about how the book wasn't worth reading after Ditko left.
UNTIL about 10-15 years ago when I re-read all my 60s Marvels chronologically. That time... when I got to Romita's debut... SUDDENLY, it was really jarring. Characters should grow and evolve naturally over time, but here, it was like the entire supporting cast had been REPLACED with different people between episodes. Romita's boss told him to make Gwen (and the others, presumably) "nicer"... and he did, but WITHOUT the actual character growth involved to do so!
And this was before I figured out that STEVE DITKO wrote those 41 episodes... and JOHN ROMITA was the writer from the DAY he took over. The difference was... with Romita working in the office, it was much easier for his boss to harrass him and brow-beat him and second-guess everything he did and act as "backseat driver". Romita revealed in 3 different interviews in the 90s how he'd suffered from low-self-esteem issues his whole life, and his deepest regret, was never being able to stand up to his boss.
When I look back on it now, it makes me think... we NEVER really got to find out how good or bad a writer Romita really was. There was too much second-guessing going on all the time.
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Post by Icctrombone on Oct 10, 2020 11:39:11 GMT -5
I came in on the 1967 Grantray-Lawrence TV cartoons (which I'm currently watching again right now), before discoverting John Romita's stunning art on " AMAZING SPIDER-MAN". Steve Ditko was a very slow burn for me, as I saw very few of his stories in the early days. I got HOOKED big-time on his " DR. STRANGE", but not so much his Spidey. And for decades, I felt that EVERYTHING on " ASM" after when Gil Kane got on the book the first time (the completely-uncalled-for death of George Stacy), was drastically inferior to when Romita was in charge. I only really gained an appreciation for Ditko's 41 issues (including the pilot and the 2 Annuals) when MARVEL TALES reprinted the entire run in the mid-80s. It started "EH!" but steadily improved as he went. So I used to wonder when I'd read online comments about how the book wasn't worth reading after Ditko left. UNTIL about 10-15 years ago when I re-read all my 60s Marvels chronologically. That time... when I got to Romita's debut... SUDDENLY, it was really jarring. Characters should grow and evolve naturally over time, but here, it was like the entire supporting cast had been REPLACED with different people between episodes. Romita's boss told him to make Gwen (and the others, presumably) "nicer"... and he did, but WITHOUT the actual character growth involved to do so! And this was before I figured out that STEVE DITKO wrote those 41 episodes... and JOHN ROMITA was the writer from the DAY he took over. The difference was... with Romita working in the office, it was much easier for his boss to harrass him and brow-beat him and second-guess everything he did and act as "backseat driver". Romita revealed in 3 different interviews in the 90s how he'd suffered from low-self-esteem issues his whole life, and his deepest regret, was never being able to stand up to his boss. When I look back on it now, it makes me think... we NEVER really got to find out how good or bad a writer Romita really was. There was too much second-guessing going on all the time. Interesting take on the difference between the Ditko/Romita eras. Maybe Romita just did what his boss wanted him to do, as opposed to being brow beaten and harassed. Ditko's outlook on life was much more anti social than your average person , from what I read. Another take is that the supporting characters grew up after leaving high school, thus explaining that they became " Nicer" in the Romita run.
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Post by tarkintino on Oct 10, 2020 12:06:55 GMT -5
So I used to wonder when I'd read online comments about how the book wasn't worth reading after Ditko left. Thankfully, there's not many who share that opinion. I've always taken that as people too hung-up on the "Parker is always supposed to be an awkward nerd" myth, and resenting the fact that under Lee and Romita, they naturally matured a young man into being more confident in his own skin--in and out of his costume, although he still had serious issues with his being hounded as a criminal and often shaky personal relationships. Frankly, the title would not have lasted if Ditko continued with his influence--there was no way mid / late 60s audiences were going to just sit there and read what would have been a one-note portrayal of the hero, and he did not change. Such an utter lack of believable growth is the very thing readers rightfully complained about--except with the Spider-Man, all thanks to the Lee/Romita team which undeniably made the character a cultural phenomenon. Actually, you did, since he's often discussed the creative process and how he was never truly handcuffed when it came to developing characters and plots, unless it would conflict with a existing plot. Romita was instrumental in many major ASM storylines, even after he was no longer the regular artist (the death of Gwen and the Green Goblin being one of the standouts), and what is key is that he was always aware of the world around him, which was reflected in the sociopolitical tone (along with Lee, of course) that made Spider-Man unique and rocketed him to the top of the Marvel character roster in less than a decade of existence. That was never going to happen with Ditko.
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Post by profh0011 on Oct 10, 2020 15:47:49 GMT -5
We never met Gwen until Peter's 1st day in college, and she was a self-centered stuck-up ice queen. Flash, meanwhile, hadn't changed one whit, while Harry was his own kind of egotistical mess.
Jameson, meanwhile, went from a neurotic nutcase to completely INSANE under Romita. I preferred him in the '67 cartoons, where, at least, he was the "comic releief". Under Romtia, he wasn't funny. And at times, he was outright dangerous. Like the time he hired Electro to attack Spider-Man while he was making an appearance on THE TONIGHT SHOW in a studio filled with innocent bystanders in the audience. There's no way Jameson shouldn't have been charged with all sorts of crimes connected with that single incident.
I've never read enough issues to be an expert on them, but I have found it interesting that both Ted Cord and Vic Sage reminded me of grown-up Peter Parker. One, if Peter had followed a science career, the other, a career in journalism.
At Marvel, Peter just stayed in college seemingly forever... and never seemed to grow up, just get more cynical and depressed as they kept heaping more and more tragedy and misery on him, year after year...
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Post by Icctrombone on Oct 10, 2020 16:16:44 GMT -5
Yeah, I was never a Spidey fan because of the loser role the comic gave him. Also, I hated JJJ.
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Post by earl on Oct 10, 2020 16:26:28 GMT -5
My period of Marvel was really from about 78 to 88 for actively reading and collecting. I got broke in college and the free money I did have went to CDs, LPs and booze. Sold off my huge collection (as I even did a few cons selling comics and worked in a store in the late 80s.) Needed the cash. I wish I would have held on to that Avengers 4 I had and a few others...oh well.
So to me the classic Marvel really ends around 87 when the 25th anniversary was going on. There are a few exceptions, but really when Shooter ran half the editorial over to DC, where they made some really good comics.
I would dabble through the 90s. I moved to a career and living in a new town, I had cash and plenty of time and my comic habit developed like any drug, a bit more and a bit more... Those DVDs with PDF complete runs was the big gateway drug back into the old stuff and super hero comics, as I was reading comics but more other genres/indie stuff.
I had a little over a decade as being a diehard back into the super hero stuff and have cut my new super hero stuff down to not much since New 52 and end of Bendis' Avengers run, when they flipped the creative teams all around and went through their 'don't call it a reboot' reboots.
I do have a pet theory that could be used to explain how different things are in the Marvel and DC universe since the 90s. My theory is that these big EVENTS where reality keeps getting torn apart and reset is causing the fluctuations in reality. And the kinetic energy expended from these things is causing time/reality to break more and more often. These modern retcons are happening as when time/reality snaps back, it's damage at the seams lets energy elements from other realities to change the past.
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Post by earl on Oct 10, 2020 16:33:56 GMT -5
You can totally geek out as reality has been such a big part of so many books and comics over the past few decades.
I do kind of like the idea in theory that say Cynoshure from GrimJack might be connected to the Bleed which might be connected to the Dark Tower or the Eternal Champion multiverse or Riverworld or the Negative Zone.
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Post by tarkintino on Oct 10, 2020 17:12:35 GMT -5
Flash, meanwhile, hadn't changed one whit Flash did change; under Lee/Romita, he was full of himself, but he was growing up, so he no longer bullied Parker, and eventually became his friend. If Ditko never left, its almost certain Flash would have been as much of an eternal bully caricature as Bluto, or the Biff Tannen character from the Back to the Future movies, and that's pure character stagnation. ...and his being the disappointment / source of resentment for his father made him a complex character, and a surrogate brother for Parker ...and let's not go into how Ditko never wanted the Green Goblin to be Harry's father. Sheesh--superhero comic history could have been robbed of one of the (arguably) top three hero/villain storylines if Ditko got his way. In other words, Spider-Man would never have become an iconic character / title. The cartoon--particularly its first "blue skies" (Grantray-Lawrence) season--did not do the character justice by making him the constant foil. He was better handed during the Krantz Animation / Ralph Bakshi second season of the series, where the characterizations were closer to the source, since the comic JJJ was never supposed to be outright comic relief. To be honest, superheroes cause direct damage in almost all of their conflicts, few are deputized by law enforcement, and just move on to another adventure--decades before concepts like Kingdom Come and Civil War came into vogue. If comics were really a mirror of real life, most Marvel and DC heroes would be charged with reckless endangerment, probably attempted murder, destruction of property and on and on. Most would need to retire (i.e., hide) or end up in jail. So, JJJ's Electro stunt sort of pales in comparison to what superheroes do as part of their daily "job." Well, that's comics for you; Dick Grayson was introduced in 1940, but did not go grow up and go to college until 1969. Superboy was a teenager for how long as the comics had the cultural styles change with the times, yet he did not age? Then, there's the Archie characters, who spent more than 60 years at Riverdale High School....
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Post by Cei-U! on Oct 10, 2020 20:44:01 GMT -5
So far as I'm concerned, the story of the Spider-Man who debuted in Amazing Fantasy #15 ended with his graduation from college in Amazing #185. I like some of what came after, but I strongly disliked the Wolfman and Mantlo versions (my loathing of the Black Cat is well known round these parts) and I really didn't care for the black costume/symbiote stuff (though I loved the costume design). I haven't read a Spidey comic since early '86 (except for the Kraven's Last Hunt TPB) so I have no firsthand knowledge of what came later. From what others have said, I'm pretty sure I'd hate the Clone Saga, One More Day, and Sins Past.
Cei-U! I summon the web-slinging wonder!
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Post by profh0011 on Oct 10, 2020 21:24:26 GMT -5
let's not go into how Ditko never wanted the Green Goblin to be Harry's father
That's a myth passed on by Marvel's editor and his cronies, designed to somehow make Ditko look bad.
Once Jack Kirby stopped contributing story ideas, Steve Ditko wrote the book entirely on his own with zero input from his boss, and once his boss stopped talking to Ditko because Ditko insisted on GETTING PAID for his writing, his boss had NO idea what was going on until the finished pages turned up each month.
Ditko introduced Norman Osborn (un-named) into the background of Jameson's club, some time BEFORE Peter even met Harry at college. Ditko ALWAYS intended Norman to be The Green Goblin.
The part I question-- which nobody else ever seems to bring up-- are the details of his origin. Here's why I say this.
I may not have actually conected this until I saw the first 2 SPIDER-MAN feature films. The origins of The Green Goblin and Doc Ock are ALMOST IDENTICAL. In the comic, Otto Octavius started out as a decent man (with zero personality), until he had a lab accident, and then he became a fully-developed INSANE SUPER-VILLAIN. But after, who he was and what he was like before the accident, was almost never mentioned, as if it had been completely forgotten. (This is what can happen when the guy writing the dialogue had nothing to do with writing the stories.) It wasn't Otto's fault he became Spider-Man's MOST DANGEROUS enemy. But this aspect was wonderfully captured in the 2nd movie, brought to vivid like by actor Alfred Molina. In the film, Otto was 3-dimensional. Ock was 2-dimensional. Before the accident, the movie fleshed him out as he'd never been before, and made him likeable and sympathetic. After the accident, he became totally INSANE. Molina's Ock was perhaps the single most authentic to the comics movie portrayal of a super-villain I've ever seen.
When John Romita started writing the comic, he was given as his first assignment cleaning up Ditko's Green Goblin mystery. Somehow or other... Norman wound up with Otto's origin. And for a long time after, we were supposed to have sympathy for this would-be CRIME BOSS who wanted to murder the hero as a way of showing the underworld how tough he was. Yet in the flashback, we're shown that he became this way as a result of a lab accident, in order to make him sympathetic. Annoyingly, the whole idea of Norman having AMNESIA as a way of making him "normal" again, seems to me to have swiped from "King Tut" on the Adam West BATMAN show some time before the Goblin's origin saw print.
Personally, I would have preferred if Norman had simply been an arrogant crook who decided to become a crime lord. It just seems wrong somehow that he's "normal" when he has amnesia, but EVIL when he has his memory back. If he was ever a good man in the first place, wouldn't somebody have tried to cure him?
And why did nobody ever try to "cure" Otto?
There's something wrong when a TV show done as a COMEDY makes more sense than a supposedly "dramatic" comic-book series.
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Post by berkley on Oct 10, 2020 21:30:07 GMT -5
So far as I'm concerned, the story of the Spider-Man who debuted in Amazing Fantasy #15 ended with his graduation from college in Amazing #185. I like some of what came after, but I strongly disliked the Wolfman and Mantlo versions (my loathing of the Black Cat is well known round these parts) and I really didn't care for the black costume/symbiote stuff (though I loved the costume design). I haven't read a Spidey comic since early '86 (except for the Kraven's Last Hunt TPB) so I have no firsthand knowledge of what came later. From what others have said, I'm pretty sure I'd hate the Clone Saga, One More Day, and Sins Past. Cei-U! I summon the web-slinging wonder! I'm in much the same boat, though my reading of the series up to when I stopped in around 1979or 1980 is much more spotty than yours. I also dislike the six-armed Spider-Man whenever I see an image of it - but I think that came in the #100s somewhere? Don't like what I've seen or heard about Venom, symbiotes, black costumes, clones, etc. Neutral on Black Cat but not much interested either. Kraven's Last Hunt is about the only thing I've heard of from the later stuff tat I feel the slightest inclination to try sometime.
As for Ditko era vs Romita, I kind of accept that they're different things, to an extent: Ditko's world-view and also the visual world created by his drawing style have such a unique feel, it makes sense to me that the series would take a new turn after he left. Part of it can be explained away, if you like, by Peter Parker maturing from an insecure high school kid to a young adult/college student who's experienced a hell of a lot of things both in his personal life and as Spider-Man, and from that POV the transition doesn't feel so jarring to me. But obviously we're all going to react in our own individual way.
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Post by Duragizer on Oct 10, 2020 22:08:04 GMT -5
I'm inclined to favour Ditko's Spidey run over Romita's. Romita's run is just too damn long.
But there lies my rub with comics intended to run indefinitely.
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Post by brutalis on Oct 10, 2020 22:44:49 GMT -5
Spidey: Ditko and Romita are 2 distinctive runs. Each stands excellently upon their own and yet also connect and complement one another. Alone or combined like Peanut Butter and Chocolate or Chocolate and Mint ice cream, you can enjoy either as separate entities or a complete whole.
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Post by spoon on Oct 10, 2020 23:04:10 GMT -5
So far as I'm concerned, the story of the Spider-Man who debuted in Amazing Fantasy #15 ended with his graduation from college in Amazing #185. I like some of what came after, but I strongly disliked the Wolfman and Mantlo versions (my loathing of the Black Cat is well known round these parts) and I really didn't care for the black costume/symbiote stuff (though I loved the costume design). I haven't read a Spidey comic since early '86 (except for the Kraven's Last Hunt TPB) so I have no firsthand knowledge of what came later. From what others have said, I'm pretty sure I'd hate the Clone Saga, One More Day, and Sins Past. Cei-U! I summon the web-slinging wonder! When I read the 11 volumes of Essential Spider-Man years back, Wolfman's run was the first consistently disappointing period for me. Sure, there are subpar issues along the way, but at a minimum Amazing is solid for the first years. I know from another thread that other people like the Korvac Saga, but has a similar place in Avengers for me. I think Avengers ranges from solid to great pretty much throughout until Perez departs during the Korvac storyline, which disappointed me.
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