As the Clone Saga drew to a close, Marvel did something remarkably intelligent. They downsized the number of titles starring a character who sold well. At one point in the '90s there had been at least eight books that starred Spidey, between, Amazing, Spectacular, Web, Peter Parker, Sensational, Unlimited, Marvel Tales Featuring, and the one based off the cartoon show. Throw in stuff like John Byrne's Chapter One, and Webspinners, and it's overload.
But it seemed like Marvel actually got that. They cancelled everything except Amazing and Peter Parker, and put the same writer (Howard Mackie) on both. This insured unity of vision across the Spider-Man books, even though each was designed to tell different kinds of stories, with Amazing being more super-heroics, and Peter Parker being more focus on Peter himself, or personal aspects. This idea really came into its own when the creative team was Paul Jenkins and JMS, as each was better suited for one type of story. Even so they appeared to maintain a sense of collarboration, so that the unity was there. Peter tells Aunt May the truth in Amazing, Jenkins has Peter talking openly to Aunt May about how batshit crazy Norman Osborn is in Peter Parker.
*cue ominous storm clouds*
But then they cancelled Peter Parker, and replaced it with Spectacular. OK, still Paul Jenkins, it's fine. Then they cancelled Spectacular, and started up Marvel Knights. There seemed to be less of a difference between this and Amazing, other than Marvel Knights was supposed to be more "hardcore" I suppose. Because when I think Spider-Man, I think harcore legend baby, just like Mick Foley! Then they added a third book, and now they're at least thinking about adding a fourth. I've already expressed the opinion once with regard to teams that if you're going to have multiple team books, they should focus on different stuff, or else they're redundant. I figure with a character with multiple books, the same should hold true.
I will say that's it's too early to assess the direction Aguirre-Sacasa is going with Sensational, and given it's only been two issues since the conclusion of The Other, probably too early to assess Peter David as well. Right now though, I think he's trying to go more personal, which is fine, it can balance JMS' "big picture" stuff. So what would the point of the other books be?
And I didn't even mention Ultimate, or Marvel Adventures (which seems to be more for kids, good idea), or Spider-Man loves Mary Jane, or Spider-Man Unlimited, or New Avengers, or his frequent appearences in Marvel Team-Up.
You know, I think I may be a little too late with this.
Oh well, Romita Jr. art makes me feel better, even if Spidey looks blue.
3 comments:
It's interesting, because the good stuff that you said Marvel was doing then seems to be exactly what DC is doing now (i. e. culling the Superman titles down to two, wiping out the majority of Bat titles).
It should be interesting to see what effect it has on DC's comics...
See, part of the reason I never got into Spider-Man was the glut of titles. Where was I supposed to start? There wasn't (as far as I knew) one "main artery" Spidey comic that I could read to get the big continuity picture, with the rest being for fan favorite creators, or Elseworlds-y stuff, or side stories.
It's weird; overexposing their hottest property actually barred entry from a new customer. Hmm. (And these weren't even TEAM books!)
It occurs to me that Marvel only has two ways of approaching any concept, by pouring all their effort into it, or by pouring almost none of their effort into it.
Looks at what I like to call "Bendisian" writing. Before Bendis, if something didn't blow up in an issue, it got rewritten where it did. Of course the motto back then was "every issue could be a reader's first." But I think ny reader is going to get tired of being forcibly reintroduced to the characters in every issue.
Back to Bendis. His style of "talk for 5 issues, blow one thing up in issue six, repeat" has really caught on. For the better part of five years, all of Marvel's stories have been mandated to fit into six-issue sections (the better to put in trades).
I've said a lot of crap about Bendis because of his style, but a lot of it was undeserved. I was mad that I was reading his style, so I dropped any books he wrote. By that point, company policy became "write like Bendis." However, being someting of a writer myself, I still hold that if Bendis were writing anything other than comics, he wouldn't be getting any work; he writes way too slow.
In the end, what I think Marvel needs is a healthy does of moderation. From the perspective of the mutant characters/books, there might be some moderation when it comes to Civil War. The X-Men, for the most part aren't even supposed to be involved.
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