Also, it's not a successful relaunch. It might look like Amazing is selling more copies because of its thrice-monthly schedule, but its been hemorrhaging readers since its launch.

Best of luck to you, though.

Perhaps your problem is that you're going after the wrong type. Try the punk/goth/alteranawhatever scene.

Which kinda defeats the entire purpose of introducing her to begin with, and was shockingly stupid. "Hey, I know--we'll introduce a fun, attractive new character in a Free Comic Book Day issue designed to rope in young readers, then give her no real character development, use her as a red herring and kill her off!"

Why bother? What was the point? Why did she exist in the first place, and why on earth should I give a shit? Just an idiotic idea, top to bottom. I expect better of the editors and writers on SPIDER-MAN, but apparently Marvel prefers giving us the unexpected--i.e. lousy ideas from writers that editors don't stop, and lousy ideas from editors foisted onto writers with no choice but to do what they're told.

The stereotype surrounding comic lovers has got to stop.

Despite all of Jim Shooters flaws, and he did have many, at least during his tenor as EIC the Marvel Universe was an actual shared Universe. You didn't have to worry about one comic contradicting another.

Oh, and I love on Quesada bans smoking in comics, but he allows super-heroes to torture, kill or be double-crossing pricks.

Barry Ween, Boy Genius was a much better book

I still stand by the fact that with this whole Final Crisis event DC has set up three universes that aren't talking to one another - Morrison, Johns, Everyone else...

While I personally didn't love Secret Invasion (just becasue I don't read enough Marvel books to truly appreciate it), I think it was way more cohesive how it cascaded to all other titles.

Under Joe Quesada Marvel dominates the comic market: Someone mentioned that Marvel sells 50% of the comic market. Hell, that is a drop than. Marvel used to sell 75% of all comics from the early 80’s up into the 90’s. So Joe has actually just inherited a company that has dominated the market for year (this is like saying that as president of Coca-cola I have made us the number one soft drink in the world; never mind the fact we already WERE the number one drink).

That Joe has caused Marvel’s stocks to stay high: Ok, when Marvel hit the Market, it was about $3.44 a share, now it is $27 dollars, so Joe has to be doing a good job, right. Well, someone is doing a good job but that doesn’t make it Joe. Marvel Entertain Inc. stocks starting sinking slightly in 2001 to $1 before jumping at the end of 2002 to $6 shares. What happened over 2002 to cause this jump? The Spider-Man movie. In fact, after every Marvel movie that is a hit comes out, Marvel’s stock increases (it was up to $34 share thanks to Iron Man and Hulk, and news of two more Spider-Man movies and the Avengers). In fact, the majority of Marvel’s wealth now comes in stuff not related to comics directly, but instead from movies, toys and video games. Comics are a very small part of their revenue now.

Joe Quesada has created new avenues for making money: Like I said above, comics are responsible for little of Marvel’s revenue nowadays. Movies, toys, games, these are Marvel’s bread-makers. And Joe has nothing to do with these parts of the Marvel Empire. That is Avi Arad (and I have some complaints about him as well, but I will skip them for now). And as I have said before, the comic market is shrinking more and more, so Joe’s success isn’t very great.

Well, Joe has been able to expand comic book sales: Quesada does deserve some credit for using trade paperbacks to keep comic book readers, and it was one of the things that helped bring Marvel back after being on the brink of bankruptcy following the late 90s, I still don’t think he has done much to increase comic book sales. First off, trade paperbacks cannibalize monthly comic book sales, because readers may opt to forego monthly series in order wait for the cheaper collections, not realizing that monthly sales are an indicator to publishers of interest in such collections. So he hasn’t expanded sales, he has just been having Peter rob Paul to pay Mary.

At least Joe has been able to get newer readers: Actually, no he hasn’t. Comic book sales are down, way down (just compare sales in the 80’s to now to see how far they have dropped). And the average age of a comic book readers have gone up over the years (an LA times article once said, “the average reader, a 12-year-old in the 50’s and a 20-year-old in the early 90’s, is now 25.” And I don’t mind older readers, but you have to realize that without fresh blood to fill up their ranks, attrition will slowly deplete your readers. So how does Joe entice new readers? He creates the Ultimate universe, which will bring in new readers because it will have gotten rid of all that history and back-story that intimidates new readers. Nice idea, except that you made the Ultimate universe so damn adult oriented (sex, violence, political statements) that the only ones who read it now are the diehard Marvel fans. Honestly, name one new reader who got into Marvel because of the Ultimate line. In fact, name one reader of the Ultimate line who is in his teens.

I like the direction Joe Quesada has taken Marvel: Ok, that is your prerogative and I will respect that. I, however, do not like the direction Marvel has gone (although I will admit, it is better now than during the horrible 90’s – Spider-Clones, ugh). The over emphasis on shocks and events, and his hiring of people who ever do not know or understand the characters, the lack of continuity and consistency, has prevented me from enjoying something I once loved. In fact, one title went so far off track he was forced to hit the re-set button, and even that he bungled.

Ok, but I understand why he banned smoking; his father died from lung cancer caused by smoking: Hey, eliminating smoking amongst kids is a noble cause, and I don’t have any problem with saying your comics should reflect the fact that smoking is dangerous. But he once stated that he felt that these characters should not be seen smoking because kids look up to them is hypocritical. Smoking is bad, but watching Captain America and the Ultimates kill people, even foes who have been defeated, is morally ok? Or to make Mr. Fantastic responsible for the death of Giant-Man, and not face legal consequences? Or to have Gwen Stacy be raped by the Green Goblin, yet have Osborn never faces any consequences for his actions? Or almost always showing anyone involved in the US military as a war criminal or jingoistic nut job (hey, I am pretty liberal and even I feel this is pretty one-side). And besides, if you wanted to show smoking is bad, show it: Have Jamison’s doctors tell him he has to quit after getting cancer; have Franklin tell Uncle Ben that his smoking is bad for him (like the Thing is going to resist his God son); have the other members of the X-Men or Avengers demand Wolverine stop smoking awful smelling cigars inside; and have SHIELD ban smoking in all facilities, forcing Nick to smoke out side. Anything is better than a blanket can’t show them smoking clause.

Well, at least he made the trains run on time: I don’t know about the trains, but I know many comics under his watch have missed some deadline and delivery dates. Not to sound like an angry old man, but when I was a kid I can’t ever remember a comic being delayed for MONTHS.

However, being a student in Minneapolis - I know they are out there....shopping at Source Comics & Games and Big Brain Comics.

Again, bigger cities obviously work better.

"Sure do, Peter! You did a helluva job on that...ummm...wait, what? I *definitely* remember you working for me, but I have no idea what it was on! PEPPER! Get me Parker's HR file!

"Sure thing, Mr. Stark. Why, is there something wrong? I know things were a little tense when Peter resigned..."

"Really? Any idea why?

"None at all, Tony! I mean, sure, we all know he worked here--but none of us have any idea on what, or when, or why he left! Oh well--must have been some of that crazy "magic", right Happy? Happy? Hellooo, Happy? Oh wait...I forgot that cunt Sue Richards told Tony to FUCKING KILL YOU! Ha ha, silly me! Oh well, time to go back to stealing Barbara Gordon's schtick..."

Terra is a great character. Not familiar with her second incarnation, but the original rocked...the first and maybe only flat-chested female in comics (no wonder she was made out to be nuts). This new one isn't quite as good a character,but still a bang-up comic. IMO, Gray and Palmiotti can do no wrong. I love Jonah Hex, loved thier Wolverine/Black Cat team up, their Heroes for Hire and Shanna. Team them with Khari Evans and it's an A+ read, for sure.

Girls don't like super hero comics. They can be turned on to Preacher, Y, and pretty much anything that isn't your traditional super hero comic. This also applies to most people who aren't into comics...they like the stories that are good, somewhat self-contained, and NO SPANDEX.

Not that it makes much difference to me. No hot girls here, even though I have money, hair and (honestly) an athletic body. But, well, I am homo so there you go.

In fact, they could of used other things to “re-set” Spider-Man, such as a Cosmic Cube or the Infinite Gauntlet or have Immortus time travel back for him and change history, but even those would have left a bad taste in many peoples mouth. Why, because A) they don’t fit with Spider-Man’s particular milieu in the superhero world; B) it would still seem to be an lazy solution by the writers and the editing staff to try and change what Spider-Man has become over the years, instead of actually being creative; and C) it goes against his character – Would Spider-Man ever make a deal with the Red Skull? Fuck no! But now he is making a deal with evil incarnate! Someone who is worse than the Red Skull by a thousand fold! Like Spidey wouldn’t guess, “there has to be some sort of hidden clause here. This can’t work out right.”

My biggest problem with the BND storyline is that all of the problems (his new powers, revealing his identity, and his marriage to MJ) could have been solved with simply good writing. They didn’t need to pull this simple explanation, but instead could have been more creative.

To best demonstrate this, and how the writers should have handled it, let’s get a different character and apply the BND storyline to him: Batman. What if Bruce Wayne had gotten married to Vicki Vale, somehow became the Spirit of the Bat where he gained new powers, was given a new costume designed by Steel, and then revealed his identity as Batman to the world. After DC realized this was a bad direction to go in, would the writer’s have mics come up with a storyline that would have forced him to make a deal with Neron because Robin was on death’s door thanks to an assassin sent by the Penguin, and this deal would also conveniently wipeout Batman’s marriage, new powers and costume? First off I would hope the writers would never put themselves in that corner where they had to solve so many problems. But if they did, I would hope they wouldn’t use anything a ridiculous as I described to get him out of it (they could have Batman and Vicki Vale divorce or have her die; have him loose his new powers and costume, have Martian Manhunter or Superman impersonate him, so they could create an the believable lie that Bruce Wayne really wasn’t Batman; hell, have another Crisis to wipe out all the bad shit in all the comics, not just Batman’s). But for some reason, Joe Quesada and Marvel thought this was the best direction to go.

Back then there were like only half a dozen comic publishers. Now there are dozens that are producing great quality comics by well known creators, of various topics other than just superheroes and Archie. makes sense that Marvel's share of the market would be smaller.

Many things might have caused this lost ground to DC - bad storylines, the resurgence of DC since the 80’s, the near bankruptcy in the late 90s – and perhaps none of these are Quesada’s fault. However, my point wasn’t that he has lost so much ground in the Super-hero comic book market place, but instead that his company has dominated so much of the market place even before he took over that I can’t see how he gets any credit for Marvel’s dominance in the first place (steverodgers, 12:43:27).

I also have a friend who checks them out occasionally but is more of a manga nerd.

Milf Lover, you mentioned you read 70’s or 80’s comics if you want a good Spidey story. Well my question for you is can you imagining them ever having Spider-Man make a deal with Mephisto to undo several years of bad stories (well, first off they probably wouldn’t of had several years of bad stories)? Hell no, right? They wouldn’t have let the writers solve the problem using Mephisto as some sort of dues ex machina, or in this case diabolus ex machina. They would have forced them to earn a No Prize in getting Peter Parker out of the corner that he had been painted into.

PS - Yeah get the Essentials. They might be black and white, but they are worth it. Also, buy the Amazing Spider-Man DVD-Rom. It has every issues up to June 2006.

Two: I hate to say it, but I agree with Joenathan. Although I despise that a deal with THE Devil was made, there's magic afoot, and I think that it's building toward something... Probably another big, messy crossover of some sort. At the end of which, Aunt May's life will be saved in a retro-retro-reboot by Peter... And, that many of the superheros will figure out that some kind of hinky magic was being used, but only a few will remember exactly what. Peter will likely carry a great deal of guilt over this, 'cause you know, that's his thing. Or, something equally retarded.

Finally: I never had much of an issue with the comics versus chicks debate, most thought it was goofily charming.... But I never had any success in trying to get anyone to read them, so gave it up as a lost cause.

1) Various characters with identically abrasive personalities catalog the theoretical technologies Ellis is currently foaming for ("One day people will be able to plug this into their blah-blah-blah TALK to BUILDINGS and TREES blah-blah-blah can you imagine blah-blah-blah)

2)The main character walks around a city repeatedly reminding us that he's got big, BIG plans for this place (plans which presumably occur sometime beyond this $34.99 book). Awesome.

Though, having described himself a linguistic genius, I hope he was being as sarcastic as I am now.

1) That Joe Quesada and the writers of Spider-Man had realized that they had taken Spider-Man down a wrong path, that they had made a character who bore little resemblance to the original and that this new direction was going to hurt the character in the future. Especially in sales and when people saw he bore little resemblance to the one in the movies.

2) That the BND storyline is just an easy solution, a “diabolus ex machina” as I said above. Instead of having a story that develops organically and naturally, which has been the standard of the Spider-Man comic for nearly 50 years, they decide to have someone come along and “magically” change everything. I mean he gives up his love for MJ to save the life of Aunt May, why would Mephisto give a shit about restoring his secret identity and getting rid of his fugitive status? The answer being that it was the easy thing to do.

3) That this does not fit the Spider-Man comic, since he shouldn’t be having magic as the centerpiece of a storyline that changes his fundamental character any more than Doctor Strange should have science. Wouldn’t you find it stupid if Dr. Strange asked Kang for help in erasing his memory from the world by using his Time Machine? Doesn’t fit. Well, Same thing with Spider-Man and Mephisto. There are certain things he shouldn’t be involved in. You haven’t seen Spider-Man as a Herald of Galactus, wielder of Thor’s hammer or have him take on Ego the Living Planet. Certain things don’t work for Spider-Man.

4) It also doesn’t fit his character, whose mantra has always been “with great power comes great responsibility.” While he might be tempted, the Peter Parker I know would never accept a deal with a character that resembles Satan. He would realize that as much as he wants his Aunt May to live and he loves her, he would make the hard choice of letting her die because he wouldn’t want to play God, or pay the price for doing so.

5) It also doesn’t fit the character of Mephisto. How often has he met Spider-Man before this? A Holiday special where Spider-Man battles to save the Spirit of Christmas is the only time I remember. So why would he show up now to deal with Spider-Man now (see #2 above for the answer)?

6) That in the end this will only leave you with a bad taste. Spider-Man made a deal with Mephisto, the/a/an devil, Marvel’s comics ultimate Satanic figure, but we know he will never have to make any real sacrifice at the end of this storyline, and that Spider-Man will go back to the old status quo with only a couple illusions of change thrown in. The moral of when you make a deal with the devil is that the deal never works out and the price is always to high. Do you expect to see anything permanent and horrible happen to Peter Parker himself? No, we will only get a story where he suffers damnation and torment for one or two issues, but than Doc Strange or someone else (does Loki still owe him a favor) will come to his rescue, so in the end he will not have to face any permanent consequences for his lapse in moral judgment. Spider-Man won’t have to worry about spending eternity in hell, being cursed (Ghost-Spider anyone) or even have his happy-go-lucky personality changed by the fact that his actions might have damned others. In 5 years it will be forgotten, just another whacky adventure for Spider-Man, and not the character building events like Captain Stacy and Gwen Stacy’s deaths were.

So if none of this bothers you, ok. But it bothers me, and others like me. And I am waiting for someone to point out how any of these points that I have listed above are not accurate.

And as for the suggestion that we should just wait until a new team and creative direction, my problem with that is that I am a Spider-Man fan. I want to read a good Spider-Man comic, preferably now instead of having to wait years before that can happen. But they way things are going, I might as well stop reading him all together, which I imagine a lot of readers might be contemplating.

First off, you see BND as being planned and that everything going on serves some sort of well-thought out purpose; I, however, see it as being a Crisis-like attempt to simplify Spider-Man’s continuity and shed off some of the baggage. While it might develop and have a payoff, it still seems to me that the first point of BND wasn’t to take Spidey in a new direction or an interesting storyline, it was to find an easy solution to a problem (which is why I would have been just as unhappy with using a Cosmic Cube, Shaper of Worlds, or a Time Platform to solve this mess).

Now, in response to your responses to my questions:

1) You say that Spider-Man will basically end up where he was Post Civil War, but I imagine you mean Pre-Civil War but I could be wrong. If you do mean Post Civil War, do you really believe that they will have Spider-Man be a fugitive who still has the powers from the Others? I find that hard to believe, especially since they are now trying to distance that character from that depiction.

2) How else am I to look at it except as a gimmicky solution? They basically took everything that they have done in Spider-Man, all of the “brave new direction” and the “bold decision to have him unmask” , and had it undone iwith a wave of a/an/the devil’s hand. In fact, in My Cup of Joe, Quesada says that “While, we won't be making any direct references to "The Other," it's still a part of Spidey history, and it remains to be seen how Pete lost those powers.” So instead of answering the problem now, by showing how all of these amazing new powers that have fuelled the last couple of years stories have been lost, we are going to just going to have to wait and look at it as an afterthought? And you wonder why I am cynical towards them?

3) Yes, there was a cosmic storyline and the Others (which I wasn’t a fan of, either). I admit I made my point rather badly here. What I was trying to get at was how you shouldn’t be using something so out of Spider-Man’s milieu as the centerpiece for something that will change his fundamental character. Yes he had Cosmic Powers, but he didn’t use them to save Aunt May from death or to bring back Gwen Stacy. Here is a storyline where he is going against his own motto, “Responsibility”, yet they are using magic, something not associated with Spider-Man normally, as a plot device. Perhaps it is my own personal bias, but if you are going to challenge Spidey’s core beliefs, if you are really going to tempt him to turn away from his most tightly held belief, I want it to be by something that is as close to his world as possible, something that can be viewed as a possible real temptation and not an outside influence that can only be viewed as aberration (“Well I don’t have to worry about this anymore because I am never going to make a deal with a devil again!”).

4) You think it fits the storyline, I feel it goes against his character. I guess we have to agree to disagree.

5) You think it might fit a larger storyline, and it might very well be. But to me it feels forced and out of character. And if I can’t believe that this is something he would do, it undermines my ability to believe in the story.

6) No, I don’t want to see Spidey rot in hell, but my problem is that there will not be a consequence that fits the magnitude of this situation or a payoff equal to the setup. He made a deal with Mephisto, Marvel comic’s version of Satan. This isn’t a metaphoric demon or evil as an abstract concept, this is the real fucking deal, and Spider-Man has willingly entered into a deal with this being. Like I said before, would Spider-Man knowingly make a deal with the Red Skull, and if he did don’t you think such a scenario would change the fundamental nature of Spider-Man’s character? Well, so should dealing with Mephisto, but I seriously doubt Marvel will be willing enough to have Spider-Man be guilty, brooding or punished enough to match the severity of his actions.

My problem with all of this is that, in my opinion, it hurts Spider-Man’s continuity. I know some of you laugh at this, but one of the great strengths of Spider-Man and Marvel has long been the fact that it was a shared Universe, and that history, continuity and plausibility have been the keystones to it. As Peter David said, “A shared universe, like any fictional construct, hinges on suspension of disbelief. When continuity is tossed away, it tatters the construct. Undermines it.”

In closing I will add that I admit Marvel owes me nothing. Like you I do not read the current ASM, or almost any Marvel Comics for that matter. I followed your advice and took my money elsewhere, and I am not supporting their product. But that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t mind reading them again if they got good again. If you are a fan of the 49’ers, you might stop watching them now because they suck and you don’t like the direction is going in, but that doesn’t mean you don’t want them to get back on top so you can start following them again.

Oh, and as for your crack about getting off my cross, I don’t see where I ever acted as a martyr or anything other than a fan with an opinion. Have I stated how they have ruined Spider-Man or raped my most cherished memories? No, I have merely expressed a viewpoint, which many share. Plus, I could say you should stop hiding behind the Marvel Flag (“Love the House of Ideas or Leave it”), but I am above such nonsense…