Written by Imagine if you will, a scenario where a thin-skinned comic book writer goes off on a tirade laced with ad hominem attacks on blogger who was simply putting forth a straight-forward critique of his work. Imagine that online outburst setting off a chain of events in which another fan ends up introducing the blogger to a Newsarama interview he was unfamiliar with. The reader says he’d like to see a response to the interview. Does the blogger do it?
Well imagine no longer, because that blogger is me and I intend to do address the issue. The Newsarama interview, in short, perfectly embodies everything that is wrong with Dan Slott’s approach to Spider-Man. As I did in my last piece, I will break it up into smaller sections so readers can see the two different visions side by side.
Nrama: With Superior Spider-Man, you’re writing Doc Ock as a lead character for really the first time, and a more long-term Doc Ock story than has really been seen before. We’re seeing the character put in very different situations, interacting with totally different characters. What kind of task has that been — approaching his mindset and his attitude in the position of a lead character?
Slott: He’s trying his best to be a hero, but he’s doing it in a very Doc Ock way. And Doc Ock’s an egotistical, annoying sh*t. It makes him an interesting character. At his core, he’s someone we don’t really think of heroic. But is he any more annoying than [former villain] Hawkeye used to be?
Forgive me if I’m wrong, but did Hawkeye ever try and put in motion plans to bring about an extinction-level event? If I missed that one, can someone let me know the issue so I can read it tomorrow? I would say that trying to incinerate 6 billion people is slightly more “annoying” than anything Hawkeye could ever dish out.
Slott: Also, when you look at Doc Ock, he was so much like Peter Parker. Peter Parker, if he didn’t know the lessons of power and responsibility, that teenage nerd would have grown up to be an Otto Octavius nerd, with the same kind of, “I’m going to make them pay.” This is the flip of that. This is Doc Ock getting to go back in time and be as young as Peter Parker, and have force-fed into him this sense of power and responsibility. He has that lesson from Uncle Ben in his core. That was Peter Parker’s parting gift to the world — I’m not going to leave the world a villain, I’m going to leave them a hero.
Peter Parker’s “gift” (i.e., Dan Slott’s “gift”) to the world was that he has allowed a character who should be serving 5,000 life sentences for crimes against humanity off the hook. Before redemption can occur on earth a man must pay for his crimes and atone for his sins. Doc Ock has the blood of countless innocents on his hands, but because Peter beamed “with great power comes great responsibility” into the villain’s head moments before he died then it’s somehow all okay? Of course not. And that’s why this current run is so repulsive to anyone with a shred of respect for the character; they would never allow Doctor Octopus to take up the mantle of Spider-Man.
Slott: Doc never intended to be on this path, and in his own way he’s very good at it. He’s just doing it differently than Peter would.
Do you see Punisher as a hero? Do you see Wolverine as a hero? If these guys can be heroes, why can’t Doc Ock?
And this is where the moral relativist in Dan Slott exposes himself for all the world to see. It’s the “one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter” mentality. One man’s Spider-Man is another man’s Doc Ock. One man’s Captain America is another man’s Red Skull. It’s sick.
Since when has the core of Wolverine’s or the Punisher’s character ever been about wanton destruction, innocents be damned? When have they ever took it upon themselves to devise plots and plans that would see countless men, women and innocent children blown to bits?
Do Wolverine and Punisher push the definition of what it means to be a hero to its limits? Yes. But reasonable people know that if they were ever tried and convicted in a court of law for taking matters into their own hands (e.g., tracking down a drug lord and killing him in his sleep) that is the price one must pay for dishing out vigilante justice.
That aside, the philosophical gap between Wolverine and Doctor Octopus is so enormous that to even ask why one can be a hero and the other can’t is ludicrous. When anyone can be a hero — despite a lifetime of evil they have not answered for— then we might as well all be villains.
Slott: Here’s someone as evil as Massacre — if Spider-Man had just captured him and webbed him up, he’d be out six months from now, doing this again. Yeah, sure he was helpless, and his wrist was snapped, and disarmed, but, “If I shoot him in the head, I’ve saved 30 people in the future.” Doc Ock can look at it almost as a math equation, and be very happy with himself, and sleep well at night knowing what he did. For him, that’s power and responsibility.
Again, unless the hero is on a battlefield or working on behalf of a sovereign nation to mitigate threats to national security, the discretion he has as it pertains to the use of deadly force is severely constrained. Cases like Massacre’s are what the criminal justice system is for. Maybe in the Marvel Universe citizens are so dumb that they have done away with the death penalty — I don’t know. But from what I gather, a justice system exists, and a real hero would attempt to work within the confines of the system as much as possible, given how difficult it would be in a world where Galactus could show up at a moment’s notice.
Given that Dan Slott’s Superior Spider-Man simply runs numbers in his head to determine whether or not he’s doing the right thing or not, what would stop him from wiping out an entire city of innocents to “save” lives? Perhaps one day the ‘Superior Spider-Man’ will go all evil Al Gore (is that redundant?) and determine that the only way to stave off global warming is to wipe out Los Angeles, New York and Chicago. If you torture numbers long enough they’ll tell you anything you want to hear, and Dan Slott’s own concept of what a “hero” is allows for megalomaniacs like Doctor Octopus to enter the tent.
Nrama: It might be too probably reading too much into it, but with the cutaway, and only Captain America out and out saying that Spidey killed Massacre, is he definitely dead, or is there some deliberate ambiguity there?
Remember a few years ago, during Marvel’s weird Bush-allegory, whereas the Civil War story line and the events surrounding the Superhero Registration Act gave readers their daily does of social commentary on the Patriot Act? I do. Captain America was fighting for the “rights” of the guy who could walk into his neighbor’s house on a daily basis, rape his wife and kids in front of them, and then mind-wipe the family so no one remembered the gruesome crimes took place.
What does that have to do with Superior Spider-Man? Quite a bit, actually. The liberalism that worked it’s way in to a Marvel event, in such a way that Captain America would be so insane as to oppose a federal registry of citizens in the U.S. with the power to alter space and time, is the same liberalism that allows allows Dan Slott to wonder why Doctor Octopus can’t be a hero — merely months after the character came within inches of triggering the apocalypse.
Slott: Massacre’s dead. I think what people are reading as ambiguous is what we can show you in a Spider-Man comic. We can’t show you brain matter shooting out of the back of a head. … With Massacre we can look at it, and go, “He just saved a lot of lives.”
And with Superior Spider-Man, Marvel is hemorrhaging tens-of-thousands of fans who would be happy to buy a Spider-Man book, if only the men in charge weren’t so morally confused that they would redefine the word ‘hero’ until it permitted Peter Parker to make a deal with the devil and for Doctor Octopus to ultimately don the true hero’s mask.
There’s only one word left to describe the state of Spider-Man today: Sad.
Update: Newsrama has seemingly blocked me from commenting on a blog about … me. I guess when you tactfully defend yourself you’re a troll. Or perhaps if you make Dan Slott look bad the powers that be cut you off. That happens when you’re friends with the writer.
This is why blogs are so important. They can not shut you up on your own blog. Marvel did the very same thing during OMD/BND to anyone who made “the brain trust” look bad. If you’re upset with the status quo, start your own blog.
Also, my traffic spiked again. As usual, that meant that Dan Slott was sending people off to Google search until they found me. But here’s the catch: I did not tweet the story, share it on Tumblr or post it to Facebook or any other social media platform. So that means Dan Slott kept tabs on me or was weirdly looking for stories about himself — and then had the nerve to call me crazy. Remember when he stalked “The Main Event”? I do.
Douglas Ernst Blog 
“And with Superior Spider-Man, Marvel is hemorrhaging tens-of-thousands of fans who would be happy to buy a Spider-Man book”
Actually, no, it’s one of the the top-selling comic books (including Marvel, DC, and whoever else you want to count) right now. It’s doing way better than ASM was doing. So….check your facts?
I have an idea: How about you read closely and use critical thinking skills? There are tens-of-thousands of fans who feel the same way I do. They are NOT buying the book. No matter what the sales are at the moment, they would be a lot higher if Marvel wasn’t hemorrhaging fans who are unhappy with the direction of the book. Marvel made the exact same argument when BND was being sold twice a month. Even though it lost tens-of-thousands of fans, those who remained were so rabid they would buy any piece of junk twice a month so long as it was a Spider-Man title.
If Marvel brought all Spider-Man fans together — something that would be possible if they didn’t go out of their way to jam a finger in our eye — then you truly would see strong sales.
Your perception of what constitutes strong sales fails to consider just how woeful a state the industry is in, or how much guys like me have cut back in recent years because of the lack of quality being churned out. I used to spend a ton of money on Marvel. I won’t go into exact figures, but it was a nice chunk of change. It’s now down to close to zero. If you take every single disenchanted Spider-Man fan and run the numbers … Marvel is shooting itself in the foot. Period.
Where is your data coming from, if I may ask? You keep saying “tens-of-thousands of fans,” but where did you get this number?
Go back to pre BND sales and look at the numbers. Then look at the sales over the course of BND when it was selling twice a month. The picture becomes clear rather quickly. The Marvel message boards had endless debates on the subject, although I think at one point the moderators erased everything (can’t have anyone dissing the “Brain Trust” on Marvel’s boards too intelligently, can we?). I’m sure if you go to archived boards in Spider-Man Crawl Space you can see similar debates.
Let me break this down for anyone else who wants to get on their high horse about sales:
Have you ever taken a class in statistics? Polling? Look into it. Here’s an example: Every single person who blogs on Marvel comics represents “x” number of fans. If you were so inclined you could look at comic sales and regular bloggers and say every Hube and every Carl and every Avi represents a section of potential customers, and when we see “x” multiplied by some number are all upset we know we’re losing tens-of-thousands of fans.
It doesn’t take a genius to figure it out. It just takes someone who isn’t drinking Marvel’s Kool Aid. And since we’re talking “ballpark” numbers instead of exact figures, it’s depressing that I even have to explain this.
So many ninja edits make your comments hard to reply to.
Nice attempt to imply I somehow changed anything of substance, when in fact I simply added a paragraph “for anyone else who wants to get on their high horse about sales” when I had time to come back to it. I have this thing called a life. I can’t always say everything I want in one sitting if I’m working or multi-tasking.
You’re a very angry individual, aren’t you? It seems whenever and wherever you comment on anything, you’re always very sarcastic and hostile. You can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar, my friend. Sometimes you just have to take a deep breath and count to ten.
I’m incredibly calm, actually. You mistake a “matter-of-fact” delivery for anger. That’s your problem. Feel free to respond to my point about Marvel turning off tens-of-thousands of potential buyers at any time. Or continue to avoid it. I think I’ll go not be angry as I eat lunch, digest and then exercise.
Oh, and unlike Newsarama, I won’t ban you as long as you keep it clean and generally stay on point.
“Nice attempt to imply I somehow changed anything of substance…I have this thing called a life…” That’s sarcasm right there. “Let me break this down for anyone else who wants to get on their high horse about sales:” That’s hostile.
The reason I chose not to reply to your point about sales is because it doesn’t seem like there’s any chance of you changing your mind about any of the claims you initially made, which defeats the entire purpose of a discussion, but sure, I’ll bite. My second degree was in statistics so I understand the point you’re trying to make, but it’s hard to say that each blogger or forum post represents X number of fans and know what X is without polling the community at large. Given a topic, the ratio of likes to dislikes as shown on the internet community is not always representative of the community at large. In this day and age, the minorities are generally more vocal. “Your perception of what constitutes strong sales fails to consider just how woeful a state the industry is in,” No, I know exactly what kind of state the industry is in. I’ve been reading comics since the Silver Age and have seen the ups and downs. But I wasn’t making a statement about the sales of SS overall and how much of a success it could be considered to be; I was comparing them to its predecessor ASM, because if Slott truly was causing the loss of tens of thousands of fans, the sales would reflect it. It’s true, though, that there are fans out there that stopped reading. That I don’t doubt. But tens of thousands is too significant of a number to be throwing it out there without real data. Sales may not be a true indicator of quality, but it can indicate size of fanbase. More sales correlates to more fans. SS has significantly more sales than ASM, thus it’s a safe conclusion that SS has a larger fanbase.
I agree with you that Dan Slott can be a dick and that this back-and-forth banter and banning of accounts and all that is completely uncalled for, and even that the sales could be much better, but the fact of the matter is that SS is selling way too much to say that they’re hemorrhaging the fanbase to that extent.
We have now established that you’re fairly intelligent. Good. I like smart people, even when I disagree with them.
With that said, I understand your point; coming to a conclusion based on voluntary posts can be statistically dangerous. However, I think we can both agree that if we were nerdy enough and rich enough and wanted to do it, we could put together an experiment to show roughly how many disenchanted fans I represent.
Perhaps instead of saying “hemorrhaging” I should have said “has hemorrhaged” tens-of-thousands of fans. Based on my memory of sales pre and post BND, I’ll guess that the number has bottomed out at roughly 40,000 (give or take). Again, I haven’t looked at this stuff in years, and I’m going on memory from those sales threads on the Marvel site (which were at one point deleted because they wanted to stop people from talking about it).
Say for the sake of argument that sales pre-BND were 100,000. Then, post-BND, ASM was released twice a month and it was selling 120,000. Marvel was trying to say that didn’t lose tens-of-thousands of Spider-Man fans! What happened was that there were enough hard core fans to buy it twice a month, while guys like me sat it out. And let’s not even get into the endless amount of variants, aimed at losers who would buy multiple copies of some sort of ASM variant with Deadpool on the cover just because it’s Deadpool…
I went from spending a respectable sum of money on multiple titles to almost nothing. I bought “New Avengers” for awhile to get my Spidey fix before I tapped out all together.
I am essentially making the same argument in regards to turning off fans that “The Main Event” did here and here. Anyone who doesn’t think Slott’s behavior and Marvel’s decision to go out of its way to anger fans isn’t hurting it in the long run … well, I can’t help them. Again, we can argue over the size of the fan base that has thrown in the towel on Marvel. No problem. I just happen to think it’s bigger than people think.
Now, in regards to to me being hostile. If you think I’m hostile, then I will respectfully disagree with you. Although, perhaps my perception of “hostile” is skewed since I once got to deal with angry drill sergeants who threw all my belongs out a second story window, smashed my gas mask and then blamed me for it because I made them angry, and generally screamed until they were hoarse. Truthfully, I’m getting nostalgic for those days right now…
Anyway, just to entertain you, let’s think about why I might be a little defensive:
1. Dan Slott goes on a weird rant on Twitter about me, and calls me ‘idiot’ and ‘crazy’ and ‘stupid’ like it’s going out of style.
2. His buddy writes a blog post about me on Newsarama.
3. His buddy blocks me from commenting on said post … again, about me. (It’s okay to say that ‘teabagger’ conservatives are all hateful people in the comments section, but it’s not okay for a conservative to tactfully defend himself at Newsarama.)
4. Dan comes to my site when I didn’t even tweet out my latest post, continues to have a conversation with himself about me (which sends his fans Googling to figure out what he’s talking about; I see it in my WordPress stats when they end up here), and then says that I write because I want blog hits and his attention. Actually, I’ve been writing for three years and less than 1% of my posts are about Spider-Man. I write about liquid fluoride thorium reactors and fallen Navy SEALs and the national debt and many other things. How egotistical and narcissistic can Dan Slott be? I grew up with Spider-man and love the character, so I will blog on him sometimes. Dan needs to get over himself.
5. So now I know that Dan’s checking out my site and so are his minions who dutifully Google ‘idiot conservative blogger vs. Dan Slott’ so they can try and make it seem like because I made a dig about sales in a Barnes and Noble in Lynchburg, Va. then I somehow thought that SSM was tanking nation wide. Yes, I’m sure that’s exactly what I was doing… Unreal.
Anyway, I plan on writing a review on SSM #9 if it’s worth it. I’m sure that Mr. Slott will say I’m doing it for attention, even though there will have been countless other posts completely unrelated to Spider-Man between now and then.
“Based on my memory of sales pre and post BND, I’ll guess that the number has bottomed out at roughly 40,000 (give or take).”
Douglas – I’m sorry, but since you brought up statistics classes, when you took the classes that you imply you took, did they teach you to make up statistics if the real ones don’t prove your point? Because, if so, you should apply for a refund, as that was a poor education you received.
Now, granted, I understand the reason that you’re doing this; it’s because the numbers don’t back you up.
Amazing Spider-Man 597 (the last issue before the final story) sold 81,342
Superior Spider-Man 12 (the most recent issue I saw data for, 12 issues after Doc Ock took over, and certainly long enough for the readers to have left) – 82.350
So it looks as if the numbers prove fairly conclusively that Doc Ock taking over as Spider-Man did not hemorrhage anything. That’s why you backed off of that and switched to “they were already hemorrhaged by Brand New Day”. I think there is some truth to that, but it doesn’t connect with the main point of this article, which was ostensibly that Doc Ock taking over for Spider-Man is driving readers away from the book. In fact, if the stats prove anything, it’s the opposite.
Sean,
I’m confident that the points I’ve made have merit. You have admitted as much. I generally don’t play the statistics game because for every stat you throw out I can throw out another to counter it. It gets rather tedious when I’m dealing with someone who is more interested in taking pot shots than finding a more accurate representation of the truth.
Here’s an idea: Why don’t you respond to the actual headline. Let’s revisit it again, shall we?
‘Dan Slott’s moral relativism killed Spider-Man: One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter’
Feel free to productively join the discussion at any time. Or, feel free to make jokes about my education and engage in personal attacks just like your boy Dan Slott (I see you’ve learned to mimic his behavior quite well) if that gives you a temporary rush. It doesn’t bother me.
Cripes, these guys (Slott, McMillan) are unreal. Blocking people? It’s not as if you’re using profanity or any kind of slurs. No, you’re actually discussing the content of the books’ stories in an intelligent way.
This all takes me back to a conversation I had with Kurt Busiek in the early late 90s. He didn’t believe in boycotts as a response to something people didn’t like; instead, he wanted more discussion — battle speech with speech. Back then, though, there wasn’t really a means to do that for a regular guy like me — a point I made to Kurt at the time. Funny now that the average joes have a means to voice their views (blogs), the bigwigs don’t like it. Ironically, Kurt himself blocked me from following him on Twitter … and for what reason I have no idea. So much for that “battling speech with speech.”
Years ago I was banned for an extended period of time from Marvel’s boards for doing the same thing. The moderator made up a story that I was swearing or something weird to people who asked, and obviously there was no way for me to prove otherwise. Another moderator privately sent me a message and said there wasn’t a whole lot he could do, but that he empathized with me.
If I was flying off the handle or making comments about so-and-so’s mom, etc. yeah, ban me. But to shut down substantive points because you’re getting your clocked cleaned? Oh how quickly those totalitarian urges bubble up in our liberal friends…
They can control the letters to the editor page like Iranian state media. They can ban guys like us from their comments section. But they can’t shut down our own blogs. If you or I were complete dunderheads these creators would brush us off 100% of time. They respond because they know we’re hitting a nerve.
If Dan Slott never said anything, he knows that over the course of time many, many, many people are seeing my words just by searching ‘Superior Spider-Man’ or ‘Dan Slott’. Even if it’s only 10 people per day on an individual post — drip, drip, drip. That bucket fills up over time. And so, he must try and squash it. But he can’t.
I love the character of Peter Parker, and from time to time I’ll post on the what Marvel’s doing to him. I suppose my next main post will be SSM #9. So Dan Slott and his Newsarama censorship cops can deal with it because I’m not shutting up.
Blogs are the modern bane of contemporary creators, it seems.
Good stuff, Hube. That’s exactly why the Letters to the Editor page like is usually like something you’d see coming out of North Korea. These guys love social media for getting their message out, but they hate that it actually gives fans a voice they can’t silence.
you mentioned liberal moral relativity in another one of your prolific comic posts, what exactly did you mean by that?
I spell it out rather clearly. Try a little harder to understand. I believe you can do it. I don’t have time for your games today.
do you think conservatives have consistent morals Doug?
There’s a difference between the guy who does something wrong and knows it, and the guy who does not believe in right and wrong. If you find someone who is a moral relativist or a believer in multi-culturalism, etc., he will be liberal.
If you want to talk about the piece within the context of Dan Slott’s editorial decisions, fine. If not, you might want to check the comments section of your own blog because I’m not going to entertain you tonight.
An excuse to share Steyn:
Reblogged this on The Orange Mask.
I think the image I recently saw with Stan Lee shredding a Spider-Man book is appropriate in this instance…considering Dan Slott is taking a shat on Stan’s legacy. The whole argument Dan makes about Wolverine and Punisher is ridiculous. The moral ambiguity in those characters have been there since their creation, therefore it is expected. If he wants to write a superhero that surfs the gray area of morals, then stay away from our “friendly neighborhood Spider-Man”. There is a reason why Spidey is probably the only person who can get away with saying “Hi, I’m Spider-Man and this is my sidekick Wolverine” and live. He has a respect among the other superheroes and has defeated just about all the supervillains in the Marvel universe. You can’t do that being the weak-minded teary-eyed Peter Parker Slott has written. You take away the quick witted, quipping Spider-Man and you are not even writing a Spider-Man story anymore, it is a cruel and tragic shadow of a once great icon.
Well said, Tim. Thanks for taking the time to read. I’m glad that some of these pieces have become a little bit of an outpost for people to voice their displeasure with SSM and Mr. Slott’s antics.
Stan Lee needs to speak up. He can help put a stop to this. Granted, he’s being the professional guy he is and biting his lip, but in this instance I think it’s entirely appropriate for him to go off.
Just had an epiphany…Would it be considered a type of plagiarism when Slott did a story of a villain attempting to take over an iconic hero by switching bodies…when many moons ago, Captain America was assassinated only to find it was an attempt by Red Skull to take over Cap’s body… Kind of sad when you have to resort to a cliche and anger to substitute for actual talent as a writer.
Tim,
Thanks for the feedback. We’re on the same wavelength. Here’s what I wrote in February:
Yes, Dan Slott thinks he’s being original and groundbreaking, but he’s not. He’s using a rather old idea, but in the worst possible way. It would be one thing if it was for a couple issues and then done and over with. Or a really long “What If?” series. But no. Instead, he completely trashes Peter and then brags about it on his Twitter feed, in Newsarama, and on the Marvel boards. He has problems.
Honestly its a comic book if you don’t like it then don’t read it, i don’t get why people dissect the living crap out of superior spider-man its just a book. I’m a huge fan of the direction Slott is going. This blogger takes comics way to seriously if this is how much he’s willing to dissect Dan Slotts run.
Have you ever read Guy Delisle? A “comic book” can actually be much more than a “comic book.” It’s sad that you don’t realize that. Maybe a part of the reason for that is because you’re such a huge fan of Dan Slott.
@Anonymous: Comic books are great indicators of trends and show a lot more than you realize about our history.
If comics should not be taken seriously maybe they should not touch serious topics. If you look deeper you can see many cases where authors personal views have influenced the characters and stories.
I always love the “it’s just a comic” or “it’s just a movie” excuse. It’s an intellectually lazy response.
“And this is where the liberal moral relativist in Dan Slott exposes himself for all the world to see. It’s the “one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter” mentality.”
Wow. I can see why Slott called you an idiot.
Like Dan Slott, all you have is “idiot.” Telling. I can see why your email address is listed as trollboy***********.com. If you have something constructive to say, then say it. If not, let it be known that I don’t entertain negativity dished out by “trollboys” doing their thing from basements in Vermont. There are plenty of other blogs that do, though. I’m sure you’ll find them if you haven’t already.
You’re life must be as much a waste of time as this blog of yours, if you took the time to search out where I’m from. Which isn’t Vermont, by the way. If you’re going to state something, at least get it right.
But, posting my email, huh? Now I get to report you to WordPress. With all the time you have to waste, maybe you should have taken the time to read their Terms of Service before posting my personal info publicly. Something that’s strictly a no-no in their book, friend.
Your IP address is in my WordPress stats along with your email, which showed up when you, “trollboy,” did your trolling. Somehow, I think WordPress will be a lot more understanding with a guy who has put forth a quality blog for years than someone who goes around trolling blogs and insulting people he’s never met. Your email, while partially blocked out, reveals that you when you looked within and tried to figure out a way to represent yourself to the world you decided “trollboy” was the most accurate choice.