Written by Dan Slott has spoken to the Associated Press about the return of Peter Parker, and the news service has dutifully played its role as Marvel’s mouthpiece — the perfect interview for a guy who prefers Orwellian message boards for critics of his work. Strangely enough, the guy who gleefully treated Peter Parker like a “meat puppet” for over a year now wants to assure fans that as he messes with the character’s earliest history he will do so in a way that “lovingly respects” the canon.
Dan Slott, who has been writing Spider-Man for Marvel since 2008, said the new story not only pays homage to the first 1962 appearance of the Stan Lee and Steve Ditko-created character, but peels back more layers of what was going on in the first volume of the 700-issue “The Amazing Spider-Man,” which began in March 1963.
“When you’re looking at things in those issues, you’re going: ‘Wait a minute! How did this happen? How did he get this? Where did this come from? Why didn’t Aunt May ever wonder about that?'” he said.
The five-part story titled “Learning To Crawl” starts May 7 with “Amazing Spider-Man” 1.1 and concludes in September with issue 1.5. Slott is writing the interlude with art by Ramón Pérez. Artist Alex Ross has painted each of the story’s five covers. …
“You start looking at it closer and closer and you go, ‘There’s a story here that we’re not seeing,'” he said. “A very pivotal and crucial story that lovingly respects everything that went on but tells you more, so much more about Spider-Man and so much more about Peter Parker.”
Do you remember when Dan Slott’s Superior Spider-Frankenstein went exactly where critics said it would — “Nazi-like” torture, I believe Bleeding Cool called it? Do you remember when Dan Slott’s body-snatching rapist was confirmed in issue #22 of Superior Spider-Man, and the type of person who crawled out of the woodwork to defend it was of the “it’s not rape if the perpetrator doesn’t climax” persuasion?
“I’m wondering if all the Ock- is-a-rapist whiners ever even read the issue? It’s clear two pages later Otto is berating his minions for “interrupting him at the worst possible time” which implies the deed wasn’t completed.” — Rick
Marvel has itself a brand new fan base on its hands. I suppose these days they probably let guys get Spider-Man subscriptions behind prison bars, so what does it matter to them? (When sales are all you’re after, who cares if Mr. “the deed wasn’t completed” is touting the book.)
Over the past few years the “brain trust” at Marvel:
- Destroyed Peter’s marriage.
- Had the deal with the devil (for all intents and purposes) go down.
- Had him treated like a meat puppet when a megalomaniac took over his body.
- Lowered the IQ of the supporting cast by about 30 points in order to appease people who like their Spider-Man fresh off a quest to kill six billion people.
Now ask yourself: Do you really expect Dan Slott to “lovingly” respect Peter Parker’s past? If you need help answering, look to his Twitter feed:
“If you write serialized stories, it’s not your job to make the reader happy. Your job is to captivate & entertain them. You’re Scheherazade” — Dan Slott
Let’s run with that, shall we? If Dan Slott believes his job is not to “make people happy,” wouldn’t it stand to reason that his job is also not to make people angry? If so, why were his stories pitched as creative endeavors that would “get you angrier than you were after Spidey #700!”? He’s just fine with making long-time readers angry if it will fuel sales, but making them “happy”? What kind of fool does that?
In truth, Dan Slott has nothing in common with a character from ‘Arabian Nights.’ He’s much closer to Celia Gimenez:
Dan Slott’s work on Spider-Man is reminiscent of the woman who tried to restore a 19th-century fresco of Jesus and turned it into an abomination. The finished product isn’t popular because it is beautiful, but because it is so incredibly weird and bizarre.
Impressed? Dan Slott’s fresco will also include a new villain:
“He’s got his first villain who is his own age, someone that he’s inspired. … He’s a troubled teen hero fighting a troubled teen villain!” Slott said.
Let’s hope that Marvel can do better than “Freak” this time.
Dan Slott has shown that he only respects the history of Peter Parker that he likes, and furthermore his”loving” affection is for his interpretation of that history. Unfortunately, that interpretation is steeped in moral relativism.
If you are a betting man, I would not put money on “Learning To Crawl” to remotely come close to returning Peter Parker’s respectability.
Douglas Ernst Blog 
I know you post about a lot more important news that’s going on around the world, but I have been DYING for you to post about ‘Superior’ ending. Especially how Slott’s been playing like he’s had to pretend to be a massive jerk for the past 6 months, instead of everyone knowing his true character.
Slott has been writing Spider-Man comics for too long (Since 2008??), and has already written through ONE Spider-Man restart–post One More Day–why not tag out and let someone deal with his mess? A writer that’s probably been reading this Twilight-level crap and feeling the real Peter fans’ pain?
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: Marvel has forced Spider-Man fans into a corner. If we buy (and you know we will) the number one of the new series, they’re going to hail Slott as a ‘genius’ and let him stay on writing Peter forever. If we don’t, then Slott and Marvel will go “OOPS LOOKS LIKE EVERYONE REALLY WANTS SPOCK BACK WE’LL DO IT THEN” and within two months, the mass-murdering (Because, even before Ends of Earth, he’s killed a LOT of people) rapist will be back controlling a clone or something else. The more and more I read this crap, I want to fully jump ship to DC Comics.
Or instead, we should all give up on these Ouroboros-like stories that are constantly resetting their characters back to square one every few years to stay ‘hip’ and jump to a company with more characters that follow a story arc, stay in character and–more importantly–their stories END.
I have more, but I’m afraid I’ll once again breakdown into a general rant. Thank you for standing up for the real Parker fans.
Thanks for taking the time to read and reply, opunaya. You make some very astute points, particularly as it pertains to the situation Peter Parker fans find themselves in. Dan Slott poisoned the well with many fans, and now we’re supposed to shell out money for the relaunch? He may have had to officially keep it a secret that Peter was coming back (although, really, did anyone think Marvel wouldn’t bring him back with the new movie this summer?), but he didn’t have to act like a petulant man-boy all over the Internet.
I really didn’t want to write on Goblin nation. Instead, I wanted to sort of just wait to see how everything panned out. This AP piece was too good to pass up, tough. I’m sure that there will be some more Spider-Man posts this summer, though. 🙂
Sad thing is, even though the Inferior Doctor Octopus is ending, Dan Slott still will be on the Spider-Man title, continuing to ruin a once-great character. Given his lack of respect for the canon in Inferior, I tend to doubt the new Spidey title will be any different. I still maintain that Spider-Man never really recovered from the Clone Saga travesty and hasn’t recovered from the OMD travesty. Or the current SSM travesty. It’s funny the next movie is coming out is the only reason why the real Peter is coming back; if it wasn’t, I imagine they’d continue on with SSM.
It’s funny how Dan Slott and Marvel’s other writers have acted like immature man-children, and they seem to projecting those qualities onto the character in recent years, especially post-OMD with Peter going back to living with his aunt like an overgrown man-child instead of being a mature, responsible adult married to the woman of his dreams.
For what it’s worth, Quesada and his cronies also split up Cyclops and Jean Grey, Justice and Firestar (of New Warriors and Avengers fame), all because Quesada was going through martial problems at the time and felt they were all “more interesting” when single instead of being married.
I can’t believe that there are people who continue to defend the SSM travesty as though it were some kind of masterpiece (like “Rick” in the post you linked to). They don’t even know a masterpiece is. You want a Spider-Man masterpiece? Check out the original Lee/Ditko/Romita, Sr run. Check out Gerry Conway’s run, which is best-known for Gwen’s death and also the introduction of the Punisher and Ben Reilly. Inferior is like bad fanfiction. It’s just another example of villain worship among modern comics creators and fanboys who’ll buy the crappy comics no matter what, because they feel they have to. It’s a manifestation of the moral relativism you mentioned.
It’s also sad that they’re more interested in getting people angry than they are entertaining them with stories that are actually good. That shows you how far Marvel has fallen in terms of storytelling quality.
I don’t know if I’d want a superhero whose story ends permanently. I just want there to be progress, such as characters getting married, and I don’t want them to go back to square one every few years as a result of the latest pointless crossover event. I don’t want reboots. I want to read good stories, but neither Marvel nor DC are telling good stories at the moment, and they allow their writers to act like man-boys on the internet, harassing people who disagree with the direction of their stories or threaten legal action (yeah, good luck with that, Slott) against those who criticize them. Something needs to change.
There will never be true progress anymore. Originally, a character would go 40 years showing actual character progression and development. Nowadays, we’re lucky if we get 5 or 6 years of watching a character develop before he suffers a ‘reboot’ or ‘restart’. Doing that too many times and a character starts growing stale because we know he’ll ALWAYS end up back to square one and eventually, it starts chipping away at what he used to be until he becomes a pale shadow with no true emotional impact no matter what happens to him. If they don’t want a title to end, then make it a legacy character. Have someone new under the mask (without having to turn the old character into a meat puppet), like what they were doing in the Ultimate Universe and what originally happened in DC when we were transitioning from the Golden Age to the Silver Age. (Barry Allen as Flash 2, Hal Jordan as a new Green Lantern, etc.)
You brilliantly pointed out earlier that Spider-Man is still suffering from the Clone Saga (not to mention Sins Past, One More Day…) and I completely agree, but I want to expand on that: I don’t think comics in general haven’t fully recovered from the 80/90s Dork Age, with the constant death and rebirths for the sake of sales.
As for comics that permanently end:Ending a comic doesn’t have to mean that it’s a short run. Hellboy lasted for almost 20 years, Invincible and The Walking Dead have been going on…geez, I don’t know how long…10 years(?) and is still going strong. Even some of those that seems like they’ll eventually end will open up entire worlds with characters to explore…not to mention the untold stories of the main characters that can always appear again.
Though, I do see your point about reaching for a comic at a store and knowing you don’t have to memorize 30 years of history and so on.
Maybe one of the biggest problems with mainstream comics right now is that there’s not enough new blood in there to do different stories lately? *shrugs*
Wow, you pack a lot of good points into a short amount of space, opunaya! Did you ever think of blogging? Carl is on hiatus as he completes a book and I need a place to go (besides Hube’s) for good comic news. 🙂
Boom. Spot on. For whatever reason, Marvel decided that it was a good idea to try and stop Peter from ever maturing and growing, as if there were no good stories to tell if that happened.
I thought the 80s had some good stuff, but I would totally agree that the 90s was the “Dork Age.” That one made me laugh. It was a round 1993 that I tuned out until around 2000. Don’t ask me why I spent money on so many back issues…
I haven’t seen it in awhile, but if you haven’t checked out the AT4W review of “One More Day,” I believe it’s pretty good. There should be four parts.
I’m glad that you brought up Sins Past. That’s another horrendous storyline that I can’t believe I didn’t mention. Also, don’t forget Morlun/The Other. Those were horrible, too.
And you’re right in saying that comics in general haven’t recovered from the Dork Age, the age of early Image (a company that was/is all flash and no substance), Cable (ugh), Deadpool (double ugh), DC’s awful Bloodlines crossover, mullet Superman and other lame characters and concepts. Ever since then, it’s been less about storytelling and more about constant deaths and resurrections for sales’ sake.
I know that Invincible (which I like but haven’t kept up with), Walking Dead (the comic is better than the show) and Hellboy (another comic I enjoy, but again, I haven’t kept up with it in recent years; still waiting for the third movie to be made.) have lasted a long time. I was just saying what I’ve always liked about superhero comics is that they can go on forever without end, although given the rash of horrid storylines in recent years, ending them doesn’t sound like that bad of an idea.But with mainstream characters, especially Spider-Man, that isn’t going to happen.
The constant reboots and reinvention are two of many factors that have driven me away from modern comics. Part of the reason why I’ve been writing a superhero novel (prose novel, that is) is as a Take That toward the modern comic industry.
And you’re absolutely correct in saying there’s not enough new blood. I would never write for either company under the current regimes, and couldn’t because I’m not a member of their inner circle, the good ‘ol boys. I don’t have connections to Hollywood or the entertainment industry anything like that.
Keep writing your book, buddy. Polish that thing until it’s a big shiny gem, and then get it published. Don’t have connections? Make them come to you… I have faith in ya. 🙂
“Boom. Spot on. For whatever reason, Marvel decided that it was a good idea to try and stop Peter from ever maturing and growing, as if there were no good stories to tell if that happened.”
Yeah, that’s always irked me as well. There were tons of good stories to be told, but the writers chose the lazy way out by having Peter make a deal with the devil and erase it. Deus ex Machina, I believe the term is. It’s a hallmark of poor writing.
And yes, watch the AT4W review of “One More Day.” It’s his best review, in my opinion.
Were you the one who first introduced me to that? Someone in the comments section did. I remember the first time I watched it I was exhausted from work but I couldn’t stop listening. It was like, “Finally! Someone who gets it!”
It might’ve been me, I don’t know. You could tell he was genuinely frustrated by the story. I’m honestly amazed Dan Slott (who joined after OMD, but still) or anyone from Marvel didn’t troll Linkara after that review. Still waiting for AT4W to do a review of SSM and tear it a new one.
Thanks, Doug. I plan to do just that.
I’ve also looked at Linkara’s Twitter feed, where Slott fanboys have told him that he’s “missing out on great Spider-Man books.” Uh-huh. A story where a villain who wanted to transcend the worst dictators in history has taken over a hero’s body and everyone around them is a complete idiot to keep the story from collapsing on itself is “great?” Gimme a break. Same with that new title where the villains are main characters.
I applaud Linkara for sticking to his guns and refusing to read anything post-One More Day.
I think he should just wait for it to come out in TBP, go to Barnes & Noble, and then read it will drinking hot chocolate. He can take notes while he’s there and then put it back on the shelf when he leaves. That way he doesn’t need to support the book while still getting the material he needs for a review. And if he wants to be nice to the bookstore he can just make sure to buy something else. Perhaps a book by Carl. 🙂
It is a shame that Slott is still tied to the series. On the various comic news sites and forums that I’ve seen regarding the relaunch, most of the comments were along the lines of people wanting a new creative team (there were hardly any comments for people wanting Slott to stay on). Even fans of Superior wanted to see a new team and a fresh perspective on Amazing Spiderman.
Personally I think it would have been logical for Slott’s run to have ended at the end of Superior. It would have allowed for a new creative team to start on a clean-ish slate and not have to worry about lingering plot-holes from the Slott era (AKA‘Slott-holes’).
Heck Superior probably occurred in the first place because Slott was running out of ideas and was unwilling to step aside. Superior could literally be seen as Dan Slott’s attempt at “jumping the shark” (except with Otto instead of Fonzi).
I think stagnation is a big problem with Spiderman. At the moment you have a situation where one guy (Slott) has primarily written the character for a very long time now on a very “hit and miss” basis. People want a new writer with new perspectives and a more consistent take on Peter Parker.
It is a different situation to a several years ago where if you didn’t like the Slott & Co version of Spiderman you could read a better version in the character in the Bendis run of the Avengers.
That’s exactly where I got my “Spidey fix.” I wasn’t happy that it had to be that way, but at least the outlet was there.
I haven’t seen the comments sections of other sites, so I’m glad to hear that other people would like to just start clean with a whole new creative team. I really don’t know how I can get on board as long as Slott is still involved. I’m sure he’s aware of the theory that one of the reasons Superior came about was because he didn’t really have any decent stories to explore with Peter…so perhaps he wanted to stay on a bit longer and get a few more with Peter under his belt. No matter what the quality is, he’ll then be able to defend them as the greatest thing ever, talk about he “lovingly” respected Peter’s past, etc.
Unfortunately it looks like Slott has no intention of leaving Spiderman. The following was recently taken from a post he recently made on comicvine:
“As for “Why, Oh God, why is HE still on the book?!” Well…That’s easy.
I love writing Spider-Man.
I’ve got no intention of EVER quitting, the book performed REALLY well during my BIG TIME run, and has done INSANELY well during SUPERIOR, and Marvel is damn happy about that.
I’m going into my 7th year on Spidey (4th year if you go by solo work), so this is nothing all that shocking. Bendis was on Avengers for about 8 years– and he’s on his 14th year writing Ultimate Spider-Man. Peter David was on Hulk for 12 years– and he’s been telling Madrox/New X-Factor stories for 9 years and is still going. Brubaker was on Captain America for 7 years. People have long runs on comics. It’s not unheard of.”
Comments like that prove what just a big narcissist Slott is. Only a narcissist would refer to their own story in such a matter. “Big Time?” Yeah, right. And I love how he throws around the sales card again. He claims it’s doing well, but the charts on ICV2.com don’t back that up.
Hey Doug, I wanted you to take a look at this link here, and you’ll see myself and Dan embroiled in a flame war. I figure that you’d best be able to make sense of the bile he’s spewing out of his mouth-hole.
and his passive-aggressive twitter post: https://twitter.com/DanSlott/status/434151004427137025
I’ve gleaned from his broken logic that he thinks you’re out to get him , and he believes that his marketing strategy of pissing off fans has nothing to do with fans getting pissed at him. Just give it a read-thorugh, I guarantee you can make at least 3 blog posts dissecting his bullshit, if you decide to even bother with this asshole anymore. I was a bit reluctant to bring this to you, but if he gets to “ask the audience/his Twitter followers” then I should get to “phone a friend/a person I respect”. I still got to say, what he lacks in actual logic and substance, he makes up for it in his ability to turn the conversation away from his book and towards how I’mm such a terrible person. But don’t mince words if you think I’m out of line, I’d rather hear it from you than from him.
I’ve been blogging for four years. I have well over 800 posts, and less than 1% of them deal with Dan Slott. If he thinks that constitutes being out to get him, then he’s more narcissistic than I previously thought. Dan Slott’s real problem is that I’m an intelligent guy who happens to think that Superior Spider-Man is a giant stain on the history of one of the greatest comic book characters ever. Notice that he’ll troll the entire Internet looking to right wrongs like “Slott” Bakula in Quantum Leap, but he won’t come here. Telling.
I’ll definitely check this out.
Thanks. I’m still dreading the moment he finds this conversation and is all “SEE? I knew those CROOKS were in CAHOOTS!!” As he simultaneously craps himself at the sudden apparent validation of his wild claims. And have to say, he uses the word regurgitate so much, did some bird puke in his mouth as a child and scar him for life? Thereby dooming him to be a mediocre comic writer. Meh, he’s probably just a bitter asshole who can’t accept that the hate was his fault.
I have entered the fray and will ultimately end up doing a post on this.
Update: The post is up.
I fully expect Learning To Crawl to show that Dr Octopus was also in the room when Peter Parker was bitten by the spider. Poor unfortunate Otto REALLY REALLY wanted to stand where Peter was but that annoying teenager had gotten there first.
Otto was destined to be Spider-Man from the start and was denied his future on that day.
Slott fanboys will lap it up as our multiple-chinned creator produces more sales graphs.
On the subject of Superior, I received a belated Christmas present last week which was Volumes 3 and 4 of the Superior Spider-Man TPB. I have never exchanged a present before but I’m sorely tempted to now.
LOL, it would not surprise me that was the type of atrocious retcon Slott put in there. That would be like John Byrne’s infamous “Spider-Man: Chapter One” from the late 1990s that tried to tie their origins together, but was so controversial that it was ignored by later writers.
Yeah, I’d probably exchange that for a better comic. I don’t know who gave it to you, but if you do exchange it, I wouldn’t tell them.
The problem with “year one” type books is that most of the time they’re cash grabs or part of a reboot. Furthermore “year one” books are also quite hard to do and the good ones only standout largely because they’re written from a standalone perspective (i.e. they can be ignored or read standalone in a TPB/graphic novel format).
Although Slott has said he won’t be rebooting anything with the new miniseries, I don’t trust him given his past history with flexing/rebooting cannon when it suits him (the April relaunch is already rebooting Peter by making him have amnesia). Slott also said in the interview that he would be introducing characters/plots in the miniseries that would make an impact in his Amazing relaunch.
I’m glad I’m not the only one who feels this way. I’ve read a lot of comments from other sites and the general consensus is something like “it could be good but they don’t trust Slott”.
Ouch. When the writer loses the trust of readers, that’s a big hit. Dan Slott talks about his job isn’t to make readers happy, right? Well, if he wants to go there I would add that his job is also not to lose the trust of his readers.
Trust me, Riablo: you are not alone.
I agree with the losing the trust of the readers thing. That was actually something I was thinking of mentioning in my post.
In regards to Slott specifically I think his main problem it that he approaches writing in the same style as a producer of a trashy reality TV show. Whilst a writer’s job is to make people happy (in the sense that they’re happy enough to buy your product) a reality TV producers focuses more on delivering ratings (often in the form of some sort of a “bait and switch” that manipulates people’s trust). Furthermore a reality TV producers cares more about “making the headlines” rather than the “reason” for being in the headlines in the first place.
You never see the “top writers” like Neil Gaiman or Brian Bendis function the way Slott does. They have the people’s trust and when you see a product on the market written by someone like Gaiman or Bendis, you know it is going to be good. Unfortunately we can’t say the same for Slott (which is even sadder considering he is writing Marvel’s flagship product).
Yep. That’s been one of my big beefs for years. Spidey is Marvel’s flagship character, and for years now his book has been a dysfunctional mess. It’s been a weird roller coaster with much more downs than ups. I don’t know how they can screw up a hero like Spider-Man so consistently for so long.
Carl, I agree that Slott’s boasting about sales does not add up. If you look he keeps saying sales are 20K higher than AMS but since when? The numbers only hold for him if he starts the analysis since he started on the book. Slott also tries to deflect with the term standard attrition but if you compare declines fairly with other top tier characters Superior did not hold up nearly as well as he lets on “I know I have the numbers to prove it”. Overall, this book has seen a decline in reader’s period and it does not change no matter how many capital letters he uses. He attacked people I know in forums that agreed with me and then he is proven wrong. He claimed my friend was me for nearly 6 months just recently he finally admitted he was wrong. He then goes on that if you disagree with him you must be insane. I have offered for him to discuss things with me “even in private” yet he never has responded. If he cannot use crude character attacks, he knows he has nothing to stand on.
I wish the guy well but he clearly has some issues to deal with.
I think I’ve seen your discussions with Slott on comicvine. Slott’s poor online behaviour is really shocking stuff IMO (quite disturbing actually). I still wonder why Marvel’s PR/HR sections haven’t done something about it. I know if I was running a company, I wouldn’t want any of my employees act the Slott does in the public eye (particularly in a public company where “image is everything”).
Personally I suspect Marvel is giving Slott a loose leash so as to generate additional controversy. Controversy IMO is probably the main reason for any sort of sales success Superior has earned (it is the same tactic that reality TV uses).
On a lesser note, it is probably no surprise why Slott has a tendency to tell people to buy issues in his posts, particularly to critics. If you say, “I bought X issue and did not like it”, he will say” but you did not buy Y issue so how can you say that”. It is for this reason I suspect that Slott doesn’t care if you liked his comics, only that you bought it (and bought every single one in the series).
I’ve said it before, Riablo, but if Slott had a real job and his employer found out about his misconduct online, he’d be fired in an instant. If I ran a company, I wouldn’t want an immature man-child like him working for me, that’s for sure.
It’s sad that Marvel is more focused on generating controversy and insulting the fans online than it is telling quality stories. Shows you how far they’ve fallen. I can’t imagine the old Marvel Bullpen of the 1960s and 1970s behaving like Slott has.
You must have seen my friend’s posts spider11211 he is a coworker. Slott has been attacking him and finally admitted that he was wrongly accusing him of being me. Spider made a comment in the marvel forum over 6 months ago stating that he agreed with my analysis and ever since Slott has been rude to him. Spider has told Slott many times that he could contact me if he has an issue with my data yet he has never contacted me. Spider recently asked Dan to keep his rants on subject and to send him a personal message if he wants to discuss it further but as far as I know Slott has not contacted him either. I think Slott’s main goal is to get attention and use anger to sell books which I think is also your view of him as well.
Slott’s online behavior is sad and unprofessional at best.
Hey Doug
It looks like the first retcon was revealed yesterday.
It looks there’s an upcoming storyline (as part of the upcoming original Sin crossover) where the radioactive spider is revealed to have bitten “two people”. People are crying heresy already as it has been established multiple times that only one person was given Spider powers. Other comics have gone even further by suggesting some sort of grand design to everything with Peter apparently being specifically chosen to have powers.
The future ahead looks bumpy indeed.
Well Riablo, you’ll always have a place here if you need to vent. 🙂
I’ll definitely be blogging on all of this as it unfolds — especially if it’s an insult to Peter Parker’s history.
The spider bit two people now? Yeesh. Why can’t they just leave a perfectly good story alone? This sounds like it’s right up there with JMS’ idiotic retcon about a “Spider-Totem.”
Hey Carl could you sare with me the title of your prose novel I’ve been working on a similar project?
Editor’s Note: The content of this post has been removed at the request of the other.
Is this “Dan Slott bait” to try and get him to comment here, Truthwillwin1? You know he’s fanatically about sales. Geeze, man, you know he’s already made weirdly-veiled legal threats against me. 🙂 The next thing I know I’m going to get some stupid notice from his lawyers telling me I have to take your comment down. I promise if that ever happens I’ll scan it and post it to the blog…
Sorry my post is not intended to be bait, I do not think he will post here. I have yet to see him post in response in a setting that he cannot control (and if he does post it will be under a fake name). I posted this because he posted at other places that I did not keep up with the data because it proved him right and as you see he was mistaken. I find it funny that he only wants to hold the book up to standards of characters that were not on the same sales level, which would be like Coke comparing sales to Jones Cola and bragging while losing market share to Pepsi.
If you feel that it would lead to trouble please feel free to remove my post.
I’m just messing with you, man. That’s where the smiley face came in. 🙂
I know, but I know how much of a pain he can be so if he gives you any issues that you do not want to deal with feel free to pull it down.
Hmmm..I wonder if messing with me is actionable 🙂
LOL. I think any self-respecting judge would laugh Slott right out of court if he decided to sue you.
I’m going to agree with Carl in that a law suit would be unlikely. Anything along the lines of defamation is very hard to prove in court. Social media is also somewhat of a legal grey area IMO.
I think those numbers are good food for thought. It is a pity Dan Slott and Co troll all of the main discussion forums because this would actually be a good topic to discuss from a wider perspective:
What is successful in today’s comic book market? What sort of short and long-term impact do short term sales strategies (like Superior Spiderman) achieve? What would be the best way to turn around a formerly successful comic book and achieve the long-term sales numbers in today’s comic book market?
It is a pity we can’t discuss this sort of interesting topics like adults without fear of a troll storm from Slot and Co (outside of places like Doug’s blog).
These are debates I really enjoy, Riablo. One aspect of sales that always annoys me is the “variant” cover. Perhaps my memory is shaky, but it seemed that after BND came out there were a ton of variant covers. Does anyone know how much each variant cover can inflate sales on average? I think variant covers should be very rare, but yet it historically seemed to me to just be a way to squeeze out a few more sales. Throw Deadpool or Venom or Wolverine on a cover just because…and you’ve got yourself an uptick in sales. Am I wrong?
Years ago my “goal” was to one day have every issue of ASM. ‘One More Day,’ and ‘Brand New Day’ put an end to that…but the other thing was variants. I just thought, “F-you, Marvel. I’m not going to cough up obscene amounts of cash just to get every dumb variant you put out there.” It just felt insulting. It was like Marvel was treating its fans like little gerbils, and if they just put a different shiny pellet out there I’d do anything to get a bite. Well…no, I won’t.
A website called ICV2.com (based here in Minnesota) tracks sales, and they’re rarely as rosy as Slott says they are. Of course he’ll just say it’s a “distortion” and “fiction” like he did once when he trolled Avi at Four Color Media Monitor back in 2012. And you’re not wrong about variant covers with Wolverine or Deadpool or Venom providing an uptick, albeit a temporary one in sales. In fact, there’s a trope dedicated to this:
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/WolverinePublicity
“Years ago my “goal” was to one day have every issue of ASM. ‘One More Day,’ and ‘Brand New Day’ put an end to that…but the other thing was variants. I just thought, “F-you, Marvel. I’m not going to cough up obscene amounts of cash just to get every dumb variant you put out there.” It just felt insulting. It was like Marvel was treating its fans like little gerbils, and if they just put a different shiny pellet out there I’d do anything to get a bite. Well…no, I won’t.”
The final straw for me regarding Marvel was the Cap vs the Tea Party storyline, although crappy storylines like One More Day and Civil War contributed to that as well. I didn’t like how the Spider-writers acted like immature brats and treated critics of the post-OMD stories like crap, insulting them for simply having a different opinion. Slott was one of those people, not surprisingly. I refuse to buy any new comics from them (or DC, for that matter; “Final Crisis” was the final straw for me regarding their output, if memory serves.) until both companies clean house and get some writers who actually care about the characters to come onboard and write decent stories without deals with devils, stupid liberal political allegories and constant shock value deaths/resurrections.
“Wolverine does not appear in this issue.” Haha! Classic! Thanks for sharing, Carl. My goodness, that’s pretty embarrassing.
In regards to Cap investigating the Tea Party…yeah, that was pretty bad. I really love the character, so seeing the writers abuse him like that is always tough.
In regards to owning every issue of ASM, you can do what I did. There’s a DVD on Amazon that collects all issues of ASM, including annuals in PDF format up until the start of the civil war and it doesn’t cost very much either. It should allow you to read all of the better written old stuff (complete with hostess pie adverts) for a fraction of the cost (as someone who grew up in the 90, I adore the style/format of comics from the 1970s). Sure owning the issues would be better but this is cheaper and more cost effective IMO.
In regards to purchase habits, I haven’t bought an issue of a comic in many years. I mainly buy trade paperbacks nowadays but even then stuff like One More Day, Superior Spiderman and New52 has greatly reduced my interest. Worse still, the big 2 really gouge on the price of hard cover trade paperbacks.
To tie this into the sales numbers discussion, the big 2 IMO are making bad decisions on an editorial and script level. There’s emphasis on short term sales gimmicks (like Superior Spiderman and variant covers) and a reduced emphasis on a long term editorial plan.
To give you an analogy, comics today have become more like a soap opera or reality TV show when they used to be formatted like a Joss Whedon TV show (season arcs, forward plot progression etc.).
Ha. I figured you’d like that, Doug! 🙂 It’s just such a desperate thing to do, putting Wolverine on the cover of a comic where he ultimately doesn’t appear (in this case, Anita Blake), just it can get a temporary sales boost.
I hate how writers like Ed Brubaker (who isn’t on the title any more, but still, his influence is felt; the Winter soldier is based on his ideas, after all) and others before him use Cap as a mouthpiece for their progressive political views. It’s stupid how there hasn’t been one single story where he goes on a black ops mission to Afghanistan or Iraq to fight terrorists and instead continues to fight Nazis.
Whilst the jury is out on whether learning to crawl will ultimately respect Spidey’s history, I think the stakes are about to get worse.
There was an article yesterday that announced Dan Slott is doing a storyline in November called Spider-Verse. From what I gather, it is a storyline where all of the Spidermen have to unite against Morlun (of JMS infamy) who is apparently stalking the multiverse and killing various Spidermans.
So not only do we have to worry on what Dan Slott will do with Spiderman’s past, we now have to worry about what he’ll do to every Spiderman ever created.
On the plus side, there’s speculation that this might be Slott’s last hurrah before he leaves the title.
I’ve been debating on whether or not to do a post on that or the next character Dan Slott plans on killing. I opted to do a post on Venezuela instead for tonight.
This is bad news. I can not wait until he is far away from Spider-Man.
If he kills off Mary Jane, then I think I’m giving up on the series for good. Even if it’s a temporary (which, no matter who dies, it probably will be), I’ve had it with the bullshit that Marvel’s been forcing onto this character since “One More Day”. The series needs someone that actually gets what made Spider-Man good working on the title. I used to think that someone was Slott, back when he spent his time trying to undo a lot of Quesada’s garbage, but then he went on the deep end with his terrible Mary-Sue Liefeldian Anti-Hero.
Okay, that one made me chuckle. 🙂 It’s so true…
I’m just tired of “Oh, we’re going to kill someone!” Ummm, okay. Why don’t you bring characters to life for once? Why can’t you make them jump off the screen? Why can’t you make me care for them? Wow. Shock value storytelling. “Someone dies tonight! Come look at the splash page with 30 Spider-Men on it!”
Here’s one for you, Dan Slott: Tell good stories where the focus is on Peter Parker. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Dan Slott likes Spider-Man, but he appears to really not like Peter Parker.
Slott basically writes bad fanfiction and gets paid for it. That’s what the multiple Spider-Men storyline sounds like to me. Probably was a bad fanfiction story he wrote when he was a kid and now is turning it into Marvel’s latest lame crossover. Someone should tell Slott that just because an idea sounded cool when you were a kid, it doesn’t mean it’s good idea now. I don’t think he knows how to write a good story without resorting to Mary Sue-type elements such as replacing Peter with Doc Ock and the typical shock value “someone’s gonna die tonight!” nonsense. They wouldn’t know good stories even if one danced naked in front of them.
As I’ve said before, for someone who supposedly likes the character, Slott writes him as though he hates him.
The main problem with Dan Slott’s writing IMO is that he focuses too much on plot twists and shock tactics rather than telling a well written story in a structured format. I’ve said this before but Dan Slott’s approach to writing is more like a reality TV show producer. If Dan really wants to write plot twist/shock value orientated stories, Spiderman is not the best medium (by far) for this.
My advice to Dan (since he is probably reading) this is to either focus more on telling better stories (not over-reliant on inane plot twists) or step aside for a better writer who can. Personally I recommend the latter; you had a long run on a prestigious comic and now is a good time to step aside.
I think this is a pretty good assessment, Riablo. And like reality TV, it’s largely forgettable. You watch it, smile a little bit…and then forget it as soon as it’s over. Years from now people will remember Dan Slott as the guy who put Otto in Peter’s body, but will they actually want to go back and read them again? I highly doubt it. Fans will remember what he did (e.g., kill Peter) just because he went out of his way to try and leave a mark, but they won’t remember the writing. As a writer, that’s got to sting.
Daddy gave Dan Slott the keys to the car and he drove it over a cliff. Yes, of course dad will remember that. That doesn’t mean that dad thinks his son is a good driver.
I was encouraged to flick through Silver Surfer #1 by my local comic shop just now. Its shockingly bad. the artwork is even ropier than the story.
Basically the premise of the new Silver Surfer series… sounds like Slott ripped it off from Doctor Who, Andrew, because he has a companion with whom he travels through time an space.
Yeah that seemed to be the gist of where it was going. Slott doesn’t have an original idea in his body
Well, it seems that they *finally* undid the switch as of Issue 30, with Otto finally realizing that he’s an egoistical f***wit extremist and that Peter is truly the hero that New York needs and deserves (I didn’t bother paying money for it, because I’m not supporting Slott, so I just heard spoilers on the internet).
It took him over a whole year to reach this conclusion, after stealing someone’s identity, trying to purge that person’s conscience from his mind, ruining relationships with several of his colleagues, killing people out of convenience, straight-up torturing a dude for scientific s***s and giggles, and sleeping with someone under the guise of being someone else. Only after all that did he realize “Hey, I’m the bad guy!”
Excellent writing, Slott. You are truly the Alan Moore of the modern day.
I was debating whether or not to review this issue. If I see a copy during my travels this weekend I may do so.
The great thing about this blog is sometimes I get comments that make me laugh. Thank you, sir! 🙂
LOL. Made me laugh, too.
So did you and your wife find out about the medical residency? I remember you saying you’d find out about it on March 25th. If you don’t feel like talking about it here, you can tell me off the grid, if you wish.
Actually, I suppose it’s fitting for this blog post. I’ll be moving a lot closer to Dan Slott! 😉 The exact location isn’t nailed down yet, but we’ll be living just outside New York City. We’ll be in New Jersey.
The reviews on issue 30 on the net generally haven’t been too kind and mixed at best. Most people really like the last 5 pages where Peter actually appears (there’s a news site on the web that posted those 5 pages) however they also heavily criticize Slott over story structure.
People specifically don’t like the fact that Otto just gave up and doesn’t get to face his crimes in the comic and more specifically Peter doesn’t get to beat-down or triumph over Otto. Because of the unsatisfying resolution, there have been quite a few comments regarding people being even more uneasy over the relaunch of Amazing.
Additionally people don’t like the implementation of the Pete’s return criticising it for being rushed and too last minute. Aside from Peter’s return in the last 5 pages (and a small teaser on who the Goblin King is), apparently nothing else happens in the comic plot-wise, which means the 5 issue storyline is going to be revealed and magically wrapped up somehow in the next issue (which is another story structure issue).
You’re welcome! I try.
What put me off to this issue, despite Peter returning was how he says that Doc Ock truly loved Anna-Marie. “You really love her….”, more like “You really love that woman you shamelessly seduced while under a stolen identity, whom you never trusted with the secret of your real identity because she would’ve taken the first spaceship off of the Earth after exposing your identity to the authorities.” I actually like Anna, so it honestly pains me to see such a likable character fall for such a stupid charade.
But hey, I’m just a guy who has ADHD and Aspergers, and to Dan Slott, that means my criticism is invalid and it “explains a lot” (actual quote) about my behavior when I interacted with him.
Huh?
“If you write serialized stories, it’s not your job to make the reader happy. Your job is to captivate & entertain them.”
What the…?
Newsflash, Mr. Slott: They go hand in hand!
If I am not happy with that craptastic job you did in your character-slaughtering olympics, I am NOT captivated and entertained. That is that.
But Doc Ock has actually been written as a rapist? *Scowl* No need to even go there!
I think I should create a new section on my own fiction-writing site, a place where such twisted versions of famous fictional get a beat-down. Doc Ock is definitely on the menu for my small army of furbies at any rate.