Is Todd McFarlane the reason Spider-Man went down the pooper?

[Twin Twist]

Read the title, then discuss.

*clasps hands behind head*

*leans back*

*waits*

[Kickback]

What about things you like in your pooper?

[Elvin Pena]

:lol

I used to buy his SM comic religiously. Always liked his art, personally.

[Super_Megatron]

What about things you like in your pooper?
I think there's a maximum number of characters allowed per post.

[CyclopianVision]

It wasn't him. It was the stupid...stupid...stupid... Clone Saga!

[Kickback]

I'd like to be in Twin Twist's pooper.

[Switchblade]

I blame John Byrne, personally. MJ's baby may as well have never happened. Aunt may was alive again for no good reason. Ben Reilly was killed off and promptly forgotten. It was a complete cut away from years of continuity and it was largely crap.

The Clone Saga was a huge mess, no denying it. But it really did start off with noble intentions. The 90s Spidey was becomeing too angsty and was losing the wit and humor he'd been known for (something which is generally blamed on McFarlane, yes). Bringing in Ben was supposed to fix that. Unfortunately, the execution was incredibly bad, most of the fans hated the idea of change, and the story itself dragged on far longer than it had any right to. Still, bringing back the fun-loving Spidey was a good idea in theory.

I'm still actually a bit angry at Marvel for totally killing off Ben. Sure,t hey wanted to get Peter back as Spider-Man, but they didn't have to kill Ben. They definitely didn't have to kill Peter and MJ's baby, either. Although technically, they did make it look like Norman stole her, but no one has done anything with that storyline since.

Really, now that I stop and think on it, the 90s in general was a really bad decade for Spider-Man. You can't totally blame McFarlane for that, though.

[Nevermore]

Though I'm not exactly one of the Toodler's biggest fans, he gave us one of the best Peter/MJ scenes of all times.

It's in Spider-Man (no adjective) #13, pages 4-5. :ev:

[Twin Twist]

care to elaborate?

[Nevermore]

Is this forum PG? :D

[artiepants]

nah, Amazing Spider-man was actually pretty good during Todd's run, it was the never-ending Clone saga that put him in the crapper... for an incredible history of what wwent wrong, check out http://www.newcomicreviews.com/GHM/specials/LifeOfReilly/ it's actually a pretyy amazing story (and it took me over 2 weeks to read here and there) has commentary from many of the creators involved...

[The Spider]

The problems may have started in the 80's when they decided to have Peter married to Mary Jane. While I'M fine with that, Marvel later felt that an unmarried Peter would be unrelatable to new readers, and consequently, you had things like the Clone Saga (Ben was supposed to be the new "unmarried Peter") and the Byrne/Mackie Revamp (MJ was "killed" to make Peter single).

(Now, I know that the other thing some of these people claim is that "Peter married to a supermodel is unrealistic!" Well, why not solve it by NOT making Mary Jane a supermodel? It's not like she was a supermodel during the Clone Saga and Pre-Revamp, or even in the comic strip Stan Lee was writing during the 90's.)

[Kickback]

care to elaborate?

Sure.

I think that you have an amazing anus, and I think that we could both benefit from it if we took the time, say during BotCon when we'll be together, if I explored it thoroughly.

Think of it as a prostate exam, but with more "oomph".

[Iron Fist]

For anything, McFarlane reinvented Spider Man for the better. He made Spider Man have webbing that actually looked like webbing and managed to put him into poses that would tear the crotch muscles of any normal human. His art managed to put more emotion into the story as well.

[artiepants]

The problems may have started in the 80's when they decided to have Peter married to Mary Jane. While I'M fine with that, Marvel later felt that an unmarried Peter would be unrelatable to new readers, and consequently, you had things like the Clone Saga (Ben was supposed to be the new "unmarried Peter") and the Byrne/Mackie Revamp (MJ was "killed" to make Peter single).

(Now, I know that the other thing some of these people claim is that "Peter married to a supermodel is unrealistic!" Well, why not solve it by NOT making Mary Jane a supermodel? It's not like she was a supermodel during the Clone Saga and Pre-Revamp, or even in the comic strip Stan Lee was writing during the 90's.) I've never really understood all the Peter's Married Hate i see on a lot of boards... it's part of what i've always liked about Marvel, Characters grow and Mature and change Pete graduated High School, Went to College, got married... it made sense...

[The Spider]

Anyway, about McFarlane:

I think he DID give Spider-Man a lot of attention. SPAWN wouldn't have been that popular if McFarlane's run on AMAZING SPIDER-MAN and SPIDER-MAN weren't also popular. His style certainly influenced 90's Spider-Man comics (the big eyes and spaghetti webbing seemed like they were near-mandatory up until the past... five years or so) His art style might've worked well because a part of it was Ditkoish and a part of it was something that hadn't been done with Spider-Man often.

Personally, though, after reading the old early 90's comics I think Erik Larsen does a far, far, FAR better job at writing and drawing a story than McFarlane (and I still do like some things McFarlane drew).

[Wreckgar]

Todd McFarlane thiough an ass himself, wasn't the downfall of Spidey. he did pretty good on his run. The problems were numerous. One such was, as mentioned, Byrne. His Chapter One was supposed to retell Spidey's origin for modern day but ended up falling flat on it's face. The Clone Saga was a great premise but 2 years was way to long, epsecially considering he had 4 books, 1 annual each, and a quarterly at the time. That's 112 issues not including the numerous minis that tied in like the Jackal Files, the Lost Years, the Clone Journal, the Redemption story, and of course 101 Ways to End the Clone Saga. But before the Clone disaster, Spidey was much much darker. He was twited around between Maximum Carnage and Clone Saga into a brooding anti-hero. Only during the Clone Saga was this fixed by Doc Ock who died in the same arc.

So Todd was good, everything else was bad...besides the tons of anal references in this thread

[The Spider]

I've never really understood all the Peter's Married Hate i see on a lot of boards... it's part of what i've always liked about Marvel, Characters grow and Mature and change Pete graduated High School, Went to College, got married... it made sense...

I went to several different comic book message boards five years ago and most of them preferred Peter and MJ married. Of course, this was during the time that Mary Jane being "dead" didn't go over well.

I think the mentality here is that having Peter married would "age" him and make him unrelatable to new younger readers.

[DevilzFan]

care to elaborate?

http://www.cobraisland.com/admin/Spider-Man 013-04.jpg
http://www.cobraisland.com/admin/Spider-Man 013-05.jpg

[gil]

Holy shit, I have that comic. Or had. Isn't that one of the issues with Venom?

[DevilzFan]

Nope. Morbius. Though Spidey wore the Black Costume for the 2 issues to "blend in" with the sewer darkness.

[The Spider]

Nope. Morbius. Though Spidey wore the Black Costume for the 2 issues to "blend in" with the sewer darkness.

Also there was a homeless guy who looks like the precursor to Clown version of Violator.

[Cruellock]

I personally lost all interest after the ended the Clone Wars. As if that saga wasn't bad enough, they just changed years worth of story. Then they did that stupid revamp and they basically deleted Spidey's past, and I've NEVER picked up a Marvel comic ever since.

[The Spider]

I personally lost all interest after the ended the Clone Wars. As if that saga wasn't bad enough, they just changed years worth of story. Then they did that stupid revamp and they basically deleted Spidey's past, and I've NEVER picked up a Marvel comic ever since.

Marvel basically... ignored Chapter One by about 2000 (maybe earlier, since Paul Jenkins' storyarc for WEBSPINNERS referenced the "Commie" Chameleon instead of Chameleon, agent of Doom.)

This is somewhat hard for me to say, but I have to admit that if I were to choose between keeping McFarlane's SPIDER-MAN (#1-14, 16) and SPIDER-MAN: CHAPTER ONE (or the first 14 or so issues of the ASM revamp for that matter).... I'd rather keep McFarlane's run.

[Twin Twist]

My take is that McFarlane did a lot for Spidey art wise. Defined his athleticism, webs, you know the usual, however his writing was the start of the end of Spider-Man being fun, in my opinion. All this dark crap about the homeless, child abuse and the like, it was all too much for a Spider-Man comic and much more at home in something like Spawn, which he obviously took it to. The Clone saga was simply the flush that left a floater afterwards.

[Wreckgar]

Yea, that page Devil showed was pretty much a lot of what was going on during the McFarlane art run. However there was also a different writer at the time that pulled the same stunt. Though MJ is a hottie, I'd rather not think about a Spidey comic having sexual innuendos so scattered throughout.

[Omnibus Prime]

McFarlane's 15 outta 16 issue run on The Adjectiveless Spider Man pales in comparison to the clone saga and the ensuing 5-6 years. I liked the McF Spider-Man title, but I don't think that short run has much if anything to do with what happened in the main book. It was even stated at the time that it was going to be quite different and not everybody's cup of tea. Everybody bought it anyway b/c Mcfarlane's art mad been hot shit for three years. It was the early '90s. Almost everything took a 'dark tone', and it would have happened to Spidey with or without McFarlane.

The Michelinie/McFarlane run on ASM is still gold. Spidey had gotten cheesy bad through much of the 200s. Those guys came in in the 290s and did something that really needed to be done.
Michelinie stayed on with art by Larsen and then Bagley right up until Peter's 'parents' died in 388, which while you knew it was coming, wasn't that bad of an arc.
But at that point the book descended into shit. Peter went all crazy looking for the mastermind of the phony parents and that bled right into the clone saga. Which was also the beginning of the neverending crossover. Permanent Maximum Carnage Syndrome was just as much responsible for Spidey's demise as the actual content, IMO. It wasn't bad b/c it was 'dark,' it was bad because it was a so-so concept in the first place, with even poorer execution. I'm not buying 4+ friggin' titles to follow a story that went on far too long.

I bailed early on in the Clone Saga...and pretty much stayed gone until I just kinda happened on Vol. 2 30-32, the very beginning of Straczynski's run, and haven't missed an issue since.
I've read up on what went down in between and even picked up a shitload of back issues in .25 bargain bins at shows and stuff, but there's really no need. It was good, it sucked for quite a while, now it's good again...really good. Enjoy it while it lasts, I say.

[Wreckgar]

I bailed early on in the Clone Saga...and pretty much stayed gone until I just kinda happened on Vol. 2 30-32, the very beginning of Straczynski's run, and haven't missed an issue since.
I've read up on what went down in between and even picked up a shitload of back issues in .25 bargain bins at shows and stuff, but there's really no need. It was good, it sucked for quite a while, now it's good again...really good. Enjoy it while it lasts, I say.
Lucky you. I have the whole damn thing. It actually fills a large comic box.

[Twin Twist]

Scarlet Spider rocked!

[Drake]

I think the umpteen different titles were the reason. I hadn't looked at the DC and Marvel sections at my local comic store in a long time since I had only been buying Transformers and GIJoe. I was shocked to see it's the same on both sides. All the main Marvel Charcters have a crapload of different titles and their's like 80 different Batman titles in the DC section. This was the main reason I stopped reading comics in the early 90's and again with the Transformers and Joe titles.

[Wreckgar]

Scarlet Spider rocked!
Yes, yes he did...

A tribute to the almighty Ben Reilly

http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y203/Ironapollo/scarletspider.jpg

[Judgment Day]

nah, Amazing Spider-man was actually pretty good during Todd's run, it was the never-ending Clone saga that put him in the crapper... for an incredible history of what wwent wrong, check out http://www.newcomicreviews.com/GHM/specials/LifeOfReilly/ it's actually a pretyy amazing story (and it took me over 2 weeks to read here and there) has commentary from many of the creators involved...

I thought that link was going to be like 3 pages, but it's 20+

Good lord!

Kudos to anyone with the patience to read through this article, much less the Clone Saga.

[Twin Twist]

Yes, yes he did...

A tribute to the almighty Ben Reilly

http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y203/Ironapollo/scarletspider.jpg
Seriously now, where the hell did you get that?

[DevilzFan]

Spider-Man classics, wave 1. I 'believe' Scarlet Spidey and 2099 Spidey were KB Exclusives. I've got mine :p

[Wreckgar]

Spider-Man classics, wave 1. I 'believe' Scarlet Spidey and 2099 Spidey were KB Exclusives. I've got mine :p
Bingo! You can see Spidey 1099's legs right above him. I got me a wall of these suckers.

[Spider Striker]

Yes, yes he did...

A tribute to the almighty Ben Reilly

http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y203/Ironapollo/scarletspider.jpg

I like you. :)

As for McF, I honestly don't get what the big deal is about his art. Was never all that impressed with it. Haven't read enough of his Spidey writing to get a good feel for it.

[Twin Twist]

Bingo! You can see Spidey 1099's legs right above him. I got me a wall of these suckers.
Excuse my language but, god fucking dammit, I hate living in England sometimes.

[RabidYak]

As for McF, I honestly don't get what the big deal is about his art.

McFarlane isn't anything special, hes just another rich overated hack who got big during the moronics of the 90s comic industry.

He might of been resonably decent at drawing Spider-Man himself, but as the above samples show he sucked at drawing anything else in those titles.

[Spider Striker]

Excuse my language but, god fucking dammit, I hate living in England sometimes.


You can have mine.

Assuming you can pry it from my cold dead hands.

[DevilzFan]

http://www.cobraisland.com/pics/clones2.jpg

[Wreckgar]

okay, you have the Ben Reilly Spiderman, damn you. Everytime I saw him, the eyes were always painted screwy. However you don't have the Spidey from SP2, which I think look much better than 1. The darker blue looks much better.

[DevilzFan]

Nope, don't have the Spidey 2 version.

I should take a new pic with my Spidey's...since that was from early '03 I believe. Tons more since then heh.

[The Spider]

I wonder if they did the Amazing Bag-Man version yet?