Look into some of the 70s and 80s stuff, too. Marvel was really knocking it out of the park in those decades.

 

And now the second part of the Clone Saga has finaly arrived:

 

I think by the end of Clone Saga, you are into the Howard Mackie era, which to me is the all-time low point of the entire Spider-Man franchise. I think he was editing and writing at the same time, which is never a good idea.

 

NYC Infected For 5-Part Weekly MARVEL Event This October

Some various Defenders alums including Jessica Jones, Luke Cage and Iron Fist, along with Moon Knight and the Thing will be teaming up to stop this new threat - that as of yet, doesn't have a name.

Contagion #1-#5 (of 5)
Ed Brisson (W) Roge Antonio, Stephen Segovia, Mack Chater, Damian Couciero, & Adam Gorham (A)
Covers by Juan Jose Ryp
Vertical Connecting Variant Covers Issues #1-#5 by Ryan Browne
A NEW EVIL BEYOND UNDERSTANDING COMES TO THE MARVEL UNIVERSE!
A seemingly unstoppable force has invaded the Marvel Universe, and it’s going to take every hero the streets of New York has to stop it! A strange substance is taking over heroes and citizens alike, draining them of their life force, stealing their knowledge and abilities, and neither science nor magic can stop it! Where did it come from? Can anything destroy it? And who will fall to its awful, overwhelming power?
32 pgs (each)
Parental Advisory
$3.99 (each)

 

Worse low point then the Clone Saga?

 

I'll find out soon enough when I start reading it (have 5 issues left in Amazing Volume 4), but all I can say right now by glancing through both volumes is that the artwork is utter shit. There's crap everywhere as if the artists suddenly couldn't stand the idea of having blank spaces on a page.

 

The new event looks like they ripped-off the plot of Suicide Squad.

 

Doesn't it look like it rips off DCeased? Which is funny because DCeased kind of rips off Marvel Zombies, which itself....

 

Didn't read DCeases so wouldn't know, just the visual reminds me of the bubble monster troopera from that movie.

 

The fungus aspect is more like The Last of Us.

 

Went from Walking Dead to Stranger Things(?)

 

Cancerverse maybe?

 

That would be a cool call back. Though the Cancerverse is supposed to be dead multiple times over.

 

Well, I just finished reading the last few issues to Amazing Spider-Man Volume 4 and I highly enjoyed it. Sure, Conway's stories weren't the masterpieces that Lee's were, but I didn't think they were as bad as some people made them out to be. At least, for the most part as there are quite a bit of flaws.

As I previously said, the Doc Ock/Aunt May wedding stuff was atrocious and the whole thing about Aunt May inhereting some Shadow Moses made even less sense than the wedding itself. I guess this is what this Canadian secret agent guy was trying to get in touch with Peter over when he ran into Hulk, but even that was not exactly well written. That entire plot seemed halfassed and forced.

I still do not agree with the killing of Gwen though. There was so much more they could have done with Peter and her together, but instead of actually committing to a relationship, they copped out and killed her.

Then there's Harry becoming Goblin. I don't know what to think of it. It feels weird that Harry somehow knew his dad was GG and then managed to swipe his clothes and became GG. There's no explanation for it at all. Also, he somehow manages to kidnap Flash, MJ, and May from a hospital, ties them up, straps a bomb to May, tells Peter he has 6 minutes to rescue one of them, and Peter has time to knock out Harry, go home to get his spare webshooters, and then go to May all in six minutes?   I guess they're working by DBZ time.

I am really intrigued by The Jackal. I really know nothing about him other than he is supposedly Peter's college professor (an interesting idea given the Vulture copycat story). I am very curious to see where this goes and it feels like they were trying to add in a new mystery element harkening back to the Green Goblin adventures in the early years. A shame Volume 5 is not going to be out probably for another few years.

Speaking of the Vulture copy cat story, that happens twice in this book. First we have one with another guy pretending to be Vulture, and then one of a guy pretending to be Mysterio. Though, I highly enjoyed the Mysterio story. I had no idea someone other than Quentin Beck donned Mysterio in the comics, so this means they could do that in the MCU. The best thing about this story though was trashing the Spider Buggy.

I also have to say that while I miss Romita's artwork, Ross Andru is doing a fine job of bringing his own style to the comics. In fact, I love the details he is putting into his backgrounds. The house from a story with this dude called the Mindworm was quite impressive. Then there are some top notch backgrounds like a huge advertisement for alcohol above a building as it looked very realistic. He most certainly makes for a better Spider-Man artist than he did for Flash. My only complaint is he keeps forgetting to draw Spidey's webwings.

It was great seeing Morbius return and getting to read the first appearance of Punisher was interesting. It's kind of strange to know such a flagship character got his start in Spider-Man, but then again, a lot of general characters have such as Kingpin.

Man, it's kind of weird because now that I'm actually typing up my thoughts on these issues, I'm starting to realize there were a lot of flaws with these stories even though I didn't feel that way when I read through them. Well either way, I was entertained and I really do hope it doesn't take two years for Volume 5 to come out as I speculated above.

Lastly, one of my favorite scenes of the entire book was Jameson throwing his shoe at Spider-Man and it flies out the window and then he realizes what he did was stupid.  

This weekend it will be time to send in the clones.

 

I've never heard complaint about Conway. I've always considered him a pretty seamless continuation of Lee.

 

Hmmm don’t see any claws or visors, so maybe the X Teams are left out of this mess (or they’re no longer in New York)

 

There was a comic Facebook group I was part of that said everything after issue 130 is garbage until Roger Stern took over in the 80s.

 

He’s also

Spoiler

the guy who kicks off the Clone Saga.

And there it is again, everything Roger Stern writes is a good comic...

 

Yeah, they sound like idiots to me. Conway's always been ranked among the highest from everything I've ever heard. Lee, Conway, Stern. In fact, I'll take a lot of Conway's run over Lee's second half (barring the death of Captain Stacy). I guess I like Stern more than Conway, but it's not a huge gap between them for me. And those three over anyone who has ever come since.

 

Right now I would say my ranking of writers for Spider-Man that I've read beyond just a couple of issues would go:

Stan Lee
Roger Stern
JMS
Gerry Conway
David Micheline
Dan Slott

Though, honestly, Micheline and Slott are pretty interchangeable at this point.