So there's a couple of takes on Brand New Day on the 'rama, and each got me thinking about my own take on BND (love it!) and why I enjoy it as I do.

I think it comes down to a simple thing... I didn't read One More Day.

I heard about the premise and saw all the promo #### and read the interviews and everything else and said: that's terrible!

So I skipped it and saw Slott was coming on to do Spider-man and thought, "FINALLY!"

With a couple of issues that didn't wow me (first Gale arc), the overall experience has been worth my money and the promise of what's to come just has me really interested.


So more than I care about why you do or don't like Spider-man right now, I want to know how One More Day affected your current disposition. It seems like that is the turning point for so many people, but I don't really understand why people bought it and then were like, "Well that WAS just as lame as I'd been told by everything and everyone everywhere. Phooey on the future of this book!"

I still haven't read OMD, and probably won't, so that probably affects my opinion of the Spidey-haters... but it's been quite some time since all the bad happened and the new came out of it, so with that distance, maybe there are some perspectives about Spidey now and future that you'd like to share.


What would make you read the book again (if you gave it up)? Do you plan to read New Ways to Die? Is Joey Q and OMD to blame even now?

I haven't read it but I am curious to do so since every single Spider-man fan I know stopped reading the book.

Well, can't speak for others but in my case it was a situation of I knew the guy that I get my comics from would already have ordered them - before I really had details going on - and I felt bad dropping them and leaving him stuck with the titles.

I have kept reading the books after one more day.

The thing I did not like about OMD was that it was not believable in the sense that I did not think that anyone would give up their future with their soulmate to save the life of an 80 something year old woman.

The reason I keep reading is that I think that things will be explained one day in a better fashion.

I think that OMD should have been MJ giving up her marriage for the sake of May AND Peter's happiness. Or it should have been MJ that was shot and Peter could've made the deal with Mephisto to save her (MJ'S) life.

So then, how do you feel about Brand New Day, given the knocks on OMD?



(also, thanks to everyone so far for responding!)

I sincerely thought I was going to ultimately drop ASM after One More Day but the part of me that's been collecting the book for more than 20 years won out. I'm glad I stuck around. I agree with you, jackstar7, that the first arc didn't really wow me but everything else has been a good ride.

I like bringing back Peter Parker to the days where he had to worry about paying rent, washing his costumes, refilling his web shooters, etc. New Ways to Die looks intriguing because I loved Romita Jr.'s run with Strzcynski.

As for the whole Peter Parker/Mary Jane marriage? I say just enjoy the ride because some things are just meant to be. (Read that anyway you want; I know where my heart is on that subject )

This is another reason I decided to keep reading. For those who haven't read OMD and think you may want to check it out, it may be worthwhile to do so. There is a moment in the storyline that may become relevant down the road.

Especially when you see in Brand New Day that

I think that story is going to unfold nicely when the time comes.

I would be more willing to stick through with it if it were a monthly written by Slott alone. Aside from the decent Zeb Wells story, the other writers have done little to really justify a thrice a month purchase for me.

I don't really consider OMD in my comparison. It's a terrible Spider-Man story, and I've moved past it. BND is OK, but for a comic that requires such a heavy investment, I'd like a little more than OK.

Yeah I like Brand New Day. I will REALLY like it if it ties together with what you guys are saying about MJ. If not, then I won't like it as much because it will seem like they changed the status quo for change sake.

The BND stories are great reads but they are tainted with the One More day storyarc and its dangling plotline. If they tie the two together somehow, then it will one of the greatest changes in Spider-Man. If not, then it falls flat.

The reason I stopped reading is all the continuity problems--it takes all the enjoyment out of it for me. There is no way to know what has or hasn't happened now in Spidey's history. Even if the story's good, it's no longer the Spidey I grew up with, complete with stories that may or may not have happened to this Spider-Man. It's not worth it to me to invest more time and money into what is, for all intents and purposes, an alternate reality character.

I fully admit to hating OMD. The first time I read it. A month or two later I was at a comic store in another city which I'd never been to before and I saw it had been released in a Hardcover collection. I bought it, and after reading it again and reading the interviews with Joe Q and JMS in the back, I like it. If you break it down to its parts, it's a good story. In the grand scheme of things, I don't like it. Just like I don't like the idea of bringing Barry Allen back. Having been born in 1986 means that for my entire life Peter and MJ have been married and Wally West has been the Flash. I find it hard to get excited about "going back to what was great about the past" when I wasn't there for it and I'm already enjoying the present. But, as a story, I like OMD.

Brand New Day is different. Just because I wasn't there before Peter and MJ's marriage doesn't mean I haven't read any of it. I have read every issue of Amazing Spider-Man, from Amazing Fantasy #15 to the latest issue with Kraven's wife and daughter. And Brand New Day does bare similarities to the Spidey comics of yesteryear. But it's not the same. I was worried that it was going to strip away a lot of the character development that had occurred over the years, and it has. But the thing that bugs me about it the most is that not much character development has occurred since BND started.

I'm with JGonspy in that I would enjoy it more if it were a monthly by Slott. Every writer seems to be focused on introducing the cool new villain with the cool new twist for Spidey to fight for 3 issues before the next writer takes over. But where's the stuff I really love about Spidey comics? Where's Peter going on dates? Peter looking for a job? Peter getting yelled at by JJJ? They mention this kind of stuff for 2 pages per issue and then move on to the main story of the month. I don't recall a single issue since BND started that has focused on Pete trying to make it to a date on time, or Pete's job issues, or anything to do with Pete's personal life. Just "Oh, I have a job interview today, but oh noes the building got destroyed by a super-villain whose power is pimping his ride!"

BND has ups and downs. And there's been more downs than ups. I'm sticking with it through New Ways to Die because I love Slott and he has done the best work on the series so far. After that, I just don't know. I miss the days of 3 or 4 monthly Spidey series, so you could just read the good one and forget the rest.

I actually didn't read Spider-Man before OMD, but I also only really started reading comics within the last couple years. However, as I've selected comics to read, BND has been one that I've specifically avoided, and one I've avoided specifically because of OMD and the Magic Retcon.

This is just my stance on it, but the end does not always justify the means, and I don't care how good BND may be or may become, but this is not a situation where I feel the way they went about doing it is at all justified by the resulting stories. There are plenty of other, better ways they could have gone about putting Spidey into a situation similar to what he's in now, if they really had a need to do so. Which they didn't.

Given that there are plenty of other really good comics out there that I can read, I'm not going start reading 616 Spider-Man until they Magic Retcon the Magic Retcon, so to speak. Besides, if I want Spidey, there's always Ultimate Spider-Man, which I actually have started reading (and dang if I don't wish I hadn't started reading it earlier!).

So I likely don't have the same position to go on given that I wasn't reading mainstream Spidey even before OMD, but I figured I might as well chime in all the same.

Absolutely, the way it was done is why it's such trash. If Quesada wanted a single Spidey, he could have killed Mary Jane off. No, I wouldn't have liked it, but I least I would've known where Spidey is and where he has been, instead of more than 20 years of comic book history simply vanishing without explanation.

It's just weird, ok.

I was actually getting into this "New Kraven" thing, but then the moment his new roomate gets mentioned... I'm just weired out. I grew up in a world where Spidey had begun to grow up. It's the sloppiness of this backwards transition that simply taints any experience I can have with these stories. They're simply trying to recapture what Spidey was, not what he could be. I'll read a straight up re-boot if I want to retread the past, you know?