I like OMD. It's a very well-written story about a hero becoming so desperate that he makes a bad decision without considering the consequences. This is not the Peter Parker we know and love. This is a Peter Parker who is blaming himself for the way Aunt May is dying. For not taking care of her. For not protecting her. No matter how he looks at it, her death is his fault. He always kept his identity a secret to protect his loved ones. But he chose to reveal it to the world, making himself and his family a target. And maybe he could blame Tony for talking him into it. But even if he does, he chose to go rogue and take Aunt May with him, so she was no longer safe in Avengers Tower. And on the night she was shot, he ignored a slight tickle of his spider-sense in the parking lot. He jumped out of the way with MJ and didn't even think about the path of the bullet. He's an outlaw, preventing them from getting proper care for her. Her death is his fault. No matter who pulled the trigger, or who ordered the hit, Peter's the murderer, at least in his own mind. This is what he's going through. This is what he's feeling. This is what he's thinking about every single minute while she's dying. And Mephisto is the only person who offers a solution. The only way out. So he takes it.

I understand a lot of people focus on the bad. And there is a lot of bad. But it makes sense. And JMS really had it planned well, and it was likely going to be a good story. But editorial mandates forced the story in a different direction than originally intended so they could get the results they wanted. JMS's original plan for the results of the deal with Mephisto were intricately planned to go back through years of continuity, make one change, and branch out from there with other changes, instead of saying "everything happened, nothing changed, it's just magically different now." It was the same thing with the Sins Past story, where Quesada wouldn't let JMS make Peter the father. If he had been the father, it would have been another story about Osborn manipulating Peter's life. Osborn taking in the twins Peter never knew about and twisting them against their own father. Making Peter's own children hate and want to kill him. Not great, but definitely a better story.

I think more than the story that the stuff people really hated is the changes. The plot holes. Harry being alive again. Peter and Mary Jane never being married. Aunt May's house is back. Peter's a jobless loser. "It's magic. We don't have to explain it." That's what I really hated. And I'm sure it cost a lot of readers, I'm sure.

I think another thing that contributes to the decreasing sales issue-by-issue, more than story or art quality, is the fact it's a thrice monthly series. When Amazing was coming out monthly, and so was Sensational and Friendly Neighbourhood, the readers had a choice. I, for one, couldn't stand most of the stories in Friendly Neighbourhood, so I didn't buy it. I was only buying 2 Spider-Man books a month. And in doing so, I was getting 2 separate stories a month. Now I have to buy 3 books every month, and I only get one story for doing so. I spend more money and get less variety.

Here is the thing, Slott is a good writer, and a lot of what he has brought to the book has brought it back to its roots. With Spidey not tied up in the Avengers, or Civil War, or Secret Invasion, the book has gone back to being about Spidey and his never ending quest to get caught up in street level new york crime. They pretty much took Spidey and made him the side show story to the big events that were going on. Instead of having one of their biggest heroes actually matter in their big events, they put him back on the side, and said, here, this is what we used to do before this big serious events happened. And the book is decent, I am told, but the problem is all the stuff that happened before, Spidey's/Peter's relationships with heroes and villians, his friends and family, thats not the same, and really that was a core theme in his books for a long time. All that stuff that really made up Spiderman, they changed, and they are rebuilding it, and the building of it is a good read, we enjoyed it the first time, so they are banking on us enjoying it again, even if it doesn't make any sense with the rest of their(Marvel's) universe.

I'm pretty sure its more like saying that "its high on the charts".

Not exactly a hard to wrap your head around concept.

A chart.

And being higher up on it.

I was talking about Amazing Spider-Man, not the ancillary Spider titles.

So if we're talking about all the Spider-Man books why then are you not including the "Spider-Man family" in your totals?
How about the Various Spider-Man annuals and the other anthology book "Daily Budge extra" you conveniently left out of your calculations?


You just seem to see what you want to see, and good on ya for being so determined!

Lots o Spider-hate just ain't good for the soul!

"the" = though.

And really?

You couldn't figure out where that sentence was going because one word was spell checked improperly?

Really?

Ah well.

OK, let's go over this one more time.

Amazing Spider-Man now appears 3 times a month. It used to appear only once a month. In order to produce those 3 books a month they needed to shut down the two less successfull 616-Spidey books. Thus....

If you want to compare the current monthly sales of ASM into the old sales, you need to take into account the two other books as well. Like it was said, the sales of ASM has dropped 30,00 books since last year if you count them this way.

If you want to count only the ASM sales, then you can't count how many books it sold in one month, you can only check individual sales. And individual ASM sales have gone from the 120,000-140,000 sales into 70,000 per issue.

And talking about Spider-Man Family, the annuals and collections, etc has no bearing on this matter. The only viable books that you can put into these calculations are Sensational and Friendly Neighborhood because before ASM appeared 3 times a month, the three Spider-Man titles that appeared (each one once a month) were ASM, Sensational and Friendly Neighborhood.

And as for "higher on the charts":

Year 1:

1) X 140,000
2) Y 120,000
3) Z 110,000

Year 2:

1) X 160,000
2) Z 105,000
3) Y 100,000

Here's two charts. During the year title Z has become higher on the chart compared to the year before. Being higher on the charts means jack, if you look at the sales figures you notice that the sales have gone down 5,000 for title Z. It's only because title Y went down 20,000 that title Z has become higher on the chart.

Thus, being higher on the charts means nothing if the overall sales figures are lower than they were. And overall sales for all comics have gone down recently.

Haven't read a full Spider-Man issue since OMD, and don't plan to anytime soon.

I'll flock back maybe in ten years. If I still care. In the meantime, I have most of DC to read. And Thor.

So in other words if I look at it the way you're looking at it I'll have the same opinion!

Great advice, but hows about I maintain my own opinion and continue to disagree with you!

I don't have to take anything but AMS into account when discussing AMS.

You're perfectly welcome to examine the entire past line of books, but that's not what I am doing nor is it what I have done, so please by all means continue to act like you're 20 times the smart-guy I am while ignoring that very simple glaring fact.

I can look at the latest sales bump and not justify the sales increase as unimportant and just a sales bump.

Again amazing Spider-Man has been steadily increasing in sales since the initial drop off of OMD.
(and its also higher in the charts but what with sales down across the board the numbers themselves ain't as good as that might seem to indicate yes I'll admit)
Its taken people a while to respond, but they are.

The saddest thing is how little people care that Joe Q preserved Spidey for the next generation.

Yeah change is great, but the 10 year old next door didn't think of Spider-Man as married and thats all the justification Joe Q ever needed IMO.

Despite OMD being drivel!

Monthly sales of ASM are probably up, yes. But that is because the people reading it have to buy it three times a month. If 50,000 people are buying 3 issues of ASM each month, then technically 150,000 issues of ASM are sold that month. But if 100,000 people were buying it once each month before BND, Marvel has still lost 50,000 buyers.

Just because the readers that have held on and the new ones that have picked it up have to buy 3 times as many issues doesn't mean sales are really up. Less people are buying, but they're forced to buy more now. Monthly sales of ASM alone are higher, but sales of each individual issue are lower.

What Ouchmaker is trying to explain is that Marvel's overall Spider-Man sales were higher when the 3 monthly issues were 3 different titles. Now they still release 3 issues a month, but they're all issues of ASM. And overall Spider-Man sales are lower. They've lost the people who were reading Sensational, and the people who were reading Friendly Neighbourhood, and half the ASM audience too. They're just making it so the people who stayed have to buy more.

And I do care about what Joe Q did, but I wouldn't call it "preserving Spidey for the next generation". The 10 year-old kid trying to get into comics may not think of Spider-Man as being married, but that is why Marvel has launched Marvel Age Spider-Man and Ultimate Spider-Man. Despite those two books, Joe Q still took Amazing and messed with it to suit his liking.

For me, it all boils down to - if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Joe Q forced unnecessary change on the series. And it wasn't even a logical progression. An evolutionary change. It was "everything is magically different."

With ASM (the way it is), Ultimate Spidey, and Marvel Age Spidey being the only options, there is no longer a Spider-Man book targeted at long-time readers - at older fans. Spider-Man was once my favourite character, but now it's hard to really enjoy a new issue.

I've been reading Spider-Man comics for well over 30 years and still do so.

Never was a big fan of the marriage it was a contrived forced unnatural event in the 1st place and IMO thank go Joe Q fixed it.

It just wasn't working for the most part as most writers in the decade plus mostly focused on hiding MJ away.

I buy the Spider-Man comics I want when I want and the new format makes jumping on board of a new story arc even easier.

I can skip a month or two of Spider-Man and I'm not lost at all when I pick up the next ish.

So long time Spider-Man fan that's still buying Spidey and is happier with the new direction?
Check!

And out!

More rum please!

I agree. One of the most important things for me in comics is the continuity. Of course I enjoy What If's and other weird tales, but what makes the characters feel alive for me is the continutiy of things, how they evolve and change during the course of time.

Whereas the X-Men are about the acceptance of difference, Spider-Man has been about the responsibility of power. Which is why it was always nice to see how as Peter's life changed, it always seemed to me that there was more responsibility for him to carry. No longer it was just about using his powers for right, but to keep the people he loved in safe. And that is what the marriage was. Not just more responsibilities for him to carry, but also a source of willpower to keep on, to continue being responsible.

And that is why I really dislike BND. It unnecesarily makes Peter look younger, gives him less responsibilities, and makes everything seem so light. If I wanted light adventures, I would read Marvel Adventures. If I wanted to read the early adventures of a young Spider-Man, I would either buy the old collections, or read Ultimate Spider-Man. Nowadays Spider-Man feels like an older carbon copy of Ultimate Spider-Man.

Since New Ways to Die started they've been releasing extra covers.
If your readership has been reduced to the hardcore fanatics, you
can double your sales by releasing a second cover.
Nearly triple it by releasing a third.

Yay for math!

I read it every week and almost every issue has worked for me. Getting three times as much of a comic that I like is fantastic.

And I get Slott! And letter columns!

Hate, if that's what works for you. I buy it because it's worth my $3+ almost every week.

Really you're 30+?

I quit reading ASM right after The Other. OMD/BND didn't capture my interest, so I never went back. I am not discounting the fact that there are good stories being told right now over in the Spider-books, but I am happy with reading Ultimate Spidey and leaving it at that. If OMD is ever retconned or somehow buried so that it never happened (call it OMD Beyond or whatever) I will be ready to give ASM another try. Them's the facts.