Amazing Spider-Man #14

[cyberghostface]

(Basically the red crystal holds the essence of Morlun's father)



Spider-Man brings him to "Uncle Ben"'s dimension which is filled with radiation which is toxic to Morlun and co. Morlun says that this will kill him, and Spider-Man tells him to go to the bomb shelter. It will keep him alive, but barely.

Comments

[silverhammerman]

Legitimate question right now; Do you think that Marvel would have given Dan Slott the length of tenure (4 years since he took over as primary writer with Big Time) and creative latitude that they have if they'd had the rights to the movies?

It seems to me that outside of the pretty short ASM2/Electro tie-in, Slott's been more or less allowed to do his own thing because having a "classic" version of the character wasn't a priority. I'm curious if the new Marvel/Sony "joint custody" deal might mean that Spider-Man will be slated for some sort of change up.

[mrstatham]

The book sells under Slott, and the deal with Spider-Man's movie rights was not entirely the same as the deal with the rights for the X-Men/FF. Marvel just don't have the film rights, but they have the rights to everything else. So I don't think they'd be inclined to just let a writer do whatever just for the sake of publishing a 'Spider-Man' comic.

Also, that really depends on what you think their definition of a 'classic' Spider-Man story is. By all accounts, they seem to consider the removal of the marriage a return to 'classic' Spider-Man, and they've already made efforts to remove the less popular aspects brought in for BND and retained what worked.

[silverhammerman]

True, Marvel has had the rights to the cartoons and such for a while now, but those are marketed to a different audience than the comics/films. Hypothetically, with stuff like the Ant-Man launch, Marvel is making things so that a moviegoer with disposable income can read the comic and not be lost. There was no real attempt at having that kind of synergy with Sony's ASM films, and I suppose my real question is whether or not there would have been if Marvel had been making them.

Removing the marriage, as misguided as it was, and the BND status quo was definitely an attempt to make things 'classic'. Whatever your opinions on Slott's writing though, you have to admit that the current stuff with Peter Parker as a super scientist and owner of a tech start up is wildly different from whatever platonic ideal Marvel was pursuing with BND.

[chrisdv]

I really hate that "The book sells under Slott" argument. Of course it does, it's Spider-Man. At this point, he's one of those characters whose books will sell decent numbers regardless of the quality.

Plus, lets not forget that ignoring Ultimate Spider-Man, Slott's not really had any "competing" 616 Spider-Man titles to deal with, only the team-up book. By the end of JMS' run, Amazing had two other ongoing Spider-Man books competing for people's attention - you wanted straight up superheroics, you had Amazing; you wanted a darker take, you had Spectacular; you wanted a more "classic" Spidey book, you had Friendly Neighbourhood. Under Slott, you've had the choice of Amazing/Superior, Avenging/Team-Up or not buying a Spider-Man book.

[cyberghostface]

Slott's work still has to be successful even by Spider-Man standards if Marvel's trusted him to orchestrate over a year's worth of issues with Dr. Octopus as Spider-Man and a crossover event spanning several different titles.