The First Bad Spider-Man Run

[@AceLM92]

Yeah Wolfman's run was so yawn inducing. I think it only picks up towards the end because of Jim Shooter starting to rein in the creative teams into putting out comics up to a standard of quality that was hit or miss before.

[@davidbjacobs3598]

Aw man, I liked this run as a kid. I remember it feeling like a breath of fresh air after Wein (even though, at that age, I was paying much attention to the writers after Stan). The Black Cat intro and Spencer Smythe death storylines stand out in my brain as especially mind-blowing to a 12-year-old.

[@jnramage]

Little harsh. Human fly sorry. Mysterio. Epic kingpin battle Return of the burglar. Great Keith pollsrd art. Intro of the black car. Far better than wein and then the O’Neal run afterwards.

[@josesarango3408]

agreed 100%

[@grahamodom2819]

I personally thought this run was good. Not a top tier run, but not the worst Spider-Man run out there. I’ve been reading Marvel comics chronologically, and I’m currently reading Dennis O’Neil’s run, and I think he’s earned the title for “Worst ASM run”.

[@rickrivers2021]

Agreed 100%

[@matthewschwartz6607]

He introduced Hydro-Man, didn’t he?

[@grahamodom2819]

@@matthewschwartz6607 Yes, he did.

[@josesarango3408]

agreed 100%. Len Wein's run is also bad

[@grahamodom2819]

@@josesarango3408 I personally thought Len Wein’s run was fun. But that’s just my opinion.

[@popman1997]

It's kind of a testament to the quality of the Spider-Man comics that it took this long for a bad run. Loads of comic book characters can't have that privilege. Best part of this run was definitely all the Black Cat stuff. As boring as the Wolfman stuff can get, my interest definitely peaked whenever she showed up in an issue.

[@misterhimura036]

Only remarkable thing about this run is Black Cat. Spider-Man in the 70s was good the first half of the decade

[@MetalFaceKillah]

You have Gerry Conway to thank for that!!! He's the fucking 🐐 He came back in the 80s for spectacular Spider-Man and created Tombstone. One of the best Spidey writers ever

[@matthewschwartz6607]

I grew up on those comics. His Web Of was good, too. I loved his Gang-War stuff .

[@ricardom6126]

​@@MetalFaceKillahTotally agree, conway is the best so far, in my opinion

[@VonWenk]

The Fly was a Len Wein creation from the 1976 Spider-Man Annual. I remember kind of liking the prospect of Peter Parker getting into a relationship with a married woman, although I don't remember the Betty storyline ending with as much of a bang as I was hoping. My favorite part of Keith Pollard's run was the shot of Spider-Man after he spied on Jameson in the mental facility leaping up a smokestack and firing his web-shooter when he gets to the top. Since Jim Mooney was penciling Spectacular Spider-Man at the time, his inking Keith Pollard on Amazing Spider-Man gave the artwork a uniform blandness. The best thing about the Kingpin story for me was I think that sprained arm was the last time Spider-Man operated with an impediment. When was the last time Spider-Man had a cold? P.S.: I was also a little disappointed Jameson hadn't actually had a mental breakdown.

[@adrolion]

I think this run had some interesting concepts, especially the whole Betty and Peter situation. Unfortunately it’s just, not explored deep enough due to Wolfmans episodic writing. He doesn’t even make interesting one off issues half the time, so that makes him just starting and ending the Peter and Betty affair in like 2 to 3 issues (I could be wrong since I haven’t read it in a while but it was really short) is even more perplexing. I wouldn’t call it “bad” though, I would say it’s just really really mediocre. Like a 5/10 Good video lad, it’s been a while since I found a new comic channel so I’ll surely stick around. Cheers

[@RingsideRebel785]

If you want good Marv, read Tomb of Dracula. It's fun asf.💯

[@GOODYGOODGOOD789]

11:04 It would've at least been funny if Jameson said "Well last time I created a villain that eats spiders and that failed, what if I created a villain that spiders eat, that might work." But on a more serious note, Jameson should've learned his lesson by now that creating villains to kill Spider-Man won't help anyone.

[@gota7738]

7:20 Convenient Hollywood Amnesia. Spider-man uses it a lot, hence why Harry doesn't remember Peter is Spider-man.

[@smithryansmith]

I agree with the commenters that this run is better than you give it credit for. And it is implied that Peter sleeps with Betty which makes Ned's reaction pretty believable. Since Peter never defends himself, I imagine its due to guilt. It helps a lot if you try reading between the panels.

[@samuelbarden4790]

Worst Spider-Man is the Spider-Totem.

[@sahilhossain8204]

Lore of The First Bad Spider Man Run momentum 100

[@TheChadTI]

Loving these videos, thanks, spider-bro.

[@nickelliott1174]

The stories really started going downhill after issue 75, they weren't bad but not up to the previous standard. By the early 70s, around the time the price went from 20 to 25 cents, it got bad fast. And then a few years later it got slightly better but then it was stuck in a mediocre cruise control for years.

[@matthewschwartz6607]

Womfman’s dialogue is bad. But #200 is something of a classic. He really “got” Peter in that issue .

[@martezberry3164]

Wow!.... I love jim starlin as an Artist 🎨

[@rickrivers2021]

I understand not liking this, but I feel like saying "nothing happens" shows you read it too fast. Some your criticisms are just flat out incorrect, like you missed details

[@94evangelion]

i actually like Wolfman's run, but Manto's Spec which starting out around the same time was better. this is period where Spec was becoming more consistent than ASM

[@Melvinshermen]

I never been a marv wolfman guy.

[@m.e.4946]

I agree with your general assessment of Marv Wolfman’s run on Amazing Spider-Man as the first bad one, although I’m admittedly way harsher. I strongly dislike virtually all of the major plot beats that he sets out during his time on the title. Peter proposing to Mary Jane and her refusing within the first two issues of his run felt like a transparent effort to push the Peter/MJ relationship out in favor of trying to make Peter and Betty a thing again, for some godforsaken reason. While Peter and Mary Jane’s relationship stagnated pretty severely in Len Wein’s run after Conway helped get it off the ground, ending it this way just felt really careless. Peter and Betty’s affair is a terrible effort to revive a relationship that was already proven to be dysfunctional during Lee and Ditko’s time on Amazing Spider-Man, and it’s worse now since Betty is cheating on her husband to do so, and her reason was apparently that he spent too much time working and not enough on her, which is a valid point of contention, but that’s hardly a reason for her to leave their honeymoon and cheat on him instead of just trying to talk to him about it, which she never mentioned doing, so I have no reason to assume that she did. While I would’ve preferred that Ned just chew the both of them out and leave Betty for good, I’ll admit that Ned’s punching of Peter felt a little cathartic, particularly since neither seemed even the slightest bit remorseful, and neither of them apologize to Ned in anything approaching a satisfactory manner. This basically put the nail in the coffin for my ability to like Betty Brant (a character that I’ve never really cared for), and made Peter pretty difficult to root for in this run, with the obvious exception of his Aunt May seemingly dying. Aunt May’s death made for a great opportunity for Wolfman to explore (much like Conway did with Gwen’s death) just how heavy the weight of all of this grief weighs on Peter, but he unfortunately places it so that Aunt May’s supposed death takes place within four issues of the reveal of her being alive. Jameson’s turn into insanity feels like a contrivance to justify Peter leaving the Daily Bugle (since Jameson had already pretty much given him a whole heap of reasons to leave prior to this run, and Peter still stuck around). Not to mention, it takes possibly Spider-Man’s best supporting character (and one of his principal scenes/locations) and completely trashes it while still trying to play it as semi-comedic. Some people find the explanation offered up by Roger Stern and John Byrne in Amazing Spider-Man #206 to be unsatisfying, but I was all too happy to ditch the flagrant effort to throw out Jameson as unceremoniously as he canned Mary Jane. Flash and Harry are turned into juvenile jerks for the sake of adding more people to pile on Peter and give him a hard time, even though they’re both friends with him at this point and they moved on from treating him like this several years ago. The plot of #200 is a flagrant misuse of Spider-Man’s origin and the lesson behind it. There’s no reason to bring the burglar back, or to reveal that he had a secret agenda that led to him killing Uncle Ben. He was just some random crook that taught Peter to not focus inwardly on himself when using his power, and that he had a duty to act on behalf of others because he could never be sure of what the consequences of his inaction would be. Is it convenient? Yeah. Is it better than drafting an entire convoluted master plan for the burglar’s master plan just to act out a gratuitous revenge fantasy on Peter’s part? 100%. Probably the only unequivocal praise that I can give to Marv Wolfman’s Spider-Man is that Black Cat’s introduction is a good one, Mysterio is well-depicted (aside from the stupidity of risking his perfectly good scheme to go along with the burglar’s much less secure plan), and the fight sequence with Kingpin in #197 is a fun one, even though that two parter (and that issue in particular) is pretty superfluous. Another thing that I’ll give him (and this is more relative) is that Denny O’Neil’s run immediately after this was worse because of how little actually happened. At least Wolfman tried to aim high, even if he fell short of his goal most of the time, in my opinion. Amazing Spider-Man’s really only the best of the Spider-Man titles by seniority and status by this point. Spectacular Spider-Man (with Bill Mantlo and especially Roger Stern) and Marvel Team-Up (with Chris Claremont) are more enjoyable at this point. It isn’t until Stern gets to writing the title less than two years after Wolfman’s ends that this title becomes great again, and that precipitated probably the best decade in Spider-Man’s history, in my view. Given the esteem that Marv Wolfman and Denny O’Neil are held in, I sort of feel guilty for my appraisal of their tenures as Spider-Man writer, but I just assume that I’ll have to read other, more ballyhooed works of theirs.

[@josesarango3408]

Black Cat makes up for all of it. Denny ONeill run was worse

[@plasticweapon]

that was not a bad run, and it was better than a lot of runs people claim were good. spider-man was still a MAN in those days, there was still hope of him having a better life, and the stories were entertaining and had character for not being needlessly despairing or degrading to the title character. dennis o'neil's was the first bad run.

[@josesarango3408]

facts

[@paultrought267]

Were the sales figures good at this time ? That I'm afraid is the only thing that counts at Marvel.

[@matthewschwartz6607]

I would say - PROBABLY!

[@IntheClutch75]

I was ten-ish years old around this time and Spider-Man was well ensconced as my favorite hero AND I HATED THIS RUN. Love your analysis! Damn straight. I spent this whole video going yes! Yes! Yes! Of course, I still collected every one I could get my hands on. AND I thought it picked up where you thought it did. The Black Cat was great. That Kingpin issue was actually a super- tense issue. And did not care for Pollard's work on Spider-Man but I don't think Mooney's inks helped. But man, I was thanking God for Marvel Tales and Origins of Marvel Comics and other early TPBs in these days. There was no internet back then. 😅 Appreciate ya! (BUT Al Milgrom is awful. Ugh.)

[@josealmeida2842]

Is this the run where SWARM is first introduced?

[@matthewschwartz6607]

I think that was in Spectacular .

[@seandarbe2521]

So you really find melodramatic storylines to be irritating like I do drama should be used like spice carefully used in a measured way in serial story telling not heaped on like flour for bread.

[@davidgraham8299]

Wolfman never did well with the Marvel superheroes. His run on fantastic four was bad as well.

[@mrclutch8775]

What issues were this run?

[@FinnSutoThe2nd]

Covers ASM #182-206, doesn't include Peter Parker: The Spectacular Spider-Man

[@t4washere384]

As a TMNT fan I have to call BS on them ripping off The Fly the Marvel character. They ripped off the movie The Fly back in the 80's and Superfly was just an update on that. Also Enter The Fly is a good episode of TMNT and you reading this should go watch it.

[@matthewschwartz6607]

The 1986 Jeff Goldblum/Geena Davis Fly was a remake.

[@WESsential]

I wouldn't say it's outright bad, but yes it is a kinda boring run.

[@kingbeauregard]

Marv Wolfman has never impressed me as a writer, truth to tell. He can do melodrama but he can't really do deep characters. Once in a while it works out well. I think he did a Superman story in the 80s, where a mad scientist had a pretty good scheme: find some homeless person / hooker / whatever to experiment on, turn them into a killing machine, and send them after Superman. Good plan, and it would have worked. EXCEPT ... Superman heard that a mere homeless person / hooker / whatever was missing, and went looking for them. Because that's just the sort of guy he is. Wolfman was well-suited to that story, giving us Superman as the god among us who doesn't consider anyone beneath his notice.

[@agentvenom3342]

Where do you get the old comic book runs?

[@Bengrimm61]

Marvel Unlimited app or some 🏴‍☠️ sites.

[@FirstnameLastname-my7bz]

libgen or annas archive look up original scans there if you want Enjoy old comics instead of having your eyes bleed from over saturation + avoid revisionistic changes