What are the WORST Spidey stories of all time and why?

[Artemis1]

Here's my list:

1. Sarah's Story-What's worst than your love having sex with your greatest enemy? You making out with their child.

2. Sins Past-Sick. Just sick.

3. Ultimate Carnage-Goodness was that poor.

[Kevinroc]

Your list is no good. Mostly because your list is filled with only recent stories. Ignoring such obvious winners as Amazing (vol. 2) #18 & Peter Parker (vol. 2) #18 which featured the reveal of Green Goblin V, had Peter choosing to live out on the street instead of going to Aunt May's after he lost his apartment and had his Spidey stuff stolen while he slept out in the rain while Flash Thompson and Liz Allen Osborn said some outright hateful things about how people who get close to Peter end up dead.

Some friends.

Also was an awful, awful story. I would take the current Spidey era over that period of time any day of the week.

[Artemis1]

I have my opinion and you have yours.

[Santanico]

Two little words:

Get. Kraven.

There's really just no Spidey story worse than that, is there? (And if there is, I'm not sure I want to know about it.)

[Kevinroc]

I have my opinion and you have yours.

True enough. But when your entire list is all from the same basic year, there's something wrong. You either haven't read enough Spider-Man comics (because there have been plenty of bad Spidey comics over the years) or you are just giving into silly internet hate from recent Spidey stories (I hated Sins Remembered too).

It's important to keep a perspective on things.

[jackalope]

Uh oh. I have half of the Get Kraven series and wasn't going to read it til I'd found the rest. Hmm.

I'm going to say "Clone Saga". I dare anyone to disagree with me. We all know that was the lowest point in Spidey's history.

The whole "I am Spider" nonsense was horrid as well. If I wanted that, I'd read Batman.

And the story where he cuts the deal with Venom. Mass murderer Venom!

[Mister Mets]

My list of the bad Spider-Man stories. These are the ones that I remember, so they're either recent, or atrocious. I've been fortunate enough to avoid a lot of bad stories.

Spectacular Spider-Man #11-13- Paul Jenkins, one of my favorite writers handles my favorite Spider-Man villain, with art by acclaimed Batgirl artist Damion Scott, so I was really looking forward to this. And it sucked. It pretty much ruined the Lizard, used the continuity of an out of continuity story, and had bad art, and a fairly incoherent plot, as I couldn't figure out when the big reveal happened.

Spectacular Spider-MAn #20- Crap conclusion to a tense dramatic storyline. The organic webbing thing's senseless, but the transformation, and defeat of the Queen was just atrocious.

Peter Parker Volume 2 #18- The artist was excellent, but the story was awful, the big reveal worse, and the characterization of Peter's friends...the less said of it the better.

Amazing Spider-Man Volume 2 #1- This was just a letdown given the expectations for a Spider-Man relaunch. It wasn't compelling, had some clunky dialogue (if I can remember it was bad years after I gave this away, it's bad), and lots of cliches.

Amazing Spider-MAn #375- The exact moment Venom went downhill.

Spider-MAn #8-11- The first 4 parts of the Perceptions storyline. A padded tale of Spider-Man & wolverine in Canada teaming up to stop a child molester- murderer. Art & story by Todd Mcfarlane (who I liked on Torment). The last issue is all right, but the build up has bad characterization, and many hokey moments, and a plot that's pretty much against anything that makes for a good Spider-Man story.

Spider-Man Chapter One- Worse than the original. Worst Spider-Man relaunch I'm aware of.

Bad but not the worst Spider-Man stories ever IMO...
Sins Remembered: Sarah's Story

Flawed but good stories IMO....
Sins Past- Beautiful art. Kept me from missing the excellent Romita Jr. Peter & MJ's reactions were realistic, and memorable. The press conference was great, as was the mystery involving the villains.
Ultimate Carnage- Carnage's origin was cool, he was different from the 616 version, I liked the cameos, Curt Connors' role was compelling, the last Gwen saw was horrific, and the epilogue was exceptional.

[Reptisaurus!]

Couple older Ones...

Sometimes Gerry Conway is good. Sometimes, like in Amazing 139, he introduces the Grizzly.

And we're supposed to take him seriously? I did like the *end* of the jackal/Spider-Clone story, but most of the build-up was lamelamelamelamelame.

Amazing Spider-Man 97. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Classic, brave for defying the comics code... But also lurid, sensationalistic, and just not believable to me. Now I can see how a more in-depth examination of the nastiness of drug use would've taken away from the momentum of the book... But this book just came off like a couple of guys who're pushing fifty lecturing their younger audience without really knowing much about youth culture...

And, of course both o' the esteemed gents in question really WERE pushing fifty, but managed to fake coolness most of the time. Not here.



And, OK, on the more recent front, Sins Past made me feel sorta sick all day. Barfy.

[Doom]

Seriously there have been plenty of bad Spidey story lines, many that are far worse then anything that has come out in the last few years.

I am in agreement with Kevinroc that the current Spidey era is one of the best. As much as people cry about Sins Past (didn't effect me that much since I had come to the conclusion about the Father after the second issue and I never viewed Gwen as a saint) it's not as bad as some of the Spidey minis that came out during the 90's in the height of extremism. (Like the Arachnes Project with a character named "Sneaky Thief.")
Or Spectacular Spider-Man #138 which was like a complete re-thread of Amazing Spider-Man #37-39. With Peter quiting being Spidey at the end.

Or the bad days where Mackie and Byrne were doing the Spidey books.

Or Spider-Man's apperances in Garth Ennis Punisher.

This modern Spidey stuff? It's gold in comparison.

[Nick MB]

Yeah, I agree, although Sins Remembered may well have a place on a top twenty worst list, there have been much much worse things. The Mackie/Byrne relaunch era is a definite winner. Also, Name of the Rose anyone? Planet of the Symbiotes? (although that did have some nice art)

A lot of people who put the clone saga or Sins Past on these lists are, in my mind, running the risk of confusing the fact that they don't like the events of the stories with actual low quality. I don't particularly like the idea of Gwen and Norman either, but the storytelling and art weren't that bad. Certainly, Spidey's seen worse.

[jackalope]

A lot of people who put the clone saga or Sins Past on these lists are, in my mind, running the risk of confusing the fact that they don't like the events of the stories with actual low quality.

C'mon on now, the "Clone Saga" was horrible. It started out as what might have been a cool idea, but then they dragged it out for three times it's original planned length, and by the end they had created a horrible confused mess.

You have things like Peter smacking MJ, which was done just to make the original Peter (who it would be revealed was the clone) look nasty, and then they change their mind and make Ben the clone - which leaves us with the real Peter being the one who hit MJ! (And made a deal with Venom, which was a big part of why they wanted to do the Saga in the first place).

I mean, that right there, that gaffe, is a big part of the reason I hate the "Clone Saga". I would have been okay with the Clone Saga if they'd klept it short and actually went through with it. Kill Peter, let Ben become Peter, continue on from there. But no, they just kept adding plot twist after plot twist cause the book was selling like crazy. But then the plot twists started running into each other at full speed, and it became a huge confused mess. The only good thing about the "Clone Saga" is it brought Norman back from the grave, better than ever (in the modern era, a character like Norman can be portrayed much more convincingly). But even that story, the Gathering of the Five, was a mess.

Imagine they had seen the sales on Disassembled, and decided to just keep it going til it wasn't four issues, but six, then eight, then twelve. That's the "Clone Saga". I mean, if you want an idea of how bad the "Clone Saga" is, find someone who doesn't read comics, and try to explain the story to them. You won't get halfway through explaining it before they start waving their hands and relenting, beggiung you to stop hurting their brain.

[Nick MB]

I dunno, it is a thinker. I agree that the whole thing got insanely convoluted, but I just enjoyed some of the individual comics. I don't think that "The Exile Returns", for example, was itself a bad story. Or "The Gift", or "Redemption". A lot of the Ben Reilly Spider-Man stuff (particularly before they started trying to frantically reverse gears) was good fun. I can't really argue that "The Clone Saga" as a whole was a bloated mess, but I do feel that people are writing off some decent stuff just from association with it.

[Nefarius]

1.Clone Saga is bad(it start good,it's turn to mess but i love the Revelation part because Goblin is Damn Good)
2.Sins Past(it sucks to death)
3.Gathering of five(Goblin turned to a mambo jumbo jerk and the fight is off-panel)
4.The revelation of Green Goblin V(not another clone...)

[jackalope]

I dunno, it is a thinker. I agree that the whole thing got insanely convoluted, but I just enjoyed some of the individual comics. I don't think that "The Exile Returns", for example, was itself a bad story. Or "The Gift", or "Redemption". A lot of the Ben Reilly Spider-Man stuff (particularly before they started trying to frantically reverse gears) was good fun. I can't really argue that "The Clone Saga" as a whole was a bloated mess, but I do feel that people are writing off some decent stuff just from association with it.

You know, that was part of the problem. Multiple writers, some good, some awful. There were definitely great moment in the Clone Saga, but when you step back and look at it...gah.

[Mister Mets]

Couple older Ones...

Sometimes Gerry Conway is good. Sometimes, like in Amazing 139, he introduces the Grizzly.

And we're supposed to take him seriously? I did like the *end* of the jackal/Spider-Clone story, but most of the build-up was lamelamelamelamelame.

Amazing Spider-Man 97. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Classic, brave for defying the comics code... But also lurid, sensationalistic, and just not believable to me. Now I can see how a more in-depth examination of the nastiness of drug use would've taken away from the momentum of the book... But this book just came off like a couple of guys who're pushing fifty lecturing their younger audience without really knowing much about youth culture...

And, of course both o' the esteemed gents in question really WERE pushing fifty, but managed to fake coolness most of the time. Not here.

And, OK, on the more recent front, Sins Past made me feel sorta sick all day. Barfy.

I don't think the drug story was poorly written, although it's not the classic some people say it is. Amazing SPider-Man #95, the issue before the drug story, that was crap. Lots of coincidences. Lame enemies. The only good part was how Peter & Gwen's relationship was hurt. Probably Stan lee's worst comic (but sadly, not Spider-Man's worst story.)