How would you rate J Michael Straczynski's Amazing Spider-Man?

[Mister Mets]

Now that the run's over, I'm curious as to how you guys would rate How would you rate J Michael Straczynski's Amazing Spider-Man?

The possibilities...
A Plus: One of the Best Ever: Self-explanatory. Choose this one if you think he was one of the finest or the finest Spider-Man writer you've ever read. If you can name three writers better than him, he probably shouldn't get an A+

A: Great: Choose this one if you thought he was a great writer, but not one of the absolute best.

B: Good: Choose this one if you thought he was a good writer, but not one of the greats.

C: Average: Choose this one if you thought he was average and unremarkable.

D: Poor: Choose this one if you thought he was below-average.

F: Absolute Crap: Choose this one if you believe his work on Spider-Man isn't worth reading for free and that it would have been better had the series been canceled with Amazing Spider-Man Volume 2 #29. It should be used as sparingly as the A+


And justify your answers please.

[Eclips0]

Aside from OMD crap, I loved it, JMS is one of my fave writers of all time in many mediums and i think he continues to give us gold when Joe Q doesn't go all whack job on it.

[Fatguy]

I would give it a strong C. It had some high highs, but some pretty low lows also.

[Sean Whitmore]

I'm of two minds about him.

When he was good, he was VERY good.

And I think he deserves credit for pulling Amazing out of the hideous sinkhole of blandness it was in at the time.

However, when he was off, he was VERY off.

So I'm currently hovering between "good" and "great".

Definitely above "average" though, since the one thing his run wasn't is unremarkable.


SEAN

[DarKye]

I'd rate it as excellent.

Characterization was strong, and new characters like Ezekiel or Lamont quickly became favourites.
Not a fan of the whole mystical thing, but it was worth it if only to see Loki eating a hot dog.
Also, the humour was generally great.


We need more of this.

[Blader5489]

B

I thought his first three years were great, with some of the highlights being the Spidey/Morlun fights, Aunt May learning Peter's identity, and ASM #500. I personally don't mind the spider totem angle, as it adds a new dimension to the origin without negating it. I especially liked Peter becoming a science teacher, which I thought was a great step in the character's evolution. I also think JMS portrayed the Peter/MJ marriage extremely well, and is one of the few Spidey writers to accomplish that.

His last three years showed a steady decline in quality, but I blame this more on Quesada then JMS. At the very least, he was able to take plots he may not have been comfortable with and make them actually readable (which is more than I can say for someone like Howard Mackie). And it doesn't help that he ended his run on one of the worst received stories in recent memory.

So all in all, I think he was good but not great. However, if he had been left to his own devices, I truly think that JMS would have been one of the greats, like DeMatteis.

[Eclips0]

I think his current run on Thor is fantastic. This is a exteremly talented writer when the editor doesn;t force crap on him.

Remember, he didn't even want his name on One More Day.

[TotalWorldDomination]

It was a soild run interrupted by 3 stories I loath- sins past, the other and OMD. I gave him a B.

[Expletive Deleted]

With JRJR, his run was excellent. With Deodato, his run was mediocre. After that, I quit paying attention.

[Mister Mets]

It was never as great as the best of Lee/ Stern/ Bendis/ Jenkins/ Millar/ Conway/ Demmateis/ Peter David and had a few clunkers.

It was a giant improvement over what Marvel had before and had some really good stories and many stories that were just decent.

I'll give it a "B." And I was wavering between that and an "A"

[Spiffy]

G.) WAS great, then turned into sh@t later on.

[snoopafly]

I definitely would give it an A just by the fact that he was never afraid of trying something new. This can be said true of his major events/storylines he wrote about or even the small encapsulated stories. JMS was really good at writing the small little details that helped add depth to a character. I think one of my favorite Spider-Man stories was the story where we are introduced to Leo Zelinsky, the Super Hero/Villain tailor. That story had so many elements within it, that always help remind me of why I love reading Spider-Man so much. I always remember the coonversation Peter and Leo had where he says he knows Peter's from the neighborhood because "he has an accent", so he knows that Peter's one of them, a guy from Queens, a New Yorker. For some reason at the time, I thought that was pretty cool since I never thought about Peter having an accent but it was just a small little nuance that JMS added to give more depth to Peter. When paired with JRJR, I think he was at his best.

[Pyro]

When I first started reading the current Amazing Spider-Man title regularly, JMS was just starting his run, so I've basically been with him since the start and while in that time I've read many different eras of Spidey, this one is a little special to me. I think JMS did some novel things during his time on the title and worked with some great artists. Also, JMS had some truly funny moments thoughout.

One of my absolute favorite issues of his was when Aunt May and Peter talked about him being Spider-Man. JMS handled that brilliantly. I would say that it was under him that Aunt May finally became more than just a cipher or the typical old grandmother character. She became a strong woman, a real person who we were finally able to relate to on another level. I loved the way she struggled with the revelation, but dealt with it as best she could. It was also groundbreaking because I was shocked when I read it. I had no idea that it was going to happen and I was just a kid who thought this kind of thing was unimaginable in comics.

JMS taking Spidey into the magical realm was something I felt never quite worked, but he was exploring new territory with that and it really wasn't that bad.

JMS brought Peter and MJ back together and I think he did a beautiful job with their interactions throughout his run. There are plenty of examples of how much they loved each other and belonged together. That's one of the reasons I'm so upset about OMD.

I'm of two minds about "Sins Past." I had dropped the title by that time, and had heard a lot of bad things about it, but I wanted to read it for myself, and I actually thought it was really good. I was shocked by the revelations and thought it was genius to have Norman ruin this aspect of Peter's life without even being around. Now, I think both JMS and Marvel needed to think about that story a little more before releasing it, because it's not good sense to destroy someone's character decades past their death, but as it is, I think it's a good story.

I was skeptical when Spidey joined the New Avengers, but I ended up enjoying a lot of that. It was strange at the time because most everything seemed to be going well for Peter, but I eventually realized it was only the calm before the storm--that Peter's good fortune would only last so long.

I think, sometime around "The Other," JMS started losing creative control over his plots. "The Other" turned out to be more Peter David's story (barring the Morlun elements) since it began and ended in Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man. Then Spidey got entangled in the Civil War and then Aunt May got shot and now we're here. I really liked most of the Civil War issues because I loved Ron Garney's art and seeing Spidey struggle with a new definition of responsibility, but I hated JMS' characterization of Iron Man.

Back in Black was too slow and pointless, but at least it had lovely Ron Garney art.

Overall, I think JMS did an above average job. Just staying on the one title for so long is commendable. I recall Bendis once saying that staying with a book for a long time will inevitably lead to screw-ups, but there are good things about long runs too. My only regret is that it doesn't seem like JMS got to have a final say. Looking at his run as a whole, I was hoping he'd get to tie every statement he had on Spider-Man together but that didn't happen.

[Pyro]

Originally Posted by snoopafly

I definitely would give it an A just by the fact that he was never afraid of trying something new. This can be said true of his major events/storylines he wrote about or even the small encapsulated stories. JMS was really good at writing the small little details that helped add depth to a character. I think one of my favorite Spider-Man stories was the story where we are introduced to Leo Zelinsky, the Super Hero/Villain tailor. That story had so many elements within it, that always help remind me of why I love reading Spider-Man so much. I always remember the coonversation Peter and Leo had where he says he knows Peter's from the neighborhood because "he has an accent", so he knows that Peter's one of them, a guy from Queens, a New Yorker. For some reason at the time, I thought that was pretty cool since I never thought about Peter having an accent but it was just a small little nuance that JMS added to give more depth to Peter. When paired with JRJR, I think he was at his best.

Yeah, that was another great issue. I remember having some of the same thoughts.

[Mister Mets]

"The Other" didn't end in Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man though. JMS wrotes Parts 7-9 and Part 12.

Originally Posted by Spiffy

G.) WAS great, then turned into sh@t later on.

On an A to F scale that's probably a "B" or a "C"