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I didn't mind that Ultimate Deadpool was radically different from the main version, that's fine, it's just that the story wasn't very good.
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Jun 18, 2016 23:43
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I liked the part where Kitty got super mad Spider-man kept saying he wasn't a mutant and their fight was broadcast on the internet.
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Jun 18, 2016 23:56
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Kitty was the most half assed subplot in all of USM. Why Bendis was obsessed with will they won't they is beyond me.
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Jun 19, 2016 00:18
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The Marvel Knights arc of USM is maybe the best single arc of the comic so far. It's just a top-to-bottom fantastic story.
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Jun 19, 2016 01:05
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I think my favorite arc may have been the post Ultimatum arc with May's House for Wayward Superheroes. Also the best issue(s) of the series are easily Spider-Man Requiem. Ultimatum was worth it for those two issues. Possibly the best two issues of Ultimate Marvel period. I also really liked arc of Peter's death.
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Jun 19, 2016 01:44
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So having finished Spider-Man: Requiem, combined with the events in the Requiem issues of Spider-Man feeling kinda disjointed and all over the place, I went to Wikipedia and looked up a summary of Ultimatum to see what I missed and man Ultimatum sure was loving dumb as hell huh? They blew up pretty much everything in the 1610 and is Ultimate Universe Blob ever a cannibal prior to that event series? But just, wow. They killed off a fuckin' shitload of people, huh. Anyways beyond that I found Spider-Man Requiem to be just kinda okay. I mean, I liked it, especially the end of that second issue but it wasn't this crazy affecting thing or anything.
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Jun 19, 2016 05:19
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CharlestheHammer posted:Kitty was the most half assed subplot in all of USM. Because his name is Peter, I think. It's why Kitty & Star-Lord are also A Thing.
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Jun 20, 2016 07:59
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It's because Kitty is Bendis's wifu
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Jun 20, 2016 08:01
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CharlestheHammer posted:It's because Kitty is Bendis's wifu I thought that was Jessica Drew/Jones.
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Jun 20, 2016 09:42
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His waifu is Luke Cage.
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Jun 20, 2016 16:34
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A whoooole lot of insight into Frank Cho right there.
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Jun 20, 2016 16:43
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Yeah that's certainly a Question That Needed Answering.
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Jun 20, 2016 16:46
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Jun 20, 2016 17:13
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I always figured it was natural that Bendis, being Jewish, would have a soft spot for one of the most high-profile Jewish superheroes of all time. I don't think Ben Grimm's Judaism was explicitly stated until the mid- to late '90s, was it?
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Jun 20, 2016 17:39
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Jack Kirby used to send out Hannukah cards with the Thing on them.
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Jun 20, 2016 18:14
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So, I finished a complete readthrough of Ultimate Spider-Man from the very beginning to Secret Wars (and I've read the first four issues of Spider-Man), and here are my thoughts on it. I really did enjoy Ultimate Spider-Man. The pacing was quick and it moved fast enough to feel fresh and new constantly. I feel like Bendis did a really fantastic job on the run - I know he's persona non grata around here in BSS but I feel like he totally killed it for a good 90% of the issues, and the issues that didn't quite work feel like they failed due to nobody else really "getting" how the Ultimate Universe was supposed to work like he did and forcing the wider 1610 in worse directions. The changes to most characters were intuitive and made sense. I really enjoy Ultimate Mary Jane and I felt like Bendis gave her character a lot of agency back. Ultimate Gwen is obviously the standout change that Bendis made, and I'm really surprised he killed her off and brought her back and both plot developments felt earned and naturalistic over dumb comics bullshit. Ultimate Kitty Pryde was a good character but her and Peter never really worked as a couple (her and Kong were clearly very suited for each other and I really wonder why Bendis pulled away from that). The writing out of Kitty Pryde from USM - I assume it was some X-Men tie-in poo poo or something - felt really awkward and she ends up not really having an arc. It really sucks because it feels like, in general, Bendis wrote a great teen superhero teamup story during his run on USM. Most-to-all of Spider-Man's superhero buddies felt like fun, good characters in their own right - Iceman, Johnny Storm, etc. I feel like the biggest way USM suffered was from dropped plotlines or characters. Kitty Pryde most obviously, but stuff like Black Cat and that key thing never really went anywhere, and a lot of Spider-Man's buddies felt like they just sort of abruptly left the narrative once Peter died. Which, well, makes sense but you know. Ultimatum was a mess, and I don't think Spider-Man's tie-in issues were that great, but I feel like all the issues that came after injected new creative life into Bendis' run at a time that it was kinda needed. Basically the run from after Ultimatum ended up to Pete's death is the single best period of quality of the whole run, in my opinion, and the changes they made - as someone else mentioned, May's House of Wayward Superheroes, JJJ knowing who Peter is and supporting him, Spider-Man suddenly being popular - all paid off really well. Peter's death was handled incredibly well. I think the biggest issue of his death is, as with most things during the USM run, crossovers having to implement other non-Spider-Man stuff and that stuff being kinda poo poo. Ultimate Fallout is a good example - the sequences where they're mourning the death of Peter Parker are fantastic, all the other stuff setting up storylines I don't care about and am not going to loving read are poo poo. Miles Morales has a lot of hooks to his introduction and comes out the gate pretty strong. I enjoyed how he was a different character, from background to problems, than Peter, and I think Spider-Men is probably the single best crossover of the whole run, coming at just the right time to give Miles the motivation he needs to live up to the mantle of Spider-Man. I think the main problem with Miles is that he gets saddled with a lot of lovely storylines or storylines that can't really go anywhere significant because the Ultimate Universe is winding down - Divided We Fall/United We Stand is a goofy as gently caress crossover that just doesn't work at all, really. What's surprising is that Miles assembles a totally different team of Super-Friends and they're all compelling and interesting characters in their own right. I'm surprised, as someone who adores 616 Jessica Drew as much as I do, that I ended up with that much affection for Ultimate Jessica Drew, but here we are. I also really liked Ultimate Cloak and Dagger and especially Bombshell (so much so I was visibly relieved to see she's still around post-SW). Bringing Kitty Pryde back the way they did was a bit late but ended up greatly appreciated, because I feel like her character ended fairly strong. Venom Wars was a really good storyline and that stuff, and Spider-Man No More, is probably the best stuff in the Miles Morales run. Cataclysm was actually a really good crossover event - probably the only good Ultimate crossover event - and it ended up changing stuff while still being itself a good story, which was surprising. By the end of Survive I was super excited to see the New/Young Ultimates because I ended up really liking all of the characters on the group. So...yeah, post-Cataclysm it's basically a complete loving mess. The relaunched Miles Morales book has the "revived Peter Parker" storyline, which is just awful and unnecessary and doesn't go anywhere. It feels like Bendis knew that the 1610 was being scrapped soon so decided to give Ultimate Peter and Mary Jane a "good ending", but in the process totally hosed over Miles' character for no reason - he basically gets muscled out of his own book, in the service of turning Peter Parker into a weird vindictive prick so he'd get the girl and just as quickly leave. Seriously, no part of the revival of Peter Parker storyline makes any loving sense. The circumstances were dumb as hell, the idea that Pete would come back and just decide to cowardly leave but not before taking his web-shooters back (to the point where he's willing to beat up a fourteen-year-old for them) was a dumb as hell orchestrated way to loop him back - I just didn't need to loving see any more of Ultimate Peter Parker. Especially since it was at the point where I had less than ten issues of USM left, so any changes were going to be super temporary at best. Seriously, I don't know who decided to revive Peter Parker at the last minute but it was a loving bad one, especially the way they ended up writing both him and Mary Jane out of the story. On the other hand, Spider-Man 200 is one of the best issues of the series, so. Outside of All-New X-Men, specifically the 1610 crossover arc, basically everything that happened with USM post-Cataclysm was really loving bad. That All-New Ultimates books is one of the worst comic runs I've ever read - which is saying something considering how hyped I was going in to reading about this specific team going into it, but it's like someone read Gillen's run on YA and decided to ape it extremely, extremely badly. Also, the whole plot of it kinda revolves around Miles being a dumb rear end in a top hat for no reason. The final issues of USM weren't really that great, and felt like a story with stakes too high considering the universe in which they happened was going to be wiped away. I dunno, it's hard to end a run well but I don't think Bendis really did with Miles in the 1610, since everything about the Hydra/Doctor Doom stuff just didn't really work or feel important. I think it's a story that doesn't feel grandiose enough for what Bendis is going for. It feels like he's trying to give the series that started the 1610 one last big baddie to fight, but weird centaur Doctor Doom combined with Hydra against the All-New Ultimates - fresh off a very bad run that burned off any goodwill I had for the characters - isn't big enough. I feel like going in a larger or a smaller direction - Spider-Man just punching some everyday baddies OR everyone in the Ultimate Universe, all the X-Men and former Ultimates and current Ultimates and every single Ultimate hero at one time or another all teaming up to fight one last huge guy - was the way to go. It just felt like it was stuck in the middle between being a small, intimate, Spider-Man focused ending or this giant over the top thing (which I don't even get because why wouldn't Marvel let Bendis play with all the toys that were about to be eliminated with Ultimate End anyways?) and was really unsatisfactory either way. Basically for as much affection that I had for the Ultimate Universe and for Miles the end couldn't have come at a better time. Everything after Cataclysm was just...not very good at all, and at that point it was a creative mercy-killing. The post-SW Spider-Man issues I've read feel fresh and exciting with the new status quo, and I'm really interested to see where Bendis goes from here.
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Jun 20, 2016 23:53
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Toxxupation posted:Seriously, no part of the revival of Peter Parker storyline makes any loving sense. The circumstances were dumb as hell, the idea that Pete would come back and just decide to cowardly leave but not before taking his web-shooters back (to the point where he's willing to beat up a fourteen-year-old for them) was a dumb as hell orchestrated way to loop him back - I just didn't need to loving see any more of Ultimate Peter Parker. Especially since it was at the point where I had less than ten issues of USM left, so any changes were going to be super temporary at best. Seriously, I don't know who decided to revive Peter Parker at the last minute but it was a loving bad one, especially the way they ended up writing both him and Mary Jane out of the story. Finally, thank you. I remember a ton of people at the time defending it as giving Ultimate Peter and MJ a happy ending but jeez that does not excuse that awful plot. Plus it killed Jameson and that's inexcusable. How did you enjoy the interminably long Secret History Of Miles' Dad story?
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Jun 21, 2016 00:23
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TwoPair posted:How did you enjoy the interminably long Secret History Of Miles' Dad story? I actually thought it was really good but an incredibly bizarre decision that shouldn't have been placed where it was. I mean, Bendis assumingly knew the outline of SW and had at least plotted Ultimate End by the time he was writing those last arcs of USM, so I'm really surprised he would do that story and then dovetail it into a punchmans. Like, that Secret Origins story needed to be earlier in the run or needed to lead into a story where Miles takes on like, the Shocker one last time and says hi to Jessica Drew and sits on a rooftop or something, because that's its tenor. It's not a bad story by itself, it just suffers from bad placement and because it is so long the final story of USM (which, if he wanted to go for something of that scale should've been something like Ultimate Thanos or Ultimate Kang the Conquerer or Ultimate Reed and the Cabal popping up, something that required everyone in the Ultimate Universe) is even more rushed and disjointed. It also suffers because it's super pointless. I mean, on some level every Ultimate Universe comic is fanfiction, but there's a difference between doing a Clone Saga story in the middle of the run and giving an origin story to the new Spider-Man's dad that ends up invalidated in like four months because the canon has been erased from history. NieR Occomata fucked around with this message at 00:33 on Jun 21, 2016 |
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Jun 21, 2016 00:30
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I didn't like the idea of Peter coming back at first either, mostly because beginning to end #1-160 Ultimate Spider-Man is my favorite run of comics ever, but when it was clear that 1610 was ending and it was just his way to give long time fans a happy ending for those characters I accepted it. I didn't jump on Ultimate Spider-Man immediately because I just thought it was another retread of MC2 type dumb stuff and ignored it. But a few months in, my first issue being around the time Peter breaks into Kingpin's place and gets caught on security cameras, I was hooked and I actually subscribed to the comic via old snail mail subscription and had it delivered to my house. So when issue #160 came it was both sad and kind of great in that here I was reading the last chapter of something I've been following for a decade, but also I was actually seeing the ending of something and that's rather rare in comics published by Marvel/DC. So I was hesitant to the idea of them bringing Peter back and going back on that ending. But then I realized that all of this going away. Bendis wasn't going to have the option of going back in five years and doing a resurrection arc for the character. Was the story hastily done? Sure. Were the circumstances of the story not ideal? I'd agree with that. But the outcome I don't mind because even though I know that world was destroyed not long after that those characters got their happy ending for a little while at least. All he was trying to give a little bit of closure to those characters and for that I'm happy it happened.
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Jun 21, 2016 00:50
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I tend to agree with you overall on all points. I tried my absolute damndest to like all new ultimates, but it was complete trash. I think I was reading it at the name time I was reading...i think it was New Warriors, with Kaine and Speedball and crew, and reading these two super team mini series was like night and day. One was drawn well, funny and exciting, the other looked like poo poo and never did anything I enjoyed. I'd like to have 1610 Jessica Drew back, but that would be a very hard thing to make happen, I think.
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Jun 21, 2016 00:56
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I wanted to like All-New Ultimates so loving bad. Bendis made everyone on that team into real characters, fun characters, and had made them deep enough so a teamup felt right, and it was right off the back of a genuinely good crossover event that set up a reason for there to be an All-New Ultimates. And then it turns out to be, like, Miles Morales being a dumb horny bastard, Cloak and Dagger splitting up for an unexplained reason and getting back together for an even less explained reason, and the team trying to stop a drug shipment as Jessica Drew realizes she's gay but does absolutely loving nothing about it. It was so bad.
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Jun 21, 2016 01:03
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Say what you will about Bendis and decompression, but I remember reading Ultimate Spider-Man 13 for the first time, and then immediately rereading it with a huge smile on my face. Probably one of my favorite issues in the whole run. The trade-off between Bagley and Immonen in 111 where he fights The Spot is pretty high up there, too.
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Jun 21, 2016 01:07
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The funny part about bringing Pete back for the happy ending is that in-universe his romantic road trip lasts like two weeks before an alien planet slams into earth-1610 and kills him again, horribly.
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Jun 21, 2016 01:13
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Mover posted:The funny part about bringing Pete back for the happy ending is that in-universe his romantic road trip lasts like two weeks before an alien planet slams into earth-1610 and kills him again, horribly. Well that is unless Franklin and Molecule Man rebuilt that universe.
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Jun 21, 2016 01:18
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X-O posted:Well that is unless Franklin and Molecule Man rebuilt that universe. Personally that's what I choose to believe happened and they're just hanging out of screen.
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Jun 21, 2016 01:53
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My absolute favorite issue of USM is 122.
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Jun 22, 2016 03:33
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Lurdiak posted:My absolute favorite issue of USM is 122. Yeah, that's the one where several years of funny Shocker gags really pays off.
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Jun 22, 2016 03:38
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It was really strong, had great art, and was a one and done (that still built on previous characterization and continuity). Can't ask for anything better. Too bad everything in USM that mentions Roxxon is retroactively lamer due to how anti-climactically Bendis resolved that plot thread.
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Jun 22, 2016 03:41
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Bulgaroctonus posted:Is their some reason Spidey 2099 ('90's version) doesn't have a collected version? I don't remember it going on for very long, couldn't the entire run fit in an Essentials? No idea if these have become expensive, but I've had half a mind to just buy the whole run as individual issues. Just seems very time consuming. There are three collected trades out now as "Spider-Man 2099 Classic" that go through issue #22 and also include the 2099 crossover. The release is really sporadic, the last one came out in 2015. I'm amazed they collect them at all, I can't imagine them selling that much. The only other 2099 things that have been collected are 1 volume of X-Men 2099 and Warren Ellis' run on Doom 2099. Also, Web Warriors has been cancelled with issue 11. Looking at sales numbers, 2099 and Spidey seem to be the next weakest of the crop. The Spider-Women story seems to have boosted Silk and Spider-Woman back up a tiny bit.
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Jun 22, 2016 03:51
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The horrible, horrible idea that Spider-Gwen is actually the best selling of those three distresses me on a fundamental level. Don't Silk and Spider-Woman sell super well digitally?
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Jun 22, 2016 04:28
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Toxxupation posted:The horrible, horrible idea that Spider-Gwen is actually the best selling of those three distresses me on a fundamental level. Nobody knows digital numbers. All we know is what some creators claim to have heard about their stuff.
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Jun 22, 2016 04:39
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That's such a bummer about Web Warriors. I love the Spider-Man multiverse. I should've been buying more copies.
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Jun 22, 2016 16:45
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El Tortuga posted:That's such a bummer about Web Warriors. I love the Spider-Man multiverse. I should've been buying more copies. I'll be honest, I'm a lot sadder about Contest of Champions going than I am Web Warriors, when it comes to Multiverse books. I like the Spider-Man multiverse, but I think making a book revolving around it as a whole is a mistake. Then again, I think Spider-Verse itself was a dumpster fire, so I'm most definitely biased on that front.
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Jun 22, 2016 18:13
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Wait, wait, wait. Contest of Champions is canceled too? This is... a bad day.
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Jun 22, 2016 19:56
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El Tortuga posted:Wait, wait, wait. Contest of Champions is canceled too? This is... a bad day. I'm sorry you had to find out like this. I'm mad that Contest of Champions also died, because I wanted it to outlive Web Warriors so Ewing could pick and choose from the Web Warriors as he pleased to use in it. I wanted to see him write Mayday, dammit.
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Jun 22, 2016 20:22
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Well at least CoC put Night Thrasher back into the universe. I'll miss British Punisher though... Edit: this better not be the last we see if Spider-Punk.
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Jun 22, 2016 20:29
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I re-read a good bit of USM lately via Unlimited because long commutes, and I have to say, i think my enjoyment of the Kitty romance is more because A. I really just... dont like ultimate Mary Jane very much... or at all and B. I like that it kinda avoids the constant damseling of Peters girlfriends. And also means that he doesn't get to angst about how it is too dangerous for them to date because what if Spiderman's enemies found out. I still think it's cute overall though. Edit: Oh and C. Or D. It lets them skip all the 'you spend too much time as spiderman we never get to be together' drama that is always around in any spiderman relationship, because they get to spend time together while he is spiderman. KittyEmpress fucked around with this message at 01:08 on Jun 23, 2016 |
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Jun 23, 2016 00:52
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El Tortuga posted:Wait, wait, wait. Contest of Champions is canceled too? This is... a bad day. I'm at the stage of the comics hobby where I'm expecting all the things I love to be cancelled.
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Jun 23, 2016 07:01
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The problem with Web Warriors was that all the interesting characters were relegated to background gags or quips (particularly Noir) or sidelined and they made the most boring character the main one (He's just like Spider-Man, but British!) also that and the critical storyline they absolutely needed to tell was "too many Electros".
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Jun 23, 2016 16:56
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Goddammit Bendis, I tried and tried to like Spider-Man but you just won't let me. Seriously can Bendis write Miles Morales in any conflict without solving it with a venom blast? I guess I'm finally done with this, even if it means I miss more exciting tales of Jefferson Morales, Agent of SHIELD  . I do find the fact that Miles somehow remembers doing his weird super-venom-blast before interesting. So like, does he remember the old world and blasting Ultimate Doom? Or did he just blast some other douche in this brave new fused world?
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Jun 30, 2016 07:46
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