chris schillig wrote:
The only Spidey I have read lately -- and intermittently, at that -- is the Ultimate version, which I pick up every so often in trade paperback format. That Spidey is closer in spirit to the Lee/Ditko original, and it fulfills my spider-fix quite nicely.

Yep, ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN was, and should have remained, the "do-over" version. Spidey freshened up, started over and made more appealing for a new readership while the old-school Spidey continued on. Now they've done the same thing with the classic title, so what's the difference? Why have both titles?

I will add in all honesty that I managed to skim over a copy of the first "new" issue of ASM and was impressed. I thought the art by Steve McNiven was fantastic and it had a good story by Dan Slott who is one of the best new superhero writers in the business. If you are an old school Marvel fan, look for his SHE HULK series in paperback. It's an absolute gem. I'm still not jumping back in because:

--I'm sure the quality will be variable since it will be written and drawn by committee so they can get 3 issues out per month
--Part of the appeal for Spider-Man was being part of an on-going saga. The characters in this story just aren't the ones I've been following, even if they have the same names.
--I could spend that 10 bucks or whatever a month on a monster mag image

Hey, if it looks like I might be wrong and the restart gets rave reviews, maybe I'll seek it out in paperback and give it another shot. For now though, it's time to move on.image






Chris Herzog

"Moe! Larry! The Cheese!"