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I think it's a good idea, and definitely a great idea from the business standpoint.

Hopefully, by doing this, Stephen Whacker can keep the book tight and more focused(which I always felt was the problem with having multiple books for one character).

What would really cinch this for me, was if they guaranteed small story arcs for the series. Three issues tops, preferably single issue stories.

Interesting. Takes balls to admit their other books don't matter. But how long can they keep it up?

It really depends on the teams they get to do it, doesn't it? I mean, with the Superman Triangles, you always had writers trying to keep their own subplots going, separate from whatever the actual big story was. And there was always the headache of the art changes, too - every month, you knew you had that one Bogdanove book to slog through.

On the other hand, if the art is constantly rotating, that eliminates the problem of a "fill-in" book: Superstar Artist A drops behind, then Reliable Artist B can pick up an issue or two, and it shouldn't stick out too badly.

Hmm. Well, I support it. Don't know if I'll have the cash for three times the Spider-Books, but I'm more likely to buy three issues of one story than one issue of three stories...

I don't know why they didn't do this earlier, and why they don't do this with more titles. If a kid sees a Harry Potter movie and decides to read the books, he goes into a bookstore, and I bet it's not that hard to figure out which one is book 1. He picks them up and he's hooked. If a kid sees a Spider-man movie and decides to check out the comics, he goes into a comic shop and doesn't know where to start.

Three a month might be a bit much (I'd rather see it cut to two, with some real effort put into an annual or quality limited series, but that may just reflect my own tastes rather than what the masses want), but I still like the idea. Media companies spend so much time and effort dumbing down content needlessly while driving away customers by leaving their marketing and packaging confusing and complicated.

Is this really any different than what DC was doing with their Superman books a few years back (the yellow triangle years)? This just goes a step further and consolidates the naming.

I'd much rather have higher-quality comics monthly than crappy comics weekly.

What I'm a little confused about is, are they going to have teams rotataing every issue, or rotating every arc?

yo go re said: "every month, you knew you had that one Bogdanove book to slog through"

When I was reading the post death issues of Superman, those were the issues I looked forward to artistically. The rest featured dull, uninspired art in comparison.It was more in line with the mountain of black and white comics I was primarily interested in at the time. Superman was my guilty pleasure.

Sorry you didn't dig it.

Gee.. I never even learned what "Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man" was exactly (I used to think it was a limited series and wondered if it was in continuity) and it is cancelled already? And now I was supposed to know that it was one of the core spider-books?

I guess that shows that it was indeed time to reduce their number. For instance, is "Sensational" supposed to be The Book Formerly Known As Peter Parker: Spectacular Spider-Man?

Sensational Spider-Man was Marve Knight: Spider-Man, which really only existed for Mark Millar's initial story arc. Once that finished, there was no real reason for it, but they plugged away for awhile, ultimately bringing it back into the Spider-Man office and changing the name to Sensational Spider-Man.

Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man was also designed for a creator, as it was to be Mark Waid's "fun" Spider-Man book (hence the title), but Waid ended up not doing the book for whatever reason, and Peter David was the fall-back.

So yeah, really, both books did not even match their "purposes," so they were both essentiall "two other Spider-Man comics," like in the days of Web of Spider-Man and all those books.

What I’m a little confused about is, are they going to have teams rotataing every issue, or rotating every arc?

They're going to have three writers, each one will write one issue a month, just like the old Superman titles.

What they HAVEN'T announced yet, though, is whether they'll have each arc drawn by a single artist or not. I think that's probably what they would prefer, but that might be a pipe dream (actually getting all the art ready in time).

I've been waiting for something like this for a while but assumed there was an unknown-to-me reason why it wouldn't work.
I'm sceptical of their approach however, as 3 writers with their own take (per the interview linked to) are likely to produce a Spider-Man with multiple personality disorder. OTOH, if editorial interferes enough to cover that, the book'll likely be bland.
I'd favour giving the book to one creator for e.g. a quarter each, around 12 issues and relegating everyone else to "support" during that time. For all I know most writers should be able to do that fairly easily if they have nothing else on their plate and some assistance. If it's broken into arcs for different artists, that too should be feasible.
That way, flagship titles could _all_ have their weekly books at both companies.

I;m guessing this will do well enough, though the question will be whether three issues by less-than-superstar artists and rotating teams will sell better than one book by a superstar artist and writer team.

Leaving aside sales for a moment, though...if nothing else, this does seem to suggest that the writer-driven market has definitely transitioning to a market driven more by the publishing and marketing plan. Bendis, Morrison, Millar, etc. now need the push of being associated with "big events" to move six figures; they can't do it just by slapping their names on the books. Simply plopping Millar onto a Spider-Man with a #1 issue, for example, didn't produce megasales beyond the first few issues; plopping Bendis on the crossoverized, eventized Avengers books has produced consistent megasales even as his far more acclaimed Daredevil work never made it above Marvel's midlist. (Oddly, Jeph Loeb still can produce megasales, and anyone who wants to read my attempted explanation of why can check the Cronin Definitions thread at the forum sometime later today.)

It IS pretty amusing how this may be the only way certain writers could be named the "regular writer on Amazing Spider-Man" - if they are paired with two OTHER writers!

Really, the industry has been doing this for years. As everyone's mentioning, the four Superman books were basically a weekly title...so much so that they had to add a quarterly (Superman: Man of Tomorrow) to fill in the four weeks that 52-(4x12) didn't cover. Spidey and Batman have operated this way too, especially during major crossover stories.

What's interesting is that it took 52 to show fans would follow it week after week, and if Marvel is chasing after that kind of money, I don't think the audience is the same. 52 followed after a big crossover story, had a superstar lineup of writers (important), was for all intents a limited series with a single connected storyline (very important), and it came out on time. Every. Single. Week. Very, very important.

Marvel's missing those last two points, I think. I was happy to commit to a DC experiment for those single spun-together narrative, knowing it would be over in a year with a planned and definite conclusion. Spider-Man you know is just going to go...on and on and on and on, given their choices. There will be a few weeks of initial interest and then it just turns into another reason to skip a book or two if the storyline of creator this week isn't your cuppa tea. And Marvel has not shown that they can get a book out on time. To schedule a book 3x monthly is inviting sheer diasaster. I wish them well as it seems like a pretty cool idea, but I'm worried.

Ah well. Now's the time to do it, between the Spider-Man most of the general public knows: the movies.

I just realized I left off a main point from my first sentence. It shoulda read:

"Really, the industry has been doing this for years—this is just the first time anyone's done it with one pre-existing title."

Huh, I don't think I've read a Spider-Man series since he had his own Identity Crisis back in the '90s; at the time, I read all four.

For me, this tri-weekly plan completely hinges on the creators. Slott's all but a lock, and, while I'm sure he'll provide the requisite quips and thwipps, I still have a bad taste in my mouth from that Starfox arc in She-Hulk, which ultimately caused me to drop the title. If--I dunno--Matt Fraction and Jeff Parker sign on, though, I'll give the book a shot. And, if some quality artists are involved, I might even stick around.

Spider-Man you know is just going to go…on and on and on and on, given their choices. There will be a few weeks of initial interest and then it just turns into another reason to skip a book or two if the storyline of creator this week isn’t your cuppa tea.

Interesting point. I agree that there better be an *extremely* tight, planned-out-for-the-long-term storyline driving this experiment, with all of the writing teams having input. Otherwise this could become a real creative mess, real fast.

By the by, as it turns out, it appears that it was no accident that Steve (original editor of 52) Wacker is now the editor of Amazing Spider-Man.

If anyone can coordinate it, it's Wacker.

I think it's a completely god-fecking-awful idea. I have a deep, deep hatred for editorial-driven series, and that's what this is going to be; with multiple creative teams, there's no true creator vision.

Marvel has learned from DC's 52 that mediocrity sells so long as it comes out often and is hyped to death. Ugh.

I don't think that's a bad idea. We'll see how it's executed.

With all the Marvel creative summits, I think it's been a long time since Marvel moved to 'editorial-driven series'. Maybe they'll take inspiration from TV series writing.

I share Brian's thoughs about the art side: either they have 1 artist for an arc or a rotating team.

Wasn't John Romita Jr supposed to come back to Spider-Man sometime soon ?? (I remember reading that in a Joe Friday, IIRC) Since he's pretty fast maybe with enough time, he can fit that schedule for a while who knows, wasn't he making 2 books a months at some time ???

In any case, it's been a long time since I wasn't interrested in Spidey's books.
So, if Marvel could finally stop the crap & put 1 decent Spidey book, stop the whining about Peter & MJ's wedding, stop making Peter a kind of newcomer unable to handle a situation & making him depressive, & move along with a little bit of leading, I'll be satisfied with Marvel(MAYBE)hehe !!

I dunno, back when I used to read them, I always liked having multiple titles because then you weren't stuck with one story or creative team.

In any one month or two, you could have three different Spider-Man stories to follow, and you weren't locked in to following a crap storyline if you wanted your Spider-Man fix. In other words, whenever Amazing started to suck, Spectacular or Web Of were there to pick up the slack. (Okay, so it was rare that Web of Spider-Man wasn't the weak sister, but you get the point.)

It could be a good idea...or it could blow up in Marvel's face. I only read Amazing right now, but if I have to read three books a month to get the story, Amazing is getting dropped with a quickness. Peter Parker hasn't been that interesting a character in 25 years, I couldnt imagine having to read three books a month. I kind of remember the last time you had to buy all the Spiderman books to get the whole story, I think it involved clones. Did that end well?

re: clones
The most recent such case would be "the Other" which AFAIK was awful and had no follow up whatsoever.
Then again, the same is true of Peter's revelations during House of M.
Then again, maybe a single book can fix that problem. There isn't "some other book" anymore, whose writer obviously has inferior creative vision and really should be more of a team player and deal with the fallout from one's own storyline.

"The Other" has gotten plenty of follow-up in Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man.

Then again, since when was the benchmark of a good story that subsequent stories strip-mined it for material?

I agree - that's an excellent idea. They should do the same to X-Men while they're at it - cancel Astonishing and adjectiveless and just publish Uncanny 3 times a month.

I'm with Bill, all the way. The Superman "triangle number" books were mostly awful, and this isn't going to work, either.

I mean, good idea to get rid of all the pointless books? Yes. Multiple writers/artists on one story? Crap.

Unless it's DC Challenge. They should do another one of those. That was awesome.

The other was just twelve issues. Back in the before time, the long, long ago (the 90s), there were three four Spiderman books that were totally interconnected for years. And none of them were any good! Years of the Spider, and then Clones, it was bad times.

There's a difference between Spider-Man & the X-Men, though. The X-books have a bigger cast and multiple characters who star; Spider-Man is just one guy.

Another similar previous case was that Batman era when Dough Moench was writing both Batman and dEtective and they became pretty much a bi-weekly. It when from 83 till Miller and Barr took over and start the post-crisis era. And they were mostly good books.

Looking at the sales chart its a pretty good idea. I'm not sure how its going to work in the long run though. Obviously its not going to work the same as 52 but I think Marvel MUST know that. I already read all three books, and I feel that sometimes the other two are just sort of there.

What I AM concerned about is who is the writter going to be? Is Wacker going to be basically writing the book or is there going to be one writer in charge of the general storyline? How are the other writers going to come into play?

All that being said, I'm excited.

“The Other” has gotten plenty of follow-up in Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man.
Thanks, I wasn't aware.

Then again, since when was the benchmark of a good story that subsequent stories strip-mined it for material?
Nobody said it was. The Other was awful in itself. It is (or would have been save for FNSM apparently) however a major failure in a _series_ if big changes are not followed up upon. That's kind of the point of having a series. If one doesn't care about its ramifications, a mini is the right venue for a story.

I think the OTHER was more a story about Peter's death and how he and his family came to terms with that than it was his powers changing.

I'll take the counter and say it's a dreadful idea.

3 writers all doing the same story just leads to a cluster@#$@#$ like The Other...or Triangle Superman.

The best usage of multi-titles is when they cover different aspects of the character's life. Like when Amazing was suppsoed to be the peter as super-hero book, Web was Peter as journalist and Spectacular was Peter as a person.

That was the idea with FNSM, but the book kept having to deal with the crap coming out of JMS's gutter.

What a great idea. It makes no sense to read the sales charts and find that when the Spider-books are doing a crossover, the other two titles sell far less. What the hell are these people doing with their 1/3 of a storyline in ASM? Rolling them up and smoking them?

Anyways, I can see the effect being some akin to Ultimate Spider-Man, where the books drop a bit overall (once it went bi-weekly), but keeps a fairly steady sales figure.

When I was reading the post death issues of Superman, those were the issues I looked forward to artistically. The rest featured dull, uninspired art in comparison.It was more in line with the mountain of black and white comics I was primarily interested in at the time. Superman was my guilty pleasure.

Sorry you didn’t dig it.

Ah, what can I say? I was, like, 14 then...

Unless it’s DC Challenge. They should do another one of those. That was awesome.

We speak the same language.