Marvel Team-Up: Spider-Man vs. Every Crossover Event
It’s no secret that Marvel Comics are always between a rock and a hard place with the Amazing Spider-Man series.
On the one hand, ASM is among its most popular books and is a showcase for its most popular character. You don’t really have to do much to move copies, as there’s a loyal fan base of legacy readers at the ready, plus new fans constantly being manufactured by all of the other Spider-Man media out there (movies, shows, games, etc.).
But on the other, having such a long-standing legacy character with an established fan base also means there’s a higher standard for what you do with him. And after the story-telling struggles of Amazing Spider-Man Vol. 5 (both during the Nick Spencer run and after, during the “Beyond” plot), there was a desire to see Zeb Wells’s and John Romita Jr.’s Vol. 6 put all of those concerns behind us and just get back to Spider-Man stories.
Despite the mystery box setup in issue #1, the early returns seemed to deliver. The first five issues largely presented what felt like a vintage Spider-Man story revolving around Tombstone, with a solid B-plot around Peter Parker and Norman Osborn that’s moved to the forefront in more recent issues…
Or it would have, if not for the event creep that’s taken hold in recent months, basically forcing the story Wells and Romita are trying to tell into too many additional boxes.
For instance: ASM #6 was a mostly-unrelated-to-the-main-story #900 issue. Then after two interesting issues around the Norman/Peter relationship, #9 throws us into the middle of the X-Men Hellfire Gala event. Then #10 is a “Judgment Day” crossover tie, before #11–13 jump into Hobgoblin’s return. Marvel solicitations for the next few months then show five straight issues of “Dark Web” content, as part of Spidey’s X-Men crossover event. And then February finally dives back into a standard Spider-Man story again — with Peter and Black Cat potentially starting to address the mystery box from issue #1.
But that’s not until issues #19–20. So overall, eight of the first 20 issues of this ASM run are tie-ins to some larger event. If executed well, it’s probably fine. But to my original point, this is the ongoing struggle for Marvel: The need to get people buying crossover event books vs. the need for quality, self-contained storytelling on ASM.
It’s understandable that Marvel wants Spidey involved in events, since it’s a business and he moves units. It just also appears to derail the momentum any of creative team if there’s a constant need to tie to something else going on beyond Spider-Man’s “friendly neighborhood.”
That’s not to say Peter Parker can’t be elsewhere. But perhaps that’s what you use a Dark Web: Spider-Man/X-Men title, or X-Men Hellfire Gala: Spider-Man, or Judgment Day: Spider-Man title for. That way, the books still exist in continuity without creating larger-scale storytelling issues for a team in Wells and Romita that admittedly haven’t really had a chance to do their own thing for long enough.
In a Marvel reality where there are a number of Spider-Man books all happening at once (ASM, Deadly Neighborhood, Lost Hunt, and Adjective-less’ foray back into the Spider-Verse), it would just seem like ASM should function as a bit of a home base for the “friendly neighborhood” stories while other titles explore the wider events and crossovers.
Obviously just my own opinion, though. And I’m sure these questions have been debated inside the Marvel office as well, with some real sales data confirming why things need to proceed like they are for business purposes.
