It happens to every one of us. And Batman, Captain America (twice), Superman, Colossus, Nightcrawler, Martian Manhunter, and so on.

And so it must happen to Spidey.

death.jpg

A circulation boosting death of some kind, as announced on the cover of Marvel’s December Previews catalog.

We predict a future link to the NY Daily News!

1 COMMENT

  1. OMG I’m having so much fun voting for my favorite shows on the Reality Rocks Online Fan Awards.You wouldn’t believe who’s winning! I’m so excited about it! Check it out and VOTE for your fav shows! I’m voting everday! http://www.realityrocks.net

  2. I hope this doesn’t make Mark Waid give up on superheroes again.

    Statistically speaking, they’re still the safest way to travel.

  3. Everything old is new again (except it’s not). Add fifteen Spider-characters to replace the “dead” Spider-Man. Lather, rinse, repeat – wait, on second thought just read Two Generals, a graphic novel by Scott Chantler instead!

  4. Let’s be reality.

    Every time Marvel Comics “shakes up the status quo” with Spider-Man, they eventually concede defeat with their tail between their legs. I mean what–am I supposed to take this seriously?

  5. Dave – yeah, let’s see how you feel about that after Wonder Man runs his hands up your inner thigh until he meets “resistance.”

  6. In a way, we’re all getting played here, even those of us (myself included) making snarky remarks. Everyone knows death is just a sales pitch in Superhero Land, but at this point I’m sure Marvel just wants to get people buzzing.

    We’re buzzing for them.

    The next few days will probably see their official word on it, and maybe we’ll even see some mainstream news coverage.

    The snark is a legit reaction to how much death has been devalued at the Big Two, but make no mistake, we’re all part of the “no such thing as bad press” phase right now.

  7. Well he can die in a most amazing dying way,stay away for a year. Let the world mourn and the super heroes,what happened to spidey sniff. And then bam your neighbour hood spidey is back, but is it really him or a ! But really who gives … ! right ………….. ?

  8. Like the song says: “Listen bud. He’s got radioactive blood.”

    A.K.A. Leukemia. I bet that’s how he’s going to bite it.

  9. Spidey will die…it is ok, it will turn out that 75 cross overs and 321 mini series later, it was just of of his clones or that is was the Skull or Kree and Pete was locked up in a basement for the past 20 years and WHAM!!! He will return in a relaunch of Amazing Spider-Man #1….but wait, at issue #24 they will revert to # 650 anniversary issue! It will be the greatest comeback since Bruce Wayne’s Return! (lame-o…). So fedup of these corny comebacks.

  10. if spidey is indeed going to be out of the picture for a while, how does this affect the twenty of so other books he’s in/does a guest-shot in? they already had someone in the suit for a while (ben reily), so are they really gonna go down that road again or as “very fine/near mint” above suggested, have parker run around in some new duds? will sales dip if spidey is not swinging around in his spidey pj’s? will sales dip in all the other books that spidey appears in , if spidey ain’t around?

  11. I knew that Joe Q. and company were desperate but I had no idea that thinks were this bad. The death of Spider-Man is basically the last nail in the coffin of everything they’ve done. Clearly nothing has worked and they’ve failed at this point, now it’s like they’re saying “f*** it”.

  12. You’ve extrapolated a lot from a cover preview, EJ. We don’t even know if this is a literal death of the character. We don’t know anything.

    My guess: Marvel’s trading on the provocative title to build hype, but the actual storyline will be something like Spidey having to fake his death for a period of weeks or months to lure a villain or protect his loved ones. Just like the first poster in the thread surmised. I feel 94.3% certain the Spidey books will continue unabated.

  13. Remember when comics used to be creative, entertaining & well written & drawn (instead of these “event” books that are all the rage now)? I think producing “great” comics ended when Stan & Jack split up in 1970. :-(

  14. If “there’s no such thing as bad press,” then why has all the massive hype and buzz that we’ve ALREADY had yielded near-record low sales for the industry?

    Anybody who claims “there’s no such thing as bad press” needs an object lesson in the difference between TALKING about a product and actually PAYING MONEY for it.

  15. Man, you guys can sure totally see through storytelling and marketing on super hero comic books!

    A Daily News article?? YAWN!!! That would be the worst! I mean, Marvel and DC don’t even KNOW how to promote their books the outside world!!

    …until they do…

    …and then it sucks!

    (I can’t wait for the posts with many of the same people lamenting the rise of easy cynicism in the world.)

    (Hey, Is there car fan community where people complain that they keep putting doors on cars? I mean, really! SEEN IT!)

    -Wacker

  16. *shrug* Obviously nobody in their right mind believes for a nanosecond that they’d actually kill off Peter Parker (and I tend to agree it’s another example of Marvel turning to a promotional tactic so overused that nobody really cares any more), but that doesn’t mean it’ll be a bad story. Given the creators working on Spider-Man, chances are it’ll be pretty good. But only in the same sense that anything with those creators attached would probably be pretty good.

  17. I look forward to Reign of the Spider-Men, in which a guy in the Iron-Spidey suit, a teen clone of Ben Reilly, an amoral Spider totem, and a cyborg Venom take his place.

  18. Won’t you all be AMAZED and SHOCKED when Spider-M<an ACTUALLY DIES – and all of his books are canceled & he no longer shows up in The Avengers & IT IS ALL FOR REALS!!!!

    Nah.

    I dunno if this is from a serious lack of any creative imagination on the industry's part – or a sign of full-blown contempt for the audience. Either way – mass suckage.

  19. “literal death”… when a character is killed off either because the author has grown tired of the character (see: Arthur Conan Doyle) or because the public has grown tired of the character (poor sales).

    If the public or accountants dictate, the “literal death” will be re-conceived.

    Hey! If Spidey dies, will he go to Hell just like Wolverine? Maybe meet his old buddy Mephisto? Or will he just be in suspended animation, while Little Miss Kraven pretends to be Spider-Man?

  20. And this is why I check out a mini-series like DOMINIC FORTUNE, but why I no longer follow SPIDER-MAN in any title. He was my favorite character growing up, but now he’s like an old friend that I have nothing in common with any longer.

    Ever since the “One More Day” storyline, everything about this series just seems silly and uninspired. To the general populace who reads the NY DAILY NEWS, it will probably seem shocking that they would kill Spider-Man so soon after Captain America. But comic followers know that everything will return to the same lame status quo pretty soon.

  21. If Marvel wants to boost sales, they should simply have combine all spidey books into one massive monthly 100-page tome at Treasury size.

    It also has to have at least one story by Stan Lee with art by Marcos Martin.

  22. maybe another way around this would have been for marvel not to mention the death at all. keep it hush, hush, kill off whoever and watch the sparks fly as fans, pro and con death of spidey, lose their minds on the message boards, while watching the sales of the second printing of the “death” issue go through the roof. the shock and awe of the whole spectacle would have been alot more fun than knowing it’s coming months in advance and knowing what to expect (more or less).

  23. Marvel, if you really don’t want any cynicism about this, then you damn well better kill off Peter Parker and keep him dead for at least five years.

    Otherwise, stop going for the cheap attempt to create controversy for the sake of a temporary boost in sales and expecting everyone to fall quietly in line to support it. I know you’re in the business of trying to sell as many comic books as you can, but COME ON.

  24. Too bad Spidey isn’t married anymore. They could have created a whole new character when they killed him off:

    The Amazing Spider-Man is dead.

    Long live…

    The Greiving Widow.

    Spidey may be dead. But she’s deadly.*

    *Seriously, Marvel released the promo cover already. Spidey looks like he’s read the last 3 years worth of stories and now wants to kill himself.

  25. @Stephen Wacker:

    The difference between doors on cars and major comic book heroes dying is that no car manufacturer, to the best of my knowledge, has hailed doors on their cars as a massive event that’s going to change the status quo of driving forever. Then remove the doors from their cars inside of a year.

  26. Oscar: You win forever. :)

    Steve:

    “Man, you guys can sure totally see through storytelling and marketing on super hero comic books!”

    Yes, we can, which is why even ICv2 says that current sales “suck” (their word, not mine).

  27. Come on people, Stephen Wacker has a point.

    This is not aimed at you!

    Or maybe it is. How will you know until you try?

    Or don’t?

    One thing Marvel and DC can learn from Disney is that logn running character can be marketed to DIFFERENT demographics via different branding.

    For old school Disney fans who know the names of all Nine Old Men, they have collectors editions and the D23and so on.

    For little kids who don’t have any money they have Princeses and Pooh.

    See how it works?

  28. Oh, don’t get me wrong, I see what Stephen was getting at, and even agree with it — complaining about the Big Two routinely killing off and resurrecting their big guns is like complaining about vinegar being sour. I just thought the car door analogy was a bit off.

  29. Promoting comics to the “outside world” works better when they’re packaged as satisfying chunks. What are the odds that the death of Spider-Man storyline is going to be a self-contained standalone item? Strictly from a marketing standpoint, expecting non-comics fans to come into a store one time a month to buy a comic for the sake of one storyline doesn’t work well. They might be more receptive to buying a TPB, but the media buzz will be about the comic book, not the book. How many non-comics readers were converted to fans by Obama’s appearance in AMAZING SPIDER-MAN?

    SRS

  30. Heidi,

    Saying you don’t know how it is until you’ve tried it is a tool the comic industry has been using to manipulate people into buying something they may otherwise have little or no interest in.

    It’s something I call crazy, habitual comic buying logic because only crazy, habitual comic readers will buy something that, from a promotion or a teaser, looks terrible.

    Because their reasoning is, ‘You don’t know it’s bad until you’ve tried it.’

    But to try it, you have to buy it. And if after everyone buys it, people still say it sucks, the industry turns around and says it doesn’t suck because it sold.

    Well, it sold even if it was bad because comic people are habitual and crazy, they’ll buy it even if it looks bad and then hope it will get better with future purchases/issue down the line (!!).

    Normal people would say that’s insane.

    Because normal people sees a promo, a teaser or a sample on display and if it looks stale, rotten or unappealing, they simply say ‘Ew.’ and walk away.

    The habitual, crazy comic buyer will (irrationally) turn to the normal person and say, “Hey, don’t complain. You don’t know its stale on rotten until you have bought and tried the product.’

    But most normal people don’t need to sample a product to see if it’s stale. They can see just by looking at the mold on top of the sample on display that its no good.

    And people wonder why non-comic readers don’t buy into the lame mainstream press that crazy, habitual comic buyers do. It’s because they have a very different way of thinking:

    Normal people have no interest in sampling something that doesn’t look appealing to them. And they don’t buy into the manipulative tools of the industry:

    ‘You don’t like it, vote with your wallets.’
    ‘Oh, you didn’t buy it? How do you know you don’t like it if you didn’t try it.’

    Crazy comic buying logic doesn’t apply to people outside the crazy comic buying box and that is key to understanding why the industry has such a hard time gaining new readers.

  31. “Maybe they had a typo and meant ‘Deth’ and it’s a Metalpocalypse crossover?”

    … I would actually pay money for this.

    Sandman: “Look, just because the Sinister Six is still together, that doesn’t mean we can’t do a reunion tour.”

    Rhino: “Um, actually, that’s exactly what it means.”

  32. Man, you guys can sure totally see through storytelling and marketing on super hero comic books!

    A Daily News article?? YAWN!!! That would be the worst! I mean, Marvel and DC don’t even KNOW how to promote their books the outside world!!

    …until they do…

    …and then it sucks!

    _____________________________

    It sucks because what you guys call “promoting your books to the outside world” is actually nothing more then short term sales boosting gimmicks/stunts aimed at older teen and adult non comic book readers who think that they could get rich off of the issue that Spidey died in.

    OMT, in case you’re wondering why my comments seem familiar, over on the CBR forums my user name is Blade X.

  33. If nothing else, I’d like to thanks the person who actually to the time to explain the difference between a car door and a comic book story.

    This is why I love you.

    -Wacker

  34. This release is symptomatic of why Marvel/DC can’t get new readers. MAYBE not this particular storyline because we don’t know what the actual story will be (my time machine is broken), but when you have, say, a Superman comic where somebody says “Hey, a Superman comic!” which leads to, “Where’s Superman in this comic? Oh, he’s gone? Huh? It says SUPERMAN on the cover…”

    How many casual readers are going to come back for more.

    However, we have options! There are more and more excellent superhero and superheroish action comics coming out all the time! Support them. Take that three or four dollars you would have spent on Marvel/DC and buy a smaller-publisher book that looks good.
    Like– Atomic Robo, Dellec, The Goon, Robocop, G.I. Joe, The Bulletproof Coffin, Soldier Zero, Weird World of Jack Staff, Hellboy, Hotwire, Savage Dragon, Invincible, Astro City, Halcyon, Irredeemable, etc…

    (I am not affiliated with any of the creators making these books, they’re just the ones that I enjoy)

    walk away from Spider-man, walk away from Superman. Their original creative visions are long gone. There are fresh, new heroes waiting discovery.

    That said: if you enjoy reading Spider-man and Superman, keep at it. The main reason we’re here is to have fun.

    And maybe bitch about press releases.

  35. Holy cats, some of you guys are so predictable.

    Frenzy! Hand-wringing! Oh gawd oh gawd they’ve killed Spider-Man! Again!!!!!

    C’mon, man-up and get a damn grip.

    P.S. Some of these comments are hilarious if you read it with Comic Book Guy’s voice.

  36. “Some of these comments are hilarious if you read it with Comic Book Guy’s voice.”

    What a wonderful strawman ad hominem dismissal you’ve set up here. What’s great about it is that it allows you to sidestep all the logical points that have been raised about why this is a bad idea. Care to actually discuss these points, or would you prefer to just lob insults?

  37. @Stephen Wacker:

    The explanation took 2 sentences, so the time investment wasn’t really noteworthy. But I’m glad you love us regardless. And we love you for comparing super-hero deaths to car doors.

  38. spider man has been very good for a long time (most of the JMS run and 90% plus under the Wacker regime), so i’m confident it will be great.

    BUT..it does seem a little desperate (needlessly). Of the four big plots twists often used by continuing dramas (death, divorce, disease, drugs), I would have preferred disease as a sales grabbing plot device.

  39. Dan,
    Do we know each other or something? I have no idea what you are so hot about.

    Are you really just this angry about comics you don’t like?

    SW