The Future of Spidey's Monthly Titles
Here's a bit of an update from one of our staffers:
The changes: JMS and JRjr will get a new book to do their thing. Paul Jenkins
and Humberto Ramos will get a new book to do their thing (PP is cancelled).
Kevin Smith and Terry Dodson take over Amazing Spider-Man to do their thing.
The only person getting the shaft here will be Mark Buckingham.
This is being done because:
- Kevin Smith is regarded as the one of the only guys who can increase
Amazing's sales more than JMS did;
- JMS's sales would benefit greatly from a
new #1 title, which would be pretty irrelevant to Smith because like it or not
the guy could write a comic about a flying pig from space and it still would
sell;
- and finally they feel Jenkins didn't have the exposure he deserves,
since he came aboard in a very bad time in Spider-History, so a new #1 title
would give him that exposure, and hopefully raise his sale numbers to something
that doesn't reflect the dark times of the Reboot. As for Bucky, they feel
Ramos is "hotter" and can bring a new approach. I don't buy the "You can't
relaunch a book with the same team" BS cause they plan to do that with JMS and
JRjr.
That said, there are 3 things to note:
- This is all unconfirmed (as JRjr doesn't tire to remind us at
Spider-Man's Message Board). These were the oficial plans, supposed to start
this December, but were suspended months ago. Nothing of this might even
happen, and all might stay the same.
- If this happens, it may be well into
2003. Summer, probably.
- "If", I said. Apparently, Kevin Smith's remarkable
ability of not turning a single series on time is still in full force.
Spidey/Black Cat and DD: Target are fine examples of this, therefore I think
Marvel may reconsider giving its flagship title to him.
I hope this helps.