Hasn't Spider-Man been like, X-Men-caliber godawful for years and years now?
I have often said "The only thing worse than '90's X-Men is '90's Spider-Man."
Why does anyone even keep track of what goes on in that series these days?
On the one hand, I haven't been keeping up with it.
On the other, I've picked up a few issues here and there and I've enjoyed them. I've been a fan of current writer Dan Slott since I was a kid and he was writing Ren and Stimpy.
I thought issue #600 was fucking wonderful, from the opening pages of flashbacks to Doc Ock getting punched in the face followed by a doctor telling him he had terminal head trauma, up through the fun Spidey/Torch teamup at the core of the story, to the ultimate and tragic confrontation with a Doc Ock who really WAS doing his best to do the right thing and just couldn't.
And then I didn't pick up another issue until...what, was #698 the one that precipitated the current status quo?
And I liked that one too. I think "Doc Ock kills Peter Parker and then takes his place" is a perfectly decent premise for a story. Thunderbolts remains one of my all-time favorite comic series, and I think "Villain pretends to be hero but then starts WANTING to be more heroic" is an excellent premise for a story.
As for the execution? I don't know. The setup was solid and all but the $4 price tag put me off keeping up with the book. Maybe it's great, maybe it's lousy -- I haven't been paying attention except when the major plot beats make enough waves that comics news sites (or people here) talk about them.
I WILL say that I think Dan Slott is a tremendously talented writer (and, on the art side, while Stegman and Ramos aren't my cup of tea, I can see their appeal), and while I'm generally all for the "Well if you hate it so much, why are you still plunking down four dollars a month for it?" reality check, I don't think that's what's going on in this thread. (I, for one, neither hate it nor am plunking down four dollars a month for it; not sure about Buge.)