#Flash got into the Agent Venom program in the first place because he’s a good team player and functions well within a hierarchical system | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

hellzyeahthewebwieldingavenger · 7 years

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I’ve been thinking recently about how if I had absolute autonomy I’d reorganize the various Spider-Man titles and to a lesser extent the Marvel Universe titles as a whole. Thought I might as well share.

Putting aside stuff like price point, distribution and accessibility, the main things I’d do is try and make things better structured and easy to follow.

Part of that would be creating a fairly meaty recap page on the interior of every comic so that ANYONE can pick up a comic book cold and read it no matter the title or issue number. I’d advertise that feature on the front of every cover.

I’d create 4 distinct categories for every Marvel title, each denoted by a different colour banner and label atop every cover. These would be:

Prime Marvel Universe: Red with white text literally saying ‘Prime Marvel Universe’. Obviously this is the ongoing progressing adventures of the Marvel universe characters.

Marvel Legends: White with red text. This universe would contain classical and iconic versions of Marvel’s most famous characters. Each individual title would be not only out of continuity but also self contained. That is to say the Peter Parker of ‘Marvel Legends Spider-Man’ would be unrelated to the one who might guest star in ‘Marvel Legends Avengers’. You just follow that particular Marvel legends title and nothing else.

Cinematic Marvel Universe: Silver with black text. This universe would function identically to the Marvel Legends universe with each title being self-contained but instead of classical versions of each character it would be based upon the MCU versions. These would not be in continuity with the MCU but rather be akin to those 90s Disney shows that spun off from their movies. You could pick up this brand’s version of Iron Man and I’d feel like the MCU version but it would be telling is own stories and have only loose continuity allowing it to arbitrarily change as necessary when the next instalment of his films come out.

Alternate Marvel Universes: Blue with white text. Literally any comic or title which takes place outside of the regular Marvel Universe. This would cover ongoings like Spider-Gwen but also one shots like What If.

As for what I’d put in each of these 4 corresponding catagories...

Cinematic Marvel Universe

Literally every movie and Netflix show would have their own comic.

Marvel Legends

Spider-Man: Basically Spider-Man in High School

Peter Parker: Spider-Man: Spider-Man in college

X-Men: First Class: the Original Five X-Men

X-Men: Cyclops, Storm, Nightcrawler, Colossus, Wolverine maybe Kitty Pryde. Basically the classic Claremont/Byrne X-Men

Hulk: Bruce Banner as the lonely man wandering America

Captain America

Iron Man

Thor

Avengers

Fantastic Four: Obviously based more on the Lee/Kirby era

Heroes for Hire: 1970s goodness with Luke Cage and Iron Fist

Defenders: Hulk, Sub-Mariner, Silver Surfer and Doctor Strange

Ghost Rider: Johnny Blaze

Nick Fury Agent of SHIELD: Obviously based upon Steranko’s stuff

Any other really, really classic or iconic Marvel character and series you could think of

Now for the big ones

Prime Marvel Universe

Amazing Spider-Man: I’d have this come out 3-4 times a month but with the caveat that there would be 2 writers working on it simultaneously. Essentially it’d be like having 2 ongoings publishing twice a month but they would just be ASM. I was considering having a title exclusively for Peter’s supporting cast or Untold Tales but I figured that with 3-4 issues per month you could cover all that stuff pretty easily, even if its just back up stories. Meanwhile you get the benefit of not relying upon just ONE writer’s talents for ASM to ride or fall. Plus it’s less confusing. All you need to do is pick up ASM and you got everything you need to follow Spider-Man

Spider Women: I’ve spoken about this before but it’d basically be the Birds of Prey of the Marvel Universe starring Madam Web/Cassandra Web, Spider Woman/Jessica Drew, Arachne/Julia Carpenter, Mattie Franklin, Arana/Anya Corazon and Silk/Cindy Moon

Superior Foes of Spider-Man: Comedic adventures starring Boomerang, Beetle, Speed Demon, Overdrive, but given how iconic he is I’d drop Shocker but replace him with Grizzly and Gibbon

Silver Sable and the Outlaws: Silver Sable assembles a team of Spider-Man characters who have either been reforming villains or else been morally ambigious and they’d go on mercenary missions alongside her in and out of the USA. These characters would be Black Cat, Prowler, Rocket Racer, Cardiac, Sandman, the Puma and Phil Urich/Goblin Knight

Scarlet Spiders: Ben Reilly and Kaine’s buddy cop adventures featuring a back up strip about Ben’s lost years.

Marvel Alternate Universes

Miles Morales: Ultimate Spider-Man/Ultimate Spider Woman: Miles adventures continue back in the Ultimate Universe with Ultimate Jessica Drew starring in some back up strips

Spider-Gwen: More of the same

Spider-Girl: pick up where the series left off in Spider-Girl the End and explain away Spider-Verse later

Spider-Man 2099: Miguel back in the future

Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane: More of the same from Sean mcKeever

Venom: This would be it’s own universe similar to 616 but with an emphasis upon the symbiote characters. Agent Venom/Flash would headline and a back up strip would rotate adventures starring Eddie Brock as Anti-Venom, Carnage, Toxin, flashback stories with other people as Venom, any other symbiote related characters

Spider-Man: Renew Your Vows: More of the same

Superior Spider-Man and the Spider-Verse: I’ve spoken before about how I’d handle Superior Spider-Man going forward. But to reiterate I’d make it clear that Doc Ock and the lead character of Superior Spider-Man are different entities. The entity which was once Superior Spider-Man would get his own body and be exiled to another universe where he supplants that world’s version of Spider-Man and picks up from Goblin Nation onwards. He’d be the headliner but it’d be an anthology with other stories rotating adventures starring Spider-Man Noir, Spider-Man India, Spider characters from the Mangaverse, Spider-Ham and other such characters

What If: You get it

I’d also invest in a trade program designed to make the history of the Spider Verse easy to access

Spider-Man Classics: This series would take EVERY Spider-Man story barring flashback tales like Untold Tales of Spider-Man and organize them into a reading order of linear volumes. So you could pick up volume 1 and it’d start with Amazing Fantasy #15 but as you keep going issues of Spectacular, Web, guest appearances, mini-series, one shots and so on would show up. But rather than you tracking these stories down yourself and figuring out what order to read them in the trades would have you covered, including exposition text where necessary. The aim of these volumes would be to be comprehensive and make things easy to follow.

Amazing Spider-Man: This could go one of two ways. Basically if you began ASM over with a new volume then the trades would start there and just keep going indefinitely. Alternately if you didn’t do yet another new #1 you would just make an issue of Volume 4 a new jumping on point and start these trades from the start of Volume 4. Either way the idea is that you read the Classics trades to catch up to these trades which are the modern adventures.

Spider-Man Flashbacks: A trade series collecting untold tales and other flashback stories with text informing you when exactly they take place in Spider-Man’s history. I’d make this a separate collection because the problem with placing them chronologically with the rest of Spider-Man’s stories is that you spoil stuff for the future and also get distruptive on account of drastically different storytelling styles between different eras

Venom and the Symbiotes: A trade collection collecting EVERY symbiote related story ever. It’d start with Secret Wars and then keep going including the 90s Venom minis, the Flash Venom stuff, Carnage, Toxin, etc. Once they are caught up I’d launch a separate trade series for the AU Venom series I mentioned above.

Goblins: The same thing but for Goblin related characters like Norman Osborn, Hobgoblin, Phil Urich, etc

Doctor Ocotpus: the Superior Spider-Man: A trade series chronicling every Doctor Octopus appearances from Slott’s run leading into the AU stuff I spoke about above.

2099/Spider-Man 2099: A trade series chronicling everything that happened in the 2099 universe leading into the stuff from Superior onwards and into the series I listed above.

Spider-Gwen: Every Spider-Gwen appearance including Spider-Verse, Web Warriors, etc

Ultimate Spider-Man: Peter Parker: Every USM Peter Parker story

Ultimate Spider-Man: Miles Morales: Every Miles story leading off from Death of Spider-Man up through to the present day

Possibly Ultimate Spider Woman trades

Spider Women: Literally every appearance in chronological order of the characters starring in Spider Women

Black Cat: Every BC appearance leading into Silver Sable and the Outlaws

Silver Sable: See above

Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends: A anthology trade collecting appearances from the other characters to star in Silver Sable and the Outlaws plus other spin-off characters like Alpha

And of course every individual series would have it’s own trade set too.

I’d also invest in creating what would amount to ‘playlists’ on Marvel Unlimited. People could click on any individual character and get either a publication reading list or a reading list which follows their personal chronology.

By doing this a reader could if they so chose just read every appearance of Spider-Man with flashback stories placed in their correct places in his history too if they so chose.

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