September 2020 Poll Announcement

Well, it’s the first of the month again. Naturally, that means it’s time for me to go on about comics and my calendar, then actually announce the poll. 

Starting with the calendar, we’ve got a Spider-Man pic this month. Specifically, a pic of a fight between Spider-Man and Scorpion. I do think it’s weird that Spider-Man is used for September even though August is more closely associated with the character (Amazing Fantasy 15, Spidey’s first appearance, is cover dated August), but whatever. I was actually kind of excited for this month, because Amazing Spider-Man is one of the few comics advertised on this calendar that I actually follow, and I do like talking about Spider-Man.

So, fun fact: I’ve been a fan of the character most of my life but I only really started following the comics with Amazing Spider-Man #700/Superior Spider-Man. Superior Spider-Man, for those who don’t follow comics or Spider-Man that much, is the storyline where Doc Ock switches minds with Peter Parker and becomes Spider-Man for a bit. It was ok, but after Superior ended and Amazing Spider-Man relaunched it got bad. This was the period where Spider-Man became a rich CEO and had all these vehicles and a new spiffy costume and went around the world fighting crimes and oy did it suck. Peter would eventually lose his company and his wealth, but even then it wasn’t much of an improvement. 

I bring all this up because this stuff happened during Dan Slott’s run on Amazing Spider-Man. Slott wrote the character for over 200 issues, making him the longest running Spider-Man writer. Doesn’t mean he wrote the character well though. He wasn’t the worst, but there’s a lot of Spidey stuff he’s done that just isn’t good. 

Anyway, after issue #800 of The Amazing Spider-Man, Slott left the title and a new writer, Nick Spencer, took over, and the book was relaunched with a new issue #1. The Spencer run is what my calendar is advertising and, honestly, it’s pretty good. Nothing perfect, but I’ve been enjoying it. Something I really like is the big bad that’s been built up for most of this run: Kindred. Kindred is this weird demon who has a grudge against Peter Parker and it’s implied that it’s because Kindred is someone close to Peter that he might’ve indirectly screwed over by being Spider-Man. 

Fun sidenote: I was checking online to make sure my info on Kindred was right, and ended up on the Marvel Wiki, which listed his citizenship as Hell. I personally found that kind of funny.

Anyway, I honestly just appreciate that this run is introducing and building up a new villain, and I’m curious to see where it goes. Sins Rising, the story arc going on in the book right now that sort of ties into the Kindred stuff, is pretty good and I’m enjoying it so far. 

For a while I was reading Amazing Spider-Man because it’s Spider-Man, and I felt obligated to. Every time a new issue would come out I’d sigh and say, “Alright, let’s get it over with.” It’s nice not to feel that way anymore and actually look forward to new issues of the book.

And that’s all I’m going to say on Spider-Man right now, because if I continue I could go on for a while. If you read this bit, thank you for humoring me as I ramble about Spider-Man.

Now, let’s get to the stuff you guys care about: the poll. For anyone new here, first off, hi! Also, sorry you had to wade through multiple paragraphs about Spider-Man to get to this part. Secondly, and most importantly, every month I have a poll based on suggestions from Patrons. You guys post suggestions in the comments of this post, then I put them into a poll, you guys vote, and the suggestion with the most votes gets made into a full picture (well, more like comic normally). 

You’ve got until the fifth to make your suggestions. Voting opens after that, and lasts until the tenth. If all goes well, the finished pic should be done and up at the end of the month.

Looking forward to your suggestions.