And warning, I will be using spoilers. And I plan to fact-check the later, for now it’s all pulled out of my memory, which is probably faulty. So if you see something wrong, feel free to correct me.
Today’s subject of focus is Spider-Man. This poor guy is the poster-boy for Marvel, and is arguably their most popular, or at least their most well-known character. Every kid, parent, and grandma around the globe knows about the story: troubled teenage boy, bitten by a radioactive spider, given spider powers, taught responsibility by his uncle’s death, raised by his aunt, photographer at the Daily Bugle, etc.
In the 80s and 90s, they took bold steps and progressed Parker’s story. He grew up, became a professor at Midtown University. Finally married Mary Jane, who he’d dated for decades, his longest flame since Gwen Stacy.
In the early 2000s, they tried some good bold moves by adding him into the Avengers roster after the Decimation storyline. This let him brush elbows with Wolverine and Cap even more, and cemented his place in the foreground of Marvel. He had done team-ups before, and helped the Fantastic Four a few times, but never officially joined another team.
Then Marvel spun their gears on poor Pete, not really knowing what to do with him. In Civil War, for good or ill, Peter revealed his secret identity publicly. Maybe I should backtrack, you see, after a major superhuman accident killed millions, Tony Stark saw unlicensed superhumans as a threat to public safety and pushed for a state-wide registration program. Now that he was chummy with Pete, even giving him a new suit, he talked him into revealing his identity to persuade other heroes into doing the same. One could argue this was against Peter’s character/morals, and to be fair, he did heavily regret it later. It was interesting, and did move the character forward at least.
Then things got even more weird. The powers that be at Marvel felt that Peter was too boring if he was tied down to one woman, namely Mary Jane. So they came up with Brand New Day. Thanks to Peter’s now public identity, a sniper shoots Aunt May. As she lays in critical condition, Peter is visited by Mephisto, Marvel’s version of Satan himself. Yeah. Seriously. So Mephisto offers a deal, save Aunt May, and his payment? He wants something holy and precious, a single moment in time to change; he wants to erase the marriage of Peter and Mary Jane.
Excuse me? Can you be more heavy handed? Let’s be clear, this Mephisto guy didn’t show up years ago at Ben’s death or Bucky’s or anyone else’s, he’s just here to change something for the writers up stairs. This is just as bad as DC rewriting reality by having Superboy-prime punch the universe.
Seriously, this happened.
There’s more. Mary catches wind of this, and adds to the deal. If Mephisto erases Peter’s public reveal of his identity, she’ll do something secret for him. Oh boy. So Marvel, you’re erasing something you just did in Civil War, in 2004? Guys, like I keep saying, don’t do something, especially in a big major series event, if you’re not willing to let it last.
Case in point. Jump to present day, Spider-man #700. Don't want spoilers? Go read it and come back. Ok, here we go. Apparently those changes that Marvel and Dan Slott fought so hard for back in '07 didn’t give enough material for Parker to have a long lasting future full of stories. (maybe give a quote?) They’re hitting a new reset button, giving us a new Spider-Man, which is some kind of amalgam mixture of Dr. Octopus and Peter’s memories in Peter’s body, while Peter’s mind died in Ock’s cancer ridden form. I’m not going to go into how much of a terribly cheap “death” that is for Peter, if it can really be called that, enough bloggers and fans will rant about that. I want to focus on the fact that they are once again panicking and inserting a radical major change to promise "new and exciting stories" five years after Brand New Day.
My point is that in all of this, Peter as a character is not being allowed to grow up and change and develop. He’s being forced to be stuck at status quo to sell lunch boxes and underwear. Or weirder, Marvel sometimes shoves him in odd places, like this Superior Spider-Man brainswap or the costumes over the years, or that weird sidekick Alpha, to see if anything sticks (haha, symbiote pun?) instead of doing the logical and mature thing and let him move on with his life.
Just how hard is it to let him grow? For example, let’s work with Aunt May getting shot. Yes, it’s tragic, and like Uncle Ben, it’s Peter’s fault for breaking his major rule of never telling his secret identity for fear of his enemies hurting those he loves, but isn’t that a great lesson? I wouldn’t necessarily kill Aunt May, maybe put her in a wheelchair or something else critical, but the point would be to motivate Peter to get serious. Sure he’s an Avenger, but had he been acting like one? Or was he still the junior member they were dragging along? He could also weed out the more ridiculous/ easy members of his rogues gallery. I’m not saying kill his wit and humor either, he can still have that as long as it doesn’t cloud his judgement. Step up and be more of a leader to the Avengers, which could have been great in the wake of Captain America’s death when Tony was busy running SHIELD. Could even put some strain between him and Tony, since it was trusting him that led to his Aunt’s injury. And what’s so darn hard about having a married superhero? Have him step up as a husband to Mary Jane, show readers the good and bad of being in love and how it’s a fight to make it work. Maybe even deal with pregnancy, show the birth of May Parker (who eventually becomes Spider-Girl, or would have) and show how Peter deals with becoming a father when he himself was an orphan and has huge fears of what happens to those he loves when he fails.
And sure, now you don’t have a wayward teen/young adult hero for teens to relate to. Guess what? You do what Stan Lee and Ditko and Kirby did in the old days, you make up someone new and original and you give them a spotlight. Maybe Spider-man mentors them to pass the torch. Who knows. Heck, they had a real chance to do this with Arana in '05.
I think strong character-based stories like this would be far more interesting than watching a former mad scientist run around in Peter’s spidey pajamas. And I happen to like Doc Ock.
Marvel overall has been gaining a better track record with this. The XMen, Avengers, Captain America, even the Fantastic Four have all developed and changed over the past few decades, which is why it's so puzzling to me that their flagship hero is still being slapped around like this. I don't get it guys. Dr. Octopus is right about one thing, the world could use a better Spider-Man.
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