https://twitter.com/BenReilly149/sta...rbKmJDIRA&s=19
A reader in 2022 brought up how sympathetic and nuanced these characters once were and the issues of vilifying them given how strongly their stories were initiated on NOT letting their broken pasts determine their future, and their inspirational stances to do the right thing when others would have failed.
… only to have modern writers ignore all that and make them shallow obstacles for Peter to hold little sympathy for. No time for that when we got punching and explosions to get to.
I still remember the real-life Doctor Kafka who inspired the character feeling it was a horrible decision to kill her off and resurrect her as a mentally unsound villain and various readers (particularly women) taking issue with Pete glibly telling a rape survivor who killed her abuser she was supposed to be in prison. There’s just such… problematic… optics at exploiting abuse survivors defined by overcoming their struggles just to create shallow badguys for Peter to tussle with.
This isn’t what these characters were intended to be.