Quote Originally Posted by Lee View Post
Unsurprisingly, it reveals that Tim Drake's age doesn't make sense when the cumulative references to the passage of time are put under a microscope. DC fudged it for the sake of what best served the role of the character, which was the right call.
Tim Drake's had serious issues keeping his audience interested since the New 52 started over a decade ago, and they haven't really improved with the latest attempt to put him back in his "classic" status quo; fudging his age hasn't been a help at all in that regard, and is probably actually grouped in with the problems he's had. His last real solo success was in a series where Fabian Nicieza had him graduate into Red Robin pre-New 52, and FabNic wanted to officially declare him 19, and got told "no"... shortly before the character and his entire generation got wrecked by editorial trying to dictate audience reactions and fine-tune them to what marketing-think regraded as safe - along with the generation ahead of them in the original Titans getting manhandled into limbo, and all for a complete failed attempt to make the Justice League look younger.

Tim's a *bad* character to use to argue in favor of editorially mandated status quos.
Quote Originally Posted by bat39 View Post
This.

Peter is somewhere in his late 20's/early 30's and he's not getting any younger. The question is, does he get to be a married and/or professionally successful 30 year old, or a perpetually single romantically (and financially) unlucky 30 year old.



That's the thing...in a world where you can have endless avenues for a teenage high-school Peter in alternate continuities, alternate timelines, adaptations and what-not, I don't get the insistence on 616 Peter being perpetually young and single forever.

Spider-Man (or any other character) as a franchise/IP and even as a pop-cultural icon, is much bigger than 616 Peter.

About the only thing that makes 616 Peter special is that he's part of the original Marvel Universe that Stan Lee began back in the 60's, which was defined by continuity and heroes being able to progress and evolve over time. So why not stick to that spirit and let 616 Peter progress and evolve?
See, I actually like young Spider-Man - but 616 Spider-Man *isn't* young by any serious standard.

It's more that they insist he be "the same age as every other established hero" and single forever - AKA, the same status 90% of characters had in the silver age.