Spider-Man character growth vs. staying in high school and Joe Quesada

[Kevinroc]

I'm gonna defer to your knowledge on that...I'm not big on video game characters.

I'm not sure if Mario's exploits equates to growth for that character, but again, I don't know.

Did he marry the princess yet???

I did play Super Mario on the old NES and a few other games on the Super Nintendo. After that, I lost touch with that character until viewing the recent movie with my kids. And surprisingly, he felt kinda like I remember him from back then!

Mario games aren't really built for story and continuity (except for some of the RPGs, I guess). Mario's relationship with Princess Peach is often vague and sometimes seemingly contradictory. But as I said, Mario games aren't really built for that. It's more of a continuity-light franchise. Characters pop up in the main games and then become regulars in the spin-offs (or get spin-offs of their own if they're popular enough. Franchise mainstays like Luigi, Princess Peach, Yoshi, and Wario have all headlined their own spin-off games at this point).

This is different from how Marvel built their brand which had an emphasis on continuity. Trying to argue that Spider-Man shouldn't be built off its own history is going against how the brand was built up in the first place.

[Garlador]

Mario games aren't really built for story and continuity (except for some of the RPGs, I guess). Mario's relationship with Princess Peach is often vague and sometimes seemingly contradictory. But as I said, Mario games aren't really built for that. It's more of a continuity-light franchise. Characters pop up in the main games and then become regulars in the spin-offs (or get spin-offs of their own if they're popular enough. Franchise mainstays like Luigi, Princess Peach, Yoshi, and Wario have all headlined their own spin-off games at this point).

This is different from how Marvel built their brand which had an emphasis on continuity. Trying to argue that Spider-Man shouldn't be built off its own history is going against how the brand was built up in the first place.

Echoing this, Mario’s creators have routinely DE-emphasized story. Shigeru Miyamoto actually stepped it and demanded Super Mario Galaxy 2 have less story than the first. Same for the Paper Mario series. They’ve stated the reason Mario and Bowser fight in one game then go play tennis on the next is because they view them as mere performers playing the roles (Mario 3’s entire game is a stage play, for instance).

That’s a far cry from a narrative-driven medium like comics sold on the promise of continuity and development.