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

[CTTT]

Interesting reading the history of Spidey. Stan Lee reportedly says to Steve Ditko that he wanted a character existing in high school and dealing with everyday problems and hangups which we eventually see. Then Ditko gives him that. Ditko wants to keep him in high school but then Stan does an about face and is like "no, he's going to grow and change and go to college" Ditko disagrees but reluctantly goes for Stan's vision. That right there is the root problem for why we got OMD is Stan's original pitch for the character and then his change to giving him growth. Flash forward to 2007. Joe Quesada probably was recalling that conflict and makes the decision for OMD because of Steve Ditko Since then despite getting some good Spidey material, Peter/MJ fans are still left in the cold. You can still write romantic conflict and triangles with other conflicts even within the marriage. X-Men is famous for this as well as with Sue/Reed/Namor.

[Kaitou D. Kid]

This has been covered. It's a myth that Ditko disagreed with Peter graduating high school.

[Garlador]

This has been covered. It's a myth that Ditko disagreed with Peter graduating high school.

It’s also a false conclusion. OMD didn’t put Peter back in high school. It just turned him from a guy who was married in his early 20s to an older single screwup in his late 20s.

[Tuck]

There's also the irony that there was a highly popular title where Spider-Man was perpetually in high school, so it was kind of a false dilemma in the first place. And, importantly, it was contemporary. If at least part of the point is to give young readers something to relate to, Ultimate was already better for that than Amazing could be.

I still say the problem is that the Golden/Silver Age DC approach to stories could work until the end of time. But the whole appeal of Marvel early on was that they were an alternative to that, that the characters inhabited the same world (more or less) as the reader, with the same current events and a passage of time. But that kind of approach has to either run its course, or be reset (properly reset . . . back to the beginning) to work forever.

[CrimsonEchidna]

It’s also a false conclusion. OMD didn’t put Peter back in high school. It just turned him from a guy who was married in his early 20s to an older single screwup in his late 20s.

And we know OMD was at least the third attempt at the dissolution of the marriage during Quesada's tenure, this was finally the one that stuck. She was killed off but then when she was revealed to be alive, seperated from Peter and the writers flirted with giving Peter a new love interest.

Kevin Smith was offered to write Amazing in this timeframe but on the mandate that he would finally split Pete and MJ for good but he balked at having to be the one to do it.

And then years later through the JMS run we finally got OMD.

This wasn't a theme uniqued to Spider-Man either. I don't think it was a coincidence that in a similar timeframe Cyclops and Jean Grey suddenly started going through their own marital strife that led to Jean's, at the time, permanent death. Because Scott would be a "more interesting character" with this development. lol

[fjmac]

The thing is that most characters and properties in mainstream comics DO evolve over time, with some sort of "save points" when some semblance of the original status quo is restored while incorporating to it some of the new elements. For example, as mentioned, Batman discovers he's a dad, get's "killed", goes on a time traveling adventure, returns with a more optimistic attitude, creates Batman Inc., all in the span of two years, a few months later he's back to his usual sociopathic self but now he has a son. A few years later, son dies, Batman goes on a mystical sci-fi grand adventure, brings son back to life, son now has superpowers, eventually looses them, all is back to normal, which is Batman as usual but now with a son.

Same thing happens with the FF, Wally West, Dick Grayson, etc. And when one of those save points stick, you can't just walk back on them, and publishers know it. The MJ/Peter marriage save point was one of those, which is why OMD remains so widely reviled almost 20 years later. Because the save point they attempted to erase was one that stuck, and the one they tried to create didn't. Because it was not an evolution, it was a haphazard ham fisted attempt to bring a major character to the status quo that Joe Q preferred, because it was the one from when he was a kid.

Why did Marvel stick so hard with it, even thou it is clearly a failure when you average everything? Because back then there was a certain culture at DC and Marvel. Alpha-male wannabes in charge with buddy-circle editors and writers, bro culture, troll the readers, it's all in good fun. DC moved on from the last remains of it a few years ago, which is why it's producing mostly gold at a near 1986 level. In Marvel, that culture still survives in some corners, and I suppose the OMD status quo and the constant scorched-earth attempts against MJ are one of their ways to keep "owning the haters", or something like that.

[Knightsilver]

The thing is...is that Quesadas way could only ever lead to a dead end. Setting aside the endless redundancy of the Post-OMD status quo...it also doesn't work in 616 because however much Marvel may hate it...Peter has aged and will continue to age because everyone else in 616 is aging. Even characters who are canonically younger like Kitty Pryde and Jubilee have aged/been married/have kids. Peter doesn't look "young" with the current status quo...he just looks like he's ready to hold a skateboard...wearing a backwards cap...and greet Miles' friends with "hello fellow kids". The only way for Post-OMD Peter to "work"...would be to put him in a pocket dimension wear he and all of his friends are eternally in high school.