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

[bat39]

Because, apparently, that's the theme for Spider-Man that's been used constantly post-OMD - always struggling and when he succeeds he always ends up losing in his civilian life in the end even when he's winning battles as a superhero. Rinse and repeat. All for the sake of "relatability" for "the younger generation", even though it's funny how the "younger generation" can relate more to pre-OMD Spider-Man than post-OMD Spider-Man.

Yeah, somehow that's become the real theme of the series - "Peter Parker as the ultimate underdog".

And yes, Peter's story can be that of the underdog up to a point. But underdog stories eventually tend to end with underdogs rising up, overcoming challenges, and being successful.

Spider-Man 2, still regarded by many as the best Spider-Man movie, was in many ways the ultimate under-dog Spider-Man story. But it ends with the underdog coming out on top. And whatever Spider-Man 3's other flaws, to its credit, it doesn't try to make Peter an underdog again but has him bask in his newfound success, even if it ends up being pride before a fall.

The MCU Spider-Man has flipped the script - he's never really been the underdog so far. So when NWH takes away everything from him and makes him the underdog for the first time, we're looking forward to seeing how he rises up again, stronger than ever. But you don't get that story when Spider-Man is perpetually an underdog.

[Lee]

It's been that way since 1962. Peter will sometimes have short or medium term financial/career success, then it comes crashing down and he goes back to struggling.

It's highly unlikely that he'll ever see long term career success, it's not that kind of comic.

[Tuck]

Why can't he continue working at Horizon Labs? Why can't he continue running Parker Industries? Hell, why can't he be a highly successful staff photojournalist at the Bugle or something? Why must he always be in the dumps?

Because that removes a major source of drama from the series. Horizon worked great for the Big Time period. but continuing it indefinitely would have stagnated the book. (Not a fan of Parker Industries. I get why it's an interesting idea to explore temporarily, but it now being part of the character's history causes problems.)

Honestly, if Peter and MJ had never been married . . . especially if they had never really brought back their romantic relationship at all in the 80s, I'd be swayed by the anti-marriage arguments. I get it. But that horse is long out of the barn. No matter where the book goes from now on, not matter how well it is written, no matter how many Word-of-God declarations there are, post-OMD will always feel like 616-b. There's a dissonance that will never go away.

[TinkerSpider]

Peter graduated high school, graduated college, and was successfully on his way to a PhD pre-OMD (with some interruptions). He did not stagnate.

Now, however, he’s locked on a perpetual hamster wheel of big corporate job, big corporate job taken away because he’s a loser. Big corporate job, big corporate job taken away because he’s a loser. We’re on the downward slope of that now, with Peter having the world’s cushiest job at Oscorp (show up when you like, take off when you like, get paid your full salary with no questions asked - yeah, that’s super relatable and the world outside your window LOL) but we know it’s all about to be taken away.

There’s no suspense. There’s no sharing joy with Peter when he gets the job, because we know it’s temporary and can’t go anywhere, can’t build to the next thing, it’s not organic, it’s just yanking the rug out from under him because that’s what time the clock says and because Pete is now frozen as a juvenile manchild instead of someone who is more than capable but his responsibilities collide (the flanderization of Parker Luck to mean Pete is a constant hapless sad sack loser instead of Parker Luck meaning when Spider-Man wins, Peter has a loss and vice versa is one of worst results to come out of the post OMD era IMO). Just like how we can’t get invested in a new relationship because it cannot go anywhere.

Peter was a three dimensional, fully relatable human character but now he’s Wile E. Coyote in a Spider-Man suit. Complete with Spider-Man walking around with his back on fire and smoking like a cartoon character in the last Gang War issue.

[Knightsilver]

Peter graduated high school, graduated college, and was successfully on his way to a PhD pre-OMD (with some interruptions). He did not stagnate.

Now, however, he’s locked on a perpetual hamster wheel of big corporate job, big corporate job taken away because he’s a loser. Big corporate job, big corporate job taken away because he’s a loser. We’re on the downward slope of that now, with Peter having the world’s cushiest job at Oscorp (show up when you like, take off when you like, get paid your full salary with no questions asked - yeah, that’s super relatable and the world outside your window LOL) but we know it’s all about to be taken away.

There’s no suspense. There’s no sharing joy with Peter when he gets the job, because we know it’s temporary and can’t go anywhere, can’t build to the next thing, it’s not organic, it’s just yanking the rug out from under him because that’s what time the clock says and because Pete is now frozen as a juvenile manchild instead of someone who is more than capable but his responsibilities collide (the flanderization of Parker Luck to mean Pete is a constant hapless sad sack loser instead of Parker Luck meaning when Spider-Man wins, Peter has a loss and vice versa is one of worst results to come out of the post OMD era IMO). Just like how we can’t get invested in a new relationship because it cannot go anywhere.

Peter was a three dimensional, fully relatable human character but now he’s Wile E. Coyote in a Spider-Man suit. Complete with Spider-Man walking around with his back on fire and smoking like a cartoon character in the last Gang War issue.

Exactly. OMD ironically made Peter the least interesting character in his own book. Everyone else can progress in their lives without being knocked back to square one...but never Peter. It's not interesting because we know that anything however "important" it may be...will never really matter.

[Mister Mets]

Or treat "the goose with the GOLDEN eggs" better, because it can lead to having three PLATINUM eggs per month.
Why be satisfied with having a spot on the top 10, when it can do better than that? USM clearly proves that.

In fairness, that might be a better metaphor.

You don't want to get rid of Amazing Spider-Man. You want to change it.

If the goose gets surgery, maybe it'll start laying platinum eggs. Maybe it'll go back to gold eggs. Maybe it'll be pyrite eggs.

[Konnik92]

In fairness, that might be a better metaphor.

You don't want to get rid of Amazing Spider-Man. You want to change it.

If the goose gets surgery, maybe it'll start laying platinum eggs. Maybe it'll go back to gold eggs. Maybe it'll be pyrite eggs.

What I want is ASM to be "treated better" than it is currently, because the current run thus far can be summarized with the following question: "What was the point of all this/that"?. The stories are devoid of logic and structure, the characters are OOC, the interractions and dialogues between them don't make sense, like their source material is non-exitend/not themselves, while the main character is constantly used as a punching bag and/or a joke.

[Mister Mets]

What I want is ASM to be "treated better" than it is currently, because the current run thus far can be summarized with the following question: "What was the point of all this/that"?. The stories are devoid of logic and structure, the characters are OOC, the interractions and dialogues between them don't make sense, like their source material is non-exitend/not themselves, while the main character is constantly used as a punching bag and/or a joke.

I'll bring back a point I've made earlier on this thread on whether it's reasonable to see Spider-Man as one story. Readers with that preference want to see consistent forward momentum, which isn't how serials with no end in sight work.

Thinking about Spider-Man's story is a bit like Sherlock Holmes's story. There is no definitive end. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle died, so the definitive canon is the stories by him but Spider-Man stories have been told by many writers and artists. There have also been many Sherlock Holmes stories purportedly about the original Holmes written by other people and some are quite good, so it's more about what makes sense for one set of stories. For examplem the writer Laurice R King wrote a series of sequels focusing on a love interest for Holmes, so for that series the Doyle stories and King's stories are canon, but it'll be different for another set.

There are still new stories to tell with Spider-Man like Peter learning to forgive Norman Osborn or J Jonah Jameson learning his identity and working with him. That's where it would matter, to say nothing else of the other characters. "The Kid Who Collects Spider-Man" didn't impact Peter's love life, job, family or education prospects, but there was still a point to it.

I get the appeal of letting Peter "grow" so that decisions are made based on a sense of what would happen in real life, which can make things matter in a way they wouldn't otherwise, and whether that's a good thing. Imagine Spider-Man comics where they don't make any compromises to keep the series intact, and no story is written to set up a familiar status quo. If you have a mediocre four-part Hobgoblin story, with some growth (Peter and MJ discuss whether it's the right time to have a third kid, the A-plot intersects with Peter's new responsibilities as science editor at the Bugle, etc.) readers will enjoy it more than a mediocre Hobgoblin story with a more familiar status quo, but it also makes it easier for Marvel to get away with a mediocre Hobgoblin story.

[Lifetap]

I'll bring back a point I've made earlier on this thread on whether it's reasonable to see Spider-Man as one story. Readers with that preference want to see consistent forward momentum...

People want to see forward momentum because the story as is has dictated that there is forward momentum. To stop that momentum out of some 'fear' that comics can't end is just a lame excuse that just exposes a creator problem and not a story problem. It has taken 60 years for Peter to age what 12 years 10 years from now they may just finally admit he has been in his 30s for years at this point. And if in 50 years pass and comics are still a thing they can just de-age Peter if it becomes such a deal breaker, or they can just say that since he has a healing factor he ages slower or something and suddenly it isn't a big deal anymore.

[Xix25]

People want to see forward momentum because the story as is has dictated that there is forward momentum. To stop that momentum out of some 'fear' that comics can't end is just a lame excuse that just exposes a creator problem and not a story problem. It has taken 60 years for Peter to age what 12 years 10 years from now they may just finally admit he has been in his 30s for years at this point. And if in 50 years pass and comics are still a thing they can just de-age Peter if it becomes such a deal breaker, or they can just say that since he has a healing factor he ages slower or something and suddenly it isn't a big deal anymore.

Pretty much this. It looks more like general incompetency on the part of some of the creatives (writers and editorial) at Marvel that they feel like they cannot write comics with a Peter who is allowed to grow rather than some 'sales' BS that suggests it's not worth it. The comics they enjoyed in the past weren't being stuck in amber, so why try to go away from what was shown to be working if you put in the effort? Generally it's not fun to suggest people are bad at their jobs but they're not really trying that much to prove otherwise.

[Lee]

And if in 50 years pass and comics are still a thing they can just de-age Peter if it becomes such a deal breaker, or they can just say that since he has a healing factor he ages slower or something and suddenly it isn't a big deal anymore.

That doesn't account for his supporting cast and wouldn't be good for his secret identity. Making him semi-immortal like Wolverine wouldn't fit the character.

[TinkerSpider]

People want to see forward momentum because the story as is has dictated that there is forward momentum. To stop that momentum out of some 'fear' that comics can't end is just a lame excuse that just exposes a creator problem and not a story problem. It has taken 60 years for Peter to age what 12 years 10 years from now they may just finally admit he has been in his 30s for years at this point. And if in 50 years pass and comics are still a thing they can just de-age Peter if it becomes such a deal breaker, or they can just say that since he has a healing factor he ages slower or something and suddenly it isn't a big deal anymore.

I agree, there are a myriad of possible solutions that can be used to cross that bridge should the bridge need to be crossed.

And it's not like one has to worry about his supporting cast. His supporting cast has become as divorced from the story's original concept and the supposed world outside our window as Peter is. They have been turned into fellow rubber action figures to just throw around the playset. Jonah has Ock's arms, MJ has a deux ex machina bracelet, Liz and Normie have symbiotes, Ned is a brainwashed Hobgoblin, Harry is a clone/psychotic AI/dead, Flash is Agent Venom/Anti-Venom, Felicia is the Black Cat, an AU version of Gwen is Spider-Gwen, Randy is engaged to a supervillain and Aunt May apparently already has a healing factor as she ages backward and nothing seems to kill her. De-age Peter and his supporting cast can be de-aged with him.

(There's Betty, but she now has a baby which as all we now know, just ages the character and makes them unrelatable.)

As it is, over 25% of the population born in the year 2045 is projected to live past age 100, so by the time Peter's age might become issue, people's thirties and forties may very well be viewed as we see the twenties and thirties now.

I still don't understand the attitude that one must "affix" stories now out of fear for some mythical future that may or may not ever occur. That's like commissing TV episodes or film sequels now for audiences in 2034. It makes no logical sense. And...freezing characters did not work for DC. It's not a future proof bullet at all.

Media companies have audiences now. They need to nurture the audience that they have, or there won't be any future audience.

[Daibhidh]

Thinking about Spider-Man's story is a bit like Sherlock Holmes's story. There is no definitive end. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle died, so the definitive canon is the stories by him but Spider-Man stories have been told by many writers and artists. There have also been many Sherlock Holmes stories purportedly about the original Holmes written by other people and some are quite good, so it's more about what makes sense for one set of stories. For examplem the writer Laurice R King wrote a series of sequels focusing on a love interest for Holmes, so for that series the Doyle stories and King's stories are canon, but it'll be different for another set.

If what you're proposing is that Spider-man stories are written so that each arc is effectively taking place in its own continuity then, sure. It's not how Marvel-616 continuity has ever worked in theory. If Marvel thinks a comic that does that would work then it could be fun. It would presumably be different from What If, in that What If is based around the idea that there is a standard continuity from which the particular story explicitly diverges. The non-continuity comic couldn't be set in Earth-616 though.

Imagine Spider-Man comics where they don't make any compromises to keep the series intact, and no story is written to set up a familiar status quo. If you have a mediocre four-part Hobgoblin story, with some growth (Peter and MJ discuss whether it's the right time to have a third kid, the A-plot intersects with Peter's new responsibilities as science editor at the Bugle, etc.) readers will enjoy it more than a mediocre Hobgoblin story with a more familiar status quo, but it also makes it easier for Marvel to get away with a mediocre Hobgoblin story.

Even with the best writers in the world, a certain number of mediocre stories are inevitable. Having a safety net around is a good thing.
I think though that if a writer can a good Peter and MJ as civilian story, they're probably going to do good character work for the Hobgoblin. At that point, if the actual superheroing plot is mediocre it doesn't really matter so much.

[Daibhidh]

That doesn't account for his supporting cast and wouldn't be good for his secret identity. Making him semi-immortal like Wolverine wouldn't fit the character.

If that happens, Marvel can just launch a separate continuity, and if the younger Peter sells better and the older Peter has to retire they can fade the older Peter out.
That means abandoning Earth-616 as the single unbroken continuity in which everything happens - but if Peter never ages or grows then you're effectively not using Earth-616 as a single unbroken continuity in which everything happens anyway. Earth-616 is only a meaningful concept if the characters within it have stories and don't reset to factory settings at the end of each arc.

[Mister Mets]

If what you're proposing is that Spider-man stories are written so that each arc is effectively taking place in its own continuity then, sure. It's not how Marvel-616 continuity has ever worked in theory. If Marvel thinks a comic that does that would work then it could be fun. It would presumably be different from What If, in that What If is based around the idea that there is a standard continuity from which the particular story explicitly diverges. The non-continuity comic couldn't be set in Earth-616 though.

Even with the best writers in the world, a certain number of mediocre stories are inevitable. Having a safety net around is a good thing.
I think though that if a writer can a good Peter and MJ as civilian story, they're probably going to do good character work for the Hobgoblin. At that point, if the actual superheroing plot is mediocre it doesn't really matter so much.

I'm trying to figure this out.

There is the 616 Universe, although that's full of anachronisms because we're pretending comics published in the Silver Age happened about 15 years ago.

I have been thinking that it may be better to consider continuity in the sense of something like a ten year run or looking at interrelated books, like enjoying Hickman's Fantastic Four and Avengers as its own thing.

The Lee/ Ditko comics can't be part of the same continuity as the current Amazing Spider-Man, because it depicts New York City of the 1960s (with high schools depicted through the perspective of white men old enough to be their fathers) rather than the modern era where Peter Parker had to grow up, where everyone has cell phones, real estate prices are very different, Queens is the most racially diverse big county in America, crime statistics are very different, etc. So we read those comics figuring that Peter has very similar adventures (IE- he doesn't meet Rhino or Harry Osborn until he's in college) but in a different setting.

There are multiple divergences from the 616 Universe. You pointed out every What If?, but some are more extensive like the Claremont X-Men Forever run or the MC2 Universe.

The 616 does allow for retcons, so you could say there are resets every time the universe is recreated (I can think of at least four examples- Steve Englehart's Doctor Strange, Peter David's Captain Marvel, Busiek/ Perez's JLA/ Avengers, Hickman's Secret Wars) as a way to explain away contradictions and anachronisms. We can also think of it like a story told through filters, so that 1962 represented the first year of the Fantastic Four as told by people in 1962 and 2024 represents the roughly 15th year of the Fantastic Four as told by people in 2024 where continuity mistakes are transcription errors.

Readers figure out some way to reconcile these kinds of things, but otherwise it is kind of weird that Peter Parker is a guy in his 20s (or even 30s) whose best friend (a guy he's known since middle school) was accused of war crimes in Vietnam.